thismeintiel said:
Not sure how many times it has to be said, but I'll say it, again, MS=/=Xbox. MS is not going to give Xbox the budget to lose them billions by taking a $200+ loss on HW, not when they are focusing on services as their future. You think the shareholders were loud at the beginning of this gen, they would be 10x louder at the beginning of next gen.
PlayStation, on the other hand, is one of Sony's top priorities. They are going to make sure it sells. And if that means taking a deeper loss on HW, then so be it. And I think plan on it, hence why the PS4 isn't already $199. They're building up a profit buffer.
1)Who said anything about $200 loss? You think the series X will cost them $600-650 just to make?
2) Even if they did, let's say, take that big of a loss, in the long run people that buy consoles buy video games and on Xbox there is a great chance they subscribe to Xbox gold as well as Gamepass. Subscriptions are what Microsoft's bread and butter is now, Office suite demonstrates this. If they could lose that much on the console sales, they will no doubt still be turning a profit within a year or so with each of those customers, many well before that.
3) Microsoft's massive cash means they could do this sort of thing better than Sony. If they can lose $100 million on consoles, but by doing so capture more of the market to then make $200 million or more on subscriptions down the road that is worth it. Sony's failed businesses in other avenues makes them with less cash to take this sort of short term risk/long term gain.
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