My subjective XB1 - PS4 comparison

[freedquaker]

Mr Puggsly said:

1) Oh yeah, the glorious days of Halo are over. Yet the last game has sold 8.5 million and every Halo game on the 360 still has many people playing online. Why would MS or people talk about Halo? The next game won't be here until late next year. They haven't shown anything for Halo 5 so there isn't anything for people to talk about. Your argument is nonsense.

2) Kinect has been successful on the 360 for years and it'll be successful on the X1. Motion camera controls aren't going away, so its not a fad. The new Kinect works much better and there is potential to make even better games. If I'm happy with my Kinect for 2 years I wouldn't consider it a bad investment, but I'm sure it'll be useful for the life of the console.

3) Voice control has never been perfect, it's technology that's still improving. Being a $100 more expensive hasn't stopped the X1 from doing well at launch. They can always do price cuts down the road. MS is designed a dandy "GAMES" console as well, you should give them kudos have great non-gaming features as well.

4) I assure the Kinect will be used more by developers than Sony's camera. Because its in every box and it has more potential.

5) I would prefer if the Kinect wasn't bundled with every console and I believe down the road there will be a Xbox One with no Kinect at retail. However, I'm glad bundling Kinect with every console will encourage Kinect support. You worry too much for MS and Xbox. The X1 is doing fine right now inspite of its price. You should worry for Sony, given their financial situation.

Let me open up my arguments why the glorious days of Halo over:

* The bulk of the Halo sales are due to the "network effects". People do party and buy the game their friends own. MS reaped this effect pretty nicely, feeding back and forth with the system sales. So halo was a flagship game, just like the Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games. But then Bungie left the Halo franchise... Let's now take a look at the Halo sales figures:

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Halo

below, ratio = sales / installed US user base

Halo : 6.43 million  (2001)  on Xbox, ratio : 80%
-installed US user base 6 months after launch:  about 8 million (est)

Halo 2 : 8.49 million (2004) on Xbox, ratio : 61%

-installed US user base by year end :  about 14 million (est)

Halo 3 : 2.34 million (2007) on X360, ratio : 30%

-installed US user base by year end :   about 8 million (VGC)

Halo R : 9.44 million (2010) on X360, ratio : 38%

-installed US user base by year end :   about 25 million(VGC)

Halo 4 : 8.38 million (2012) on X360, ratio : 21%

-installed US user base by year end :   about 39 million(VGC)

Now, when you look at the trend from the original Xbox times to the X360, you see a clear DECREASE in attach rate. The ratio above is a rough attach rate estimate, although the Halo sales numbers include the non-US sales as well (but most sales are from US).

Halo sold a lot, not necessarily because it was a system seller, but because it was a hardcore muliplayer game that most people could take for granted. This is because MS was able to reap the head start, halo brand name from the original Xbox, and network effects.

Now giventhe decreasing trend, lower sales ratio, lower overall XB1 sales, lower market share against PS4, and the fact that It's not Bungie's game anymore, its glorious days are certainly over. SEE THE MATH. See that Halo on X360 barely sold on par with original Halo, which was released on a much less popular console. See the sales were down hill.

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Kinect IS a fad. What games can you tell me about it? Tell me why Wii is not popular anymore. Tell me why PS move was never popular to begin with. Tell me about the recent kinect sales on X360... It was popular, but it wore out. Also it never was as popular outside US, now with the advantage loss even in US, kinect will be even less popular.

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Now you're contradicting yourself... If Kinect was SO POPULAR and NOT A FAD, then why did nobody use it in the past, with a few exceptions? And if Kinect will be popular in the future, why is there hardly any title using it now or announced? Third parties have simply have no incentive to use it, save a few highly specialized games or software. This will be the case only if Kinect can prove to be popular with some audience, but it will always be either niche or casual, who are unreliable with their "core enough" loyalties (just like the Wii audience stopped playing games or buying Wiis once they were tired of the fad).