Microsoft will lower the price of the non-kinect Xbox One to $349 and the Kinect version to $399 to undercut Sony and drive volume sales.
How many people who play Dark Souls style games finish them?
4% ?
It's not about fair or unfair
It's about being a profitable, growing business division within Microsoft.
Microsoft's Xbox division isn't profitable
They are trying to fix that
After the PS2 era ended it was time for consoles to "grow up" and become real hardware. PC gaming was taking off with 3D games such as Wolfenstein, Doom, Quake and newer GPU designs.
It was only natural for consoles to enter into the new era of high-end devices with the Xbox and then the Xbox 360 and PS3
Again, the problem is that they were selling costly new hardware at the old console prices.
Why?
Well Microsoft...
You have to remember that until Microsoft bullied its was into the console business Sony and Nintendo did not release high-end, costly hardware.
Microsoft's first Xbox was the first salvo in what has been a console hardware arms race which has been good for consumers (more powerful devices) but has been a disaster from a pricing perspective for Sony and MS.
Nintendo didn't join in because they probably looked at the financials of selling $800 worth of...
sure ... enjoy
http://www.escapistmagazine...
Good info but not relevant.
It's a foregone conclusion that the Xbox unit at Microsoft has lost billions of dollars and will never see a return on what they have invested.
So all the rest of this is just kind of moot.
Microsoft should not be in the console business. Investors have already voiced their concerns about this and rumors of a spin-off or divestiture have been floating around.
Sony isn't in good shape eithe...
If Microsoft could go back in time they would never have gotten into this console business.
Now they have climbed up a tree that they can't get down from.
All they did was put a financial dent in their business.
The winner of this "console" generation is Apple with their tablets and $1.99 app store games.
Microsoft needs to get out of the silly gaming console business and focus on their core business.
They're lost billions of dollars on nonsense like Xbox, Zune, Surface, Bing, Skype and other goofy adventures.
The Xbox division at Microsoft is not going to grow the company.
Anytime a developer tells you they built something "ground up" they're BS'ing you.
Dev teams don't throw away thousands of lines of code and start over.
Christ people
Gaming Consoles haven't been a profitable business to be in since the PS2 era of console gaming ended.
This isn't news.
The Xbox 360 and PS3 have been WONDERFUL gaming platforms for consumers but don't confuse that with profitability.
The gaming scene is very fragmented now. PC and Steam have emerged as a major spoiler to the consoles as have smartphones and tablets with their $1.99 games.
...
This generation doesn't begin until Bethesda chimes in with another epic Fallout or Elder Scrolls game.
Everything else is just a time-waster until then
I like the fact that there's never much news or hype for Fallout and Elder Scrolls games.
While other companies stuff their games down our throats in the form of endless media hype, betas and demos Bethesda quietly goes about creating GOTY-quality games.
Hype and over-coverage ruins games! We saw this recently with watchdogs.
And now that I have played around in the Destiny beta there's no mystique around the release. We already k...
The Xbox 360 WASN'T successful
That's what many of you DON'T understand.
Microsoft lost BILLIONS on the Xbox 360 venture and that's why they changed their strategy from hardcore gaming to an overall media appliance.
MS wants revenues coming in from the consumption of games, TV's, movies, music, advertising and other media partnerships.
The Xbox One was supposed to be the 10-12 year future of your living ...
MS had a strategy to release a media-center style box for the living room from which EVERYONE in the family could consume games, TV, music, movies and other content. NOT to release a hardcore high-end gaming rig.
They probably came up with this strategy 10 years ago: "TO OWN THE LIVING ROOM"
The problem is that things have changed drastically in terms of how content is consumed over that period of time.
Each member of the househol...
The internet is UNUSABLE without Adblock.
You get obnoxious ads crammed down your throat CONSTANTLY
You're clueless
Do you have any idea how much Sony has lost since the PS2 era of gaming ended?
It's staggering. It's like more than 5 Billion dollars. And they will never recuperate those losses. NEVER. It's IMPOSSIBLE.
The difference is that Microsoft's Xbox division is a side-project while their core business has godly revenue streams and is sitting on 80 billion in cash.
Microsoft has lost billions ...
It's not about Playstation
Playstation is not a company
SONY is the company and they are doing terribly, hemorrhaging billions of dollars year-after-year in unprofitable ventures.
Yeah
The 10's-of-millions people who play Minecraft 16 hours a day don't seem too worried any of this.
The joke is that now you have all these console gamers worrying about resolutions and framerates.
We all know where that eventually leads.
PC Gaming
I am hoping it blows us sooner than that