Frequently Asked Forum Questions
Search the HBO News Archives Any All Exact		Search the Halo Updates DBs Halo Halo2		Bungie Webcam HBO XBL Gamertags *Ar's Simple HTML Guide Shishka's Guide for Newcomers The Lowdown on Download Accelerators Red Loser's Anti-Spamming Guide Egg FAQ | More Egg Stuff c0ld's Movie Starter Guide Shishka's HaloPC Pre-Release FAQ 3.1 AutoMagic 117 StripzMaker
Search Older Posts on This Forum: Posts on Current Forum | Archived Posts

Re: Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid
Posted By: Kellen Squire <squire@manty.biz>	Date: 5/21/02 10:57 p.m.
In Response To: Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid (Narcogen) : Counterpoints: Unlike other developers, MS has fewer first party titles than : third party titles. At the moment, this may be compensated for by the fact : that the best-selling single title is a first-party title (Halo). Double-counterpoints: Gamecube is in the same situation. : However, Rex... if we consider the purchase price of Bungie, plus the : operating costs of Bungie Studios since the purchase, plus a percentage of : the overhead of the whole Xbox project-- development, marketing, : advertising-- do you think MS is clearing (profit) $5 per copy of Halo : sold? To be honest, I'd doubt it. Once there's more than one Bungie Xbox : title out in the market generating revenue that allows you to amortize the : initial purchase cost, spreading it out over several titles, maybe... but : at the moment I'd seriously doubt it. I seriously doubted my last girlfriend was a man, but, wow- once I got into her- his- pants... Do that with Microsoft, then judge. : As far as failing to meet the secret plans-- I rather doubt anyone on this : board is privy to what MS' real expectations were. If you want to do well : in the market, you always underpromise and overdeliver. It is logical and : common practice by just about any business analyst to assume that company : predictions on sales are conservative, and that just like in the stock : market, there is an internal-only "whisper number" that is the : real figure. The company wants the positive reaction in the press when : they exceed their own expectations. Within the first few weeks of the : Xbox's release, it was unclear whether MS had met their own *public* : expectations. And besides that, I doubt that either MS' private or public : plans for the Xbox included "finish 3rd in 3 horse race". They : may have admitted that this might happen for the console's first iteration : and committed themselves to continuing with the product regardless, but : this is an internal game of setting expectations so low that failure can : be called success. XBOX is a strong first in a two-horse race, and is making the other player in the race (a stock car compared to a horse) afraid of catching up to it- not of splattering the horse. Nice analogy, huh? Anyway, I'm privy to Microsoft's internal information. One casual one-nighter with a geeky by sensitive computer programmer 15 years ago does wonders for that lack-of-information most of you are suffering from. : I think you're failing to see the point. It's not criticizing MS for failing : to somhow sell a machine with a HD at the same price as a machine without : one. It's questioning the business judgment of putting a HD in a console, : thus increasing the price, when so far it seems that price is, in some : cases, a determining factor. Then people can't complain about price gouging, and Microsoft has an excellent selling point over either of it's competitors. : Perhaps this is generally believed within MS; I've yet to read any other : article anywhere that indicates that. In fact, it flies in the face of : good sense. The Sony unit was already $100 cheaper; MS changed its price : point first after failing to outsell either the Sony or Nintendo units in : any single market by a significant margin, and being more expensive than : both. Excuse me? PS2 was *already* $100 cheaper? What the hell are you talking about? Microsoft was telling people it was going to lower the XBOX price a hundred bucks at E3- go read back posts on this board. Hell, go read CNN! Sony got scared and jumped the gun- Microsoft had to follow suit then, a week a head of schedule. What would you have done? Microsoft didn't get to where it is by a lack of business intuition (even if it was evil). And, yeah. I'm sure they expected to outsell PS2. Woo. : Both competitors chose to reduce prices to maintain their price advantage, : but it is a gross mischaracterization to call this "aggressive : pricing" on MS' part. Perhaps if they had dropped to $99, cheaper : than the GC, you could call it that, or $150, cheaper than the PS2. All MS : did was throw in the towel, and then Sony and Nintendo moved the bar : again. Again, above. Microsoft lowered the bar, Sony and Nintendo had to follow suit. : So while the Xbox may still offer more bang for the buck, it's still no : better than even with a console with tons more available games (Sony) and : more expensive than the other option (GC). In order to choose an Xbox, : you've either got to have a real particular reason to (like Halo) or a lot : of faith that the upcoming Xbox games will be better than whatever : Nintendo has coming down the pike, or that the Xbox's later release means : it has a longer life than the PS2 (although to be honest, this doesn't : seem to be bothering the vast majority of the world's citizens just yet). It's a lot better, console-to-console, than PS2 and Gamecube combined. To like XBOX, you just need to realize this, and not be a pedantic bastard. : To say it is "dead in the water" is obviously a bit of exaggerated : rhetoric. Hey! You're right. : But to claim that anyone at MS is wringing their hands and gleefully : muttering "we've got them RIGHT WHERE WE WANT THEM" is also a : bit ridiculous. You're citing expectations that were, in all likelihood, : more conservative than internal estimates (because that is SOP). And I'm sure the good folks at Sony and Nintendo are calling their buddies in South America to get ready for the crank orgy because they've got Microsoft right where THEY want them. : Anyone who's been watching this thing for the last year or so does know that : MS was going to take a loss, and was willing to do so. So was Sony. So was Nintendo. And they both did. You realize that these companies, by law, have to give out all that financial info? Go look it up. I did. : The questions were-- how big a loss, and for how long? 733t g003y. : Given the current results, I think it's a valid speculation that at the : moment MS may be losing more than it expected to-- even if that does not : affect the company's commitment to the product (which, at the moment, it : doesn't seem to be). Nah. Microsoft might be losing more than they wanted to, but they aren't losing more than they thought they might. Not even a chance. And, hey, remember the carbon paper firms that controlled the evil carbon paper monopoly? They sure kept that copy machine from becoming big, didn't they? That seems to be an apt analogy for XBOX versus PS2.

Message Index

Death of the Xbox?	FunkDaddy	5/20/02 4:34 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	PCDestroyer	5/20/02 4:46 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	Surrepticius	5/20/02 4:58 p.m.
Death of the Xbox??...My @$$	Mutti	5/20/02 6:48 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox??...My @$$	Mr. Bobo	5/20/02 8:07 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	ferrex	5/20/02 6:03 p.m.
Hurrah!	Kellen Squire	5/20/02 11:00 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	Kanen Faud'r	5/21/02 3:12 a.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	ferrex	5/21/02 1:24 p.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	Kanen Faud'r	5/21/02 2:12 p.m.
What about the profits from...	Ulf	5/21/02 3:08 p.m.
Gross vs. Profit	Narcogen	5/21/02 10:39 p.m.
Re: Hard Drive	NthDegree256	5/21/02 11:12 p.m.
Re: Hard Drive	NthDegree256	5/21/02 11:13 p.m.
hard drive vs. memory card	Narcogen	5/22/02 1:38 a.m.
Re: hard drive vs. memory card	Mark Levin	5/22/02 1:46 a.m.
nice feature, just not essential	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:39 a.m.
Re: hard drive vs. memory card	Miguel Chavez	5/22/02 1:51 a.m.
Re: hard drive vs. memory card	poena.dare #CP#	5/22/02 2:23 a.m.
Re: hard drive vs. memory card	Mark Levin	5/22/02 3:21 a.m.
DVD Consortium Charges	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:48 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Louis Wu	5/22/02 8:30 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Narcogen	5/23/02 1:33 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Mark Levin	5/23/02 2:15 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Narcogen	5/23/02 3:05 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Mark Levin	5/23/02 3:09 a.m.
Re: DVD Consortium Charges	Narcogen	5/24/02 4:14 a.m.
xbox as music player	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:45 a.m.
The Console Cave	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:42 a.m.
Re: hard drive vs. memory card	SpudBoy	5/22/02 1:52 a.m.
PGR ghosts and Myth Filmz	Narcogen	5/22/02 5:04 a.m.
Re: Gross vs. Profit	vector40	5/21/02 11:28 p.m.
Grosse Profit Pointe	Narcogen	5/22/02 1:44 a.m.
Re: Gross vs. Profit	Miguel Chavez	5/22/02 1:22 a.m.
Profit vs. Revenue	Narcogen	5/22/02 1:52 a.m.
Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid	Narcogen	5/21/02 9:38 p.m.
Re: Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid	Kellen Squire	5/21/02 10:57 p.m.
Kool Aid vs FUD	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:18 a.m.
*blink*	Kellen Squire	5/22/02 6:29 p.m.
Well, uh banshee "challenge" *NM*	Black_Jackal	5/22/02 6:47 p.m.
WHAT THE !@#$!	Black_Jackal	5/22/02 6:51 p.m.
Re: WHAT THE !@#$!	Narcogen	5/23/02 2:40 a.m.
SUPERFUD! :)	Narcogen	5/23/02 2:38 a.m.
Dratness!	Kellen Squire	5/23/02 8:30 a.m.
Re: SUPERFUD! :)	Kellen Squire	5/23/02 9:43 a.m.
Good Grief, this is great. *NM*	vector40	5/23/02 9:25 p.m.
Re: SUPERFUD! :)	Narcogen	5/24/02 4:09 a.m.
Re: SUPERFUD IS FINALLY REPLIED TO	Kellen Squire	5/24/02 12:23 a.m.
Jesus.	Zapf Dingbats	5/24/02 12:58 a.m.
Re: Jesus.	Kellen Squire	5/24/02 8:24 a.m.
Re: Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid	Miguel Chavez	5/22/02 1:33 a.m.
Re: Doomsayers vs MS Kool-Aid	Narcogen	5/22/02 4:54 a.m.
Re: Death of the Xbox?	Cunbelin The Longwinded	5/23/02 5:40 a.m.