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PS2 Vs. X-Box: Winner Emerging?
gripdamage writes "This article on
MSNBC says XBox's sales are slowing and are not expected to meet Microsoft's
expectations. MSNBC previously
reported that sales have been weak in Japan. The strongest and most
interesting assertion in the article is that "In its regular global video game survey last week, Goldman Sachs said U.S. retailers showed a
'surprisingly clear' preference for Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 2 over the Xbox."" X-Box isn't dead yet - not by a long shot.
I guess the x-box may soon be the ex-box.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The problem with hardware is that it actually costs a lot of money to keep the development versions in the market. Let's wait and see.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
let's not forget that the PS2 debuted before the current downswing in the economy...back then ther was a virtual orgy of consumer spending going on compared to now....the X-box entered the market at a time where consumer confidence and retail spending were both at a very low point...
that said, i have a PS2 and love it...is there anything better then taking out your agressions and leftover frustration from work then with a good game of Grand Theft Auto 3???
"Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true." - Homer Simpson
Don't worry. When Microsoft decides to bundle the XBox with Internet Explorer, they will do just fine!
Since when has an MS product doing badly ever stopped it from dominating the market for which it was aiming.
1.) No sales in Japan? Lets see, choices that have existed in the Japanese console department are Nintendo (Japanese corp), PS2 (Japanese corp), Sega (Japanese corp), and now X-Box (american corp).
2.) With PS2's backward compatability, they already jump the gun with a large userbase already established AND a large game selection already established.
3.) This was X-Box's first release. Lets determine a winner after either a.) MS (or Sony) drop out of the console market or b.) The 2nd or 3rd generation X-Box.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
What's the reason behind this? Is it the technology, the pricing, or the software? Halo is cool, but its no GTA3. Is there some break-out, gotta-have-it game waiting in the wings to make x-box take the lead? With PS2 getting Everquest, the logical response might be an Asheron's Call port to X-Box, but is there anything in the wings that makes X-Box look better?
if ($it != $onething) {$it = $another;}
So, will they decide it's not working and pull-out and leave those X-Box owners dangling (I.e. future Slashdot article titles, "Linux on the X-Box a Review of Distributions","New Life For Your Old XBox - Cheap Firewall", and the inevitable Jon Katz feature lamenting how we are not all playing our fathers' video game consoles anymore)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Plus, his site is a classic.
If you look at the prices in Sweden, you can get your X-Box for 4700 SKR (remove last digit to get US dollars). You get a Playstation 2 for 1200 SKR less, and automatically gain the possibility to play all of your old PS1 games. The much larger existing game base for the PS2, and the price, is dragging Microsoft down.
War is one of the most horrible things a human can be exposed to. And one of the worlds largest industries.
Microsoft made some very big blunders with the Xbox, especially internationally. For instance, they didn't re-think their controller (already large for US hands) before releasing in Japan. The result was that they had a lot of angry small-handed customers for whom the system was almost unplayable. Talk about a rookie mistake.
I actually worked at the Xbox-unleashed launch "party" in NYC, a weekend long game tourny/media happening at a swankish club. Sleeping with enemy, I know, but I needed the cash. It was the most forced/fake hooplah event I've ever been at. Most of the hardcore gamers (who were sleeping in shifts on the corner so as to have the best chance at winning the grand prize) trash talked the system when the M$ reps weren't around.
Mostly they talked about how all the good games were already out for PS2 and about how the controller felt weird. Even though the X-box is supposed to have superior hardware, I havn't seen any remarkable difference between its graphics and the PS2/Gamecube. Unless they find some real innovative ways to exploit the hardware advantages (notably the presence of a Hard Drive) they're dead in the water. When it comes to consoles, to borrow from the Clintion-insider campaign slogan, "it's the games, stupid."
Howard Dean for president
...is a lack of high-quality games. I can count on one hand the number of X-box games that are worth the price. We always go back to Halo...the other games just can't measure up. When I buy a game system, I expect to have a decent game selection. X-box, when compared to PS2, just doesn't have that.
Givent that last week's numbers in Famitsu show that the X-Box is being outsold by the PSOne of all things, I think we can safely say that its Dead In Japan. A disappointing start in Europe has been compounded with the insider news that total European sales so far don't even match what the Gamecube preorders have managed yet with a month to release, and Microsoft really were looking at struggling by just on their US sales. Bad news there surely means a desperate price drop must be on the way.
Its kind of a pity, actually - Halo really is very good indeed, and the launch titles generally are much better than what the PS2 saw in its first six months.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
My kids think Gamecube is the cat's ass.
Help me out with the lingo here.
Does this mean they like it, hate it, or just need a lesson in basic feline anatomy?
--Ty
Good original games on the Xbox: Halo, Dead or Alive 3 (Personally, I thought it was Dead or Alive 2 with a bad controller and no costumes, but that's me).
Remade games for the Xbox that have been out for the Playstation 2 for at least 6 months: Genmu Onimusha, Silent Hill 2
Good games for the Playstation 2: Maximo, Devil May Cry, Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 2, Grand Theft Auto 3, Rez, Etc.
Advantage: Playstation 2
Broadband support from Xbox:
None, and details are unknown (expect something at E3, but the broadband support is suppose be rolled out June 2002.
Broadband support from Sony:
Ethernet/Modem kit that allows you to specify how to connect, Linux kit that lets you do just about anything you want (rip/play MP3's, connect to the Internet), Upcoming AOL support (Yes, AOL sucks, but that's still a damn lot of people)
Advantage: Playstation 2
Online games on the Xbox:
Halo (need a router hack),
Coming? Um...
Online games from Playstation 2:
Tony Hawk 3 (needs USB ethernet hack), Final Fantasy XI (will be supported by upcoming ethernet/hard drive kit), Everquest (same), Star Wars Galaxies (same)
Advantage: Playstation 2
Graphical ability:
Xbox: Nvidia chip with Intel Processor, 64 MB RAM
Playstation 2: Emotion chip, 8 MB RAM, "jaggies"
Advantage: Xbox
Storage system:
Xbox: Hard drive
Playstation 2: Expensive memory cards - it remains to be seen if upcoming hard drive upgrade will allow game saves/memory card copies to HDD. (Personally, I hope so).
Advantage: Xbox
DVD Playback:
Xbox: Requires purchase of $20-$30 remote control.
PS2: Remote control optional.
Advantage: PS2
Overall:
PS2 has a bigger games library (not including PSOne games for backwards compatibility). It is "truly" online (USB ethernet) now, and will be supported native TCP/IP for broadband/PPP dialups with modem shortly. Major online games supported.
What can Microsoft do:
1. Drop price - this will only help sell more units.
2. Better games - crucial. Too many games for the Xbox (Blood Wake) seem good ideas, but are terrible execution. MS would be good to go to developers making Xbox games, look at the "final release", then say "Great. Here's some more money - spend another 3 months polishing it so we don't have good games, we have great games."
3. Strategic partners: I don't care what the fuck people say about "Square's making Final Fantasy for the Xbox", I don't believe it. I see some console support from the Japanese developers, but MS needs to do better. The big RPG for the Xbox is Morrowind - a winner to be sure - but it will hardly drive huge purchases since that game is coming out for the PC at the same time.
The best thing MS could do is go to Sega and make a deal to remake games for the Xbox - Sakura Taisen (and bring it the hell to North America!), Panzer Dragoon Saga (which evidently a "sequel" is coming to the Xbox, but the original now would help jump start things). Perhaps even coming up with some sort of generic Sega Saturn emulator system and license it from Sega - this would give a bigger backlot of games.
Either way, MS is still in a good position. They have cash. They've done well in North America up until now. Basically, all of the hard core gamer geeks have an Xbox, and now they need the "mainstream" to ditch their PS2's and go to the Xbox.
Just remember the rule of Microsoft:
Version 1.0: Sucks, Version 2.0: Sucks, Version 3.0: Works, Version 4.0: Sucks, pulled from market, never talked about, Version 5.0: Works well enough, and throwing money at people kicks others out of the market.
Of course, I could be wrong about all of this.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
What the heck does the RETAILERS opinions of the boxes have to do with things?
A retailer's relationship with a manufacturer/product can make a lot of difference between a product that sells well and one that doesn't. A good example of this is in grocery stores where the store brand gets preferential treatment -- better placement, more advertising, slightly lower cost -- over the name brand. I've even seen grocers put name-brand products in odd locations (for example, name-brand crackers in a completely different aisle from the rest) or just not carrying popular brands at all. If you shop at King Sooper's or Safeway (I forget which) in Denver, you can buy three generic brands of fig cookies, but you can't find Fig Newtons in the store at all.
If you are a retailer you decide things like how many units to carry, store placement, promotions and so forth. If a product is in high demand, there's not much a retailer can do to dissuade people -- but if a product (like the XBox) is trying to make inroads into an existing market with a popular front-runner (like the PS2) how retailers treat the product can make a lot of difference. Since Microsoft isn't selling the XBox direct to the public, they have to depend on retailers. (Having a direct outlet is a double-edged sword -- retailers tend to dislike companies selling their products directly, because they have an incentive to take sales away from the retailer (more profits) and can afford to sell the product cheaper than the retailers.)
If a product doesn't have decent margins or you don't have a good relationship with the vendor (or both) you can certainly understock the product and hope that people will go to the competition's product and kill the products you don't like. I'm not saying that's happening with the XBox, but if several large retailers like Best Buy decided to promote the PS2 more heavily it could certainly have a negative impact on XBox sales. (I doubt this is the case...their margins on the XBox can't be much lower than on the PS2, which has virtually no margin. Game titles are where they make their money, and I imagine the margins are about the same for XBox and PS2.)
Oh, and speaking as someone who used to work in retail -- I don't care for "oily salesmen" any more than you do. The things I looked for were decent margins, stock when I needed it, a good return policy for unsold inventory and decent terms (net 30 or better).
but they can't get by on near-flat-shaded cartoonish games forever.
If they are damn good games, they sure as hell can.
Got Freedom?
Thinking?
my ex's box has been very popular recently.
I used to bulls-eye womp-rats in my pants
Let's see... PS2 came out in a virtual next-gen void. DC was winding down, publishers wanted to go with the known commodity, Playstation's follow-on. So, PS2 started selling with major problems, but the desire for a box was so great that they were the de facto "buy" recommendation.
/. tastes blood in the water and moves in for the kill. Let's be objective!
XBox started with PS2 having 1 year lead and another top console, the Gamecube, a week away from launch.
Consoles are crowded now. It's been proven over and over that the XBox has superior visuals and audio (if only for the fact that it's 18 months newer than the PS2) but it's in a fight for growth with the Gamecube against the PS2. A huge head-start is never easy to compete with, but it isn't a reason to write off the underdog.
If you were to replace "Playstation 2" with "Windows", and replace "XBox" with "Linux", this thread would have 1200 comments all stating how just because Windows sells more doesn't mean it's better. But, when MS is the underdog,
(I like to think of myself as objective, but I do own an XBox and 6 games, so I may be biased)
Before you take this as a reflexive anti-XBox rant from a PS2 owner, it's not. I really like the XBox controller, because it's designed for adult hands (like mine). It's comfortable, and difficult to mis-hit buttons. I also like Halo and am looking forward to playing it online.
That being said, I'm not sure I understand the big to do about Halo. I'm still early in Halo, to be honest. Having played Tribes 2, Halo looks like a scaled back version of that game. The central concepts are the same, i.e. teamwork, first-person shooter (FPS), good graphics, variety of weaponry, vehicles. The differences, IMHO, definitely lean in favor of Tribes.
For one thing, it looks like you have to fight to score. In Tribes 2 (T2) you can fight and capture the flag (or whatever the objective is), but you can also have non-combatant roles, like repairing turrets/defenses, repairing teamates (medic), set up defensive structures, etc. You get points for repairing bases that people destroy. Vehicles have non-combatant positions (this is similar in Halo).
I really enjoyed T2 when I played regularly (I'm on a counterstrike kick right now), and it still ranks as one of the best games out there in my mind. The teamplay possibilities were incredible. Also, the map sizes, some of which were large enough to give you elbow room with 40 people playing, were incredible.
I like Halo, but not enough to give it very high ratings. The graphics are nicer than most, it's got very nice controls (unique, too), and it's definitely got a good pace to it. But it's basically Unreal + some neat teamwork feature. What am I missing?
Anyway, I would love to hear opinions from others that have played both, especially those that have played Halo more than I have (I'm only partway through the cooperative missions).
Sujal
politics, food, music, life: FatMixx
Some of us wait for the games to come out before we buy the system.
My ex-girlfriend hooked up with more girls than I did after we split. Kinda cuts the self-esteem in half.
HanzoSan wrote:
:)
> I expect Gamecube to actually have victory,
> so far it has the best games, the cheapest
> price, and the best graphics
>
> its not even listed?!
Don't worry, help is on the way! Godzilla and Mothra noted that the little Gamecube was going up against nasty old Microsoft and convinced a dozen of their friends and enemies to lend a hand. The help will come this fall (November?) in the form of "Godzilla Destroy All Monsters Melee". Unlike most Godzilla games, this one is made by a US company (working with Toho to get it right), and will have a global release. Gamespot and others have screenshots.
This game alone will cause me to buy a Gamecube.
What happens when you embrace and extend Godzilla? Nuclear heartburn!
See "Godzilla 2000" (released in Japan as "Godzilla 2000 Millenium") for details.
Look at Windows CE: The first version was atrocious, the second version wasn't much better. Neither of them sold any copies of any significance, but with unlimited resources, competition didn't work and so a third version was made along the lines of dead third-party developers. This version isn't spectacular, but is starting to sell a bit more mostly because of Microsoft's first-party software like Office, Outlook and IE.
Now, take a look at what Microsoft's been doing with games; they've been ramping up first-party titles for quite a while now. Their lineup is getting impressive -- stuff like Halo, which used to be slated for a PC version now appears to be X-Box only. Look at the number of software houses out there, and look again at the unlimited resources Microsoft has. They can own this market if they want to; even if they have to buy EA and Square to get it. You can't compete against Microsoft if they are determined to crush you.
Sony can play dirty tricks like this as well, so this should at least be entertaining to watch as two mega-corps go at it. Somehow, though, I think we'll all be left with something that sucks as the end result (witness Windows). Nintendo is going to die off first, as a console maker anyway; they'll still make games for other consoles like Sega does, and their handheld line will continue until Microsoft puts out the X-Palm or whatever.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
You obviously haven't been paying attention to recent gaming history, have you?
"near-flat-shaded cartoonish games" made the PSOne the most popular console ever. The crappy PSX chewed up and swallowed the Dreamcast (which when in the right hands can push pixels at least as well as the launch PS2 games did) and would've done so to the N64 if the Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon franchises hadn't kept it hanging on for dear life. Both of those systems have _far_ superior graphics, and both fell before the PSX.
Even games don't make the console. The Dreamcast had at least twice the number of games released in the US in its 1.5 year run before the death announcement than the N64 had when it was released in 1996. It's got some of the best games I've ever played. Skies, of Arcadia, Armada, Shenmue, Jet Set Radio, the playable Jedi Power Battles, Resident Evil: Code Veronica, Sonic Adventure 1 & 2. More and more DC games get ported and sequeled on other systems all the time. Yet somehow it didn't survive.
Image makes or breaks systems. Image killed the Dreamcast because of the "power" of a system that wasn't even out for more than a year after the DC's release. Image is what's giving Microsoft's Xbox some serious problems, because alot people just despise Microsoft, and while they may feel that they can't get away from them on the PC, they can sure as hell not give them any more money.
There's one or two Xbox titles I'd want to play. Ones that would normally get me to buy the system, but I'm not doing it because it's Microsoft, and I'm trying to take a stand. No it won't bring them down. Sony and Nintento aren't wonderful by any means, I have no illusions about this. It's just where I feel can have the most impact on preventing Microsoft from extending their defacto monopoly. And from what I can see it's working pretty well.
The day Microsoft announces that the Xbox is dead, I'll buy a used one and some games, but not before then.
Games have always been huge, Nintendo is in business still because they get games made that people end up buying the box for. The Zeldas and the Marios and what have you. PS2 has some killer games, GTA3, VF4, SOE, MGS2, Ico, GT3, Jak and Daxter, FFX, and more. MS is operating with a deficit in this department. One or two good games just doesn't do it at this point for them.
Focus is also key. Nintendo and Sony are focused on games. MS sees the Xbox as their gateway to your living room. They see IE on you TV, PVR on Xbox. They've been meeting with satellite and cable vendors to get integrated with them. They want windows and office on your tv. The games are secondary.
We've known from the start that they'd take a hit on it, it's just a matter of how big of one they are willing to tolerate before they can it. What's it worth to them? $1billion? $1.5billion? We might find out. Even they can't take a loss forever and they won't. I've long thought that they would have to hit a home run to really matter because unless they clearly hit it out of the park they've got everything working against them, Sony and Nintendo beat them on cost, catalog, they've got history and reputation, they're Japanese and can expect to sell a few copies in Japan based on that alone. MS has made a good product but it's clearly not an unstopable killer. Sony still has the FUD card to play, just now when they can seriously cost reduce the Ps2 (they have a single chip solution..) they can also start talking about the PS3 that will be out in 18 months..