Console Wars - the revenge

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Asher

I don't see any sales to comment on?

Or are you referring to the fact that Nintendo decided to ship 350,000 Wiis in a single specific week to generate PR that some people aren't bright enough to recognize as just that?

I fully expect Wiis to sell out throughout the holiday season this year. That doesn't impress me at all, because people still aren't buying games for it. Buying the cheapest console because it's trendy isn't impressive. It's even less impressive because Nintendo is very clearly controlling stock of their console such to "strategically release" them to maximize PR.

It's good for Nintendo's shareholders -- but longterm success is measured in terms of software sales, and Nintendo's got to be worried about that. It's not about selling your content delivery platform if the content isn't purchased.

Edit: I do like how they broke the record set by the Gameboy Advance just a few short years ago. How is the GBA selling today, out of curiosity?

[Asher]

Originally posted by ZargonX
Asher, are you one of those people that seriously believes Nintendo is constraining supply? As Nintendo themselves have pointed out, all that does is hurt them at this point. There is no secret warehouse full of Wiis waiting to be unleashed on the world; if they can sell every unit they make (which they obviously can) they'd get as many as humanly possible out on the shelves.

It's CLEARLY obvious that they limit supply. Think about it.

How else would they ship 350,000 consoles in one week if they weren't building up a stockpile of consoles in order to do that before? 350,000 is WAY above and beyond normal and it doesn't come out of thin air. They were limiting supply in previous months by stockpiling. And I'm pretty sure they've still got a lot sitting in warehouses to be released in December.

What better way to ensure they're all sold? Give the image that you will never be able to find a Wii for Christmas, then quietly flood the market. All of the sudden you've got a huge army of impulse buyers who buy it as soon as they see it.

As I said, it all comes down to how 350,000 in one week is possible. The only way would have been to stockpile consoles. The simple act of stockpiling consoles limits supply to the market. Further, the Wii is the simplest of the consoles and it's been out for over a year -- if they really wanted to ramp up production considerably, it would've been done by now.

So yes, I'm "one of those people" who believes Nintendo limits its supply. By "one of those people", I'm assuming you mean somebody with basic analytical skills.

[DrSpike]

Nintendo are clearly teh evil geniuses.

[Asher]

It's not very advanced or even evil stuff, just makes business sense. Play to your strengths. The Wii isn't going to be a hot a commodity or hot a topic if your local best buy has 1000 of them in piles. One of the main strengths of the Wii is Nintendo's played the PR cards correctly, to keep it a hot item through artificial means and a "if you see one, BUY ONE" mentality they instilled into the public.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Wiglaf
Whether or not this fat bastard was fired, how can you avoid looking at the larger issue here. These "impartial review sites" have ads for the games they review taking up the background and side and top banners of their site. They link to sites that sell the games and have partnerships with Direct2Drive and Amazon. They receive free stuff from the publishers of the games.

Game reviewing frankly sucks, if not because of all that, then because of how absurdly high the scores are for the most derivative games.

Jeff Gerstmann should finish his last taco in hell

http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-individual/story/Nothing_is_Perfect/

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Asher
It's not very advanced or even evil stuff, just makes business sense. Play to your strengths. The Wii isn't going to be a hot a commodity or hot a topic if your local best buy has 1000 of them in piles. One of the main strengths of the Wii is Nintendo's played the PR cards correctly, to keep it a hot item through artificial means and a "if you see one, BUY ONE" mentality they instilled into the public.

It isn't THAT HARD to find one. Really. I've seen plenty of them over the last few months. Sure the electronics and gaming stores always seem to be out, but other than WalMart and Target purposely withholding their stock prior to Black Friday, they've always seemed to be in stock there.

Yes, they sold out Black Friday at the big retailers, but the local WalMart I was in yesterday already had more out on the shelf.

Or maybe we're just wierd out here in Utah.

[Asher]

I also don't find it that hard to find them in Canada at all.

Doesn't mean that mentality doesn't still exist with a lot of people, which is a credit to Nintendo's PR smarmyness.

[lord of the mark]

1. I tend to agree with Asher that they stockpilied Wii's. They went from 500k a month, about 125 k a week, to 350k in one week. I doubt that was a surge in manufacturing capacity

2. I dont think its necessarily explained as a PR move, but rather as a market segmentation move.

There are different markets for the Wii. Folks, especially parents, who dont know much about games, and are buying the Wii cause theyve heard about it, its cheap, or maybe theyve even played Wii sports at a friends. Group A. Then there are folks who know SOMETHING about games, even if theyre not hardcore, or are hardcore in ways that dont fit the central 360/PS3 market - these folks are, presumably, revved about recent releases on the Wii, esp SMG of course, maybe some other titles. Group B.

Now who would have been buying the Wii in September, October and even early November? Some Group A, of course, cause there are so many of them, but largely Group B. And those guys are still gonna be around and looking to buy a Wii in January or February. But lots of the Group A folks, if they cant find a Wii NOW, will buy something else instead - and that something else probably isnt even a game console, it could be a digital camera, or a bicycle, or whatever. You want to maximize sales from THEM, it makes sense to have warehoused for the holiday season. No PR strategy needed to explain it.

[Elok]

What do GBA sales today have to do with anything? It's been effectively replaced by the DS.

[snoopy369]

They clearly stockpiled Wii's for black friday, but that's not exactly a new move. Companies always stockpile for black friday (retail and manufacturers both). The qusetion is are they constraining supply over the long haul (trying to create artificial demand by limiting the number they put out) or not. I'd tend to think not at this point, only because it's been over a year now and that sort of thing only works for so long... but who knows, it's certainly not unheard of.

[Nikolai]

This Black Friday sounds like some terrorist attack, the US should rename it Freedom Friday or something.

[UnOrthOdOx]

Originally posted by Nikolai
This Black Friday sounds like some terrorist attack, the US should rename it Freedom Friday or something.

Nah. If you ever happen to be out shopping in it, you'll see, the terrorist name is far more fitting.

[Asher]

The 360 is getting DivX & XviD support on Dec 4th, in the update: http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/30/x...soft-tells-al/

[Asher]

Full deeetsss

Full Features List for 2007 Fall Update

Back to System Update

* Improved Video Library.
* Improved visuals and descriptions.
* Users can now sort movies and TV Shows in the video library by Title or (Download) Date.
* TV shows can now be grouped by Series .
* Group video and game trailers .
* Art associated with personal video files on a portable device will now be displayed.
* Easier to use media areas and improved metadata .
* Improved source selection for video, picture, and music libraries, making it easier to switch between console/digital camera, computer, portable device or disc.
* New "Suggested Items" link for downloaded movies.

Feature Details:

Media - All

* Added more user friendly text for various error related messages
* Added Shortcut keys from Remote Control: Pressing Play on a Video/Song/Picture will immediately start playback of that item from the list (pressing Start from gamepad does the same thing)
* Added support for Album/Video artwork larger than 500kb
* Added support to enumerate metadata in the background and not just when selected by the user
* Added support to make sort options sticky across console reboots
* Added support to show all available Media Sharing Servers on the local network and allow automatic re-affiliation
* Automatically delete older versions of Optional Media Update package when new ones are downloaded
* Improved consistency in storage naming across all areas
* Improved performance for displaying Album Art when connected to remote sources
* Improved text messaging when connection to PC is lost when streaming Music/Photo or videos

Media - Music

* Added support for CD Playback from music area in Xbox 360 Guide area
* Added support for listing multiple computer sources in Xbox Guide music sources
* Added support for Y button to toggle full screen on and off for music visualizer
* Disable 'play all' button when folders only contains playlists (with no audio files)
* Disable Y button when no list items selected in Music player
* Improved device support for new iPods (classic and 3rd gen Nano) - iPhone and iPod touch are not supported
* Improved error handling for mixed encoded playlists (aac,mp3,wma)
* Improved handling for MTP Music devices with >200k entries
* Improved handling of game background music after playing videos in Dashboard
* Improved handling of music playback over games (if music source terminates or has errors, background music returns to game background)
* Improved performance for "Play All" with attached MTP devices
* Improved performance of music enumeration via Guide
* Improved robustness when playing back HFS+ formatted iPods
* Improved support for returning to game background audio when user's music player session terminates
* Improved support for scrolling song lists while listening to music during game playback
* Improved support when ejecting game disc while selecting music source through Guide

Media - Pics

* Added support to display PNG files when streamed from Windows Media Player 11 on Vista
* Improved enumeration for PTP cameras including Cannon Powershot SD 630 and Apple Iphone
* Improved playback performance of "Play All" when PC source has 1000s of photos and subdirectories
* Support Folder view of Photos from MTP Portable Devices

Media - Video

* Added 2 line support for entries in the Video Area of the Media Blade
* Added ability to recognize Colorspace attribute for Video Marketplace Content
* Added fade in transition for start of video playback
* Added full screen buffering animation for streaming videos from Xbox LIVE
* Added Suggestions scene for Video Library area in Media blade of the Dashboard
* Added support for 16x Fast-forward/Rewind
* Added support for AC3 embedded audio (see video faq for full information)
* Added support for enumeration of video files from Zune 2.0 devices
* Added support for Left Shoulder button on controller to chapter skip backward
* Added support for Left Trigger button on controller to rewind
* Added support for moving past the point user has viewed when doing progressive downloads of Video Marketplace videos
* Added support for MP3 embedded audio (see video faq for full information)
* Added support for Mpeg-4 part 2 video files in AVI containers
* Added support for Right Shoulder button on controller to chapter skip forward
* Added support for Right Trigger button on controller to fast forward
* Added support for Zune Podcast video playback from Zune device
* Added support to display metadata and thumbnails embedded in video files
* Added support to enumerate .divx video files
* Added support to group TV shows by Series in Video Library of Media Blade
* Added support to group Video and Game Trailers into same area of Video Library of

Media Blade

* Added support to sort Movies or TV Shows by Title or Download date in Video Library of Media Blade
* Added top level support to show expired or soon to expire information for purchased movies from Video Marketplace in Media Blade
* Improve support for "Play Now" calculations with ISP that boost download for the first 20MB of a file
* Improved accuracy of bookmark positions when video player abnormally ends
* Improved accuracy of download progress bar after chapter skipping operations
* Improved auto resizing experience for small (under 100x100) video files
* Improved Bookmark / Resume experience with 60fps Interlaced WMV videos
* Improved bookmark support while progressively downloading videos from Marketplace
* Improved calculations for "Play Now" for Video Marketplace downloads
* Improved deinterlacer support for video playback
* Improved enumeration speed for user-generated video content in Media Blade
* Improved error message support when playing back video files without valid licenses
* Improved error message support when pulling USB drive while playing back video files
* Improved handling for USB memory stick removal while on Video device selection list in Media blade
* Improved handling of video playback when transitioning from 4x FF to Play with MP4 video files
* Improved handling of WMV bookmarks when rewinding and shutting down video player
* Improved info pane timer when playing back DRM's WMV content from Windows Media Player 11 from Windows PC
* Improved message support for progressive video playback
* Improved overall UI, content descriptions and navigation of Video Library of Media Blade
* Improved performance during Fast Forward to Playback transition when playing back MP4 content
* Improved performance for buffering and playback of streaming videos from Xbox LIVE
* Improved performance for low bandwidth streaming of MP4 videos from Zune PC software v1.0
* Improved performance of skip forward/backward with WMV video files
* Improved performance of trick modes when streaming videos from Zune PC client
* Improved performance of WMV playback for WMV7 & WMV8 encoded video files
* Improved playback experience after extended pauses of video files from Marketplace
* Improved playback experience when resuming from a stopped/paused state
* Improved playback performance for h264 720p .MOV files
* Improved playback performance with 1920x1080 MP4 files
* Improved playback performance with 5Mb h264 encoded video files
* Improved playback performance with 60fps 720x480 MP4 content
* Improved playback performance with h264 files in .m4v containers
* Improved quality for upscaled user videos when played back full screen
* Improved quality of MP4 decoder: Global Motion Compensation and VMX optimizations
* Improved quality of MP4 decoder: improved Interlaced Support
* Improved quality of MP4 decoder: Out of order frame output, bidirectional motion vector handling, etc.
* Improved quality with non-square pixel video files
* Improved responsiveness of trick mode controls for video playback
* Improved robustness during chapter skipping of h264 video files
* Improved robustness for streaming problematic video files from Zune PC Software 1.0 or Windows Media Player 11
* Improved robustness of video player when playback catches up to downloads in progressive playback scenarios
* Improved robustness of video streaming when network congestion / stalls occur
* Improved robustness when closing video player after attempting to play a video file that would not open
* Improved robustness when entering and exiting video playback on a portable device repeatedly
* Improved robustness when exiting video files encoded in h264 and playing back from attached USB HDD
* Improved robustness when playing back Mp4 video with consecutive bad aac samples encoded into it
* Improved robustness when shutting down console during h264 video playback
* Improved robustness when trying to play a video recently moved from MU to HDD or vice versa
* Improved robustness with video player when exiting player via Xbox Guide button -> Y
* Improved support for AAC-LC 2 channel encoded audio in MP4 video files
* Improved support for chapter skipping during progressive downloads of Marketplace Video content
* Improved support for MP4 video files with discontinuous time stamps encoded in
* Improved support for MP4 video playback from burned optical dvd-r's
* Improved support for resuming downloaded videos after reaching end of an uncompleted download
* Improved support for resuming partially downloaded videos from Marketplace
* Improved support for using Big Button controller during video playback
* Improved support for Video bookmarks when playing MP4 videos from USB portable hard drives
* Improved sync of video display and info pane display when rewinding
* Improved text for Windows Media Center setup instructions
* Improved Trick mode support when streaming videos with AAC embedded audio
* Improved video performance for 60fps interlaced WMV videos
* Improved Video performance with 15Mbs 1080i 24fps WMV video files
* Improved video playback for Fast-forward and immediate exit usage with h264 video files
* Improved video playback of MP4 content from Zune PC Software v1.0
* Improved video playback when source content has incorrect sync samples encoded
* Improved video quality for SD Composite AV pack displays of the on-screen display for video controls
* Improved video support for chapter skipping of MP4 videos
* Improved Videotrick mode support with 24fps 1080i WMV video files
* Improved visual display of WMV video files while rewinding
* Improved WMV Playback performance for 60fps and 1080i 30fps videos
* Improved WMV7 performance with VLC encoded content
* Removed occasional purple flickers in video playback when transitioning between FF and RW
* Removed potential 9 second delay when rewinding WMV video files

System

* Added fade out transition when powering down console
* Added support for browsing XNA games within the Games blade
* Added support for video playback from UDFS formatted USB devices
* Added support for XNA Game Studio Express V.2
* Added support to connect to Apple Extreme routers in 802.11a/n mode
* Added support to pause background downloads when streaming full screen videos or ads
* Added support to retrieve game thumbnail directly from XNA game package
* Added system wide support for Simplified Chinese language
* Added text to explain flashing LED in the Ring of Light during background download low power mode
* Addressed rare case where game disc would spin in the DVD drive while playing HD-DVD Movie in external HD-DVD drive
* Disable Optical audio output when in low power background download mode
* DVD player no longer converts to YCbCr709 when output is over HDMI
* Improved auto sign-in to Xbox LIVE with Xbox 360 Wireless Adapter
* Improved clock accuracy for S/PDIF optical streams
* Improved compatibility with NEC WR8400N WiFi routers
* Improved download speeds when in low power background download mode
* Improved DVD Tray State notifications immediately after application of System Update
* Improved Forced Aspect Ratio Changes via HDMI output (including DVI)
* Improved handling when ejecting game disc during game start
* Improved handling when removing MU after sending Arcade game recommendation to friend
* Improved localization text for Wifi setup in German
* Improved performance for Game Titles to reboot in backcompat scenarios
* Improved performance of Xbox Guide during Messenger signin
* Improved robustness when ejecting game disc when prompted for game title update
* Improved robustness when inserting two MU's at the same time on the device selector scene
* Improved support for 3rd Party Controllers
* Improved support for Buffalo WiFi routers
* Improved support for Creston AV receivers with HDMI
* Improved support for JPN Corega CG-BARFX network router
* Improved support for signing into Xbox LIVE with Big Button Controller
* Improved support for starting console with Big Button Controller when console is charging attached Wireless Controllers
* Improved Xbox guide performance ~2x
* Removed "Windows-based PC" from Computers area in Systems blade
* Removed option to "Turn off Controller" when using Big Button Controller
* Resync the Ring of Light pattern to the boot audio/animation
* Updated copyright dates for 2007


Let's get the biggest news out of the way for the videophiles: Xbox 360 now supports MPEG-4, which means the box now plays both DivX and XviD files without a hitch. 1UP tested almost every variation of the format possible, including high-definition content as high as 1080P. All the files ran flawlessly, though Microsoft told us there's no guarantee all formats will be compatible -- but we imagine most will.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Asher

Old Post 11-27-07 02:36 pm Click Here to See the Profile for DrSpike Click here to Send DrSpike a Private Message Find more posts by DrSpike Add DrSpike to your buddy list
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quote:
Originally posted by Asher
You know the markets are "special" when given a choice between two products, they make a different choice than I would.



Corrected.

That's incorrect, as the PS3 version of Assassin's Creed and COD4 are provably inferior.

yah know, its possible that PS3 is getting higher sales for AC and COD4 than 360 not because
A. They think the games are better on PS3 cause theyre idiots
or B. They think the game are better on PS3 cause all such comparisons are subjective

It could have something to do with installed bases, and the greater number of big sellers lately for 360 that are exclusive or PC/360 only, while PS3 exclusives havent sold well, so youd expect PS3 players to being buying multiplatform games in bigger numbers. Im assuming not that many folks in the markets quoted have both consoles.