| Hankoney said: Well, even though some people here are happy about 311,000 XOne units sold, and even though Microsoft's PR is trying to spin it that way as well, in all actuality those numbers are bad and Microsoft cannot be pleased on iota with them. They entered March with a clear strategy: Be a Loss Leader and shift as many consoles as possible with one goal in mind - winning March and edging closer to the overall lead. Heck, I'd even boldly assume that, what with the abundance of stock, 9 month long hype of Titanfall, price drops, game and subscription bundling, they even had a small inkling of hope to overtake PS4 in total sales to date. Sure, that would have meant doubling PS4's sales, but I'm sure there were some who hoped that many on-the-fencers, stragglers, and flip-floppers would pounce on that sweet Titanfall deal like there's no tomorrow. Because, in all honesty, Titanfall bundle is a great deal, an original $600 value sold for no more than $450 (so a minimum of a 25% discount). The strategy didn't work. All the money spent, and not even a possibility of a tagline "#1 selling console in America" to show for. If you think that the number is not bad because MS is making a profit, you need to understand that companies are not in the business to just "make profit", they're in the business of "maximizing profit". And it is certainly easier to maximize profit from a standpoint of a Market leader, than of a Market follower. The notion of being a market follower entails an entire shift in marketing and sales strategies, resulting in the need to lower profit expectation in order to aspire toward being a market leader again. Because, in a low growth industry such as console gaming, being a company with a low marketshare basically means that your product is a dog - syphoning money out of more profitable ventures in order to battle for a second chance for success. Let's not forget the general human mentality of siding with a winner (whether it's sports, politics, Dancing with the Stars or business...). Any news of a product being #1 will bring in more and more of the console-agnostics towards the winner's side. The follower will need to preach very convincingly, and offer it's flock a much better promise of a wonderful after-life in order to convince them to come over to their "church". Microsoft and XOne are not "doomed", but they are facing a steep upward struggle to remain relevant, and to reach profitability. I'm certain that they were already forced to move profitability goalposts several months, or even years further, as the numbers they have crunched in May and November 2013 are certainly not the numbers they are showing right now. It will take a lot of sweet-talking to retailers to convince them to open up their storage to even more consoles, it will take giving them much sweeter deals and profit margins in order to convince them to allocate resources to their stock instead of competition's. |
I do agree with some of your points here but I don't see anyone really saying that the One met MS's projections. I think everyone agrees its probably significantly under what MS were projecting or hoping for.
The people commenting on the 311k being healthy sales is true though, there's no real need to spin that either way. At the end of the day its still a console with a $450 dollar price tag, a very small library, and is still battling what is quite possibly the worst announcement / reveal for a console in the history of this industry.
The One is indeed facing an upward struggle for long term sales but the thing is they aren't insurmountable odds. It isn't anywhere near the dire straits Vita and Wii U are, consoles that are in REAL danger. I think people are just going to have to adjust their outlook on how this generation is going to look after how relatively close all 3 were last generation. This gen is going to likely look much more like the 6th generation in sales with a VERY dominant leader out in front with the other 2 quite far behind. That said the One should be able to rather easily surpass original Xbox by a large margin, but will likely underperform in comparison to the 360 in the long run.
