Microsoft recently announced their price cuts on the Xbox 360, effective today, but what is motivating them? Microsoft’s not going to make much additional money by passing off the savings to the customer but they will, more than likely, sell a bunch of great new Xbox 360‘s to a new crowd of gamer.
Motivation? Sony.
“I’m not at a point where I can say we’re going to beat Nintendo,” says Don Mattrick, senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business. Indeed, Nintendo is likely to run away with the lead in the current generation of console gaming, leaving Microsoft and Sony to battle for second place. (businessweek)
Who would have thought Sony and Microsoft would be battling out this generation for second place while Nintendo breezes through with their Wii console and a handful of games with mediocre game reviews? Don’t answer that, it’s a rhetorical question. If you saw this coming and you’re not on the marketing or project planning for one of these console makers you better prep your resume!
The battle isn’t cooling, Microsoft drops their price to compete with their big competitor Sony which also brings it closer to the price tag on the Wii getting two bird with one stone. The reason Wii is winning is clearly due to its broad demographic of grandpa and grandma non-gamers along with hardcore gamers who have to collect all the consoles and younger gamers that want to fit the trend.
Microsoft’s clearly shooting for second place by installing more units into the consumers home as possible. They’ve got a great library of first person shooter titles, a few RPG’s and RTS titles and the typical contraversial titles like GTA and Saints Row with more hot blockbusters (read: Gears of War 2) arriving soon.
I see this as a great opportunity for casual game developers to get into the Xbox Live Arcade market and start making themselves (and Microsoft) some money off the new gamers that will buy their first Xbox 360 for $199 and up. Microsoft’s getting closer to the low-budget gamer crowd with their price cuts so it would be great if they can take advantage of that market with lower cost titles as well.
If you’re a game developer looking for console stick time and you want to grab the attention of a large pool of gamers, the Xbox 360 isn’t a bad start!
While Microsoft isn’t aiming at Nintendo just yet, there is no doubt Nintendo will be in their sights if they can smoke the pants off Sony in the near future (by this holiday).
Hey guys great episode, lots to respond to, I agree with you Jonah on the perspective of those that way to hire people already working. It does make a person seem very disloyal but that doesn’t seem to be a valued thing anymore.
@Returns: I have no problem admitting to making bad choices so I don’t make up excuses either when returning something. Though most of the time it’s a faulty product for whatever reason. I think I’ve gotten myself to the point where I am very careful about impulse buying without ensuring I like or really need this. With Games I’m always trying to do the Demo or watch YouTube videos of a game, but I have had games bought that I wanted to return and now I even have some on my steam list. I may have to do some trading to clean that list up a bit.
@Gameplay versus Story: This seems a balancing act at times; there are games that had great story but painful gameplay (Legacy of Kain and Soul Reaver). Then games with great game mechanic but weird story like Eternal Sonata. It’s great when a game has both, I think story is the bitch as Paul said as so many a lot of times skip or ignore to get back to playing the game.
@Valve: I am glad they are doing this to help clean out some of the crap that seems to get through, in complete games and games that just should never have been started; I’m looking at goat Simulator there. I agree that you shouldn’t have to pay to beta test something. I do feel like this whole early access and beta testing is getting abused and allowing lazy game developing to happen. Beta testing is a skill set because you need people that are not only willing but actively look for ways to break a game or do things the game designers didn’t intend to happen.
@Sony getting hacked: On one hand I do want these companies to have better security for their customers but on the other it really isn’t right for hackers to be giving out password information either. I don’t trust these hackers motives either, and I am experiencing similar password changing/managing exhaustion as you guys as well.
http://www.geek.com/news/sony-just-got-hacked-doxxed-and-shut-down-1610274/
(I like the idea of a Pastabin, let’s do a Kickstarter for it)
@Game Devaluation: I wonder if Beyond Earth is considered a AAA game or not, since I got it digitally it was $54, nowhere near 35 much less 22. I think they’ve only recently been put on sale for lower prices for Black Friday, and of course it’s priced differently US, UK, EU and Aus all have different prices for said game. I do expect digital games to be cheaper than physical copies of the game. This also reminds me of an article where we maybe don’t value games as much as we used to due to very cheap prices and how easy it is to have a collection of a 100 games on your steam list and you’ve maybe only played a handful. That when we were children it was much harder to get a game, often you’d only have one and you played it bugs and all because that was your game. I’ve gotten a few of these bundled games and I have to admit I don’t feel the huge desire to play them much if at all. I don’t feel that same desire I did as a child when I would do extra chores and save up money just to buy ONE game.
@QotW: I would have to say my favorite Game based Cartoon would be “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego”. I loved that she wasn’t a typical Villain, she seemed to encourage the kids to try and catch her and you were learning stuff about the world as well as being entertained. I also hated the way they depicted Simon in Captain N, I think I found the “Icky” Pit and “Mega” to everything very annoying, it could be that I was slightly older at the time 8-10 so I think that act was wearing thin. I did love the Zelda Cartoon but vote goes to Carmen for helping me learn more about the world around me.