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Darth Tigris on 25 January 2014
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2008ProchargedGT said:
Darth Tigris said:

Sony did do that.  And it was a bad business move.  They were insistent on including Blu Ray with the PS3, insistent on the Cell, insistent on a difficult-to-get-at-first architecture and the result was an overly expensive system that wasn't selling enough that didn't have a library of games to justify the price.  The entire profits of the previous two generations were lost and the once profitable Playstation Division went from being the crown jewel of the company to yet another division that was causing losses.

There are stockholders that have been saying that MS needs to sell of the Xbox business for years, all because it's not as profitable as the evergreen ones of the company.  What do you think they would say if it was even less profitable because of what you are proposing?

Listen, if the Xbox One and PS4 were $99 at launch, I'd still be looking for 10% off coupon.  We always want to pay less if possible.  But these company's are trying to make money too.  That ultimately IS the point of a business.

The diff with that scenario is Sony provided the IMO "superior" product to justify that cost at least hardware related. in this case MS has the IMO"inferior" product but are trying to price it at a premium which is kinda arrogant. Anyway i dont wanna get in to the this vs that. I feel in MS current situartion they could afford to take a loss per sale, gain marketshare in the process and gain the 20% loss back in gold subscriptions and software. Or lose the Kinect and stop trying to force that on the consumer sell at a more competitive price point. Im sure with a decent game library (which looks encuroging at the moment) a Kinectless version would sell for  ~425 maybe even ~450 if they bundle Gold

In an effort to not change the goalpost, we're talking about making financially sound business decisions here.  What Sony did with the PS3 was the equivalent of sticking a fork permanently into the loss leader strategy.  MS adopted it too with the 360 initially but they both left last gen looking at Nintendo and saying "there has to be a better way".  This gen both of them came in to make money at jump and they are (well, should be; have to wait on Sony's financials to be sure).  It's a better strategy long term, especially for stockholders who are watching things closer this gen.  For MS to go back to a loss leader strategy in order to gain marketshare that will likely come in time anyway would be regressive.  Manufacturing cost will go down and the consumer price of the XBO will too.   No reason to panic about anything this early, especially with the kind of numbers that they've sold at already in limited countries.