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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.
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
Plus, his site is a classic.
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
1) is not the problem since X-Box is slumping in Europe as well...
2) I don't think back compability is that important now. It was 1-2 years ago, but now it is more that PS2 has got plenty of good games (most can be bought 2nd hand of rhalf the price)
The real reason? X-Box is more expensive and has less good games! Appart from the hardcore gaming fans (who already bought theirs) who is going to buy an X-Box right now?
If you go into a shop in the Uk, for the same price you have the choice between:
PS2 with 5 games (with a choice among 100)
X-Box with one game (with a choice among 10)
Seriously, what would you choose?
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
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).
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)
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.
Wow, the defeatist "Microsoft will win, they are amazing!" attitude is really rampant around here for a while.
OK, first off, the numbers don't support what you're saying - they support what I'm saying. Even in the US, the GameCube is selling better than the XBox (just barely 32K/week as opposed to 28K/week). In Japan, where the GC brought Nintendo back with a vengeance, the PS2 is selling 85K/week to GC's 34K/week (and keep in mind that the GC has been out LONGER, with a weak library of games), and the XBox is churning a measly 5K/week, only barely outselling the WonderSwan Color and the ORIGINAL Game Boy, and losing to the PS1 (7K/week). Hype for the Xbox is losing ground dramatically, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be turning it around. I mean, honestly - the article was about how the X-Box is dying! The GameCube doesn't have articles like that out for it (because, um, Nintendo's doing fine?)!
Second off, Microsoft's first party titles aren't that strong. They're okay. But they still have the stigma of "they'll go to PC". Even if Halo never goes to PC, they probably cost themselves several hundred thousand sales in both Halo and XBoxen just by suggesting it might. This is dangerous. Really dangerous.
And if you think they can buy EA and Square, not likely. They're rich, but not THAT rich. I dunno, I could be wrong - a better financial analyst could step in here - but EA and Square (which have a joint venture, recall) are pretty hefty companies, especially Square in Japan. I don't think they'd be that easy to buy.
Nintendo doesn't have anything to worry about at all. They're making really huge amounts of money, the GameCube is doing extremely well in Japan, in the US, and is generating a lot of hype in Europe (spaced releases are a good thing - they maintain Internet hype). The GBA is a phenomenal success, and Nintendo is even more of a behemoth in the handheld market than Microsoft is in the OS market.
Sony doesn't have anything to worry about as well. The mindshare is still theirs - XBox can't win with a few unique titles and ports - they need almost ALL unique titles (No PC! PCs are a competitor here!), and the ports need to be far and away better than the competition, which won't happen unless Microsoft does the ports themselves (companies try to do the least amount they can to port a game).
Nintendo's fine because their first party publishers are a helluva lot more prolific and successful than Microsoft, which is hit and miss (ooh, they've produced some crap). Nintendo also has a fair library of second party publishers, which Microsoft needs badly. Third party publishers only push a console from "secondary" to "primary" status. They just do good things for the industry in general, not consoles in general.
Huge megacorporations can't just intrude on other industries this easily. It takes time, and it's highly unlikely they will dominate the industry - after all, they'd need to do something far and away BETTER than the competition, which they AREN'T doing. They're doing things arguably worse, arguably equal. And in that sort of a situation, the incumbents (Sony & Nintendo) win.