Robbie Bach, president of Entertainment and Devices at Microsoft, believes a future hardware price battle will decide the outcome of Xbox 360's struggle with PlayStation 3.
In an interview with San Joe Mercury News, he said that the company is seeking to bring down Xbox 360's costs in preparation for a price initiative that he believes Sony will be unable to follow.
Responding to a question on the hardware wars, he said, "You have look at the economics. You have to ask the question, over the life cycle, who has the cost advantage? Who can price most effectively? Who can reach the price points quicker? That has a huge impact on what gets driven."
He added, "Because we were out there first, we have a bigger installed base of consoles. We can drive down the manufacturing curve sooner and faster. And because we designed a box that was fundamentally easier to manage on costs, we're going to have that advantage."
Asked about engineering work going into a new Xbox, he said, "Right now we are thinking about how to cost reduce the Xbox 360. That seems to be the first order of business."
This could be fun as they make great tables. Go big or go extinct. Prime your senses for a neural handshake and step into the cockpit of a Jaeger. It is on you to cancel the apocalypse when Pacific Rim Pinball comes to Pinball FX on May 16.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
are ALWAYS a good thing for consumers. It's why I want to see all three console makers do well. Competition spurs innovation and cheaper prices. The question is which company can weather the storm the longest.
360 - Has already cut manufacturing costs, may already be making a profit per console. The console opened that less than $100 loss, and probably less than $50.
PS3 - Costs $200 more, and that $200 difference is mimicked by a nearly $200 loss per system.
Wii - Costs even less, and was making a profit at laucnh.
What price war? Looks like there are two clear winners and one clear loser to me.
Has already cut costs 40% since launch day and Nintendo is making a profit on each Wii sold. Both are in a much better position to reach the price points that drive additional sales. The components in the PS3 are just too expensive for Sony to contemplate any price cuts for at least 18 months. They made a small concession on price in Japan, but only after a meeting with several of their major developers who expressed concerns about there not being enough consoles on the ground for their games to be profitable. I would imagine quite a few hints or even outright threats were made by the devs to take their games elsewhere or else Sony would never have agreed to take an even bigger loss than they already were on the hardware. As long as supplies of both Wii and PS3 remain dependent on the latest shipment coming in rather than units stored in domestic warehouses, there won't be a price war. MS can continue to charge a premium price simply because there are no other alternatives. As soon as Nintendo and Sony begin to build stockpiles, then you are going to see it start to get ugly.
What i think is that ms doesn't have to worry about sony because sony is digging its own tomb, just think about it, sony losing around $250 per console, ms and sony MAKING money for every console they sell. The "War" won't be between Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, but maybe between Microsoft and Nintendo.
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