Officially Microsoft is putting on a brave face, saying they won't drop the 360's price even in the console's weakest market: Japan. Just the same (probably in anticipation of Sony's PS3 price drop), the San Jose Mercury news says the company is secretly working on preparing a lower cost Xbox 360 SKU. Called 'Falcon', it's a cost-reduced system using 65nm chips instead of the at-launch 90nm electronics. This ties right into Michael Pachter's expectation of such a cut; it should be noted he doesn't see the DS or Wii prices moving any time soon. Related to all of this, Newsweek's LevelUp blog has two great interviews today: a Peter Moore discussion harkening back to last week's warranty announcement, and a chat with Jack Tretton about the price cut and the 360's hardware issues.
Fortunately I haven't yet been screwed by Microsoft on my purchase of the XBox360. I had a launch unit that was locking up, but they replaced it for free and since then, no issues what so ever. I don't think every 360 unit is bad, but yeah a lot are.
My console has never been in the repair shop, and I've never been unable to use my Live account. In fact, I'm quite pleased that I can use the same Live account with both my regular Xbox and my Xbox 360.
If owning a 360 that had 0 problems, just got a free 3 year warranty and is something that I enjoy playing on a daily basis for 4+ hours of my leisure time (which is more attention then I give to my Wii, or PS2, or any of the other consoles I've ever owned) is your definition of "screwed"; well then I guess I've been throughly screwed...
... sounds like you're bitter because you haven't been screwed.
If they redesign to use 65nm, and the end result is a 360 that runs cooler and doesn't need to blast the fan as much, I might consider replacing mine with one. But it would need to have the same hard drive space (preferably more) than the current non-Core system.
To be honest the fans on mine aren't so bad, it is fairly noisy, but kind of to be expected considering it is such powerful hardware in a small box. But the real issue is the DVD drive. Mine sounds like a jet taking off, non-stop, whenever playing a game. It's actually quite nice to play demos downloaded to the hard disk, as the console seems whisper quiet in comparison.
The more recently manufactured models have relatively quiet DVD drives. I can't even hear mine over normal game audio and it is barely noticeable when the TV is silent.
they should focus on getting the HD-DVD right in a cheap package for the sake of killing blu(e?)ray. The Xbox 360 elite seemed to be a bit of a screwup making a slightly nicer new console and ruining the price advantage with the ps3 without much extra. Still you'd imagine this *has* to happen with more cost-effective building because even though the 360 is a very nice console they're still losing a lot of $ on the bottomline.
Why? by not bundling a HD DVD or BR player into the console, they have the best of both worlds. Should HD DVD fall, they can easily create a BR add-on drive. As it stands right now, the format war is still a toss up.. no sense in packaging in something that could potentially kill you should you have happened to pick the wrong side.
Anyway, it is too late at this point.. adding either HD DVD or BR now is pointless since game developers cannot target it because its not a guaranteed feature (just like the hard
Imagine the losses Sony endures after they cut their price with additional $100. And now the competition leaves them in the dust again. Let's say MS puts the price with $50 down (let's be conservative right). Note, the prices have been de-retardified for better comparison:
Wii: 250 usd 360: 350 usd PS3: 500 usd
And the killer feature for each console:
Wii: totally new way to control games 360: the best online gaming experience of all consoles PS3: Blu-Ray
Notice: PS3's killer feature isn't gaming related one. One reason gamers aren't very excited about it...
Actually, I would argue that the PS3 has more than Blu-Ray going for it - HDMI 1080p output (just bought my 46" 1080p TV this week and I'm completely blown away), 802.11g wireless, and a guaranteed hard drive - which helps with games like Oblivion and GTA which need heavy caching. Add in the nice stuff like the media server integration (streaming music wirelessly from my linux server to my PS3 works really well), PSP remote play if you have one (I do), web browser, and the ability to install Linux and you
I hate myself for going over this crap once again, but you apparently didn't read it any of the other times*: If you want online play on a 360 then the price is higher.
I didn't know PS3 and Wii have free games? Like, you go in the store and they give you disks for free or something? The fact is, if I want to play online I can pay a fee and play.
What should I do to get the same experience on PS3? I could pay as much as I won't but I won't get it. And you're out $150 more for the initial purchase on top of th
From what I've seen, HOME is a bloated way to hook people up online. I like the streamlined 360 online features. I don't want to have an Avatar walk around meeting other Avatars. It's pointless. I AM the Avatar. Just cut out the middle man and let communicate directly with people. And I don't want to walk my Avatar down to the shop to shop for something. Just show me a menu. That's why I shop from home for things. Web sites make it easy to find stuff in a 2D list. I hate going to a store to look for stuff. I'll hate it even more having to go to take my little Avatar to a virtual store and look for stuff there, too.
He posts anonymously on/. with his elitist attitude about entertainment, and that makes him mature. Some people enjoy pointing out how "immature" or "childish" someone else is, or their choice of entertainment. Generally, in conversation, these people also point out how mature they are all the time -- it's insecurity, like those homophobic wankers who point out how "gay" this or that is all the time. Basic projection and insecurities.
To me, it's a true sign of creativity to make something enjoyable by dif
So people are going into stores asking for SKU 204714487 instead of the 360 Elite? It's worth noting that different stores may assign different SKUs to different items, which isn't unambiguous. UPC would be a better unambiguous code. Make/Model is actually the most consumer friendly (360 Core, PS3 80GB, iPhone 8G).
Why isn't it used? Because some gaming industry insiders wanted to elevate themselves in a shroud of exclusivity and elitism and you can't do that by using acronyms and terms that are already used
Back in May there were articles [blasteroids.com] floating around that Microsoft expected the Xbox division to be profitable in 2008. However, they've recently decided to offer an extended warrenty to customers in order to deal with the high failure rate of the Xbox 360. An earlier Slashdot article [slashdot.org] has this estimated to cost Microsoft around one billion dollars.
The earliest reports [joystiq.com] pegged the Xbox as costing about five hundred through seven hundred dollars to manufacture, a loss of a few hundred dollars on each console sold.
Microsoft doesn't remember how to make money without owning the entire market. It seems clear that their plan for the 360 is to get themselves into a monopolistic position with their codecs, DRM, and interactive content combination. Once they've done that they can fall back on their traditional innovation stifling, market milking business model. They don't necessarily care about having a profitable gaming division. What they really want is the ability to collect a royalty every time somebody buys digital me
I believe Microsoft took the $1B that the new warranty program will cost and applied it to fiscal year 2007. So, 2007 is an extra billion dollars in the hole, but since they don't have that baggage hanging on them in 2008, it's still possible that they might turn a profit in 2008.
To say the same thing in a more cynical way, if you play with the numbers enough, you can make whatever year you like profitable.
With the costs of the new warrenty (in addition to any costs that can be associated with the honoring existing warrenties to cover the high failure rates of the console) and cutting the price which changes the profitability on each unit sold, when does Microsoft now expect their Xbox division to become profitable?
It will be considered profitable when they're bringing in more money each quarter than they're spending. This is where I don't get it, but maybe that's because I grew up in a family business and no
Fifteen years ago you could develop/produce a game with a team of three people with minimal costs. Now a big name title will easily have fifteen people working on it, if not more, take several years to put together and cost millions.
Most of those millions go to licensing, marketing, and occasionally name-brand voice talent.
Regardless, Microsoft doesn't rely on that stuff for their gaming division to be profitable. All they need to do is sell the 360 for the same or more than it costs to manufacture it, th
i dont know any great studies about xbox 360 initial quality, but it seems that there were some complaints around. If the board/hardware was responsible for issues before, one can only assume that a reduction in price based on a cheaper board/electronics will result in more issues... this seems like a major problem considering microsoft is spending a billion already to boost the warranty service, etc. It's interesting to watch how their system issues play out a lot like what working on some microsoft-base
The funny thing is, I know plenty of people with working launch boxes, but I know plenty of people with boxes bought during the summer of 06 that are breaking frequently. Considering that they have issues with chips popping off boards and bricking the systems it makes me wonder if these issues are caused by removing the usage of lead in solder to comply with RoHS and bad planning. The company I work for is having major issues with chips popping of BGA connectors because the silver solder is so brittle. We d
It's not the same. It's not saving money by switching to a lower-quality manufacturing process. This is saving money by switching to a more efficient technology. This one is actually an improvement for the consumer as well. The quality will depend on who handles the actual manufacturing, the process itself is a step up. The biggest issue with Xbox360 reliability was insufficient heat management, this process will reduce the amount of heat and power. So this is pretty much good news for everyone except anyone
Am I the only one out her that is sick of the 360 and PS3 coming out with different systems? I feel that if I buy a 360 or PS3 now it will be a mistake and they will have a new version out in a year that has a 200Gig hard drive and folds my laundry. I want a next gen system that is set in stone where I am not going to feel like I got riped off in a year when they tweak it again.
I would think that anyone who's paid attention the electronics/computer world for the past couple of decades would have come to terms with the fact that the "biggest and best" is a quickly moving target, and the fact that something newer comes out doesn't mean that what you bought six months ago suddenly stops working.
You might "feel" like you got ripped off, but you really didn't. It's definitely possible to not worry about such things, and so that's what I'd advise, because worrying about it isn't going to accomplish anything positive anyways.
The 360 "Elite" didn't fix the reliability issues, what makes anybody think that this new version will be any more reliable? Microsoft has had 20 months since launch and they still can't ship reliable consoles.
The built in power supply would be a nice benefit, and use a quieter DVD drive and I'll get one. Built in HD-DVD would be nice, but not many people would want it, and the addon HD-DVD drive is already under a $100 at some places, very smart not including HD-DVD from the beginning.
What other features could they build into it with the added room of smaller components? No one really thinks its too big, so changing the case probably isn't a good idea at this point, although it would be nice.
A price cut is not expected for the wii because it's still selling as fast as they can make it! Microsoft and Sony are having trouble moving stock at this point, so a price cut makes sense for them.
That would be "as fast as they decide to ship them".....I don't really think that they can "only" produce a handful of them.....stores around here are still constantly sold out getting small shipments periodically. Not saying they can't be had, but that I think they can make them faster than they are right now. Of course, this delay does a couple of smart things: 1. Maintain high demand so that price cuts aren't necessary. 2. Delays production of units so that component parts become cheaper -- thus reducing t
I don't really think that they can "only" produce a handful of them
Well, according to vgchartz.com, Nintendo is currently selling between 217,000 and 225,000 each week. At 217,000 a week, they have to produce over 30,000 a day or over 1,200 an hour (assuming around-the-clock production) to meet that demand. That's quite a few consoles. In addition, they can't just add capacity because they need it for a few months to catch up with demand. Adding addional capacity takes a lot of time, and a lot of mo
Sure, after a while the prices of parts comes down. But in the meantime you've lost sales and market share to the competition. And since your revenue is dependent on game sales, this is only shooting yourself in the foot.
Furthermore, you get bigger discounts on parts when you order them in larger lots. So anything you might save is lost by buying in smaller quantities.
Finally, there is some truth to the idea that a modest shortage can help spur customer demand, but within limits. Too much shortage and people turn to the competition.
Nintendo claims that their problem is that they've contracted out manufacture and can't ramp up production as easily as if they had their own production lines. I don't think this is the entire story. There's tons of contract manufacturing capability in the world, and the Wii uses standard, mature (and therefore cheap) technologies. This has been going on long enough that they could have brought other manufacturers online if that were the only factor.
I suspect that the inability to ramp up production is related to the Wii's low price. It is certainly not the case that they could not have brought more production capabilities on line by now, but it may be that they can't build more at the price they need to build them. They may have structured their deal with Foxconn (the OEM) in such a way that it is cheap but not scalable. For example, they may have agreed to limit the number of units to a degree that can be produced by certain slack resources at Foxconn, that are otherwise engaged in higher margin work.
I'm talking through my hat here, since I know zilch about manufacturing. But I'm reasonably certain the problem is that they can't scale their production at the price they want to sell these things for. If they could, then they would, maybe not enough to keep everybody's shelves stocked to overflowing, but enough so that you'd consider driving around to find one. My son wants one for his birthday coming up, and I told him that while I'd be happy to shell out the dough, there was no way I'd spend the time it would take to track one down. They're losing market share to the competition because of situations like this.
Do you really think Nintendo isn't in a hurry to make money? They are making and selling them as quickly as they can. They would certainly make them faster if they could.
Economically speaking, the Wii should see a price increase of $50-100, which brings it in line with the eBay price (which is roughly the true market price), thus stopping the shortage. However, the effects on long term customer goodwill probably wouldn't be worth it.
I got my 360 Premium brand new from Micro Center for $300 almost a year ago. Since then that sale's been running on and off non-stop. How is $250 half the price? It's $50 less... and for a console with fewer games and pricer controllers (I'd need the nunchucks) I don't see it as that big a bargain. I'm not saying a price cut is in order by any means, but I never saw the Wii's somewhat lower price a huge selling point for myself (though then again most people look at $9.99 and think it's much cheaper than $1
I have 4 WiiMotes and 1 nunchuck, not once have I had to use the nunchuck for multiplayer games. Perhaps RedSteel is the exception, but that game sucked (I own it and regret it).
The only reason that I bought a second nunchuck so far is to play Wii Sports Boxing... I indeed have yet to see another game using/requiring multiple nunchucks.
"it should be noted he doesn't see the DS or Wii prices moving any time soon"
We have very short attention span and can't judge things in context (such as Wii's absolute price, Wii sales, PS3 position on the market, XBOX's position on the market, previous statements by people in each company etc.), so saying this is surely to impact Wii and DS in a negative way!
A cheaper wii probably isnt the way to go. After spending some time with a wii, I was stunned at how terrible the graphics were. I swear my gamecube looked nicer. I'd love to see them release a box that looks better than a 1990s era PC game running a geforce3 card.
And your prediction would probably be wrong. They are STILL having trouble keeping the Wii in sufficient supply on the store shelves in some areas, so why lower price? It's the basic principle of supply and demand. If supply is too much and demand is weak, lower the price to change the sweet spot on the supply demand curve so they are more equal. The wii is not over-supplied (yet) and there is still sufficient demand, so lowering the price would be a stupid move for Nintendo. At this point i'd say the 36
Why is it considered a given that Nintendo will not enter into this price war?
Companies drop prices to increase sales. Since launch, Wiis have been selling as fast as Nintendo can make them, with no signs of that letting up. Lowering the price would just mean less profit for Nintendo.
What? You don't reduce the performance of a console? I'm, sorry but that is really the most asinine thing I have ever seen someone say.
All they are doing is going with a smaller manufacturing process and refining the hardware. What in gods name makes you think that they will defeat the whole purpose of the whole console paradigm.
1 performance standard for cheaper dev and less confusion for customers.
Let the price wars begin (Score:2)
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So, I might be 'stupid' but I didn't get screwed.
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Paid corporate astroturfer alert! He said "anticipate" and "add value" in the same sentence, dead giveaway in speech pattern for "marketing drone".
Redesign might be nice (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't forget the DVD drive! (Score:3, Interesting)
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I think (Score:2, Insightful)
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As it stands right now, the format war is still a toss up.. no sense in packaging in something that could potentially kill you should you have happened to pick the wrong side.
Anyway, it is too late at this point.. adding either HD DVD or BR now is pointless since game developers cannot target it because its not a guaranteed feature (just like the hard
Sony is back to square 1 (Score:5, Insightful)
Wii: 250 usd
360: 350 usd
PS3: 500 usd
And the killer feature for each console:
Wii: totally new way to control games
360: the best online gaming experience of all consoles
PS3: Blu-Ray
Notice: PS3's killer feature isn't gaming related one. One reason gamers aren't very excited about it...
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Re:Sony is back to square 1 (Score:5, Funny)
2484 comments man. Practice makes perfect! Thanks for your concern though.
Parent
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I didn't know PS3 and Wii have free games? Like, you go in the store and they give you disks for free or something? The fact is, if I want to play online I can pay a fee and play.
What should I do to get the same experience on PS3? I could pay as much as I won't but I won't get it. And you're out $150 more for the initial purchase on top of th
Re:Sony is back to square 1 (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
warning: long and ranty. (Score:3, Insightful)
Some people enjoy pointing out how "immature" or "childish" someone else is, or their choice of entertainment. Generally, in conversation, these people also point out how mature they are all the time -- it's insecurity, like those homophobic wankers who point out how "gay" this or that is all the time. Basic projection and insecurities.
To me, it's a true sign of creativity to make something enjoyable by dif
SKU (Score:5, Insightful)
For those of you who need it spelled out, run this at the command prompt: perl -wc split ('', $rant)
The correct term is 'model'.
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It's worth noting that different stores may assign different SKUs to different items, which isn't unambiguous. UPC would be a better unambiguous code. Make/Model is actually the most consumer friendly (360 Core, PS3 80GB, iPhone 8G).
Why isn't it used? Because some gaming industry insiders wanted to elevate themselves in a shroud of exclusivity and elitism and you can't do that by using acronyms and terms that are already used
Xbox division profitable when? (Score:2, Insightful)
The earliest reports [joystiq.com] pegged the Xbox as costing about five hundred through seven hundred dollars to manufacture, a loss of a few hundred dollars on each console sold.
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When they've earned their digital media monopoly.. (Score:2)
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To say the same thing in a more cynical way, if you play with the numbers enough, you can make whatever year you like profitable.
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It will be considered profitable when they're bringing in more money each quarter than they're spending. This is where I don't get it, but maybe that's because I grew up in a family business and no
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Most of those millions go to licensing, marketing, and occasionally name-brand voice talent.
Regardless, Microsoft doesn't rely on that stuff for their gaming division to be profitable. All they need to do is sell the 360 for the same or more than it costs to manufacture it, th
you get what you pay for (Score:2)
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The biggest issue with Xbox360 reliability was insufficient heat management, this process will reduce the amount of heat and power. So this is pretty much good news for everyone except anyone
XBox 360 4.0? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:XBox 360 4.0? (Score:4, Insightful)
You might "feel" like you got ripped off, but you really didn't. It's definitely possible to not worry about such things, and so that's what I'd advise, because worrying about it isn't going to accomplish anything positive anyways.
Parent
Wow great (Score:4, Insightful)
New features (Score:3, Interesting)
What other features could they build into it with the added room of smaller components? No one really thinks its too big, so changing the case probably isn't a good idea at this point, although it would be nice.
Re:Okay.... (Score:5, Insightful)
A price cut is not expected for the wii because it's still selling as fast as they can make it! Microsoft and Sony are having trouble moving stock at this point, so a price cut makes sense for them.
Parent
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Of course, this delay does a couple of smart things:
1. Maintain high demand so that price cuts aren't necessary.
2. Delays production of units so that component parts become cheaper -- thus reducing t
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I don't really think that they can "only" produce a handful of them
Well, according to vgchartz.com, Nintendo is currently selling between 217,000 and 225,000 each week. At 217,000 a week, they have to produce over 30,000 a day or over 1,200 an hour (assuming around-the-clock production) to meet that demand. That's quite a few consoles. In addition, they can't just add capacity because they need it for a few months to catch up with demand. Adding addional capacity takes a lot of time, and a lot of mo
Doesn't make sense. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, after a while the prices of parts comes down. But in the meantime you've lost sales and market share to the competition. And since your revenue is dependent on game sales, this is only shooting yourself in the foot.
Furthermore, you get bigger discounts on parts when you order them in larger lots. So anything you might save is lost by buying in smaller quantities.
Finally, there is some truth to the idea that a modest shortage can help spur customer demand, but within limits. Too much shortage and people turn to the competition.
Nintendo claims that their problem is that they've contracted out manufacture and can't ramp up production as easily as if they had their own production lines. I don't think this is the entire story. There's tons of contract manufacturing capability in the world, and the Wii uses standard, mature (and therefore cheap) technologies. This has been going on long enough that they could have brought other manufacturers online if that were the only factor.
I suspect that the inability to ramp up production is related to the Wii's low price. It is certainly not the case that they could not have brought more production capabilities on line by now, but it may be that they can't build more at the price they need to build them. They may have structured their deal with Foxconn (the OEM) in such a way that it is cheap but not scalable. For example, they may have agreed to limit the number of units to a degree that can be produced by certain slack resources at Foxconn, that are otherwise engaged in higher margin work.
I'm talking through my hat here, since I know zilch about manufacturing. But I'm reasonably certain the problem is that they can't scale their production at the price they want to sell these things for. If they could, then they would, maybe not enough to keep everybody's shelves stocked to overflowing, but enough so that you'd consider driving around to find one. My son wants one for his birthday coming up, and I told him that while I'd be happy to shell out the dough, there was no way I'd spend the time it would take to track one down. They're losing market share to the competition because of situations like this.
Parent
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Layne
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Economically speaking, the Wii should see a price increase of $50-100, which brings it in line with the eBay price (which is roughly the true market price), thus stopping the shortage. However, the effects on long term customer goodwill probably wouldn't be worth it.
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The only reason that I bought a second nunchuck so far is to play Wii Sports Boxing... I indeed have yet to see another game using/requiring multiple nunchucks.
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We have very short attention span and can't judge things in context (such as Wii's absolute price, Wii sales, PS3 position on the market, XBOX's position on the market, previous statements by people in each company etc.), so saying this is surely to impact Wii and DS in a negative way!
Boo, Wii is not also lowering their prices!
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Well, I do recall that the PS1 was specifically priced $100 less than the Sega Saturn, and that the price was announced specifically to screw Sega.
Wouldn't surprise me if they had to drop the price early to follow a desperate Sega drop...
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that must explain the sales numbers.
(yeah, this'll ding my karma, but it was totally worth it.)
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The dollar/fun ratio becomes horrible when you factor in the cost of buying some friends to play with...
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At this point i'd say the 36
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Companies drop prices to increase sales. Since launch, Wiis have been selling as fast as Nintendo can make them, with no signs of that letting up. Lowering the price would just mean less profit for Nintendo.
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All they are doing is going with a smaller manufacturing process and refining the hardware. What in gods name makes you think that they will defeat the whole purpose of the whole console paradigm.
1 performance standard for cheaper dev and less confusion for customers.