The Official Xbox One Thread

[SAWYER]

Yeah... console gaming is so unsexy. GTA5 didn't make a billion dollars.

The sky is continuing to fall for consoles, even though each year more and more money is made.

lol yeah really and I believe both of these consoles are outpacing their previous versions

 

[cmdrdredd]

You seem like you know nothing about business to be quite frank...

You don't read. Xbox has lost 3 billion over 10 years.

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-in-10-years

 

[smackababy]

You seem like you know nothing about business to be quite frank...

I am glad you think that. I've yet to see you post anything accurate, so I must know something about business. Quite frank!

Go post your troll bait garbage somewhere else.

 

[futurefields]

You don't read. Xbox has lost 3 billion over 10 years.

http://www.neowin.net/news/report-microsofts-xbox-division-has-lost-nearly-3-billion-in-10-years

Which is exactly why they built the XB1 the way they did - so it's not a net-loss like the 360 hardware was. If anything this is already Microsoft beginning to tap. They've decided not to compete on a hardware level, I believe the next step is closing up shop. They make more money on SQL Server, why keep this console business going?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Which is exactly why they built the XB1 the way they did - so it's not a net-loss like the 360 hardware was. If anything this is already Microsoft beginning to tap. They've decided not to compete on a hardware level, I believe the next step is closing up shop. They make more money on SQL Server, why keep this console business going?

Actually...Sony announced already that with each hardware unit they turn a profit on the ps4. I have heard nothing about the xb1 but they have done so many deals it is hard to think they have made a profit on it yet.

 

[Arkaign]

It's tricky. BoM costs for the XB1 and PS4 are very very close to retail costs. Of course neither the retailer nor the manufacturer really make any profit off the units with such a small gap (XB1 was quoted at $471 or so IIRC @ launch, PS4 a similar gap to the $399 figure).

What that doesn't include is :

R&D, all the exec/staff salaries during the ramping up process/ongoing operations, massive advertising expenses, 3rd party payoffs/deals, shipping costs, warehouse costs, trade show expenses, giveaways, warranty replacements, etc, etc, and so on.

And then you have mfg commitments with Foxconn and the like where you have to REALLY hope your sell-through rate is right on target. Make too little and you have nothing to sell customers waiting, make too many and you incur ludicrous expenses warehousing/depreciating stacks and stacks of units. Worst case you have to idle production due to lack of demand, but still have to fulfill the mfg contracts anyway (huge $$ loss).

Beyond the RROD problems, 05 though 07 Xbox financials show how costly launching a console can be. That period alone saw something like 3B+ in the red despite huge sales.

For XB1, we can optimistically say they probably will be negative 1-2B for 2013-2014 purely in XB1 income vs expense. They do have the 360 success/XBLG subscriptions to ease that pain a bit, but it's not all roses. If sales pick up, true profitability should return later on.

Everything I just said also applies to the PS4, though the PS4 is a global smash hit (outside of Japan, where home consoles are basically dead as a doornail and not coming back). PS4 should reach serious profit returns during holiday 2014 and beyond (enough to overcome R&D/marketing/etc).

And despite the WiiU floundering, nobody has ever made the kind of profits in gaming that Nintendo historically has, simply by keeping costs sane, lol.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Funny you mention Japan. A friend of mine recently visited there and he asked around the electronics and game stores about the PS4. People told him that the PS4 isn't selling as hot as previous consoles may have because Sony focused on the western market more. They admit it's a smart decision overall but Japanese gamers don't play the same games (we have mentioned this in other threads). They are all waiting for the Japanese specific games to hit. You know, the kind of titles and RPGs we may never see over here in North America. They said there was a distinct lack of a purely Japanese targeted game with the PS4 launch. Curiously some stores said that the WiiU sales aren't picking up as much as they hoped despite the Mario titles they have gotten recently. He said people think there is an overall lack of focus on Japan as a target market right now. The money is in North America, so that's kind of where all the effort seems to be going for the time being. They all hope that there's some more titles that appeal to Japanese gamers soon to move a few more units. Although he did say that he noticed a lot more people walking around with 3DS systems and PSP/Vita that you don't really see here. People on the go don't always have their phone out all the time like we see in the US, they have their portable console a lot of the time. That's something that I noticed since I got a 3DS. I think I see a young kid every couple weeks in a restaurant or in the mall with it. Makes streetpass worthless for me, even in densely populated South Florida/Miami area. For the games I tend to play on my 3DS that use streetpass, the kids I see won't have that game in and probably won't have their wifi on either.

 

[ProchargeMe]

So I currently have an issue with my Xbone. When I go to my friends list I see a circle that looks like it's refreshing and it doesn't go away, and I can't access my friends list, start a party chat, or accept a party chat invite and it's driving me effing nuts. I've tried restarting my Xbox already, and no dice. Anyone have this issue?

 

[cmdrdredd]

Have you shut it down completely? Not standby.

 

[ProchargeMe]

Have you shut it down completely? Not standby.

Yes. I power cycled and shut down everything, still nothing. This morning I deleted and recovered my profile, still nothing until I went into settings> system> clear saved game info. After that and a reboot things are working normally again

 

[cmdrdredd]

So you lost all your saves to fix it?

 

[ProchargeMe]

So you lost all your saves to fix it?

So far it hasn't affected anything. Cloud storage can be helpful.

 

[railven]

If anyone doesn't see the losses the big three big suffered last third of gen 7th and start of gen 8th, they are living under a rock.

Nintendo is almost but dead in the console space.
Microsoft has done big 180's to all their corporate plans/policies and are still being outsold by a huge margin world wide. (note: you don't recover R&D investment by slashing prices and giving away freebies)
Sony even though they are outselling Microsoft are still reporting losses and might not see any of that sweet PS4 money well into the third year, but then they'd still have to offset the losses from the PS3.

Console gaming isn't going to immediately die, but acting like it isn't having a hard time is mind boggling. I personally think MSFT might bow out of the console race if if Xbone doesn't recover. They have other fish to fry. I wouldn't be surprised if they sold to EA and then EA with Origin join the console race - then we'd truly be screwed haha.

 

[007ELmO]

Dude, Japan is way ahead of USA. When I visited Tokyo and Akihabara, they were 3-5 years ahead of us in technology. Secondly, they look down on US hardware. Any Sony device is superior to what MS could put out.

Their technology is crazy, infrastructure USA can't incorporate because of sheer surface area, but major cities could attempt to mimic.

 

[railven]

Dude, Japan is way ahead of USA. When I visited Tokyo and Akihabara, they were 3-5 years ahead of us in technology. Secondly, they look down on US hardware. Any Sony device is superior to what MS could put out.

Their technology is crazy, infrastructure USA can't incorporate because of sheer surface area, but major cities could attempt to mimic.

Exactly why Japan is ahead of us in the move to mobile gaming too. Consoles are so 1990's to them haha.

 

[futurefields]

Dude, Japan is way ahead of USA. When I visited Tokyo and Akihabara, they were 3-5 years ahead of us in technology.

Can you clarify what you mean here? Thanks.

 

[Anteaus]

Dude, Japan is way ahead of USA. When I visited Tokyo and Akihabara, they were 3-5 years ahead of us in technology. Secondly, they look down on US hardware. Any Sony device is superior to what MS could put out.

Their technology is crazy, infrastructure USA can't incorporate because of sheer surface area, but major cities could attempt to mimic.

It is only when you isolate your data to game consoles does Sony stay ahead of the curve. In many other markets it is taking a beating, whether it be from Western companies or other Asian companies. Sony still has a major stake in the entertainment industry, but none of it is due to technology. Even among Asian companies I don't choose it first. For photography I go Nikon. For TV I go Samsung. For prebuilt computers I go Lenovo. Pretty much the only way Sony gets a dime from me lately is if they have a stake in film or music that I might pay for.

You use gaming as an example, but the PS4 is full of western technology, designed in Japan, and assembled mostly in China. The US completely dominates the microchip industry in spite of fact that little of it is fabricated here. If Sony tech was so favorable, it would be Japanese microchips in the PS4 and not AMD. They lost their edge many years ago.

Japan is one of the most technologically literate countries in the world, but it isn't not the most technologically dominate and hasn't been in many years. I consider them the technological wine tasters of the world, albeit with some really strange social fetishes.

Japan might like to claim to be so far ahead, but if they are it's purely in implementation. They have some outrageously good factory design and overall lead the world in efficiency.

 

[cmdrdredd]

If anyone doesn't see the losses the big three big suffered last third of gen 7th and start of gen 8th, they are living under a rock.

Nintendo is almost but dead in the console space.
Microsoft has done big 180's to all their corporate plans/policies and are still being outsold by a huge margin world wide. (note: you don't recover R&D investment by slashing prices and giving away freebies)
Sony even though they are outselling Microsoft are still reporting losses and might not see any of that sweet PS4 money well into the third year, but then they'd still have to offset the losses from the PS3.

Console gaming isn't going to immediately die, but acting like it isn't having a hard time is mind boggling. I personally think MSFT might bow out of the console race if if Xbone doesn't recover. They have other fish to fry. I wouldn't be surprised if they sold to EA and then EA with Origin join the console race - then we'd truly be screwed haha.

Here's the link. Sony is saying the PS4 is already profitable for them. What beating? These things aren't going to stop selling and will actually pick up with the release of big name titles that people are waiting for. http://www.geek.com/games/sony-says-the-ps4-hardware-is-already-profitable-1594697/

Sony is fine as a company overall due to their financial, real estate, mobile phone, and motion picture divisions. Their Gaming division (Playstation) has posted a profit at the last financial posting. The consumer electronics business and home PC business isn't doing them any good though and have lost lots.

A lot of people don't know that Sony actually has investment groups and real estate investors as part of it's portfolio and they bring in quite a bit of money for Sony Corp.

 

[railven]

Here's the link. Sony is saying the PS4 is already profitable for them. What beating? These things aren't going to stop selling and will actually pick up with the release of big name titles that people are waiting for. http://www.geek.com/games/sony-says-the-ps4-hardware-is-already-profitable-1594697/

Sony is fine as a company overall due to their financial, real estate, mobile phone, and motion picture divisions. Their Gaming division (Playstation) has posted a profit at the last financial posting. The consumer electronics business and home PC business isn't doing them any good though and have lost lots.

A lot of people don't know that Sony actually has investment groups and real estate investors as part of it's portfolio and they bring in quite a bit of money for Sony Corp.

Sure, it's profitable on a per sale basis. But, they haven't paid their R&D tab, nor their PS3 losses, and they just reported another loss. It's being estimated that the hemorrhaging will end this year from the spin off of their failing departments, but that doesn't mean the SCEI is magically all of a sudden generating bank.

Again, this doesn't mean Sony/PS4 is going to fail, but on the heels of selling 6+ million consoles and them still reporting a loss. They'll need to sell a few more million PS4's to to turn things around, and that is assuming their remaining departments remain in stasis (but we all know they won't.)

If they're making $1 profits per PS4, they can shout that all they want, but when it cost them $750-850 million to get that PS4 to market, and on top of that their other departments are hemorrhaging millions, yeaaaah you can do the math out.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I don't know what planet you're on but bringing a new console to market and already making money on it in 6 months is considered something of an accomplishment.

 

[railven]

I don't know what planet you're on but bringing a new console to market and already making money on it in 6 months is considered something of an accomplishment.

Cut the fat (which they are doing), then that accomplishment would mean more when you are making profits as a whole not just one division, which in itself isn't enough to prop you up.

But you keep ignoring this point.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Cut the fat (which they are doing), then that accomplishment would mean more when you are making profits as a whole not just one division, which in itself isn't enough to prop you up.

But you keep ignoring this point.

Yeah? Where's the memo of Sony going away? Where is the PR announcement about them closing their doors?

Same as "mobile gaming will take over". Said for years now and hasn't happened.

Playstation and Xbox will be around a long time.

 

[railven]

Yeah? Where's the memo of Sony going away? Where is the PR announcement about them closing their doors?

Same as "mobile gaming will take over". Said for years now and hasn't happened.

Playstation and Xbox will be around a long time.

Where did I say either was going away? Where did I hint Sony/Microsoft were shutting down?

All I said was if people can't see the hardships the big three are facing, they are living under a rock.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Where did I say either was going away? Where did I hint Sony/Microsoft were shutting down?

All I said was if people can't see the hardships the big three are facing, they are living under a rock.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom talk about gaming lately. It's wearing me down I guess. I'm on the defensive side because of it. I think the industry is pretty healthy overall.

 

[Bill Brasky]

No one here is excited about the Master Chief Collection announced yesterday?? I'm heavily considering buying an Xbone just for that, and have it be a halo machine. If I see a bundle with the MC Collection, 1 year Xbox live, and the non-kinect sku for ~$400, I won't be able to pass it up.