The Official Xbox One Thread

[cmdrdredd]

In my opinion that might mean something else. XBOX was basically boycotted by Japan at launch because it was created in USA, as if it was inferior. The controller was...

The Xbox just doesn't do well in asia because they have never managed to woo the developers from Japan who make the kind of games that are popular there. Sony has them on a lock with a bit of Nintendo love as well. In Europe it's a bit more mixed with the UK being heavily into the xbox and other countries leaning toward Sony but I can't pinpoint the reason. Maybe the gamers in the UK are closer to the typical gamer in the US than say someone in France or Germany for whatever reason.

I have no doubt that if the Xbox launched and said that Dragon Warrior and Final Fantasy were exclusive to it, that it would have sold a ton when those games launched. That obviously didn't happen and I don't think Halo and those types of action games are as popular in Asia as they are here in the US. I can't be sure, but if I had to guess based on my limited knowledge of the gaming culture in japan...gaming is a social thing more than a competitive thing. They'll play lots of Monster Hunter 3 with friends, trade and battle pokemon, do a lot of street pass stuff with the 3DS, but less shooters where the object is to beat everyone else. Outside of fighting games I have this belief that gaming is different for them in a way. I could be wrong, but I've seen lots of street pass stuff offered in 3DS games but don't see it really used a whole lot here compared to Japan.

 

[smackababy]

The Xbox just doesn't do well in asia because they have never managed to woo the developers from Japan who make the kind of games that are popular there. Sony has them on a lock with a bit of Nintendo love as well. In Europe it's a bit more mixed with the UK being heavily into the xbox and other countries leaning toward Sony but I can't pinpoint the reason. Maybe the gamers in the UK are closer to the typical gamer in the US than say someone in France or Germany for whatever reason.

I think it really has to do with the games available for those countries being on one system or the other.

 

[cmdrdredd]

I think it really has to do with the games available for those countries being on one system or the other.

I can't name any games that are marketed specifically to Europe do you know of any examples?

 

[smackababy]

I can't name any games that are marketed specifically to Europe do you know of any examples?

Perhaps some of the Japanese games get ported? I don't know of any, but I know Japan has a ton of games that don't see US release. Not to mention all their Hentai games.

 

[sze5003]

I can't name any games that are marketed specifically to Europe do you know of any examples?

There is a psn game called war thunder that we still didn't get. Other than that maybe fatal frame, but that was out here too if I'm not mistaken.

 

[smackababy]

There is a psn game called war thunder that we still didn't get. Other than that maybe fatal frame, but that was out here too if I'm not mistaken.

I looked at the list of PS3 games and there were like 20 or so that didn't have a NA release, but had an EU release. I am sure the PS2 has a lot more. That brand loyalty might have built over time and since multiplatform games were the most popular for both consoles, it didn't really matter they got a PS3 rather than an Xbox 360.

 

[007ELmO]

Put it this way, if microsoft manufactured playstation (same hardware) and sony manufactured xbox (same hardware), the numbers would be flipped. It's japan vs USA!

 

[Arkaign]

No, the PlayStation brand is much bigger than the Xbox brand. Pretty much the only territories that Xbox 360 led last generation were US and UK, everything else was PlayStation land.

You're not kidding, the sales gap is astonishing in Europe.

Some numbers for current trends (these have been basically the spot-on weekly % since Christmas) :

UK

PS4 : 12,137
XB1 : 4,970

Germany

PS4 : 11,941
PS3 (!!) : 2,878
XB1 : 1,940

France

PS4 : 8,836
PS3 (!!) : 3,350
WiiU (!!!!) : 2,282
XB1 : 2,147

Europe as a whole

PS4 : 57,200 (2,120,836 total since launch)
PS3 : 21,578
XB1 : 10,562 (879,578 total since launch)
WiiU : 9,807

In short, they're getting straight murdered over there. I remember predicting that the loser would cut their prices, start bundles, etc. Looks like we're starting to see some early panic. Once the games start flowing for each system it's not going to get any easier either. All the hype about 'all in one' media/TV didn't seem to me like a great way to sell a $500 console, but perhaps a few years down the line when these things are $249 or less that will attract more casual buyers.

I can't really imagine very many people outside of super techy types just plunking down $500 for a game system if they're not serious about gaming. I'm not saying those people don't exist, but they're not numerous enough to really matter. The PS3 only got non-gamers interested to some degree by being a Bluray player that was regarded as one of the best for a competitive price, but that didn't do Sony all that much good when those kinds of buyers seldom used their PS3s for anything beyond media anyway.

Some US numbers that are probably the last thing Microsoft wants to see :

PS4 46,764 (2,472,914 total)
XB1 30,975 (2,191,466 total)

That's a gap that will just widen week by week imho until they bridge the price gap. It's a fixable problem, but falling too far behind in the US will make the Xbox project less desirable to keep around for the executives and investors at Microsoft who dislike the risk involved with the business model.

So they can come even in the US with a good plan imho. The new CEO should take charge and re-brand the system as a gamer's system, and back-burner the other stuff for now.

As for the UK, they're in serious trouble, and that was the lone non-US place where they were relevant last gen. Europe is basically a lost cause. It's REALLY hard to gain traction when gamers are so social. 'I want to play with my friends that already have X console'. I personally don't GAF, I'll make new friends if I'm getting a better deal on a console that plays the games I want to play. But I think I'm in the minority on that one.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Problem with the media stuff is that in many countries the TV functions won't even work.

 

[Arkaign]

Ah yes, as I predicted, but a bit earlier than expected :

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2014-02-24-microsoft-announces-first-xbox-one-price-drop

First price cut after three months. Seeing a 5 to 1 sales trend against you in Europe is probably the right time to change the gameplan. Imho it doesn't go far enough though.

 

[007ELmO]

They're banking on the Kinect inclusion. Nintendo flopped with the pad inclusion...

 

[cmdrdredd]

They're banking on the Kinect inclusion. Nintendo flopped with the pad inclusion...

I don't think the XB1 will be considered a flop. The PS4 rode a lot of the hype coming off of E3 and the fact that it was cheaper is just a bonus. It has momentum on its side which will keep sales strong due to the fence sitters and those waiting to make a purchase until there's more games. Since there's more PS4s out there a lot of people will buy it just because there's more players.

In the end there will probably be enough gamers with both. At least in the US which was always the strongest market for the Xbox. The bad press just hurt it a bit from the start and they need to try to climb out of the hole.

 

[Rage187]

I'm surprised they started bundling and dropped the price so fast. At least they didn't wait to fix the problem like Sony did with the PS3.

 

[Bman123]

The only reason the ps4 outsells the xbone in the USA is the price difference. Even if the xbone was more powerful then the ps4 the people would still but the ps4.
I got my xbone to play the ms exclusives and to play with people I personally know. I'm building credit at GameStop again to buy a ps4. I don't want to miss out on the Sony exclusive games because they have some good stuff.

 

[cmdrdredd]

The only reason the ps4 outsells the xbone in the USA is the price difference. Even if the xbone was more powerful then the ps4 the people would still but the ps4.
I got my xbone to play the ms exclusives and to play with people I personally know. I'm building credit at GameStop again to buy a ps4. I don't want to miss out on the Sony exclusive games because they have some good stuff.

No...the entire reason comes down to E3 and the ensuing hatred toward MS over their stance on game ownership and such. People went with Sony out of spite in some cases. I know some people online who were the biggest Xbox supporters out there who bought a PS4 because of it. Right or wrong it's their choice to make. Sony is riding the train right now. They have momentum coming off of E3 and the more people that buy it, the more attractive it looks to people who haven't made a decision yet.

The fact that the Internet keeps posting stuff about the PS4 being more powerful and running 1080p doesn't help matters any, but that's a minority in terms of the sales. I'd say that a good percentage of people don't know that stuff. You'd be surprised at how many people still think that you can't play used games on the XB1 and it has to be connected to the internet. I was reserving Titanfall at gamestop just last friday and they had some XB1 systems and I heard 3 people ask those very questions. "Why do you guys sell the Xb1? You can't trade games in once you play them" and "Don't you gotta have that always plugged into the internet?" They became informed but you would think that someone interested in games would have known that these policies were reversed quickly. Sadly people don't know in some cases.

 

[Wingznut]

Some numbers for current trends...

Where did you get those numbers at? And are they a single week?

 

[Wingznut]

Titanfall Beta saw two million unique players sign in over a weekend

 

[Arkaign]

Where did you get those numbers at? And are they a single week?

Vgchartz.com, and yes for a single week.

The weeks previous are all similar, but for history sake here's the last report before the current one :

UK

PS4 : 16,411
XB1 : 5,847

Germany

PS4 : 10,553
PS3 (!!) : 3,025
XB1 : 2,211

France

PS4 : 10,214
PS3 (!!) : 3,414
XB1 : 2,448
WiiU : 2,026

Europe as a whole

PS4 : 65,335 (2,063,636 total since launch)
PS3 : 22,135
XB1 : 12,212 (869,016 total since launch)
WiiU : 8,848

USA

PS4 64,737 (2,426,150 total)
XB1 34,121 (2,160,491 total)

 

[Wingznut]

Vgchartz.com

Cool, thanks. Never really paid attention to that site before. Honestly, probably because it ends with a "z", it's hard to take seriously. And, of course, fanboys on the short end always dispute the accuracy. But, it seems they usually end up being within a few percentage points when the numbers are eventually officially reported.

 

[Arkaign]

Cool, thanks. Never really paid attention to that site before. Honestly, probably because it ends with a "z", it's hard to take seriously. And, of course, fanboys on the short end always dispute the accuracy. But, it seems they usually end up being within a few percentage points when the numbers are eventually officially reported.

True.

I do think the Xbox can ramp up. The price drop in Europe is a brilliant idea, as it can combine momentum gains with the coincident launch of Titanfall to help build some base.

I think it would be a worthy move to go with here. I am willing to bet that $399 XB1 Titanfall bundle, even as late as this summer if necessary, would really sell some consoles.

The risk of letting too many weeks and months go by without getting the sales up on par is the 'social gaming' momentum is hard to break. If gamer A has friends D, C, E, and F, and all but 1 has PS4, then getting an XB1 is a difficult lever to pull for him.

Europe is a real mess for them, but the UK can possibly be salvaged, and definitely the US with the right moves. I don't think they can afford to do nothing though.

 

[smackababy]

If you look at the charts, they are very close in the US. The XB1 is only losing in the rest of the world.

And, right now, it makes sense they are losing. If you had to buy a console right now, it is pretty much a coin flip, which means more people are going to go with the cheaper one more often than not.

 

[Arkaign]

I dunno. The week before was 64k vs. 34k, this past week was 46k vs. 30k. As these numbers are accumulative, it's not a trend that Microsoft would want to endure indefinitely.

I'm betting they're hoping Titanfall can get them some long term momentum, and will wait on the results in the US sales numbers over the next 3 months before deciding what to do. If things don't improve at all, a price drop will happen. If things improve moderately but can't come close to even, the price drop will happen near Black Friday. If things come totally up to par (or surpass PS4 numbers even after the initial 8-12 week 'new game' period), then we might not see a price drop at all this year in the US.

But the by-the-week and by-the-month numbers are far from close. Given the inventory situation, it appears the only reason that the PS4 and XB1 were fairly close during the Xmas runup was simply the limited stock of PS4s out there. Now that XB1s are piling up and easily available everywhere, they're not hitting the PS4's pace, in fact the gap is substantially wider than during the Xmas season.

A decent guess may be that there were a somewhat limited number of people willing to pay $500 for the new Xbox One, and those were the most die hard Xbox fans. There aren't an infinite number of these people, so demand past those diehards is a lot softer. The same will be true of the PS4. $499 is a lot of money to a lot of people, and anyone who second guesses dropping half a grand on a console is also going to be somewhat hesitant to spend $399 on a PS4.

The main enemy Microsoft has is exactly what I described previously : the social gaming momentum. PS4 and XB1 are bastions of online gamers with online gaming friends. If a certain console has a large number of subscribers amongst someone's group of friends, new purchases from that group of friends is swayed towards that console. I don't think Microsoft counted on as many people jumping the XBL ship as have done, as the 360 had an absolutely massive lead over PS3 in the US for XBL vs. PS+.

It's certainly not the end of the world, the collective numbers won't spell doom and gloom for XB1, there will be easily enough consoles sold even with the most dire outlook to be a profitable place to publish games for. Another thing is that this will be a long generation, and a comeback is even possible once the units get down to $299 and below. Considering how cheap these things will be to manufacture (and already are compared to the 360/PS3 launch eras), I can see that happening quicker than ever before. The competition is much more serious this time, with close launches. Microsoft had no competition with the 360 for a long time, and then when it finally appeared : $599 was no reason to worry about anything. This time? I'd be astonished if we didn't see a $299 SKU by Black Friday 2015.

 

[Arkaign]

A somewhat cynical but reasonable guess as to Microsoft's $499 pricetag :

They knew and banked on the most dedicated Xbox faithful being willing to pay the full $499, and wanted to exhaust that demand before dropping the price. Given that sales were brisk without a lot of built up inventory before 1/1/2014, it can't really be argued as a bad decision if that was indeed the case. 2 million XB1s sold at $100 extra income each = $200,000,000. If anything, it would be dumb NOT to charge $500 until those people have all been used up.

 

[zerocool84]

A somewhat cynical but reasonable guess as to Microsoft's $499 pricetag :

They knew and banked on the most dedicated Xbox faithful being willing to pay the full $499, and wanted to exhaust that demand before dropping the price. Given that sales were brisk without a lot of built up inventory before 1/1/2014, it can't really be argued as a bad decision if that was indeed the case. 2 million XB1s sold at $100 extra income each = $200,000,000. If anything, it would be dumb NOT to charge $500 until those people have all been used up.

Actually it would be dumb because install base is infinitely more important than that. Companies are in consoles for the long haul, they want more of their consoles out there, you never want to give your competition the chance to get more of their console out there. Microsoft gambled and so far the gamble hasn't paid off. The reason for the price tag is simple, Kinect, they banked on it being the killer app and people plain just don't want it. Their exclusives so far are better than PS4 but forcing the $100 add on nobody wants isn't doing do hot for them.

 

[Wingznut]

The reason for the price tag is simple, Kinect, they banked on it being the killer app and people plain just don't want it. Their exclusives so far are better than PS4 but forcing the $100 add on nobody wants isn't doing do hot for them.

While I'm not going to say that Kinect is the most awesome gaming device ever, or that it justifies the extra cost... I will say that "nobody wants" it, isn't fair at all. There are a lot of things that it does which is very nice to have.

It's pretty sweet to walk into the room and say "Xbox on", and then it turns on the console, A/V receiver, cable/sat receiver, and TV. And same with "Xbox turn off."
"Xbox Record That" is another great feature.
It's great that the Kinect recognizes me (and the other members of my family) and logs us in when we walk in the room.

Outside of the examples I mentioned above, I really don't use the voice commands much at all. But it sure is nice when I have that option.

Games need to do a better job of integrating the Kinect. And I'm not talking about motion control games, but more of the established genres. For instance, Madden allows you to say "run" or "pass" after lining up on defense, to try and predict what the offense will do. Yes, that can be done with a click of the stick and a couple button presses, but voice commands in this case is great to have.
But developers will never do a better job with the Kinect, if it wasn't an overwhelming part of the installed user base. By making it part of the console, this can happen. (Will it happen, is yet to be seen.)

So, is Kinect everything gamers ever dreamed for? Of course not. But it's also not fair to say that NOBODY wants it.