I don't understand how anyone could ever trust MS's Next after this gen :/

[forevercloud3000]

Landsharkk said:
Without responding to everything in this thread I'm going to say a couple of things.

1) Paying for Xbox Live vs free PSN. When you look at it from a business/investor perspective, which company has been successful with their business strategy? Note that Sony and their Playstation has been losing money for a long time. Meanwhile, Microsoft and their Xbox is making a profit.

Think about that.

Do you think Sony will continue to do business at a loss while giving away PSN for free, all the while their competition continues to be profitable and is charging for online service AND selling more consoles/increasing their customer count? Sony has to make a change and I have a feeling that removing features from the free PSN and adding them to the paid subscription of PSN+ is going to be one of them. Simple fact is Sony cannot continue doing what they've been doing and still stay in the game console business.

Why does Microsoft charge for Xbox Live? Because they are smart and want to make a profit. Why doesn't Sony charge for online gaming as well? Because they haven't figured out how to make a profit yet.


2) Time exclusives. This whole argument is moot. BOTH consoles have timed exclusives, so there's really no argument here. Btw, have any of you actually looked to see how many real exclusives both consoles have? I have (I can't find my source right now), but you'd be surprised that the number of exclusives between both consoles is almost even.


3) The big picture. I haven't seen anyone mention or discuss what I like to call 'the big picture'. While it seems to be true that Sony continues to push for the hardcore gaming crowd, Microsoft and their Xbox continues to push for the 'everyone' crowd. Microsoft has never removed any ability of the Xbox to play all of the most popular games out there. What they have done is expanded their target market in a big way.

Personally, if I was an investor (publisher, developer, etc) and I looked at both consoles, I'd lean more towards MS and the Xbox simply because they have a wider range of audience/customers. And Microsoft's customers don't just stop with the Xbox, because the Xbox is tied into (and in some cases hardcoded into) Windows OS (did we all forget that 80% of the world's computers are running Windows? Sony can't compete with that kind of marketing power), Tablets, smartphones, etc.

When we look at existing games that are multiplatform on both PS3 and Xbox360, we see that almost every single one of them sells better on the Xbox 360 (even the charts here on VGchartz show this to be true). If you are a developer looking at next gen, don't you think that's going to have an influence on which console you side with?

Microsoft is looking to the future and expansion of gaming on a constant basis, where it seems Sony is narrowing their market to the niche of hardcore gamers only. Microsoft already has cross-device gaming, cloud gaming, etc. Once again it seems Sony is still playing catch-up with Microsoft. It's like a two steps forward, one step back scenario for Sony.

1. I totally understand it is a great business move for MS, I am just saying its not so good for the consumer, you know, US. There is a chance PS4 will adapt this mantra, which would really piss me off too. Yet I don't think they will have to because PS+ works off a different structure that is just as efficient. You see, PS+ offers value without feeling forced upon you. If anyone here has been to gamestop, they know about their "PowerUp" Membership. For a yearly fee you will get magazines, discounts, and exclusive promotions. Its not like you can't buy anything from them at all if you are not a member. This is an over dramatization but I am simply using this to demonstrate a point. You can perseude people to join through real value and not forcing their hand to such a degree. PS+ has supposedly tripled it's userbase since it's first year, which would put it at like 15-20million subscribers. That is right around how many subscribe to Live, and without blocking their ability to play online. Some developers have shown that they don't like this practice either. Netflix surely spite the fact someone wanting to use their service on 360 has to get past a paywall just to get to them. FFXIV would also be coming to 360, if not for the paywall.

2. Timed Exclusivity is such a farce tho, regardless of how ok with it you may be. Just cuz the 360 might get some DLC, or sometimes even a whole game for a few weeks before PS3.....I don't think that is reason enough for anyone to switch to one console or the next, it just irritates fans of said series.  Bioshock, Mass Effect being 360 exclusives, that would be reason to get that console. But not getting 360 just cuz it got those games a year early, shit I can wait, especially knowing the PS3 version of these games would become deluxe packages with bonus content, and we would find the 360 version was the PS3 version's "beta" in some cases. I just think the whole concept leaves a bad taste in gamer's mouths.

3.MS might be the wisest choice for some investors,but many investors flocked to the Wii and Guitar Hero after its huge success, then that market dynamic started to callapse and the people who screamed "fad" turned out to be right.

Western games sell better on 360, because they have the homefield advantage in many ways( just like Sony and Nintendo do in JP), there are still many games that do about even or better on PS3. RE6 sold way better on PS3 last time I checked, as did FFXIII. Baseball and Fifa titles sell butt tons more on PS3. Most Fighters like Blazeblue, Street Fighter, Tekken, Mortal Kombat, etc sell best on PS3. What it is is that some of the largest IPs sold better on 360, ones with heavy advertising that are totally byassed towards the 360 in the US (COD is almost exclusively advertised as a 360 game, FFXIII was too but that still couldn't dent the fact the fanbase was  mostly on PS3).

So really, without MS's strong marketing in the US for US centric games....well you get the picture. So the only reason the 360 would appear to be a better platform to debut a game would be if they were going to market it for them, otherwise its does nothing for the Dev. Also, from what I heard from industry ppl, Developers make more money from each PS3 game sold than they do 360. This is why companies like Ubisoft and EA exclaim they make most of their money on Playstation, even if the 360 version sells slightly better.