Now I feel very good knowing GC and X-box never will catch up to Sony.

And about price, Sony had already lowed the price of the PS2 in other countries (and even in your country, the UK). Now, MS following suit, what else do you expect? You don\'t have to be an economist to see that any company will not just sit still as their competition reduces their price (and of coarse, rake in the sales due to that price drop). When Sony lowered the price of the PSX, Nintendo followed suit with the N64 and lowered its price. Sega did that as well (though Sega had other problems, with extremely rushed launch, and bad developer support that made the price drop mute and sadly ended its reign). Price competition at its finest.

As for your PSX and Mega Drive price comparison at the time...thats like me comparing the price of the Xbox ($300) and the PSX now ($90). Two different systems released at different times (5-6 year difference) with vastly different powers. If anything, shows the good thing about competition.

Now, MS is reportedly having the price of the Xbox in UK at 300 pounds at launch. This despite the fact that Sony already lowered the price of the PS2 to 200 pounds there. So, if the Xbox outsells the PS2 there at luanch, it certainly won\'t be the price that does it. Now, MS could suprise the UK and release it at 200 pounds they they feel they could do so, but again, price competition, Sony will also drop the price if they feel it is cutting into their sales (the only reason why the PS2 did not receive its own price drop here in the states. Sony felt that the Xbox and GC will not hurt its sales here too much, and if the sales reports are true, looks like Sony was right).

And besides, it isn\'t the system that the makers of these consoles are earning the most on, it is the games. And not just first party games either. If you research the gaming industry, every developer has to pay a royalty fee to the console makers for each game they sell. Part of the price of being a console developer. And if the company does make a profit off each system sold, extra money in the bank.

As you probably know, this isn\'t true to with the PC. They don\'t have to pay royalties. Of coarse, for PC developers, they have to contend with making their game work on a ton of different hardware so they can\'t push the PC as far as a console system does.

And yes, fierce competition is good for the gamers. So while I do not think the Xbox will out sell the PS2 anytime soon, that doesn\'t mean it won\'t succeed on its own right, and help move forward the industry.

simchoy, I liked the way you quoted stuff and so your post was easy to follow...

The only link between that exists between console developers and game developers is the FINANCIAL link. This is not the case however with companies making their own games for their systems, like sega and nintendo.

So if Microsoft sees that they don\'t have as many developers by their site, they will simply "tempt" them to join them. Joining a side does not mean that they will not continue making multiplatform games though.

So don\'t just count on that, because we all saw how game developers gave up on the SNES, Megadrive and Dreamcast when they saw that the ship was sinking.

You mentioned the example of the GTA3 and Shrek. In my opinion, this is mistaken, try to judge between the same game for different platform. This is where you see which system works best in terms of graphics etc.


Yes, the list of the available games plays a very important role on how the system will sell IN ITS EARLY DAYS.
But if the games are nice and ppl love them, they don\'t need thousands of games. Take the PSX. It has how many games you reckon? From that, only a small percent of say 5% is worth PLAYING, let alone BUYING!!
And don\'t get me wrong on this, the PSX games that wrote history are very few compared to the total. Remember those useless japanese games who nobody played?

Why would anyone care SO much for the available titles when most of them are CRAP! I\'m not saying that the dreamcast doesn\'t have crap games, of course it does.

But if the dreamcast has a total of 500 and the 450 are CRAP, that leaves us with a 10% of "playable" games.
But PSX has like unlimited games, 1500 maybe more!
But most of them are really really bad!


Listen... The way I see it, if someone finds a way to make backups of Xbox games, then the Xbox sales will go sky high.
I have around 9 friends of mine who own a PS2, and ALL of them but one have it chipped.

This might do a big damage on the sales of the games, but you can not imagine how good it does on the sales of the consoles.
My friends pay the consoles and games with their own money, and they cannot afford to pay so much money for games.

I don\'t want to start that thing with backups and stuff, and hope that this thread doesn\'t get closed, but weren\'t for the chips, they wouldn\'t buy the CONSOLE.

I\'m only getting the PS2 for GT3, Burnout and another 2-3 games which I like and cannot get on the PC. So I don\'t intend to chip mine. But I understand their point of view even if I don\'t agree.
(after all, if you play a game for 15 days and you enjoy it I believe it pays off the 40 quid, even though it IS a lot of money)



To conlude, because its 7.20am UK time, I didn\'t rule the pS2 out completely. But I believe that the world has "seen" the PS2 and now it doens\'t bring out the initial excitement of the first months. I remember I rushed to a friend\'s of mine house when he received the ps2 he had reserved for a long time, just to see how it looks like and I was saying to my self "I want one NOW".

But in one year from now the list of games for the xbox will be big enough not to make any big difference to the consumer compared to that of the PS2, because the consumer is only interested in buying a max of 30 games, and he wants to know that more games are coming every day so that his investment will be worth it.

And since the Xbox will have a reduced price AND probably been cracked to allow backups, together with the fact that microsoft is a really BIG player, I believe that from december 1 until the new year, the Xbox will have sold more consoles than the PS2. (I don\'t mean overall in the years of course, I only mean in that period of one-one and a half month)

Holy cow you guys.  I\'ll need to set aside an hour of my life just to read all that.

Man I\'m too tired to rip this one up. Maybe I\'m tired cause I actually read all that. For as much time as you put into that post.........Wait I said I wasn\'t going to do this.

As for the financial link. True, in fact, that is how MS was able to get many of its developers. However, what MS can do, so can Sony. While they may not have as much disposible money as MS, Sony can do the same. Remember, Sony owns 19% of Squaresoft, one of the biggest developers in Japan.

With the exception of the Dreamcast, developers kinda had an intention to abandon ship with the other systems you mentioned. The fact that the competition (and the company itself) had something better. The SNES and Megadrive/Genisis (the name of the console here in the states) were both in the 16bit era. Like everything else, something better comes along. In this case, the N64, Sega Saturn, and new comer PSX. Sega made a few mistakes which doomed the Saturn (like rushing the system, few developer support, etc.) and the N64 was hard to develop, and because of the lack of games, pretty much ensured newcomer Sony to take over. The Dreamcast, coming from a company that had its repuation collapsed and in poor financial health, couldn\'t survive.

I only used the GTA3 and Shrek example as examples where the graphics are not everything. Not on the overall qaulity/genre of the games. Right now, the Xbox doesn\'t really have a GTA3 equivalent given that GTA3 is pretty diverse game. But one thing that is pretty much agreed apon, GTA3 is a great gameplay, while Shrek is a load of crap despite some pretty great graphics.

As for the number of availble titles. I agree, the PSX has a ton of crap. But at the same time, they had tons of great games as well. What made Sony so successful was in part the diverse array of these great games. Which Nintendo didn\'t have (but because many considered them to have a ton of great games as well, they didn\'t do to badly either).

As for the backup thing...if it helps sell systems, okay. But again, its all about the games. And really, if the games sell, developers will continue to support it. Not all gamers copy their games. For example, right now, I don\'t know of any person who bought a PS2 that has copied games. That doesn\'t mean that there is a number that do, but again, as long as the sales remain high for the games, developers will continue to support it.

I don\'t see a reason why MS should lower the price of Xbox at launch. It is a brand new system that comes from a great company in terms of size, and is much better in terms of specs.

The PS2 costed almost 3 times the money of the Dreamcast last year, and that was before Sega announced its death!

I really think we both have a different opinion about the matter and maybe for some reason I tend to trust MS more, and you trust Sony more. Maybe, thats what I concluded.

To be honest with you, I\'m a HUGE computer fan and I don\'t like microsoft for many reasons. Windows 2000 is IMO the ONLY stable system for ME, and since it works fine, I\'m not moving on to XP yet. I don\'t like seeing MS in this console field, but the thing is I didn\'t "like" Sony entering this field some years ago with PSX.

So I think that in although I\'d rather have MS messing around with my PC only (can u imagine that dreaded blue screen in Xbox!!!???!!), I trust they\'ll play a leading role in the months to come....

hehe!! Seems like we monopolized the thread!!!

holly crap, its 7.50am and I\'m still awake debating!!

Do you mind if I ask you your age? You seem well informed but there is another reason why I ask. It has to do with the backups.
I\'m 22 and the friends of mine I mentioned who have it chipped are about my age.

There are another 3 ppl that I know, which are in their late twenties, early thirties. Those ppl have a job and they are actually earning a respectable amount of money, so they can spare some in games.

Even so, the games they play are not very many, given you wouldn\'t expect  a 30year old to play with shrek for example! I\'d say they own an average of 4-5 games each.

So maybe the ppl you know in person have the capability to buy all their games, or maybe they have wealthy parents or relatives who buy the games for them.

This applies to ppl owning more than 8-9 games, because after this amount of games the overall cost of the PS2 gets quite high. (more games mean more memory cards as well and so on).

I remember I used to spend all my money on games or CDs, and when I think what I could do with this money now.... its crazy!
I don;t regret it though, because the fun I had all those hours can not be paid back with anything.

I\'m Eighteen. Excluding the people on this forum, the people I know who have a PS2 are around 18 to mid 20ies. All of which buy thier games. Now, they are not the richest people in the world. Two are in college, another has his own jobs but has bills to pay so to speak. Now, I will say, I do know people who had the original PSX chipped, and in turn, had copied PSX games. But, for the PS2 crowd I know (besides this forum) at least right now, since mod chips were not avaible right away for the PS2 (or a good source for good mod chips), all the games for the PS2 have been bought.

Now, I by no means advocating *******s ([edit]and you can guess why mod chips as one word is censored)/copying games. Just saying  I know people who have.

And yes, gaming is expensive. This is why I only have 9 games for the PS2 (one was $20) as opposed to 20 which I could easily say are great games.

Oh, and from where I\'m sitting, it is 12:06 am.

weird...
England is full of chipped PS2s, and lets not mention PSX..
I doubt if there is any PSX left unchipped!!

In Greece from where I originate things are a bit more "legal".
My friends of mine with the chipped PS2s are all in england, the other guy who I mentioned is in Greece and also the other guys who are older than me are in greece as well...


Entertainment can surely be expensive (a saturday night out proves it well) but ppl do not understand that games ARE entertainment and must be priced as such...

Any more of this chip talk will get this thread closed (and at worse, a warning and possible banning from the mods [though I doubt the banning part since that would be extreme. But talking about chipping/copying games...not allowed here]), so...lets end that talk right now.

And yes, gaming is expensive. But at the same time, $7 billion of revenue flowed into the industry. Someone is buying.

It isn\'t too late to join, is it?

nikos,

But lets face it, the early Ps2 games weren\'t what we can say " a breakthrough" and only now they start making really impressive games. I think we both agree on that.

And somehow the PS2 still managed to sell about 20 million consoles before the other next gen systems came out, and this is even when the PS2 was $300 and the Dreamcast was $200.  This shows what is needed to be successful.  1. A great reputation and a well known name (Playstation).  2. A perfect launch time (a whole year before the competition?  And it\'s competing directly against a company who has had a shaky reputation in the past [sega].  It can\'t get any better than that.)  3. HYPE.

When the Xbox launches in Europe, they will only have one of the three -- hype.  Without a doubt Microsoft will hype up their system and the tons of games that are coming on launch day.  But will this be enough?  Will the casual gamer really spend 300 on a system when they can get a system with a lot more games for 100 less, or a different system for even less than that (the NGC)?  Not very likely.

They are launching at one of the worst possible times, when the PS2 has already been out and selling for a year, and the NGC has been out for a few months.  A lot of the casual gamers will have already bought their console for this generation, so they wouldn\'t even be interested in the Xbox (most casual gamers only buy one console per generation.)

And Microsoft is not a very well known or respected name in the console industry yet.  Like I said before, they will probably advertise like crazy, but I don\'t know if that will earn them the trust that they need to make people buy their system.

Nintendo and Sega used to be the kings of consoles, and OUT OF THE BLUE, one fine day SONY (who??? SONY, who was only making electronics at that time, a NO ONE in gaming industry) came up with the PSX.

The rest of the story, you know. I\'m not saying Xbox is the next "SONY" who will crush the "ex-Nintendo" (sony), but I\'m trying to show you that REACHING THE TOP IS EASY. The hard part is remaining there.

Reaching the top is far from easy.  That was probably about 95% luck on Sony\'s part breaking into the industry.  If Sega hadn\'t made their console so hard to program, and Nintendo hadn\'t made their console so developer-unfriendly, Sony wouldn\'t have had a chance IMO.  And for the reasons I gave above, it is going to be anything but easy for Microsoft.

What I want to say is that if Sony reduces the price of the PS2, after a while M$ will do the same. And by that time, more and more games developers will make games for the XBox.

Unlike when the PS2 was released and there wasn\'t any competition, the Xbox is going to be fighting against two other consoles that cost less.  During that time when Microsoft\'s console is expensive, the PS2 and NGC will be selling like hot cakes only increasing the developers\' interest in the PS2 and NGC (but mainly PS2 because the userbase will be so much bigger than both the NGC and Xbox).

And about price, Sony had already lowed the price of the PS2 in other countries (and even in your country, the UK). Now, MS following suit, what else do you expect? You don\'t have to be an economist to see that any company will not just sit still as their competition reduces their price (and of coarse, rake in the sales due to that price drop). When Sony lowered the price of the PSX, Nintendo followed suit with the N64 and lowered its price. Sega did that as well (though Sega had other problems, with extremely rushed launch, and bad developer support that made the price drop mute and sadly ended its reign). Price competition at its finest.

It won\'t be that easy for Microsoft.  Right now, Sony is making a profit on all PS2s sold.  But every console that Microsoft sells, they lose about $80 dollars (US dollars).  If they are already losing that much money per system, I think they will be a bit skeptical about lowering the price even more.  I know Microsoft does not intend to make too much money this generation (they are really just going after the trust of the consumers so the Xbox2 will be successful), but I\'m sure they still want to make something.  Will Microsoft drop the price?  Of course.  But will they drop it down to the PS2\'s or NGC\'s price in order to be a "real" contender?  Not very likely.

So don\'t just count on that, because we all saw how game developers gave up on the SNES, Megadrive and Dreamcast when they saw that the ship was sinking.

I\'m not sure exactly what you meant by this.  Do you mean that you think the PS2 is going to be that sinking ship, and people will abandon it and go over to the Xbox?  With a 20+ million userbase (probably around 30 million by the time the Xbox is released world wide), the devs won\'t be abandoning ship.  Period.

This [piracy] might do a big damage on the sales of the games, but you can not imagine how good it does on the sales of the consoles.

But because Microsoft loses money for every system they sell, this only hurts Microsoft even more.

And since the Xbox will have a reduced price AND probably been cracked to allow backups, together with the fact that microsoft is a really BIG player, I believe that from december 1 until the new year, the Xbox will have sold more consoles than the PS2. (I don\'t mean overall in the years of course, I only mean in that period of one-one and a half month)

I will agree with you on this one.  The Microsoft/Xbox fans alone will make the Xbox sell better during time when the Xbox is released.  The PS2 will have already been 2 years old by then (and out in Europe for 1 1/2 years), and the sales will start to slow down a little bit (unless there is some big game released around the same time that the Europeans have to have, i.e. The Getaway).  But I don\'t think the Xbox will have staying power.  It\'s sales will be good for a few months, but the Sony and Nintendo will take over again.

My post is completely speculation.  It is just what I predict to happen when the Xbox is released in Europe.  Hey, I was right about the NGC/Xbox US launch (that the Xbox and NGC would sell out leaving the PS2 to pick up the millions of extra sales), so now I\'m going for two out of two.

I also think that the Xbox launch in Japan will be more successful than the NGC\'s, but like in Europe, it will slow way down again and the PS2 and NGC will pass it up within a month.

And this is kind of off topic, but I think I just figured out the release of The Getaway.  What better time to release a game that has 50 miles of real European streets and landmarks (is it London that the Getaway is designed from?  I can\'t remember), then right before the launch of a new console in Europe?  If they really release the game right before the Xbox launch, and it turns out to actually be a great game, the Xbox is screwed IMO.  Remember, you heard this exclusive news here first.

so much for keeping it simple:D

I think xbox price will drop pretty fast in EU. 479 Euro for a x-box!!! LOL That is about 4700 Swedish krones. A new PS2 costs about 3295 SKR. Good luck MS!!!

Originally posted by Bossieman
I think xbox price will drop pretty fast in EU. 479 Euro for a x-box!!! LOL That is about 4700 Swedish krones. A new PS2 costs about 3295 SKR. Good luck MS!!!

i wouldent say that just yet, beacuse you will be amazed by the number of M$ Fanboys that i have meat that say that.

"well Bill Could Face to lose a lot of money and give the Console away free and hance win the Console war".

Yeah like hes going to buy everyone in the world 20 million Plus X boxes out of his own pocket