The X-ONE will be this generation's PS3 in North America.
The PS3 ended up selling 20 million here. Unless MS changes direction quick, I don't see that happening for the Xbone. It might end up being the Saturn, only without Japan to fall back on.
@the_laughing_man: I don't use hotels. I know that it can be easy to get a connection (depending on where you are, and even then, only sometimes). What I don't know is why I should be forced to do it in the first place.
See, that's the thing. A company could theoretically make it so you have to give a blood sample every day for the console to function, but what is the obvious benefit to the user? There is none, just like Xbone's DRM.
@vinny_says: Sorry Vinny, but not everyone is on the West Coast, so yeah, I'd personally hate that. A few stupid people selling essentially new games for nothing isn't enough motivation to give up the right to lend games to my brother.
Well, you can still lend a game through the shared family system and you don't even need to give him the disc. You can just add him as part of your family share group and then on his console he can just access your shared library without having the need of a disc. Also I don't think it's just limited to your console, he could be doing it on his separate console. Also from what I read you can add or remove people from the shared list since it does have a 10 person limit.
He'd have to check in online EVERY HOUR, which is far more restrictive than my just giving him a PS4 disc and telling him to return it next week.
What if he does not live close enough to make that easy? Also you can both play the same game at the same time. Wile someone else can be playing another game in that library of games.
Still not worth the restrictions. I can mail a disc if he's not nearby. There's just no winning me over here, what few benefits there are just aren't worth the control MS wants.
I still think the first point is pretty huge. I live in a country (Japan) where MS won't sell me an XB1, even if I want one. Now admittedly, the 360 was not very popular here because it tended to focus on the types of games that just weren't that popular for a Japanese market. That doesn't mean that there wasn't a pretty decently sized community for 360 in Japan though. There's still people who look shooters, even if a minority, and a very large expat community. There were entire stores dedicated to 360 import titles. That will all be gone with the XB1.
A big difference in the 360 approach and the XB1 approach is active support vs availability. With the 360, if you wanted to import one and play it in another country, you could. MS wouldn't necessarily support it, but it'd work and you accepted the risk inherently involved. With the XB1, MS is straight out blocking all of those people. There will be no import community, nobody even allowed to buy this console in the vast majority of the world.
I'm sure they have run the numbers and think that if they are successful solely in the United States and Canada that's enough to be profitable, but it does seem pretty bizarre that MS is ignoring the vast majority of the world. Especially Europe, which was an area that was at least contested last generation.
It remains to be seen how MS will do in that area they are focusing on, but I think if the XB1 is anything less than absolutely dominant in North America, it'll be rough for Microsoft since they have nowhere else to fall back on. There's no predicting that right now, but I feel like MS is being overly optimistic in how much they can expect people to adopt the XB1 in that area.
Funny I think the opposite could happen if Sony doesn't wisen up and pack in the Move or at least the EyeToy. Did anyone actually take a look at the Xbox One's launch line-up? It's incredibly varied.
It appeals to people ranging from kids with games like Skylander and to your PC creator types with Minecraft/Spark, sim lovers with Zoo Tycon, to your Wii casuals and waggle fans with Kinect Sports Rivals, to your core COD, Battlefield, Forza gamer to your old school hardcore Killer Instinct fan, to your music lovers like Fantasia. Throw in TV functionality and new games like Quantum Break, and it literally covers the entire spectrum. So many damn games that blankets the entire spectrum of gamers.
Meanwhile the PS4 is designed to focus on a core user base that's dying for something new and will see most of the games they are interested in on both consoles.
People are not going to give a crap about DRM by the time this thing launches, especially if the game sharing thing is for real. It will sell like hotcakes because of the games. That's why consoles sell: Games. The Xbox One's got games in droves for everyone.
@oginor: The 360 has currently sold over 30 million in the US. What you're saying is that EVERY single household with a broadband connection needs to buy an xbox one for it to reach only the current level of success the 360 has.
Or look at it another way, 80 million households in the US don't have a broadband subscription, and those households simply can't buy an xbone.
Funny I think the opposite could happen if Sony doesn't wisen up and pack in the Move or at least the EyeToy. Did anyone actually take a look at the Xbox One's launch line-up? It's incredibly varied.
It appeals to people ranging from kids with games like Skylander and to your PC creator types with Minecraft/Spark, sim lovers with Zoo Tycon, to your Wii casuals and waggle fans with Kinect Sports Rivals, to your core COD, Battlefield, Forza gamer to your old school hardcore Killer Instinct fan, to your music lovers like Fantasia. Throw in TV functionality and new games like Quantum Break, and it literally covers the entire spectrum. So many damn games that blankets the entire spectrum of gamers.
Meanwhile the PS4 is designed to focus on a core user base that's dying for something new and will see most of the games they are interested in on both consoles.
People are not going to give a crap about DRM by the time this thing launches, especially if the game sharing thing is for real. It will sell like hotcakes because of the games. That's why consoles sell: Games. The Xbox One's got games in droves for everyone.
The "10 friend library" could be the answer about not being able to lend games to more then one person. If they limit it like you have to be on a friend list for 30 days before it can be accessed they can avoid to much of a loss in profit.
@9cupsoftea: What I'm saying is, that in the US ALONE there are plenty of customers, not to mention the 20 other markets the Xbox One is launching in, plus the other markets that will be added over the course of the next few years. So we had 34.4 million potential customers in the US, how about we extrapolate some numbers for, oh, China? Lets assume that the number of people per household is double the density of the US (6 people per household vs 3 in the US) and that broadband saturation is less prevalent...down to just 10% of household..(3 billion /6 x .1) gives us another 50 million potential Chinese customer households. Now do the same for British, Canadian, German, Italian, Russian, etc households, (and again, I'm sure if we were to look at incomes, we'd find that these are the same households with enough disposable income to make them realistic consumers), we find that there are lots and lots of potential customers out there and that, realistically, MS isn't losing many people who were realistically going to be customers by the online check. (in terms of the ability to perform said check...whether people want to is, of course, a different story)
Well, you can still lend a game through the shared family system and you don't even need to give him the disc. You can just add him as part of your family share group and then on his console he can just access your shared library without having the need of a disc. Also I don't think it's just limited to your console, he could be doing it on his separate console. Also from what I read you can add or remove people from the shared list since it does have a 10 person limit.
He'd have to check in online EVERY HOUR, which is far more restrictive than my just giving him a PS4 disc and telling him to return it next week.
What if he does not live close enough to make that easy? Also you can both play the same game at the same time. Wile someone else can be playing another game in that library of games.
@yukoasho: I can see in cases wherein the internet all of a sudden goes out that would actually be a big problem but that's pretty much the only downside. The advantage of this though is that you can just share it with someone even though they live in a different state. Also the online check-in is only a few kbps data that needs to be sent, so at times when the speed slows down, it doesn't affect the check-in. MS would need to address in some way though in places where the internet does go out all of a sudden due to bad weather or maintenance, like what Jeffsuggested on Twitter. @jeff's proposed solution about using a usb dongle for check-in's kinda like what Amazon does with the Kindle over their Whispernet service to download e-books is probably the most viable. It is still a bit of a pain though but at the very least it is a solution since MS themselves aren't going to change their policies, perhaps modify it but that would probably some time down the line.
Regardless of the console being "alive" or "dead" in a certain timeframe, I honestly don't see how this console surpasses what the 360 was able to do from a market share point of view. They're switching to a service based approach, with a 500 dollar buy in and no immediate discount on games. The primary competition is coming in with better hardware specs, lower price and a better presence in Europe and Japan.
The gamble was obviously to lure in bigger publishers with the promise of greater power over the consumer. But install base is a huge factor, and Sony is a big company. Big enough to still have a considerable influence on the pace of how things unfold regarding the "all digital future". I also don't believe the TV feature is significant enough to be a game changer. It is not a unique service or negotiated cable package. It is an interface change, and not a hugely important one. It's better than nothing, but not a 499 system seller.
Finally, I believe the much heralded "superior" launch line up of games is less a factor than some are forecasting. Launch lineups are nice to compare, but there isn't the kind of no brainer killer app we've seen in the past. When the 360 came out, the visual leap was so massive that there was simply no way to experience it outside of owning a 3500 gaming PC. So consumers lined up, while the PS3 wasn't even available. Despite the head start, and the general narrative that Xbox "won" this last generation, the PS3 has actually outsold the Xbox 360.
Mom and Pop Christmas shoppers aren't pumped for Killer Instinct F2P or the Titanfall timed exclusive. They just know the Playstation and Xbox names, and see the price tag. And apparently, the warning labels about connectivity requirement. That's a simple, and critical battle that Sony has won, and will continue to win unless Microsoft fundamentally makes adjustments.
I see Microsofts install base being much smaller than the launch 360, and struggling to hold pace with Sony. Also look for a Wii U bump.
@bigjeffrey: That means that 46 million of the 70+million who bought the console have internet. I'm one of those 40ish Million, but that does not mean I will be getting an xbone. Many of us will not, and an unfortunate few who do not have internet will make the mistake of buying the thing and then take it back. - End result, fewer sales
On top of that, he pointed out that some of that 46Million are family members who share a console. - End result, fewer sales
What I wonder though, is how many of these 360 console sales were repeat sales after their first couple got the RROD? Xbox live, and the friends list on there, caused a lot of people to buy new ones and get back in on it.
Oh yeah, and on top of all of the internet thing. High Speed will actually be required in the end. I know the 24-hour check-in won't need it, but this cloud computing thing sure will. I'm thinking a lot of games will need the cloud to run the game since the xbone will be running 3VMs at all times while running inferior hardware to the PS4.
@oginor: Well china is an unsupported country, an it's doubtful they ever will be considering even the 360 didn't get live support there.
My point is that no matter which way you look at it a big portion of gamers (not even general populace, I'm using 360 owners to break the numbers down) are excluded from using the xbone. We're not estimating sales here, we're estimating the MAXIMUM number of gamers that can even buy one. There's a huge difference there. Look:
46 million gold and silver live accounts
Let's say that each live account was made on a brand new and unique 360 (highly unlikely).
Let's also pretend that none of those live accounts were made outside the supported countries (again highly unlikely).
Now add in the 5% average of extra broadband penetration since 2007, and add another 5% for the next 5 years (again unlikely - I mentioned before how broadband penetration has slowed down dramatically)
54 million
Now just for kicks imagine a bunch of people had the option but never connected online with their 360s but would be willing to with the xbone. Rounding up.
60 million
Under even the most stupidly optimistic prediction there are 16 million 360 owners who can't connect online with the xbone. That's over 20% of them. Realistically this number is much, much higher when accounting for multiple live accounts and unsupported territories.
Also, in order for the xbone to equal only the current success of the 360 (76 million) by the end of its entire lifespan, they not only need EVERY 360 owner who can connect online to buy one, they need to find 16 million+ new, online-ready, gamers from somewhere.
The xbone CANNOT sell beyond a certain point - even if everyone was excited and eager about it, it would still sell far worse than any successful console preceding it, and almost certainly not enough to survive in the current climate against the PS4. If you think that the xbone can survive with far fewer sales by default then I get what you're saying, but I don't see it myself.
@fearbeard: $50 worth of steam games? Yes, I'll take it.
By dead let's say I mean that the console will sell less than 3.5 million by the end of 2015. For reference, the 360 sold 11 million in its first two years. And I'll add the caveat that the ps4 has to sell over 15 million by then too.
@9cupsoftea: My only issue with your argument is that you are doing math that I'm confident Microsoft has also done. The only difference being that Microsoft no doubt did it for months on end with a team of professional number crunchers using the actual numbers while you're doing a quick overview using numbers you assume to be somewhat along the lines of the actual numbers.
My question is if your breakdown is accurate, and the numbers are as grim as you make them sound, why would MS go forward with a project that has so little profit potential? It's one thing to say Microsoft is out of touch with gamers but to suggest that they didn't consider any of these things you're talking about seems silly to me.
@9cupsoftea: Ummmm...Gold members are not MS's only possible clients. Starting any market calculations (apart from goals, as the 360 is considered a success) based on those numbers is irrelevant. (This is not the data you're looking for...) If you start there, you're assuming no new adopters of the platform (that would obviously be VERY bad, for any company, to not expect to gain marketshare). You're also then comparing apples to oranges, as Gold is the ONLY option for MS this next generation...so 100% of console owners will be Gold subscribers.
I'm not sure why you use the stats you did since they aren't applicable when we're talking about market potential. Where's Pachter when you need him?
Also...3.5 million units? It will move that many by Q1 2014. 8 year old consoles move more units than that per annum...a brand new one will certainly draw more interest.
Honestly if anything goes wrong at launch or shortly after launch where a mass number of players cannot connect for more than 24 hours, the Xbox One is finished because no amount of public relations or damage control could correct a system-wide failure that turned millions of $500 Xbox's into a Blu-Ray player for a day to a week. It would be SimCity all over again but on a much more damaging level.
The xbone CANNOT sell beyond a certain point - even if everyone was excited and eager about it, it would still sell far worse than any successful console preceding it, and almost certainly not enough to survive in the current climate against the PS4. If you think that the xbone can survive with far fewer sales by default then I get what you're saying, but I don't see it myself.
That's really the big issue when it comes to the two systems, summarized in that map floating around. The service model of the Xbox One and its requirements means that there are fewer people who qualify to own one than a PS4. Sony has more potential customers than Microsoft. That the Xbox One has all those games doesn't matter if you live south of the Equator and aren't in Brazil, Austraila, or New Zealand
I think Microsoft will be making changes, but I fear they will take awhile to do so.
I think MS as a company is on a trajectory for all its software and services. Windows 8, Surface, Xbox, and everything else that is on this one track and it could even be an elegant plan for ten years from now, but gamers are not climbing on the train without a good reason. So, if they simply cannot change tracks with a snap of the fingers because there are vice presidents of all the divisions sitting in on meetings... I get that. But as a gamer, I don't care what Microsoft's position on tablets for 2015 is all about. I don't care what careful deals they have made with cable companies that will be fruitful in 2016. And, while I use Win 8 and want a Surface Pro 2.0 I don't really care if my game console has teh same icons or if I can drag and drop photos or muci into a "micosoft common bin". The same icons on my Windows Phone and my Xbox isn't all that cool unless there is something more.
Integration is cool, but saving one hundred milliseconds to switch my TV to playing games isn't worth having a cable box. Walking into any home and seeing my games instead of someone else's is cool, but it is not worth have restrictions that don't feel right on physical media. There is a way to make Kinect 2 seem cool, but don't charge $100 more for the console and don't tell me I can't unplug it...hope I don't unplug it...but don't say I can't.
Microsoft is fine, but I think they are about to learn a hard lesson on Xbox One. They will bounce back, but how high and how long it takes is up to them.
can't wait to see who takes M$'s spot in the console wars....
I also see it like this..... If MS fails, even if they probably had it coming to them, it'll suck. Xbox was a great console.... But this might all end up being the thing that keeps Nintendo alive. AND, I hope to god we can all agree that Nintendo should never die and should continue to be a thing. IT's the only gaming console made by a completely gaming company. You might not like their current console but they should continue to be a boss. They shouldn't receive the Sega card imo.
I've been playing on PS3, Xbox and PC for years and completely ignoring Nintendo, but last Saturday I bought a Wii for my daughter and we had a great weekend playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii and Super Mario Galaxy 2. Those games are great.
@professoress: Yeah I think microsoft did the math, and better than I can for sure. But I think they came to a similar conclusion - that there are a lot of gamers who cannot buy the xbone. I think that's why they emphasised the TV features so heavily in their reveal - they NEED to bring in a lot of non-gamers and new buyers to the xbone to compensate and make it a sustainable, let alone successful, system.
@9cupsoftea: I agree. I think non-gamers and new buyers are a big part of their strategy. I also think MS had to have known the shitstorm this was going to create and have a strategy planned around it. I'm not saying any of it's going to work, I'm just saying that I think there's a lot more to their strategy than what we've seen.
I think it's all gonna get more complicated before it gets any more clear.
Well, you can still lend a game through the shared family system and you don't even need to give him the disc. You can just add him as part of your family share group and then on his console he can just access your shared library without having the need of a disc. Also I don't think it's just limited to your console, he could be doing it on his separate console. Also from what I read you can add or remove people from the shared list since it does have a 10 person limit.
He'd have to check in online EVERY HOUR, which is far more restrictive than my just giving him a PS4 disc and telling him to return it next week.
What if he does not live close enough to make that easy? Also you can both play the same game at the same time. Wile someone else can be playing another game in that library of games.
@yukoasho: I can see in cases wherein the internet all of a sudden goes out that would actually be a big problem but that's pretty much the only downside. The advantage of this though is that you can just share it with someone even though they live in a different state. Also the online check-in is only a few kbps data that needs to be sent, so at times when the speed slows down, it doesn't affect the check-in. MS would need to address in some way though in places where the internet does go out all of a sudden due to bad weather or maintenance, like what Jeffsuggested on Twitter. @jeff's proposed solution about using a usb dongle for check-in's kinda like what Amazon does with the Kindle over their Whispernet service to download e-books is probably the most viable. It is still a bit of a pain though but at the very least it is a solution since MS themselves aren't going to change their policies, perhaps modify it but that would probably some time down the line.
Oh my solution is already decided: I won't be getting an Xbone. Sucks for me as I love the 360 and the OG Xbox, but hey, sacrifices must be made at times.
@yukoasho: Yeah, this would be a good vote with your dollar scenario. Personally, I just built a new PC 2 months ago in anticipation of something bad happening with the consoles so I won't be getting any of the new consoles anyway until (maybe) next year but even then I might just opt to get an upgrade for my PC instead. :) I'm just glad that Titanfall is coming to the PC so I'm good.
I don't even think broadband is going to be a barrier to sales.
In 2012 more than 40 million 360 owners had Xbox Live. Think about that for a second. And that's not who could get it, but rather people who saw enough value to get it. I was one of the ones who could get it, and didn't own one and I'm ready for it, but I didn't count as part of that number. Who knows how many there are, but I would easily guesstimate it to be a 6 digit figure.
The people who didn't buy XBL Gold are those that didn't see enough value in online multiplayer. Well that's going to change really quickly with game sharing and cloud networking. Fair or not, the value discrepancy is tremendous now between Gold and Silver.
By the time it even exhausts the 46+ million Xbox Live Gold members it has now, you're talking 2015-2016 at the earliest. By then the amount of people with broadband will hardly be a limiting factor.
Price. It's a launch price. If they are having eSRAM yield issues, this works in their favor. It limits demand in the first year. It will sell out at $499 and likely be in very short supply for months to come. By the time it exhausts the early adopters, which could easily take a year, and gets their manufacturing issues sorted out, they will drop it to $399 which will no longer be an issue. The 360 set records for the amount of time it went without a price drop. People were buying it at $300 for much longer than anyone anticipated. The fact that it's $100 more than the PS4, makes as little difference as it did when the PS3 launched. PS3 was $200 more expensive and it caught up in the long run with hardware sales.
It's about value. If the value proposition is there, which I believe it to be, that's not going to be an issue. Current 360 offers:
They'll be able to put the same kind of stuff on a box with Kinect included, and F2P games like Killer Instinct plus 1 year worth of Xbox Live Gold. So $100 more for a next generation console? Yeah the 360 already built value for the X1.
Now if you're talking about that extra 20-30 million that the PS4 is going to be able to sell in third world countries and the middle east or remote areas without broadband, then sure the PS4 will outsell it world wide. Easily. But I'm not sure that's really going to matter to Microsoft or developers. I don't think they care about this. If they cared about a total number, they wouldn't put those restrictions in place. I think they care more about who those people are.
A lot of those third world countries that are region locked or don't have broadband are pirate land central. So if you are talking about numbers like 120 million vs 90 milllion, who cares? It makes no difference to anyone but hardware manufacturers like Sony, who set out to profit from hardware.Who cares if that 90 million ends up with a software attachment ratio of 10:1 or more? That's what's going to dictate publisher support. I think the software attach rate on the X1 will be even greater than that of the 360. That's what publishers and developers are going to look at. It's not user base alone. Software attach ratios could swing heavily in the X1's favor with their policies and also because it screens out pirates, used games buyers and a bunch of renters.
Not to mention every single X1 owner is 100% ready for digital downloads(sans those with bandwith caps, which I think will fall anyway). That alone means publishers and developers can save ~$10 per game sale on every single digital game sold and eventually release all their games digital. By-pass the costs of disc and selling it at a retailer all together. They can move much more quickly to a digital only model on the X1 than the PS4. On the PS4 they really can't.
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