it will still be less than the PS3's numbers since the PS3's sales are 35% more than current 360 numbers.
If the 360's sales increase 2-4x then it will be rivaling the Wii. My own research tells me that the 360,due exclusively to the $199 price, will sell really well this christmas and may even outsell the Wii.
The PS3 will do reasonably well but the 360's install base will recapture much of the ground lost to the PS3. Is the PS3 a better machine? Yes. Is it a bet...
The Wii is basically a gamecube with a higher clockspeed and fancy controller. As a result it was very cheap to make. While Sony and Microsoft battle it out over which HD console will win (this year Sony is 35% ahead of Microsoft), Nintendo has been working on it's own HD console.
The new Nintendo will come out in two years (2010). It will be backwards compatible with the Wii and gamecube yet have hardware that's beyond what's available today for PCs and consoles. It will a...
Total potential sales is a function of desirability quotient. The market has made it clear that this is how the consoles rank:
1) Wii
2) PS3
3) 360
Price determines how quickly and how close a product comes to fulfilling it's total potential sales.
By dropping the price of the 360, Microsoft isn't increasing the 360's appeal relative to the competition. It's simply cashing in it's chips early for the sake of a short-term increase in markets...
who can barely afford to pay for games and will never be able to afford a high speed internet connection and online.
These are the rent-a-center types. They're thinking is very short term, and, yes, they shop at Walmart.
As I said a month or two ago, Microsoft's only hope of pulling back from a consistent month after month beating in sales by the PS3 (PS3 has consistently outsold the 360 by 35% in 2008) is with a dramatic price drop.
It's unfortunate ...
We have seen this with some other multi-player games as well such as Virtua Fighter 5 and others.
In case some of you don't understand math, I'll break it down for you.
Installed Base: The PS3 has 74% of the 360's total installed base
Madden sales: The PS3 has sold 81% of the 360's total Madden 09 sales
So, by a small margin, Madden is more popular on the PS3.
The developers know that this will not sell well on the 360. It's been proven time and again that 360 owners have no interest whatsoever in such games.
That's why Microsoft paid off the developer to prevent this and other similar titles from being available on other consoles.
This is the sad reality of it all. Microsoft advertises all these capabilities like video downloads, downloadable demos, online multi-player, etc... but none of this is possible at $199, $299, or even $399 unless you spend hundreds on additional purchases.
The story of the 360 is one based on unethical (though not illegal) business practices from bait-and-switch advertising, surprise expenses, and monopolistic business partnerships. Apart from short-changing customers, the cost...
He obviously doesnt understand the problems with bandwidth, network congestion, and storage, all of which present problems for downloadable HD movies impacting everything from visual quality (too much compression) to usability (when/where/how it can be viewed and how often).
that "security" chip Microsoft added has only one purpose. To force you to buy the microsoft Xbox branded accessory. That's why regular hard-drives can't work. What's more it only adds about $5 to the price. Custom chips are very cheap nowadays.
Microsoft is making massive profits by forcing people to buy Microsoft Xbox360 brand accessories and now they're trying to convince people that it's not because of greed and that it costs almost as much as a PS2 to add that ...
1) Any independent industry analyst can tell you that the parts cost for the 120GB hard-drive is low.
2) The only reason why Microsoft has placed "proprietary" components within the hard-drive and other accessories is to make sure that off-the-shelf accessories do not work.
Microsoft and the author of this article wants people to believe that it costs more to make a 120GB hard-drive than to make a PS2 which has a complex CPU, GPU, power supply, RAM, EDRAM,...
It's that it has additional content included free of charge whereas those who paid full-price are still forced to pay an additional amount for that same content on top of the $60 they paid originally.
unless you buy the Hard-drive.
If you want to play against your friends you have to pay another $50 every year.
Over 5 years, the PS3 will give you demos, online play and every bell and whistle imaginable for $399.
The Xbox360 Arcade will cost you $550 and still lack all the advanced features that are free on the PS3.
You claim you bought your 360 at launch and played online and that you've spent less than the price of a PS3. Let's do the m...
For a minimum of $450 you have a XBox360 with a basic, noisy DVD drive, no hard-drive, no wi-fi, no blu-ray, no motion control (for games like Mirror's Edge), no web-browser, no movie downloads, no demos, etc... But hey, if you can figure out how to make it work, you can stream music to it from your PC. Wow.
So, seriously, why would anyone pay more for an Xbox360 Arcade when for less money they can get a PS3 which gives you all the bells and whistles imaginable and won't cost ...
if you never do the following:
Play online with your friends
Download game demos
Want wireless online
Want to save new game data without having to delete your old saved games
Have music on your xbox360
Download movies
Even if you skip the hard-drive upgrade and wifi, you still spend an additional $250 over 5 years to play online with your friends.
Minimum bottom-line cost:
Arcade: $450
Premium: $550
...
After yr 2:
PS3: $470
Arcade: $620
Premium: $500
Elite: $600
After yr 3:
PS3: $470
Arcade: $670
Premium: $550
Elite: $650
After yr 4:
PS3: $470
Arcade: $720
Premium: $600
Elite: $700
After yr 5:
PS3: $470
Arcade: $770
Premium: $650
Elite: $750
The Xbox360 lacks in-game keyboard and mouse support, a web-browser, motion c...
you can't play online with your friends.
Even if you never download demos or movies and never use Wifi, your minimum cost over 5 years is
$199 (Based hardware) + $50x5 (cost of online play) = $449.
Some of what you don't get for paying $449 to Microsoft:
-80 GB Hard-drive
-Wifi (wireless online play)
-Continued unlimited online play with your friends after year 5
-Web browsing wirelessly on your TV
-World's top rated ...
on any console. GT4 has better lighting and car models.
What's the point of a $199 price point and free demos if
1) You have to buy a hard-drive ($100 for a measly 20GB) to play online and save downloaded demos and movies
2) You have to pay $50/yr to play online with your friends
The minimum cost of this system in your first year is
$199 (Base hardware) + $100 (Hard-drive) + $50 (Online): $349
Add another $50 every year to keep playing online with your friends.
After 2 years yo...
I wish I never read it. It's based on speculation. They're just trying to get some hits.
so demand (the total number of people who want a product) for the 360 won't change but lower price will begin to tap into the sweet spot that fulfills existing demand while staying close to break-even, at least in the US market.
To explain how demand works, if, hypothetically, a console has a total demand of 500k/month, then at a high price, you might sell just 100k/month and at a lower price you might sell 300k/month. If you gave them away for free you'll fulfull all the demand...