Nope. If anything they'll take an early hit and just drop the price of the console (with kinect) as a whole. Can't see them removing kinect anytime soon. It's currently in too much of a good position for support via it being in every box.
The point - Why The Xbox Is Losing
- Thread starter le.phat
- Start date
Nope. If anything they'll take an early hit and just drop the price of the console (with kinect) as a whole. Can't see them removing kinect anytime soon. It's currently in too much of a good position for support via it being in every box.
Kleegamefan
K. LEE GAIDEN
Yes for some casuals it will come down to this
PS4
+ Sony exclusives (Order, Infamous, Gran Turismo)
- MS exclusives (Ryse, Forza, Halo)
+ All the big 3rd party games (Madden, AC, COD,Fifa, Watch Dogs)
+ $100 cheaper
Xbone
- Sony exclusives (Order, Infamous, Gran Turismo)
+ MS exclusives (Ryse, Forza, Halo)
+ All the big 3rd party games (Madden, AC, COD,Fifa, Watch Dogs)
- $100 more expensive
Of course the decision between the two consoles is much more complicated than this but for many this is what they will see :/
Thankfully I don't have to worry about that and will be enjoying Killer Instinct 3, Ryse, Zelda and Infamous SS when they come out
Yeah, a great position, what with all those AAA titles using Kinect and those stunning Kinect exclusives.
They haven't given one single reason why that thing should be boxed in other than "Xbox On", and it's baffling to me.
They better vindicate that decision at Gamescom.
AdventureRacing
Member
I still have no idea what made MS take this route. They were in such a strong position going forward and it was mostly on the back of appealing to the more core audience first.
They seem to be chasing after another market which they see as more lucrative but i think they are going to fail to capture it whilst losing the consumers they already had.
The 360 is probably going to sell 90+ million consoles when all is said and done, that's a pretty fucking good starting point. They should have just built upon what they already had. Improved the online added extra features but made sure to keep the core fans on board to get the console moving.
MS took a big gamble when they really didn't have too.
Edit: It's amazing just how litle they learned this gen. They got their foot in the door last gen by releasing early and getting the price advantage on their main competitor. Now they are going to be releasing after (in some regions WAY after) and at $100 more. It's baffling.
Just keep in mind just because there are new consoles this fall doesn't mean the PS3 or 360 will stop selling, there are still plenty of 2014 titles and I'm sure there will be some 2015 titles. This Gen has a lot of life still.
Kleegamefan
K. LEE GAIDEN
I am with you there.......I can easily absorb the cost of an Xbone and therefore I hope they stick with Kinect throughout the generation.....somebody, somewhere (probably Kojima) will make a really compelling game with Kinect in mind.......there are too many great creative gaming minds out there....
Audible Phonetics
Member
Too little too late. MS will sell, but not as well as PS4.
Interesting. Writer who writes articles for hardcore gamers claims hardcore gamers early adoption is key to success. Pander away. Of the 150M PS3s and X360s how many are hardcore, how many bought the console for a bluray player, how many bought what their friends had, how many care about paywalls. I fear that no matter how the hardcore audience reacts, there arent enough media hooks to convince softcore or casuals to upgrade. Maybe the One has something on that front but its too expensive. Sony pandering to Hardcore at the expense of new casual hooks is a new strategy for them without introducing a new media format. My crystal ball is certainly hazy.
Tons?
silver.tongue
Member
I agree with some points here, but others are more like wishful thinking.
I like the idea of kinect being the difference maker between the 2 consoles, but we still haven't seen anything to justify that. No games at all. Not even crappy casual ones. At this point kinect is a skype/voice-control accessory of the Xbone.
Besides, we don't know how much of a gap MS is going to have to take away from Sony when they drop the price, drop kinect, launch worldwide... Anything over 5 million whould be a disaster.
What was the biggest difference between install bases of PS3/360 worldwide?
RobotRocker
Member
How so? The PS2 launch line up had the hardcore appeal of a rancid skunk BBQ in the middle of summer in Texas and most publications were fairly damning of it as a hardcore console at the time compared to the Dreamcast, but it still sold to a more softcore audience who wanted one or two games and a cheap DVD player and weren't super anal about the quality of the games (SSX and Tekken Tag seemed the only stand outs on that launch and it did right for most people). The Hardcore never really jumped on till 2001 when their games like MGS2, Jak and more started coming out (Or they bought it with The Bouncer and got burned. Poor folks) but the softcore had already made it a phenomenon for Sony by the time MGS2 dropped and GTA 3 rocketed it into the stratosphere. Meanwhile the XBox started attracting hardcore with promises of online play and Halo, which got more people interested over the gen and Nintendo still had their Nintendo IP's to keep repeat hardcore consumers. Hardcore got flip floppy and divided that mindshare between the three while Sony strolled off with the Softcore market because those consumers were content with sports games and a cheap DVD player.
Videogames are a strange and fluctuating market and it's extremely hard to get a read on whats going to happen across a generation a few months before it starts. Especially between those three markets of Hardcore, Softcore and Casual.
outunderthestars
Banned
Launch hardware will have it, but there will be a Kinect-less sku by xmas 2014 if the platform fails to reach the momentum Microsoft is looking to obtain.
That said, both platforms have failed to make me want one and have driven me into the waiting arms of the PC.
Nightengale
Member
They were having sleepless nights dreaming about Larry Page & Tim Cook.
Jokes aside, I think they tried to bite more than they can chew, trying to beat Apple, Google, Sony & Nintendo at one-go.
In a way, they tried to pull a Sony "It Only Does Everything" approach.
rakkadakka
Member
Oh man.
ChosenPredator
Banned
I honestly can't see them getting rid of kinect and once the console is out people will get to see how much it actually offers and that will be the time the new Kinect 2.0 will do all the talking and justifying if it's worth it, i suppose.
NinjaCarrot
Member
This guy understands. Bravo sir.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Well, it has pulled ahead in worldwide sales.
In any case, that's the point of the video. They lost the hardcore crowd with the launch price and the 360 having a year head start and the market followed.
It's hard to ever totally recover from that. And now it looks like the tables are turning and that's going to happen to MS this time unless all their reversals get the hardcore back on board in large enough numbers.
If not, the PS4 will jump out to a lead, softcore gamers will buy PS4s in larger numbers as more of their hardcore friends have them and MS won't get back the lead they had--just like Sony hasn't gotten it back in the US this gen.
That will be true for softcore gamers down the line, hardcore gamers on forums like these don't easily forget and are very fickel. So launch numbers will like show the PS4 pulling ahead.
Oh yeah, definitely agree there. But what I was mainly referring to is the fact that the current momentum of the PS3 isn't going to have an impact on the support of both consoles (PS3/360). No major 3rd party company is going to cut back in anyway when it comes to the 360. Both systems will continue on getting good support from devs due to their huge userbases.
Nightengale
Member
Yeah he shouldn't have said tons. It's more accurate to say Sony is releasing some of their best games of the generation late in their console's life while MS abandoned theirs long ago.
And that Sony simply has superior first party studios and more of them.
I hate to say it, but in the USA, XB1 will probably still be the leader.
All the FPS kids will want XB1 just because it's what they have grown up with and have all their friends/achievements/etc on LIVE (plus they prefer the controller).
I'm in Ohio and I only know two other people with PS3s, but just about everyone I know has an Xbox360. It's going to take a KILLER feature/game to get them to switch regardless of price and console features.
All the FPS kids will want XB1 just because it's what they have grown up with and have all their friends/achievements/etc on LIVE (plus they prefer the controller).
I'm in Ohio and I only know two other people with PS3s, but just about everyone I know has an Xbox360. It's going to take a KILLER feature/game to get them to switch regardless of price and console features.
In terms of userbases, it will probably be back to XBox and PS2 marketshares. Which means western devs will target all/most games to both systems.
As far as Kinect is concerned, they are making custom chips for the guts of that thing and a non-negligible portion of the Bone's silicon budget is dedicated to Kinect audio processing, they are VERY unlikely to sell this box without it.
As far as Kinect is concerned, they are making custom chips for the guts of that thing and a non-negligible portion of the Bone's silicon budget is dedicated to Kinect audio processing, they are VERY unlikely to sell this box without it.
Moral Panic
Member
I disagree that the softcore follow the hardcore, I don't think there is any evidence for that assertion.
Good. Let the spoiled children buy XBO. I don't want to hear their voices anyway yelling at other gamers with racial slurs.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I try to ignore those types of posts.
People said this about PS2. Look at how MSFT gained market share after failing with XB.
That's a big if.
I don't see how Kinect could suddenly turn into a game-changer when not even Microsoft themselves know what the fuck to do with it.
SwiftDeath
Member
Yep my thoughts as well
I will never understand who at MS thought the softcore or even casuals would bother watching a console reveal event
Your audience for that was clearly always going to be the hardcore
No wonder it went badly
CassidyIzABeast
Member
This video would make sense if was made a 2-3 years from now when Microsoft finally got over their hubris and they were so far deep in the hole they had no choice but to reverse their policies and try to salvage the generation. Instead they've made all these changes before a single piece of hardware has actually been sold so really they haven't lost a thing yet.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Sure there is.
Nintendo dominated with the N64, lost the hardcore by going with carts and they lost the overall market to Sony.
Sony lost the hardcore to MS by launching a year later and at a higher price than 360, and lost the overall market to MS this gen.
It will likely be even stronger going forward since online gaming is so huge and people have more need to buy whatever their gaming friends are playing on.
D
Deleted member 752119
Unconfirmed Member
Yep. I honestly hope all those types of gamers stick with the X1. I run into much less of that crap online on PS3, and hope the PS4 experience is similar even with its likely larger market share.
I don't plan on playing much online FPS MP anymore beyond coop stuff like Borderlands anyway, so mostly moot. Maybe some Killzone around launch since there aren't really many other games that interest me much this year.
wapplew
Member
On the Kinect voice command and gesture media stuff.
If MS really achieve what they promise at the first TV TV TV demo, with all those content available day one, everything so accurate and smooth, it will be the biggest selling point for them. Through user video demo and such, steam might pick up there.
If that part fail, like lots of miss control with gesture and voice, laggy multi tasking, Kiniect will become the bigest burden.
If MS really achieve what they promise at the first TV TV TV demo, with all those content available day one, everything so accurate and smooth, it will be the biggest selling point for them. Through user video demo and such, steam might pick up there.
If that part fail, like lots of miss control with gesture and voice, laggy multi tasking, Kiniect will become the bigest burden.
outunderthestars
Banned
This is where I disagree. They have lost a great deal of mindshare within the hardcore gaming community. That community is the most vocal, and can influence a large portion of the overall market through recommendations, early adoption, etc.
PairOfFilthySocks
Member
Quite literally nothing they backtracked on was positively different or interesting
Edit:
A stellar argument. Do you have any reasoning to back up your disagreement with the idea that the people willing to pay 500 bucks for a console tend to drive sales in its initial launch?
There are many interesting things being done with kinect when it comes to core gaming features. While many are not that huge, they are still cool and in many cases convenient. All of these things will add up in making a more unique experience on the Xbox platform and that's not counting the features with kinect when it comes to the Xbox One's UI and functionality itself.
That's not the only difference about the Xbox One vs. the PS4 though that can be compelling to all different types of gamers. You also have the different exclusive games (as I've said before), the features that Xbox Live will get now and in the future, the features that the system has now and will receive in the future via updates, and other things too.
Since both the PS4 and Xbox One share so many similarities, the differences are going to matter more in terms of a person choosing one over the other, even if they are pretty minor since (as I've said before) various minor things add up into having just as much impact as one (or possibly more) major features.
Aren't there lots of regular media and general tech media at those events? So yes no dispute that the people watching the stream at home were hardcore gamers, but the message would reach the softcore through coverage from places like Engadget or the NYT. That is the theory at least, but the hardcore tide had already turned against them which influenced the coverage of the regular media as well.
I personally would have enjoyed being able to purchase retail discs, being able to not need those discs in the tray so I could quick switch games without getting up, and then still being able to resell them. But that is just me personally, I understand lots of people would have been f'ed over by the stuff.
CouchMaster
Member
About six or seven retail releases this year from first parties, not counting Vita games. Thats more output than Nintendo's first party, which is something.
Clockwork5
Member
I agree with this so much. I was looking forward to having 2 next gen consoles, each with differing strengths and focuses. Now the only difference will be exclusives and maybe a marginal difference in performance. I am not one of the "i am afraid of change and innovation" crowd.
I really wish that everyone who unjustifiably held MS to the fire would realize that there are many out there who are disappointed about this backtracking. What really gets me is that many haters never cared to purchase an Xbox one regardless of MS's policies, but they were the most vocal about their displeasure.
Is it really a surprise with Microsoft's direction? I mean, look at the current 360 UI, it's like sitting on MSN, with advertisements and a very confusing User Flow. It was not designed for the hardcore gamer at all, who wants to get in and play there games (it's not too bad for a disc-based game, but there's a higher level of frustration if you want to play something from within your library). Personally, I think it's terrible.
Sony's UI, while not my favorite, is still as simple as when I got the console. Sure there are added options, and a ticker in the top right (which I believe can be turned off), but it's not looking at the front page of YouTube.
Microsoft really wants that "softcore" gamer. They just have ignored the hardcore to get there. I have both pre-ordered, but without Microsoft dropping 100 dollars (whether they keep the Kinect in or not, I'll never use it), I'm going to wind up cancelling my XBOne.
Sony's UI, while not my favorite, is still as simple as when I got the console. Sure there are added options, and a ticker in the top right (which I believe can be turned off), but it's not looking at the front page of YouTube.
Microsoft really wants that "softcore" gamer. They just have ignored the hardcore to get there. I have both pre-ordered, but without Microsoft dropping 100 dollars (whether they keep the Kinect in or not, I'll never use it), I'm going to wind up cancelling my XBOne.
RealityPales
Member
Softcore... I've always had a hard time labeling that crowd. Genius!
But boy, do those three categories have a tendency to overlap.
Sure, the Nintendo crowd, particularly with the Wii, could be considered casual - but only to an extent. The people looking forward to new Zelda's and Mario's aren't confined to the casual group. Everyone wants in on Nintendo's first party catalog. And I know plenty of "softcore" gamers who are early adopters of new hardware. Hell, I have a friend who bought the early Vita bundle (Feb 15?) just for FIFA.
Ultimately, to each their own. No two consumers are alike I say.
But boy, do those three categories have a tendency to overlap.
Sure, the Nintendo crowd, particularly with the Wii, could be considered casual - but only to an extent. The people looking forward to new Zelda's and Mario's aren't confined to the casual group. Everyone wants in on Nintendo's first party catalog. And I know plenty of "softcore" gamers who are early adopters of new hardware. Hell, I have a friend who bought the early Vita bundle (Feb 15?) just for FIFA.
Ultimately, to each their own. No two consumers are alike I say.
RobotRocker
Member
Actually the N64 lost because Sony was smart enough to use "Cool" branding and market like crazy with festivals and associating with music culture at the times to sell to the softcore audience while courting the Hardcore audience with games like FFVII. While the N64 launch was even more hubris fueled than the XBone would ever hope to be with Nintendo thinking people could wait months and even a year in Europe's case (And Europe also got games with appaling PAL conversions and frame rates) while also plastering margin stuffing peripherals all over the place and making Western territories wait for months and even years for games on top of that.
It did get a small hardcore audience due to the price climbdowns and Zelda OOT, but Nintendo's arrogance was insane at the time and practically lasted the entire generation.
The actual power difference doesn't really matter to the 'softcore' or 'casual' audience. But more power at a lower cost makes an amazing value proposition that MS hasn't' been able to beat with 'very very advanced web camera' and 'better online'.
Hasn't pushed me over the edge quite yet, but they are most certainly winning me back day-by-day.
digoutyoursoul
Member
He said hardware parity, isn't PS4 still a bit more powerful than Xbox One?
SwiftDeath
Member
I guess?
I mean a lot of the coverage would be from journos for publications that the softcore wouldn't read
Eurogamer, IGN etc. (not sure if the softcore read VG sites tbh)
But there would be some bleed through via more popular sites covering it
Still seems an odd way to do it to me though
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Yep, this guy does understand the paradox that hardcore can't propel a console to the success that companies want to see these days but they may be required to prep the rocket for launch.
Microsoft really did turn a good trick last generation by kicking off the 360 with a launched aimed at appealing to western hardcore gamers as much as humanly possible. But their "disrespect" for that audience didn't just happen with Xbox One's unveiling. It started years ago with the New Xbox Experience, Kinect, etc. Folks should have seen this coming, Microsoft really began taking a certain part of their demographic for granted.
Microsoft really did turn a good trick last generation by kicking off the 360 with a launched aimed at appealing to western hardcore gamers as much as humanly possible. But their "disrespect" for that audience didn't just happen with Xbox One's unveiling. It started years ago with the New Xbox Experience, Kinect, etc. Folks should have seen this coming, Microsoft really began taking a certain part of their demographic for granted.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
Sure but software trumps all of that and we really have no idea who's going to have that killer app yet.