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[Castef]

No they're not. Sony has made it quite clear that they do not care if they get outsold in the US. At the end of the day they're going to win globally anyhow.

Actually i think that neither Sony nor Microsoft care that much about being "outsold", as long as their consoles sell well.

And both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling VERY well.

There rest of this is just fuel for forum discussions.

 

[EGM1966]

Actually i think that neither Sony nor Microsoft care that much about being "outsold", as long as their consoles sell well.

And both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling VERY well.

There rest of this is just fuel for forum discussions.

I have to disagree regarding MS (but agree on Sony).

Right now PS4 is selling very well everywhere and so long as sales remain stable I doubt Sony will make decisions based on competitive market.

On the other hand Xbox has only really been selling very well in US and maybe UK. Everywhere else pretty much it hasn't been selling that well. Also MS clearly dislike being behind Sony in US and UK no matter their own sales.

Hence I'd say MS does care about Sony competitively and is making decisions based on Sonys sales. We can see this most specifically in US for November and UK too.

So i'd half agree.

 

[Ricky_R]

Actually i think that neither Sony nor Microsoft care that much about being "outsold", as long as their consoles sell well.

And both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling VERY well.

There rest of this is just fuel for forum discussions.

MS showed these past few months that they clearly care about sales numbers in the US. I'm sure Sony does too, just not to a point where they will sacrifice profit when they're still selling quite well.

 

[jryi]

Were you questioning the Playstation business when they released the PS3?

No, I wasn't. Gaming has been a core business for Sony since the original Playstation, and PS3 was a trojan horse to capture market share for bluray. Selling PS3 at a loss was serving a strategic purpose.

 

[walltowall]

Probably because in the 360's last 3 years there was no other exclsuives apart from them.

So Minecraft and its 9+ million sales before it hit another console doesn't count right?

 

[gtj1092]

Actually i think that neither Sony nor Microsoft care that much about being "outsold", as long as their consoles sell well.

And both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One are selling VERY well.

There rest of this is just fuel for forum discussions.

If MS didn't care about being number one their XB1 sale wouldn't directly correspond with NPD dates.

For Dec NPD I think Sony is making a big mistake pushing Destiny bundles still instead of getting more GTA bundle out there especially since they aren't dropping the price on it. Maybe they will do another round of them right before Christmas but it doesn't look like it. Also the bundle they are pusing now is worthless if they aren't going to actually advertise it.

 

[Footos22]

So Minecraft and its 9+ million sales before it hit another console doesn't count right?

Stretching much. It wasn't a ms AAA game, which is what we are talking about. so no. it doesn't.

 

[abadguy]

Stretching much. It wasn't a ms AAA game, which is what we are talking about. so no. it doesn't.

More like goalposts conviently moving when your argument is proven wrong. As in all there was is Halo/Forza/Gears, when other games are mentioned all of a sudden it's about AAA games because download or "not being an MS game"( or anything that goes against your narritive) don't count.

 

[Game Guru]

I have to disagree regarding MS (but agree on Sony).

Right now PS4 is selling very well everywhere and so long as sales remain stable I doubt Sony will make decisions based on competitive market.

On the other hand Xbox has only really been selling very well in US and maybe UK. Everywhere else pretty much it hasn't been selling that well. Also MS clearly dislike being behind Sony in US and UK no matter their own sales.

Hence I'd say MS does care about Sony competitively and is making decisions based on Sonys sales. We can see this most specifically in US for November and UK too.

So i'd half agree.

One could argue that because of how important the US and the UK markets are to the Xbox brand compared to the PlayStation brand, XB1 not selling at least competitively in the US and UK would mean that XB1 as a whole is not selling well. Basically, the US and the UK are the easiest territories for an Xbox console to have a good performance in so if an Xbox console is doing poorly in the US and the UK which the XB1 was until November, then the XB1 could be seen doing poorly as a whole.

 

[Ricky_R]

One could argue that because of how important the US market is to the Xbox brand compared to the PlayStation brand, XB1 not selling at least competitively in the US would mean that XB1 as a whole is not selling well. Basically, the US is the easiest territory for an Xbox console to have a good performance in so if an Xbox console is doing poorly in the US which the XB1 was until November, then the XB1 could be seen doing poorly as a whole.

That's the thing, The Xbone wasn't doing "poorly" in the US. The PS4 was just performing better.

 

[Elandyll]

Selling at a loss for a couple years is nothing new to consoles. The previous couple gens attest to that. Were you questioning the Playstation business when they released the PS3?

It's a bit of a false equivalency though.
Sony had no choice in losing money with the PS3 at launch... It's not like they could have sold the console at $800+.
And like it was said above, it also was the standard bearer for a brand new tech, Blu-Ray, which was very expensive. The Xbox One has neither of these "problems"... Particularly since they ditched the mandatory Kinect.

 

[Game Guru]

That's the thing, The Xbone wasn't doing "poorly" in the US. The PS4 was just performing better.

I suppose poorly was the wrong term, but what I might add is that XB1, because of its higher dependence on the US and the UK markets compared to the PS4, need a higher level of sales in the US and UK markets to be considered 'selling well' which PS4 doesn't need because PS4 has the rest of Europe to boost their worldwide sales numbers. It could be seen as the difference between a strong second place console and a weak second place console.

 

[Syrus]

This is just silly, Console prices are NOT what makes MS or Sony money, its the sales of software and subscription. MS selling at a 50-70$ loss is offset within 5-6 games most likely and definently by Gold. Now if all these people that bought the bundle never buy a game over X1 lifetime or gold then I guess that might hurt.

MS is a NOT hurt by these sales.or losses accrued by the sales prices.

 

[Pezus]

So Minecraft and its 9+ million sales before it hit another console doesn't count right?

How does that count as an exclusive?

 

[gtj1092]

How does that count as an exclusive?

I see you've never play List Wars before ;-)

 

[Ricky_R]

I suppose poorly was the wrong term, but what I might add is that XB1, because of its higher dependence on the US and the UK markets compared to the PS4, need a higher level of sales in the US and UK markets to be considered 'selling well' which PS4 doesn't need because PS4 has the rest of Europe to boost their worldwide sales numbers. It could be seen as the difference between a strong second place console and a weak second place console.

I understand, but why does it matter if you're selling quite well, even if it's behind your direct competitor? Unless being first is more important to you than not a selling at loss, or at a bigger loss than before (Not sure if they were selling at a loss when the system was at $499).

I guess it all comes down to mind share and brand perception.

 

[walltowall]

Stretching much. It wasn't a ms AAA game, which is what we are talking about. so no. it doesn't.

My bad. I though that Minecraft was more recognizable to Families/late lifecycle adopters than Halo/Forza/Gears. I also thought that MS figured that bringing the next big hit to their console for a fairly long duration of exclusivity would have played a part in how they positioned their internal studios for the upcoming launch of a new console.

I may also be mistaken that Sony believed the title to be so important they made it seem that Minecraft would launch alongside or very close to the PS4 even though it was never going to happen.

Oh well, can't be right all the time I guess.

 

[JaggedSac]

No, I wasn't. Gaming has been a core business for Sony since the original Playstation, and PS3 was a trojan horse to capture market share for bluray. Selling PS3 at a loss was serving a strategic purpose.

It's a bit of a false equivalency though.
Sony had no choice in losing money with the PS3 at launch... It's not like they could have sold the console at $800+.
And like ke it was said above it also was the standard bearer for a brand new tech, Blu-Ray, which was very expensive. The Xbox One has neither of these "problems"... Particularly since they ditched the mandatory Kinect.

MS is a purveyor of subscription services now. Xbox Live, Xbox Music, Skype, OneDrive, Office, etc. The Bone hits on several of those as things someone might subscribe to given they own one. In that way, it serves a strategic purpose. It also will provide another platform for app developers to target on the universal app store that MS is releasing with Win10. Having 15 or so million devices in the living room to target is a pretty good incentive for developers. The Bone is a nice reason for devs to target DX12. These things increase the likelihood that the dev use VS and possibly Azure and do so on the Windows environment. There are several avenues that the Bone helps other branches of MS.

 

[Pezus]

I see you've never play List Wars before ;-)

I mean it released years after the PC version and it also had a mobile version.

Imagine calling games like DR3 and Ryse PC exclusives

 

[JayhawkerStL]

If MS didn't care about being number one their XB1 sale wouldn't directly correspond with NPD dates.

For Dec NPD I think Sony is making a big mistake pushing Destiny bundles still instead of getting more GTA bundle out there especially since they aren't dropping the price on it. Maybe they will do another round of them right before Christmas but it doesn't look like it. Also the bundle they are pusing now is worthless if they aren't going to actually advertise it.

Microsoft cared less about being #1 and more about not getting outsold 4-1. If they didn't reverse the trend, they were going to lose most of their 360 users to the PS4 over time. They may have been happy with their sales numbers, but mindshare is pretty important early on in the generation.

But man, Sony deciding between Destiny and GTA to push on customers really shows how destitute the platform really is. A game getting dumped on now and a remastered game that got dumped on last gen. Gee, thanks!

 

[shinra-bansho]

15 or so million stationary devices frankly seems like small fry in a world where a billion Android devices ship per year. It seems strange to argue that Xbox, while Microsoft's only really successful consumer brand* from memory, is of strategic importance to Windows or Office or Azure, which all operate quite profitably from memory in higher margin largely B2B focused divisions.

I doubt any allure of being able to transfer apps to this additional pool can counteract those sorts of network effects; development for Windows Phone is going to be much lower priority.
It would probably be more effective to simply sell more phones to begin with.

I think the idea of the war for the living room and associated strategy has become somewhat antiquated. It was set upon when there was a threat, real or perceived that home computing would migrate from the PC. Or rather the war has been won, not by one big screen but by a myriad small ones.

*which is probably actually where any strategic importance lies, as the company tries to grow in consumer products and hardware.

 

[JaggedSac]

15 or so million stationary devices frankly seems like small fry in a world where a billion Android devices ship per year. It seems strange to argue that Xbox, while Microsoft's only really successful consumer brand from memory, is of strategic importance to Windows or Office or Azure, which all operate quite profitably from memory in higher margin largely B2B focused divisions.

I doubt any allure of being able to transfer apps to this additional pool can counteract those sorts of network effects; development for Windows Phone is going to be much lower priority.
It would probably be more effective to simply sell more phones to begin with.

I think the idea of the war for the living room and associated strategy has become somewhat antiquated. It was set upon when there was a threat, real or perceived that home computing would migrate from the PC. Or rather the war has been won, not by one big screen but by a myriad small ones.

You don't think the Bone is a good incentive for devs to use DX12 to target both PC and a console? If the Bone didn't exist DX could possible start fading away faster than it is.

You don't think Xbox Live, Xbox Music, Skype, and OneDrive subs are worth trying to push?

You don't think this is good for VS?

Plus, it will only go up from 15 million.

 

[biggersmaller]

MS is a purveyor of subscription services now. Xbox Live, Xbox Music, Skype, OneDrive, Office, etc. The Bone hits on several of those as things someone might subscribe to given they own one. In that way, it serves a strategic purpose. It also will provide another platform for app developers to target on the universal app store that MS is releasing with Win10. Having 15 or so million devices in the living room to target is a pretty good incentive for developers. The Bone is a nice reason for devs to target DX12. These things increase the likelihood that the dev use VS and possibly Azure and do so on the Windows environment. There are several avenues that the Bone helps other branches of MS.

Exactly. Why are people even arguing this? Selling at a loss today still ensures 5-7 years of high-margin Live subscriptions, digital sales, and peripheral purchases. Sure, not every console will be a net positive at the end of the cycle, but you can be your ass they've done the calculations and found the discounted systems to be profitable in the aggregate.

At launch Microsoft attempted to take advantage of the market via the Xbox brand and the reputation it built with the 360. They misguidingly believed they had a PS2 on their hands and priced the system accordingly. When that strategy failed, it was beyond good business sense to price these units the way they did during the holiday shopping season.

 

[walltowall]

I mean it released years after the PC version and it also had a mobile version.

Imagine calling games like DR3 and Ryse PC exclusives

I thought that the Xbox 360 version launched about 6 mos after the full version hit PC (Nov '11 Vs. May '12) could be wrong though.

 

[airmangataosenai]

People have been saying Microsoft has been "Failing" with their razor selling strategy since before the original Xbox launched in 2001, and yet they're still in the game 13 years later despite the endless deluge of so-called experts claiming their model is unsustainable and will force them out of the market.

 

[QaaQer]

What stage is it now?

 

[davivascaino]

xbox is coming back from dead?

 

[JaggedSac]

xbox is coming back from dead?

Actually, MS is about to shutter the whole shebang.

 

[shinra-bansho]

You don't think the Bone is a good incentive for devs to use DX12 to target both PC and a console? If the Bone didn't exist DX could possible start fading away faster than it is.

You don't think Xbox Live, Xbox Music, Skype, and OneDrive subs are worth trying to push?

You don't think this is good for VS?

Plus, it will only go up from 15 million.

I consider Xbox Live subscriptions part and parcel of the Xbox business unit as an associated service. So yes, pushing Xbox hardware is obviously a key part of a business model which reaps its returns on selling associated content/products. Presumably the same can be said of Xbox Music.

But I find it harder to ascertain the strategic importance of Xbox to Windows, Office and Servers, that you also list, in proposing a strategic purpose for the division as a whole. And given these still constitute something like 90+% of income, strategic purpose for the company as a whole.

While Skype and OneDrive subscriptions may (I don't know what kind of revenues these bring in relative to the big ticket items you listed in your earlier post) be worth pushing; I don't know whether the Xbox is 1) actually doing so and 2) necessarily the best route to do so. Likewise, you'll have to elaborate more on what exactly VS entails for me to form an opinion of it, but I imagine both 1 and 2 above still apply.

The area where they're struggling, but is of significant importance going forward - mobile platforms - there could be some benefit. But again 1 and 2. You can extrapolate the lifetime number to 50M (which may be high if the generation runs shorter and given tepid response in continental Europe) it's still relatively modest. It's a fortnight of Android shipments, for relatively significant investment.

I don't think the division is at any impending risk. I do think they have considerable (though not unlimited as some have deluded themselves into) capital and resources to deploy. But of significant strategic importance to the company as a whole? I think it's much harder to see.

Likewise, while in 2006 gaming may have served some strategic objective towards optical media adoption, and while there's still some content synergy with the Pictures and Music production arms, I don't really see gaming as necessarily having a grand strategic importance for Sony either beyond simply bringing in income to shore up their bottom line.

The world has changed a lot since both embarked upon these endeavours.

 

[JaggedSac]

I consider Xbox Live subscriptions part and parcel of the Xbox business unit as an associated service. So yes, pushing Xbox hardware is obviously a key part of a business model which reaps its returns on selling associated content/products. Presumably the same can be said of Xbox Music.

But I find it harder to ascertain the strategic importance of Xbox to Windows, Office and Servers, that you also list, in proposing a strategic purpose for the division as a whole. And given these still constitute something like 90+% of income, strategic purpose for the company as a whole.

While Skype and OneDrive subscriptions may (I don't know what kind of revenues these bring in relative to the big ticket items you listed in your earlier post) be worth pushing; I don't know whether the Xbox is 1) actually doing so and 2) necessarily the best route to do so. Likewise, you'll have to elaborate more on what exactly VS entails for me to form an opinion of it, but I imagine both 1 and 2 above still apply.

The area where they're struggling, but is of significant importance going forward - mobile platforms - there could be some benefit. But again 1 and 2. You can extrapolate the lifetime number to 50M (which may be high if the generation runs shorter and given tepid response in continental Europe) it's still relatively modest. It's a fortnight of Android shipments, for relatively significant investment.

I don't think the division is at any impending risk. I do think they have considerable (though not unlimited as some have deluded themselves into) capital and resources to deploy. But of significant strategic importance to the company as a whole? I think it's much harder to see.

Likewise, while in 2006 gaming may have served some strategic objective towards optical media adoption, and while there's still some content synergy with the Pictures and Music production arms, I don't really see gaming as necessarily having a grand strategic importance for Sony either beyond simply bringing in income to shore up their bottom line.

The world has changed a lot since both embarked upon these endeavours.

Nice post. Although, I never said it held importance for Office or Servers.

PlayStation is apparently pretty important to Sony as well: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/09/sony-leaning-on-playstation/

 

[Bgamer90]

You say this as if there weren't a ton of 3rd party games released during the last 3/4 months as well.

The majority of what people play on these consoles are 3rd party games.

I'm not saying that at all. I'm simply saying that they have helped in giving people more (recent) games to play.

 

[lightning2k3]

I consider Xbox Live subscriptions part and parcel of the Xbox business unit as an associated service. So yes, pushing Xbox hardware is obviously a key part of a business model which reaps its returns on selling associated content/products. Presumably the same can be said of Xbox Music.

But I find it harder to ascertain the strategic importance of Xbox to Windows, Office and Servers, that you also list, in proposing a strategic purpose for the division as a whole. And given these still constitute something like 90+% of income, strategic purpose for the company as a whole.

While Skype and OneDrive subscriptions may (I don't know what kind of revenues these bring in relative to the big ticket items you listed in your earlier post) be worth pushing; I don't know whether the Xbox is 1) actually doing so and 2) necessarily the best route to do so. Likewise, you'll have to elaborate more on what exactly VS entails for me to form an opinion of it, but I imagine both 1 and 2 above still apply.

The area where they're struggling, but is of significant importance going forward - mobile platforms - there could be some benefit. But again 1 and 2. You can extrapolate the lifetime number to 50M (which may be high if the generation runs shorter and given tepid response in continental Europe) it's still relatively modest. It's a fortnight of Android shipments, for relatively significant investment.

I don't think the division is at any impending risk. I do think they have considerable (though not unlimited as some have deluded themselves into) capital and resources to deploy. But of significant strategic importance to the company as a whole? I think it's much harder to see.

Likewise, while in 2006 gaming may have served some strategic objective towards optical media adoption, and while there's still some content synergy with the Pictures and Music production arms, I don't really see gaming as necessarily having a grand strategic importance for Sony either beyond simply bringing in income to shore up their bottom line.

The world has changed a lot since both embarked upon these endeavours.

Isn't gaming one of the few bright spots for Sony? Their TV business is sinking fast, their mobile division is sinking faster, and their laptop division is already gone. What else are they gonna sell, besides insurance? Plus, there are definitely synergies to be gained by tying in Sony music and Sony movies into the playstation ecosystem. They haven't really taken advantage of that recently, but its definitely possible.

 

[shinra-bansho]

Nice post. Although, I never said it held importance for Office or Servers.

PlayStation is apparently pretty important to Sony as well: http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/09/sony-leaning-on-playstation/

Azure/Servers.

On the link, yes, important in generating income as the article states, and as noted already.
That's essentially the point, given the current modern context it's harder to see a broader strategic purpose for these conglomerates to be in console hardware, ergo, they're expected to generate net income. I don't think investors in either company would tolerate significant losses going forward. It can be seen in their relatively conservative design and aiming for early profitability on hardware.

Or more concisely; they're no longer really the means to a broader strategic end, selling well and bringing in the bacon is the end.
Controlling the TV screen isn't what it used to be.

 

[Avatar1]

Yeah the Halo, forza , gears "argument" is always amusing to me, since to make that point they need to actively ignore the existence of other exclusives on the console.

I never said anything about ignoring other exclusives. Hell the only reason I have the console are those few exclusives.

I just don't like the halo, forza, gears, fable cycle. I am burned out on those games. If you read a little more, I even made a post giving some credit for SOME new games.

The tail end of last gen was that cycle and that's it! For some that's fine but not for me.

 

[JaggedSac]

Azure/Servers.

On the link, yes, important in generating income as the article states, and as noted already.
That's essentially the point, given the current modern context it's harder to see a broader strategic purpose for these conglomerates to be in console hardware, ergo, they're expected to generate net income. I don't think investors in either company would tolerate significant losses going forward. It can be seen in their relatively conservative design and aiming for early profitability on hardware.

Or more concisely; they're no longer really the means to a broader strategic end, selling well and bringing in the bacon is the end.
Controlling the TV screen isn't what it used to be.

Azure and Servers are not the same. The company I work for spends tons on servers, none on Azure.


We can agree to disagree on the other stuff.

 

[Pezus]

I thought that the Xbox 360 version launched about 6 mos after the full version hit PC (Nov '11 Vs. May '12) could be wrong though.

Nah the "alpha" had been available for sale for months/years. That's when it got popular.

 

[Curufinwe]

People have been saying Microsoft has been "Failing" with their razor selling strategy since before the original Xbox launched in 2001, and yet they're still in the game 13 years later despite the endless deluge of so-called experts claiming their model is unsustainable and will force them out of the market.

They've been failing to make a profit. But they can subsidize Xbox indefinitely with the profits from their other divisions if they choose to.

 

[EGM1966]

One could argue that because of how important the US and the UK markets are to the Xbox brand compared to the PlayStation brand, XB1 not selling at least competitively in the US and UK would mean that XB1 as a whole is not selling well. Basically, the US and the UK are the easiest territories for an Xbox console to have a good performance in so if an Xbox console is doing poorly in the US and the UK which the XB1 was until November, then the XB1 could be seen doing poorly as a whole.

That's a fair point and I did consider it. I decided to sweeten the pill just by focusing on country by country basis but yeah, the argument could be made.

 

[ZSaberLink]

This thread got boring.... =(. So if DKC: TF is struggling to hit 400K as said before, at least that means it hit 300K? That's something I guess =). More #s to save this thread from list wars >_>...

 

[orangecoke]

Hey guys, wanted to follow up about this topic (sorry if this point was already raised):

I just got access to November NPD data and amusingly it lists DAI as # 10 (because it groups the two Pokémon games together). So a lot of doom and gloom and "DAI bombed" rhetoric could have been avoided (frankly I consider 3DS games so different from us I don't see them as chart competitors but that's just like..my opinion).

Also (I can't give numbers) the delta between most of the top 5-6 games on the chart is quite small. Then you factor in the date the game was released (example: Unity, MCC had an extra week of sales), price promotions and sales for Black Friday (DAI did not go on sale) and we sold very well - at full price. I wish the whole story had been told when the chart was published.

So anyway - DAI was a "strong # 11" in November It did not "bomb". I'd hate for people to think that.

 

[Pezus]

Hey guys, wanted to follow up about this topic (sorry if this point was already raised):

I just got access to November NPD data and amusingly it lists DAI as # 10 (because it groups the two Pokémon games together). So a lot of doom and gloom and "DAI bombed" rhetoric could have been avoided (frankly I consider 3DS games so different from us I don't see them as chart competitors but that's just like..my opinion).

Also (I can't give numbers) the delta between most of the top 5-6 games on the chart is quite small. Then you factor in the date the game was released (example: Unity, MCC had an extra week of sales), price promotions and sales for Black Friday (DAI did not go on sale) and we sold very well - at full price. I wish the whole story had been told when the chart was published.

So anyway - DAI was a "strong # 11" in November It did not "bomb". I'd hate for people to think that.

Yeah it's just that the barrier of entry for the top 10 in November is very high. Number 11 in November is like #1-2 in many other months!

 

[hawk2025]

Hey guys, wanted to follow up about this topic (sorry if this point was already raised):

I just got access to November NPD data and amusingly it lists DAI as # 10 (because it groups the two Pokémon games together). So a lot of doom and gloom and "DAI bombed" rhetoric could have been avoided (frankly I consider 3DS games so different from us I don't see them as chart competitors but that's just like..my opinion).

Also (I can't give numbers) the delta between most of the top 5-6 games on the chart is quite small. Then you factor in the date the game was released (example: Unity, MCC had an extra week of sales), price promotions and sales for Black Friday (DAI did not go on sale) and we sold very well - at full price. I wish the whole story had been told when the chart was published.

So anyway - DAI was a "strong # 11" in November It did not "bomb". I'd hate for people to think that.

This is very nice to hear

 

[Caboose]

Hey guys, wanted to follow up about this topic (sorry if this point was already raised):

I just got access to November NPD data and amusingly it lists DAI as # 10 (because it groups the two Pokémon games together). So a lot of doom and gloom and "DAI bombed" rhetoric could have been avoided (frankly I consider 3DS games so different from us I don't see them as chart competitors but that's just like..my opinion).

Also (I can't give numbers) the delta between most of the top 5-6 games on the chart is quite small. Then you factor in the date the game was released (example: Unity, MCC had an extra week of sales), price promotions and sales for Black Friday (DAI did not go on sale) and we sold very well - at full price. I wish the whole story had been told when the chart was published.

So anyway - DAI was a "strong # 11" in November It did not "bomb". I'd hate for people to think that.

Good to know.

 

[orangecoke]

This is very nice to hear

Cool, thanks I just hope the "DAI bombed" thing didn't hurt word of mouth

 

[hawk2025]

Cool, thanks I just hope the "DAI bombed" thing didn't hurt word of mouth

If it helps any, it had the opposite effect on me and made me buy it before January as planned, so hey

 

[Crom]

Just curious.....

Does the person that makes these thread ever update with a summary of all (or most) of the data within on the 1st page?

It seems like a good idea if you made the thread so that people don't have to wade through 200 pages.

 

[orangecoke]

If it helps any, it had the opposite effect on me and made me buy it before January as planned, so hey

That does help

 

[allan-bh]

Just curious.....

Does the person that makes these thread ever update with a summary of all (or most) of the data within on the 1st page?

It seems like a good idea if you made the thread so that people don't have to wade through 200 pages.

Only public data is included in OP.

 

[Opiate]

Isn't gaming one of the few bright spots for Sony? Their TV business is sinking fast, their mobile division is sinking faster, and their laptop division is already gone. What else are they gonna sell, besides insurance? Plus, there are definitely synergies to be gained by tying in Sony music and Sony movies into the playstation ecosystem. They haven't really taken advantage of that recently, but its definitely possible.

It is a brighter spot, but as your post hints at, all of these are relative. Over the next 5 years, Sony's game division will very likely make money overall, and that's very good compared to many other internal technology hsectors for Sony. As you note, TVs are losing money, and so are phones.

However, "not losing money" isn't an especially high bar by the standards of most successful technology companies. The big players like Microsoft, Google, Samsung and Apple frequently run margins of 20% or even 30% on their most successful products (be they hardware or software). Sony used to be in the same universe as these companies (in terms of their size and market relevance), but not anymore, and their failure to get a big, high margin tech product is the reason for that.

So it really depends on what your frame of reference is here. Are you gauging success relative to other internal Sony divisions, particularly those that are also technology driven? Then yes, Sony's game division is unquestionably a success. It certainly isn't in danger of being closed or sold off. Are you gauging success relative to other huge, successful multinational corporations like Google, Microsoft or GE? Then simply making a modest profit isn't a failure, but it's not a huge success, either.

 

[anexanhume]

Cool, thanks I just hope the "DAI bombed" thing didn't hurt word of mouth

As long as the studio and publisher are happy, I am too as a fan of DA and Bioware in general. You guys are starting to rack up GOTY awards and that $40 sale made you shoot up the Amazon charts, so hopefully you're well past 1 million when santa comes