PS3 or XBOX360 - Which one floats your boat?

[dunlop]

On a side note though, I truly believe that MS is going to start gearing down in the next year or two and start prepping for their next system. Rumours are starting to come out that Sony wants to be first out of the gate this time, but I'm sure MS won't want that. And MS has already shown that they are willing to run a four year cycle, as with the 1st x-box, before they released their next one.

They dropped the XBOX because they were taking huge losses on it, specifically because of the hard drive. The got the market recognition they wanted and moved to the 360. This is why there was a HDD less SKU which is now paying off for them bigtime.

[eimaj]

MS has taken a massive loss with the 360 as well. Even though the new units are supposed to be more reliable, it will be very hard for them to recover all the costs from the all the downed units they had to fix or replace. And there is still the earlier versions that have yet to fail. I agree that the new lower priced 360 is selling well, but the profit margin for these units is still relatively small. The part that I believe that is making MS the most money is the Live subscriptions, and then software/peripherals sales. But as for the 360 itself, I don't think think they are making anything off of it. Which is also how Sony said they are working it as well. Selling the ps3 for little to no profit (maybe even a loss in the beginning) and making the money off of the games, controllers and other peripherals.

[Eluder]

That's nothing new though, the only company that is making money off the hardware is Nintendo. The gaming industry has always made its money off of the software and not the consoles themselves; now with Live, MS is also making money off their services. And also they are working with a 4 year life cycle. The next Xbox is slated for release late 2009.

[jaazzman]

the only company that is making money off the hardware is Nintendo

MS has been making a profit off the 360 hardware for quite some time now. As of Nov 2006 (couldnt find updated info) the production costs on a 360 was $323.00 for a profit of $75.70 on a $399 HD equipped unit. Obviously this will have changed over the past 2 years, however if they were making almost $80 two years ago, I would imagine this has increased, if only slightly, by this point.

The next Xbox is slated for release late 2009

Theres always rumours of the "next" machine coming out. I'm calling hooligans.

[MikeyP]

Originally Posted by Eluder

That's nothing new though, the only company that is making money off the hardware is Nintendo. The gaming industry has always made its money off of the software and not the consoles themselves; now with Live, MS is also making money off their services. And also they are working with a 4 year life cycle. The next Xbox is slated for release late 2009.

I think I would want to see something - anything - in the way of substantive evidence of this before I would give it any credence whatsoever. I might believe an "announcement" in 2009, but not a new console... no way. I think Dunlop is on the money in that the only reason the Xbox was a four-year console is MS would never get manufacturing costs down because their manufacturing model was all wrong. The manufacturing model for the 360 is completely different - instead of licensing parts from other manufacturers they custom-designed their own stuff.

The investment in the NXE and the new hardware (Jasper) with the onboard 256MB storage seems to indicate that the 360 may have more legs than that.

Sony has been touting the PS3 as a "10-year console", so I think it's possible MS has a few years to milk the 360 and still beat Sony to the punch to be the first to market console of the next generation.

As noted above the 360 has moved into profitability some time ago (though not sure what the price drop does for that).

[rsambuca]

Originally Posted by Eluder

That's nothing new though, the only company that is making money off the hardware is Nintendo. The gaming industry has always made its money off of the software and not the consoles themselves; now with Live, MS is also making money off their services. And also they are working with a 4 year life cycle. The next Xbox is slated for release late 2009.

Everything I have ever read, including interviews with MS division heads, indicated that they expected the 360 to have a much longer life cycle than the original. Do you have any credible references for this statement?

[moonturk]

Looks like the 360 did very well this past weekend. It outsold the PS3 3-1.

[eimaj]

Sony is going to take a beating this holiday season without a cheaper PS3, I don't understand why they wouldn't have kept and lowered the price of the 40gb in order to keep competitive pricing wise.

[Eluder]

Can't really say, but my source is an insider... not some joe schmo.

BTW, just cause the new Xbox may come out next year, doesn't mean the 360 is dead, look at Sony, they've been milking the PS2 for years. MS could potentially do the same with the 360 after the release of the Phenom.

[dignatec]

It takes more than a minute on my 350 standalone player to boot-up
and only a few seconds on the PS3.
The PS3 delivers DTS-HD and 7.1 surround sound,
my 350 doesn't.

So it might worth the 'extra' 120-150 $ to get the PS3 even
as a Blu-Ray player only. But once you have a PS3 in your hands,
who can only use it as a player only ?

I was thinking the exact same thing this weekend. I think I will buy the PS3 on boxing day (hopefuly it goes on sale). Boot time is very imp to me as I can't stand slow loading times. I also think that I may end up buying a few exclusive ps3 games in the future since I will have the system after all. Hard to not buy ANY games for the ps3 if I do own one.

Good post showing a clear benefit of the ps3 vs a stand alone. Thx.

[MikeyP]

What is a 350? Some kind of cheap Xbox 360 knockoff? Shoulda sprung for the extra 10... maybe that's the problem

[DevsterC]

Originally Posted by Eluder

Can't really say, but my source is an insider... not some joe schmo.

Don't forget to come back and name or call out your source if (or more likely, when) they're wrong. I think they are.

The 360 was formally announced in mid-May 2005 for a launch of late-November 2005 (US thanksgiving that year was the 24th of Nov). IF your source has credibility, the announcement timeline would be roughly the same, six months ahead. So we'd hear by mid-may 2009 for a launch date around the 29th of Nov/09, for example. And it tosses the original xbox timeline completely - it was announced in 1999, well before it hit the streets in 2001.

And of course, that basically discounts ALL the careful leaks/hints that companies strategically put out there before a console release. For example, in October we had hints around the "forward compatibility" and there were hints of a 2010-2012 release range for the console. When Peter Moore was still at MS, he was asked in Spring'07 by EGM about the next xbox, and indicated they were "looking into what kind of CPUs will be available in 2011-2012". Robbie Bach was interviewed in june of this year, and in a question about hardware updates to the current console generation, he said in part "it’s still early in the generation". I guess you could argue he was referring to the new 'Jasper' 360 hardware revision that's in the wild now, with the 256mb of internal memory and a smaller 150w power supply, but early is early.

What Sony has done with the PS2 is irrelevant - they're not the same company and have a different mindset. MS demonstrated a strong preference to shift platforms as fast as possible when they set a 'cap' on the number of old xboxes they would release, and discontinued it in 2006, after five years of life. They also demonstrated with the marketplace delisting fiasco that they haven't mastered the so-called "long tail" side of things.

[NeoGoglu]

What is a 350? Some kind of cheap Xbox 360 knockoff? Shoulda sprung for the extra 10... maybe that's the problem

The 350 is in fact the BDPS-350, a Blu-ray player from Sony, maybe
the latest and cheapest blu-ray player available.

[rsambuca]

Originally Posted by Eluder

Can't really say, but my source is an insider... not some joe schmo.

BTW, just cause the new Xbox may come out next year, doesn't mean the 360 is dead, look at Sony, they've been milking the PS2 for years. MS could potentially do the same with the 360 after the release of the Phenom.

I think we will have to bet a virtual dollar on that one. I don't think there will be a new XBox in 2009.

[Eluder]

Originally Posted by DevsterC

Don't forget to come back and name or call out your source if (or more likely, when) they're wrong. I think they are.

The 360 was formally announced in mid-May 2005 for a launch of late-November 2005 (US thanksgiving that year was the 24th of Nov). IF your source has credibility, the announcement timeline would be roughly the same, six months ahead. So we'd hear by mid-may 2009 for a launch date around the 29th of Nov/09, for example. And it tosses the original xbox timeline completely - it was announced in 1999, well before it hit the streets in 2001.

And of course, that basically discounts ALL the careful leaks/hints that companies strategically put out there before a console release. For example, in October we had hints around the "forward compatibility" and there were hints of a 2010-2012 release range for the console. When Peter Moore was still at MS, he was asked in Spring'07 by EGM about the next xbox, and indicated they were "looking into what kind of CPUs will be available in 2011-2012". Robbie Bach was interviewed in june of this year, and in a question about hardware updates to the current console generation, he said in part "it’s still early in the generation". I guess you could argue he was referring to the new 'Jasper' 360 hardware revision that's in the wild now, with the 256mb of internal memory and a smaller 150w power supply, but early is early.

What Sony has done with the PS2 is irrelevant - they're not the same company and have a different mindset. MS demonstrated a strong preference to shift platforms as fast as possible when they set a 'cap' on the number of old xboxes they would release, and discontinued it in 2006, after five years of life. They also demonstrated with the marketplace delisting fiasco that they haven't mastered the so-called "long tail" side of things.

There is always the possibility of being wrong of course, but that's the info he has been given, and he already has seen the new console in action.