If XBX fails, what next?

[Mr Puggsly]

Shadow1980 said:

Mr Puggsly said:

Your examples are bad and no upgrade has ever been as significant or shown long term potential like the X1X. Like I said before, the specs upgrade is so significant that it should be able to handle 9th gen content fairly well. Especially if 9th gen hardware is a relatively modest upgrade at $399.

I dont think X1X is the the end for the X1 brand. Frankly, Sony and MS may both blur the lines of console generation.

Do you have any data whatsoever to back up your opinion that iterative hardware is plausible and viable? Yes, the X1X (and even the Pro) is a larger upgrade than previous spec upgrades to other systems, but it's still far from anything approaching a generational leap. And what is the increase in power being primarily used for? To push 4K resolutions (VR is another, lesser, reason). You're overstating the significance of this performance increase.

We have sales data showing what the effects spec-upgraded models have on total sales of its platform. The only one that was a big breakthrough was the Game Boy Color, which came nearly a decade after the original Game Boy, and was a massive beneficiary of "Pokemon fever" taking hold in the late 90s. But every other spec upgrade had effects comparable to price cuts and non-spec hardware revisions. If anything, these new 4K models are at a disadvantage. Available sales data shows the DSi and New 3DS rapidly supplanted previous models, becoming the de facto standard models that most buyers defaulted to, but they had the advantage of low price (the New 3DS XL cost the same as the old 3DS XL). The Pro and X1X have the disadvantage of costing a lot more than the base models. Rather than becoming the de facto standard model preferred by buyers, the Pro has so far represented only 20% of PS4 sales since its release, and even when combined with the Slim the PS4's sales, while up, are not massively up (in Japan, Q2 PS4 sales this year were overall about flat YoY). We shouldn't expect anything more out of the X1X, especially given its $500 price tag.

Where's the mass market for $400/$500 consoles that are just upgraded versions of existing platforms and that exist primarily to take advantage of newer higher-def TVs that still have relatively low market penetration themselves (16% of U.S. households as of this past May)? The Pro and X1X are not going to sustain their respective platforms, and based on historical sales patterns we can expect total PS4 & XBO sales to enter the decline phase of their lives very soon, likely next year.

Generational leaps arent as significant as they used to be. Console manufactuers arent taking big risks on hardware so the upgrades arent as significant. I mean this midgen upgrade thus far is more polished games at a high price. The 9th gen era stuff isnt gonna huge at $399, X1X is apparently sold at a loss at $499.

The handheld market is very different and primarily controlled by Nintendo. So I'm not gonna bother discussing that.

You're solely looking at trends which of consoles in the past. While the MS appears to be considering iPhones and PCs. Incremental upgrades versus starting fresh with each generation. The mid gen upgrades show things are different now and MS may lean into it.