Biggerboat1 said:
Saying 3 x weaker at only $100 less is misrepresenting things though. Only it's GPU is weaker - everything else is the same or similar.
Not misrepresenting, giving how marketing can and will target it. Also if they have just GPU weaker an all else similar then they will be making a very unbalanced system. RAM, bandwidth, CPU, and all rest must have a good balance. You don't just make one thing 3x faster and leave the rest, that would give you major bottlenecks.
It is misrepresenting, just because you are speculating how a marketing department 'might' frame it in a certain way doesn't change that. MS could just as easily market Lockhart as 'the same great experience as the PS5 / Annaconda, only in full HD for an unbeatable price!'.
How is it unbalanced if the target resolution is so much lower? Are you saying it's impossible make 2 skus with the same CPU that are balanced, based around 2 different resolutions? You see it all the time on PC forums - a GPU will be recommended based on A) what other components they already have & B) what their target resolution / frame-rate are. By your logic there is only one GPU option for any given setup, regardless of target resolution / frame-rate - which is incorrect!
So, you're getting a machine that can do everything the top sku can do but at a lower resolution.
That is because you are holding the top SKU down, and that is where Pemalite, me and several others are complaining on this philosophy. But since Sony first party won't have this issue you'll see they smoking the waters on Xbox exclusives and most 3rd parties.
Not necessarily - I mean Switch can run Wolfenstein at a lower resolution and the difference between it & PS4 & XB1 is a lot wider than Lockhart/Annaconda would be. If MS is building these skus from the ground up with the intention of delivering 1080/4K versions of the same games they should be able to do it in a way that doesn't overly limit the scope / features of a game. Remember the CPU is the same & the RAM adequate for the lower resolution output.
I'd also say that if you show the average gamer the same game running at 1080 & 4k on anything less than a 65" display that they're not going to appreciate a lot of difference.
Probably won't, not a problem to marketing. People believe more what they want to believe than what they can really see.
You're waaaay overstating this. People don't just blindly believe whatever a marketing department is throwing at them. These are just 2 statements MS are currently running on the XB1S page : 'Games play best on Xbox One' & 'The best in 4K entertainment' - point being that marketing push whatever BS they want, regardless of where the truth actually lies.
So, in fact, a more accurate way to frame the situation (imo) is to say for £100 less (or whatever the difference is), you're getting an experience that most people will see as almost the same as the premium model... Sounds like a good deal to me!
Sure some will find it a good deal. Almost 40M people found X1 a good deal.
Ok, so you're now agreeing with my point?
The pitfall that I believe you and others are falling into is to assume that the general console gamer cares about the nuts and bolts of the hardware or the nuance of performance as much as you do, or in fact, at all. If I was to ask my friends who own consoles what frame-rate they're playing at I know that I'd be greeted with blank stares. They play the new Fifa and maybe one other game per year and that's it. You & I likely spend more time on this forum than a lot of console owners actually spend gaming...
And the pitfall in your argument is you believing that people need to see the difference to accept it exist, marketing already assured they this exist.
Most people won't see much difference between PS4 vanila and Pro (still 20% of the sales are for the 100 USD more Pro) nor between X1S and X1X (but some have it at almost 50/50 split) but they were told which is better.
This is another head-scratcher... You're argument is that MS shouldn't release a lower SKU because only 80% of PS4 owners & 50% of XB1 owners (50% seems way too low btw) went for the less powerful sku? Huh? Surely this supports my argument in validating the effectiveness of a lower powered/priced model, not yours! I'm still looking for this supposed 'pitfall' in my argument.
And I don't think the 'early adopter' thing really applies here. It's not like a brand new technology, like say, the new folding phones Samsung or Huawei are launching, where the gen 1 design will have issues and the price will be eye-watering. Consoles have become iterative, with solid hardware out the gate & competitively priced. To go back to phones, if I buy the new oneplus 7 within the 1st year of its launch am I an early adopter? To me, the term only makes sense (within the context of this discussion) when there is some major drawback that someone faces when making that early purchase (ie. very expensive or premature hardware), which requires that person to be really passionate to take the plunge.
You may disagree with the term as much as you want, but consoles will still sell under 20M first year as production isn't really high, so you can use your economy of scale and price reduction with maturity of production. If you think early adopters don't exist, why do you think there is a limited number of people that accept to buy the console with almost no game for 400 and others will wait for more games while others for lower price?
I suppose my issue here is that I think the term early adopter implies a super-enthusiast - like someone who'll go out and buy a gen 1 folding phone for 2 grand. In year 1 we'll likely have Fifa / Madden / Call of Duty / etc., which will be enough for some 'moderate' gamers to spend 3-500 bucks. I agree that most 'enthusiasts' will buy the top sku but that there will be plenty of interest from the 'moderate' crowd to see strong Lockhart sales in year 1/2.
There will be plenty of people who enjoy Madden or the yearly Call of Duty who will buy the new PS or XB when it releases because they want to see what the new lick of paint looks like on their favourite characters and they have some spare cash... ($300 to $500 every 5-7 years isn't a lot of money to a lot of people)
So?
So... there will be a non-enthusiast crowd happy to spend on a console when it launches & that console could very well be a lower-powered model - thought the implication was pretty obvious....
As for your price suggestions, let's say you are correct and we have XBLockhart $299 / PS5 $399 / XBAnaconda $499 - I personally think that would put MS in a good position - they will have a good chance at cornering the value-focussed customers on one end and the enthusiast at the other. When it comes time to drop the price, they'll do so across both models to maintain the gap / value propositions.
They weren't able to win against Sony at similar power, lower price, head start, better multiplats. Why do you think they would be able to win on a much weaker and 1/4 res cheaper option and an more expensive almost equal performance?
Where did I say MS was going to win? The best MS can likely aim for is a partial recovery & the best way to do this is to differentiate themselves from Sony. Offering a 'value' sku is a good start. And also, I like how you jump to the conclusion that spending £100 dollars less would give them a machine that's a fraction of PS5, but that spending $100 dollars more would only get them 'almost equal' performance...
And why would it be a marketing nightmare exactly? Both Sony and MS have 2 different skus right now, I don't see why the staggered release makes any difference... Nintendo will also likely soon have multiple skus. Look at how many skus iPhone has - doesn't seem to hurt their sales any! If a customer doesn't understand the difference between full HD & 4K then it's likely they'll be just fine with Lockhart anyway, which to me legitimises it's existence in the first place!
The nightmare is for MS not Sony. Sony will be able to say they have a console that is cheaper than Anaconda while delivering same 4K and much stronger than 1080p Lockhart. If you really think resolution and the rest is almost irrelevant to most people then how will MS justify 200 USD more on Anaconda versus Lockhart?
Staggered releases allow for double dips and keep relevance of the system against stronger baseline of PCs, double SKU on release just give lack of focus. Very big difference than HDD size that X360, PS3 used.
I really don't get what the problem is here. Anaconda would be aimed at the enthusiast market who are willing to spend extra for 'the best', Lockhart would be aimed at everybody else - what is so confusing?
If, according to you, the only thing that many gamers understand is resolution then why don't Sony & MS save themselves a fortune and just stick a PS5 / XB2 sticker on the Pro / XB1X? After all they can be marketed as 4K which is all that matters right?
Look at the GPU market - a minority choose to spend hundreds of dollars more for relatively modest gains and the majority choose mid-range cards which give them more bang for their buck. Why should this cost/performance analysis not be similar on consoles?
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