Corporate Espionage?!

This might be reaching a bit, but I wonder if there was any corporate espionage involved in the decisions made by Sony and Microsoft. Why would Microsoft charge so much for a console with so many limitations and technicalities if they didn't think Sony would have a similar system?! It doesn't make any sense! Did Sony somehow mislead Microsoft?

Its called Kinect being 100 dollars of that price.

That or Microsoft thought they were better than they Are. They are so high on the smell of thier own farts they're tripping balls.

That's funny I had a similar thought. What if they had agreed they would both push certain policies then last minute Sony pulled a fast one? I doubt that's how it went but it would be pretty crazy if it did.

It's hubris. Sony suffered the same fate last generation shift.

I don't think you understand what Corporate Espionage means.

Microsoft is offering a premium all-in-one home entertainment hub, they're going to deliver you premium next-generation gaming experiences and the best in premium entertainment options. It's rocket science stuff. They're offering a premium Day One bundle with premium packaging. Why wouldn't you pay a premium for that?

That damn turncoat Kevin Butler...

I assume they (Microsoft/Sony) had talks with major publishers about this and that MS assumed Sony would reach to the same conclusion. Or what I find more probable is that MS greatly underestimated the backlash from this. Maybe they only looked at Steam and thought "nobody cares about game trading and is always connected"?

Kinect comes with the console, that's why it's higher.

The XBone comes with a 100 dollar paperweight.

You mean the Sony people watched the Microsoft press conferences, said "well, they clearly F-ked up" and then did it better?

This isn't some game. They're out to win the hearts and minds of consumers. They saw the strong reaction to Xbox's PR nightmare and placed themselves to compete. They didn't have exclusive games like Titanfall to show, so instead they were savvy, set a minimum price point (I am guessing that Pachter's belief of $350 was their absolute minimum), and made sure that if MSFT announced a price they would undercut by at least $50. Xbone was never going to be cheaper than $400.

Also, if you've been paying attention, the leaks about Microsoft's plan have been plentiful and in the blogs/forums for months. Sony probably has better friends/sources (aka, their 3rd party relations) who wouldn't mind slipping them a note.

If there is a winner then it must be a game. In fact, there is an entire field of economics called game theory which is all about companies and their competition. The definition of a game in game theory is that there are multiple players, multiple strategies and different outcomes based on those strategies. This is definitely a game.

As for corporate espionage, I doubt it. Microsoft probably looks at Apple and sees the iPad selling millions of units at $500 and thinks they can do it too. The rumours for the past week were PS4 being at $430. When they saw Microsoft announce the price yesterday they took the opportunity to pounce, by removing the camera from the bundle and cutting the price down to $399.

@mosespippy: Except there is no end-game. They will never be declared victors; Sony and Microsoft are both going to continue making games for the conceivable future.

@angouri: Most aspects of game theory deal with a continuous game. It's all about reacting to competitors strategies.

For some reason I always assume that the companies know more about each other than we do. That's why last night was so shocking.

Well i wouldn't call it that, but Sony definitely let leak that it only had 4gb's of ram and pretty much pulled the wool over MS's eyes with that. So I wouldn't doubt they probably leaked a fake price to see if they would bite, wouldn't call it espionage though lol.

I also think microsoft is pretty arrogant, it's not like game systems are their first product, don't forget how many times they fucked people over with windows, and how they switched programming languages out of the blue and pissed off a lot of software developers.

Just thought of how a deal like that could have gone:

Microsoft: Hey, instead of paying you for each of the Blu-Ray drives, we'll let you in on what we're doing with our next generation system.

Sony: OK

Microsoft, being at the top thinks Sony will copy them to get a better share of the market.

Instead, Sony goes in a different direction!

Could also explain why the consoles have a similar style.

Yeah.... I think that scene goes a little differently;

Microsoft: Hey, instead of paying you for each of the Blu-Ray drives, we'll let you in on what we're doing with our next generation system.

Vendor: I just sell blu-ray drives. We pay the licensing people for the codecs. I think that the licensing guy probably sends a check to someone at Sony, eventually. Can I get paid now?

Maybe Microsoft still thinks they've got it going on. I kinda doubt the people making a lot of the big calls are very in touch with people like us.

On DRM policy I'm not so sure but the two-tones black and grey rectangular box design seems kinda fishy.

Microsoft and Sony can't share business decisions. It's illegal in most countries for two competitors to conspire to set prices/features. I think it falls under anti-monopoly and consumer laws.

This is getting ridiculous. Sony have not won the gen yet, Microsoft made a series of stupid decisions (this is not new for them by the way). Lets just let the companies be, pick your preferred console and lets talk about some damn games. Also like @rittsy said above that would fall under anti-monopoly laws not Corporate Espionage.