Are you saying that if Sony came out in 2013 with the same policies, messaging, hardware, and price as MS did, and MS came out with the same policies, price, hardware, and messaging that Sony did, that Sony would still be outselling MS by 2 to 1?
Microsoft At E3 2018
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Are you saying that if Sony came out in 2013 with the same policies, messaging, hardware, and price as MS did, and MS came out with the same policies, price, hardware, and messaging that Sony did, that Sony would still be outselling MS by 2 to 1?
Yes because Sony told you to get a second job and released hardware that was $600 and still beat Microsoft every place but the US and UK. Then by the end of the gen pretty much caught up in sales. The argument would have not been about power, but exclusives right out of the gate.
Wow. I'm surprised you believe that, and that you're so sure of it.
It's almost universally understood that MS's 2013 policies, price, hardware difference, and messaging badly hurt them, especially when contrasted with Sony's, which were very different. If they switched positions, it absolutely would not have resulted in the same outcome as you have now. MS went from equal footing last generation to being a distant second this generation. That didn't happen by accident.
This is false.
The only thing that actually hurt the XBox One was the price. As soon as Microsoft unbundled Kinect and dropped in price, things settled to where we expected them to.
The XBox One sold at about the same pace as the 360.
The PS4 sold much better than the PS3 because it was no longer significantly more expensive than the competition. If you put both machines on equal footing, Playstation was always going to win.
The Playstation brand has always been on a different level in consumers eyes, than XBox. Probably for good reason.
Sony lost a ton of mindshare and marketshare that gen. The PS2 destroyed the combined sales of the Xbox and GameCube. Sony’s pricing and messaging killed them. Meyerson and Mattrick caught Sony’s arrogance disease from 8 years earlier in 2013. It absolutely cost Xbox. Xbox launched with decent exclusives on the immediate horizon and an established online component. What else cost Xbox if it wasn’t the messaging, pricing and hardware? Do we forget resolutiongate? You couldn’t walk into a Best Buy or GameStop without hearing sales staff pushing PS4 due to better value.
Marketshare yes.
Mindshare no.
The PS4 picked up right where the PS2 left off. As big of a mistake as the PS3 was, consumers still viewed it as a high end, high quality product that was just out of their price range.
The PS3 didn't hurt Playstations reputation much, if at all.
Wrong. He says power differential was the only issue. You say price was the only issue.
There was not a single issue that hurt Xbox in 2013. There were many problems -- the used game fiasco, the mandatory Kinect, the $100 higher price, the confused and the "deal with it" messaging, the hardware/power difference, and the disasterous reveal (TV/TV/sports/sports), which painted a picture of MS badly out of touch with core gamers. You can't reduce all of that to a single factor. That's simple minded.
Losing by 2 to 1 is "what we expected"? No. What we expected, based on the previous gen, would be a close race. In fact, there's an infamous GAF thread where lots of people predicted Sony to flop, and for this to be their last generation.
Actually what happened was not that sales returned to "what we expected," but rather that the policy shifts staved the wound and prevented something much worse from happening. Had those reversals not taken place, I think we'd be talking about Wii U level failure.
And all the public perception problems caused by the earlier decisions did not vanish simply because they reversed policies. That's not how public perceptions work. They don't shift on a dime, just because policies and pricing have changed. You could see that in the continually lagging sales and need for further price cuts.
They regained mindshare due to Xbox stumbling. A large segment of the gaming market is fickle and will always be willing to buy the next big thing and toss you aside when you mess up. Xbox One launched with the same architecture but weaker specs at $100 more, looked like an old school VCR and had horrible messaging. To me, the fact that Xbox isn’t dead is a miracle.
My evidence is anecdotal...but I had a segment of gamers on my friends list who’d been gaming with me since Xbox Live launched. They all jumped ship in 2013.
The first 24 months of a product launch are carried by informed enthusiasts who eventually pull their casual friends. Xbox had its market segment carved out due to offering great value with the OG Xbox and 360 (in addition to Halo). OG Xbox offered more value for the same price as PS2. 360 offered similar power for less. Xbox One lost a lot of its segment due to the lack of value in 2013.
Sony’s loyal segment is largely carried by its exclusives. Microsoft’s loyal segment historically has been carried by it’s hardware power for dollar value, services and Halo. It lost much of its consumer base in 2013 but slowed the tide after dropping Kinect and pricing even with Sony. When Halo MCC launches as a train wreck and Halo 5 received average critical reception, I think that turned the tide back strongly to Sony. Now the exclusives gap is adding insult to injury. What’s overlooked is the exclusives gap is partially a snowball from 2013. Bigger base of gamers means you can take more 1st party risks and can afford more 3rd party deals.
To be its a snowball from before that. They shouldn't have to rely on 3rd party deal because you really can't rely on them. If you want to know what they would do with a bigger userbase you can look at what they did on the 360 when they got one. They certainly weren't taking any risks.
Andy, you and I both know power is never the issue. If anything, power advantage is an excellent indicator of who's going to lose the marketshare battle. We have way too many examples showing that. Power matters on fanboy message board threads. Price matters everywhere else.
No, you CAN reduce that all to a single factor. How do we know that? The moment Microsoft dropped the price of the XBox One X to parity with the PS4, we saw sales jump right up to roughly what we've gotten since. If Microsofts poor messaging and policies had any influence over consumers, we would have seen a "thawing out" period where gamers slowly warmed up to, and trusted Microsoft again. Sales should have reflected that. They didn't.
There was only "confusion" and "distrust" surrounding XBox on enthusiast message boards. Everyone else just said "Nice! The XBox One isn't $500 dollars anymore. Time to jump on that."
Andy, you're better than this. Only children look at the previous generation, see two machines finish at roughly the same place (85 million units) and think the next race was up for grabs. It never was for the reasons you've ignored. The PS3 outsold the XBox 360 each year both were on the market, at a significantly higher price. That's like you racing Usain Bolt down the street with a 10 second head start, tying sand bags to his legs, and then believing you're as fast as him because you tied.
Also, stop with the message board references. It's exactly what's getting you into trouble here. I'll take Sony executives jumping up and down (remember that story?) high fiving eachother when they heard Microsoft announce a $500 dollar price, over a NeoGaf thread any time. Every sane person knew Sony was going to take this generation.
Microsoft has clearly made other mistakes but if they launch 2013 with a console that looks like the S with similar power to the PS4, same price point, and similar policies, they are in a significantly different position this gen.
In sales maybe but not first party. If a 360 that was a hit didn't give them reason to invest then a One that was wouldn't have either.
Power and price both matter. Xbox’s brand was built around power narrative so it’s very significant in them keeping or maintaining their base.
The rest of the numbers are more complicated than that. Some worldwide markets are more sensitive to price so as the price of both consoles came down worldwide, it helped Sony more in those markets they are far and away more popular in. US and UK have more early adapters.
Early adopters buy far more software and pay for more services over the long term. Sony did not tie last gen. If you add a check mark for every year a console was in the home of a consumer, 360 clearly had that lead. If I bought a 360 and PS3 last gen but was buying software for 360 for 8 years and software for the PS3 for only 2, 360 clearly wins despite a 1 to 1 console ratio.
Many early adopters buy 2nd or 3rd consoles as the generation progresses so late momentum, while it’s not insignifant, isn’t necessarily the best indicator of who has mindshare. Software is another story and Microsoft held a steady lead in that area. To have a steady lead in software and get smoked early this gen took a perfect storm of F ups. Power was part of that. Less powerful consoles of the past had leads due to launching first.
1st party is a mess because Meyerson didn’t believe in it. Won’t disagree with that. It would’ve turned around quicker if Xbox had a larger base and was potentially leaving more money on the table by not releasing more software. Right now any project that isn’t Halo, Gears or Forza stands a great chance of being a net loser. Xbox just doesn’t have a wide base to support risky, expensive new IPs in a vacuum.
The bottom line is this. Last gen Microsoft got out a year ahead of Sony, was much cheaper, and brought a ridiculous amount of exclusives (full and timed) to the table, and still it wasn’t enough. Minus the US and UK Sony dominated overseas.
Microsoft spent a billion dollars on exclusives at the start of this gen. That’s what people wanted. And again no one bothered. I know they had the other negative stuff, but what I am saying is if Sony pioneers the online stuff it will be seen differently. Sony fans just change the narrative for the company.
We can talk about this forever. At the end of the day nothing will change. Sony has the much larger fan base and is allowed more leeway. Good on them though for being able to build that with their fans.
Microsoft spent a billion dollars on exclusives at the start of this gen. That’s what people wanted. And again no one bothered. I know they had the other negative stuff, but what I am saying is if Sony pioneers the online stuff it will be seen differently. Sony fans just change the narrative for the company.
We can talk about this forever. At the end of the day nothing will change. Sony has the much larger fan base and is allowed more leeway. Good on them though for being able to build that with their fans.
No PS4 rode the high quality exclusives wave the PS3 made its final years.
Nothing about PS4 screams PS2 but its sales.
Ludicrous.
But I'm tired of rehashing 2013. Seems like we revisit this subject every E3.
Fortunately, MS have learned the lessons you and others apparently don't think exist. Thank goodness for that, because they're in a much better position because of it.
This is great news. Bringing in people who know how to oversee AAA projects that deliver. Just yesterday I was commenting that this was an obvious area of weakness within Xbox leadership.
I'm not so sure I'm excited about having ties to Activision, and what Did he have hands on at CD? We need more ground-breaking, not trend-chasing, imo.
EDIT:
from neogaf: he shepherded this years successful launches of Rise of the Tomb Raider, Lara Croft Go, Life is Strange and Just Cause 3, and queued up major launches for next year, including Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Hitman. Prior to that, he was Crystal Dynamics Studio Head, where he led many projects including the reboot of Tomb Raider
NOT bad after all.
I only knew about him beforehand because I was doing a ton of research on Rise of the Tomb Raider and the reboot of Tomb Raider. I am biased to those games, so call me giddy
He worked on Tomb Raider, Hitman and Deus Ex. Seems like the perfect guy to oversee a Perfect Dark reboot since I could see PD taking elements of all those games.