Zachary Amaranth said:
...I'm sure that's different, somehow. Because ponies.
Consoles are closed propriatary systems that all must be identical.
Pcs can differ vastly from build to build and is more of what the user wants/are willing to buy rather than dictated by manufacturer.
No ponies involved.
Verlander said:
Perhaps my initial post wasn't clear, it was badly worded. The department is making sales, and so that loss really isn't a problem.[/quote]
I can see your point now, but i didnt get that angle from your initial post. Yes, microsoft always made its profit by holding free services hostage (like multiplayer) and making profit to cover the losses elsewhere. however the profit needs to be high enough to cover said losses, and history of Xbox platform so far shows that it has not been so. The initial investment hasnt been paid since the beginning of the Xbox. And its worth noting that there is no way Xbox Done is going to sell as well as 360. 360 sold well because it had no competition - Wii was full of shovelware and "Did its own thing", PS3 launched a year later and its launch was a disaster, so for a long time 360 was the only game in town for these consolites. When PS3 actually started competing we saw it catch up in sale numbers and even beat it at the end.
This time both PS4 and WiiU are much stronger competitors to One.
kilenem said:
lets not bring politics in this please. Although I think Israel has something to do with the creation the first Kinect
If i remmeber correctly the lab that deisgned kinect sensors and makes them is located in Israel.
BaronVH said:
It is not in anybody's interest for any of these three to fail unless all you care about is Candy Crush. Imagine one movie studio. If you enjoy movies, that would be a horrible thing to happen. Look at how far the music industry has sunk. All of these people who feel like they were betrayed by this or that decision, just lighten up and go play a good game.
It is in fact everyone that loves games interest that bad companies fair and good companies replace them. and since, as you say, it is the largest industry out there, it sure as hell going to fill the power vacuum and quick. Also funny how you imply Candy Crush being the only alternative to Microsoft.
Its GOOD that music industry suffers. it is run by horrible people that does not deserve to make the millions they do. It needs a hard reset. Just look at all the content ID claims of police sirens being "a copyrighted song" and basically stealing ad revenue. Not that gaming is any better - Nintendo did the same.
fix-the-spade said:
Mobile GPUs caught up with some aspects of consoles last year, they still rely on internal batteries and playing a 'real' video game on a touch screen is still horrible and will remain horrible until controller add-ons for tablets become standardised in their layout.
Mobile GPUs, such as Tegra K1 outperform console GPUs. this is a fact that is not offset by control schemes. Control schemes has NOTHING to do with GPU power.
As far as controls go, you can plug your controller or keyboard and mouse into a tablet. you can connect it to a large TV, and you can plug it into the wall. it would then act like normal console, except you can punplug it and take it with you and still use it unlike console.
Games supporting controllers without needing to remap things manually is another thing, but thats the fault of games.
No one is going to play Halo on a touch screen with an expected battery life under an hour, just like consoles didn't kill PC, mobile won't kill consoles. If tablets get standardised layout controls, massively improved batteries and the ability to project an image in real time to the TV and be responsive then yeah, consoles doomed, but we're nowhere near that yet.
I dont know what kind of tablet you use, but it must be horrible to run out of battery in half an hour. This is not normal.
Consoles didnt kill PCs because they were never more functional than PCs. meanwhile if tablets outperform consoles, they can act both as a console and a tablet, thus are more functional than a console.
Regards the Xbone's processing power, doesn't matter if Microsoft can make the games. PSone was less powerful than the N64, PS2 less than the Xbox and the Cube, but hardware sells on price and the products available on it. Microsoft has sorted the price, now they need some essential games and the Xbone will be fine, it's unlikely to match the PS4, but Microsoft will make money easy.
historical discrepancies aside (not going to bother proving that cube was less pwoerful than PS2), hardware sells on more than price. right now prices are the same, so people chose better hardware. in this case its PS4. However the largest seller is console loyalty. If price was the only factor - everyone would game on PC - PC gaming is much cheaper.
Its true that holding games ransom does affect sales. I know somone who bought PS3 for Dust 514. does not make it a good thing. Microsoft will not make money on it as much as you think though. with smaller install base exclusives become less useful.
The_Kodu said:
Tablets have to run a fairly robust operating system while consoles can dedicate far more of their run time to games and a far more minimal system.
As yet I don't see many Tablets providing even PS2 level game quality regularly.
This was true before 2006. When last gen lauched consoles also run robust OS.
I dont see many consoles providing PS2 level game quality regulary, whats your point?
The_Kodu said:
Which is pretty important as until later in the lifespan most other consoles are money sinks. They cost large amounts to develop and then have to be sold at a considerable loss until parts costs and better sourcing etc bring costs down. Most other companies sell at a quite a big loss per console just to gain the install base initially.
except that looking at hardware in current consoles, microsoft and sony should be making profit from hardware sales as is and that they dont only shows they have large overhead expenses.
Vykrel said:
why does it seem like this is the first generation where people dont realize that consoles are almost always sold at a loss in the beginning?
because this is the first generation where console tech is so weak it should be making profit at that price.
Rozalia1 said:
Okay yes you're right on the markup and all that, but... how can you say that yet hold the belief that PC will soon suddenly become all "Mainstream" and the platform everyone games on? Storebought PCs are what the common man is going to buy and those are expensive as you know. That is likely why the conception of PC as overly expensive will likely never go away come to think about it.
When you buy a table at IKEA, you get a bunch of parts, screws and instruction to construct it yourself. 99% of buyers can do this easily and build their own table. Building a PC is simpler than building that table. Thus, building it yourself can easily become the mainstream way to buy PCs, just like it became for furniture.
