The days of seeing stories like 'PS4's outselling Xbox by almost 2-to-1' could be over as Microsoft looks to have called time on the console sales war.
Last week saw the Big M announce its quarterly results - yes, yes, fiscal announcements, yawn - but the interesting thing noted by Game Informer was the lack of Microsoft's usual hardware shipment metrics.
When quizzed on this a Microsoft source responded saying it was no longer using such figures as its measurement of success. Instead it would be focusing on user engagement, choosing Xbox Live figures as its leading stat. Essentially Microsoft has made a tacit announcement that, in terms of hardware sales at least, it has lost the sales war of this generation of machines.
Long-time industry analyst, Michael Pachter, told Fortune yesterday that he believes Sony's PS4 is set to have another excellent holiday period, outselling Microsoft's console, and would probably do so with or without the price cut which has given it price parity with the Xbox One.
"Microsoft should cut price only if it cares about how many consoles it sells," he went on to say.
And, given that it's both halted reporting on its own sales and refused calls for a price cut of its own, it sure looks like Microsoft has now stopped caring about such figures. Or at the very least wants everyone to stop talking about it...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Monday October 26 2015, @09:02PM
a Microsoft source responded saying it was no longer using such figures as its measurement of success.
if at first you don't succeed, redefine success!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Gaaark on Monday October 26 2015, @09:05PM
But... but.., Halo 5!
I think they're hoping to get a jump in console sales from this release.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by schad on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:03AM
It may also be that their real profit source is XBL. Obviously you need an XBone to subscribe to XBL, so it's not like it's completely distinct, but... Is MS better off spending $100m on marketing and discounts to sell hardware at razor-thin margins to people who will probably buy one game (Halo 5?) and then never again send a dime to MS? Or is that money better spent getting the people who already have XBones to re-up with XBL? I speculate that the latter offers a considerably better ROI for Microsoft.
It's a total guess, but I think it's a good one. Microsoft has been pushing subscription-based online services in a big way, pretty much across all their product lines. And they were pimping the online features of XBone since before it launched.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday October 27 2015, @04:32AM
Is MS better off spending $100m on marketing and discounts to sell hardware at razor-thin margins to people who will probably buy one game (Halo 5?) and then never again send a dime to MS? Or is that money better spent getting the people who already have XBones to re-up with XBL?
well there's a false dichotomy if i ever read one! there are lots of things MS could do that dont involve any of that! i have some ideas on what they could do but frankly, i prefer to hear their PR lies rather than that they are succeeding in any meaningful way. :)
(Score: 5, Funny) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday October 27 2015, @10:00AM
> i have some ideas on what they could do but frankly,
I too have a long list of ideas for things that Microsoft could do. Most of them involve the words "insert", "spiky", and "sideways".
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday October 27 2015, @11:36AM
How EXACTLY is it a false dichotomy? Its the same issue Sony found with their promoting of OtherOS with the PS3, you had a ton of users buying PS3 (which were sold for pretty damned big losses, nearly $300 at the time) that were only buying them to use OtherOS and never bothered to buy games for the things. If we look at the history of Xbox we see that for the vast majority of its history? Its sold at a loss. AAMOF the original Xbox NEVER made a profit and the X360 has only made a profit these past couple of years, so what happens if somebody only buys for Halo* and doesn't really buy squat for it after that? That console is a complete loss for MSFT so it only makes sense to not spend a ton marketing to people that simply will never bring a ROI.
This is of course ignoring the rotten elephant in the room which is MSFT crippled the Xbone to bundle the Kinect by going with DDR3 over GDDR5 which means the kind of online multiplatform shooters that a game like Halo would appeal to? Yeah they are gonna play all their multiplats on the PS4 because they will look better and they always will. Its a shame really as AMD made some nice (if weak) APUs for the Xbone and PS4 but as someone who builds a lot of AMD APU systems I can tell you that memory is king with the AMD APU, the faster the RAM the better, so why would a Halo player stick with the Xbone when the better versions are on PS4?
*.- This is VERY possible as I had several customers who did exactly that with the original Xbox, they bought it for Halo I and bailed when they grew tired of it, in fact the Xbox my boys had came from one of those customers as once he was done with Halo he sold it to me cheap and went to Quake Arena and CS for the PC. Those types of players seem to be VERY picky about the games they play its like trying to court Battlefield or WoW players, they may play your game for a bit but then its right back to where were before.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Wednesday October 28 2015, @04:05AM
How EXACTLY is it a false dichotomy?
it's a false dichotomy because he presents two possible options for Microsoft and asked the reader to choose between them when in reality Microsoft has many other options.
perhaps you don't understand the concept. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Thursday October 29 2015, @06:41PM
And what other options would those be? Remember we are talking about whether or not they should be pushing a particular game, that is pretty much a "yes/no" question, nothing false dichotomy about true false statements.
So if you believe they have many other option wrt Halo 5? Feel free to list them, but as somebody who deals in home theaters I can tell you that the kind of person that plays Halo? VERY picky and kinda obsessed with graphics and multiplayer and like it or not the xbone simply has no leverage with these players, not now that multiplats will always have higher definition and look better on the PS4.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday October 26 2015, @09:06PM
I own a WiiU and don't care in the slightest that it's selling poorly because I'm an adult and can accept that my choices weren't popular, and the success of the system has no bearing on me.
(Score: 3, Funny) by jimshatt on Monday October 26 2015, @09:08PM
(Score: 5, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday October 26 2015, @09:14PM
No, I mean, I can care about things like having a discussion with a stranger. I do all the time. But I'm so glad I'm not 14 anymore and don't have identity invested in products.
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:29AM
Now if only most adults ever reached this fabled age 14....
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Monday October 26 2015, @09:27PM
and the success of the system has no bearing on me.
It would if there was any difference between the systems, which apparently there is not.
My son likes xbox360 minecraft so he can play with his school buddies, I prefer modded minecraft on a linux PC, currently in a FTB Infinity solo.
If you don't play platform exclusives, there's probably no major difference between consoles.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @09:29PM
If I want to play console games I play on Nintendo. If I want to play consolised PC games then I plug a controller into my PC. :-)
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday October 26 2015, @11:50PM
PC Master Race reporting in. I can confirm that some console ports are so terrible that you need to buy a controller to play them (looking at you, Rocket League).
Off-topic: Warhammer: EndTimes - Vermintide just released and it is a lot of fun : )
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @10:27PM
I own a WiiU [...] I'm an adult
I was going to leave a snarky comment but this meta-comment is all you get today.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @11:38PM
You'll say that right up until the Zelda doesn't drop for the system...
(Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:08AM
I agree--I think the Sega Dreamcast deserves more credit than it gets. That was one of my more favored consoles out there. MS had a hand in its demise as part of the xbox strategy, or so the popular wisdom goes. (How many windows ce games do you think came out for it...? and did the xbox ever have any windows ce games?)
(and, as long as I am on the subject of old consoles, I think the Atari Jaguar could have been something special but then Atari got in its own way, as usual. Laugh if you will -- many things from that platform still exist in some shape or form today in modern consoles.)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by darkfeline on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:02AM
>the success of the system has no bearing on me.
Wrong. If the system is not successful, then developers are more likely to release their games on other systems. Thus, if you play games in general (sometimes known as "real" games), you have a pretty large stake in whether your system is successful enough and whether you can get away with not buying another console just for the sake of having access to more games.
Of course, if you bought a WiiU solely for the sake of playing a single game or only Nintendo games, then yes, the success of the system wouldn't matter much to you. However, most people who own consoles own them to play games in general, not just a single game or only Nintendo games (citation needed), so they have a real stake in whether their chosen console is successful or not.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by hash14 on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:37AM
Doesn't matter for people who don't really need access to all the games.
Take Nintendo for example - lots of exclusive titles, and excluded from many other titles. But lots of people who have Wiis are perfectly content to play the ones that they like and simply forego the ones that aren't available for it. This is also why many adults and even children are perfectly well off with a plain smartphone or a computer that can play Flash games online.
All three of the major consoles have great games for each. None will have all that you like - just pick one that you think is good enough and be happy with it. It's only those who have a lust or entitlement to play every good game that comes out that really depends on their platforms being the most popular.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:58AM
The only game i play on the Wii is Star Trek something or other (haven't actually played it in a long time). (Bought it 'cause we thought out son (autistic with cp) could control it with hand waves, but not so much).
PC games are usually my thing (Total Annihilation and M$inecraft, usually, although Steam games...)
I've totally gotten away from console games (excepting trying to get i3wm on arch/antergos to stop mis-behaving (did an upgrade, and when i unplug my usb cable (external hard drives and mouse) i get a lockup (which is bothersome when all i want is to watch a movie (cvlc) while i do the dishes after supper)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:59PM
Aaah, my parser has thrown an error. You've left us parenthetically to emerge two levels down!
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday October 28 2015, @12:12AM
Those people are regular people and not "gamers". This is also the reason "gamers" hate non-gamers, because their poor "taste" is diluting the quality of the industry.
Now, it's true that non-gamers are not the cause of the console wars, but at least without them, the console wars will only be fought by gamers and not outsiders.
(Extremely rough) analogy: People who like good coffee. Company X makes good coffee. Normal people get hyped about coffee. Company X now focuses efforts on cheaper, low quality to cater to the masses and make money. Coffee lovers have lowered access to good coffee. Coffee lovers are not happy.
Console war analogy: Two big coffee makers X and Y have different coffee lover followings. Non-coffee lovers pretend to be coffee lovers for hippie/prestige points and support X. Y supporters resent them because they have to defend what they love not against fellow coffee lovers, but outsiders, pretenders. X supporters may resent them as well.
Of course, casual gamers are free to enjoy casual games, but that still hurts gamers because what they care about is being belittled. At least back when games were not taken seriously gamers could rest easy knowing that other people just didn't try to "get it", but now other people are "pretending" to "get it" when they are completely belittling the things that gamers love.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @09:07PM
One of the reasons the MS board got rid of Ballmer was because he had so much of his career tied up in big initiatives that were either mixed successes (like Xbox) or outright failures.
It's not clear whether it makes sense for either MS or Sony to make the kind of huge investment in the next generation gaming consoles to create jaw-dropping experiences that will compel the parents of boys aged 8-18 to shell out several hundred USD just for the hw platform. Times change.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SanityCheck on Monday October 26 2015, @09:41PM
One of the reasons the MS board got rid of Ballmer was because he had so much of his career tied up in big initiatives that were either mixed successes (like Xbox) or outright failures.
I don't disagree, and I find the statement very informative. My reply is more directed at the board who would use such criterion.
First of all that sounds like any company trying to innovate. Hard to pin it on one guy. How many Sony failures have we had? I mean mini-disc? Hello? These companies do not die with a single failure, and they definitely don't need need every product to succeed, just enough of them. Windows had plenty of failures before Ballmer, and will have plenty after.
At some point we must accept that Steve Jobs was a magician, he could pull a rabbit out of the hat seemingly on command. This is an exception not a rule people. Maybe the board just decided to give another guy a try in a feeble search for the next Jobs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @10:49PM
At some point we must accept that Steve Jobs was a magician
Two of largest sellers Apple had were the iPhone and iPod. Both were moved into well after others had trod into that water.
Jobs did one thing very well. Cut the crap focus on exactly what the high end people want. There is nothing special about it. I am sure there were 500 projects he killed that never saw the light of day.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @11:15PM
Would that be Steve "You're holding it wrong" Jobs? [google.com]
...or perhaps Steve "Pick it up and drop it" Jobs? [google.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:16AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:51AM
Are you using technology which doesn't allow you to hover over the link and see what that is?
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Tork on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:58AM
Slashdolt Logic: "25 year old jokes about sharks and lasers are +5, Funny." 💩
(Score: 4, Informative) by vux984 on Monday October 26 2015, @11:50PM
At some point we must accept that Steve Jobs was a magician, he could pull a rabbit out of the hat seemingly on command.
His only magic was getting people to forget the turds he produced.
Apple Lisa
Apple III
G4 cube
Puck mouse
Flower Power iMac
MobileMe
ipod HiFi
ipod nano v3
first generations AppleTV / iTV (and even today they aren't exactly great)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:29AM
At some point we must accept that Steve Jobs was a magician
An evil magician who, much like Microsoft, managed to get lots of people to use abusive proprietary software, accept digital restrictions management, and buy products that are basically virtual jails for the user? Yeah, that's very useful for him, but not for society in the long run.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @09:53PM
Considering that all consoles are underpowered junk compared to even average PCs I'm not so sure jaw-dropping experiences is the right phrase.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @10:13PM
I wanted to upgrade my Xbox 360 to the One but decided not to because of all the anti-privacy bullshit surrounding it. Microsoft walked back some of the more nasty requirements before launch but the capabilities and potential for abuse still remain and I no longer trust them to honor my rights. I bought a lot of Xbox stuff over the years and I was prepared to continue doing so, but MS spoiled the fun. Console gaming is an expensive hobby and, frankly, I'm SICK of paying a premium to be abused and have ads shoved down my throat. They've turned the Xbox into a spy platform, leaving me no choice but to give it up. Now they're pulling the same shit with Windows 10. Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo are evil and will get none of my holiday spend...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @11:53PM
What did Nintendo do?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:36AM
Sorry, I should not have included Nintendo. The point that I was trying to make (poorly) is that Microsoft's disregard for privacy may have contributed to lackluster sales. I'm sure there are other factors but perhaps sales would have been better if they hadn't made the platform so creepy. I didn't mean for it to turn into a personal rant...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Pino P on Tuesday October 27 2015, @06:18PM
Nintendo has a more restrictive policy for use of its games in videos than some other publishers have. It is also more likely to assert copyright against game modders than, say, Blizzard or Valve. Case in point: its recent takedowns of videos of tool-assisted speedruns and level hacks of Super Mario World on YouTube.
(Score: 2) by Daiv on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:16PM
I wanted to upgrade my Xbox 360 to the One
I didn't think you could upgrade a console. I thought you had to replace it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Aichon on Monday October 26 2015, @10:25PM
The goal of the Xbox was always to act as Microsoft's Trojan Horse into the living room. It was never about having the best console; it was about having control over the living room experience. Back when the first Xbox launched, they even stated as much openly, with it being one of their key goals for the product line. That's why they were willing to sink so much time and money into it over the years. It was a long-term investment to make sure that they had a seat at the table when living rooms finally became connected. The 360 set them up well, the culture was finally willing to accept "smart" functionality on TVs and in living rooms, and they had been spending years revamping their OS so that it would be a more consistent experience across all of their devices, including the Xbox. They bet it all on the Xbox One.
And then the Xbox One launched to poor acclaim.
The so-called "console wars" are really just a small front in the much bigger war for the living room. It started out as a handful of minor skirmishes between dozens of players, but all of the big players realized where things were going a long time ago and started architecting grander plans for how they wanted things to move. Sony and Microsoft tried to approach the living room from the high-end via game consoles, but that was by no means the only way in. Apple, Amazon, and Google have been entering the space from the low-end via set-top boxes and the like, as well as establishing massive content ecosystems of apps, videos, and music, but there's clear indications that they don't plan to stay confined to the low-end, with the just-released Apple TV (which has roughly console-grade computing power) being the clearest indication of their long-term plans to grow upwards.
Meanwhile, companies like TiVo and Nintendo don't even seem to be aware that there's a bigger war going on around them, which is why they've both been blindsided by the major changes happening in the markets they play in. Nintendo has had its lunch eaten by Android and iOS, neither of which are products that people think of as "gaming" products, simply because they didn't realize that their skirmish was part of a larger war that included a lot more competitors. Likewise, TiVo's market has shrunk dramatically as the newer set-top boxes have come in with cheaper subscriptions to Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu, and other services that enable users to cut their cable entirely. I'll add Valve/Steam and Razer to the list as future failures/confined to niches, since they're fighting as if they're in small-scale skirmishes, when, actually, they're fighting against the technology world's superpowers with their devices that mirror a PC to the living room (things which Microsoft, Apple, and Google all can already do, albeit, not to gaming-grade quality yet).
Anyway, this is all a long way of getting around to the point: that right now is the make-or-break time for dominating the living room, and Microsoft knows they've missed the boat so far. They're either cutting their losses, confused about what to do, or are going back to the drawing board so that they can come back with something more compelling. We'll see in time which it is.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @10:48PM
Blah blah... yeah war for the living room and all that, whatever you said.
But what it boils down to is that it takes 5 minutes to turn the TV on nowadays.
(Score: 1) by machineghost on Monday October 26 2015, @10:52PM
To be fair, the Tivo people did see the writing on the wall years ago, and added support for Hulu, Netflix, etc. to their boxes. This would have, if they had been smarter, positioned them *perfectly* to appeal to cord cutters: "use our awesome UI to manage your antenna channels, then use our also-awesome UI to watch Netflix, YouTube, whatever."
The problem is, while they worked really, really hard on the TV UI, they treated the other sources as a side project, and even when they truly merged them in ("Season Pass" => "One Pass") it was incredibly poorly executed and resulted in a terrible user experience.
IMHO Tivo is still the very best DVR out there, and no one even comes close to beating it for managing "normal" TV. But when I want to watch Hulu or YouTube my $50 Roku is far more responsive than my $500 TiVo, and more importantly it supports Plex and Crunchy Roll (which Tivo doesn't).
Standard big company problem: someone sees that the ship is going off a cliff, but the institution is too slow/inept to act fast enough.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tathra on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:58AM
nintendo has always, for more than century now, been a gaming company. i don't know that its that they're oblivious to the "war" going on around them, but more that they don't care, they just want to provide fun and entertainment to their customers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2015, @11:03PM
It's like asking if Honda has admitted defeat because it sold half of what Volkswagen did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:46AM
Honda makes much higher quality products than anything VW has ever made.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday October 26 2015, @11:44PM
Fable is about the only series I would need an Xbone to play, and that series is pretty meh. My PS3 does everything I want it to, and I suppose when I have to go to PS4 for Gran Turismo 7, it probably will as well. There's Netflix (not booting to Windows for this), remastered Silent Hill 2/3, Gran Turismo, Armored Core, all my favorite PS1 games (Silent Hill 1, Megaman X4-X6, Bloody Roar 1, sometimes I throw in Gran Turismo 1 for nostalgia). Speaking of Megaman, also Megaman 9-10.
Oh, I'm leaving out BlazBlue and Soul Calibur—don't have copies but occasionally play with friends. (My λ-11/μ-12/v-13 is feared even among people who can easily trounce me in Soul Calibur, but I'm sure I'd get my ass handed to me in a BlazBlu tournament. Nothing like being able to spam flying swords from all directions!)
Yeah, some of those are cross-platform, but the showstoppers for me are Gran Turismo and Armored Core. (They might as well call Armored Core a mech simulator like Gran Turismo calls itself a driving simulator.)
Hmm… looks like Xbone wins on the backward compatibility feature, but there are rumors [trustedreviews.com] at least of PS1 (and PS2) emulation in the works. Understandable if it's not possible to emulate PS3 on PS4 hardware, since the PS3 architecture was such an oddball, but PS1 is where the nostalgia is for me.
It's been a while since I've fired it up, though. Star Citizen is the Next Big Thing as far as I'm concerned. In the meantime, there's apparently a small community that's sprung up around a Freelancer mod, Discovery.
(Score: 2) by timbim on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:40AM
You don't play Street Fighter?
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:00PM
Nope. I've tried a few times, but I just can't get the hang of it. I find the story interesting, though.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:10AM
more like they'll just keep selling you all your old ps1-3 games that you already own again. if you have any interest in playing ps1-3 games, just install custom firmware on your ps3; even the slims "magically" have the same software ps2 emulation that the later phat ps3 models had (only first and second generation slims support CFW though, it has to predate OFW 3.55). if sony had any interest in releasing emulators to grant backwards compatibility you'd be able to purchase their cell-based PS2 emulator from PSN; instead you have to void your warranty or order one the old designed-to-fail (YLOD/laser failure) phat models. no, there's much more money in cashing in on your nostalgia by continuing to sell or rent you the games you already own but can't play on the latest model.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:01PM
I wasn't really into gaming during the PS2 era. I have original discs for most of my PS1 games, and those seem to work fine in my PS3.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2015, @12:37AM
Why would I buy an overpriced POS from the same company that I hate for their shitty OS? I have a Wii, if that doesn't bet my nut then I fire up PSX or PCSX2 or PPSSPP to play my old Playstation games.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tathra on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:23AM
its worth the investment to get a ps3 and psp and slap custom firmware on them. ps3 cfw is pretty much flawless for playing ps1-3 games, and you can use the psp to play not just psp games but also ps1 games and emulators for all the older systems (everything up to fourth generation). just make sure you buy them second-hand, because fuck sony.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by DonkeyChan on Tuesday October 27 2015, @06:14AM
When the xbone (feel the contempt) was first announced with their included kinect features and always on components I figured they'd have to back-peddle it. I try to think about all the weird conspiracy things that arise even if most don't pan if only for the academic practice of keeping my mind open. I couldn't believe they were building in what amounts to a spying platform and thought for sure it was hyperbolic. I was wrong.
MS built into the xbone remote wake functions for all hardware that's attached to it including internal DNS and routing tables for C&C servers that piggy back the XBL pipe.
Every piece of hardware can be polled from a pseudo powered on state using these functions and then turned on without notification (lights etc).
I can't see a real reason for just those two things. Ads can't be it, it's way too much just for targeting ads on a platform that already requires an identity just to play games.
I dismissed it all and chalked it up to corporate overreach.
Then win10 came out. There is no non-specious reason they've given us to relay all the data it does. Again this could be framed as corporate overreach, if you ignore that they were at least equally intrusive with their "game" console. The way they've tricked people into downloading win10 and all of the things I'm not going to post here as we've all heard them only lead to one end in my mind.
They're a company. They're being paid to do this.
The risk is too great unless they ALREADY had funding to cover the potential market shrink. They don't use these metrics in the article because their measure of success is how many SLA's they can meet in feeding data back to their government arm. They couple this with their AD revenue on these devices and they can grow with 25% of the market they once had. Their contracts cover any loss from the introduction of this surveillance framework. Even removing the word government from this section and it is still a surveillance framework, but it's only for "ads" right?
They get us used to it, make it ubiquitous. We're the frog in boiling water not jumping out because the temperature is being increased gradually. They keep "patching" win 10 with "important" security updates that just redirect their telemetry when a certain percentage starts getting blocked. They hide the content of these updates now when they used to explain exactly what they were for. Their response to that specific grievance is that the platform for describing the security updates isn't built out...But somehow it was in place during winXP. They're lying for a reason.
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Tuesday October 27 2015, @11:57AM
The console wars are over. Roku won. Netflix won. Amazon Prime may pull something out. HBO just jumped into the race but they have a good chance of pulling ahead.
Nintendo could have pulled their head out of their ass 5 years ago and made a game boy phone and carved themselves a niche with Apple-sized profit margins.
Sony owns the hard-core gaming market - why compete? They have been trying to make Playstations the family entertainment centers since the PS2 and it has not moved out of the more hardcore gaming market. Mom and Dad still just buy the cheapest DVD player at Best Buy or whatever.
Microsoft has some of the pieces - Lync communication appliances, table sized touch PCs, a very profitable cloud business but they need to build a partner hardware eco system where connectivity makes sense. Google started it with Nest but Microsoft has some potential killer apps with their 3D research - medical and anybody doing mechanical site surveys should be very excited. But these are all business applications. For the moment, though, it does not make a ton of sense to keep losing money on a gaming console. From a long term view, I can think of four reasons why Microsoft would keep the XBox.
1. Microsoft thought it is worth the money to keep their expertise in the industry to be leveraged later for some future purpose as yet to be announced.
2. Keep the flow of big name titles coming to PC. DirectX is DirectX so the port from XBox to PC is not so hard compared to a port from PS3 or PS4 to PC.
3. To be a compute delivery endpoint for Azure. E.g., if you have a network of sensors in your house monitoring things in real time, the XBox packages the reading and sends it to Azure for some analysis, the analysis is done in Azure and an action is computed and sent back to the XBox, and the XBox delivers the commands to the appropriate controller.
4. Microsoft buys HBO (or Netflix but HBO seems more likely) to use XBox and HBO to become the dominant media delivery platform.
5. Some combination of the previous four suggestions.
I think the real question MS has to consider is how long stockholders will let them keep losing billions every year for some future, phantom payoff that has never happened since the first XBox.
(Score: 2) by joshuajon on Tuesday October 27 2015, @03:49PM
Does this mean I can finally get a reasonably priced last generation model? For all the hype, the last gen seems to be holding it's value surprisingly well.