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Microsoft Sides With Nintendo Against Sony
rafemonkey writes "Looks like Microsoft loves the Wii. The Washington Post has an article in which VP Peter Moore says that since the PS3 is so expensive, gamers might as well get an Xbox 360 and a Wii for the cost of one Sony console." From the article: "Microsoft predicted on Tuesday it will have 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the market before Sony launches the PS3. The high-end Xbox 360 sells for $399, but it does not include a built-in high-definition DVD video player that comes with Sony's PS3. Sony plans to sell a premium PS3 model for $599 when it debuts in North America on November 17, and Nintendo has not yet disclosed pricing for Wii." On that last note there is much speculation that Nintendo is aiming for a $249 price point. Sony's Kaz Hirai has in turn responded that the PlayStation 3 is priced for consumers, who are getting a lot for their money.
I dont know about the rest of you, but Nintendo really made it easy to choose which next gen to invest in.
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dare I say it? the man is right. The games which come out for the 360 will be pretty much the same as those for the PS3, they have been for the xbox and ps2. There are very few unique games between those two consoles. The Wii will sport unique games from the other two so for me it's a must, also the 360 and PS3 will have similar styles of play, the Wii will be different. If you were to want both styles then it is only logical to get the Wii and 360 for the price of a PS3.
Personally I can only afford one - and because I live in the UK I'll be paying twice what you are anyway *shakes fist* - so for me it'll be the Wii
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The PS3 will cost $599 WITH a Blu-Ray drive.
XBox 360 costs $399, how much will will you pay if you want to add on the HD-DVD drive? I would think it would cost at least $200 dollars.
$399 + $200 = $599!!
Nintendo has really set themselves apart. Whether people buy two or not, a lot of people are going to be buying the Wii. It will be the console to have and then people will have to decide which other one they get.
It's not surprising that MS would side with Nintendo. In fact, it's a good sign for Nintendo. Last round MS practically ignored Nintendo thinking they weren't a threat, when in reality Sony was so far ahead of them Nintendo was their only real competition, and they lost by a slight margin. Now they're recognizing that Nintendo is the big fish this time around and they have nothing. I don't see them saying, "After buying a 360, buy a Wii instead of a PS3." I see them saying, "After you've bought a Wii, think about a 360."
Speaking of the PS3, what is Kaz Hirai saying? Sure it's priced right for what it has, but the same would be true if it was just a PSX studded with diamonds. But few people are going to want to pay that much money for it. Then he says this:
"What we're presenting to consumers is future-proofed. It's not going to fall by the wayside."
And then goes on to say:
"The only difference is HDMI - and at this point, I don't think many people's TV's have that."
Way to make it so future proof that when peoples's TV's do have that, it won't be available to them without having to buy the console again, albeit cheaper by that time, but how much is any one's guess. Then this:
Some observers have questioned whether Blu-Ray movies will be playable on the PS3 once motion picture companies enable copy protection on the discs.
Hirai said it was "too early to speculate at this point" about such problems.
Even more future proofing.
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Well, buying them out is a non-starter, as has been mentioned many times before. Nintendo's a 116-year old company. To them, Microsoft would be this little kid coming up and saying 'hey, I got 100 bucks from my parents, can I have your house?' Nintendo - the company - is worth a lot more to them than Microsoft would be willing to pay.
But I think you're right in that Microsoft definitely is not trying to compete with Nintendo. There was a quote from an editor at 1UP that sums this up nicely:
Microsoft is targeting core gamers. That market isn't expanding (they're just spending more money, but that will of course end). In Japan, it's contracting. Moreover, modern gaming is getting more expensive, and margins are becoming much thinner, but hardcore gamers won't accept any less - they expect graphics to improve, effects to get bigger and better, etc.
Which means that, in some sense, Microsoft and Sony need Nintendo to succeed. I don't think Sony's figured that out yet (probably because Nintendo is out back in a Japanese alley beating Sony's new baby PSP into a bloody pulp) but I think Nintendo has.
Maybe it is time for a new definition of next-generation that isn't simply based on graphics and processing power. A Prius is less powerful than a ferrari, but I would still say it is a next-generation car due to the hybrid engine. At the time of the Model T, new cars with better engines and more features were important, but the auto industry has hit a point where they needed to innovate rather than just build machines that could race 0 to 60 at a faster speed, because only a small segment of the market really wanted that. Gaming consoles seem to be headed down the same path. What could be more next-gen than a whole new way of approaching games?
At the same site, you can see the Sony Blu-Ray player "coming soon" for $999. I'm beginning to suspect that the PS3 will be just as bad for playing Blu-Ray movies as the PS2 was (it got better later) for playing DVD movies.
And, let's face another reality. The Toshiba HD-DVD player is the flagship HD-DVD product, the very definition of fodder for early adopters. It won't be long at all before other companies join the fray and those prices are going to come down.
It still is odd that they are saying it. Yesterday came news that Rare was developing Diddy Kong Racing DS with Nintendo. I wonder if there has been a closed door handshake between the two companies.
I was one of the lucky few that stood out all night in the cold so that I could geta 360 on release day. Not because I am a MS fanboi, but because I like gaming, and it was the next gen console. Fast forward to today...
My 360 sits next to my TV getting turned on maybe once a week to check out Live and maybe play some Dead or Alive against my wife. There is a lack of good titles, and titles that have replayability. While I am not disappointed per say, I am going to buy one of the other consoles when they came out. And I am going to follow pretty much what was said... I have a 360, why not a Wii too? The price is great (we all assume), the game play looks fun, and when I need my 'hardcore' fix, I still have my 360.
The fact that there is not propriatary format for the next gen dvds has me wondering, and will keep me from purchasing a system (the PS3) that has it built in. What happens to the PS3 if HD-DVD becomes the defacto standard? You have an expensive console that can only play games. At least with the Xbox, if Blu-Ray becomes the standard, you can just plug in a standalone player. While I am sure that the PS3 will offer a standalone if it loses with the Blu-Ray, at least with the 360 I am not stuck with a betamax with a VCR plugged into it.
Microsoft has got me pegged. A hardcore system for those days I need it, and a 'fun' system that I can play some great games from the past on, and that my family can enjoy for the same price as a system that might be obsolete in 2 years...
The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel...
I'm not a financial analyst, but who does Sony think it's going to be selling it's PS3 to? Gamers will of course buy it, but they would buy it even if Sony had priced the machine at $1,000. The question is, how will a mainstream consumer respond? Sony is hoping a repeat of PS2 when consumers justified the then hefty $300 price tag because a DVD player was included with the machine. Now Sony wants to cram the new HD blue ray down consemers throats, only 6 years after DVD finally went mainstream. My feeling is, it's too soon. Consumers are not going to justify spending $600 on a machine when the only thing it offers in terms of movie playback, is a prittier picture. Take into account that most people don't have HD TV's, and that makes it even more likely that consumers wont swallow the price markup. My point is, Sony seems to think that the higher price for the machine will be offset by the inclussion of the new DVD playback technology. However they are not likely to suceed this time because all the the inherent advantages of switching from VHS to DVD are not present this time. The only thing the new format offers is greater storage capacity, translating into a prittier picture. A second concern, is that a lot of people simply won't be able to afford the new machine. how many parents would buy their teenage kids a game console for $600? Add in a couple of games, a second controller and other peripherals, and the price quickly exceeds $800. It's to much. You can get a laptop or a fully functional PC for less then that. Sony has over-shot, and i think the market is going to prove me right when their sales don't keep up with those of their previous machine.
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God I wish I had to MOD points to mod you stupid right now, but sadly I dont. Instead im going to have to take the hit to my Karma. Oh well, well worth the cost to insult someone who is so mindlessly a Microsoft basher as to not take time to make a logical argument.
Oh... I suppose I should back up what ive said... um ok.
First off, the GPU in the Xbox 360 would probrably cost about the same retail as the PS3 GPU would, infact probrably more due to that 12MB of static, highly expensive framebuffer memory and the silicon that goes into almost free post pixel effects ( like 4x AA ).
As to money losing business, read Microsofts latest quarterly earnings statement... they expect to be cash positive on the 360 business within a year or so. I cant imagine Sony is anywhere close to that number this generation.
As to a huge leap over the Xbox 360, then why is it gaming media is pretty much united in slaming the PS3 right now for not showing any great superiority. Infact, any game they have shown as playable as been pretty much acknowledged as being doable on the 360.
Point blank, Sony stumbled and fell at E3 this year ( like microsoft did last year ). The only people that dont seem to notice that are Microsoft, er Micro$oft bashers and Sony fanboys. Which of the two are you? Maybe both?
Fuckit, who needs karma.
You might like to read "Ordinary People and Extraordinary Evil" by Fred Katz, and there's an essay here which discusses the genesis of criminal evil here http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psycholo gy/evil2/1.html.
If you want a quick summary of their conclusions though, people who commit evil do so because they do not feel the lives of their victims are of any consequence. Katherine Ramsland uses the term "You Exist For Me", an attitude I see mirrored only too frequently in corporate behaviour.
Their actual actions are constrained by their visibility, not by their consciences. That's why they are evil.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
I don't believe you (yet). If computer gaming cost $299 for the hardware on a five year upgrade cycle, but you still had to deal with the installs and updating drivers, you're saying you still wouldn't do it? You'd get all the great games that are only on PCs at nice high res', and played with the pin-point control of a keyboard and mouse. If you still say no, maybe you're just not all that into the styles of games that are best on a PC?
for $600 you get an hi-def video player AND a console.
As you point out, it costs $500 for a Toshiba HD-DVD player. What you neglected to mention was that if you want a BR player you have to pay more. If you look across the range of BR and HD-DVD players announced, the BR simply cost more.
Now for BR to beat HD-DVD they need to get more players out there, and more people buying movies in that format. Sony are currently undercutting all their BR licensees with the PS3 - they really really can't be happy about this (possibly why they've deliberately hobbled the cheaper PS3 to at least allow the low-end BR makers to produce an HDMI player for less than Sony's more expensive PS3?)
Overall Sony are pretty much going it alone. They're betting the number of BR players put out there solely with the PS3, will crush the number of HD-DVD players put out there by all the different manufacturers and Microsoft.
It's a brave bet - if it fails though, it's just going to land them making expensive PS3s for a very long time.
Just to have a look at Sony - Betamax, minidisc, memory stick/duo/micro, SACD, UMD blah blah. The have a long history of creating media formats to line their own pockets, that never take off outside of their own product line (and then usually curl up and die). Quite often they're technically better - but they never manage to get other companies to use them. I hoestly can't see why BR will be any different.