| Bodhesatva said: Xbox Live Should be free. The PS3 should cost less. All 360s should come with a hard drive. All games should be tailor made for their systems, so that CoD5 (as an example) takes full advantage of XBL's features on the 360, takes full advantage of the Sixaxis and Blu Ray on the PS3, and full advantage of the Wii Mote on the Wii. It all sounds fantastic! Except the industry -- at least, the PS3/360 side things -- isn't exactly rolling in money as it is. Sony has bled billions over the last couple of years in this industry, and Microsoft has been bleeding billions since they entered. EA is losing money. Several other major publishers will lose money this year (not Activision, though!) or make slim profits. The last thing these companies want to do is shave earnings even further. I think the entire industry is suffering a slight case of man-child syndrome: a complete lack of awareness of financial reality and economic responsibility. I want a 1 dollar Refrigerator and a 50 cent Toaster. It's great for everyone! The appliance companies sell more units, and everyone gets cheaper toasters. What could possibly go wrong? |
I disagree. No one here is saying MS should have hit a different price point, or added anything they didn't already have. The argument is they should not have released a model with fewer capabilities than their main stream option. Doing so has now made the collective pool weaker, thus tying developer’s hands.
How was this a good thing? It didn't make MS any more money. Almost no one bought the Core or the Arcade (compared to the HD options). The best “spin” you could put on this, is it forced developers to not use HD space for large downloads.
But then again, I have never been one to think that forcing developers to do something due to limited hardware benefits gamers.
