Xbox: 'Microsoft has its teeth kicked in'

[apoppin]

Leave it to EA's ever-controversial president John Riccitiello to put the boot. According to El Ricco, by way of Blooomberg, "Microsoft has had its teeth kicked in, in both Europe and Japan". Ouch. This may help explain why EA has been quietly shuffling all of their European Xbox releases further back into the summer for the last few weeks...



<< Sales in Japan slumped to around 10,000 units a week by its third week on sale there, meaning that the initial shipment of 250,000 Xboxes which were sent to Japan on February 22nd almost certainly haven't all been sold yet, a month on from the console's launch.

And while European numbers still aren't being given out, it is obvious that things haven't gone as well as Microsoft had hoped in many countries on this side of the pond.

Xbox marketing director John O'Rourke puts a brave face on things by claiming that "we're off to a great start in every region".

Analysts now suspect that Microsoft's strong showing in America won't be enough to let them reach their target of selling 4.5 to 6 million Xboxes worldwide by the end of June, and some suggested that the company may have to cut pricing soon. While this would undoubtedly provide a huge boost to the console's fortunes here in Europe, we're not convinced that pricing is the problem in Japan. >>



Whaddaya think? I didn't find this anywhere else on GH.

 

[CocaCola5]

I would have bought one if they had included progressive DVD out. Oh well...

 

[Fisher999]

:disgust: Great news to hear that MS may have to "cut" the price of the X-box when I just bought one at $299 plus extra for the DVD playback kit and AV pack...........

 

[BD231]

There is no way they would cut the price, they already said the were selling at a loss at the price it's at right now.

 

[Noriaki]

<< There is no way they would cut the price, they already said the were selling at a loss at the price it's at right now. >>

Don't be so sure.

Standard MO in console is lose money on the hardware, and make it back on the games.

I think that MS is losing more per XBox than Sony is per PS2, but still, the hardware is sold at a loss, that's standard MO for the console market.

 

[AA0]

$300 for a xbox? I just put together a system for $350 with a 1ghz Tbird, 30gig hd, 128 DDR, case and psu, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and nforce board in it and thats at web prices. For the crap that is in the xbox there is no way it costs 300 US to MS.


The p3 chips they get are cheap, since intel wanted to out bid amd, integrated chipset and video is cheap, controllers are the most expensive thing, but in that kind of quantity, not too much. The plastic case with it? a matter of dollars. The HD is the other big one, but its slow, and small.

If those systems really cost more than $250 I would be shocked.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

At the time they were released here, the Xbox was $377 each. MSFT took a $127 loss on each console (Boxes were sold to retailers for $250 each). That's according to their phamplet thing for investors that was sent out.

 

[FuManStan]

<< $300 for a xbox? I just put together a system for $350 with a 1ghz Tbird, 30gig hd, 128 DDR, case and psu, keyboard, mouse, speakers, and nforce board in it and thats at web prices. For the crap that is in the xbox there is no way it costs 300 US to MS.


The p3 chips they get are cheap, since intel wanted to out bid amd, integrated chipset and video is cheap, controllers are the most expensive thing, but in that kind of quantity, not too much. The plastic case with it? a matter of dollars. The HD is the other big one, but its slow, and small.

If those systems really cost more than $250 I would be shocked. >>



Aren't you forgetting about the NV2A portion of it? Throw another 200 dollars into the mix, not to mention games that are designed specifically to kick ass on the xbox. DOA3 on a geforce2 MX? Doubt it.

 

[orangebang]

Hey, let's not bag on the xbox without knowing much about it. Not only is the GPU in there more powerful than a Geforce3 Ti500, it's based on a .13 micron architecture, which is even more efficient than the Geforce4 Ti. (Although potentially, the Geforce4 Ti is more powerful). You also have to understand that the xbox supports Dolby digital 5.1. Then you have the DVD drive, the 2 controllers, and the 8 Gig hard drive. With the Pentium 733 processor, you have a box that in NO WAY can you build for $300.00.

People were saying "well, you could build one 6 months from the release date for that much." Well, it's 6 months later, and you still can't come close to building a PC for this kind of money. You'd have to spend at least $600.00 minimum, to have something REMOTELY close to what the Xbox can crank out in terms of graphical power.

I'm an avid PC user/builder/fanatic, but I can appreciate a good gaming system when I see one, and as an owner of an xbox as well, I can proudly say it was well worth it. I expect nothing but great games this coming year, games that won't be available for any other console other than the Xbox.

 

[erub]

didnt the consoles start in Europe more expensive than the $299 USD equivalent? I remember reading that somewhere.

 

[Elledan]

<< didnt the consoles start in Europe more expensive than the $299 USD equivalent? I remember reading that somewhere. >>


Quoted from a magazine:

GameCube: ? 270
XBox: ? 480

This is in the Netherlands.

 

[Mark R]

The lowest price that I've seen for an X-box in the UK is £390 ($550). If you want a decent package (extra controller, couple of games, DVD) then it is £589 ($830).

 

[Fisher999]

<< $300 for a xbox? I just put together a system for.....If those systems really cost more than $250 I would be shocked. >>



You people with your "I just built this Kick A** system for $300...." really kill me. Where do you buy your parts.... K-Mart???
How many hands have the parts passed through before they got to you????

Anyway, in my city there is NO RETAILER selling the X-Box for ANYTHING LESS than $299 plus tax.... PERIOD....

Have a nice day sir.... btw....Christmas ended 3 months ago!!!

 

[CubicZirconia]

We already determined that he forgot about the insanely expensive graphics card.

 

[jhu]

last i heard, sony's making a profit on each ps1 and ps2 sold

 

[FuManStan]

I dont know about Sony, especially at 300 bucks for a PS2. But wasnt Nintendo making money, or at least breaking even?

 

[Gunbuster]

Duh, most of my friends own a majority of Japanese produced console games.

You cant sell asia a console on sports 200X games and halo alone

 

[smp]

You cant sell asia a console on sports 200X games and halo alone

Yeah, cause they aren't dumb like we are.

 

[erub]

well if its $550 is the lowest price in Europe, they can afford to make the price drop a little bit more over there. I'm pretty confident that it still won't be close to the $299 USD asking price.

 

[Haircut]

I think that $550 is a little off. You can get the Xbox for £300 ($430) at PCWorld

The thing is when you can pick up a PS2 for around £180 and the GameCube is scheduled to launch at £150-£170 (yes it still isn't out here yet) things aren't looking too good for The Xbox unless Microsoft brings the price down sharpish.
I was in a PCWorld on the day of the Xbox launch and there were shelves of them just sitting there no-one bothering with them at all.

 

[NICKCARTER]

My Swedish dealer's x-box "web" price is 4765 sek (about $460) +$13 shipping.......

 

[AA0]

actually, I didn't forget about the graphics cards. The price on the components were off pricewatch.

Since the xbox runs at 640 res, the power needed is very minimal in the graphics area, you could be a faster computer for just about the same money. A GF2 MX would run more than 60fps at 640 for almost all games.

The only thing I don't know the price for is the nvidia chipset on the xbox, now nvidia charges way too much for their chipsets, so its no wonder the xbox costs so much. Most of the price for graphics cards now is the memory anyways. My numbers aren't off, if MS is losing that much money on each box, they obviously have a very stupid team who designed it, or nvidia is charging more than a full graphics card for their chipsets.

 

[Sunner]

The NV2A is more advanced than the NV20(GeForce3), and if I remember correctly it runs at 200 MHz.

Hence it has fillrate/raw power specs comparable to the original GeForce while having a more powerful shader part.

 

[FuManStan]

<< actually, I didn't forget about the graphics cards. The price on the components were off pricewatch.

Since the xbox runs at 640 res, the power needed is very minimal in the graphics area, you could be a faster computer for just about the same money. A GF2 MX would run more than 60fps at 640 for almost all games.

The only thing I don't know the price for is the nvidia chipset on the xbox, now nvidia charges way too much for their chipsets, so its no wonder the xbox costs so much. Most of the price for graphics cards now is the memory anyways. My numbers aren't off, if MS is losing that much money on each box, they obviously have a very stupid team who designed it, or nvidia is charging more than a full graphics card for their chipsets. >>



Even though its only at 640 res, the GF2MX doesn't support the advanced pixel and vertex shaders that a GF3/4 hybrid does. So again, 200-300 for the video alone, and considering an nforce board is over 100, Microsoft's costs are probably 500+ if buying the seperate parts.

Plus, i think the games Microsoft has for the Xbox are far better than the gamecube in my opinion. Aside from Super Smash Bros and "hopes" of big games by summer, i'm much more "wowed" by games like DOA3 then anything on gamecube

 

[ElFenix]

a gf2mx doesn't have the AA power that is very important to running games on a tv at 640x480. plus, the games can be run at HDTV resolutions, which an MX would choke on. MX would probably choke on the overdraw too.

EDIT: in fact, most current xbox games were QA tested on high end pcs until the devs got final hardware and just moving from a GF3 to the xbox gained 25% performance increases.