Hiku said:
WillianBM97 said:
Looking as an Xbox One owner: great numbers, but not enough. Microsoft had Forza Motorsport 6, Ori and the Blind Forest, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Rare Replay, Halo 5: Guardians and even that marketing deal with Bethesda for Fallout 4. And with all these options, they choose a remaster to be the cheapest Xbox One bundle for the holidays. If it's easier to make this things with first-party games, you put Halo 5: Guardians there.
Honestly, it looks like Microsoft is not caring enough about market share, which is getting worse every day worldwide. And even doing a fantastic job in rebuilding the Xbox One reputation, they fail in some areas that are supposed to be easier. It's logic: when PS4 was US$ 399 and Xbox One US$ 349, Xbox One won only in October (and maybe another month, but even that way...), and in the most important month of the year, they accept price parity with Sony. It just doesn't make sense to me.
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It's because it's not financially worth it for MS. PS4 was already estimated to be slightly cheaper to manufacture than a Kinectless Xbox One from the get go. And the more you sell, the faster the cost of the parts will go down. Obviously Sony has been selling more worldwide from day 1. When Microsoft unbundled the Kinect, that also lost them money due to the projections they had for the device and the deals they had made with manufacturers based on those projections. Later in the year, MS had a price cut and some crazy deals during the holidays such as getting an XB1 for the value of $150, if you also buy 5 games. In spite of XB1 being more expensive to make than PS4. MS made these investments because they hoped it would pay off in the long run. Early adopters are more likely to buy more games than late adopters, and if XB1 was able to dominate the US, it would give them more momentum. (People play on the console their friends are playing on, etc.)
It's now come to the point where they have to look at how much they've spent to try to beat Sony in the US, and what that has given them. If they have to spend X amount of dollars more to be ahead of Sony by 200k units in lifetime sales in the US, and keep doing that every year, will it be worth it?
They had Halo 5 and Tomb Raider exclusively on their platyform this holiday, while Sony had no particular exclusives besides an Uncharted Remake. And it still wasn't enough.
At that point, investors and management alike will be more interested in being profitable than keep fighting a losing battle where they have to put in a lot more effort (money) than the opposition just to do that much.
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I fully agree with this, but what really worries me is market share, with PS4 having probably more than 60% or 65% worldwide, and this situation is getting better for Sony every single day. Another point: every 30 days the world is told that PS4 continues to dominate the market, and that has the potential to have influence even in the NEXT generation of consoles. Having such a small market share isn't healthy, at least from my point of view.
