Microsoft defends $500 pricetag for XBox One

[Flaery]

So you mean all those features no one asked for are influencing the price of the XBone? I think I know what Microsoft should remove next.

 

[chozo_hybrid]

500 bucks for a glorified TV with gaming as (what looks like) a afterthought? No thx. And I'm fairly sure the dashboard will be full of commercials again. Mandatory Kinect doesn't help either.

The best part for NON-US customers, is that most of the TV stuff isn't available in their regions too, so paying more or the same for a machine they get even less feature for.

 

[Haakmed]

you can easily make the system better and cheaper if you didn't require that kinect spy bar... but what am I thinking. Kinect was a huge success and everyone wants one!

 

[mirage202]

$100 extra for exclusive services like Skype, Twitch etc.

Err, but Microsoft we'd have to pay for Gold to use any of those, how is that an extra hundred bucks?

Got to try harder if you really want anybody with 2 functioning brain cells to rub together to believe its anything other than paying to allow any organisation with a hack or back door access to spy on us in our homes.

 

[Soopy]

Vocal minority ruining something that would have been great for the silent majority.

I happen to be 34, which is the exact average age of "gamers" in the U.S. I've been a gamer my entire life, my first toy was a c64. I was incredibly excited about xb1's feature set, and I was realllllly looking FORWARD to the "always on". I was looking forward to a Steam-like marketplace, looking forward to not having to patch every time I use the system, looking forward to not having to use disks to access games that are stored on the hard drive in the first place. These were GOOD things. They were PROGRESS.


Forums like this are full of 24/7 hardcore gamers who tend to be a little myopic, I used to be one. What you need to understand is that many people like myself don't actually game that often, we WANT the "set top box" that you sneer at so emphatically. I have a job, I have a family, I have limited time for playing games, and I am the majority... not you.

This was Microsofts chance to create and dominate a market, like Nintendo did with the first Gameboy. They could've left Sony to cater exclusively to the hardcore, and ruled the "adult" market that has income, limited time, and desire for home features like cable box passthrough (BRILLIANT btw), the kinect for kids and workouts, integration of our media (I have all premium channels and sports packages and netflix and hulu and a voice activated hub / search will be incredible), Skype integration, on and on.



Microsofts only error has been in acknowledging the bleats of the hardcore and giving up their vision, it would've been amazing.

Hrmm, I also work full time, have three kids and a fairly busy social life. Xbox was still going to provide nothing useful. If I want to play games,I want to play games. Not navigate through irrelevant advertisements, not have to faf about going through authentication procedures, If I want to "disappear" from the family for a couple hours to relax, I don't want to have to be mindful of where I can have internet access in order to do so.

They coined it as a full entertainment system. Well. So is the PC I am building. It will play games, movies, interface with my living room TV or stream to my media center, we can use it to access youtube to play TV shows for the kids or music when we want that. All of these features are free after the construction of the PC, which while more expensive initially will work out cheaper over a generations life time.

Simply put, The Xbox one is expensive, very expensive considering what you actually get for the purchase price. The now defunct limitations of the system were down right offensive.

I understand that not everyone understands PC's enough to build one themselves, but honestly education is your most valuable asset in life. If you're not particularly interested in paying through the nose for substandard products, and you have access to youtube, do some searching on the topic there and educate yourself. While the initial outlay maybe be more expensive (only slightly if you build to the same hardware standard as a console) the benefits are far reaching.

 

[Anthony Corrigan]

I wouldn't discount more MMOs appearing on consoles, Elder scrolls is and Blizzard is putting Diablo onto consoles and I wouldn't be surprised to see a WOW variant on console

RTS is obviously better suited to computer (its been tried badly before) because of the mouse and keyboard issue

I can see why Sony has avoided a keyboard and mouse interface for gaming (you can actually hook them up for navigation to the PS3). Consoles are tied to TVs which means most of us want to be able to play while lounging on the couch and a keyboard and mouse hinder this. Sure I am currently on my couch with the laptop but the mouse playing games like this would mean getting out a mouse pad and external mouse and then finding something hard to put it on which makes it less of a relaxing activity where as if I flick the TV over to the PS3 I can play Bioshock without moving because the controller is self contained

However maybe there is nothing to stop them introducing this down the track, remember Sony uses Bluetooth and already has keyboard and mouse drivers in the current generation so it wouldn't be to hard for them to add that option down the road if they wanted to

It saddens me Diablo is considered an mmo now

OT: Even if it were true its thousands of dollars of value for things I don't want. We should I pay more when the other gives me exactly what I want for a better price when your charging for bells an whistles I either don't want or don't care about. This is like trying to sell me a car with a spoiler and nitrous for only a little bit more when I just want a freaking car man. Paying more for something because it give you things you don't want on discount is silly.

Didn't mean Diablo was an MMO, I meant that as Blizard is getting back into consoles you might see WOW or a variant come next. The ACTUAL MMO which is already announced is Elder Scrolls

 

[Zeh Don]

Vocal minority ruining something that would have been great for the silent majority...

Haha, I hate this unsubstantiated "go to" claim. Let me ask you a simple question:

Twitter, Facebook, Google+, the Games Enthusiast media, the Mainstream Media, every single video game forums on the internet, every forum that had a video game discussion section, blogs, editorials, comments sections, Amazon, Gamestop, EB Games, GameFly, RedBox and even Youtube; the hatred of the Xbone was vast, universal and close to being utterly unanimous across every single method of communication available to human kind.

Where were the silent majority hiding?

Are you, perhaps, referring to the non-gamer crowd, who weren't educated as to the Xbone's policies? Their lack of education discounts them because you can't show that if they were educated they would still support the policies - in fact, the precedent is the other way: they'd probably hate it, too.

No, there was no secret majority, sitting quietly on the sidelines watching a few dozen or so fools. Those who wanted the Xbone as-was are the minority, based on all of the evidence at hand.

 

[Soopy]

To be silent, is to be irrelevant.

If you really care about an issue, you won't be silent. So I struggle with the notion that a vocal minority could do some sort of injustice to an apathetic majority. Either fight for what you want, or be satisfied with what you're given.

 

[Croaker42]

... But they just "removed" all the extra functionality they thought people would pay for.

Sorry MS I just don't see any value in buying a system where I know, at any moment you could flip the d-bad switch and ruin things.

At least in the last gen few if anyone saw the douchbagery (systems removing functionality or restricting compatibility) coming. Anyone purchasing an X180 at this point has to be expecting to get screwed.

 

[Danceofmasks]

I'm sure the price is justified- there are many more new features for the XO than for the PS4. However, the XO costs more therefore I shall not buy, it's that simple.

More features? Bloatware doesn't count as features.
The PS4 can generate 30% more teraflops in terms of graphical processing power. That's a feature that means something.
Voice command channel surfing is bollocks. Especially when it "needs" to reserve 3 GB of RAM in order to do all this crap.

It's the same problem with windows 8.
They get orders from corporate, and then what the engineers come up with in order to comply just isn't what we want.

For example, Office 2013.
It "has to launch in under 5 seconds, on any platform" 'cos that's a core principle of windows 8.
So what did they have to do to office in order to achieve that?
It's the ugliest collection of work software you could imagine. Nobody wants to spend hours a day looking at that.
Oooh, oooh, it comes with a skydrive, so all your work is available anywhere.
Would you entrust your sensitive documents to Microsoft to keep secure?

The price is not justified.
"You have to pay for features, which in turn causes restrictions, that we decided you need" seems to be their slogan of late.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I'd rather spend $500 on a videocard or two.

 

[Tradjus]

I'm calling this, either a few months before or a few months after launch, the requirement for Kinect too always be connected will be dropped, they'll release a kinect free bundle for... probably only fifty dollars less, knowing them, and no developer will ever touch the Kinect, ever.

 

[Maxtro]

The sole reason the Xbone is $100 more expensive then the PS4 is because of Kinect. That's it.

And from what I've seen, being able to use Kinect isn't worth the extra money.

 

[VanQ]

Vocal minority ruining something that would have been great for the silent majority.

I happen to be 34, which is the exact average age of "gamers" in the U.S. I've been a gamer my entire life, my first toy was a c64. I was incredibly excited about xb1's feature set, and I was realllllly looking FORWARD to the "always on". I was looking forward to a Steam-like marketplace, looking forward to not having to patch every time I use the system, looking forward to not having to use disks to access games that are stored on the hard drive in the first place. These were GOOD things. They were PROGRESS.


Forums like this are full of 24/7 hardcore gamers who tend to be a little myopic, I used to be one. What you need to understand is that many people like myself don't actually game that often, we WANT the "set top box" that you sneer at so emphatically. I have a job, I have a family, I have limited time for playing games, and I am the majority... not you.

This was Microsofts chance to create and dominate a market, like Nintendo did with the first Gameboy. They could've left Sony to cater exclusively to the hardcore, and ruled the "adult" market that has income, limited time, and desire for home features like cable box passthrough (BRILLIANT btw), the kinect for kids and workouts, integration of our media (I have all premium channels and sports packages and netflix and hulu and a voice activated hub / search will be incredible), Skype integration, on and on.



Microsofts only error has been in acknowledging the bleats of the hardcore and giving up their vision, it would've been amazing.

Hrmm, I also work full time, have three kids and a fairly busy social life. Xbox was still going to provide nothing useful. If I want to play games,I want to play games. Not navigate through irrelevant advertisements, not have to faf about going through authentication procedures, If I want to "disappear" from the family for a couple hours to relax, I don't want to have to be mindful of where I can have internet access in order to do so.

They coined it as a full entertainment system. Well. So is the PC I am building. It will play games, movies, interface with my living room TV or stream to my media center, we can use it to access youtube to play TV shows for the kids or music when we want that. All of these features are free after the construction of the PC, which while more expensive initially will work out cheaper over a generations life time.

Simply put, The Xbox one is expensive, very expensive considering what you actually get for the purchase price. The now defunct limitations of the system were down right offensive.

I understand that not everyone understands PC's enough to build one themselves, but honestly education is your most valuable asset in life. If you're not particularly interested in paying through the nose for substandard products, and you have access to youtube, do some searching on the topic there and educate yourself. While the initial outlay maybe be more expensive (only slightly if you build to the same hardware standard as a console) the benefits are far reaching.

You're arguing with an account with one post that was made today. That's a Microsoft marketer. A shill. Someone paid to try and do damage control. It's not worth your time to even respond to posts like that.

 

[Soopy]

You're arguing with an account with one post that was made today. That's a Microsoft marketer. A shill. Someone paid to try and do damage control. It's not worth your time to even respond to posts like that.

To be honest, I didn't even notice.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Thing is, $500 really isn't that much considering we live in a world were tons of people are willing to spend $600 on an iPhone when they're only going to use it for a year, and then spend another $600 to get the next one. At least with an Xbox you'll have it for 5+ years (hopefully).

Of course, it kind of sucks that the price point is basically all because of the kinect, which 95% of the gaming community doesn't even want.

Then again, what the hell do I care, it's not like I was going to get an Xbone after the policies Microsoft tried to enact, regardless of the fact that they decided to change them in the end.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Vocal minority ruining something that would have been great for the silent majority.

I happen to be 34, which is the exact average age of "gamers" in the U.S. I've been a gamer my entire life, my first toy was a c64. I was incredibly excited about xb1's feature set, and I was realllllly looking FORWARD to the "always on". I was looking forward to a Steam-like marketplace, looking forward to not having to patch every time I use the system, looking forward to not having to use disks to access games that are stored on the hard drive in the first place. These were GOOD things. They were PROGRESS.


Forums like this are full of 24/7 hardcore gamers who tend to be a little myopic, I used to be one. What you need to understand is that many people like myself don't actually game that often, we WANT the "set top box" that you sneer at so emphatically. I have a job, I have a family, I have limited time for playing games, and I am the majority... not you.

This was Microsofts chance to create and dominate a market, like Nintendo did with the first Gameboy. They could've left Sony to cater exclusively to the hardcore, and ruled the "adult" market that has income, limited time, and desire for home features like cable box passthrough (BRILLIANT btw), the kinect for kids and workouts, integration of our media (I have all premium channels and sports packages and netflix and hulu and a voice activated hub / search will be incredible), Skype integration, on and on.



Microsofts only error has been in acknowledging the bleats of the hardcore and giving up their vision, it would've been amazing.

Hi MS! How is everything going over in Redmond!

Between your lovingly short-sighted post, obvious MS bias, and comments of a 'silent majority' people are just going to peg you as a paid shill.

Please reply if you want all the reasons you mentioned killed off in various ways showing how MS were actively trying to screw everyone.

 

[Nazulu]

I reckon $500 is fair with everything they've stuffed into the console, all those extra features I never wanted are probably expensive. However, I don't give a flying fuck for the damn Kinnect! There is no good excuse for why that is forced and for why it has that disturbing spying piece built in. It's separate from the damn Xhole for fuck sake! And after admitting to the other shit, they are still pushing this!?

 

[DelinquentTurtle]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-defends-xbox-one-500-price-point-were-over-delivering-value-6410352

We're over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days you look at it [and] $499 isn't a ridiculous price point. We're delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, so I think they're going to love it when they use it.

"Thousands of dollars in value"? It's not hard to shut up and let the product do the talking, but MS beg to differ...I mean christ, they're only *just* recovering after the reversal of policies and the last thing they need their higher-ups spouting more bullshit all over again.

While MS have to stammer out a list of gimmicks disguised as applications/services to justify $500, all Sony has to do (once again) to retort is say "We'll give you a more powerful console for $400. Our motion/voice sensor is purely optional". Too easy.

I really don't understand how the $500 price point is so bad. Has anybody here tried building a PC recently? I got the parts for my new rig on sale from newegg, and with an i52500k, a geforce 560ti, and 8 gigs of RAM, I'm basically running something not far from the next gen consoles. It cost me well over $500 for that, and when you consider that over the next 10 years I would have to upgrade my PC hardware multiple times to continue playing new games (as console versions are optimized for consoles but PC versions obviously can't be), I don't see $500 as being unreasonable. The new kinect is now one of the only things keeping the xbone from being the xbox 360 2, and when you include that in the price (not to mention tv integration), it seems totally worth it to me.

Anybody who thinks that Microsoft should offer multiple pricing models and an optional kinect, just doesn't understand the videogame industry. To make the kinect actually part of the console product, it NEEDS to be included with every xbone. Otherwise, console peripherals are just that, expensive peripheral objects that nobody develops for. Its happened time and again (downfall of SEGA anyone?), and you would think gamers would understand this.

As far as PR goes, aside from 'hardcore' gamers like us, nobody has any clue what's happened over the past few weeks, and by November, this will have totally blown over.

Regardless of how much more expensive building a PC is, it is still a bad price point when you consider it will have a competing product which has better hardware at a $100 cheaper. It is well known that the PS4 outperforms the Xbone so you have to question why they are able to sell it cheaper with more expensive manufacturing costs. The answer mainly comes down to their insistance on including Kinect.

 

[Soopy]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/microsoft-defends-xbox-one-500-price-point-were-over-delivering-value-6410352

We're over-delivering value against other choices I think consumers can get. Any modern product these days you look at it [and] $499 isn't a ridiculous price point. We're delivering thousands of dollars of value to people, so I think they're going to love it when they use it.

"Thousands of dollars in value"? It's not hard to shut up and let the product do the talking, but MS beg to differ...I mean christ, they're only *just* recovering after the reversal of policies and the last thing they need their higher-ups spouting more bullshit all over again.

While MS have to stammer out a list of gimmicks disguised as applications/services to justify $500, all Sony has to do (once again) to retort is say "We'll give you a more powerful console for $400. Our motion/voice sensor is purely optional". Too easy.

I really don't understand how the $500 price point is so bad. Has anybody here tried building a PC recently? I got the parts for my new rig on sale from newegg, and with an i52500k, a geforce 560ti, and 8 gigs of RAM, I'm basically running something not far from the next gen consoles. It cost me well over $500 for that, and when you consider that over the next 10 years I would have to upgrade my PC hardware multiple times to continue playing new games (as console versions are optimized for consoles but PC versions obviously can't be), I don't see $500 as being unreasonable. The new kinect is now one of the only things keeping the xbone from being the xbox 360 2, and when you include that in the price (not to mention tv integration), it seems totally worth it to me.

Anybody who thinks that Microsoft should offer multiple pricing models and an optional kinect, just doesn't understand the videogame industry. To make the kinect actually part of the console product, it NEEDS to be included with every xbone. Otherwise, console peripherals are just that, expensive peripheral objects that nobody develops for. Its happened time and again (downfall of SEGA anyone?), and you would think gamers would understand this.

As far as PR goes, aside from 'hardcore' gamers like us, nobody has any clue what's happened over the past few weeks, and by November, this will have totally blown over.

Regardless of how much more expensive building a PC is, it is still a bad price point when you consider it will have a competing product which has better hardware at a $100 cheaper. It is well known that the PS4 outperforms the Xbone so you have to question why they are able to sell it cheaper with more expensive manufacturing costs. The answer mainly comes down to their insistance on including Kinect.

Even then, you would think the Kinect would merly offset the cost difference between the component deficit. Microsoft are just squeezing the pennies out of the consumers because they can.