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360 Costs Half As Much As PS3 By 2006?
EGSonikku writes "According to Merrill Lynch, after doing a breakdown of hardware and manufacturing costs., the XBox 360 may end up as little as half the cost as Sony's PlayStation 3 by 2006.
Citing Sony's financial woe's and Microsoft's deep pockets, they predict '...Microsoft's Xbox 360 should emerge as the early winner in the next round of the game console wars.'"
"Microsoft continues to follow the IE strategy I see..."
Uh, yes. Since they're dumping the console for free.
"And, again, I don't understand why they're leaking this now."
They're not leaking it. This is an analyst's take.
"Who wants to pay $400 for an XBox 360 now when they can wait about 6 months and get it for half price?"
For the same reason people paid $350-400 for PS, PS2, N64, etc. when they came out. To be the first on their block.
"(Although I don't think it'll be half price that fast.. probably within 3 or 4 years as is the normal degradation... unless they get into a price war early on)"
Uh, yeah. Thanks for that insightful comment. Never mind the fact that every console in the last 10 years has had at least a $100 drop in price in the first 12 months of sale.
Why do stupid people breed?
Can we please have some news, as opposed to speculation? I own all three of the current gen systems. I was an early adopter (ouch) for all three, and each have had their ups and downs. I've had one PS2 and one XBox die on me. I try not to hold it against them. The fact of the matter is ITS ABOUT THE GODDAMN GAMES. If the PS3 came out in 2009 and cost 1200$, I might give it some serious thought if they had a (good) NaNa-OnSha game being released for it. If I knew there were remaking or making a new Steel Battalion game for the 360, I'd pick it up too. I know I'll be picking up a Revolution, for nothing more than being able to play SMB3 without getting the NES out of the closet. IMHO, the only people who care about articles like this are the fanboys, who just have another paper tiger to flame with on GameFAQS about how their magical system is going to utterly crush the competition. Please, focus on why we game, for fun.
Why do stupid people breed?
It's fun.
Sony: Wow -- neat hardware, big PS2 user base. Too bad crappy dev tools and byzantine Cell architecture by themselves generate several months of delays for developers. PS3 is gonna be on the front line of the war for the living room, so it's gonna be real pretty. Wait. You didn't think you actually owned any of your own content, did you? Hell, if you read the EULA carefully, you won't actually be owning the PS3 either!
M$: Nicer dev tools, and a relatively vanilla design (insofar as 3 PPCs can be boring, it is). Too bad you have to pay a subscription fee to M$ to use it online. The 360 can't compete with Windows Media Center, so it won't be _that_ pretty -- or it'll cost extra to use it that way. Engineered shortage? What are they going to do when they don't have the sellout they made their retailers guarantee?
Revolution: Cool controller. Y'all got a console that works with?
The question isn't "Who's going to win this?" But rather, "Who's gonna buy any of these?"
Honestly there seems to be a awful lot of speculation about this but the truth is, no one knows jack about the PS3. Sonys keeping their cards as tight to the chest as Nintendo is to the point that even if it is easier to program for the 360 (and it was easier to program for the original than it was to program for the PS2 if you remember) it doesnt mean that the Xbox will win. They have just as many flaws as the PS3 does and some of them are just as critical (no true backwards compatability is a huge killer, that right there is what sold me on the PS2 and why I am buying the PS3 and Revolution, I have a HUGE library of games and I am not one to have 9 machines to play them) Likewise they have this whole fake sellout issue, which no offence but right there as a gamer makes me NOT want to play the 360. Its one thing to make a lot of them and sell out, its another to make almost none of them. I would rather wait till the price drops later, especially since there are still no real hit games comming out for the 360 on launch and everyone knows the good games dont come out till well after the developers get a grasp on the new systems and their abilitys which can be months after they are released.
The decision on who won wont be known for years after, probably in the end of 06 or even 07, so lets stop with the e penis siize matchup and wait patiently for what really happens.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
What did the XBox do to ruin your gaming experience? How has Microsoft made a mess of everything?
I'm a gamer, I like to choose games that I like to play. More choice = more chance I will find fun. This has been true all the way back to ye olde Atari vs Commodore days.
I love adventure games, unfortunately for me they are out of public favor at the moment (though a few fun titles came out this year, joy!). But the release of lots of games in sports, mmorpgs, and other genres I don't particularly care for does nothing to ruin the fun of the games I do enjoy.
Did an XBox run over your dog or something?
Will they even ship 2 million units in 2005? or does "a memory card" count as a "hardware unit" too?
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Why would anyone buy it when they know it's gonna be 50 bucks in 2012!? yadda yadda yadda...
See, kids, there's these people called early adopters and pretty much anything consumer electronics oriented- they buy it ASAP. Why? Because they can, because it's fun, and because not everyone can get one.
Early adopters have been enjoying HDTV, pixel shaders, portable MP3 players, progressive scan DVDs, hell- MICROPROCESSORS and AUTOMOBILES for alot longer than the rest of us.
With consumer electronics enjoying an all time high in popularity, I'd say there's more of these folks than ever.
Early adopters notwithstanding, the scenario in 2006: Abundant 360s with price drop plus Halo 3 (free mulitplayer w/Silver Subscription) vs. scarce, scary-expensive PS3s with an overdone remake of Final Fantasy 7.
This will not be the first time the champ has gotten too big, too lazy and too confused to win.
What is with all the replies about the lack of strength of the 360's lineup?
FPS - Perfect Dark Zero, Quake4, Call of Duty 2, Gears of War. There has never been a release with a better set of FPS games. PDZ will be fantastic, and anyone who has played COD2 in a Wal Mart has walked away beyond impressed.
Sports - Typical EA and ESPN lineup with nearly every sport being represented. NBA NFL Soccer CBB - only major gap is college football.
Big Sellers - Saints Row will be out in early '06. This is often called a GTA clone, but it will go above and beyond. Elder Scrolls 4 - Slightly delayed but will help with a 1Q push in '06 of 360 sales.
Lastly, in its own catagory, Splinter Cell 4. The next in the best series of games on Xbox and PS2. This will be out in early '06.
Microsoft is hitting hard with solid games up front and some major ones in early '06. Their market penetration will be considerable by Late '06. Sony is NOT happy right now.
Yeah like how MS is fully supportive of 2D games, so North America at last got a console release of the superlative Metal Slug 3. They also let indie devs sell 2D (and 3D!) games on Xbox Live Arcade and the X360 comes with a 2D game (Hexic HD) as a pack-in title. But Sony of America is vehemently anti-2D and wouldn't allow MS3's release because of that, and this attitude helped practically destroy the whole 'genre' in the 32-bit era (really all they would let in is the major 2D fighters and 2D bundles). That is a definite sign that "Choice has arguably been dimished somewhat recently as it is" and those bastards at MS are clearly to blame!
[/sarcasm]
It's a safe bet that if MS became some kind of console monopoly there would be a limitation of choice. But there is no sign of that happening anytime soon with two major competitors, we saw the same thing happen when Sony and Nintendo were the champs, and Windows is still a much more open platform than any console that has been released. At the very least shouldn't we be willing to reward MS when they do play nicely with others? You know, some kind of positive feedback?
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon