I think Sony knew they still had to come out swinging. A big reason why the PS1 succeeded was because it had a two year advantage (1994) on the N64 (1996), and Nintendo also messed up with the cartridges.
They couldn't take a chance that that would happen twice
.and it didn't, but then Nintendo for some reason decided on mini disc for the GC, so yeah
Okay, so let's assume their megalomania wasn't triggered until the PS2. What hostile policies were born of that? There was no property removal system. Free multiplayer. No Netflix racket. Was it the massive hardware subsidies? Was it the fact that it cost $100 more than a similarly equipped XB360? Was it the inscrutable architecture? I'm seeing some boneheaded decisions here, but could you point me towards the evil?
Seriously??
PS2 reached 99$ in 2009, 9 years after it launched.
By that time, the PS3 was already deemed a failure by Sony who had lost a ton of money on it just to try and keep up with 360 and Wii, so it is not exactly like they had a monopoly on the place
Sorry, are you suggesting they dropped the price because of competition from the 360 and Wii, which had launched 3-4 years earlier? What happened in 2009 that suddenly turned those two in to a threat to the PS2? Isn't the more simple explanation that Sony 2009 is when Sony were able to reduce costs enough to hit that price point? Maybe the timing of the PS2 drop had more to do PS3 than the XB360; perhaps their losses on the PS3 were finally down to a point where they felt like they didn't need the extra $30/PS2 anymore. Like I said, you sell the hardware as close to cost as is reasonable, but if you're trying to get another product on its feet, "reasonable" may not be particularly close at all.
If you want to make the argument that strong competition is required to trigger price drops, you need to show a more direct link than, "Well, other consoles were out there too." Like I said, it's in Sony's interest to sell the hardware as cheaply as possible, because games are where they make their money. The less money the consumer spends on hardware, the more money they have to spend on games. The less money the consumer the consumer spends on hardware, the more attractive the hardware becomes. The more attractive the hardware is, the more likely that the consumer buys it, and games to go with it. The sooner the consumer buys the hardware, the more games they will buy in the long run.
Let's say MS are buying their way to victory, and force Sony to take a $50 loss on the hardware to maintain sales. That would be pretty awesome, right? Cheap hardware is good, after all. Actually, that's sorta terrible, for both Sony
and their customers. If they sell 15M units at a $50 loss, that's $750M down the drain. That's money they don't have to spend on Naughty Dog's space game, improving the network, etc. That affects not only the 15M who bought in at the reduced price, but also the 20M users who already had one, and the 30M+ users yet to come. Like I said, cheap hardware is good as a consumer, but you also don't want to let your short term greed damage your long term interests. It's nice to save money, but as a platform user, you also have a vested interest in the health and sustainability of the platform holder's business. Similarly, if your platform holder is forced to buy market share, that should be seen as worrisome.
Basically, I'm saying that it should be a symbiotic relationship; you need them just as much as they need you. All you really care about is playing games, and all they really care about is making games. The hardware is just the "necessary evil" which allows all of this to take place. It's basically a barrier to entry, so it's in everyone's best interest for that barrier to be as low as possible. At the same time, the health of "the other guy" should be important to you as well. If the customer is taking a loss on the hardware, that's just money they now don't have available to spend on games, so what have you really gained? Effectively nothing, and you may have lost a potential customer in the process. If the platform holder is taking a loss on the hardware, that's just money they now don't have available to spend on games, so what have you really gained? Effectively nothing, and you may have lost a potential game in the process.
As I pointed out, there are complications which prevent price being tied
directly to cost, but do you see where I'm coming from here? As a general rule, it's in everyone's best interest for the hardware to be sold at the lowest reasonable price. In the long run, no one really benefits from having it overpriced or underpriced, regardless of "competition."
But about the above, firstly, the policy doesn't exactly exist anymore
Link? Parity has been required for all development on XBox for years. These policies are under heavy NDA, of course, but there's no indication whatsoever that they've been abandoned, and some indications that they haven't.
Also, about them not letting developers take advantage of platforms strengths, that isn't exactly true
.
It is precisely true. First, the anonymous publisher told Eurogamer so in the linked article, and developers have specifically said that features which are not possible on XBox require Microsoft's approval before they can be included on other platforms. If you don't play ball, then you may not be permitted to publish on XBox.
It had nothing to do with a 'platforms strengths'
.for example, they didn't stop Activision from making the Wii version of Cod with motion controls simply because X360 version didn't have motion controls.
On platform strengths, see above. On exceptions, yes, they are granted on a case by case basis, just as they are for launch parity. But in the end, Microsoft's word is final; if you don't agree to hold back your product on rival platforms, you may not be allowed to publish on theirs. The developer who specifically said he needed MS approval for PS features also said he was confident he could get such approval, but the feature was never spoken of again. Basically, you implement the feature on PlayStation, demo it for your MS rep, and hope he says, "Yeah, that's dumb. Do whatever you want." The problem is, sometimes he says, "This is amazing. You must never speak of it to anyone." If he does, you either eliminate the "strength," or you say goodbye to the XBox user base. Totally your call either way, of course. No pressure; MS don't need your petty royalties anyway, so whatever you decide is fine with them.
Anyways, if one firm did get a monopoly on the gaming space, they could exercise anti competitive policies on any other companies that try to enter into the gaming space to compete. (on top of anti-consumer moves too)
And No one is immune from doing these kind of things. Sony has done a better job than MS, but they still do it too sometimes....remember recently when they decided that EA access wouldn't be a good value to their consumers and so they banned it from PS4?
It's really easy to claim Sony Too but it's far more difficult to actually support it. Sony have dominated this industry since the day they joined it apart from last gen and they haven't displayed any of these behaviors at all. Microsoft have been doing this stuff for years, despite not dominating the market. Their biggest success in the console space yet having the slowest-selling console in Gen7 gave them enough confidence to take away our used and rental games, and when we complained, they literally responded with "Have you seen Titanfall? Nuff said. Conversation over."
Sorry, but the idea that Sony are just as bad as MS or are just one success away from turning in to MS is pure, unadulterated bullshit. Haters gonna hate, Microsoft gonna Microsoft, and Sony gonna Sony.
We all agree that Sony sold through 18.5m
..
I agree that Sony estimated they've sold 18.5M. I agree that sounds like a reasonable estimate. I agree that Sony's estimate has some margin of error, and is therefore unlikely to be precisely 18.5M, even if that's their honest-to-goodness best guess.
But according to you, MS can't have sold 3m
the number must be wrong right?
I agree that MS estimated they'd sold 3M. I said that the estimate struck me as being a tad optimistic, but since I'm not privy to their methodology, nor do I have access to all of the necessary NPD data, it's hard for me to fact check it, so there's no point in bickering about it. Again, I agree that was their estimate, but since I don't know their methodology, I don't know what their margin of error even was. I don't know Sony's methodology either, so I can't say what their margin of error is either. That said, I suspect both companies have a more significant margin of error than the near-zero you seem to assume.
Even now you're saying that we can't trust NPD
..
So who do we trust in regards to sell through. Well if you can't trust NPD then you can't trust anyone at all. There is no point in you saying sell through must be less than 10m because we don't have any reference at all. You can't agree with me and say 8.7m is the minimum because according to you NPD is now wrong and cannot be trusted.
That's not what I said at all. What I said was, NPD's reports do have a margin of error, and that being the case, the margin should at least be
acknowledged when performing significant extrapolation to predict future performance. I have no idea what their margin of error actually is, and while I expect it to be "quite low," I do
not expect it to be "effectively zero."
Yes I call you a fanboy because only a fanboy would say crap like this.
Perhaps, but you're the only one actually saying these things. I've said nothing of the sort.
Just forget all the predictions and stuff and answer these two questions.
Do you agree that MS sold through 3m as of CY2013?
Do you agree that Sony sold through 18.5m as of CY2014?
I agree those were the estimates put forth, yes. I also agree that both estimates are likely close enough to the truth that neither would be considered "very misleading" and put them on the hook for a possible false advertising suit. I also agree that both estimates were made in good faith.
I understand what margin error is, and that is always the case with sell through estimates.
Dude, that's all I've wanted from the very beginning; acknowledgement that estimates have errors, and projections made from those estimates only serve to magnify those errors. I pointed out if there was a relatively small error in the initial estimate of 3M, it could have rather large effects on the prediction you came up with, and you flipped the fuck out. You have no trouble pointing out the perils of estimation when I try to bring up stock levels, but you simultaneously act as though the estimates
you choose to examine and the estimates you make from them are somehow sacrosanct and unerring. You don't see the double standard you're applying here? Your estimates cannot be questioned, and other estimates are beneath consideration.
But we can't categorically say that MS is lying but Sony's number is right like you've been saying. This is exactly why I call you a fanboy. Because you use Sony's numbers to come to a conclusion
. but MS must be wrong no matter what.
I use
all of the numbers to reach my conclusions. I'll use Nintendo numbers too if they seem relevant. I try to build as comprehensive picture as I can before I start drawing any conclusions. But no matter what numbers I'm using, it would be foolish of me to not consider the source and methodology that produced those numbers, and make the appropriate acknowledgements if and when I cite them in my analysis. 3M was the figure I planned to use to estimate XB3 stocks coming out of 2014. I acknowledge that the 3M figure may not be perfectly accurate, but it's the best figure I have to work with. Ditto for Sony's 4.2M. An estimate doesn't magically become unerring by virtue of its inclusion in my analysis, nor does it magically become flawed if you choose to use it in yours. All estimates are flawed to some extent, and some more so than others. From the beginning, my request was simply that you acknowledge this, both for Microsoft's estimations, and the estimations you derived from theirs. We don't
know they've sold 10M, but 10M would be a fairly reasonable guess if you look at their launch sales. See the difference? I understand you feel like you were being conservative with your guesstimation, but attempting to be conservative doesn't mean you've therefore proven it can be no less than 10M.
Do you seriously want me to quote every time you said some variation of, "We know it's at least 10M"? Are you gonna pay me a milliPound for each one I find?
I said we can get to 8.7m using hard data, so you can't doubt this number.
You also said we could get to 9M using hard data AND THAT'S WHAT I'M TAKING ISSUE WITH HERE. Every single figure you choose to toss at us has been proven with hard, unquestionable data, and any number proposed by someone else are just estimates and other such nonsense not even worthy of consideration.
But Sony 18.5m is perfectly ok
. Only MS must be wrong emirate?
I never said anything of the sort. You made that up.
Look at the post above, it's your own words. You say Sony have sold through 18.5m and state it like a fact.
I assumed it was known to be an estimate and therefore there was no need for me to explicitly say, "give or take" every time it was cited. Did I ever defend it as infallible for use in significant extrapolation?
Here is where I explicitly said the actual number could be higher or lower.
"It's an estimate, so it's unlikely to be right. But yes, it's believable and seems likely to be close. Could be 18.3M though, or maybe 18.6M. I really have no idea, and likely, neither do Sony, but their estimate strikes me as fairly reasonable." Oh, look I said that in response to your accusation that I claim Sony's number to be unerring, and asked you to cite where I did. But instead of doing so, you ignored all of that and simply repeated the accusation.
How come you aren't calling Sony out and saying that the number could be wrong? How come you only call Microsoft out and say their number is hard to believe and that they are wrong.
As I said, if someone tried to claim that the 18.5M through 2014 "proved" there would be no less than 80M sales through 2018, I would argue that "prove" is likely too strong a word to use, which is exactly the same argument I put to you when you started talking about having proved 10M sold through.
Now you even doubt NPD and GFK in order to support your argument.
Again, not what I said at all. I simply acknowledge that they have some margin of error in their estimating, however low it may be. Don't they actually disclose their margin of error in their reports? Seems like they should. Regardless, I have no idea what the margin of error is for the marketing teams at MS and Sony. Beyond the fact that the estimates won't be "very misleading," I can't really talk about their accuracy with any kind of certainty. An error of 200k in an estimate done for marketing doesn't really strike me as huge and unthinkable, but maybe it is.
You say MS must be lying, you say NPD is wrong, you say Sony must be right
.. like wtf
.. are you serious?
No, we're not serious about that stuff. See, what had happened was, you just made all that shit up and then got super mad about it. You're incensed over statements that were never made. Perhaps if instead of snipping the explanations from our posts and pretending they don't exist, you were to read and consider them, we may not strike you as so hypocritical. Perhaps if you were to look at your own efforts to champion your estimations while simultaneously decrying the efforts of others as mere estimates, you might realize that you're being a bit hypocritical yourself.