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Ballmer - Xbox 'Can Take Sony' In Next Generation
An anonymous reader writes "According to GameSpot, a Q&A with Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has him saying that, although the company's Xbox game console isn't making money (or bleeding them dry), the pain has been worth it. 'We have gone from nowhere to a significant player,' he said, adding: 'I am betting we can take Sony in the next generation.' Guess things are set to get even more interesting with the forthcoming next-gen console launches."
Sadly, I'm guessing that Ballmer's crass remark may end up being true if Sony take too long to release the PS3. At the very least Microsoft will make big inroads in western markets, and stand to do well in Asia if (a) the console is much sexier than the current version, and (b) they managed to sign some big Asian games studios. Admittedly neither of these is very likely.
I have no problem if Microsoft become a bigger player in the console market. The original XBox definitely raised the standards of what we could expect from console performance, and without XBox there would be no one to keep Sony honest*. What I don't want to see is Microsoft pulling a Windows on the console market. That would be very bad for all involved, and would just give Ballmer the meathead more to crow about.
*Yes yes yes. Gamecube, Dreamcast, Phantom, blah blah. Anyone honestly think they could keep Sony honest?
gadgetophile.com
thanks steve... is that "significant" as in "we are about 17million+ console sales behind Sony" or the other sort of "significant"?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
should be:
"I am betting we will take it in the ass from Sony in the next generation."
Really, that is far more plausable.
I hear that sometimes many people thing MS being a monopoly is a bad thing but one large monopoly against another like MS against Sony is the essence of competition. This is the sort of thing consumers dream of, witness such cheap hardware as XBOX and PS2 now, where only one thing has driven the price down
COMPETION!
The net's biggest adult anime collection
Parent sounds kinda flamebait-ish, but actually pretty perceptive.
Sony have a huge following in Japan, and there are a squillion totally insane and unfathomably games for the PS2 that never see the light of day outside of Asia.
I doubt MS would be able to understand Sony's Japasia market, let alone penetrate it.
gadgetophile.com
The only thing that Microsoft could do to 'take' Sony is to sign a lot of exclusive deals with pretty much every top developer. This round of consoles has shown that it doesn't matter how much more powerful the hardware is if you don't have enough games to please the market.
Which, in and of itself, is a whole other problem for Microsoft. Without extensive Japanese support, they lose a lot of 3rd Party oppurtunities that Sony picks up. Most of the great 3rd party titles released on the X-Box (SC2, Splinter Cell etc.) are released on other systems as well, which gives me no reason to pick up an X-Box while I already have a PS2 and a NGC.
If you take out Country Kitchen buffet, old people won't know what to do.
Red herring. MS could've sold each console for $50 and taken control of the market. But that would not set them up for long-term success. They are essentially playing within the same boundaries as everyone else, although they do pump in an extra infusion of cash as needed. But their monetary advantage paled against Sony's mindshare advantage.
Besides, are the only successful products in the world the ones with >50% of the market share? How does the rest of every industry operate?
The XBox two will rule all because it will have such hits as Halo:Revisited and Halo2, and Halo3, and X-Halo, and World of Halo, and Halo all stars. We will get to play throught intense action games without being bored to death by those awful RPG's.
Oh wait, didn't Nintendo say the same thing?
There is nothing wrong with being gay. It's getting caught where the trouble lies.
I don't think MS can ever hope to do in gaming what they've done with Windows and Office. They could get on top for a generation of machines. They could even figure out how to do some things better and make money even if they aren't the best selling console. But every four or five years, there will be a competitor or two with credible competition. Any dominance they win will be under continual threat. Nintendo found out the hard way and Sega REALLY found out the hard way.
Many gamers don't even commit to one console. And gaming platforms aren't like business platforms. They go stale after a few years. Gamers always want to be the first kid on the block with the hot toy. Technical superiority isn't enough either. "Intellivision basketball is much more like real basketball." only worked once when console gaming was getting off the ground. As long as the graphics are the next obvious step up from the last console it will come down to the controllers and the GAMES. The graphics being a little bit better won't mean jack.
I only point this out because MS seems to be badly addicted to having monopolies. Having one in gaming is a completely different kettle of fish. The closest thing to a monopoly in gaming was Atari back in the day. They weren't invincible and neither was Nintendo. The real danger is that an also-ran console is a deep money pit. MS currently has the second place console and I'd guess they're just breaking even. It's a big risk and lot of money just for the chance be number one for a generation.
I think old Steve is getting far to high off his own hype. As it stands Sony is number 1 and I do not see that been any different with the next version of the game console. The reason I think this is becasue of the big change in the XBox 2. They are using a different CPU(IBM RISC), a new GPU(ATI) adding there own microcode to the CPU to stop people doing what they have been doing to the current XBox.
It also means(and this is what I think)that you will not be able to play XBox games on the XBox 2, they will have to re-write DirectX, build a RISC OS for it and then there is Live I would say there will have to re-write most of that as well. MS has never writen software for RISC in the past and I think that the time frame they have set themself is very unrealistic.
Now if you look at how Sony they have had far more years under there belt in the console market, they have partnered up with some good people to bring the PS 3 to life and have build a technology that they are plaining on putting in there other product(Cell).
Saying all that I am looking forward the XBox 2 and think it is a good step for MS in there battle for the console market. Do I think they will catch up with Sony, no but I think they will make money off the XBox 2 and that is a good out look for the future of the XBox console. May be the XBox 3 will be the one that turns the tide.
"The most dangerous creation of any society is that man who has nothing to lose." - James Baldwin, American author
It's called Dumping. If they did that Nintendo or Sony could file a complain in each area of the world and have it stopped. MS would be fined and a duty to make up the difference would be imposed.
MS is probably skating close to the edge as it is with their current pricing.
Help fight continental drift.
The sad thing is that Balmer may be right:
1) The current Xbox is losing money, but the Xbox 2 will be built with cheaper materials (esp. Flash memory, instead of a hard drive)
2) The current Xbox has much better graphics than the PS2, and there is no reason to believe that this will change with the Xbox2/PS3 3) Microsoft is hell-bent on dominating the console market (watch the discovery channel special "Inside the Xbox").
4) They believe that if you control a family's entertainment, you essentially control the family (again, from "Inside the Xbox")
This is one market MS cannot afford to lose. They will throw everything they have at it.
He said it CAN take Sony. He didn't say anything about WILL take Sony.
The next version of Windows CAN be bugless. It won't, but until it comes out, they can say it CAN be a lot of things.
so I can finally afford a PS2 console and games. /rockin' the PSone
"..don't you eat that yellow snow."
Ballmer:-
For us--I don't know about the industry--but for us management is going to grow, security is going to grow, the server platform itself ought to grow, collaboration, business intelligence. I can look at almost anything and tell you I see absolute growth possibilities.
Translation:- We can't innovate for crap, so I'll just make some blanket statement about how IT is going to somehow grow bigger - without giving any concrete or useful examples.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
jesus christ, who cares?
unless the next model comes with wires in my scoobieroos wonderwear, there is nothing to be improved upon- all it means is recycling the same shitty bullshit boring games into a uber-designed new plastic housing and sucking up your dough for the "most realest everrrr!!!!" virtua-skateboarding.
who fucking cares? i'll let you know when breakthrough videogame entertainment comes along- right now we have a significant commercial movement towards original donkey knog, for god's sake.
admit it, you are still playing halflife and rainbow 6...and i, i with an XtrUberConsoBoxen, i still play hack. and larn.
carl
"They are not dominating the PDA market like they wanted to."
Actually, they are. Since the launch of Pocket PC, Windows CE devices have been growing in marketshare consistantly. In fact, the #1 PDA manufacturer isn't PalmOne anymore, it's HP.
"They are slowly but surely losing the server market."
They can't lose what they never had. Microsoft never owned the server market.
"Microsoft is where IBM was in 1980. They are on top, but headed for a fall. The reason? Because despite the rhetoric, Microsoft can't innovate. They can only copy."
IBM is still a $90 billion a year company. There was no IBM "fall". They are still very much alive and kicking.
"Despite reams of hype and much marketting muscle on Microsoft's part, Sony still sells ten Playstations for every Xbox."
Statistically, you're full of crap. At the beginning of this year, Microsoft had sold 13.5 million XBOX consoles. Sony has sold 50 million PS2 consoles. That's 3.7 to one, not the ten to one you quote.
And, remember, PS2 launched over a year and a half earlier than XBox.
"Because despite the rhetoric, Microsoft can't innovate. They can only copy."
When Apple rips off features from Windows XP (fast user switching, video chat, disk encryption, save window with places on left), it's "innovating". When Microsoft invents these features, it's "copying".
"They are not the king of set top boxes."
Carriers deploying Microsoft TV based products:
- Comcast Cable (largest cable operator in world)
- Megacable (largest cable operator in Mexico)
- Bell Canada
- Swisscom (largest broadband provier in Switzerland)
- Reliance Infocomm (largest broadband provider in India)
Who didn't expect Microsoft to be a significant player? For Microsoft to have entered this market and remain insignificant in it would have been evidence of a colossal blunder. Microsoft has the funding it takes to bring in top talent / expertise and develop. Microsoft has one of the most formidable marketing machines in Technology. These alone almost guarantee Microsoft got attention when it entered a market that isn't exactly awash with players.
However, an important piece that might not be immediately apparent is that Microsoft's day 1 for competing with console makers didn't start with the Xbox. Microsoft has competed for decades; every time a consumer or game developer makes a choice on whether they pick a "PC" or console.
Granted, this hasn't been direct competition per se. People tend to look at PC gaming and consoles as exclusive markets. However, there IS a certain degree of indirect competition between the two markets. And more importantly - whether Microsoft has been competing with consoles all along or competing with other OSes for personal computing gaming... Microsoft has been developing expertise in gaming technology.
Microsoft is not going from "nowhere to significant" with the Xbox. It's nowhere as drastic as Ballmer makes it sound. Microsoft has simply decided to shift their existing business strategy to compete directly with console makers.
Granted, the console industry is made up of considerable competition. Microsoft's task isn't trivial. But combine their existing expertise, funding, and talent for marketing... it's no surprise the Xbox has had at least mediocre success.
CONSOLES! CONSOLES! CONSOLES! CONSOLES! CONSOLES!
English is easier said than done.
Compared to Nintendo, Microsoft has its Mario (just go and make the Master Chief from Halo your mascot already!), its FPSes, a couple RPGs (does KOTOR count?), and enough sports games to challenge EA's draconan rules. In Japan, considering the sheer amount of games that are released there but never make it to the US... well. Lets just say theres enough PS2 games there that some video game stores there sell ONLY PS2 and they STILL don't have enough space to put up every game for the system. (Drumming games, guitar games, eyetoy games, dancing games, Japanese drumming games, karaoke games, a new Gundam game almost every year, a new RPG almost every 6 months, enough fighting games to make even a hardcore gamer's head spin, etc etc... We get about half that, plus awful voice acting, and often times poor translations.)
You beat me to it. A link for those curious. As stated on the website, Windows disk encryption was neither innovative nor truly secure. In a security class I had to take, I watched the professor demonstrate just how easy it was to bypass the NTFS file encryption. With a simple hash-generating script (the inner workings of which I've yet to explore :-), he was able to bypass an "encrypted" directory's protection.
"You and your third dimension."
I know that it's unpopular to actually say good things about Microsoft, but the Xbox is a really good console. It's easy to program, full-featured, and especially lately seems to be getting a lot of the top releases.
The fact that a company could enter an industry with no prior experience and do better than the likes of Nintendo is really impressive, huge bankroll or no. They had a good strategy, good hardware, innovated in relevant areas, and managed to do pretty well. The simple fact that they stand a good chance of unseating Sony in the next round of consoles (which many analysts believe) is just evidence of their success.
Sony would be foolish to discount Microsoft's resolve to be successful in Japan. Read up on the failure of Word 6.0 in Japan, followed by the success of Word 95.
They are using a different CPU(IBM RISC), a new GPU(ATI) adding there own microcode to the CPU to stop people doing what they have been doing to the current XBox.
Sony is using a different CPU (Cell), and probably a different GPU, why doesn't the same argument apply to them?
and then there is Live I would say there will have to re-write most of that as well.
Why would they have to do that? Nothing that runs on the servers needs to change very much.
MS has never writen software for RISC in the past and I think that the time frame they have set themself is very unrealistic.
They wrote Windows NT for the DEC Alpha (a 64 bit RISC processor) and supported it until NT 4, and they have Windows CE which runs on ARM's RISC processors.
they have partnered up with some good people to bring the PS 3 to life
Microsoft has "partnered up" with IBM and ATI. Are they not "good people"?
Sony has deep pockets also. Both companies are playing a game of chicken. It will be interesting to see who flinches first. Although MS is wealthier, they are also behind in the race, so it is fairly even. So get the popcorn out, and enjoy the money race. See ya' at the finish line.
Table-ized A.I.
'We have gone from nowhere to a significant player,' he said
Welcome to Bizarro World, where the Xbox is a significant player, rather than being challenged in sales by the PS1 and WonderSwan!
(Disclaimer: I live in Japan, where the Xbox's popularity level is somewhere around "the whowhat?". Is the Xbox doing any better in the West?)
By "standard", you mean Microsoft's standards. Which is fortunate since this is a Microsoft product. An obvious advantage to this is being able to develop a tittle for both the Windows and Xbox (or "pc" and "console" if you prefer the misnomer) markets. But in the end, this "standard" is not any more special as any other existing standard. When you code for Sony, you use their tools. And when you code for Microsoft, you use their tools.
Umm...Apple hardly ripped off any of these features from Microsoft and certainly not from XP. I remember full on video conferencing in the early '90s with "budget" UNIX workstations like the SGI Indy. (We are talking pre Win95 here - back in the Microsoft stone age.)
The encrypted file system introduced in OS X is actually based upon some NeXT technology. (And NeXT is even older than those SGI Indy systems...or did you also miss the part of history when Steve Jobs brought over all the engineers from NeXT and took over Apple?) Anyway, NeXT had an encryption API (for use by applications) for fast elliptic encryption. Go read a little about the encrypted file system in OS X and you will find, well, how about that - fast elliptic encryption!
Also, OS X is UNIX based and UNIX systems are inherently multi-user. The "fast user switching" (and remote desktop stuff) just exposed the multi-user guts of the OS in a user friendly way. (Yes, NeXT also had stuff like remote desktop - login to any machine on the LAN and see your files and apps as if you were sitting at your own box.)
Its just taking time for the OS guys at Apple to take all the good ideas from what came before and fit them together in a logical way in OS X.
In many ways, the "modern" Windows UI (95, 98, NT4, 2000) actually borrow from the NeXT UI. In my opinion, XP tried to do something new with the UI and it turned out pretty bad where as OS X also tried to do something new with the UI and (while somewhat rough at first) is actually getting pretty damn good!
Except that Microsoft's tools are easily accessed and digested. All you need to know is on msdn.microsoft.com. The IDE is widely available (cheap for academic versions, free for upcoming Express versions), and the SDK is free. A person can learn DirectX on his/her own, rather easily, and that knowledge is directly applicable to the production of an XBox game.
No other gaming platform (except the PC) has anything at all like that. I googled for "sony playstation 2 sdk" and the only SDK-like tool I found was this link. You must become licensed as a PlayStation developer to even purchase the product. Metroworks didn't list any prices, but I'd be surprised if it was less than $5000.
dont know if anyone has mentioned this, but it usually takes MS three tries to get something functional and somewhat compelling.
we've seen this in categories like
desktop OS
Server OS
Databases
Browser
IDE
PDA OS
Smartphone OS
i'd really be shocked if they got it right on the second try, already it seems like the replacement of the hard drive with RAM seems like a step in the wrong direction.
this rule is particularly true in enterprise software- and typically factored in when planning long term strategy. with five years of breathing space, you can innovate quite a bit to stay ahead of the curve.
about 7 years ago, MS bought an Israeli based analytics company, and people predicted the end of ISV's like Cognos, Business Objects, Crystal and others. now, about 7 years later, they're kinda releasing a 1.5 product that people are chuckling at.
remember SQL server 6.5- no row level locking? version 7, heh, not bad...pretty good bang for the buck...
as a long time gadget freak, im actually pretty excited about the next generation MS smartphone, the motorola mpx220, which fixes all of the crappiness of the second generation.
remember great plains software? the basis of the MS CRM strategy? SAP's not exactly quaking in their boots, but you can bet their thinking about that third release in about five years...
if you believe Eillison's testimony, they're poised to take over the world, and he wakes up nights in a cold sweat.
of course, when that happens, there are countless nubile young asian women to dab his forehead with hundred dollar bills.
Just recently I decided to go out and get a current generation console. Now, I haven't owned a console system since the SNES, but I've kept abreast of the market and played plenty of games with friends. In that time I've largely moved over to the PC for most of my gaming and, quite frankly, I haven't really looked back. I don't really want to turn this into some sort of PC vs. Console flame war, mind you, just setting the picture.
When I bought a console system I was thinking about all the stuff I wasn't getting on the PC: being able to play a game with my friends in the same room on the same screen, making gaming a bit more of a group activity. Having a fun system to play around with some stuff that consoles actually do pretty well, and playing exclusive titles that I'm not going to get a chance to play on the PC. Given all this and considering that I already have a solid PC for gaming the XBox isn't really that great. My final decision was actually a Gamecube.
Why? Well, the 'cube has a strong library of very good games that simply won't ever be ported to another system because they're Nintendo properties. If I want to play Legend of Zelda, Metroid Prime, Super Smash Bros., Eternal Darkness, Mario Kart, etc. there's only one system that's going to fill that need. As for multi-platform, but console only games (e.g. Starcraft: Ghost) almost all of them are made available for the Gamecube and with graphics that are often better than the PS2. The PS2 drew me with its large library of games, but nothing really stood out. Many of the best PS2 games (e.g. GTA3) are eventually ported to the PC or to the Gamecube. Online play is nice, but again, most of the games that involve online play are often ports of PC games or sports games that I have no interest in. The XBox, in its favor, often has the best graphics and sound of any of the consoles. It has the very nice feature of an integrated hard drive. Ultimately though any of the games I'd really want to play on it are really just PC games. KOTOR, Thief 3, Splinter Cell... I can't imagine wanting to play these on a console system when I could play them on an upgradable, typically more powerful computer with the added bonus of free online play, easy patching and all the other things that computer gaming means.
Ultimately this is where I see the XBox. Microsoft wanted to make a console that was more or less a computer and that's pretty much what they've done. The problem with this is that if you already have a computer you probably don't have much need for the XBox.
In the console market, I'm not convinced that it's worth very much at all. Selling into a market dominated by kids, with a product cycle of about 5 years, a large portion of console buyers are going to grow out of the market, and a large portion are first time buyers.
Actually, I can't think of any other industry where 'significant players' crash and burn on as regular a basis as the console market - Being a 'significant player' didn't help Atari or Sega, both of whom had at one time or other bigger shares of the market than the xbox does, and it didn't do them any good.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
It's not "we are about 17million+ console sales behind Sony", it's "we're only 18 million away from passing them". Think positive man!
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
"Supressing technology is more evil than lousy working conditions in some third world country."
someone please tell me that this is not the general Slashdot opinion.
lysergically yours
I don't see why many people think most people think the console market is dominated by kids etc. The kids demographic may play a part, but everyone needs to know the average gamer is around 30. Do you think kids buy all these games, no.
Another thing that should be noted, gamers don't "grow" out of any market, if anything there always looking for the next best thing. If a large portion of console buyers WAS infact first time buyers there would only be a marginal increase in console growth, and if you compare it what the console market was from what it is now... it's grown tremoundasly. This closely ties in to the fact that gamers that bought there first nintendo have not grown out of anywhere, and are still buying even more consoles now.
Atari and Sega made mistakes, huge ones. The console market is a very sensitive one, one blunder and it could cost you everything. Who would of ever thought of playing a sega game on the gamecube.
The console market is becoming more and more like the film industry. Like it or not, there is money to made there, and HUGE audience... and it only keeps growing.
In all fairness, I actually agree with most of your argument. It's solid, fair and (for the most part) the exact reason I bought an Xbox.
/.'ing a great afternoon away. =)
;)
Last year, three things happened (concerning PC's and games). I turned 32, I built a PC that would meet my required needs for (at least) several years and I bought an Xbox. I realized that while I still enjoy gaming, I do not enjoy the yearly costs incurred by continuing to upgrade my PC for those games.
For me it simply came down to want I wanted more:
I've got $150 to blow this week... do I want a mid range graphics card that'll disappoint me by the end of the year or do I want a new set of EMG's that will sound great in my guitar for the next 30 years?
I've got $300 to blow this month... do I want to replace my CPU and add more memory or do I want to take the wife for a quiet weekend in the mountains?
I've got a $2000 to blow this year... do I want to build a new kick ass PC or do I want to put a down payment on that Harley... add a deck... buy that nice leather sofa? This year I opted for the sofa and had enough left over to scale the deck down to a mixed stone patio, a new grill and some outdoor speakers. Now, I get to hang out on the patio having drinks, cooking chicken and
In every single one of those scenarios, I chose the non-PC route -- and I would have to say that I'm happier for it.
My point is this... I still get to play current "PC" games... only, I play them on my xbox while sitting on my comfy leather sofa staring at the 8' screen that my projector allows for. When friends come over, we can play "group activity games" like Links 2k4, D&D Heroes, Soul Calibur 2 or Trivial Pursuit. In the meantime, since I'm not relying on my PC as my main game machine, I'm not in the constant -- upgrade countdown mode.
And as I've posted before concerning Xbox modding -- I've also got my entire emulation (MAME, NES, SNES, Genesis, Apple, C64, etc...) collection in the living room -- where it belongs. Not to mention, the modded Xbox makes a nice media player -- especially in combination with a wireless device and browser allowing for playlist selection while out on the patio. =)
In the meantime, my "still feeling new and powerful" (Shuttle MN31N, AMD XP 2800+, 768 MB Ram, GeForce 5600 FX Ultra) dual headed Gentoo Box doesn't give me any moments of remose or grief -- and if Doom 3 doesn't run that well... I know I'll be playing it on the xbox.
Sorry for being so long winded and sounding like a fanboy... I just wanted to point out that it always comes down to preference. I'm a gamer at heart (Hell, I grew up playing original Wolfenstein, Ultima ][-VI, Karateka and the like), and I really dig my computers. But it finally dawned on me that MS made a product that actually works for me. Afterall, if I plan on running my old dual MP 200 MHz PII file/web server into the ground... why should I feel any different about my desktop? Even my studio is based around an old G4 400 MHz Mac. I had to face up... my days of bleeding edge tech awe have come to an end (at least for now). If I want to play anything resembling the current PC releases... it's gonna be on my current console of choice, the Xbox which sits right by my last console of choice, the Dreamcast.
#SickNotWeak