MS Q4 report: Xbox hardware down 48% YOY

[The_Liquid_Laser]

thismeintiel said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

The XBox360 released a year before the PS3 and that worked out pretty well for them.  The main problem with Dreamcast was not the release date.  It was that Sega was out of money and couldn't afford to stay in the console business.  Microsoft is not going to have that problem.  Releasing this year would have been a good idea.

The big reason they did so well last gen is because the PS3 was $200 more expensive than the 360 and the PS3 had such complicated HW that it took devs awhile to get used to it, resulting in inferior multiplats for the first year or so. Scarlett will be going against a PS5 with most likely the same price and possibly a little more power, which will be on display at launch.

If MS launched this year, they may have been able to drop the price by $50 in time for the PS5's launch, but there would have been a much larger power difference. In that scenario, there is no question that Scarlett would have fared much worse than the XBO.

curl-6 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

The XBox360 released a year before the PS3 and that worked out pretty well for them.  The main problem with Dreamcast was not the release date.  It was that Sega was out of money and couldn't afford to stay in the console business.  Microsoft is not going to have that problem.  Releasing this year would have been a good idea.

As others have said, it's not quite analogous to PS3 vs 360; a lot of 360's gains came from Sony's disastrous missteps with the PS3, MS cannot rely on Sony being that foolish again with PS5. If Scarlet came out this year, then Sony followed with a significantly more capable PS5 next year, Xbox would most likely get steamrolled. For Scarlet to have a fighting chance they need to be both price and power competitive, that's not gonna happen if they go a year early.

You both are reading the generation 7 wrong.  PS3 flopped because it was too powerful.  That is the main reason.  Power is a disadvantage because it goes hand in hand with a higher price.  XBox360 and PS3 had mostly the same games, but XBox360 was cheaper.  That made it the dominant platform in the US and UK.

The worst thing Sony can do is make PS5 more powerful than Scarlett, because that will drive up the price.  Even if it costs $50 more, it will be a repeat of generation 7.  Given it won't help Microsoft in non-English speaking countries, but the US and UK are ready to go for Microsoft again if given a decent reason like a cheaper price.