[QUOTE="YourChaosIsntMe"][QUOTE="nintendo-4life"][QUOTE="YourChaosIsntMe"][QUOTE="nintendo-4life"][QUOTE="dsmccracken"][QUOTE="nintendo-4life"][QUOTE="dsmccracken"][QUOTE="nintendo-4life"] what on earth are you talking about? the 360 having a year head start resulted these four points:
1. more titles.
2. better understanding of the hardware.
3. more sales from CASUAL gamers who don't care about PS3 or X360 as long as it's" cool"
4. higher attach rate than either next gen console.
also, by your logic the Dreamcast was in war with the nintendo gamecube ever since it's release. And that is, without a single shred of doubt, NOT true.The fact that there were die hard fans holding off buying a console is NOT a lost sale due to compitition, it's a lost sale due to LACK OF ATTRACTION. the only reason why they didn't get that sale is because they DIDN'T attract the customer enough to get that sale they are after, this is NOT the compitition's fault, it's MS's.
so in the end, the X360 has had a year without any compition, there weren't any games OUTSIDE of the console to go out, there were no other options, there were NO competition to deal with anyway, and that has helped them greatly.
nintendo-4life
Sigh... this LACK OF ATTRACTION you speak of... finding the offering of the 360 unattractive, finding what the PS3 or Wii has promised more attractive, and buying the competitors' offerings instead, this is not competition? I think you are confusing the uses of the word competition in common usage. "I had no interest in the 360, it was never even a competition in my head" is not the same as what competition means in the business sense. Two companies marketing competing products that serve the same use, that is competition.
I don't know why you are talking about "fault." MS's fault, the competition's fault. Fault doesn't inform competition. If MS lost a sale due to something that was their fault, that fault is PART OF WHAT DECIDES THE COMPETITION. Bluray may have been a mistake or a stroke of genius, but it is certainly part of the competitive landscape.
To quote you, the 360 has had a year without any competition (and I am only interested in same-gen competition, not the PS2), so all the gamers who love Sony and held off to buy the PS3 did not do so because they chose one competitors offering over anothers? If this is not what the bloody dictionary definition of competition (or more like the result ofcompetition)is, I must be in Bizarro land.
i hope you know that the hardcore fans represent very little of the general VG community, and even if some people held off on buying the 360 because of Wii and PS3, it's still MS's faultfor not convincing this small group that their console is good enough for a purchase.lack of attraction definitly has nothing to do with competition. for instance, many people thought the X360's launch titles.. or even the entire 2006 line up wasn't good enough, and thus thought that the console was not worth buying. now tell me, these people weren't wowed by the 360, so why would they buy it? the fact that there are more consoles on the way is irrelevent if the consumer didn't see the system as worthy to begin with.
competition resulted the head start, to that extent you are right, but if there was competition from beforethe release of the actual consoles .. then why did the X360 sales and software exclusivity go down when the actual consoles released?
PS. please don't sigh, it's rude and unpleasant, if you're looking for an argument i gave you one, if you don't like, then tell me why, but sighing is not only irrelevent, it puts you ona lower level than you actually are.
You may be right that MS is at fault for not capitalizing on the head start, and not Sony or Nintendo. However, competition as an act or series actions and reactions is not dependent on who's to blame. I may be at fault for an accident. You might be at fault. It might have been neither, and caused by a faulty traffic light, or weather, but it doesn't mean there was no accident.
The 360's sales and exclusives plumeted, not because there was finally competition upon the launch of the PS3/Wii, but because those launches racheted up/intensified the competition. Is this the divide? That the competition was not and could not be "full-on" until the PS3 and the Wii were out? Well, if this is what we're bickering over, let it be done, as that is self-evident. The competition was not as intense (how could it be?) until all 3 were on shelves... and yes, the PC too Nerdman.
As for those who didn't see the 360 as worthy to begin with, let me build a what-if scenario. If by act of magic genie, the competition did not exist for MS. They invented videogaming, there was no PS1/2/3, no NES/SNES/Wii, no... well, you get the idea. Would anyone argue that many more people (and in that 1st year) would own a 360, with nothing else to choose from and no possibility of there ever being another choice? Some might still refuse b/c of the RROD, but when you say competition is irrelevant if people didn't see the 360 as worthy to begin with, would you deny that this might be changed if there was nothing to compare it against or an alternative to hope for? Regardless, you surely don't think that this applies to every single last consumer who passed on the 360, do you? Because I only need 1, one guy in Iowa somewhere, to be right. Only one.
ok before i begin can you explain the second paragraph.. it was quite confusing :? (my head is spinning all day :? :P)aaaaaaaaaanyway...
That accident accured because ofa reason.. you might be right, it might not be anyone's fault... actually scratch that, there's someone, at least one person, who's to blame if any accident occured, if it was the weather, the drivers should have been driving more carefully, if it was a faulty traffic light then the person who allowed this accident to occur is to blame, of course it's not directly, but if there were no mistakes, there shouldn't be an accident. However in this particular case, MS is definitely to blame on the lousy sales they have been producing. NOT sony or nintendo, it's clear as day, they didn't do anything to attract the japnese market, only the american market, and that's just one example.
The rules and logicthat magic genie applied were accurate but sadly.... a magic genie does not really play a role here now does it? let me elaborate: of course we are talking about competition between X360 and PS3 & Wii, but the ultimate competition, between the companies goes way back. MS, Ninty ,and Sony have had a fight before correct? so when a gamer saw the X360, he didn't even have the PS3 OR wii in mind, he had the last gen's standards. So he's not comparing X360 to any other console, he's comparing it to the standards, i know i have.
i'm not saying that what you're saying isn't possible, i know it is and i know that it was the case on hundreds of people..... but is it really big enough to be called a competition? is it valid enough? i would say no, because of the four points i have listed above completely blows away this small group creating the competition in the first place.
............ did that make sense? :?
That competition (Microsoft's MSX vs. NES in Japan, Microsoft vs. Sony last gen, Sony and Nintendo's proposed callaboration etc) magnifies the current competition. From the perspective of MS, Sony, and Nintendo, the competition between these SPECIFIC systems predates the release of all three of them, and their current general competition began last generation. Also, marketing and advertising (which are not only competition, but were expressly produced in a competitive manner) preceded the release of all three systems as well.You're logic and assertions are relatively sound and certainly within reason, but they are rather obtuse.
would you please explain what exactly is so obtuse about my logic? whether or not the the advertising preceedes the console is certainly irrelevent because they all had that feature (other than nintendo in this specific case, if you would kindly recall the Wii's past. you'd find that hype was built only two months prior MS's beast released.), but what we are talking about is Microsoft's upper hand, a feature that was exclusive to them in this case. the release of their console a whopping year before the compitition gives them the upper hand, yes that act was a result of competition, but it's more like "getting ready" to start the war, they made that strategy in order to have time without competition. now how can you get ready if the fight is already upon you? no, you getting ready is always before the actual fight... do you see where i'm going with this?i get what you and the TC were trying to say and i do admit i have not studied economics as you obviously have (but i will next semester :P), but right now i cannot agree with you at all. sorry, i'm still not convinced :)
To be fair, I saw where you were going with it from the beginning, and like I said before, your logic is sound (I also noticed that I incorrectly used "You're." I apologize). Anyway, my reasoning behind calling the logic obtuse (and I apologize again, because that was a little absolute, and it was not meant to be expressed as such), is related to your "four points" and your assumption that they preclude competition, either direct or indirect, and also refers to your statements concerning the "lack of attraction." Furthermore, I recognize(d) your position as obtuse because it focuses primarily on the consumer, while the consumer is only one factor in this competitive market. You also refer to the Xbox's "head-start." While both DM and I acknowledge that the 360 did have a "head-start." This is not, nor was it ever the point of contention. The "head-start" is only relevant in considering it's diminishedimpact due to what I consider indirect competition - what DMconsiders direct competition. I also do not believe anyone was stating that they did not have an upper-hand. Even if we can agree that competition existed prior to the release of the PS3 and Wii, no intelligent person would deny that MS had the upper-hand. Also, in your most recent post, the personalization of the situation is obtuse as well. The analogy just isn't succinct. This is economics, not a fist fight. Likewise, as I've stated before, the reaction ofor choices made by the consumer does not preclude thepossible existence of pre-release competition. Even if there wasn't a single person who chose to wait, the competition still existed.Furthermore, the "mistakes" MS might have made are of little consequence when considering the existence of competition. A portion of lost sales could be attributed to MS making what you generally refer to as "mistakes" (what are they?), but this does not invalidate the assertion that many more possible yet unrealized sales were lost due to, once again, what I consider indirect competition. I apologize if this response sounds disjointed, but this is because I'm attempting to differentiate between thepoints discussed prior to Zim's full involvement in the discussion and after his/her contributions.
first of all, don't apologize if no one is offended, you made little mistakes that harmed no one.. hell if i were to aplogize for every little mistake i made i would be doing NOTHING but apologize to you guys all day :?anyway, the mistakes i'm calling for are not really mistake, they are ... how do i explain it... MS's "failure attempt" to capture the consumer, no matter what the cost.
i think i've come to the conclusion that you seem to think that their very existance of the competition is indeed competition in itself. if that's the case then... i am confused as hell :?
I'm not positive that I understand the last sentence, but I'm pretty sure that I do (was there a grammatical error)? Anyway. That depends on whose perspective you're viewing the situation from. If you view it from the perspective of the consumer, there are various benchmarks for when competition begins, and these vary for each niche of the consumer population. If you view it from the perspective of the manufacturer, the competition began before the release of any current-gen (or even last-gen) systems, and the competition exists simply because the competing companies exist and are currently or will eventually manufacture hardware. The textbook definition takes both the consumer and manufacturer's perspective into account, because true competition requires some degree of consumer input. So on a philosophical level (and from the perspective of someone who wants to get involved in business and financial investment) the competition exists before the consumer is even interested in the products being offered. Effectively, this is still of only marginal consequence because I refer to this aspect of competition for the sole purpose of offering further support for my assertions (and offering further reasoning concerning the unquestionable existence of competition) - thishas not, nor has it ever been my ultimate point. I have always referred to the input of the consumer within this topic, and I have never marginalized the role of the consumer. As the textbook definition requires the synthesis of these two aspects of competition, so have my statements, and, likewise, consumer choices support said statements. My specific point concerning MS's failed attempts to capture the consumer is that their failure to do so is not simply the product of inept marketing, advertising, and game development, but a dozen other factors as well, including competition.
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