Yopaz said:
And bromine melts plastic so we need glass bottles to hold that. There's nothing that's compatible with everything, but seriously, why are you still going on with that analogy? My point with that one was that we can't make things compatible just because we want them to be, that's final. Not trying to say it's applicable, simply using it as an example that being stubborn about these things is silly.
Ok, since I'm getting sick of the hypocrisy;
Yopaz said:
And bromine melts plastic so we need glass bottles to hold that.
You ARE still making these faulty analogies you talk about. You never stopped. If you're going to keep telling me not to make analogies, follow the advice yourself.
For the rest of it, I'm not asking to hold Bromine in plastic. I'm not asking that PS1 games be made to work on the PC, or Nintendo 3DS games that utilise their touchscreen. I'm not asking for the impossible, unique one of a kind hardware locked exclusives. As you yourself have said, your analogy isn't even applicable. You've not only ignored the point of the analogy I was trying to make and its context in order to complain about it, you've continually tried to make your own analogy to prove a point no-one was ever arguing about. This, and many other things, make it rather apparent you haven't actually read or tried to follow along with what I've been arguing, or if you have you feel that constantly throwing up strawmen will help.
If Microsoft pays for the development of a game to work on Xbox One, should they then pay for it to work on PS4? You see? Microsoft pays for the costs of the game, should they also cover the cost of it going to another paltform?
A weak "Gotcha" moment, considering I addressed exactly this. No, they should not pay for it to work on the PS4. They should not pay the company to not accept any money to make it work on the PS4, or use their profits to develop it for the PS4 post launch should they feel like it. Pay for the development? Sure. Lock off development so they cannot develop for other titles? No.
I used this as one of my initial points, but let me elaborate onm the hardware aspect of the differences here. Macs are delivered with very limited hardware because the operating system is built to support relatively few hardware setups. Thus the new MacBooks come with outdated hardware to acompany their existing drivers. OS differences are also important.
And the hardware side of this makes it very difficult to develop cross platform compatibility how?
Did you bring this up as a random fact, or was there a point to it?
Not true. There are several examples of games and software made for one system where there weren't any compromises.
Crysis was made to showcase how beautiful a game could look and still ran smoothly. Crysis 2, made for multiple systems could not replicate that.
I've had quite a few bugs with Crysis, actually, and a lot of poor performance, stutters, and a variety of other bits and bobs, even years later. And yes, it was the same at launch, and when I tried it recently. Crysis isn't a game that runs perfectly on a single platform. Its got its issues just the same.
OK, so Bayonetta 2 should never have been made, got it.
Bayonetta 2 should not have had a clause that made it have to be exclusive to the WiiU, assuming that clause existed. Nintendo would probably have been pretty safe with it being an exclusive, given that the WiiU is, at a hardware level, different from the other platforms, and all of the functionality may not have ported properly or at all.
The argument that exclusivity shouldn't be locked behind arbitrary bars is separate from the argument that a game shouldn't have been made. There are a number of games that haven't ended up made because of the exclusivity status too. Imagine Platinum had signed on with Sony that they weren't allowed to develop the Bayonetta franchise for anyone but Sony. Would you have your Bayonetta 2? No, no, I don't think you would have. Problems also arise when, outside of this clause in contract, the console manufacturers actually purchase IPs, giving them final say over whether a game even can be developed for another platform even without contractual obligations. Guess what that answer's always going to be?
Are you arguing that in the case presented above, Bayonetta 3 shouldn't have been made? No. They are completely different arguments to be making, and are unintended consequences that arise from company's shitty behaviour, rather than arguments over whether exclusives are a good thing or not.
Sure. Don't see your point here.
I said small devs managed to do ports just fine.
You said yeah, small games are easier to port.
I just stated that small devs don't always mean small games.
Essentially, games aren't that hard to port should the company want to. Quite often the issue with bad ports is that they're simply rushed out, rather than the time taken to polish them properly.
And to take a page out of your book here; are you saying those games should never have been ported, because they weren't perfect on all platforms?
So the fact that I chose PC is a point against me? Fine, I want all those games on PS4 or they shouldn't have been made.
That isn't even remotely what I said. I myself am a primarily PC gamer. I simply said that this isn't just about porting them to the PC, but exclusives in general - based partially on a misunderstanding that you were calling out my PC gaming tendencies, much like you've felt I was calling out yours. Unfortunately, that is the way of the internet I guess, and Poe's law.
All I said was that there is a distinction between "not impressive" and "poor". Publishers also separate disasters from mediocrity. They may lose money on both, but they won't lose as much with mediocrity. Also, let me stress this I never sid it sold well, I never said it sold poorly.
Who said anything about losing money?
Jesus, do you think "poor" means "Utter failure"?
Poor means it didn't sell well, not even that it necessarily failed. I'm thinking you might be the one in need of some middle ground here.
You said no-one cared about these exclusives. I can quote yopu if you want to.
Allow me to quote you first;
No, I would prefer if you didn't falsely insert your own interpretation of what I said thank you.
I've argued that exclusives are not required for competition, nothing more, nothing less. Yes, some people care about them. They aren't the only thing people care about.
I said exclusives aren't enough to sustain a console. Which you've done nothing to disprove.
I guess the 3DS, Wii and the PS3 (late in the game) all sold for their multiplatform games then.
No, I didn't. I said they account for the Xbox One selling consoles, multiplatforms are of course important, but they could also be bought for PS4 and PC. The PS4 was even cheaper at launch since the Xbox One was bundled with the Kinect, so I kinda doubt that people rushed to get an Xbox One for that reason.
And, again, we're talking a tiny proportion of the sales made, in terms of exclusives sold. More people brought the Xbox One for reasons OTHER than its exclusives, than brought it for its exclusives, assuming a best case scenario for those exclusives.
What does this tell us about exclusives and game sales?
As for the Xbox One price, it dropped within the first year of launch, and that action tripled its sales rate over night. That's a pretty big difference for "Competes only on exclusives".
I mean it took Sega a decade, and several utter failures of a console generation in order to pull out of the race.
You're saying that after one not even total failure of a generation, MS would pull out.
I'm not saying MS could never pull out, that no company will ever fail. I'm saying its going to take more than one not-quite-a-failures for MS to retreat.
Neither the Microsoft phone division or Sony laptop division collapsed, but they still pulled out.
This was an explanation to the above, which you have conveniently ignored and moved on to phones, which are addressed later. The answer to your above question, was right beneath it.
Now you're looking into the middle ground then. Also I wasn't thinking about sega. I was thinking about Microsoft's phones and Sony's laptops.
Joccaren said:
Yopaz said:
So, after over a decade of failure, and over 5 attempts, Sega withdrew from the market. Same goes for Microsoft and their phone - it had failed years ago.
Funny that Microsoft has also been losing money on their Xbox branch for a long time.
There is a difference between losing money on, and utterly collapsing. Sega released 5 consoles. Those consoles were only available for 2 years each. MS has released 3 consoles. The first was available for something around 6 years, the second around 8 or more, and this one is still going.
Yes, they lost money on their first two entries into the console market. Funny that. That tends to be how entering a new market goes. Sega had been in that market for a long time, and over a decade they didn't just lose money, their very brand collapsed. There is a world of difference between the two.
I'd recommend studying business. A lot of it is common sense, but it does point out all the difficulties and considerations that go into business decisions. MS wouldn't have pulled out without exclusives. They wouldn't have sold a ton fewer consoles without exclusives, and even if they had, they wouldn't have pulled out that very instant. They know their brand is stronger than that, and if they were to introduce an improved product that consumers would return to them. And lo and behold, after removing all the stuff people disliked about the Xbox One reveal, people did indeed return - and not solely because of exclusives.
We were talking about Sega. The Phones and such came later.
Kinda out of proportions here, don't you think?
You've argued, and literally stated, that "without exclusives Microsoft wouldn't have had an edge", implying no-one would have had a reason to buy Microsoft, and everyone would have gone Sony. I'm pointing out that you're the one taking it out of proportions, the fact that I need citation for the idea that maybe things wouldn't have totally collapsed, but you are free to predict total collapse for arbitrary reasons, astounds me.
I was talking about a complete collapse, but whatever, you make your own intepretations.
Earlier you said you weren't talking about a complete collapse in their mobile phone market. Which is it?
I also based it on the history of both companies pulling out of markets that aren't profitable.
Which I've repeatedly pointed out has differences to what you're describing.
It also doesn't help that its a hypothetical that is so extreme and removed from reality that even if the rest of your example is correct, which I'm not saying it is, it still doesn't help prove a point. Its like "Magic Physics land" for highschool physics where air resistance and friction don't exist. Great for examining Newton's laws, terrible for predicting how things behave IRL.
Didn't say it was, I said it takes work and money and that it wouldn't run automatically. Also mentioned examples of Xbox One games ported to PC with less than impressive results.
And I never said that it would just run automatically. I've simply been saying that the effort to port really isn't that high.
Finally got to the faulty car analogy then? I thought you would. I even mentioned that.
Funnily enough, I did it because you mentioned it. Nice job ignoring the point again though, as I mentioned you would. Much easier to attack the fact that there's an analogy than address the idea it represents.
Sure, but all games sell most right after release. It's the continuous stream of games that make a console worth having and the the exclusives that make you pick one over another.
See, this is exactly what I'm saying after this, and you're arguing against it. Exclusives are temporary in terms of their benefits to a console's sales. You release more in order to keep coming back.
Likewise, if you develop a Netflix app, that's also temporary, and you've got to develop more advantages over the console generation. Most of those, however, if they're actually unique, take longer to stop selling consoles than an exclusive game, however.
I have a secret for you. The PS1 isn't competing with the Xbox One, nor against the PS4. It was however a game that may have been part of determining whether people should buy a PS1 or Nintendo 64 for the entire life cycle of the PS1 following its release. Backwards compatibility also made it part of the competitive edge of the PS2 although not to the same degree.
So we're saying that Running Wild is still selling a ton of PS1s, so long after its release?
Or did it maybe sell a bunch when the game first came out, for the first week or two, and then even with the PS2 it didn't really sell any PS2s for that game. Backwards compatibility sells not because of exclusives, but because it removes exclusives. PS1 isn't exclusive from PS2, therefore you can play your PS1 games on the PS2 and don't need to own both. That sells more PS2s, since they have advantages over the one, and you're not locked in to the one, or only the new PS2 games.
Never once said that, but whatever.
You've implied that exclusives last forever, other things don't, so you just make one exclusive and you've got a forever competition point that you can just sit on and people will keep buying your console, whereas if you make an awesome UI it'll only sell for a short period of time then it won't sell your console any more.
I'm saying both have the same rules applied to them. You need a constant stream of both, not just one, in order to compete.
As I said, it was a hypotetical situation, I even said in my last post that I did not intend it to be a realistic prediction. You on the other hand haven't actually provided a citation that people who bought the Xbox One didn't buy it for its exclusives. You claim you have proved it, but you haven't. You claim you prove that Microsoft wouldn't drop out after a disaster and you haven't. You claim that people bought Xbox One from brand loyalty and you haven't provided any citations for that.
Can you provide a citation that people did buy the Xbox One for its exclusives?
Can you prove that the console generation would have been a disaster?
Can you prove MS would have dropped out afterwards?
Can you prove people didn't buy the Xbox One due to brand loyalty?
You're making as many claims as I am here, and hiding behind "Its a hypothetical" as if it actually
helps your argument, rather than makes it utterly pointless, while claiming I need to cite everything. They're predictions, its something we're both doing. I'm looking at business practices and knowledge from business theory studied at Uni, you're saying that because after several generations it was obvious that the smartphone market was dominated purely by Apple and Android, so MS withdrew as they had no chance in the industry - is the same as MS making a big mistake one year, losing some sales, and withdrawing because nope, fuck it. They'd try again, and different things, until it was obvious they couldn't break into the industry. Funnily enough, the opposite has been shown, that while MS was losing money for their first couple of generations, they still maintain a pretty fair market share - far more than their likely <3% market share in the phone industry. Hell, looking it up they were at 2.5% share, and dropped to 0.7% share. That is a VERY different scenario to the consoles. I'm basing my predictions off business behaviour and multiple variables, you're only looking at one and a worst case doom and gloom scenario.
I know all too well what monopoly is, which is why I think competition is so important. All companies need to offer something the other companies aren't. Right now the two major consoles in themselves don't offer much except for their exclusives.
And this is why I said to look up what Monopolistic Competition is, because it is NOT a monopoly.
You have just described Monopolistic Competition. It is considered a lesser form of competition than Perfect Competition where every company's products are nearly indistinguishable from each other. Why? Because they have to compete in ways that benefit everyone when that is the case. Lower prices, more innovation, new initiatives. It means that consumers aren't forced into buying from one company or the other because of locked off items, and instead can acquire everything they need for a competitive price. I mean, Monopolistic Competition isn't as bad as an Oligopoly, which is the other option for what the console market is, but its still not ideal.
Yes, everytime you get a game you have to install it. Once. If you intend to play your games a lot then it won't matter much in the long run.
I said UI can be changed, not that they can make it like Sony's. Durrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. I am saying that this is not something that will decide anything for me, it's temporary. The UI can change, either become better or worse. If I go back to this recommendation in 4 months it might be the other way around.
And once that UI has changed, Sony's can still be better than theirs, or prefered by certain types of users. Hot damn, its still a point of competition because they're not exactly the same. Colour me surprised that that was the outcome.
So Uncharted is set for release on Xbox One soon then?
So Uncharted 1 is still selling a ton of PS3s is it? Funny, I don't see it in stores.
And if you remember I was talking about console sales around launch. Not the total number of consoles sold up to date. Oh well, won't expect you to actually read what I said.
Still ignoring the fact that, yeah, it is a competition point that people brought different consoles for, or would prefer one or the other for.
So Uncharted IS coming for Xbox One then? PC? Wii U? The Switch? Come on, the tension is killing me!
Wait, so Uncharted 1 is still on store shelves alongside the PS3? Shit, point me to them. All we've got around my parts are PS4 games.
And why don't Sony or Naughty Dog report the massive sales they're getting from this near 10 year old game? That's record breaking, I'd think they'd be throwing that all over everyone with a game like that.
I went on to address the other point right after saying I would stick to PC. I said it would all be a popularity contest where you buy what your friends buy. You want your games to be compatible with their consoles, you want to play multiplayer with them. If there are exclusives you have a reason to go in other directions than your friends. If my friend want Halo and I want Persona then we go for different systems regardless. I didn't ignore your point, I explained my reasoning.
And this is a problem because?
All this really says is that brand loyalty will carry the day, as you will have a bunch of friends - online and not - that the best way to play with them is to keep the same console brand, where their accounts and such are and you're already friends with them and... Barriers to exit. They're a thing.
Additionally, more often if your friend wanted Halo, and you wanted Persona, you'd probably have gone with the Xbox like them, because for the majority of people who don't even finish a game's campaign, Persona, while they may like to play it, isn't going to hold their attention for as long as the next 2-3 years they'll be spending playing Halo with their friends online. You go with where the multiplayer titles you want are, which with most of them being multiplat, means you go with what you've already got most of the time. Friends outweigh exclusives for a lot, and I'd dare say most, of the consoles audience. Anecdotal only, but hey, that's all either of us can offer there.
Which I haven't stated. I have said they are the main competetive edge. Whatever.
Actually, I'm pretty sure you stated that without exclusives, Microsoft wouldn't have a way to compete, and Sony and MS wouldn't be able to compete. That there was next to no difference between consoles and only the exclusives would have a user be able to tell them apart, despite a lot of evidence to the contrary.
Are you saying the PS4 doesn't have exclusives?
Not at all, but for exclusives to be so utterly game changing and must have, you'd think they'd be making MS as many sales as Sony, if they both had exclusives. There is a huge gap between the two, however, which tells me its something other than exclusives that makes a lot of users buy a given console.
They offer near identical products, If I want a fried chicken jalapeno burger I go to McDonalds, if I want a nacho burger with salsa I go to Burger King.
Neither of which are available in my region. They both sell Cheeseburgers, fries and nuggets though, and funnily enough those tend to be why people choose one over the other most often too. Despite being nearly the exact same products, McDs does better nuggets, while HJs does better burgers, chips are much of a muchness but slight advantage to McDs, and Slushies have a slight advantage at HJs. A person wanting to buy a cheeseburger doesn't consider which shop sells a fried chicken jalapeno burger, because they don't want that. They decide who sells the best cheeseburger - and in that department they manage to compete pretty well too.
Because they also have different products. You might like Pepsi better than coke or another cola flavoured soft drink (I personally prefer Pepsi), but the competitions between the two companies is based on far more than those two products. The reason they are releasing new products is that they want to gain a bigger market share.
And Microsoft also sells Windows, Microsoft Office, Skype, Outlook and various other products.
Sony also sells televisions, cameras, speakers and tablets.
Can we stop pretending that gaming is all that Microsoft/Sony do, and every other company is diversified? We're focusing on a specific product, from a specific company. Both MS and Sony manage to compete with their other products much like Coke and Pepsi manage to compete with their other products. And much like Microsoft selling Outlook has 0 affect on their Xbox sales, Coke selling their other products also has 0 affect on the sales of their Coke product.
Funnily enough, the products Coke Cola and Pepsi Cola manage to compete just fine, and maintain both competitive market shares and profits, despite being near identical to each other. The companies don't rely on the rest of their products to sell these two products - if they were, these two products would have disappeared a long time ago, because they wouldn't be selling, and the opportunity cost would be better spent elsewhere. Hell, at one point Coke almost did basically this, because Pepsi was generally thought to taste better and started gaining market share. They discontinued the original Coke, brought out a new Coke with a new flavour. People hated it, demanded original Coke back, and its sales skyrocketed. They don't keep around products that don't sell. Both Coke and Pepsi sell, because despite being very similar, far more similar than an Xbox vs a PS, they still have their slight differences that have people buy one over the other.
Mountain Dew is a Pepsi exclusive, Nacho Whopper is a Burger King exclusive. You have done no such thing.
MSN is a Microsoft Product, the Xperia is a Sony product. Obviously they don't need exclusives - they're competing just fine.
Exclusives are the only significant difference between the consoles, I stand by that. Not sure how comparing Microsoft's business practice to Microsoft's business practice is faulty. I also compared Sony's business practice to Sony's business practice. I judge the two companies we are discussing and how they might react based on their history.
Only if you count "Significant" as "Forces consumers to buy" rather than "Encourages consumers to buy", which as we can see is anti-consumer, and not something other companies rely on. The two consoles do have points to compete on, and they're not completely ignored - people actually talk about them. And there have been threads I've seen here of "I'm not interested in either's exclusives, which do I buy?" where all this gets brought up too. But no, there would be no competition without exclusives, because the rest of it isn't significant enough. I think the market would probably beg to differ.
You compare business practices only at the most superficial level, with no real understanding of the decision making process behind them, or look at the backstory of the industry, or the products. MS has discontinued successful products before too. Obviously this means they'll discontinue the Xbox, regardless of whether its successful or not.
Or we could look a level deeper, and understand the difference in industries, and the reasons for discontinuations, rather than just that something was 'successful' or 'not successful' and got discontinued.
Exclusives make consoles competitive, competition is needed to avoid monopoly.
Exclusives are one of many aspects of console competition, and they'd be fine competing without them. Exclusives create a Monopolistic Competition that is less desirable than the closer to Perfect Competition that'd exist without them. Exclusives actually push the market closer to a Monopoly/Oligopoly, and do not discourage Monopoly.
