| shikamaru317 said: That is a big part of the problem. Xbox fans are annoyed with the fact that Xbox no longer seems to want to compete, they keep showing that they have resigned themselves to a distant 3rd place. It's a mentality issue, many Xbox fans don't want to be lead by people that have resigned themselves to defeat, it's difficult to support people who have a losing mentality. We know that if Xbox gives up on competing as hard as they can in hardware sales, it will only exacerbate the software issues that Xbox already faces, because when publishers and indie developers do market research on which consoles to port their games to, market share absolutely factors into that decision. Xbox fans don't want to need multiple console just to play all of the games we are interested in, and yet we've now had 2 generations in a row where many of us felt it necessary to need to own Xbox + PS or Xbox + Switch or all 3 to play all of the games we want to play. Xbox fans were used to being kings in the 360 generation, used to getting nearly every 3rd party game in existence, and understandably many of us want that back again. But it's more than just that, the new price of Series S in Brazil is 3600 real, equivalent to $730 USD, the chances of Series S costing twice as much to manufacture and sell in Brazil as it costs in the US is slim. I distinctly remember reading in the past that Xbox ships Xbox parts to Brazil and then assembles them locally to avoid Brazil's huge trade tariffs, which is why Xbox consoles have always cost less than PS consoles in Brazil, because Sony imports instead and pays the trade tariffs while Xbox manufactures locally to avoid those tariffs. That strategy has allowed Xbox to lead PS in sales for 3 generations in a row in Brazil, with Brazil being the only market where Xbox One outsold PS4 from what I've heard. Even if Xbox decided to stop manufacturing locally and start importing consoles instead, Series S should not cost as much as it now costs. Sony sells PS5 digital at an MSRP of 3800 real in Brazil from what I've read, while the new Series S price is 3600 real, in terms of USD that is $730 USD vs $770 USD, a $40 USD gap between them. In the US by comparison there is typically a $100-150 USD gap between Series S and PS5 digital, much larger than the $40 gap that now separates them in Brazil. Not to mention the bad optics of suddenly increasing the price of a console by a whopping 38% in Brazil. Brazilian Xbox fans are understandably furious, and even Xbox fans outside of Brazil have plenty of reason for concern watching a move like that from the outside. |
The point is what you believe is competing or want to compete isn't always be best path. Meaning if MS did not want to compete then they would not have all these holiday sales and big discounts in Europe and so forth. Hell you could get a Series X with a game for 400 bones in the US. You concentrate on one area and you build your opinion from that but in reality, that one area you do not have enough data to form any real opinion because you just do not know the P/L of that territory.
The main issue is that when you need to decide where to put your resources at, some areas just not going to be as important as others. Its very clear MS believe Brazil is not an area where they are getting the return on investment at the current price so they rather not sell at a loss and get a few sales then sell at a loss and continue to dig an even bigger hole. The simple truth is that Brazil is not providing the P/L MS needs to continue at its current price point and its a decision that probably made to shift resources where MS believe they are more competitive or have a much higher P/L.
