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Forums - Gaming Discussion - MS preys on Consumer Ignorance with Xbox 360/One

Shaunaka on 19 March 2014
g911turbo said:
Shaunaka said:
g911turbo said:

Come on man, they're both corporate pigs.  Now who's ignorant?! 


Either people don't mind idolizing products from corporate pics, or you are implying that most people who read your comment are ignorant.

What I don't get is the reason these companies, Microsoft and Sony, should be attributed the quality of corporate pigs. Are you specifically referring to the extremely rich and powerful members of their respective boards? Like individually these men and ladies are pigs? Or the average person there is a pig? Or that there is an evil, money grobbler behind the scenes gorging on the gullible nature of the simpletons? Aren't there men and women accross the spectrum of employment in those companies that have an actual passion for what they do and also attempt to implement their visions? I mean, not so bad people that now have to contend for being part of the "worst company of the year" again.

LOL, I think you are over analyzing it .  I just meant both companies are looking to get max profit for minimum product.  They all are, and its the smart thing to do. 


Uuuuh. Some people are motivated to be bold and brilliant. To have interesting products leave a legacy. Human beings are way more motivated by the possibility of leaving a mark during their lives than just money. Money is of course a major part of that, but many rich people invest that money in things they can be proud of.

I'm just saying your making blanket statements.



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prayformojo on 19 March 2014
sales2099 said:
prayformojo said:
McDonaldsGuy said:
However bad MS was with the 360 Sony was worse with the PS3 from 2006-2010. Does no one remember how badly Sony treated fans from 2006-2010? The $599 price alone is worse than anything MS did except RROD. And no, the 360 was not more "expensive" than the PS3 during that time.

Sony did change, but it took a lot.

They were EASILY more expensive if you wanted the 360 to do what PS3 did.

$400.00 for the core system

$60.00 for the wireless adaptor

$20.00 for play and charge kit

$60.00 to play online

$200.00 for HDDVD add on

 

Total? Without taxes, around $740.00 US. And even spending THAT much, you still ended up with a HDD that was 40GB smaller and no HDMI.

Well 1st it was $400m for the Pro in 2005 with the 20 gig hardrive.

That alone played the same games as a PS3, and in the case of multiplats, played better versions. In short, the core experience was not only $200 cheaper, but superior.

And Not only was it $50 for Gold at the time, disregarding sales that are year round and easy tot ake advantage of., the quality of service was far superior then anything PSN offered until several years after PS3 launched.


All this is true, but doesn't change the fact that yes, in order to have a 360 that did close to what a PS3 could do, you had to spend more than the asking price of a PS3. And even if you did. Even if you bought ALL that shit, you were still stuck with analog output.



EpicRandy on 19 March 2014
BMaker11 said:
EpicRandy said:
forevercloud3000 said:
EpicRandy said:
Seems to me that the writer prays more on reader's ignorance than Ms prays on consumers' ignorance.

care to elaborate?


Because it is full of twisted and/or nitpicked pieces of information that do not show the big picture. Opinion stated as a fact does not make a truth. and the article is based on the concept that the reader will not look further for more information that will debunk many if not all its point. That's why I said that the writter prays more on reader's ignorance thant ms prays on consumer's ignorance.

So, was it not true that the 360 had a "fake" cheaper price? You either had to replace standard batteries over and over or get a play and charge kit. You had to get XBL to play online. HDDs became a necessity and 20GB just weren't cutting the mustard, so you needed bigger ones....but they were proprietary and cost $100+ instead of a replaceable SATA for less than half the cost for the same amount of storage. I paid $400 for a PS3 in 2007. If you got a 360 at the same time, you paid, bare minimum, $300 for the core model, $100 for the HDD, $50 for XBL, either an uncountable amount of money (not because it was astronomically high, but there's no solid figure on it) on batteries or $30 for the play and charge kit, and if your router was in a different side of the house, you needed wireless to get online, and that peripheral cost $100. So the "real" entry price for a 360 was at least $400 at the minimum for just a Core and an HDD and one set of batteries worth of playing. But up to $480 to actually enjoy the console and as high as $580 if your Xbox wasn't close enough to your router and you needed to use WiFi.

Is it not true that the 360 was able to be cheap (other than literally being cheap, hence why the hardware failures were so prevalent) because it didn't standardize HDDs and have a next-gen media interface, which is now standard across the board?

Is it not true that MSs 1st party support has been pretty paltry throught that generation? Other than Gears, Halo, Fable, and Forza, what else was notable? The last 3 years have been a majority of Kinect games.

Is it not true that MS spent more on ads instead of building studios? Moreover, is it not true that they spent a crap ton of money focusing on getting multiplatform content on the console for a short period of time instead of making fully exclusive IPs? Was it really that important to throw millions of dollars at Activision to get a "Jump In" at the end of a CoD commercial, only to get a few percent higher sales overall? Was it really so important to give Take Two $50M to make people think 360 was the "home" of GTA4, when PS3 got the content anyway and GTAIV sold essentially the same on both consoles? Did MS not just axe a new IP in order to rehash Gears...by an untested studio?

And is it not true that they rushed the console to the market in order to beat Sony out the gate, ignoring the need to do final QA testing on the system in order to get a few million in consumer's hands first....resulting in one of the largest, if not *the* largest, hardware failures of all time?

Preying on reader's ignorance? What could the readers of this article look up to "debunk" many or all of these points? The post may seem "angry" or "bitter", but each point was valid

The Xbox 360 was like Spirit Airlines (maybe you've heard of them): they're advertised as the "cheapest way to fly" because you only "pay for what you need". In this case, flying from Point A to Point B (popping a disc into the tray and playing a game). But if you need to have some bags brought onto the flight, they charge you crazy fees for it. If you want a seat that's not necessarily 1st class, but better than the crappy ones in the back of the plane, you pay a fee. They only go to a select few destinations, and if you have a layover instead of a direct flight, the price skyrockets. They just nickel and dime you repeatedly. All of this is comparable to XBL, HDDs, batteries, etc. for 360. If you just wanted a better experience with no hiccups, why not just fly Delta or Southwest (get a PS3, or PS4 now)? Their tickets may be a little higher, but in the end, everything is cheaper than what you get from Spirit, to get an enjoyable flight experience.


Fake cheaper price... false it was cheaper. I bought an 20gb model back in 2007 and never feel the need to upgrade it. I'm a casual gamer but I still have 20+ games for the 360. Hdd space was not necesary since game did not required install (very few did later in the gen but they added support to usb drive). Batteries, rechargeable battery existed way before the xbox 360 released and you could buy a wired controller as a second controller so you would have need batteries only when you played multiplayer game. for the Xbox live, I bougth it 2 or 3 year and it has always been a quality service but I never felt the obligation of having it (Sony is now charging for online gaming because that was holding them back through all of last gen, each upgrade cost and maintenance fee was directly cutting in their profits, and because they think gamers are willing to pay for quality).  I never needed wifi so why would I have wanted the 360 to be more expensive to include something I did not want. All your argumentation is based on your will that every one should believe that anyone that bought 360 cannot had enjoy it without buying all of this things which is simply a lie.

I love Halo and Gears but I also loved many kinect games so for me Ms supported the 360 in a way I liked, like probably the vast majority of other Kinect enthousiast. And let me remind you that the first 5 years have been awesome and by far the greatest experience I ever had out of a video game system (ps. propose me 2 system, one that will be supported the first half of its life and the other that will get interesting the second half of it's life and I will choose the first one all the way, why the hell would I buy a video game system to play on it in a couple of years )

Yes it is true that Ms have spent more on ads than on building gaming studios. but like I said by saying that you would want others to not recognize that Ms over the last few years have buid way more studio and teams than the other two. So you're saying look at what they've done but do not look at what they do right now. And buying exclusive content and third party support is a way to support the gaming industry overall by helping studio through there long investement before getting there project ready to be sold. The only sad part in this is that Ms did not do enough, with all those studio closing without seing their project released or by lacking some publicity it needed for their projects to be profitable.

Hardware failure was obviously Ms biggest misstep in gaming, but still you want the reader to be ignorant that Ms did take measure that are still unprecedant spending billions of $ and retarding the 360 profitability to fix the situation. It does not excuse Ms to have denied the problem in first place but there are reasons behing it such as evaluate how big was the problem, what was needed to do etc...

You would want everyone to believe that only ignorant's buy Ms products but that can't be in any logical way true, and is in itself a statement only ignorant will accept without question.



Pemalite on 19 March 2014
S.T.A.G.E. said:
Pemalite said:
S.T.A.G.E. said:

Keep your blind faith in MS. No ones advocating it or putting it down but rather talking about Microsoft as a corporation and their practices which ARE detrimental to the industry (which can affect consumers).


I agree with that statement 100%.
However, I also consider Sony to be a detriment to the industry.

They have done some pretty shocking anti-consumer practices in the past.

Then again, you almost need to expect such things when it comes to public for-profit non-charitable companies whose sole purpose is to sell you a product for monetary gain, they aren't going to send you cake and flowers for your Birthday as they don't care about the indivudual on a personal basis. :P

I wish Microsoft and Sony would take notice of the PC more and especially Steam, which has done some great things for the PC landscape, Valve being a private company not answering to shareholders helps a ton.


Sony has no excuse for their mistakes, but unlike Microsoft they're pushing the consoles in tech and visual nature. Unlike Microsoft its becoming their bread and butter so they will do what it takes to survive where they are strongest. 


Well.
Without the PC, you wouldn't have the tech, thank the PC gamers for that as they were the ones supporting companies like AMD and nVidia, they made this "next generation" and last generation what it is from a technology perspective.

Without competition though a company becomes stagnant, prices increase and innovation drops.
Microsoft taking a massive chunk of the gaming audience from Sony created that competition to give Sony the desire to be more competitive this round, otherwise you may have ended up with a Playstation 3 version 2.0 in regards to cost and complexity.

Sony this round got all the right pieces of the puzzle and fitted them in all the right places for gamers and they should be applauded for that, but don't give credit where it's not due. :P



--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--

g911turbo on 19 March 2014
Shaunaka said:
g911turbo said:
Shaunaka said:
g911turbo said:

Come on man, they're both corporate pigs.  Now who's ignorant?! 


Either people don't mind idolizing products from corporate pics, or you are implying that most people who read your comment are ignorant.

What I don't get is the reason these companies, Microsoft and Sony, should be attributed the quality of corporate pigs. Are you specifically referring to the extremely rich and powerful members of their respective boards? Like individually these men and ladies are pigs? Or the average person there is a pig? Or that there is an evil, money grobbler behind the scenes gorging on the gullible nature of the simpletons? Aren't there men and women accross the spectrum of employment in those companies that have an actual passion for what they do and also attempt to implement their visions? I mean, not so bad people that now have to contend for being part of the "worst company of the year" again.

LOL, I think you are over analyzing it .  I just meant both companies are looking to get max profit for minimum product.  They all are, and its the smart thing to do. 


Uuuuh. Some people are motivated to be bold and brilliant. To have interesting products leave a legacy. Human beings are way more motivated by the possibility of leaving a mark during their lives than just money. Money is of course a major part of that, but many rich people invest that money in things they can be proud of.

I'm just saying your making blanket statements.

You're talking about people.  I'm talking about corporations.  To be successful they ARE all about the bottom line (meaning money) - it's not really a bad thing, its just how it works.  They employ THOUSANDS of people, so at the end of the day the decision they make are about what can be profitable and therefore keep the company afloat... everything else is secondary.  

 

They only reason they want bold and brilliant products is because that means they are more likely to sell said products.  Theses decisions are made by committee, and even at the highest level there is a board of directors.  Meaning not just one person.  Sony, just like other corporations, is trying to make money by offering products that they think people want.



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Pipedream24 on 19 March 2014

I was considering buying an Xbox one tomorrow. But after reading this post, I now worry that I am just another ignorant consumer. Should I still get one????



Capulous on 19 March 2014
EpicRandy said:
Seems to me that the writer prays more on reader's ignorance than Ms prays on consumers' ignorance.

It seems like the author is spreading his own ignorance around to suit his agenda as well. So basically, we have some people going back and forth about how bad a company is based on their opinions and bias. Seems like what every topic boils down to.



papamudd on 19 March 2014

are people still arguing posting here... so last week... find a new bone people



Talal said:
I will permaban myself if the game releases in 2014.

in reference to KH3 release date

Pibituh on 20 March 2014
NeoRatt said:
Meanwhile Sony is truthful, righteous, and a bunch of really nice people...

So take a look at the promises Sony made about the PS3...

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2013/02/sony-ps3-promises/


''discontinuing the truly backward-compatible models and making them expensive collector’s items today.''

 

Anyone wants to buy my backward-compatible PS3 ? I'm selling it cheap  *blink*  ;)



TheSting on 20 March 2014
Pipedream24 said:
I was considering buying an Xbox one tomorrow. But after reading this post, I now worry that I am just another ignorant consumer. Should I still get one????


Idk man im ignorant to. Be your own man or at least have your own level of ignorance. Yes, there are levels to this shit.