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Squilliam on 05 July 2009
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seece said:
Squilliam said:

A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush. A sale now is worth more to them than a sale in the future and it has a doubly beneficial element in that if they sell an extra console now their competition will not have a chance to get their hands on that customer. Considering Sony as the competition a price cut to match Sony has a double benefit as well. It makes that price more costly for Sony because their overall PS3 sales would be made up of a higher proportion of people whom would have paid $400 for a console, or would have only bought a PS3 anyway and fewer people on the margins who could have gone either way. Also a reduced Xbox 360 Arcade may finally finish off the PS2 in the market. Lastly slowing PS3 sales could also slow adoption of the PS mote technology as well and give Natal a better chance to become adopted as the best alternative to the Wiimote.

They still have options for the future even with the Xbox 360 Arcade at a low price, Natal is the real key for potentially reinvigorating the console but in the mean time they need to sell as many Xbox 360s as possible to give the new interface a chance to gain widespread adoption. If they can extend the generation then they have an excellent chance to really rake in the dough from Xbox Live, thats the real money spinner for them. The longer the timeframe, the more money they can make and the more money they can justifiably lose on each console.

Yeah I do agree with you, but they need to do something show stopping every christmas, I fear they will run out ideas/possibilities!

They need to focus on the hardcore market in europe ( I hate saying hardcore )

Its all well selling more consoles, but its visable that Sony sell more PS3 software there than the Xbox 360, despite a lower install base, thats probably due to wide adoption of the Arcade and people not buying it for a core gaming console. (though I'm not sure what the 360 offers to casual gamers tbh with you)

Do you remember the price cut the 360 got in Europe sometime in March last year, it did jack shit. If Microsoft cut the price again in Europe I think they need something else to go with it, (ala NXE last christmas)

Wow that was totally off topic, btw what does "A bird in the hand is better than two in the bush." mean?

You're thinking from a European perspecitive, in that case you're right about your local conditions. They really need to add value to the console rather than cut the price as they are already pretty close to where an expected price cut would take the console in the U.S. anyway.

In Europe they have smaller houses so noise is important as people are sitting closer to the Xbox 360 in the lounge etc with smaller rooms and they have a higher adoption of wireless. What they really need to do is put a rubber noise insulator on the drive (cents) and do their usual dieshrink to cut the noise by 50% or so and add wireless to the Premium/Elite SKUs (which is a significant cost adder currently) that way they add value for people who want wireless/online gaming and these people are the ones who buy all the extra games.

The Xbox 360 doesn't suit Europe quite yet, but with those changes it will. If they do that then they can really target the userbase who can download with their 20mbit+ connections. They can even 1 up Sony if they use Wireless N specification. Lastly they should cut the price of their Live gold service to $40 E or so to give them better parity with the U.S. because its probably never going to hit parity ever again.

A bird in the hand (Xbox 360 sold) is better than two in the bush (two potential Xbox 360 customers)

 



Tease.