if that were true explain why commercials, billboards and other marketting are a billion dollar industry? companies pay for it, because it works. maybe not on you and i, but to the general population marketting works wonders.
as for salespeople, most people who barely know how to turn a computer on in the first place, who dont know the difference between the three console choices when buying their kids xmas presents, people who dont know the difference b/w ED, SD and HD, and the people that dont spend hours researching purchases on the internet months ahead of time rely on salespeople to tell them whats what.
the average consumer doesnt even realize that hd-dvd and blu-ray exist yet, much less do they know what they are and do. this fall and for the next couple years, millions will be paid to advertisers in order to convince the public that they NEED blu-ray or hd-dvd.
i definitely want to move to whatever city/ town you live in, if salespeople dont try to convince you to buy extra accessories and peripherals to go along with your purchases when you go shopping. obviously i am smart enough to say no[and i assume you are too], but the reason they push the choices on you, is because it works on your average consumer... you, me, and anyone savvy enough to read slashdot does not count as your average consumer.
if i remember correctly, the linux kit did not allow you to play commercial games. since each ps2 was sold at a loss, each linux kit represented a loss that sony was guaranteed to never recoup through software sales. i think it was nice of them to offer it at all.
if they offered the kit in brick and mortar stores, you could be sure that someone would probably pick one up by accident for their kid. can you imagine the frustration xmas morning when they discover it wont play any games?
ps1 games used cd media, and most games only took up a portion of that. longer rpgs and the like with lots of CG will be the worst to fit on a memory stick.
most games should comfortably fit onto a gigabyte memory stick though. sony recently announced that they are releasing a new 4 gig memory stick as well too. so that should help out. if you think ab it, pirates have released isos for the bulk of the psp library, only a select few are larger than one gig, and the UMD stores more than a gig per disc.
chances are we will find ps1 games slightly smaller and shorter than we thought they were at the time.
better yet, the single SKU ps3 console will ship without a harddrive. BUT you need a harddrive in order to play/ save games.
the tech savvy will go out and buy their own 250gig drives, all is well with the world.
john q public will be duped into thinking that he can only buy sony's 60 gig, since it sits on the display next to the ps3. without multiple SKUs sony can convince the public that their console is cheaper than it is. the harddrive will become the next generations' version of the memory card.
the general american public will believe almost anything a marketting team and a salesperson wanting commission tells them. the general public will start buying hdtvs in a frenzy over the next couple years before the analog dropoff. salespeople and marketting folks will use blu-ray and hddvd to add icing to the cake. "hey, well now that you have a new hdtv, you cant just watch dvds anymore... you NEED a new movie player...". plus the fact that they are backwards compatible with dvds is going to push alot more players than you might think.
the whole "rebuy my entire collection of movies" FUD is out the door. joe q. public will say "i can play the new movies and keep my old ones and watch them upscaled too?!?!?". never underestimate the stupidity of the american consumer with a credit card when it comes to technology. as long as the price is right, they will buy it b/c they dont know any better; they blindly believe salespeople, commericials, and the bleeding-edge, early adopter guy down the street that already has one.
when any game manufacturer talks of a simultaneous launch, that means within the same launch window.
so basically they can release the console in japan on the 1st, america on the 15th and europe on the 30th and still call it simultaneous.
its feasible, but will it happen? thats anyones guess... if they learned anything from launching the psp late against the ds in america, im sure they will at least attempt what they claim.
yes, but the japanese government announced yesterday that hi-def movie players [the ps3 included] will be forced to support analog output until the end of the decade. so HDTV owners arent going to be the only ones able to utilize a blu ray or hd dvd drive. since the new blu ray spec places the us and japan in the same region code, the us will most likely be immune to the drm and hdcp-only fears and able to use their blu ray player on any form of tv [provided they have the correct cables] for a few years as well.
without the rush delivery of the x360, we probably wouldnt see the ps3 until later. thast totally true, however prices for these next gen systems would be alot lower if we simply waited. since cell processors were first put into production in 2005, by 2008 the cost of putting a cell in the ps3 would be alot lower. with bluray movies and players being releaseing 2006, the cost of adding one to the ps3 would be alot lower too.
i dont see microsoft going anywhere this generation. however, at this point it will be obscenely difficult to convince the japanese to accept the x360, since the ps3 is directly around the corner. unless MS can pull off a major coup [and they prob wont] and steal away most of the ps3 3rd party developers, i dont see a full reversal of the current console standings once the ps3 is released.
i like the [original] xbox for some reason myself. it serves a genuine purpose in my opinion and in terms of my gaming experience. but honestly, i dont see it ever being #1. they just dont have the all encompassing philosophy to be #1.
for all the mud that we can sling at the playstation and the gamecube, there have been a few unique titles. theyve had some genuinely interesting franchises during their lifecycle. the xbox's only claim to fame is xbox live. to a pc gamer, its definitely not unique. so far nothing about the xbox has been "thinking out of the box". it seems like microsoft is bringing the pc to the console world. its a dayum mac mini made for games [read: specifically made for first person shooters].
no, im just pointing out that you cant complain about something you dont have yet; you cant complain about something that may arrive in a completely different form from what was expected.
for better or worse... we dont know yet. until we know which, how can everyone blindly assume its worse? from track record? sonys trackrecord has been hit and miss i admit. who knows? they could have a strikeout or a homerun, we wont know until release day for sure.
how about you actually wait and see the ps3 in action.
wait... let me see. we dont have the absolute final specifications for the ps3, blu ray, or the cell either. they could very well have thrown in another 3 cell chips into the final console. fact is, we dont know yet. thats partially the point of TFA, why dont you calm down and wait to see how "poorly" the ps3 will be before you condemn it.
launching after the x360, im sure r&d at sony has sat down and ripped open and performed some testing against 360 at some point to ensure that the ps3 will have some form of advantage over it. whether its implemented or not, i cant say... but it would be bad business on sonys part to not have sized up their competition.
jobs actually considered the cell at one point. unfortunately it was a bit too early in the cell lifecycle for apple to place the future of their entire company behind, but it says alot when a company like apple is willing to weigh your chip next to juggernauts in the industry like intel or AMD.
as for formats, so what? for every failure, sony has a even larger success. cd, dvd, beta [yes, it was a success... just not in consumers homes], floppy disks...etc. blu-ray so far seems to be the better alternative. hd dvd and blu-ray have an equal amount of drm, so if i have to suffer equally, at least give me the benefit of more storage space. and a much wider selection of films.
apparently sony helped design the first powerbook. apple and sony have worked together before. ex-vaio designers worked with apple for the redesign of the x86 powerbook. its not as strange as you may think. apple obviously admires sonys style to a certain extent.
this is the thing about sony that may be cause for their popularity. unlike all rival companies, they dont have an icon. they tried going with crash bandicoot for a while, but he never caught on. the icon for sony is whatever you are interested in.
sony has so many franchises that no matter what genre you are interested in, you will find that sony has the bases covered.
nintendo has mario, so therefore people associate the "kiddy" image of mario games with nintendo.
microsoft has the master chief, so people associate the xbox with a pretty mature demographic that relates to a relatively violent aggressive culture and FPS.
sony doesnt have a specific mascot or icon, so consumers associate whatever title they love with the playstation line. fighting fans may think tekken when they think playstation. shooter fans may think socom or killzone or some such when they think playstation. rpg fans may think final fantasy. same carries for metal gear solid, devil may cry, or grand theft auto. its doesnt matter if the title eventually is released on another console, people will STILL associate titles like grand theft auto and metal gear with the playstation. period. it doesnt matter if a game can be outdone graphically or with more options, there is something that goes unsaid about sony titles. most people prefer the original compared to the knockoffs, even if the knockoff is superior to the original.
and for all the sony hate; outside of halo, no other console has really launched many truly successful/new/ first party franchises this generation. here we are, at the end of the ps2 lifecycle and we are getting more first party franchises than ever. as much as you can try to hate them, most of them arent half that bad.
i revised this from a comment i left over at joystiq
-
what if sony allowed you to download isos on your own, via bittorrent or whatever you choose, from where ever you choose to find the isos, and then charge you a slight fee to give you the ability to run it on the ps3? THATS how they could limit piracy. people already have shown that they are willing to download a 1-8~9 gig game if they can get it free or cheaper than normal. thats what the people want. not to trek to thirty different stores because your favorite "retro" title is sold out or in limited print. who wouldnt love to be able to download a copy of the game they want at midnight instead of waiting for the store to open in the morning? or play a game you heard someone reccommend in passing? all you need is bandwidth.
who would risk modding their ps3 and paying for an expensive [at least early on...] modchip, when you could legally use an otherwise illegal iso copy of an older game on the system for a fraction of the cost of buying it used? there will always be someone, but the general public wouldnt have a direct necessity.
yes, i am aware that all of this would hurt the used game market, but devs and manufacturers dont get any profit from the aftermarket anyways, and it could potentially put money back into the developers pockets, which was something that was a hot topic a few months ago.
isos are always going to be sitting on someones harddrive, active on bittorrent or reside on someones fileserver. sony doesnt have to host the files, nor would they have to provide the files necessarily. forums would pop up left and right, to provide a way to share files. the community would basically build itself. it would save sony the bandwidth and time to sit and rip its entire catalog. plus everyone knows its only a matter of time before someone releases an iso loader for any console that has a harddrive or input ports anyways, why not beat the hackers to the punch? they could make it require online verification to use the isoloader ala DNAS or something. it may sound overly simplistic, but thats the direction companies need to head in. apple has proven that sometimes you have to stop fighting with the way that consumers want to obtain their goods; you work with them and find a way to make a profit off it.
thats the future of games, and THATS the future of distribution.
Re:No Wonder The 360 Is Selling So Poorly
on
Black Review
·
· Score: 1
wow, people are so rampant to tear down another system that they make up stuff. there is no black for the x360, nor will there be one. criterion themselves said they will not release a 360 version unless microsoft starts making their titles backwards compatible. so obviously, you dont know WTF youre talking about.
if you actually knew a thing or two, nearly EVERY prominent review site says that graphically the two versions [xbox and ps2] are about equal. [reference reviews at ign or gamespot] the ps2 version isnt "plagued with jaggies all over the place" as people here claim. i admit that the ps2 has a slight bit of random slowdown, but its rare wnough that it definitely is not something worthy of ruining the game. the game is good, period. not the best ever, but a pretty good game overall. stop listening to the hype and just enjoy the game.
the article says to expect the ps3 by the holiday season. it quickly follows with a stringer quote. stringer didnt say anything about the release date.
truth doesnt get mod points. esp when no one else reads the article.
exactly. prototyping costs will be recouped from royalties and licensing fees. with the number of dev stations theyve sent out and the number of games already under development, i would say that they are on their way [or at least started] getting back in the black from r&d.
hd-dvd may have a head start, but blu-ray has the studio support. what good does it do to have a sub $500 hddvd player when the movies you want to watch are being released by a studio that only supports blu-ray? last time i checked, sony had the backing of all the major studios with a handful supporting both formats.
because sony has a deep vested interest in blu-ray; i can almost see them completely subsidizing the blu-ray player. they own the patent on blu-ray tech, so every game/ movie released will result in royalties paid to the blu-ray consortium and sony. they/will/ make the money back over the course of the ps3s lifetime, no matter what the release price will be.
true, but sony also has a higher brand loyalty, and more importantly the japanese market. sony needs to actively compete with nintendo this fall. x360 sales will start to taper off worldwide once they are not longer the only next gen system on the market.
the analyst quoted an expected 6 million console sales by june, but the next sentence says that microsoft themselves only predict selling between 4.5 and 5 million by june. so apparently this analyst has much better knowledge of MS innerworkings than MS themselves. [!]
given that MS has at their disposal numbers re: region distribution and hardware yields, i am more apt to go by the MS numbers. even those number have to be taken with a grain of salt; they will obviously be inflated in order to appease stockholders and feed us, their rabid army of fans.
granted, they will sell a boatload of x360s this upcoming holiday, esp once the next wave of games are released, but you also have to take into account that by xmas they will have two other consoles to compete with. any analyst that expects the x360 to sell twice the numbers they have done thusfar this year is being very optimistic. once nintendo and sony start hyping their products, many buyers that have had to sit and wait on new shipments of the x360 will pocket the money they reserved, and actually comparison shop next gen systems.
to be fair, geometry wars has thusfar been their unexpected "killer app". a game that could be done on the xbox1 or the ps2. hell, sans the resolution it could have been done on the psp.
other than that, yeah... MS fumbled, and fumbled badly at that. their "killer apps" have come and gone with slight pause. perfect dark zero? DOA4? not bad games at all im sure, but definitely not as great as hyped. then again, halo aside... the original xbox didnt have dozens of killer apps either. ninja gaiden? splinter cell before it jumped ship?
dont get me started on the backwards compatibility... their BC is so bad, they should have never even tried. they are experiencing a developer backlash from criterion over backwards compatibility, and im sure there are other studios that can relate to their sentiments. re-releasing a dumbed down halo 2.5 with HiRes textures, runs at 720p natively and contains all the new maps at a discount price [~10-19]. that would have served as a pretty decent killer app, but then again im not on the marketing board at MS. hell they could have bundled it with the console itself, and it would have flew off the shelves.
i have a karma post bonus on account of my previous postings. so i start at 2 points automatically.
i already posted in this article, so i couldnt mod your joke up. i posted the "lol" under yours so that the thread would show up for users that normally read and scan articles based on karma would see yours, and maybe mod it up.
Slashdot Mirror
if that were true explain why commercials, billboards and other marketting are a billion dollar industry? companies pay for it, because it works. maybe not on you and i, but to the general population marketting works wonders.
as for salespeople, most people who barely know how to turn a computer on in the first place, who dont know the difference between the three console choices when buying their kids xmas presents, people who dont know the difference b/w ED, SD and HD, and the people that dont spend hours researching purchases on the internet months ahead of time rely on salespeople to tell them whats what.
the average consumer doesnt even realize that hd-dvd and blu-ray exist yet, much less do they know what they are and do. this fall and for the next couple years, millions will be paid to advertisers in order to convince the public that they NEED blu-ray or hd-dvd.
i definitely want to move to whatever city/ town you live in, if salespeople dont try to convince you to buy extra accessories and peripherals to go along with your purchases when you go shopping. obviously i am smart enough to say no[and i assume you are too], but the reason they push the choices on you, is because it works on your average consumer... you, me, and anyone savvy enough to read slashdot does not count as your average consumer.
if i remember correctly, the linux kit did not allow you to play commercial games. since each ps2 was sold at a loss, each linux kit represented a loss that sony was guaranteed to never recoup through software sales. i think it was nice of them to offer it at all.
if they offered the kit in brick and mortar stores, you could be sure that someone would probably pick one up by accident for their kid. can you imagine the frustration xmas morning when they discover it wont play any games?
ps1 games used cd media, and most games only took up a portion of that. longer rpgs and the like with lots of CG will be the worst to fit on a memory stick.
most games should comfortably fit onto a gigabyte memory stick though. sony recently announced that they are releasing a new 4 gig memory stick as well too. so that should help out. if you think ab it, pirates have released isos for the bulk of the psp library, only a select few are larger than one gig, and the UMD stores more than a gig per disc.
chances are we will find ps1 games slightly smaller and shorter than we thought they were at the time.
prediction:
better yet, the single SKU ps3 console will ship without a harddrive. BUT you need a harddrive in order to play/ save games.
the tech savvy will go out and buy their own 250gig drives, all is well with the world.
john q public will be duped into thinking that he can only buy sony's 60 gig, since it sits on the display next to the ps3. without multiple SKUs sony can convince the public that their console is cheaper than it is. the harddrive will become the next generations' version of the memory card.
the general american public will believe almost anything a marketting team and a salesperson wanting commission tells them. the general public will start buying hdtvs in a frenzy over the next couple years before the analog dropoff. salespeople and marketting folks will use blu-ray and hddvd to add icing to the cake. "hey, well now that you have a new hdtv, you cant just watch dvds anymore... you NEED a new movie player...". plus the fact that they are backwards compatible with dvds is going to push alot more players than you might think.
the whole "rebuy my entire collection of movies" FUD is out the door. joe q. public will say "i can play the new movies and keep my old ones and watch them upscaled too?!?!?". never underestimate the stupidity of the american consumer with a credit card when it comes to technology. as long as the price is right, they will buy it b/c they dont know any better; they blindly believe salespeople, commericials, and the bleeding-edge, early adopter guy down the street that already has one.
when any game manufacturer talks of a simultaneous launch, that means within the same launch window.
so basically they can release the console in japan on the 1st, america on the 15th and europe on the 30th and still call it simultaneous.
its feasible, but will it happen? thats anyones guess... if they learned anything from launching the psp late against the ds in america, im sure they will at least attempt what they claim.
yes, but the japanese government announced yesterday that hi-def movie players [the ps3 included] will be forced to support analog output until the end of the decade. so HDTV owners arent going to be the only ones able to utilize a blu ray or hd dvd drive. since the new blu ray spec places the us and japan in the same region code, the us will most likely be immune to the drm and hdcp-only fears and able to use their blu ray player on any form of tv [provided they have the correct cables] for a few years as well.
http://gear.ign.com/articles/695/695919p1.html
your statement is only partially true.
without the rush delivery of the x360, we probably wouldnt see the ps3 until later. thast totally true, however prices for these next gen systems would be alot lower if we simply waited. since cell processors were first put into production in 2005, by 2008 the cost of putting a cell in the ps3 would be alot lower. with bluray movies and players being releaseing 2006, the cost of adding one to the ps3 would be alot lower too.
wow... youre kidding me...
i dont see microsoft going anywhere this generation. however, at this point it will be obscenely difficult to convince the japanese to accept the x360, since the ps3 is directly around the corner. unless MS can pull off a major coup [and they prob wont] and steal away most of the ps3 3rd party developers, i dont see a full reversal of the current console standings once the ps3 is released.
i like the [original] xbox for some reason myself. it serves a genuine purpose in my opinion and in terms of my gaming experience. but honestly, i dont see it ever being #1. they just dont have the all encompassing philosophy to be #1.
for all the mud that we can sling at the playstation and the gamecube, there have been a few unique titles. theyve had some genuinely interesting franchises during their lifecycle. the xbox's only claim to fame is xbox live. to a pc gamer, its definitely not unique. so far nothing about the xbox has been "thinking out of the box". it seems like microsoft is bringing the pc to the console world. its a dayum mac mini made for games [read: specifically made for first person shooters].
no, im just pointing out that you cant complain about something you dont have yet; you cant complain about something that may arrive in a completely different form from what was expected.
for better or worse... we dont know yet. until we know which, how can everyone blindly assume its worse? from track record? sonys trackrecord has been hit and miss i admit. who knows? they could have a strikeout or a homerun, we wont know until release day for sure.
how about you actually wait and see the ps3 in action.
wait... let me see. we dont have the absolute final specifications for the ps3, blu ray, or the cell either. they could very well have thrown in another 3 cell chips into the final console. fact is, we dont know yet. thats partially the point of TFA, why dont you calm down and wait to see how "poorly" the ps3 will be before you condemn it.
launching after the x360, im sure r&d at sony has sat down and ripped open and performed some testing against 360 at some point to ensure that the ps3 will have some form of advantage over it. whether its implemented or not, i cant say... but it would be bad business on sonys part to not have sized up their competition.
jobs actually considered the cell at one point. unfortunately it was a bit too early in the cell lifecycle for apple to place the future of their entire company behind, but it says alot when a company like apple is willing to weigh your chip next to juggernauts in the industry like intel or AMD.
as for formats, so what? for every failure, sony has a even larger success. cd, dvd, beta [yes, it was a success... just not in consumers homes], floppy disks...etc. blu-ray so far seems to be the better alternative. hd dvd and blu-ray have an equal amount of drm, so if i have to suffer equally, at least give me the benefit of more storage space. and a much wider selection of films.
apparently sony helped design the first powerbook. apple and sony have worked together before. ex-vaio designers worked with apple for the redesign of the x86 powerbook. its not as strange as you may think. apple obviously admires sonys style to a certain extent.
this is the thing about sony that may be cause for their popularity. unlike all rival companies, they dont have an icon. they tried going with crash bandicoot for a while, but he never caught on. the icon for sony is whatever you are interested in.
/new/ first party franchises this generation. here we are, at the end of the ps2 lifecycle and we are getting more first party franchises than ever. as much as you can try to hate them, most of them arent half that bad.
sony has so many franchises that no matter what genre you are interested in, you will find that sony has the bases covered.
nintendo has mario, so therefore people associate the "kiddy" image of mario games with nintendo.
microsoft has the master chief, so people associate the xbox with a pretty mature demographic that relates to a relatively violent aggressive culture and FPS.
sony doesnt have a specific mascot or icon, so consumers associate whatever title they love with the playstation line. fighting fans may think tekken when they think playstation. shooter fans may think socom or killzone or some such when they think playstation. rpg fans may think final fantasy. same carries for metal gear solid, devil may cry, or grand theft auto. its doesnt matter if the title eventually is released on another console, people will STILL associate titles like grand theft auto and metal gear with the playstation. period. it doesnt matter if a game can be outdone graphically or with more options, there is something that goes unsaid about sony titles. most people prefer the original compared to the knockoffs, even if the knockoff is superior to the original.
and for all the sony hate; outside of halo, no other console has really launched many truly successful
i revised this from a comment i left over at joystiq
-
what if sony allowed you to download isos on your own, via bittorrent or whatever you choose, from where ever you choose to find the isos, and then charge you a slight fee to give you the ability to run it on the ps3? THATS how they could limit piracy. people already have shown that they are willing to download a 1-8~9 gig game if they can get it free or cheaper than normal. thats what the people want. not to trek to thirty different stores because your favorite "retro" title is sold out or in limited print. who wouldnt love to be able to download a copy of the game they want at midnight instead of waiting for the store to open in the morning? or play a game you heard someone reccommend in passing? all you need is bandwidth.
who would risk modding their ps3 and paying for an expensive [at least early on...] modchip, when you could legally use an otherwise illegal iso copy of an older game on the system for a fraction of the cost of buying it used? there will always be someone, but the general public wouldnt have a direct necessity.
yes, i am aware that all of this would hurt the used game market, but devs and manufacturers dont get any profit from the aftermarket anyways, and it could potentially put money back into the developers pockets, which was something that was a hot topic a few months ago.
isos are always going to be sitting on someones harddrive, active on bittorrent or reside on someones fileserver. sony doesnt have to host the files, nor would they have to provide the files necessarily. forums would pop up left and right, to provide a way to share files. the community would basically build itself. it would save sony the bandwidth and time to sit and rip its entire catalog. plus everyone knows its only a matter of time before someone releases an iso loader for any console that has a harddrive or input ports anyways, why not beat the hackers to the punch? they could make it require online verification to use the isoloader ala DNAS or something. it may sound overly simplistic, but thats the direction companies need to head in. apple has proven that sometimes you have to stop fighting with the way that consumers want to obtain their goods; you work with them and find a way to make a profit off it.
thats the future of games, and THATS the future of distribution.
wow, people are so rampant to tear down another system that they make up stuff. there is no black for the x360, nor will there be one. criterion themselves said they will not release a 360 version unless microsoft starts making their titles backwards compatible. so obviously, you dont know WTF youre talking about.
if you actually knew a thing or two, nearly EVERY prominent review site says that graphically the two versions [xbox and ps2] are about equal. [reference reviews at ign or gamespot] the ps2 version isnt "plagued with jaggies all over the place" as people here claim. i admit that the ps2 has a slight bit of random slowdown, but its rare wnough that it definitely is not something worthy of ruining the game. the game is good, period. not the best ever, but a pretty good game overall. stop listening to the hype and just enjoy the game.
i thought the same thing. i mean for all the money that nintendo makes, youd think he could at least get a year of WiFi service free... oh wait!
when has a playstation product ever had a lack of support from 3rd party software?
the article says to expect the ps3 by the holiday season. it quickly follows with a stringer quote. stringer didnt say anything about the release date.
truth doesnt get mod points. esp when no one else reads the article.
exactly. prototyping costs will be recouped from royalties and licensing fees. with the number of dev stations theyve sent out and the number of games already under development, i would say that they are on their way [or at least started] getting back in the black from r&d.
/will/ make the money back over the course of the ps3s lifetime, no matter what the release price will be.
hd-dvd may have a head start, but blu-ray has the studio support. what good does it do to have a sub $500 hddvd player when the movies you want to watch are being released by a studio that only supports blu-ray? last time i checked, sony had the backing of all the major studios with a handful supporting both formats.
because sony has a deep vested interest in blu-ray; i can almost see them completely subsidizing the blu-ray player. they own the patent on blu-ray tech, so every game/ movie released will result in royalties paid to the blu-ray consortium and sony. they
true, but sony also has a higher brand loyalty, and more importantly the japanese market. sony needs to actively compete with nintendo this fall. x360 sales will start to taper off worldwide once they are not longer the only next gen system on the market.
thats all in how you read the article.
the analyst quoted an expected 6 million console sales by june, but the next sentence says that microsoft themselves only predict selling between 4.5 and 5 million by june. so apparently this analyst has much better knowledge of MS innerworkings than MS themselves. [!]
given that MS has at their disposal numbers re: region distribution and hardware yields, i am more apt to go by the MS numbers. even those number have to be taken with a grain of salt; they will obviously be inflated in order to appease stockholders and feed us, their rabid army of fans.
granted, they will sell a boatload of x360s this upcoming holiday, esp once the next wave of games are released, but you also have to take into account that by xmas they will have two other consoles to compete with. any analyst that expects the x360 to sell twice the numbers they have done thusfar this year is being very optimistic. once nintendo and sony start hyping their products, many buyers that have had to sit and wait on new shipments of the x360 will pocket the money they reserved, and actually comparison shop next gen systems.
to be fair, geometry wars has thusfar been their unexpected "killer app". a game that could be done on the xbox1 or the ps2. hell, sans the resolution it could have been done on the psp.
other than that, yeah... MS fumbled, and fumbled badly at that. their "killer apps" have come and gone with slight pause. perfect dark zero? DOA4? not bad games at all im sure, but definitely not as great as hyped. then again, halo aside... the original xbox didnt have dozens of killer apps either. ninja gaiden? splinter cell before it jumped ship?
dont get me started on the backwards compatibility... their BC is so bad, they should have never even tried. they are experiencing a developer backlash from criterion over backwards compatibility, and im sure there are other studios that can relate to their sentiments. re-releasing a dumbed down halo 2.5 with HiRes textures, runs at 720p natively and contains all the new maps at a discount price [~10-19]. that would have served as a pretty decent killer app, but then again im not on the marketing board at MS. hell they could have bundled it with the console itself, and it would have flew off the shelves.
i have a karma post bonus on account of my previous postings. so i start at 2 points automatically.
i already posted in this article, so i couldnt mod your joke up. i posted the "lol" under yours so that the thread would show up for users that normally read and scan articles based on karma would see yours, and maybe mod it up.
LOL!