# Fucking Microsoft what the hell is wrong with you? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 27, 2009, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048 "2009-03-27T23:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/61 "2009-04-01T05:11:41Z")
> [@Leviosaurus](#): > > I agree with you about the headset, but you came late to the conversation. Upthread, you will see that \*\*ivn1188 \*\*made several statements to the effect that a headset is a requirement. If you’re going to take over his response, you really ought to take over his position, too. > > As far as ‘no one paying that much’, well maybe not in your circle. Most people I know bought them at Best Buy, and ended up paying a lot more than the Amazon price. When you work twelve hours a day six days a week, you don’t have the time to shop around, you get it where it is most convenient. Why would I want to argue from a position that is wrong? A headset is not a requirement and even if it were, you can get a wired one for dirt cheap. And while I’m sorry you and your friends work ridiculous hours, the most convenient place to buy any video game accessory would be GameStop, it is a store that sells nothing but games after all, and they have all of this stuff for reasonable prices new and used. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Well, let me help you out. The industry may well bring in revenues of 8b or more, but it might also cost them 9b to get them. That means a loss. This is not unusual for them - they sold XBoxes at a huge loss for years. Estimates are that Microsoft lost [$125 for every XBox they sold](http://www.gamespot.com/news/6140383.html), and that was when they cost $400. They have had to drop prices to stay competitive with Sony and Nintendo before, and at any time they could have to do that again. Add that the XBox has a history of hardware problems (cost Microsoft an [extra 1b in 2007](http://www.engadget.com/2007/07/05/xbox-360-warranty-extended-to-three-years)) and the fact that they are way behind their competitors when it comes to market saturation (look at the lifetime-to-date total hardware sales [here](http://kotaku.com/346301/whos-winning-the-console-war-in-the-us).) The industry as a whole brings in roughly 20b, there’s plenty of money to go around. They are also not behind their competetitors in any meaningful way. The Wii is dominating everyone else, but compared to the PS3 (the 360’s main competition), the 360 has outsold the 360 in 11 of the last 12 months. [And that gap is only growing.](http://www.videogamelibrarian.com/search/label/Bestsellers) > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Look at the numbers in that last link. Sony can ship a new game to the Playstation 2 and they have 41 million potential customers. XBox has a fraction of that. The PS2 is irrelevant when it comes to shipping a brand new game in 2009. If you don’t know that, I’m not sure how much you know about this industry. On top of that, the PS2 has way more than 41 million potential customers. Last estimates put the worldwide total at more than triple that. But it is also a “last-gen” system, and as such, is no real concern to anybody. It’s gravy to Sony, but not competition to anybody. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Wrong. Here’s why: [XBox 720](http://www.videogamesblogger.com/2007/03/13/next-xbox-720-to-launch-in-2011-2012-according-to-microsoft.htm). In order to keep their competition from killing them, Microsoft will need a newer, more powerful generation of XBox. And in order to convince people like you and me to upgrade, they will need to make it a lot better than the 360, and make it cost efficient. See where this is going? They will have to sell the things at a loss again. Bye bye, Xbox profit margin! If this model continues, over a 15 year period XBox will have a couple years of small but respectable profits, and many more years of multibillion dollar losses. Does that sound like success to you? The Xbox 720 is years away. Your article cites 2011-2012, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it launches well after that. MS has no need to launch another system so soon. Unlike the original Xbox, MS owns the design specs to the 360. So they’re not paying a huge chunk of money to nVidia everyime they sell a system (which is where quite a large chunk of those losses came from). So they have less incentive to push out a new console. They also have less incentive because, unlike the Xbox, the 360 is the HD console market leader. Combined together, it means that MS will likely continue selling the 360 long after the next generation of consoles is released. Just like Sony has continued to sell the PS2. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > The only way to get the kind of continued profit over the long term is to get a lot more subscribers. In order to get the kind of numbers they need to approach the install base of Sony, XBox needs new customers, above and beyond their existing install base. Halo 3 had the effect of bringing in a bunch of much-needed new customers. Do you really think Halo Wars or Resident Evil is going to do that? Or will they just keep existing customers? The link I posted shows that the 360 continues to outsell the PS3 and by a wide margin. Momentum is everything in the console business, so yes, they will be able to keep it up this generation because there is nothing else out there for people who play the games the 360 specializes in. [The 360 attach rate (number of games each 360 user owns) is legendary in the industry](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-360-attach-rate-grows-to-8-1-titles). It doesn’t matter who they sell the games too, they’re selling a shit-ton of games. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > By the way, the profit margin we keep talking about includes sales of Halo titles. Microsoft used to be able to claim that as profit, since Bungie was part of Microsoft. Since Halo 3 was released, Bungie is now its own entity, so Microsoft doesn’t get to claim their profits. Microsoft will still get a cut from the Halo titles - I don’t know how much, but something - but they won’t be able to claim the gross revenues are part of their own. MS owns all of the Halo universe. Bungie created it (and likely gets a nice royalty check from sales of non-Bungie games such as Halo Wars), but MS owns it. MS gets everything from the Halo games and they already have two other games in the series in development (on top of Halo 3 ODST) and neither one is being developed by Bungie. ---
**Author:** ![Leviosaurus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/439d5e/32.png) [@Leviosaurus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leviosaurus)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 9:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/62 "2009-04-01T09:35:59Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Why would I want to argue from a position that is wrong? A headset is not a requirement and even if it were, you can get a wired one for dirt cheap. And while I’m sorry you and your friends work ridiculous hours, the most convenient place to buy any video game accessory would be GameStop, it is a store that sells nothing but games after all, and they have all of this stuff for reasonable prices new and used. _Shrug_ It doesn’t sound like you and I disagree on much of anything, actually, we just have different experiences. I was never attempting to characterize XBox, XBL or Halo as prohibitively expensive; I simply was demonstrating that it is not by any stretch of the imagination “cheap”. Even if you get the whole cost down to $200 (which I doubt you can without making some compromises,) that still is pretty damned expensive to play a game. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > The industry as a whole brings in roughly 20b, there’s plenty of money to go around. They are also not behind their competetitors in any meaningful way. The Wii is dominating everyone else, but compared to the PS3 (the 360’s main competition), the 360 has outsold the 360 in 11 of the last 12 months. [And that gap is only growing.](http://www.videogamelibrarian.com/search/label/Bestsellers) > > The PS2 is irrelevant when it comes to shipping a brand new game in 2009. If you don’t know that, I’m not sure how much you know about this industry. On top of that, the PS2 has way more than 41 million potential customers. Last estimates put the worldwide total at more than triple that. But it is also a “last-gen” system, and as such, is no real concern to anybody. It’s gravy to Sony, but not competition to anybody. Funny thing about that: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/162266/sony\_cuts\_playstation\_2\_price\_by\_25\_percent.html](http://www.pcworld.com/article/162266/sony_cuts_playstation_2_price_by_25_percent.html) I’ve been reading for some time that the biggest competitor to XBox and PS3 is PS2, and these numbers bear that out. Notice that this article just came out today, and it shows that I was off by about 90 million when I stated their customer base. They have 136 million units sold and growing, because they’re outselling XBox, PS3 and Wii. **Combined**. It’s going to take a long time before people get tired of buying PS2s. I suspect most of the customers are outside the US, which is why we don’t hear about it much in our sphere. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > The Xbox 720 is years away. Your article cites 2011-2012, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it launches well after that. MS has no need to launch another system so soon. Unlike the original Xbox, MS owns the design specs to the 360. So they’re not paying a huge chunk of money to nVidia everyime they sell a system (which is where quite a large chunk of those losses came from). So they have less incentive to push out a new console. They also have less incentive because, unlike the Xbox, the 360 is the HD console market leader. > > Combined together, it means that MS will likely continue selling the 360 long after the next generation of consoles is released. Just like Sony has continued to sell the PS2. Maybe, but I don’t see XBox getting 136 million customers if they don’t fix their experience. Right now they can’t get people to seamlessly attach their Windows LiveID to their XBL gamertag without calling customer service, and that’s BS. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > The link I posted shows that the 360 continues to outsell the PS3 and by a wide margin. Momentum is everything in the console business, so yes, they will be able to keep it up this generation because there is nothing else out there for people who play the games the 360 specializes in. > > [The 360 attach rate (number of games each 360 user owns) is legendary in the industry](http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-360-attach-rate-grows-to-8-1-titles). It doesn’t matter who they sell the games too, they’re selling a shit-ton of games. Not enough to pay off the investment or secure from risk. And they don’t need to beat PS3, they need to beat PS2 to make the kind of money they need to make. > [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > MS owns all of the Halo universe. Bungie created it (and likely gets a nice royalty check from sales of non-Bungie games such as Halo Wars), but MS owns it. MS gets everything from the Halo games and they already have two other games in the series in development (on top of Halo 3 ODST) and neither one is being developed by Bungie. Not sure that’s entirely correct. Microsoft definitely owns the Halo trademark, yes, but Bungie still appears to own the production rights. Halo games are not going to be produced out of Microsoft Game Studios, for example. Bungie was also noncommittal about whether they will remain a game creator solely for the XBox. That’s not too surprising when you realize Halo was originally supposed to be a Mac game. XBox has to make its money back and make a profit before [this thing](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29961804/)kills console games. Risky business, console gaming - Sega used to be on top and they ended up dying. Same with Atari, for that matter. Nintendo and Sony have both come within a hair of going bankrupt a couple of times. It is a tough area to be in, and if Microsoft continues to fail to meet earnings, they may decide it is too risky for them. They’ve done it before - they stopped selling PictureIt, for example, and I believe it was a profitable product. ---
**Author:** ![ivn1188](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e480ec/32.png) [@ivn1188](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivn1188)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 9:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/63 "2009-04-01T09:46:06Z")
> [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Maybe, but I don’t see XBox getting 136 million customers if they don’t fix their experience. Right now they can’t get people to seamlessly attach their Windows LiveID to their XBL gamertag without calling customer service, and that’s BS. :rolleyes: So, MS will go out of business now, because it’s too hard to use your windows live id. I did it. It’s an id10t problem if you can’t. And it’s too expensive compared to PC gaming how? I wanna know where you’re getting your pc. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/64 "2009-04-01T11:41:31Z")
> [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Funny thing about that: [http://www.pcworld.com/article/162266/sony\_cuts\_playstation\_2\_price\_by\_25\_percent.html](http://www.pcworld.com/article/162266/sony_cuts_playstation_2_price_by_25_percent.html) I’ve been reading for some time that the biggest competitor to XBox and PS3 is PS2, and these numbers bear that out. Notice that this article just came out today, and it shows that I was off by about 90 million when I stated their customer base. They have 136 million units sold and growing, because they’re outselling XBox, PS3 and Wii. **Combined**. It’s going to take a long time before people get tired of buying PS2s. I suspect most of the customers are outside the US, which is why we don’t hear about it much in our sphere. The PS2 stopped mattering years ago. It has never outsold the 360, PS3 and Wii in any month when all 4 systems were available. It has 136 million users because it has been selling consistently since 2000. I repeat, the PS2 is irrevelant to the fate of the 360, PS3 or Wii. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Maybe, but I don’t see XBox getting 136 million customers if they don’t fix their experience. Right now they can’t get people to seamlessly attach their Windows LiveID to their XBL gamertag without calling customer service, and that’s BS. I did it. Others in this thread have done it. It’s a shame **mswas** couldn’t get his working, but this is a cheeky Pit rant, not sweeping proof that XBL is broken. > [@Leviosaurus](#): > > Not sure that’s entirely correct. Microsoft definitely owns the Halo trademark, yes, but Bungie still appears to own the production rights. Halo games are not going to be produced out of Microsoft Game Studios, for example. Bungie was also noncommittal about whether they will remain a game creator solely for the XBox. That’s not too surprising when you realize Halo was originally supposed to be a Mac game. Did you not read what I wrote? Microsoft has two games in production at an “internal Halo studio”. And on top of that, Halo Wars was created by Ensemble with only minor input on the universe from Bungie. [As per the split, Microsoft owns Halo (and a small portion of Bungie)](http://www.gamingtarget.com/article.php?artid=7666). They also have right of first refusal on any future Bungie projects. So they’re not going multiplatform just yet. > [@](#): > > XBox has to make its money back and make a profit before this thing kills console games. Risky business, console gaming - Sega used to be on top and they ended up dying. Same with Atari, for that matter. Nintendo and Sony have both come within a hair of going bankrupt a couple of times. Nintendo has posted a loss once in the last decade. They have never come close to bankruptcy since they began producing video games and I’m sure well before that. I would also guess and say Sony never has either. As for OnLive. It’s a pipedream. An impossible pipedream that could never deliver what it promises. Saying it is a “console killer” is just ignorance. And if you believe it, I’ve got a Phantom to sell you. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/65 "2009-04-01T14:27:39Z")
Dude just buy a 9800 Gt for under $100 and download steam. Welcome to PC gaming, you’ll never look back. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [April 1, 2009, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048/66 "2009-04-01T15:38:38Z")
> [@ivn1188](#): > > :rolleyes: So, MS will go out of business now, because it’s too hard to use your windows live id. > > I did it. It’s an id10t problem if you can’t. Well I guess I’m an idiot then, desipite there being no intuitive solution whatsoever. How do you do it? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fucking-microsoft-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you/491048.md?page=3)