Microsoft Doesn't Want Sony's Sloppy Seconds

[Zeraki]

I stopped buying games for my 360 a long time ago anyway. The only reason I even still have a 360 is because of the Mass Effect series. Everything else I get for either the PC or PS3.

 

[Von Strimmer]

This has just turned into a massive flamewar against the 360. I don't care I'm not a serious gamer so this doesn't bother me. Although I must say I dont come to the escapist for news anymore. The journalism is always biased and opinionated, the content is always late, the journo's themselves frequently weigh into debates and say how much they hate a particular product. I will continue to enjoy my 360 and it's minimal selection of games because the dirty little secret is... Most games suck nowadays. It's better this way because I'm less likely to buy crap. The only game I really enjoyed and play over and over is fallout: NV. Everything else I don't play again.

Also this thread seems to be made up of mostly pc and ps3 owners.

 

[Flight]

I'm no expert, but that doesn't exactly sound like a good business strategy to me. In fact, it sounds more like sour grapes than anything else, though I could certainly be wrong.

 

[Pingieking]

I dunno what 3D Dot Game Heros is, but if its some "3D" title, I'll pass...since I can't see in 3D (1 working eyeball).

Oh lolz. Not the one-working-eye part, but the 3D part. Not only is 3D Dot Game Heroes not 3D, it's 8-bit graphics. It's kind of like PS3's version of old school Zelda.

Despite what MS says officially, I fail to see how this policy does anything positive.
The only consistent outcome of this is that the X360 will either lose games or game content that appear in other consoles, with the benefit of the X360 release possibly being earlier than its counterparts. So essentially, they've traded earlier release dates for a smaller library. Given that the X360 is almost completely dependent on third party support (I can only name three MS owned developers; Lionhead, 343 Industries, and Rare) I don't see how this is in any way a good policy.

 

[Atheist.]

Good thing about having every console: Things like this don't matter.

Pretty much this. Not to mention almost all of my gaming happens on the PC now days. Though I usually get games on my PS3 before the 360, if only because I don't like paying for Live.

 

[Doctor Glocktor]

I can understand why they're doing this, though its the wrong way of going about it.

 

[airrazor7]

A representative from a publisher, who wishes to remain anonymous, lest he/she face Microsoft's biblical wrath, disagreed. Talking to Eurogamer, they said, "Microsoft is suggesting that anything but parity will result in them not carrying a title. They may think this is competitive, but it's not. They are killing any creative exposure of titles to make up for their own platform's shortcomings."

I like that part, it has weight.

Ha, an MS employee calls bollox on MS. I'm pretty sure he/she/it/they/the collective/the anonymous isn't the only one who feels this way about their workplace.

 

[Venats]

Call me a fanboy, but Microsoft seem like dicks more and more everyday.

Proprietary Hard Drives, Banning Steam support, Banning EVE support, not adding an internet browser, increasing the price for internet, something that everyone else has for free, and now this?

It's like they are trying everything they can to prevent me from buying a 360.

Can I call you fanboy for not doing your research at least on a part of this? Proprietary hard drives are a non-issue with the Slim if you have even a modicum of computer know-how; yes it is a bigger pain in the ass than the simple nature of the PS3's near plug-and-play design but its not exactly hard to: buy a 2.5" form factor Hard Drive, connect it to your computer through SATA, load the appropriate software to make it an XBOX readable device, and plug it in to said XBOX. It takes ten minutes at most. You don't even need a case for the thing unless you are obsessive compulsive.

Steam and EVE are non-issues for me, as they are for the computer, so no comment... and I'm still not sure why people want internet browsers on a console but to each their own. As for XBOX-Live not being free, I'd weigh that against what is pretty good support/features for a price that is non-existent if you know how to shop around.

The thing is though, when you look at the accumulative price of an Xbox 360 (All the extra components that you had to buy, Xbox live membership, etc.) it actually cost around $850! What a coincidence, huh?

People talked like the PS3 costing $500+ was a bad thing, but in reality, it was still overall cheaper than the 360 was.

Are we talking old XBOX or the Slim? The old one was a veritable piece of garbage that was overly closed off and hard to handle, but I'd dare you to say the same for the Slim with a straight face. Also tell me how you managed to spend 850$ on an XBOX, hell even the old one I can't fathom how you wracked up that sort of price.

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For the OT: This has been the case since forever, its not really news and just seems to paint MS in an unnecessary dark hue for something that has existed in their business model since... forever. What they say isn't bad, not good either, but its understandable if one takes a step back: If you never strive to put pressure for equal games, priority release, or anything, you're never going to get anything first or even in the best working order. They didn't say that they will reject all games, only that they have the right to do so. That seems fine, I'd rather they have the ability to reject crap games than make the console a border-less dumping ground for cheap re-releases.

It comes off as childish and in some ways it is but from a business standpoint its strong arming, and its a viable and perfectly effective tactic... but it can backfire on you just as easily as it can succeed. MS spent the first few years of XBOX360's life span buying up exclusives to try and attract an RPG base but that ended up failing as most of the good games were never reachable because of Sony IP or Sony partnerships; this seems to be a partial extension of that whole fiasco: We're not buying/porting/accepting anymore mediocre games.

 

[Baldr]

A representative from a publisher, who wishes to remain anonymous, lest he/she face Microsoft's biblical wrath, disagreed. Talking to Eurogamer, they said, "Microsoft is suggesting that anything but parity will result in them not carrying a title. They may think this is competitive, but it's not. They are killing any creative exposure of titles to make up for their own platform's shortcomings."

I like that part, it has weight.

Ha, an MS employee calls bollox on MS. I'm pretty sure he/she/it/they/the collective/the anonymous isn't the only one who feels this way about their workplace.

Publisher does not equal Microsoft Employee, it could be any 3rd party publisher representative, more likely a big one(Ubisoft, EA, or Activision).

 

[ReaperzXIII]

"I don't want that chocolate bar! Timmy touched it, I WANT MY OWN CHOCOLATE BAR!!!" - This is basically all I heard.

But I agree with Microsofts statement in fact I think the heads of the gaming department of Microsoft should take it a step further! They should only breathe Microsoft only air, if even one Sony employee has breathed that air first then they should hold their breath and let it pass by.

 

[Venats]

Between buying HD components, an wireless internet adapter, an acceptable harddrive, the Xbox 360 elite, and gold membership, it costs about $820 actually. The point is, to obtain similar capabilities that the PS3 had included in the price, the 360 was actually more expensive.

I agree, the Slim is a lot less expensive, but before the argument was "It's less expensive than the PS3 (which was a lie) AND it has more games!" Now the argument is "It's less expensive than the PS3 and it has more games! (which is a lie)"

EDIT: Oh, and the other components also include things like wireless controllers, batteries for those controllers/recharge docking bays, etc. All in all, the miscellaneous expenses that are shoved onto the consumer during the initial purchase and after means the 360 was far more expensive... it actually STILL is more expensive, even with the slim, but the margin is far smaller.

You really didn't have to quote that whole thing...

As of today, I'd still argue that the XBOX (slim) is cheaper by a considerable 100$ margin to its PS3 counterpart. But, for the old XBOX, you do have a valid point in that it was a pain in the ass to upgrade without shelling out a pretty penny or learning how to use google. (Specifically, the hard drives of the old XBOX were overpriced junk but, given a little research, it wasn't THAT hard to pop open an old hard drive's case and put in a new one without paying for MS's proprietary junk.) But, iirc, the original XBOX and PS3 had about a hundred or so dollar difference which just about covered/converged if you *paid* for a full hard drive for the XBOX and Live... was/is like 50$ a year.

Still, I can't find 850$... for either console. 850$ is what I spend on computer parts.

As for the edit; that hardly counts and if you want to make that an argument then I'd argue that the Wii costs 700$ in parts too, which is a rather absurd argument. Controllers cost more, wireless controllers cost more so, that seems natural. So they didn't give you a docking station, I don't think 10$ in batteries every 6-months is a game breaker.

 

[airrazor7]

A representative from a publisher, who wishes to remain anonymous, lest he/she face Microsoft's biblical wrath, disagreed. Talking to Eurogamer, they said, "Microsoft is suggesting that anything but parity will result in them not carrying a title. They may think this is competitive, but it's not. They are killing any creative exposure of titles to make up for their own platform's shortcomings."

I like that part, it has weight.

Ha, an MS employee calls bollox on MS. I'm pretty sure he/she/it/they/the collective/the anonymous isn't the only one who feels this way about their workplace.

Publisher does not equal Microsoft Employee, it could be any 3rd party publisher representative, more likely a big one(Ubisoft, EA, or Activision).

Ah, probably true. I think I was too caught up in the humor of the situation I mentioned to consider that. Thanks for ruining my humorous ignorance (joking).

On a more serious note, and to lightly debate, I doubt they're from a big publisher if they want to remain anonymous. Two of the publishers you mentioned are EA and Activision. They pay their reps to belittle others on a regular basis so if the person was from either of those I doubt they would feel the need to remain hidden.

 

[crimsonshrouds]

in short: "Fuck our customers"

I wonder what will happen in the next generation?

 

[hecticpicnic]

Wasn't microsoft doing the same thing as song is now?

 

[mastiffchild]

So that means Ratchet and Clank will never come to 360?

Fine with me Microsoft. I'll keep my PS3 nice and safe just so I can play the best 3rd person, funny, over the top, super fun, platformers ever made.
Yes that may seem like fanboyism but if you two won't play nice I'll just have to separate my consoles into opposite rooms! I think next firmware update for the Xbox will eject dirt out of the disc drive at the player if they mention Playstation games in the same room.

I think that wouldn't happen anyway as Sony, not Insomniac, own the IP for R&C so if there's to be new ones they'll either have to be PS exclusives by Insomniac or by another studio for Sony but never on an MS platform but I take your point and feel MS are being babies over this one.

 

[Smooth Operator]

This is simply childish and does not make sense in any aspect whatsoever.