I think Micrsoft has a chance to take Sony and Nintendo out this coming gen.

[binary solo]

oni-link said:

endimion said:
well it's difficult to say.... conceptually Sony and Nintendo are already out.... living in a dying era of gaming and living room entertainment... whether the fans accept it or not Sony is just doing more of the same with more horse power a lot like PC gaming has done and we can see where itis going compare to other market like cellphones and tablets or even consoles.....
For nintendo it's a bit different but still.... MS is future proofing there concept across the board... this has caused already a lot of disruption in people's mind.... for better or for worse....
when you see and understand their vision with all the different businesses hey are in you know they are on the right track and have great concepts to embrace a new era of technology for several decades to come....
the question is, "Is the world ready for it???" right now I would say for the most part they are not.... they are like my grand grandma when they invented the washing machine.... the question is how fast the shift will happen....
and that can happen way faster today than it ever did before... when you see the market penetration of the first radio, then of the first TVs, tape player, cd player, dvd player, cellphone, smartphone, tablets.... you can see how increasingly fast the world can shift....
in 5 years we'll know if MS had the right vision for their business as whole or not.... until then it's pretty tough to say.... but one way or the other.... MS is a behemoth than can take a pounding and get up again and strike back harder.... fan or not a company like MS by its implication and relevance in so many businesses and public services is close to unbreakable....

 

Yeah!!! Like what endimion just said!!! Best response on this thread yet!  I thought the same thing...I just couldn't elaborate and explain it the way he did.

That would be fine if MS was actually introducting something new, that no one else is doing. All MS is doing is re-packing things that people can and are already doing. Radio was revolutionary because nothing existed before it that could transmit sound (voice / music) to the masses into their homes. Same with TV. Washing machines ware a labour saving miracle, Xbone is not that. endimion is right that new tech gets adopted faster and faster, but Xbone is not new tech.

Xbone is an expensive conduit for Kinect control of entertainment services. A better product would be an enhanced Kinect with several HDMI in and one HDMI out at $200. The new market MS is aiming at is paying $300 for functionality (games) they won't use.

PS4 and Wii U are defintely under threat, but from tablets and smartphones. Also PS4 and Wii U are not just one trick games consoles. They also have multimedia services, so everyone is getting into the broad entertainment appeal game. MS isn't unique in this, they are just more heavily invested in that side. So it's not a case of glorious multimedia entertainment device vs. plain old gaming machines. It's a case of differently balanced multimedia entertainment devices. In that context MS's point of difference, and hence potential to run away with the generation, is not as significant as some people like to make out.

I will say this though. MS's DRM own goal on the gaming side has hamstrung it's mighty push into the general entertaiment appeal space. MS didn't need to go all DRM heavy on tha gaming side. I would say that had MS maintained the status quo on games then Xbone would be an extremely strong contender to take out the generation. It certainly would have swept all before it in the USA where all it's various entertainment features will be in place day 1, or soon thereafter. That it isn't far ahead on the pre-order lists in the USA is very instructive.