May Console Sales Thread (E3 this week!)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SirFozzie

That's because you're just trying to throw us off the scent, you're not only a Sony plant, you're a secret Longhorn fan?

I have an education that actually works for me outside of the Miss USA pageant question segment. That should be proof enough that I have nothing to do with the University of Texas.

And a Sony plant likely covers acres of land. I'm not anywhere near that fat.

[KWhit]

That's hysterical, Neon.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

As you said, the option to buy is there. Also, I hadn't heard about movie portability with the MS service, but maybe I've missed some Zune functionality that's been announced.

Well, no, but I don't think they even announced that with the Netflix partnership.

The point is that every significant feature of the Sony video marketplace that is shared with Microsoft's service, Microsoft's serve already does, whereas you're representing it as a service that won't be ready until "later this year."

Which is false. The Netflix partnership will happen later this year, but the Live Video Marketplace has been around for quite some time. Remember last year's announcement of the Disney partnership?

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Well, no, but I don't think they even announced that with the Netflix partnership.

The point is that every significant feature of the Sony video marketplace that is shared with Microsoft's service, Microsoft's serve already does, whereas you're representing it as a service that won't be ready until "later this year."

Which is false. The Netflix partnership will happen later this year, but the Live Video Marketplace has been around for quite some time. Remember last year's announcement of the Disney partnership?

Fair enough. So they're similar at this point with Sony having the option to buy and movie portability.

[Daimyo]

FFXIII on the 360 and BC taken off the PS3 moves me from "very likely to buy a PS3 at some point" to "very likely to buy a PS3 or 360 at some point". If Microsoft announces a 360 with built in BR I guess that would move me firmly over to "very likely to buy a 360 at some point".

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Daimyo

FFXIII on the 360 and BC taken off the PS3 moves me from "very likely to buy a PS3 at some point" to "very likely to buy a PS3 or 360 at some point". If Microsoft announces a 360 with built in BR I guess that would move me firmly over to "very likely to buy a 360 at some point".

I think that's more likely to occur in MS's next console. I don't think they'll want to bother with a redesigned 360 that might only be on the market for a couple of years before the new console comes out in 2011-2012.

[MJ4H]

I'm still nowhere near buying a 360. If I ever buy another console it will be a PS3. 360s are too unreliable.

[BrianD]

Originally Posted by MJ4H

I'm still nowhere near buying a 360. If I ever buy another console it will be a PS3. 360s are too unreliable.

This is still my biggest problem. I'm leaning 360 over PS3 just because most of my friends have a 360, but the reliability problems have kept me from entering the current generation.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Some early impression articles on how well the console companies did at E3.......

http://www.edge-online.com/features/...w-e3-big-three

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/16/ar...in&oref=slogin

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/e...-blogs/1227326

[Big Fo]

Penny Arcade sums E3 up pretty nicely.

[gstelmack]

That's great.

[MikeVic]

Dead Rising on Wii is excellent news. I wanted to get a 360 to try that game when I heard about it.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Just announced that Europe will also be getting the new 80 GB PS3 model w/ DS3 core pack.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Penny Arcade sums E3 up pretty nicely.

Brilliant

SI

[cartman]

Here's a link to an article with some screenshots of the new UI update for the 360 slated for this fall.

http://blog.wired.com/games/2008/07/pics-xbox-360s.html

[Neon_Chaos]

Gamespot article back in May 08

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6191525.html

Earlier this week, Square Enix president Yoichi Wada recognized a need for change within his company, saying to Reuters, "We need to go beyond traditional Square Enix." After a look at the game maker's fiscal year 2007 performance, it's easy to see where he was coming from.

Reporting today on its fiscal year ended March 31, 2008, Square Enix said that both revenues and earnings had dropped off significantly from the year before. Sales dropped 9.8 percent on the year to ¥147.5 billion ($1.4 billion)--a sharp contrast to last year's 31.3 percent gains, which grew revenue to ¥163.4 billion ($1.6 billion). Although Square Enix was able to curtail a precipitous slump in net income from a year ago, the publisher still posted net income down 20.9 percent to ¥9.2 billion ($89 million).

Square Enix was hit hardest in overseas markets, where sales had slipped 45.7 percent in North America, 41.1 percent in Asia, and 35.3 percent in Europe during the year. That's in sharp opposition to Wada's professed desire to expand its overseas presence to account for 80 percent of the company's sales. As part of this end, Square Enix said last year that it was actively looking for US publishing partners. In addition to confirming Dragon Quest IV, V, and VI for North America earlier this week, Square Enix dated its Xbox 360 role-playing game Infinite Undiscovery for September 2.

I'm guessing Square Enix is the one who actually came knocking on Microsoft's door to help it market FF13 on the Xbox360. They realize that the PS3 is nowhere close to closing the gap between Microsoft, and it wouldn't hurt to earn more $$$ by allowing FF13 to tap into the MS gamerbase.

[Big Fo]

New Pikmin game confirmed by Miyamoto. This helps to make up for their lousy conference on Tuesday.

here

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Tons of new news coming out.

Looks like another big announcement is on the way from Square Enix in a couple of weeks (August 2nd).

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3168827&

Tretton 'disappointed' in FFXIII going multiplatform.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=19448

MS's Kim once again states that the 360 will not have Blu-ray.

http://gaming.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=14454

Interview with Square Enix developer about FFXIII on the 360 and how development will progress.

http://interviews.teamxbox.com/xbox/...-Interview/p1/

Good article discussing just how bad the overall quality of sports titles is at this point.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...e=hruby/080716

'Heavy Rain' and another new game shown by Sony behind closed doors. Expect announcements on both at Tokyo Game Show.

http://whatifgaming.com/scea-hides-n...ve-closed-door

As was expected, Sony has signed a deal to counter the MS Netflix announcement. Sony will be partnering with Amazon.com to provide digital downloads.

The New York Times is reporting that Amazon is scrapping its Unbox service in favor of a new online TV and movie store called Amazon Video on Demand. Unlike iTunes and Unbox, Amazon's new digital store-front will stream any of 40,000 movies and television programs to customers. According to Bill Carr, Amazon's VP for digital media, "Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can't help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button." In this regard, the first 2 minutes of every video will begin to play when customers visit the video's product page. Movies can be purchased and downloaded to your hard drive or stored in an Amazon video library allowing you to stream the content to other (any?) Internet connected devices. Films and TV shows from "almost all the major studios and television networks" will be available for sale or rental in the US at undisclosed prices -- only Disney and its ABC subsidiary are holding out for uh, obvious reasons (Steve Jobs is Disney's largest individual shareholder).

Amazon also plans to bring the service directly to the living room through a deal with Sony (and others) which will ultimately embed store access into future Bravia TVs. For now, Amazon's VoD store will be available through Sony's $300 Bravia Internet Video Link device. The store goes beta-hot today for a limited number of "invited" US Amazon.com customers before going a live later this summer.

[wade moore]

One thing I'll say about the MS vs. Sony stuff (which we can't say about EA Sports anymore) - the competition is good for us. Without this battle would we have the prices we do? Would we have downloadable movies with monthly subscription plans? Would the online packages keep being upgraded?

Doubtful.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

As was expected, Sony has signed a deal to counter the MS Netflix announcement. Sony will be partnering with Amazon.com to provide digital downloads.

Does it really directly 'counter' the announcement if you're going to have to buy a whole new TV to take advantage, though?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by wade moore

One thing I'll say about the MS vs. Sony stuff (which we can't say about EA Sports anymore) - the competition is good for us. Without this battle would we have the prices we do?

Is a $400 machine vs a $500 machine really good competitive prices?

SI

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Does it really directly 'counter' the announcement if you're going to have to buy a whole new TV to take advantage, though?

You don't have to buy a whole new TV. The rumor is that the PS3 will be integrated into the service. Given that Sony is entering this agreement and that they keep banging into our head at every expo that they're "moving into the living room", it's certainly not hard to see that it's a logical progression that will probably occur.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Is a $400 machine vs a $500 machine really good competitive prices?

SI

Agreed. I think the pricing scheme is a bit more convoluted than you state above, but I agree with you that the hardware pricing is the major issue for these two consoles. With that said, they didn't leave themselves much wiggle room by their own mistakes (MS has RROD costs while PS3 had specs that blew up the manufacturing costs). They're likely just going to have to grin and bear it at this point. There's no quick fix for those issues.

I do think that consumers are the overall beneficiary when it comes to software. The general trend away from third-party exclusives is a good thing for consumers in the long run.

[Daimyo]

Hopefully the new Amazon service will work on TiVos like the Unbox service did. I really liked that integration.

[wade moore]

Yes, $400 is better than $500 (although I agree with MBBF that it's more complicated than that). Do I wish it was better? Yes - but it woudl be worse if there wasn't competition.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Yes, $400 is better than $500 (although I agree with MBBF that it's more complicated than that). Do I wish it was better? Yes - but it woudl be worse if there wasn't competition.

Could it be worse? I'm not sure about that. Once console is nearly 3 years in and the other is nearly 2 years in and neither is under $300 (Arcade 360 is a neutered system, so I don't really consider that a true option for most gamers, especially with the option to install full games on the 360 now available). These systems should be at a better price point in their life cycle to reach mass market acceptance levels.

[Daimyo]

Without the competition over the last several generations we would not have the Wii. So in that sense the competition has had a transformative effect.

[Big Fo]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

I do think that consumers are the overall beneficiary when it comes to software. The general trend away from third-party exclusives is a good thing for consumers in the long run.

Pretty much. The main downside is that developers might not be able to squeeze every last ounce of graphical power out of the PS3 or 360 if the game has to run on both.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Big Fo

Pretty much. The main downside is that developers might not be able to squeeze every last ounce of graphical power out of the PS3 or 360 if the game has to run on both.

That should be the role of the first party exclusives. As long as they can keep pushing the overall quality, multiplatform titles will be pushed to measure up to those standards, even in a world with few third-party exclusives.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Certainly an interesting (i.e. I'll believe it when I see it) comment by the SCEE chief. Says that "MAG" is scheduled for a Spring 2009 release. Surprising considering that this is the first time we've seen the game even mentioned.

Also states that Infamous is coming in Spring 2009 and God of War III will come in Fall 2009.

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=189351

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by wade moore

Yes, $400 is better than $500 (although I agree with MBBF that it's more complicated than that). Do I wish it was better? Yes - but it woudl be worse if there wasn't competition.

I wasn't saying $400 isn't better than $500. I don't think there's any way you could have interpreted what I said that way. But that the machines are $400 and $500- at that high of a level for both- hardly seems like good competition. The Wii's success really speaks to that. I'm sure a lot of people are buying into it because it's by far the cheapest because the other two are definitely technologically superior but it's trouncing them in sales.

The $500 and $600 initial prices were, at best, at the top threshhold of where people would buy and I think that's being generous because not many were sold until prices dropped a some. Ask the NeoGeo how that works- doesn't matter how good your system is if you can't price it competitively.

SI

[Neon_Chaos]

Finally, some good news regadring the Xbox team's profitability.

http://kotaku.com/5026559/xbox-divis...rofitable-year

Congratulations, Microsoft. For the first time in the Xbox group's history, it's reported a profitable year (previous back-slapping have been confined to profitable quarters), with earnings released today showing the Entertainment & Devices Division (which, granted, also includes stuff like Games for Windows and the Zune) made around $426 million during the 07-08 financial year, mostly as a result of increased 360 console and software sales. That sure beats last year's results, which thanks to the RROD warranty extension saw the E&DD division go $1.9 billion in the red. Also included in Microsoft's report was the fact the company have now sold 20 million 360 consoles, which should provide a nice, clean figure for the company's post-NPD numbers spin