Xbox Boss: Price a "Critical Factor" - Next-Gen Console Watch

Welcome back to Next-Gen Console Watch 2020, where we break down all the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X news and rumors. This week we have a very special guest in Head of Xbox, Phil Spencer. We talk about what we will see from Xbox leading up to the Series X launch, the real possibility of console scarcity and game delay, the determining factors in the Series X price and much much more. Don't forget to vote on this week's poll on the front page of ign.com

[AngelicIceDiamond]

All that power just for a 600+ console would do MS no good. Sure for hardcore gamers and tech enthusiasts but that's it.

[anonymousfan]

Itd be a steal for 600$ ... I expect more like 800 which sounds insane but if you look at the processor plus worse video card like 5700xt... Even without disc drive SSD etc the price shoots upward very quickly. Xbox can afford to release a powerful console that few people will buy since they also have a cheap entry level model releasing at the same timr

[snoopgg]

$800 would be a death sentence. Gamers would buy a $399 console all day.

[lazyboyblue]

No. (And hold me to this). It will be the same price as a ps5.

[Parasyte]

Never gonna release at $800. I expect $499 - $599, somewhere in that range.

Plus, the “lower spec” model hasn’t been officially confirmed.

[rainslacker]

$800 would be DOA. Even $600 would be pushing it. $500 is my prediction for the maximum cost, and that's likely with MS subsidizing part of the costs. If they really want to go for more pressure on Sony, they could subsidize it to $400, but chances are the investors wouldn't go for that. I think $500 for XSX, with a price drop for X1X, and maybe a budget X1S for a couple years until they phase it out.

MS isn't going into next gen looking at a single console to proclaim success, like we usually do for console war talk. They're going to be looking at it from the viewpoint of number of users across all their platforms.

[Nyxus]

What happened to Xbox Lockhart? Is that still a thing? If the Series X is supposed to be the premium offering, I wonder what that means for its price.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Good question. Phil hasn't so much hinted at a second console. He's either tightly kept it under wraps or the console is 400. Lockhart has been a very strong rumor for almost a year now. But at the same time it's just that, a rumor.

[aconnellan]

Wasn’t it just a rumour?

[porkChop]

I don't think it's actually happening. Microsoft can afford to take a bigger loss on the SX, so there really isn't any need for a less capable console.

[Zeref]

A less capable machine that is cheaper and probably sell more that they can profit from sounds like a good idea to me.

Especially if both series X and PS5 are 500 dollars.

They could price it at 300 or even 350 and it would be a great deal.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

In reality MS can take a loss on X Series. As I said the the other post. Phil even hinted the possibility of taking a hit of sorts so he has something planned. The more I think about it the weaker xbox console makes way less sense now. There's really no point to it. Buying an entry lvl next gen console that's 300 doesn't make much sense because you can just save up 2 to 300 extra dollars for the main one. Meanwhile the entry one will just bought will be a complete waste of money down the line anyway, making it completely pointless for a short term buy.

[Wikkid666]

Watch the video... said more hardware info to come. He also used the plural "consoles" at one point. When they say price is important. That's the key! but for the Series S. Watch one of DF vids... he messed up and said Series S in it.

[sinspirit]

They said Lockhart would be the cheaper option by removing the disc drive. Not by lowering performance. It's also an idea project. Not planned for production.

Why would they make another SKU to confuse the xbox market when they said the current One X already is the lower performance model.

[Software_Lover]

What if its the Xbox one X? That is what I would do.

[Destiny1080]

Sony has put such an expensive SSD into their System that it will be easy for phil to undercut the Price of the PS5

[isarai]

Oh so you know how much Sony's custom SSD cost? Please enlighten me on those numbers...

[jukins]

I'm sure the speed of then ssd is offset on the lower cu on gpu.

[Christopher]

Undercutting price is against anti-competitive laws in the U.S. and other countries, btw.

[frostypants]

Cerny is smarter than that.

[rainslacker]

How much does Sony's SSD cost relative to MS SSD? I noticed Sony isn't using a full Terabyte, likely to reduce costs. I wouldn't say it'd be easy for Spencer to undercut Sony. They still have investors to answer to, and investors have made it known they aren't that keen on the razor blade model. MS is going with a higher end processor, which generally don't come cheap, whereas Sony is dropping it back a bit, which will be cheaper due to higher yields from the silicon. Is MS going to overcome the larger die, and fewer usable chips from a single wafer to easily undercut Sony?

[isarai]

Well i mean when has that not been true?

[umair_s51]

$400 for both

[isarai]

That would make for some damn entertaining competition that's for sure lol

[porkChop]

I think $499 USD is more likely for both.

[4kgk76]

Porkchop@ the ps5 will probably be 400$ or 450$.

[TheColbertinator]

700 sounds reasonable to me. I would buy 2.

[rainslacker]

If you give me $700, I'll say I brought one, but actually buy something else, or make a car payment.:)

[WickedLester]

X1 - 499.99
PS4 -399.99

X1X - 499.99
PS4 Pro -399.99

See a pattern here?

[Sitdown]

Yes, you used the prices for consoles in the same generation. That means nothing, especially when you consider Xbox one launched with Kinect, and Phil saying that he wouldn't let price be an issue again.

[WickedLester]

Put it this way, XSX is going to be 499.99 minimum. I can't say for certain what PS5 will be but if MS couldnt sell the X1X for less than that, they sure as hell aren't selling the XSX for less than that.

[NeoGamer232]

There is no way that there is a $100 price difference between the two consoles. If so it is a gouge by whoever does that.

[Kiwi66]

Yet patterns can change

[goldwyncq]

If it's the same price as the PS5 then Sony's in big trouble.

[phoenixwing]

i doubt it, i'd still buy the ps5 over an xbox and most of the general public probably feels the same way. I will say that sony won't keep the same amount of a lead they've enjoyed this generation though.

[Sitdown]

What kind of trouble?

[rainslacker]

I think it would provide them more competition, but I doubt it'd cause them "big trouble". MS can't be more than $100 more than PS5, and at that much more, they're likely to have less room to maneuver should they need to do price cuts at some point. That would allow Sony to keep their price tag much longer, and profit much sooner than MS. Sony has the more expensive SSD, but MS does have a more expensive processor and system memory.

[chiefJohn117]

I wouldn't say they're in trouble but that would be a big win for Xbox. XSX has hit the nail every step of the way, add equal pricing....you can't ask for better from the console. Sony would be in trouble if PS5 cost more or they delay their launch. Then they'd be in big trouble

[jukins]

Eh sony survived and "won" a generation when they launched a year later cost at least $200 more than xbox had no standard features and barely any games.

[IRetrouk]

It was a year and a half here in the uk and the rest of europe, although it was really the wii that won to be fair, still cant take away the fact no other console maker can say every one of their home consoles has sold over 87 million.

[FallenAngel1984]

PS2 same price as Xbox: PS2 outsold it
PS3 more expensive than Xbox 360: PS3 outsold it
PS4 cheaper than Xbox One: PS4 outsold it

No matter how Microsoft prices Xbox Series X, there is only one true outcome

[timotim]

I don't think Microsoft has to outsell Sony with the SX vs PS5 to be successful or have their ecosystem thrive.

[snoopgg]

Tell Spencer that, this is the one thing keeping him awake at night. He has been trying to outsell Sony and just can't figure out what he needs to do to accomplish that.

[MrVux000]

Microsoft as a whole doesn't need an Xbox to be successful same as Sony. Both have different and sucessfull bussiness divisions, especially Microsoft.

People are talking about Xbox and Playstation (gaming divisions) specifically.

[timotim]

@MrVux
I was speaking of their gaming divisions specifically.

[rainslacker]

That is true. But that isn't the general path of discourse that we see in our forums most of the time.

Overall, while I'm 100% sure that MS sees Sony as competition here, and they certainly want to have the higher market share, the investors aren't going to be judging the success of the console based on it's relative sales to PS5. They'll be looking at the overall revenue and profits that come in from the product itself. MS could hand sony their ass left right and center, but if they are doing it by subsidizing the cost, and putting out a lot of costly games which don't end up seeing a return on revenue, the investors aren't going to care that Spencer has all this bravado, because all they'll see if the money pit that the brand has become.

Sony went through this with the PS3, as they were losing a lot of money on the PS3 with each system sold for a good part of the generation. They had to cut the bleeding relatively early, and couldn't actually do it due to the hardware involved. SCE was insulated from investors due to it being a subsidiary, but the devices division(which is where Xbox is housed), doesn't have that luxury. SCE's own loss of profit ended up hurting Sony as a whole in the end, although it wasn't the entire reason they went through such hard times. Luckily, Sony showed it could make enough money on PS to keep it around, otherwise, SCE probably would have ended up on the chopping block during the restructure. With MS, if the investors smell blood, which they have in the past, then it could mean spinning off the brand. That in itself wouldn't be the end of Xbox, but it's not something that MS probably wants to deal with given their long term plans for success of the company as a whole.

[NeoGamer232]

Original XB console shipped two years after PS2 that was a for gone conclusion
PS3 87 million, X360 85 million. Not really a difference there. But, yes Sony sold more
PS4 outsold XBO because Microsoft AWOL with Kinect and online

PS5 will outsell XSX as long as all factors remain equal. Currently looks like similar price. And Sony has the good will of most gamers from last gen performance.

[MrVux000]

''Original XB console shipped two years after PS2 that was a for gone conclusion''
''Not really a difference there. But, yes Sony sold more''

And yet, PS3 was shipped 1 years after 360, wouldn't that also be a ''for gone'' conclusion. Shipping 1 year and 8 months later is a factor for Xbox being undersold, but that is not the main reason...

[NeoGamer232]

@MrVux000
There is a difference when a second round console is on a path to sell 150,000,000 and a first round competitor comes in two years into that cycle to try and compete AND a second round console that came in after only 35,000,000 sales and ships a year before a competitors console that just sold 150,000,000.

If RRoD doesn't happen PS3 probably would've came in behind XB for the generation. It was that close at the time RRoD started to happen. On the XB side there was a ton of momentum that they managed to stave off PS, on the PS side they were struggling to get games to run on the console because of slow blu-ray and difficult architecture to work with. RRoD came up and it hurt the XB brand and it bought Sony some time to come up with solutions for PS3 issues. Pure and simple MS screwed up.

[MadLad]

They're both successful companies.

And let's be real, if the X is more powerful, out of the gate, and then paired with a great service like Game Pass, then it really would be an impressive offering, where I don't feel the XBone was. People want stuff to play, and something like that may just be more tempting than the couple exclusives Sony may have at launch. Especially considering launch exclusives don't typically end up being earth shattering.

[NeoGamer232]

It is nice, but Sony's exclusives are a pretty tough thing to refuse. For the gamers that know they will buy both consoles there is sense in what you are saying, but, the reality is that you look at sony's game track record vs XB and Sony wins without a fight taking place. Especially this last generation.

[rainslacker]

The game pass value goes out the window if you have to spend more up front for the console. It makes sense if the consoles cost the same, but even then, we get back into the discussion of if people really buy consoles for exclusives, or will they wait however long to just play games on game pass. Plus, will game pass cannibalize sales over the long run, because are people as likely to buy software day one, if they think they can get it free later on.

I feel the game pass variable is still untested on the market. It can't be compared to what it is offering now, because outside MS first party, no big new games are actually utilizing the service.

The long term effects of services like those remain to be seen, and more importantly, it remains to be seen how the publishers really feel about it. If they end up not selling as many games on Xbox, then the support could start to waver, which isn't a good thing for MS.

As far as the business side of things go, I can't see how MS is going to profit greatly off game pass if it becomes such a big draw. They have a premium console, but tie it to a value service? It seems counter-productive to me. Usually it makes more sense to have an inexpensive entry point, and a value service, which makes money in the long run.

[Donnie81]

If they can launch this system for 499 that will be an amazing deal.

[AuraAbjure]

$500-550 seems fair. Dunno who will have that kind of disposable income given the economy's state though.

[Donnie81]

Yeah I’m just hoping everyone comes out of this healthy and the world’s economy bounces back strong. I know when the opportunity comes back I’m gonna be out spending money like crazy

[jairusmonillas]

PS5 is going to outsell Xbox Series X regardless of the pricing. Xbox only supports US and UK as their market target, ignoring rest of europe, south east asia, middle east, japan, s.korea, and many more. PS5 is going to crush Xbox Series X along with over 100m userbase from PS4's ecosystem

[Donnie81]

It’s ridiculous to say that customers are just gonna ignore the better console and just buy a PlayStation because it’s a PlayStation. The 360 was straight up the better system and it did well the world over because it was the better system and priced well. Once the media starts seeing games on both consoles you are gonna see a never ending stream of articles saying how much better the series x is. That’s gonna definitely matter and if it’s priced right it can definitely beat the ps5. Most people buying consoles are casual gamers and are gonna buy what they think is the better system and let’s not mix words here the series x is definitely a cut above the ps5

[ocelot07]

"It’s ridiculous to say that customers are just gonna ignore the better console and just buy a PlayStation because it’s a PlayStation"

The X has a whopping 2TERRAFLOPS!!!!!! more than the PS4 pro. Yet the Xbox has not outsold the PS4 world wide since the X launched. Why is that?? It's the more powerful console after all what gives?

[Feedog6]

Well Said!

[Donnie81]

If only it was just a insignificant 2 tflops. Listen to yourself only 2 tflops. Well for one that’s huge and two with rdna 2 it’s gonna be more like 3 if not 4 because the ps5 is a hybrid and isn’t gonna get the full 40 to 60% efficiency boost. Also devs are saying they can’t get the cpu or the gpu to hold max clocks much less both at once. So when the rubber hits the road it’s like comparing a Honda Civic to a Ferrari. But good try holding on to those sales numbers because that’s all you got and even that’s temporary

[chiefJohn117]

How can you not like Phil Spencer? Humble, transparent and in touch.

[Zeke68]

You forgot /s...
Snakeoil Phil humble? Yeah right.

[chiefJohn117]

Ya praises the comp, works with the comp, listening to gamers and admitting there screw ups. Dude is an angel compared to arrogant Mattrick. Why is it snakeoil? We complained about the size and power of XO he got a smaller more powerful box made, ppl complained about the lack of 1st party consistency. He made and bought studios. U.I wasn't user friendly, fixed. Gamers begged for BC. Got it done. Ppl said Xbox wasn't pro gamer on decisions. Gamepass was born, allowed crossbuy, and crossplay, and will be doing smart delivery for next gen even though he had some greedy devs against the idea.
Don't sound like snake oil to me. Don't hate, appreciate and give credit where it's due cause not too long ago this all was nothing more than a pipe dream

[snoopgg]

I can't ever like this guy after all that cloud bullshit and crackdown 3 being such a turd.

[chiefJohn117]

Crackdown was a project and long in development before he even took charge. Project wasn't as successful as they hoped. Why would I hold Phil accountable for a game not being very successful at trying to use power of the cloud for large scale destruction? Not like I had high expectations for crackdown anyway. Even if you did hold that against him that 1 negative out of so many other positives.

[Christopher]

***Crackdown was a project and long in development before he even took charge.***

One year after. And that doesn't explain why he didn't change the marketing direction of the project in the three years that he was in charge.

I get praising him for saying good things, but you have to recognize when he fails or says stupid things as well.

It took him 5 years to buy studios. 5 years of not providing for his consumers more games that they wanted.

He's making the right moves, but we can't ignore those 5 years he spent not doing that.

[timotim]

A confident Microsoft is a beautiful thing to see. Especially after seeing how they had to maneuver in 2013-14 and be on there back foot. They're hitting all the right notes.

[MrVux000]

''Confident Microsoft'' never left the chat room tho.

Compare these statements to every year during this gen, and you will notice they haven't changed.

[timotim]

How do you mean? They havent been in this position since early 2013 and even then, we didnt see this much confidence from them.

[MrVux000]

@timotim
What i mean is their statements (confidence) have been pretty much the same for the past 7 years...

[Donnie81]

He’s confident because he’s getting ready to launch the best console ever made. Also he knows all the amazing games being made by the largest collection of first party studios in gaming history. He’s also probably confident in how amazing xcloud is especially teamed with the already fantastic gamepass. That combo right there is gonna print $. The competition isn’t ready to deal with the value they are offering all they can do is try to copy the model

[rainslacker]

MS is always confident, and it's not always a beautiful thing to see. MS, for whatever it does, always exudes confidence. Without fail. Even if they know they are in the sh*t, they address it with confidence, and without remorse. Nothing to be remorseful about here, but I can't think of any time this gen where MS or Spencer haven't shown confidence....even when they're being "humble" to talk about how they haven't performed....which is about once a year when their PR department tells Spencer he has to appear humble.

"They havent been in this position since early 2013 and even then, we didnt see this much confidence from them."

LOL. What? You're kidding right? The company that literally told people to get a 360 and metaphorically to deal with it. The same company that pushed Kinect as if they thought people wanted it? The same company that pushed cloud as the biggest factor in their future success?

Sorry, but MS was just as confident then as Spencer shows on his weekly, "hey look at me" tweet or interview.

[Donnie81]

I bet the will be pretty confident when the media jumps all over the series x vastly outperforming the ps5 leading to a shift in the landscape of gaming

[AK91]

I can't see this being less than $599 tbh this console is a beast in terms of specs.

[Gaming4Life1981]

All I hope is the xbox series x is 499 or cheaper.

[Veneno]

I really can't see either one costing over $500. That would be a fair price at launch. I'm very interested in seeing what they will price the games at. Also wondering what new services they will add to Live and Plus.

[UltimateRacer]

It’s shocking the amount of people hating on Sony and spreading Misinformation/lies about the PS5, it goes to show you just how much of an impact Sony has on people even the ones that are Anti Sony/PlayStation, it’s sad how 1 company that you don’t even support or like as an effect on you, baffles me.

[Wulfer]

UltimateRace I suggest you go look at some of the pre and post reveal comments made about Xbox back in 2013. Nothing has changed just a different system...

[Da12RespectA]

It's going to be $300

[snoopgg]

What you smokin, puff puff pass. Keep that pipe dream going brother.

[rlow1]

Good interview and like the focus of their team.

[timotim]

Yeah, you have to like the way they're moving right now. I told people...Microsoft and Xbox's leadership isn't the same today as it was back in 2013. The leadership roles are vastly different now and Phil is a gamer himself...I rather have someone like that running a gaming division.

[rlow1]

I agree. I remember when I first heard of Don M leading Xbox division and just his messaging from the get go changed the momentum of Xbox. Felt like a long slow downward trend away from games being front and center......Compared to now the contrast is glaring and that's a good thing.

[kryteris]

xbox all access is $480 but he did also say "consoles"

[Father__Merrin]

if a ps5 and xbox are £599 or £649/£699 its hard to sell to a mass market audience. sure hardcore fans will buy as well as enthusiasts but for the average joe it wont be worth the outlay imo

[timotim]

IDK how much they will cost, but Microsoft will have multiple options in the market to get at there games for next gen...not just consoles. Not so sure about Sony.

[DragoonUS]

I bet in 500 or 550...