Will PS3 eventually pass 360?

[greenmedic88]

Squilliam said:

greenmedic88 said:

Squilliam said:

The PS3 will never pass the Xbox 360 because Microsoft has the twin powers of epeen and money. If it were a case where both were equally profitable with equally profitable parent companies then you'd make a strong case that Sony has more epeen to push sales ahead of the 360. However Microsoft put their extensive epeen on the line by stating all the way back in 2008 that the Xbox 360 was going to remain in 2nd. If the PS3 looked like it was going to pass the 360 they would cut the price because they would enter into epeen protection mode and they'd be willing to sacrafice money to do it.

My prediction: Kinect came out 2010, Xbox 360 S came out in 2010 also so to counteract the launch of the Wii U they'll also launch a revamped Xbox 360 sometime next year. There has been plenty of time to put something together to this effect.

There's no reason for MS to "counteract" Nintendo's Wii U. The only reason why they'd bother with another complete hardware redesign would be in the interest of packaging, more specifically, cheaper packaging, ie. smaller size, smaller die process for GPU/CPU, smaller PSU, etc. etc.

I don't think anyone would be fooled by marketing tactics that they were buying a new console from MS even though it would probably please current Xbox owners who wanted a second or third Xbox 360. 

By the time the Wii U releases, MS will already have a huge price advantage which would only be offset if Nintendo launches with The Best Debut Line Up Ever, which we all know never happens in reality for any new console. What you'll have is a $200-250 Xbox 360 (including either HDD or Kinect sensor) with a 7 year back catalog of games with new games still in development, versus a $300-400 Wii U that will be getting the obligatory Nintendo developed titles along with the same third party titles that will be showing up on the Xbox 360 and PS3.

Well 2012 is a pretty decent year for further revisions to the design:

Kinect needs to be revised to be simpler and cheaper to manufacture as well as to be able to cope better with smaller room sizes.

Xbox 360 needs to be revised to be cheaper to manufacture and it'd be interesting to see if they want to implement an ARM chip in the design in order to support the tablet version of Windows 8. Something like an internal PSU would be the best way to simplify the design.

They haven't actually cut the price in a while, however it makes sense and they made the best decision to keep the price high during their best sales season. It really is an open question as to whether they'll cut the price to boost sales in the slow seasons.

MS has had a good year with the 360 following the redesign and Kinect intro, but both contributed. And as much as I don't agree with the current payoffs of Kinect in terms of game applications, I'm inclined to say that Kinect more than the redesign is what drew new customers to the Xbox brand.

But yes, the Kinect sensor is ungainly and could reasonably be repackaged into something less obtrusive. A wider angle lens would partially address the space issue, although the reality is playes still need X amount of space in which to reasonably move about, regardless of lens. 

As for the console itself, I won't bother to look up the iSuppli estimates, but I'm thinking the base 4GB model probably has a BOM as low as $100, certainly no higher than $150. At this point, there isn't a whole lot more shaving to be done. An internal PSU would actually make the device larger. As much as I don't like them, they may actually be cheaper to produce (PS2 added these after the slim redesigns).

My guess would be that the base model will never drop below $99 barring end product line inventory clearing, regardless of how simplified the manufacturing process is made.  

If there's any price reducing to be had, it will likely be in bundles (all models include Kinect or all models include HDD). $199 Xbox 360 w/ 320GB HDD or $199 w/ Kinect, which was not coincidentally what a bunch of people paid for their Black Friday bundles (at a loss to retailers).