Xbox for $99? Xbox 2 in 2005? 738
TimeForGuinness writes "CNN is reporting that Microsoft's Xbox may be on the verge of a substantial price cut, falling from $179 to $99 by Labor Day, and Microsoft will launch its next generation console in late 2005 - a year earlier than has been previously rumored. That would put the Xbox 2 on store shelves up to a full year before Sony's PlayStation 3."
loss (Score:1, Interesting)
$99!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
Ouch (Score:5, Interesting)
Nintendo, at least from what I can see, got their big sales kick this season from slashing down the price so that consumers would see it as the most affordable of the third generation consoles. However, that value proposition is going to be dead if the X-Box goes to the $100, or $120 range. I don't think most people have an issue with kicking in an extra $20 for DVD-playing, a hard drive, and a broadband adapter.
Hell, for that price, _I_ might get one.
-Erwos
Backwards Compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)
I use my GBA and PS2 to play old games all the time. If the Gamecube let me, I'd be playing old N64 and Super Nintendo games, too.
A wise move (Score:5, Interesting)
First to market? (Score:4, Interesting)
And we all know that being the first next-gen console to market virtually guarantees success. [dreamcast.com]
Re:Familiarities (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft != Sega
Sega was hurting financially (and still is) when they cut their system price to try to sell through their remaining inventory. Sony FUD + lack of confidence inspired by their Saturn bomb + lack of marketing practically killed the company despite the 1 year lead and easy to develop for system.
Microsoft has plenty of cash and seems content to bleed it on X-Box to give X-Box 2 a market advantage. I wouldn't count Microsoft out of the game until *after* an X-Box 2 launch. And then, only if XB2 bombs.
What! About! Halo?! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A wise move (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm having a lot more fun with it than I thought I would, however. I might jump in early on the next generation...but I can't see myself spending substantially more on a game system than $100-150.
The biggest selling point for the Xbox I think is the hard drive, so you don't have to waste time and money on memory cards. This is one of the hidden costs the casual gamers don't think about, so now I'd lean toward a hard drive based system in the future.
Re:Analyst Guesses (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:loss (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Familiarities (Score:2, Interesting)
For this reason, Xbox has the highest number of software sold per system. I myself bought one of these with Halo the week it came out and it cost me almost $400 bucks. But I had the money and the job to buy the games I wanted and now I have nearly 20 games for the system. 20 games * $50 = $1000.
Obviously not every one of my games was $50 but that's still a lot of return money for the $100 they were losing on the system sell. I think MS has the advantage of having support from a large group of users who can afford to buy the games themselves rather than wait until mommy or daddy can pick one up for their birthday.
Add to that Xbox Live which is easily the better of the two online gaming entities and you've got a lot going for the Xbox. There's no way MS will let this system go by way of the Dreamcast, they have too much muscle and too much money already invested. The cases just aren't similar at all.
Re:Uphill battle, support the USA (Score:4, Interesting)
Look at the PC sector, Microsoft has been using it's ownership of the platform( the OS ) to gain more and more of the application development base.
Anybody over Microsoft at this point. IMHO.
LoB
Re:I doubt this is true (Score:4, Interesting)
I totally disagree. The ease of hacking the Dreamcast probably helped more than it hurt. Because:
1. It encouraged hobbiests & geeks (slashdot types) to buy it so that they could play around with some of the neat community hacks, or make their own. Personally I loved the idea of running mame & linux on the DC.
2. It drove up hardware sales because, hey, you can get games for free.
3. It probably even increased the sales of GOOD games because once the hardware is out there, people will buy the good games that they can't get for free, or that they want to support.
Piracy probably hurt the bad games quite a lot, but who cares? Those games were bad anyway.
I believe what killed the Dreamcast wasn't piracy but technical inferiority. The graphics weren't as good as the PS2, it couldn't play back DVDs, and its online support was a joke. (True, the PS2 and Xbox online support was also MIA at the time but at least it was promised to have broadband capability; the DC only had a built-in modem and no broadband capability)
Re:$99!?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:$99 - Sounds Familiar (Score:5, Interesting)
As is, Microsoft is doing a very good job at getting the attention of hardcore gamers. Quite frankly, Sony has moved 7 PS2s for every Xbox MS moved - and yet they rack up significantly fewer than 7x the game sales each month. It shouldn't even be a remotely fair competition in console software sales month to month for the top 10 spots, and yet it is.
So trying for a huge installed base doesn't really behoove them at this point. Particularly not when they are already losing so much per console, and when Sony is selling loads of consoles to people who frankly aren't buying games. (which is giving them a fairly similar net loss on the hardware)
Sony and MS are in a much tighter competition at this point than anyone expected. They truly don't need to stick their neck out at this point.
That said, if MS bundles dual functionality (eg PVR capability) in the neXtBox, they likely might see the type of insane early-adoption that Sony saw with its dvd player functionality. PVR in 2005, like DVD in 2001, is functionality people want, but aren't willing to pay a high unit price to acquire. If one can capture an early lead, the risk can pay off. But without such killer functionality, MS would likely win few converts, lose people who are holding out for a bigger/better/faster PS3, and would more likely suffer Sega's fate.
Without an ace up their sleeve, some technology that people are clamoring for at consumer price levels, a 2005 release by MS is highly unlikely.
Re:$99!?!? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a fallacy that many here on Slashdot seem to repeat far more often then they should. If you buy an X-Box - you are still sending MS money - they lose money on the sale based on the cost to produce the unit, but it you didn't buy one MS would lose THAT MUCH MORE money.
It's really simple - you want Microsoft to lose money? Then don't buy *any* Microsoft products. That means Windows Operating Systems, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Sidewinders / Mice, any game published by MS (FreeLancer, Halo, etc.), or anything else released or produced by Microsoft.
I look at the quality of games (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Backwards Compatibility (Score:3, Interesting)
It says "Microsoft will use the Virtual PC technology it acquired from Connectix last year to provide backward-compatibility with the current generation of Xbox games."
Some idiocy in that estimate (Score:3, Interesting)
FINANCIALLY Microsoft is in stronger position then Sega was, otherwise not really. From a support and development perspective Sega had a lot of large third party companies (particularly Japanese third parties) supporting the Dreamcast. Additionally, the Xbox buzz factor isn't that "hot" either. The system is in a tight race in the US and Europe with Nintendo over second place in those markets (while a distant third worldwide) and is for all intents and purposes dead in the all important Japanese market. Microsoft is also taking a signficant loss on every Xbox system they sell which has not been recouped by game and licensed peripheral sales.
There are also questions around the gaming industry on the retail side of the industry about potentially inflated sales numbers already from Microsofts camp. Microsoft refurbishes their own used systems and resells them to retailers such as EBgames, Gamestop and GameCrazy. This differs from Nintendo and Sony's approach in which "refurbished" systems are handled by the companies that distribute them, not by the manufacturer. Former Microsoft reps have leaked the word out that Microsoft was counting refurb systems sales as new sales until recently, meaning that many Xbox systems were listed as being sold twice.
There are also questions about inflated Xbox live numbers as many of the Xbox live subscribers are on free subscriptions that come with software rather then paying subscribers.
With regards to the Xbox 2/next coming out in 2005, I believe that is in fact a possibility. But the Xbox being dropped to 99.99 in the imminent future (or before Sony does so) seems highly unlikely. Microsoft is already taking a much bigger loss on their hardware then Sony. It's hard to imagine them running up an even deeper deficeit merely to move into a distant second place in the US and Europe.
99$ for a total Media station--- excellente (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Obligatory (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:$99!?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:MS doesn't understand the console industry (Score:2, Interesting)
Xbox is superior to the Ps2 in almost every way!
And that's just the way it is.
Playstation graphics are dated, all the games use the same crap engines they used from the PS. The only game to really show off the Ps2 Graphics is Ratchet and Clank. All the games just look the same. Role playing games are the PS2's only saving grace.
The PS/PS2 Controller is horrible when compared to Xbox\Cube
The Online Play is severely lacking compared to Xbox Live. Yeah, live costs money, but it beats waiting 20 minutes to find a decent socom server.
Let us not forget Sony Quality. As a owner of a "model 3001" unit, when it crapped out, I vowed not to buy another playstation 2. I plunked down 350 bucks for the damn thing about 4 months when it came out, and the thing is dead, D-E-A-D. The graphics chip fried on the board. Plus PS2 systems are still 179... for what? The PS2 is a legacy system, and it was from the Get-Go.
The Xbox and Cube are faster (seemingly) more capable hardware and better game support. The Game Cube is only 99 bucks! I mean DAMN its Nintendo, that means it's a tank. My Super Nintendo, N64, and Playstation still work fine, how come my PS2 cant?
The only reason I miss having a ps2 is because I didn't get to finish Socom2 before the damn thing died.
I will get one when they become like the PSone and sell for 50 bucks.
Till then F*ck Sony. I wont buy crap hardware, great way to reward consumers who initially bought your product.
And for the Xbox not being the same hardware quality as the ps2? What the hell are you smokeing? If my Xbox died, I would pay 179 for it again, at least the system does things that are worth the price, the PS2 does nothing to deserve 179 for it's sorry @$$.
The Cube has better graphics and play control then both oh them but only costs 99 bucks.. go figure.. ( i know, know ethernet, no hard drive)
Metriod Prime kicks ass though.
Re:loss (Score:3, Interesting)
The reason is quite simple. Inside a PS2, Sony owns everything. The emotion engine, the audio hardware, the mpeg decoder, everything. So, when it decides to put the video silicon and the emotion chip silicon on the same die, there are not any problems. Microsoft on the other hand has to contend with all these disperent companies who wouldn't be too keen to letting each other have a look at the insides of their hardware...
Also, unless Microsoft has set up its own fab plant, Intel is running a line of celerons just for Xboxes. Likewise, Nvidia has to put manufacturing capacity aside to make video cards for Xboxes. I don't see either of those companies negoiating a lower contract to continue to build an antiquated product...
Sony has none of those problems. In fact it could be argued that it goes the otherway for Sony. As Sony works to create a more integrated PS2, that know how gets used to integrate other products in the Sony line and visa versa.
Re:A wise move (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I look at the quality of games (Score:5, Interesting)
You're a marketing goon's wet dream. Neither you, nor anyone else outisde the dev teams has ever even *played* these games, but you're sitting there drooling over them like a moron. And to top it off, you're convinced that you shouldn't buy a competitor's product now because these things that will probably come out some time in the future could/should be prettier and may or may not be fun.
As an aside, while the other 3 should be good, all I have to say about Fable is: Black and White, anyone?
While you're waiting for the next big thing, (most of) the rest of us will be enjoying what's currently out. And believe it or not, there's a lot of top-quality stuff out for those 'inferior' systems right now.
--Jeremy
Re:Virginia Tech? (Score:4, Interesting)
For the price of one Dual G5 2.0GHz PowerMac, assuming $99/Xbox, you can buy 30 Xboxes.
The mac has Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5, 512MB DDR400 128-bit SDRAM, 160GB Serial ATA disk, a DVD burner, an ATI Radeon 9600 Pro with 64MB, GigE, a 56k modem, 800Mbps firewire, and USB 2.0. 30 Xboxs have 30 733MHz P3s, I believe 64MB per system for a total of 1920MB memory but I forget what kind, 8*30 for 240GB of total disk space, 30 DVD-ROMs, NVidia GEforce graphics (not at all irrelevant in the cluster; you can offload mathematics processing to the GPU with the proper libraries, as was reported here a little while back), 100Mbps networking, and USB 1.1.
Assuming your supercomputing tasks can be broken down into bite size chunks (which can be handled in 64MB) the Xbox solution will be much cheaper for the same amount of processing power, but will take up much more space and consume much more power (30 hard drives for example, even 8GB ones, will consume about as much power as the one hard drive in the Mac.)
Xboxes are a decent choice for a small Linux cluster. You can even use the Cromwell BIOS and you're not even violating copyright law. Pick up one refurbished PC from geeks.com for $500 or so to be the cluster master, and 20 Xboxes or so, and you have some fairly significant processing power available to you. However, with 1U dual opteron systems down to about two grand with similar disk/memory to the powermac, if you want to build a cluster of Linux systems, there are probably more cost-effective ways to go about it than using Xboxes.
Now the game industry must also suffer from MS (Score:2, Interesting)
Have TV's caught up yet? (Score:3, Interesting)
Other than new games, how can they justify to the consumer that this new system is better?