If Microsoft was to walk away from consoles tomorrow?

If it were to happen chances are Sony would merge with what is left of the 360 fanbase and the Wii would probably still continue to rise as it is doing. It would also be the perfect oppotunity for any other takers to jump into the business.
 
david.n.c said:
I doubt most of this, they may well charge for live but its an infrustructre that has to be paid for. Not only this, but with the cost of R&D, marketing and advertising used for MS to enter the market in the first place, as previously stated, they will need a few Gens of console to be in total black on this project.
Click to expand...

I do not think things are as bad for MS as you think they are.
There is no way they would have reduced the prices of the 360 to the levels they are today.
To me Sony is in the worst position at the moment.
They must be thinking very hard now as to what they can do to help there sales over this xmas and beyond.
They have already said they will not have a price cut.
I dont think they are in any position to have one this year anyway.
Sony spent a fortune in R&D on the PS3 as i said earlier all the profits from the PS2 were used.
When you think how many PS2s have been sold thats a fortune.
Have a look at this.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/perry-sony-has-no-chance-of-making-money-on-the-ps3
 
Wouldnt think much of it and go to my PC hoping that third party developers would start using PC as a primary platform as it should be.
 
Sinny said:
Wouldnt think much of it and go to my PC hoping that third party developers would start using PC as a primary platform as it should be.
Click to expand...

In an ideal world the PC platform would the be the primary platform for all major games. The problem is a large proportion of users misuse it and pirate their software. The PC gaming industry is hurting itself from within at the moment; hopefully this will change in the future.
 
The PC market is at an important crossroads. Graphics cards are as much as they've ever cost, costing upto and around £500-£600 against consoles which are half that price new, the life cycle of a console also far surpasses that of a graphics card too, and thirdly, games on the PC in the future cycle of your graphics card actually perform worse, where as console games perform better.

Also with PC's, particularly ones for gaming, there is the cost of all the other components, where as with consoles almost everyone has a TV anyway, and with HD TV becoming widely available, a lot of people will have to upgrade sooner rather than later anyway.

Then there is the piracy. In PC gaming it's absolutely rife, where as in consoles, whilst still an issue, particularly with the DS, Xbox360 and Wii, it's nowhere near as bad as the PC market, so the obvious choice for developers is to feed the massive market that is console gaming and reap the rewards from the financial side of things.
 
not sure where you are buying £600 graphics cards but your paying too much lol
a card for less than £100 will run fine and better than either console
but i agree in general pc gaming for me is dead and its piracy that killed it
 
NokkonWud said:
The PC market is at an important crossroads. Graphics cards are as much as they've ever cost, costing upto and around £500-£600 against consoles which are half that price new, the life cycle of a console also far surpasses that of a graphics card too, and thirdly, games on the PC in the future cycle of your graphics card actually perform worse, where as console games perform better.
Click to expand...



It is possible to build a PC that outdoes all of the consoles for the same cost as a PS3 (if you exclude the cost of a monitor), but frankly i'd rather have the console. Due to the aforementioned piracy there just aren't as many games coming to the PC these days.

Crysis: Warhead was brilliant and did look leaps and bounds ahead of what the consoles are currently capable of. But it only lasted 5 hours and there aren't any games on the horizon that give me any hope.
 
you can bet for sure that if microsft did walk then the playstation would be at a higher price as they wouldnt need to compete with any one on there scale
 
Streeteh said:
It is possible to build a PC that outdoes all of the consoles for the same cost as a PS3 (if you exclude the cost of a monitor), but frankly i'd rather have the console. Due to the aforementioned piracy there just aren't as many games coming to the PC these days.
Click to expand...
My point is that even if you buy the VERY top spec parts for a PC at the start of a consoles life, those parts will be old hat long before the console is, and despite the cost, console games perform much better at the end of it's lifespan compared to games on the expensive system, which actually run worse.
 
NokkonWud said:
My point is that even if you buy the VERY top spec parts for a PC at the start of a consoles life, those parts will be old hat long before the console is, and despite the cost, console games perform much better at the end of it's lifespan compared to games on the expensive system, which actually run worse.
Click to expand...

Ahhh, now i see what you mean, sorry, i'm quite hungover today and didn't read your original post correctly.
 
NokkonWud said:
They're pushing profits though?
Click to expand...

Anyone can juggle figures to make it seem like they made a profit. I'm talking total money in against money out since they very first decided to make a console.

Its easy to say in the last 3 months or year the xbox is making a profit if your prepared to not consider the billions lost beforehand.

Lets put it this way if Bill had to go on dragons den and present the figures I doubt he would walk out with a kit kat ;)
 
ian flowers said:
I do not think things are as bad for MS as you think they are.
There is no way they would have reduced the prices of the 360 to the levels they are today.
To me Sony is in the worst position at the moment.
They must be thinking very hard now as to what they can do to help there sales over this xmas and beyond.
They have already said they will not have a price cut.
I dont think they are in any position to have one this year anyway.
Sony spent a fortune in R&D on the PS3 as i said earlier all the profits from the PS2 were used.
When you think how many PS2s have been sold thats a fortune.
Have a look at this.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/perry-sony-has-no-chance-of-making-money-on-the-ps3
Click to expand...

I can't trust the legitimacy of the source, but as I say, I will look into figures and come back.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Anyone can juggle figures to make it seem like they made a profit. I'm talking total money in against money out since they very first decided to make a console.

Its easy to say in the last 3 months or year the xbox is making a profit if your prepared to not consider the billions lost beforehand.

Lets put it this way if Bill had to go on dragons den and present the figures I doubt he would walk out with a kit kat ;)
Click to expand...

well sony have spent all their ps2 profits on the ps3 so how much are they making? microsoft always said they will take loses for the long term gain and its working cant see them walking away now that they have really started to make an impact and have the launchpad to make constant profits from it
 
Are MS doing anything to acquire developers?
Sony seem to be increase the amount of studios they have but MS seem to be getting rid, like freeing bungie and canning ensemble. Have they got new studios? I thought it was sus that they are letting them go.

I don't think MS will leave though.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Anyone can juggle figures to make it seem like they made a profit. I'm talking total money in against money out since they very first decided to make a console.

Its easy to say in the last 3 months or year the xbox is making a profit if your prepared to not consider the billions lost beforehand.

Lets put it this way if Bill had to go on dragons den and present the figures I doubt he would walk out with a kit kat ;)
Click to expand...

I rememeber when I was looking into getting the first xBox, the head of MS Entertainment (which I believe is the same team from 360).

Said that the entire console thing was a huge long term plan, that they didnt forsee making any money back from it for a very very long time, so no MS (thankfully) arnt going anywhere.

Also, this is only MS's second bout in consoles, this is Sonys third go, for MS to weigh in this well second time around is pretty damn good work, if only they had a solid piece of hardware from the start, I think they would be in a even BETETR position.

The reason is they screwd up royaly on that, if ithadnt, theywould have sold more and made good green profit.
 
Did Microsoft enter the console market as a backdoor way of getting into the home video market? Kinda like Apple's iTunes but for movies instead of MP3s.

They don't do their own branded hardware (with the exception of peripherals like keyboards, mice, joysticks, etc...), but I'm sure they'd love to have their hardware plugged into the TVs of millions of households across the world. Currently there's nothing to stop people installing OS X or Linux on a media centre PC, which would mean no revenue stream for Microsoft from online film rentals, downloadable content, etc... If you build the hardware, however, you essentially dictate what OS will be installed on it. And if you control the choice of OS then you can also control what applications will be installed too.

If this is the case, would the demise of HD-DVD have forced Microsoft to re-evaluate their strategy, and potentially remove themselves from the games console market? Would the returns from the games industry alone be worth the investment they are being forced to make to compete against Sony and Nintendo?

Have we heard anything to suggest that Microsoft are working on a successor to the 360? I've not heard anything... but then again I've not looked into it. I seem to remember the 360 being talked about back in '03 with release happening 2 years later. If Microsoft followed the same timescales, shouldn't we have heard something by now if they are planning on releasing a new console this side of 2011?

If they have decided to withdraw from the market, then I'm sure they're not going to want to announce it yet, because it would have a negative impact on current revenue from the 360. Who would want to buy a new 360 and the associated games if you know that there's no future for the XBox brand, whereas you could buy a PS3 and probably be able to play those PS3 games on its successor too?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom