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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Funny thing about that: 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.
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.
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.
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 thingkills 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.