Ol No Bones
Banned
Well you can think that if you like.
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Bonus Round: Xbox's Money War
- Thread starter dmr87
- Start date
Well you can think that if you like.
LiquidSolid
Member
Only half of the 360's install base are connected online (compared to 70% of the PS3's) and only half of that number have Gold accounts, so that's ~20 million Gold subscribers worldwide. It's pretty obvious how much of a disadvantage the paywall is.
Except you were over-stating Microsoft's beginning and under-stating Sony's. Netflix wasn't available at the 360's launch, it came 3 years later and the PS3 was only a year behind that (thanks entirely to an exclusivity deal).
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
If it's such a disadvantage then why isn't Live free and why is multiplayer now behind a paywall with Sony? Shouldn't it be going the other way around if Sony was at the advantage with PSN compared to Live?
The lack of a paywall is a huge disadvantage for maintaining things like MP servers and voice chat functionality. That's why Sony needed it. However, locking things like netflix behind the wall makes no sense. I don't need to pay to watch netflix on any device but a 360, that's why a PS3 was my media device.
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
I agree with this, except for the PS3 being my media device of choice. I basically was always subscribed to Live and so the paywall behind Netflix didn't really affect me. With that said, the community aspects of Live were so great that I could watch Netflix with my friends at the same time in a party - something that was impossible to do with the PS3. The community aspects brought value to the media center functions of Live. I honestly think they were extremely important to the enjoyment of my various media. If I wanted to stream anything by myself, I would use a PC. I used the 360 when I wanted to watch the same types of media with my friends.
walltowall
Member
It's not obvious. I can watch HBO Go, ESPN, Showtime, PBS, AMC, CineMax, and/or live TV on my Xbox BEFORE I turn to Netflix or Amazon instant. On my PS3, Netflix is THE premium VOD. Choice is a factor my friend, it's not just paywall.
So spot on there! Microsoft cannot win this or even come close with a 100 dollar price difference. They can do all the demo's (that are arguably very cool), but the Xbox One can do this all WITHOUT kinect and just SmartGlass. Sony knows this and decide to just do the PlayStation App.
Microsoft can either eat the cost, which they can do all day ever day.. they have an ungodly amount of cash on their balance sheet. But I think come next year when Sony passes the 10 million mark (they are making a million a month, they will do this) by June they will announce a Kinect-less SKU at E3 for 399.
Microsoft needs to just admit Kinect is a failure just like the gamepad is for Nintendo. They need to just face the fact that these don't increase sales and just increase their costs.
(IMO, Sony planned to have a $349 box to compete with a 349 Xbox, but they heard rumors that Microsoft was going to package Kinect in, which adds 149 dollars to the cost and said hey, lets throw in another 4 gigs of ram and still be at 399!)
My mom was a one of the higher ups at Time Warner before she retired. I can tell you one thing about Cable Companies. They are INCREDIBLY protective of their core business. They will not allow some outsider to come in and take over. Atnt MIGHT with U-Verse; Microsoft actually did the core OS for their IPTV boxes. But Comcast, Time Warner won't!
The last thing cable companies want to be is dumb pipes. The only way they will get this to work is if Microsoft puts Cable Card in the xbox or makes and add on with cable card the xbox can use HDMI with.
LiquidSolid
Member
You realise that that's completely irrelevant, right? The reason why Sony's putting multiplayer behind a paywall is obvious: it will make them money. And despite only being a quarter of the install base, 20 million subscribers is a lot of money.
Instead of asking those irrelevant questions, you should be asking why Sony isn't putting all their apps behind the PS+ paywall. And the reason for that is that it's only going to devalue their multimedia offerings and push people to other systems.
Edit: The reason why Gold isn't free is obvious. Microsoft have prioritised making money from subscriptions over being more competitive.
Everdred
Member
I think the potential for company jumpers is high since there is no backwards compatibility on either side. I probably would have gone MS exclusive if my 170+ arcade games went with it but they didn't.
I was never invested in the PS3 (had maybe 10 games from PSN) so it had no pull. I now own a PS4 because there was nothing tying me to Xbox. Same could go for someone jumping from PS4 to One.
I was never invested in the PS3 (had maybe 10 games from PSN) so it had no pull. I now own a PS4 because there was nothing tying me to Xbox. Same could go for someone jumping from PS4 to One.
Except you need cable(which is losing subscribers) to view most those apps and most Xboxes are hooked up to a tv with cable boxe attached so why waste the bandwidth if you can just watch it off the cable box. Sony at least has iptv coming which Microsoft has yet to land any deals on.
I don't even think PS+ was just recent. Your reasoning also applies to Sony as well since they were able catch up PLUS it is a Blu ray player.
I still agree with Pachter though. Both devices should be mainly for gaming then make media capabilities as an added feature. With Microsoft, they announced the Xbox One as a multimedia device which isn't really a bad thing but it alienated the core gamers which are often the first to buy your product.
New gen, new games to give away. Or have you already determined the games that MS will be giving away in the future on the X1?
Don't you need a cable subscription to access those services?
Louis Cyphre
Banned
Mind showing me where you are getting your info on only half of XBox 360 owners are connected while 70% are connected on the PS3?
walltowall
Member
Bandwidth? Bandwidth? What Netflix on PS3 runs on fairy dust now? Every service in this discussion uses bandwidth. I get the feeling that you retrying to be obstinate on purpose.
But just for the sake of your argument, Comcast has bandwidth caps -suspended for now but they do have them- guess what doesn't use bandwidth against their 350 gig cap? Any video app that authenticates through Xfinity(HBO Go, Showtime, ESPN, etc.) Verizon has no cap, nor does Cablevision in the northeast.
Also, using Media center,which I do, the 360 replaces a cable box, it also has universal search which my cable box does not.
If I'm interested in a movie and I search on Xbox it will show me every relevant app I can see the movie on. I don't have to hop in and out of apps to see if the movie is available. Discoverability is a HUGE plus on the Xbox at the moment.
As for IPTV, we'll see when that hits the US.......because we're sure it's coming right???
Killing_Joke
Member
PS3 media server says no sir.
walltowall
Member
Yes you do. And you would need a cable sub for any potential cable partnership.
PeskyToaster
Member
That was a really interesting watch. I feel Blackley is a great guest. He bring some excellent insight to the internals of Microsoft. I felt Pachter made some good points, that $100 is really the kicker with a lot of consumers. Microsoft isn't really doing anything to justify those extra dollars. Sony seems to be far ahead of Microsoft in bringing value plus a good price especially since they actually included some bonuses with the purchase of a PS4 including a free month of PS+. Despite the recent hardware issues I think this is still Sony's game to win. They have great momentum and good will built up. They just have to keep fostering it.
walltowall
Member
But PS3 media server supports the 360 as well. And this is not a mainstream app, the avg. user is not tinkering with this stuff let's be honest.
I agree. I would gladly watch another one in 2 weeks when all the numbers either come out or don't for ps4 in europe and xbox worldwide.
LiquidSolid
Member
Sure.
46 million XBL accounts (57%, which is close enough to half):
http://www.geekwire.com/2013/microsoft-24m-kinect-sensors-sold-xbox-live-reaches-46m-members/
50% of XBL subscribers are Gold (the latest I can find a figure):
http://techcrunch.com/2010/12/02/mi...of-xbox-live-users-pay-for-gold-subscription/
The PS3 one I'm having a harder time finding a reliable source for. I'm sure it was said at a Gamescom a couple of years ago but since I can't find a source, feel free to dismiss it. It was more of a side note to my point anyway.
Rubin always shows love for Xbox on the bonus round.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
You won't find it because Sony and MS never give out official numbers that really show who is connected and how often. What makes it even harder for Sony are all the duplicate accounts.
LiquidSolid
Member
I'm not talking about the number of PSN accounts that exist (which is like twice the size of the entire PS3 install base), I'm talking about a percentage given of how many PS3's are connected online.
Louis Cyphre
Banned
I'm having a hard time believing the PS3 had 20% more people connected given how much Microsoft pushes online connectivity into their consoles.
Rockondevil
Member
I personally like the idea of having Kinect for every X1 as some dev's would actually bother with it then, as we can already see.
However in saying that I would prefer Microsoft was even price with the PS4 (whether they take a loss or just less profit).
Unfortunately they came out first with their price and Sony beat them which was obviously the smart thing to do, but if it was up to me I'd have just lowered my price to compete and let people know why they lowered it etc.
If they take it out sometime next year it'll basically defeat the purpose of anyone every having it since dev's would not bother with it yet again.
It is doing some interesting things, and I love that, but again I wouldn't have purchased it if it wasn't with the console.
However in saying that I would prefer Microsoft was even price with the PS4 (whether they take a loss or just less profit).
Unfortunately they came out first with their price and Sony beat them which was obviously the smart thing to do, but if it was up to me I'd have just lowered my price to compete and let people know why they lowered it etc.
If they take it out sometime next year it'll basically defeat the purpose of anyone every having it since dev's would not bother with it yet again.
It is doing some interesting things, and I love that, but again I wouldn't have purchased it if it wasn't with the console.
LiquidSolid
Member
I don't really think it's that surprising. Microsoft may push online connectivity but it's all focused on Gold, not Silver. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people don't even realise there is a free XBL option.
I was talking more about taking bandwith from the rest of the house.
Also, why would you stream over an app instead of just watching it off the cable box if they are connected to the same tv? I can understand for the people who have the system hooked up to a tv in a room without a cable box so I was only talking about the portion hooked to the same tv. Which Microsoft is pushing for with the hdmi pass through and IR blaster voice controls. So the apps are pretty useless on the xbox compared to a phone, tablet, pc which aren't behind a paywall.
LifEndz
Member
One of the best Bonus Rounds I've seen in a long time. Finally a conversation that wasn't dismissive or condescending and acknowledged the issues facing MS. One particularly salient point was how gamers want to feel like they're what's important to the console maker. If you're going to charge me 100 bucks more for inferior hardware just to sell me a Kinect you gotta have a damn good application or functionality that you can showcase that substantially improves my gaming experience and what they've shown thus far doesn't.
Only negative about the show was them saying MS could easily eat 800 million. MS is a publicly traded company and there's already rumblings about getting rid of the games division. Pretty sure the shareholders would have a big issue with the company losing almost a billion dollars yet again because of the games division.
Only negative about the show was them saying MS could easily eat 800 million. MS is a publicly traded company and there's already rumblings about getting rid of the games division. Pretty sure the shareholders would have a big issue with the company losing almost a billion dollars yet again because of the games division.
So by MS's own admission, only 23 million XBL subscribers pay for Gold? So out of the 80 million 360 owners out there, only 23 million of them consider their game console as an internet media player. That's not a lot considering how much of a push they're making towards being an all-in-one box. By their own admission, 29% of 360 owners can use Netflix.
Were they seriously marketing this next gen console to 29% of the 360's user base by making the push towards multimedia?
Fact is that 100% of PS3 and PS4 owners have the potential to get their machines online for internet multimedia. Without the paywall, all you need is an active internet connection, which is something MS is unwilling to provide to XBox owners across every generation.
Were they seriously marketing this next gen console to 29% of the 360's user base by making the push towards multimedia?
Fact is that 100% of PS3 and PS4 owners have the potential to get their machines online for internet multimedia. Without the paywall, all you need is an active internet connection, which is something MS is unwilling to provide to XBox owners across every generation.
Huh? Where did you hear this at? Is it on this same video?
Either Microsoft's been misleading people the entire time by making them believe that they had about "46+ million Xbox Live Gold subscribers" worldwide, or that many people out of those 46+ million subscribers have stopped paying for Gold. And if it's the former, then...wow, shame on Microsoft for doing what they did.
MS stock is currently at a 5 year high. The shareholders could really care less; they already get a rather healthy dividend.
PS3 is the most popular netflix player
PS3 had BBC iPlayer for ages, while MS were still trying to put it behind Gold (BBC is a public broadcaster so wouldn't accept it)
PS3 had PlayTV in europe, allowing you to record TV programs even while you're playing a game - multitasking and TV? Wow!. They also had Nasne and Torne in Japan which did the same thing - they'll have that on PS4.
I'm not sure how you can say Xbox had better media, or call PS3 media capabilities pathetic.
walltowall
Member
Not to quote myself but I already answered that for you.
it also has universal search which my cable box does not.
If I'm interested in a movie and I search on Xbox it will show me every relevant app I can see the movie on. I don't have to hop in and out of apps to see if the movie is available. Discoverability is a HUGE plus on the Xbox at the moment.
Sorry I misunderstood you regarding bandwidth. Most everyone I know runs Ethernet to the console for the improved picture quality and better latency.
cebri.one
Member
Right now stock price is not the best reference because the stock market is being manipulated by FED's policy.
They never said 46 million gold. They said 46 million XBL subscribers. That is Gold, Silver, and Games for Windows Live accounts. Gold is 50% of that, so 23 million. Read the above links from liquidsolid.
MS has been very misleading about their XBL gold numbers -- in fact, they've never said how many they have. They almost always refer to their XBL number as "users" which includes gold and silver accounts, but a bunch of shit media sites will pick it up and assume its "gold subscribers".
Its similar to what Blizzard does with World of Warcraft. After all these years they refuse to distinguish NA/EU from Asian subs, even though Asia doesn't really have subscriptions and they pay far less to access the game.
Dufuq, Rubin, their messaging is still FUBARed!
You know, it's pretty bad when I've seen more Surface commercials then Xbone ones. Going by the fact they seem to rather spend more time on other products advertising their console this past year, perhaps relying on other people's shit has become M$'s new Philosophy.
You know, it's pretty bad when I've seen more Surface commercials then Xbone ones. Going by the fact they seem to rather spend more time on other products advertising their console this past year, perhaps relying on other people's shit has become M$'s new Philosophy.
40 billion stock buyback + ballmer firing = 5 year high.
Sigh this industry is really run by idiots.
ProfessorMoran
Member
I wonder what Rubin's angle is now that THQ no longer exists. He kept saying he is a fan of gaming, but he's more of a shrewd businessman than anything else.
When we move onto IPTV services, that's even less reason for a cable company to subsidise the console itself, because it would be a tonne cheaper to just develop an app for the console and be done with it and reaches out to far more people with devices that connect to internet rather than a particular device by itself.
I will say if MS ever does pull off a subsidiary deal, whoever pulls it off must be one hell of a businessman, because I'm only seeing a one sided beneficiary to such a deal.
finally got a chance to sit down and watch this... love these segments.
interesting titbit by Seamus about PlayStation execs were thinking of a lower price than $399, but thankx to Microsoft, decided to leave it at $399 and flew back to Japan HQs with good news..lol.
edit-
for Sony back in 2006 it was sacrifice/invest in the system for BluRay and make out winning the format war...money on BluRay licensing, HDTV Sales
for Microsoft in 2013 it seems sacrifice/invest in a packaged in Kinect and make out on? the casual gamer? I don't think so... valuable Marketing info worth millions thanks to Kinect? I don't know....
app services? thankx to Kinect...they believe everyone will want to talk to Kinect to navigate media services...all the time? I personally don't like the idea of talking all the time.. I like to keep quiet when there is no one around, and there is no need to talk....sounds weird I'm sure.
so what is it?
interesting titbit by Seamus about PlayStation execs were thinking of a lower price than $399, but thankx to Microsoft, decided to leave it at $399 and flew back to Japan HQs with good news..lol.
edit-
for Sony back in 2006 it was sacrifice/invest in the system for BluRay and make out winning the format war...money on BluRay licensing, HDTV Sales
for Microsoft in 2013 it seems sacrifice/invest in a packaged in Kinect and make out on? the casual gamer? I don't think so... valuable Marketing info worth millions thanks to Kinect? I don't know....
app services? thankx to Kinect...they believe everyone will want to talk to Kinect to navigate media services...all the time? I personally don't like the idea of talking all the time.. I like to keep quiet when there is no one around, and there is no need to talk....sounds weird I'm sure.
so what is it?
Though the 2nd link is from 2010 while the 1st link is from 9 months ago. I wonder if anything changed since 2010?
Shrennin
Didn't get the memo regarding the 14th Amendment
PS+ was announced in 2010. I'm talking about Playstation before their turnaround in 2010 because I think Sony improved a lot due to good ideas from Microsoft in the beginning of the generation. In some ways Sony has improved upon those ideas over Microsoft and you certainly won't see me denying that. My whole point is that Microsoft has a lot of experience with media services and integration with online systems and that they shouldn't be counted out now because I think they may bring some interesting ideas with this generation too.
Two things that I've already said and made clear: I'm talking about the beginning of the generation and, as someone who had both a 360 and PS3 practically since their launch (I got the MGS4 bundle with PS3 so roughly 2 years after PS3 launched), I couldn't stand to use PSN back then when compared to Live. It's very possible that the PS3 was much better in other markets, but in the NA market it wasn't good. The 360 had so much more options with better utilization and design. Also, an important note is the community - the fact that Live made it VERY easy to watch and enjoy various media at the same time with friends was hugely important and an advantage Live has had until recently when it looks like PS4 is changing that.
Sony has come a long way in 2010 and beyond but before then the service was horrible.
While Rubin and Pachter and great things to say, I seriously wish Seamus would shut up. He interjects so damn often and most of his points bring up a topic that was previously left behind. He does it so he can get his own 2 cents in cuz he never got the chance. Let the conversations progress. Not backwards. Jeez