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Microsoft Promo: a PC and Xbox In Every Dorm Room
theodp writes "Can Microsoft woo students into trying Windows 7 PCs? Well, starting on May 22nd, Microsoft will try to do so by giving away free Xbox 360 4GB consoles to high-school or college students who purchase new Windows 7 PCs priced at $699 and up. A Guess Who's Coming to College? teaser video for the promotion features a Halo Spartan's HS graduation ceremony."
I guess you could sell the xbox and use the money to buy games for the PC.
Yes, because every marketing campaign is done out of "desperation".
No teen/twenties or anyone else will pick OSX instead of Windows if he/she plays games. Which is exactly the target audience with bundling PC and Xbox360.
What does it smell like when ipods are given away with every apple computer purchased by a student? Apple usually has this same promo every summer.
No teen/twenties or anyone else will pick OSX instead of Windows if he/she plays games. Which is exactly the target audience with bundling PC and Xbox360.
But think it through -- if the teen/twenties market niche that plays games is always gonna pick windows, then why would Microsoft throw in a FREE Xbox360 to these people? That's like crack suppliers throwing in complementary Heroin bags for every $5 of crack purchased by their captive crack addicts. That doesn't make any kind of economic sense if the objective is to make obscene profits with the minimal amount of overhead. Why wouldn't the crack suppliers charge for the heroin as well if they know their addicts *want* the drugs?
Wasn't it just a week ago when the antitrust oversight over MS ended?
and yet we'll all still buy Macs :)
No teen/twenties or anyone else will pick OSX instead of Windows if he/she plays games.
Unless the gamer plays the kinds of games that aren't ported to PCs. There are some video game genres where the idea of "multi-platform release" is PS3+360 or PS3+360+Wii.
While yes it kind of does, but Apple does this with iPods every year as well and pretty much falls in line with the promotion price point for price point.
To me, it sounds like Microsoft is finally acknowledging they have brand recognition in the Xbox and they shouldn't compete with Apple's portable media players. And aside from Wii's strong numbers in sales, I still feel like the Xbox360 is the clear winner this generation. We like to give them red ring crap, but to me the BS with Sony where early consoles had huge fail rates, removal of features and dead online service killed them and the Wii just never had more than the bundle games like Wii Sports, Sports resort, Fitness, etc.
But then, Apple only has 10% market share on the desktop. It would make sense for them to up this, by giving promotions.
The grandparent poster was right. They wouldn't need to do this, unless they really felt threatened by Apple.
Seriously:
1) Buy the $699 PC.
2) Get the free XBox console.
3) Install Linux on the PC. (Dual-boot so you can hang on to any Windows-only functionality you need for the XBox or on a separate, swappable, hard drive to provide an "airgap firewall" against possible dual-boot cross-OS malware.)
4) Have fun with Linux.
5) Goodbye Microsoft profit!
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Obviously this is a response to Apple's back-to-school promotion, which they have run for several years. Last year that program got you exactly the same amount in credit ($199) towards any iPod when you bought any Apple laptop.
One advantage of the Apple program is that you could trade up and get a higher priced iPod touch model and still get the $199 in credit. It looks like the Microsoft program only gets you the slightly gimped 4GB Xbox with no trade-up. A lot of students might be bummed when they realize they need a $100 hard drive accessory to play a lot of the games.
Not a bad deal, but I wonder how many Xboxes will be given to students who were going to buy a laptop anyway. I think the Apple motivation is obvious: to get students to switch to Apple. Not sure if the formula works the same with Microsoft.
- "When you want something with all your heart, the entire universe conspires to give it to you" -Paulo Coelho
Not much different from Apple bundling iPods with MacBooks.
the world will all be destroy after rapture the day before the giveaway kicks in
Because Microsoft would probably rather you play games on the 360 instead of the PC? They're probably not losing anymore money on the console at this point, and they're also making money off of agreements and XBLA.
Apple gives away iPod Touches for people buying MacBooks before the start of the school year. It's a valid tactic.
Apple has been giving out iPod's with laptop purchases for years now. If anything this is MS just trying to counter balance that. Seems like a win-win for consumers. Maybe Apple will step up their offering and give iPad's with laptop purchases now.
And it's last years iPod, and last year's Mac. And face it, an iPod is NOT an xBox 360. The component cost is waaaaay lower. And Apple has markup to spare.
What does it smell like when ipods are given away with every apple computer purchased by a student?
Teen Spirit?
I guess you could sell the xbox and use the money to buy games for the PC.
Provided that the games you want to play are even ported to the PC. The PC is stuck on the old version of Street Fighter IV, while the Xbox 360 has the current version.
No this is exactly the direction i expected them to go. Like it or not, the Xbox is poised to be THE cheap, full featured modern cable box in the streaming era. You can buy a brand new Xbox for $200 and MS still makes a profit on it, and big opportunities to sell you more intangible stuff. Its a great loss leader since people see 'oooo hardware' .Give away the tangible, sell the intangible, very very smart.
Good-bye
Well, you have to admit that an Xbox is pretty big for a marketing freebie. We are not talking about free pens and calendars here.
The chain of reasoning here could be: College freshmen buy new computers, so there is a market there > They need to choose between MS, Apple, Linux > We need to make them go with Windows, so let's throw in an Xbox there > Help spread Win7 *and* make revenue from Xbox game sales.
I don't think that this marketing campaign is targeted to the teens that play games. It is targeted to the teens that are buying a computer for college, i.e. office, work (which will also help with MS-Office sales). If it was targeted to the gaming crowd it would be the other way around: e.g. a free netbook for every Xbox sale.
MS does not make much if any money on the hardware to begin with, they make it on the games. This may end up making them a lot of money. Big kudos for them not requiring you to buy an Xbox and turn in a rebate to get your money back like Apple does with the iPod promotion.
Smells like desperation - MSFT has really been losing the market of people in their late teens/twenties to Apple lately. This does not bode well for their future prospects because losing a customer to Apple carries the potential of being a lifelong loss.
Without some of the revenue streams they used to have, they really have to protect their market share in Windows consumer licenses.
No, it doesn't smell like desperation, it smells like Marketing - which really smells like some anchovies left inside a damp athletic shoe for six months. Conceptually, it's simple - if the costs of the marketing campaign are less than the perceived value then it's a 'good idea'. Bonus points for getting people riled up about and bouncing it around the echo chamber (as we are doing here).
So, some marketing droid (probably sitting in a Starbucks banging away at his / her / it's MacBook Air) gets a few brain cells to fire, manages to pull off writing 6 moderately coherent paragraphs and downloads a couple of (copyrighted) images that may or may not have much to do with the main concept, gives everything a few tasteful drop shadows and gradients, stuffs everything into a Keynote file, emails it to a couple more droids who show it to some uberdroid who shows it to it's boss who runs a few specious calculations on a spreadsheet, then manipulates the numbers so they look better, then stops briefly to end this annoyingly run on sentence.
Then it gets massaged, changed and photoshopped until the end result has very little to do with the original idea.
Then it gets sold to some low level exec at Microsoft, a similar process ensues and some months later a marketing campaign dribbles out to the delight of bored Slashotters everywhere.
Desperation isn't quite the applicable concept here.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Apple gives away iPod Touches for people buying MacBooks before the start of the school year. It's a valid tactic.
Logic/attribution fail.
The motive doesn't make the tactic any more or less valid.
It's a valid tactic whether or not they are doing it out of desperation. And they are, incidentally, doing it out of desperation.
Because iPhones don't play games, and Portal 2, The Sim 3, The Rift, StarCraft 2, WoW, and other top-selling games aren't available on Mac.
Oh wait - they do, and they are. Welcome to 2011.
There are 4 ways for something like this to work out financially for MS. 1) Either an Xbox 360's true manufacturing cost in 2011 is a mere 50 - 70 dollars a unit (ageing hardware + economies of scale from manufacturing tens of millions of them). 2) Or people who choose to become "Windows PC users" for the next 5 - 10 years will get shafted out of money so frequently and in so many different little ways that the cost of the free Xbox becomes negligible in the long run. 3) Or the creation cost of 1 unit of a typical Xbox 360 game works out at 3 - 5 dollars a pop while the retail price for the same unit is 40 dollars, so the profit made from selling a few games cancels out the cost of giving away a free console. 4) Or the next Xbox 2012 or whatever they will call it is R&D and almost ready to launch and MS banks on the fact that the free Xbox 360 users will willingly fork out dollar 699 or so to upgrade to the new Xbox 2012.
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
That's what I thought too, I mean, is it really much different than the free iPods Apple was giving out with computer purchases? But then, if you look closely at the numbers, it really is different.
Apple typically has a 30% markup on their products, which means they could give away an iPod and they might still end up with a bit of profit.
Microsoft on the other hand, doesn't make the hardware, and although the profit margins are obscene on Windows, they are still only making $50-$100 for each computer sale. That's not enough to cover the hardware costs on an Xbox, so they are losing $100-$150 for each sale here. (note: all numbers are estimates).
Obviously they think it is worth it, but why? Is it because they are worried about competition from Apple? I don't know, but it seems just as likely that Ballmer is a maniacal spendthrift, who thinks any price is worth paying to crush the competition.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
by these commentors...
You buy a cheap PC, where Microsoft makes money from the license for Win7, they throw in a CHEAP 360 (basically the Arcade version, which I believe is is like 150-200$). After you've got a nice new free console, what do you do? Buy another controller (money to MS), buy some games (more money), buy xbox live (more money), buy a new hard drive for more space (more money), etc. This isn't desperation at all, this is just another way for Microsoft to make gobs of money. If they had given away an Elite Xbox, then there would be less money re-couped but they would still end up making a profit in the long run.
This is directed (like they say) at college kids, going to school for the first time and looking for a new computer.. AND A FREE CONSOLE?! HOLY SHIT! That sounds like a great deal to me, now I can go to school and play Xbox with all my friends and I don't have to shell out an extra 200$ for the console!
I don't understand how people aren't getting this..
If this hits a significant percentage of students, it could make for an "interesting" correlation between use of Windows 7 and what kinds of grades the students get.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
HP or dell only or any PC? also will best buy play hardball if you don't buy the geek suard add ons?
It's a valid tactic whether or not they are doing it out of desperation. And they are, incidentally, doing it out of desperation.
Desperation you say? Microsoft are acting out of desperation?
When the gaming network of their main competitor has been repeatedly ass raped by hackers over the past few weeks leaving customers unable to play games online for what amounts to an eternity on the internet?
Yeah. Must be desperation.
The timing on this is perfect. With Sony's reputation going down the drain, handing out Xboxes is an interesting way to take advantage of the situation... Not only will people have to buy the controllers, game, Live, etc as Laxguy posted, they're essentially turning the Sony situation even more in their favor. Personally, I'd just sell the Xbox as I'm a PC gamer, but for the same reasons I would never consider an HP/Dell/"X" pre-built computer... Still, for college kids this is good. I'm still an MS hater though. Fuck you Bill!
Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
microsoft is still genuinely dedicated to higher education and wants to help students more than Apple. im a computer science student and wasting money on a mac just doesnt make sense for me if all it does is get me a discount on an ipod.
If i win a promotional PC, does slashdot recommend FreeBSD or Linux for CS300?
Good people go to bed earlier.
I was thinking "smug", but your post was much better.
Apple will still make money there out of the gate because of the markup on Macs. The converse with Ms isn't true. I agree this smells funny.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
It's a valid tactic whether or not they are doing it out of desperation. And they are, incidentally, doing it out of desperation.
Desperation you say? Microsoft are acting out of desperation?
When the gaming network of their main competitor has been repeatedly ass raped by hackers over the past few weeks leaving customers unable to play games online for what amounts to an eternity on the internet?
Yeah. Must be desperation.
The xbox is there to entice people to buy windows PCs. That's why it's free and the PC is not. This is really so hard to understand?
This isn't about taking on Sony. It's about taking on Apple. To the exact dollar amount it's a match of a similar Apple promotion (involving iPods).
You completely miss the point and somehow that makes the other guy wrong. Yeah, sure. I love how people who are stupid like you are usually smarmy like you, too. That really makes the world a better place.
Do you think that any high-school student receiving a free console will study anything for the next year?
Of course, you might point out that most of these students already own a console (often a Xbox, too). Then these might be sold on eBay to Taiwanese students, and at least it's worth 40-50 $.
42.
xbox is poised to be blah blah blah
Wait, what? What happened to the Wii, playstation, tablets, google tv's, apple tv's, slingboxes, boxee boxes, etc.? Did they all get outlawed and summarily destroyed? You are counting chickens before the evolution of birds here.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The 4GB Xbox has an MSRP of $199. Apple gives away free iPod Touch with Mac purchase, and those go for $229 MSRP.
First off if it's free why even complain... That's like complaining that someone gave you a free HDTV and all you complain about is it has 1 HDMI..... WHO CARES IT'S FREE. This is great for the people that are going to buy a laptop anyways so it's win win.
Why do the apple people always come in and act like they are better when it has nothing to do with them?
Apples DO NOT run corporations, fortune 500 companies, gaming tournaments etc... They use outdated hardware any geek knows this and Linux is more stable then OS X ever will be. Sorry for raging but Apple people are like those annoying girls that won't shut up we don't care about it, we know you spent way too much on that average machine. End of Story
Anyways it’s a great marketing program from Microsoft, it's all over the web and I think that's what they wanted and most companies make 80ish% off their gaming division so that Xbox to a new user is a gold mine for them anyway you put it.
Not desperation IMO... it is a plan that has worked for them in the past. Look at the pricing of the MS Office suite -- the Student/Educational version has historically been much cheaper than the normal one. Guess what... MS Office dominates the market, because everyone uses it in school. They're just extending their existing strategy.
Why don't you take your soap box and SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS?
http://craphound.com/littlebrother/download/
So where can I get a distro for paranoid linux?
Cheap?
You have to pay a monthly fee to use the damn thing. Even when PSN was down netflix worked fine on my ps3 and without me paying sony.
waaah waaah i hate microsoft waaah waaah i dont want the xbox to become the shit, i want it to be anything non-microsoft.
oh that's not what you said? sorry, it just sounded like that.
Yes, because every marketing campaign is done out of "desperation".
He didn't say anything about any other marketing campaign.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Eh linux runs fine on windows 7 computers:-)
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
Yes, because every marketing campaign is done out of "desperation".
Pretty much. If your product is good enough, word will spread without a "marketing campaign"
Apple manufactures both the Mac and the iPod touch, with big enough profit margins on each to cover the freebie and then some. Microsoft will make, what, $50 from that OEM copy of windows 7.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
There are some specific titles that don't get ported and if those are the things that matter to you then sure. However in general there is good cross platform availability. Most games launch at the same time (like, say Brink, or NFS: Shift 2), some take a bit but still come over. Also sometimes the PC gets a better version. Your SF4 example is an interesting one. The Version of SF4 on the PC is larger and more complete than on any of the consoles. Likewise Super Street Fighter 4, which comes out in July, will again have more content on the PC. So there is a wait, but you get more for it.
So really unless you have to have a title that is 360 only, like say Halo, then the PC is a perfectly valid option. Goes the other way too, the PC has games that the consoles don't, particular MMOs. World of Warcraft, Rift, Lego Universe that kind of thing. There are non-MMOs too, particular strategy games like Shogun 2 Total War, Civilization 5, and so on but other games as well like Witcher 2 and Darkspore.
Then 3 years on when those college kids want a new laptop they will buy a Macbook, because PC gaming has no relevance any more to them ... and Microsoft loses mindshare for their bread and butter product, Windows.
Win a battle to lose the war ...
Eh linux runs fine on windows 7 computers:-)
Well, thank you Captain Obvious, as if he was claiming it doesn't....
Apple is vertically integrated and have huge margins ... they still make profit while throwing in the iPod Touch, just less.
Microsoft loses money on this.
Second prize, two 360s! The new 360 logo.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Apple make several hundred dollars on the sale of a macbook, but are happy to give up most of that profit to attract a student with a free iPod. It's a similar strategy to that used by banks during fresher's week - hook a student and you've got a good chance to keep them for life. They're breaking even on a sale in the short-term for more profitable sales in the long-term. Apple have huge market share amongst students and they're keeping a lot of that market share amongst graduates.
A single OEM licence of Windows 7 costs much less than an Xbox 360. Major computer manufacturers get huge discounts for volume. Last time I checked Isuppli figures, the Xbox costs more to make than the retail price. However you slice it, Microsoft will take a significant loss on the deal. This might be OK if we expected the promotion to gain them market share, but at best they're treading water. They're making a loss in the short-term to just maintain their existing volume of sales. That's seriously bad news and to my nose stinks of desperation.
Short on MSFT, long on AAPL.
I think Microsoft has a legitimate chance in this space but there are hundreds of millions of devices from many manufacturers that also have a very good chance. It is very likely that the streaming to the television duties will remain a competitive market with a mix of devices in people's homes. Also, an xbox is a significant investment for people living in in developing countries. Those people are much more likely to invest in something cheaper. An arm based set top box can be put together and sold for much cheaper than the cheapest high end game machine no matter the economies of scale. I just think pinning the medal on Microsoft is a bit premature.
The soylentnews experiment has been a dismal failure.
The difference, arguably, is that the unit cost of a piece of software closely approaches zero. The shiny disks and the box(if it isn't a campus setup, where they just email you the key and a download link) aren't quite free; but the overwhelming majority of any piece of software's price is the "what we can get for it" slice, not the "must recover marginal cost of production" slice.
Hardware, by contrast, has a substantial marginal cost of production. Lower than MSRP, obviously; but way higher than software.
...a reason to stay up 27 hours straight and play video games instead of studying for final exams. Somehow I doubt the marketing department is going to be cognizant of final exam week across the entire nation when they release the next version of Halo/COD/BF.
Of course we all know the blatant motivation behind Microsoft doing this, but what exactly is the educational need for an XBox in college? This is a bit different than bundling an MP3 player with a laptop with regards to the distraction factor. Of course, why am I even asking this when it seems to be a financial win for everyone but the failing student.
If you're a gamer on a budget, or a college student on a budget, why are you buying a $699 PC? Seems awfully pricy, and I'd think if you were going to college, either you've already got a game machine, or you picked a really silly time of your life to buy one. I suppose you could buy the $699 PC-Xbox bundle, sell the Xbox, and end up with a better PC than you might have otherwise bought, but it's still kind of silly.
Just about everything except games will work fine in a virtual machine, and even many games will these days, but maybe you'd want to run dual-boot instead of just VM.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
If I recall correctly Nintendo sells Wii's at a loss. "Free" XBOXes are sure to boots sales of XBOX games, XLive subscriptions and DLC sells.
And that's not even actually free, it's easy to hide the cost in the price of the PC + Windows 7, specially considering Windows costs nothing for MS to install and people are just going to end up buying another copy when their PC inevitably gets infected/broken and need a replacement.
But... the future refused to change.
Should we call those free iPods a proof of desperation from Apple?
But... the future refused to change.
This will be the worst thing to happen to retention rates since lottery funded scholarships.
Nintendo has never sold a single Wii at a loss, not even right after it was released. Actually, the Wii was for quite some time the only current-gen console sold with a profit.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
So long as the Xbox is being used it will keep bringing in money. Xbox live, online stores and 10$ on every game sold that's a lot more then apple can hope to get with itunes sales.
from the line-up came the refrain 'here we are now, entertain us!'
The difference is, with every iTunes sale, Apple is just adding to the pile of profit. Microsoft, on the other hand, is trying to dig themselves out of a loss. Will they do it? I don't know the numbers well enough to answer that one......probably only Microsoft does. But historically, they haven't done particularly well with xBox sales.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
What is the lifetime value to MS of a person who is biased (even if only subtly) towards their products? Even if they've had to "pony up" some hardware, it is probably still a net win. A few of those students will even go on to become people who have influence over large purchasing decisions in the corporate world -- that's *huge*. If college graduates are more likely to land in those sort of positions, then they've just gained a lot of leverage over the long term.
Note: I'm not *endorsing* the practice, I'm just pointing out that it isn't necessarily a desperation move. It may in fact be quite smart, from a long-term perspective.
Well, maybe in the first few weeks after the marketing and launch costs, but in general the Wii was not sold at a loss. The Xbox on the other hand was selling at a loss for like 7 years before MS finally turned a profit on it.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
I definitely started reading your post and was about to flame then I saw:
Oh wait - they do, and they are. Welcome to 2011.
That's a pretty big gamble as in a college student's everyday life they will use iTunes more than Xbox Live. We are talking about media, books, movies, and apps that a college student takes with them everywhere. They have to leave the Xbox in their rooms. Remember we are talking about average college students not hardcore gaming college students.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Apple can afford to take the loss of a $200 iPod Touch as they sell a $1000+ computer. MS takes the loss of a $200 Xbox for the $50 OEM Windows license. Financially there's a huge difference.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It reminds me of the interesting reaction i'm seeing in people i know from a similar ad campaign here in Canada at the moment. Recently Rogers Telecommunications started a campaign targeting young couples with their "Buy two smart phones on our couples/family plans and get a free PS3" campaign. Although i know one who went with it, but for the most part it is making people realize the value that these companies receive from their Long Term Contracts. This is something that most companies would prefer to downplay, and make retention offers or sign up bonuses come across as some grand concession on their part.
People who once never really questioned contracts are going "well damn, if its worth 300$ to them up front is this really something that benefits me more than the cost?"
Kinda nice to see the artificial mindset these companies have set in peoples minds about how "phones are cheap" with the prominent display of contract only prices eroded a bit by their own actions.
What I don't get is, is the benefit to Microsoft possibly worth it in this case? It's hard to quantify the 'hook em young' effect.
Ice Cream has no bones.
I've never commented on the video in the past and I'm already blocked? WTF, does Microsoft hunt down people they think won't agree with them and block them? I guess if you're losing your grip on computing you have to pull out all the stops to make it look like you're still awesome.
Yes, because every marketing campaign is done out of "desperation".
He didn't say anything about any other marketing campaign.
-jcr
No, but he could have mentioned that Apple giving away free iPods, that are more expensive, to sell Macs is even greater "desparation"?
Well since Apple is not likely losing money on their promo, I would say no.
From the financial viewpoint, the cheapest Mac is $699. (I don't if the Mac mini is eligible). The cheapest iPod Touch is $229 (which is the one that will be given away). From a margin standpoint, at a healthy 30% margin on hardware, Apple makes $210 on the Mac. They lose $160 on the iPod Touch. They still make $50 on the whole promo.
The Xbox is $199. Again assuming 30% margin, they lose $140 if they give it away. We don't know what margin is like on software. However, MS has to make $140 on OEM Windows license just to break even here. Considering the computer was $699, it's not likely that they charge this much. My estimate is $50-70 a license. MS loses money on each promo.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
most people stick with what they know
haha yea I bet that some 18 year old marketing major is really considering linux
wow is right, you managed to name 5 mostly recent games on mac, that right there is a feat and I am impressed
playstations and wii's are mostly doorstops, everything else listed hasnt sold enough combined to match the 360 like it or not
Yes, but the 4GB Xbox isn't really all that overpriced. The Ipod Touch on the other hand, is disgustingly so.
High schools and colleges are increasingly overrun with Apple products.
No kid I know begs his parents for a "PC"...no one.
Right.... cause gamers really consider angry birds to be on level with Elder Scrolls, Total War and Modern Warfare. And hey look, those are all hugely popular series with no support for Mac! Guess that kind of eviscerates your point.
Sorry, not gonna happen. People in developing countries would prefer the machine that lets them play games *AND* watch movies, instead of separate machines for everything. That's why people in "developing countries" like mine just buy PCs. You can do both, AND you can hook them to a big screen too. That's how things work here - there is still a "family" computer. The "personal" computer concept is still working its way through.
And for this, I blame computer manufacturers too. When I wanted to buy a laptop 2 years ago, HP Argentina asked USD 2000 for the model I wanted. I got it on the local eBay, imported from USA, for $1200. The US price was $799 then. Dell started selling computers a couple of years ago. You can go to Dell Argentina and laugh for a while. First, the price, and second, the fact that ALL machines are preconfigured. You can't even ask for a larger monitor if you're ordering a desktop. Can't order more RAM, HDD, anything. The computers are sold AS IS.
Beige-box builders sell the same machine for half the price. You also get a pirated version of Windows 7 that WORKS instead of the bullshit Microsoft called "Windows 7 Starter", which won't let you run more than 3 apps at the same time. Or refuses to run in machines with over 1GB RAM.
The problem with the alternative you suggest is that you, naively of course, think that companies actually "give a fuck" about developing economies. They don't, period. Should they? Well, in my book, if the customer's got the money, then I don't care where he is from.
The XBOX and Wii are not sold officially in my country. The PS3 is, but the PSN service is not enabled. All 3 consoles go for $800+, which makes it hard to justify for an average household. Sony, MS and Nintendo don't bother lowering the prices - they make enough money in JapEurUSA to bother selling here.
Same with music and movie streaming services. Services like Spotify and Pandora aren't available, under the excuse of "licensing issues". It's an excuse, of course. They don't really work to solve it (because they don't care about the market), but also, it's not 100% true. Grooveshark works in my country just fine.
You know what company will "win" in the long run? The one that actually bothers making a service that works for most people in the world. The company that proves me that I can stream a movie cheaper, and faster, and with more quality than what I get when pirating stuff.
They need to start differentiating prices. They should price their stuff using their brains, not their greed. Right now it's literally cheaper for me to fly to Miami and get a Macbook Pro there, have dinner, sleep one night and fly back home the next day, than it is to buy it here. Even considering the money I lose for missing 2 days to work. If that's not fucked up, I don't know what is. The same applies to folks in the UK trying to use Adobe Creative Suite. It's cheaper to fly from london to NY and get it there than buying it in the UK.
Price policies, right now, are severely fucked up. Software and music are the worst offenders. It's really not about taxes. Taxes here are high but they don't justify the 4x price for an XBOX, or the 2x price for a music CD. Movies are a different story. It's cheap for me to go to the movies. On thursday I went to the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean 4 (yes, that's 1 day before the US release), in 3D, with dolby sound and all, for the equivalente of US$ 6. It's my understanding that movie tickets in NY will set you back $20 or more. In comparison, the burger, fries, and cola I bought before the movie were more expensive. Now, if I want to get the movie's BD when it's released? It will cost me over $25.
So, as you can see, I *think* my rationale is right. They should offer a decent product, for a price that people *can* afford to pay (not market it as a high-end, elite thing, like the PS3 is here), and you will get millions of people to buy it. Keep up the current bullshit, and we will have the neverending discussion of why people pirate stuff.
I use windows for games, sure, but I don't like the 360 for a number of reasons ($60/y for playing games online is one.) Even in college I stuck with the PS2 (PS3 came out senior year) because the titles I liked were on it: FF, Crash, Ratchet, Spyro.
Making my preference is for the PS3. I grew up on both of those, so the controls/interfaces are the things I'm most familiar with. Though I'm now leaning towards OSX after the Vista fiasco, and the fact I'm not much of a fan of Windows 7.
So not everyone that uses Windows will necessarily use an XBOX. That's the reason they want to give them out. In order to get more people to play on them.
Students are already given Windows and Office with zero markup, because when they enter the workforce, you want them to be used to using those tools.
On the gaming side, MS makes way more money off game sales and XBL subscriptions then they do by selling actual Xboxes.
Smells like a smart investment:
1- they get the Average Sale Price of PCs a bit up, which makes them less crappy compared to Macs. Lots of people will look at their $400 PC or $300 netbook, compare it to a $1000 Mac, and conclude, Wow, Mac is so much better. The cheapest MacBook seems to 999euros for 13.3", the cheapest 13.3" Dell is 450. both 2GB, 250GB, dualcores, Apple has a better CPU and is a lot sexier. I wouldn't hazard a guess about build quality nor service and support. So for $699, students should be able to get a significantly better (if not cuter) PC than a *more* expensive Mac. MS is closing the luxury gap
2- They get people familiar with their product. Today's students are tomorrow's executives, and people will be partial to what they know. Even if it's not that good... and, honestly, Windows Seven *is* good.
3- They get people sucked into their Live thing.
I don't know what the real cost of the campaign will be, once you balance giving out a $200 (probably costs less to build, by now), getting $40 for a windows license, $10 per game, 10 games per console (?) (got that from another post, I have no clue if this is accurate), and Live subscriptions/purchases. I'm guessing it's not a bad return, with "converted" users and referrers as a bonus ?
Plus it does not hurt their presence at the very bottom end. I got a HP Mini 110 for 150euros. That's about the price for an Apple keyboard plus mouse without any computer to use them with.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
But, Microsoft makes money on continued XBOX Live subscriptions and licensing fees on games.
If you need web hosting, you could do worse than here
Really? I'm watching Netflix while signed in to my XBox 360 Silver account. Silver is free you say? NOOOOOOOO!
I'm also not saying that it is necessarily a bad, or desperate, move, just that (unlike discounting software, where what you are "losing" is almost certainly imaginary-they-most-likely-would-have-pirated-it-anyway money) heavy hardware discounts cost real money.
Presumably, they think that the money it costs will be worth it, and they may well be right; but it is a different flavor of tactic.
...nearly all college's student housing network usage policies only allow you to register just one MAC address device on their dormatory networks.
Any attempts to circumvent this policy through the use of NATing or MAC spoofing is grounds for immediate removal from student housing for the rest of your undergraduate career.
Posting anonymously because I'm a network administrator for a major American public university that has a policy like this.
They're been making a profit on the 360 for several years now.
Mac: What are you doing? :(
PC: Playing games.
Mac: Which ones?
PC: All of them!
Mac
How many people actually BUY music on iTunes?
From a financial standpoint, MS starts in the hole with this promo. For MS to break even, this is contingent on students buying games. This is not guaranteed as some students are not gamers who are going to buy additional games. Sure they get a free Xbox with a computer; they were going to get a computer anyways. But that does not necessarily mean they become Xbox gamers. They might play it. Or they may just let it collect dust.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In a soon to be college orientation: "Look to your left. Look to your right. Those with free XBoxes will likely fail out by mid-term. The rest of you will still be here."
Only the dead have seen the end of War. - Plato
Students are already given Windows and Office with zero markup
lol oh yeah? You really think Microsoft doesn't make a profit when they sell Office for $99?
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
You could sit in your dorm room playing XBox with your nerdy friends or you could actually go meet a girl and take her out.
Or study and make your $100,000 of student debt worthwhile.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Isn't a student who buys a Mac and gets Office for Mac or a retail license of Windows and Office/Windows to run virtually way, way more profitable than the one who for $15-20 (the OEM's license cost) gets an XBox?
Are the Microsoft shareholders even paying attention any more?
Well MS is still turning a large profit overall so losing more money on the Xbox probably isn't a high priority. The moment the situation changes, shareholders will be asking about promos like these where they gave products for free that had just started to turn profitable.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
+1 insightful
Microsoft have been selling Office to many students for a lot less than $99. Cost of media and shipping almost in some cases.
Why are you criticizing him as if he were positing it as a general solution?
I couldn't think of any other meaning for "no one" in "IMHO, no one should run Windows outside of a VM", especially the way VortexCortex bolded it.
Wow. You're an idiot.
Good luck being one of dozens on Craigslist trying to offload a console and shitty PC next semester.
28% of all US music sales and growing. http://gigaom.com/apple/itunes-accounts-for-28-of-u-s-music-sales/
I do. Quite a lot actually. I used to download it from p2p networks - started back in the early days of p2p sharing at college over 10 years ago now, when no one really knew much about it, so you could download mp3s at lightning speed on the university networks in the engineering computer labs on software like WinMX and so on. No one was monitoring that traffic, and everyone was doing it.
When the iTunes music store came out I stopped downloading music, and I mean *completely stopped*, from p2p networks. Part of it was that the heyday was over - now there were floods of crappy encodes, and poisoned tracks and so on, so it was a bit of a hassle. The other part was that I was genuinely honest when I said "make it easy, cheap and convenient and I will buy downloadable music" - and the iTunes music store did that. When the whole store went DRM free (on the music side, at least), I even purchased copies of many of the albums I had downloaded all those years ago. I continue to buy music on the iTunes store since I feel that it is worth the price that it's sold for. I have also occasionally used other online download stores for some material that is not available on iTunes, like many of the live Counting Crows performances, for example.
Apple got it right when they said "make it available cheaply and conveniently and people will buy it" when everyone (as in, the music industry) was telling them "but why would people buy it if they can get it for free on p2p networks". It's not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, but they did get the record industry to play ball, and the rest is history.
The store isn't a huge profit generator for Apple (it's profitable, but it's barely a scratch compared to the profitability of the iPods and iPhones that the store really exists for), but it works.
I know for certain I'm not the only person who decided it was well worth it - they are selling songs by the barrel.
They might play it. Or they may just let it collect dust.
What? Is eBay bankrupt?
I don't get it. I'm a parent. My kid is heading off to college. Like most his age, he's not focused on his future but more on goofing off, slacking, and having fun.
I can go with a Mac and an iPod for him. At least the iPod lets him listen to music while he studies, drowning out the noise of his roommates... (Plus, you know, fewer viruses and other problems.)
But a Win7 Laptop and an Xbox?
I'm paying out a fortune for a degree that's largely overpriced in a bubble market for him. Why the HELL would I want him to have an Xbox at college?
On the other hand, I could see a lot of late twenty-somethings or early thirty-somethings in a pre-kids situation picking up laptops who would benefit from xboxen. They tend to have a lot of disposable income, having not yet realized the need to save and invest. That could benefit microsoft from secondary sales of software and peripherals...
But do college kids really need more video games? What were they thinking???
LOL, what a shady way to one up Sony and Apple!
Have any moderators been to college in the last 5 years?
I was in a minority as a pc user. All the cool students own macs as I would guess the margin is over 75% mac users. Those with pcs such as myself bought them before school and were older/middle aged students with real jobs. The 18-24 crowd is very Mac oriented.
Microsoft is in trouble as these generation Y users will eventually go into the workplace and want Macs at work and home. Corporations already are being more lenient in letting some of them use Macs instead of PCs.
http://saveie6.com/
"No teen/twenties or anyone else will pick OSX instead of Windows if he/she plays games. Which is exactly the target audience with bundling PC and Xbox360." I disagree
With all these win-video chipsets, non video cards(aka integratred graphics), I would say the PC gaming experience sucks now. Even World of Warcraft with its pre 2003 graphics engine needs to have all of its settings on min to run at 25 fps on a modern laptop. :-0! That is not execusable.
As a result generation Y prefers consoles now thanks to these greedy OEM's trying to save $50 on each unit. I own an Asus 6 way CPU system with a Radeon 5750 with 8 gigs of ram, but the amount of pcs games is low for it vs a console. I play World of Warcraft occasionally and use the rest of the power to run Linux via a VM inside Windows to develop internet apps for kicks.
I prefer the PC personally as I like the keyboard and mouse and raw power of a dedicated GPU mixed with the internet, but all the game makers want to focus on is the console. Can you blame them? 75% of the GPU market 2 years ago was the horrible intel G950 and to make a game that sucks on these makes angry parents and users.
These kids are not used to playing games outside of World of Warcraft on a mac/pc. Not to mention the majority of users on college are notebook users with crappy dedicated integrated graphics. Those are the ones you can take notes on in class. The higher end Macbook Pro has dedicated graphics for World of Warcraft and Half Life anyway.
For $699 you can't get a Windows notebook to play decent games anyway besides wow with blury and low distance settings all choppy.
http://saveie6.com/
It's a pretty big niche. In fact, far more teens/twenties play games than not. Besides, there is a real trend where they treat apple like a college fling.
Enjoy BSOD with win7 and RROD with xbox 360.
What a pointless rant, you can buy laptops with good video cards in them. However, you have to be an idiot to think you're going to buy a laptop that doubles as a gaming rig.
If you dont or cant run games on your win netbook then why choose a pc? The point is null then in needing Windows
The nice thing about having a PC is you can also emulate a lot of other systems, including the Gamecube and Wii
First, how would one lawfully get a GameCube or Wii game onto a PC to play it? A PC's DVD-ROM drive can't read GameCube game discs or Wii game discs. Second, as I understand it, there are still several Wii games in this genre whose graphics on Dolphin are incorrect to the point of unplayability, such as WarioWare Smooth Moves. Or were you recommending choosing games from Dolphin's compatibility list? That's little different from advocating switching to Linux and then choosing your games from Wine's compatibility list.
Hey, buy a Windows laptop, get a free Xbox360, put laptop on eBay, get a Macbook for trouble-free computing...
All the clueless PC users in one local network in a dorm, what a great ground if another 0-day exploit Windows worm decides to break havoc...
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!