$99 XBox?

[rolenta]

On CNN.com:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/28/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm?cnn=yes

[kai123]

They are dropping $80 off the price!!! That is crazy I would just drop to $120. That would still put it at great price point compared to sony.

[christianscott27]

i've been waiting for this :)

having been "burned" on paying the dreamcast launch price i've learned to wait on consoles. i have no love or hate for microsoft but to their credit i'd say they've become a solid preformer in the console biz. i might even buy it $129, and by now all of early titles i wanted will be fairly cheap.

[Crush Crawfish]

This is great! I've been putting off buying an Xbox for a long time, but I'd definitely buy one at $99!

[Flack]

Looks like the Gamecube price drop over last Thanksgiving weekend caught someone's attention.

[zmweasel]

N/A

[buttasuperb]

Now everyone will be running teh romz on xbocks.

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[hezeuschrist]

That's still 6 months out, if it happens. I've been waiting for a price drop to pick one up, but I dropped over $900 on an impulse computer buy... so I HAVE to wait until it drops to $99 now ;)

[Flack]

But showing your hand a year before the industry's 500 lb. gorilla does carries a significant amount of risk. Just ask Sega, which tried doing that with the Dreamcast – and got booted from the hardware business as a result. Gamers looked at what the Dreamcast could do and were generally impressed – but decided to save their dollars for the PS2, since they considered it a sure bet.

Anyone here disagree with that assessment?

I think what killed the Dreamcast was its horrible timing. When it came out, PSX games were still being released. There's not much incentive to buy something new when you're happy with what you've got -- unless you're one of those "buy everything when it comes out" types of people. To make matters worse, only a year later the big guns began releasing their nextgen consoles, which is when all those "buy everything when it comes out" people jumped ship. So basically what they released was a really nice stepping stone.

While everyone at DP is a freak and owns multiple nextgen gaming consoles, about half of my coworkers own one nextgen gaming console, and the other half don't own one at all. I think I'm the only one here that owns more than one. If one is coming out a year before the other, there are three purchasing scenarios:

1) Buy the first console. Enjoy it so much that you don't buy the 2nd one.
2) Buy the first console. Tire of it and buy the 2nd console when it comes out.
3) Don't buy the first console, thinking that the 2nd console will be better.

[tynstar]

For $99 I might by another X-Box because I think mine is slowly dying.

[SoulBlazer]

Heck yes, I most defentily WOULD get a XBox for $99 -- maybe even $129, if enough good games came out for it.

And I agree with that statement about Sega. I think one of the biggest problems Sega had over the years was releasing good systems just too EARLY and then having them surpassed by other companies launches.

The last line confused me, though -- was he talking about Microsoft or Nintendo? They are BOTH HQ'd in Redmond.

(Where is Sony's USA base, anyway?)

[dave2236]

I'd be happier if they came out with a good game ....haven't bought an X-box game since Star Wars KOTR

[zmweasel]

N/A

[Packerfan66]

I might pick up one just for the Sega games. I never was a big fan of Sega until I started playing the Dreamcast. Now I've kinda become a Sega Fan boy. Hmm i might also pick up the great games later because there really isn't to many anyway.

[Kejoriv]

That is good news. But, I bought from around launch day. And I still play the crap out of the thing.

[Ed Oscuro]

Now everyone will be running teh romz on xbocks.

woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Have you xbocken yu0r romzz today? :P

Nah, I'd get one for Ninja Gaiden and ...and Halo 2, yep, that's it! Really, right now the only title on it I'm interested in is Ninja Gaiden...hmm...

[SoulBlazer]

That's also a game I'm VERY eager in readint reviews on and seeing in action. Combined with a price cut it just might convience me to get a XBox.

[TheRedEye]

To make matters worse, only a year later the big guns began releasing their nextgen consoles, which is when all those "buy everything when it comes out" people jumped ship.

Oh, you mean Phantom's officially-stated target audience?

[hezeuschrist]

To make matters worse, only a year later the big guns began releasing their nextgen consoles, which is when all those "buy everything when it comes out" people jumped ship.

Oh, you mean Phantom's officially-stated target audience?

ZING!

[RCM]

zmweasel wrote:
Quote:
But showing your hand a year before the industry's 500 lb. gorilla does carries a significant amount of risk. Just ask Sega, which tried doing that with the Dreamcast – and got booted from the hardware business as a result. Gamers looked at what the Dreamcast could do and were generally impressed – but decided to save their dollars for the PS2, since they considered it a sure bet.


Anyone here disagree with that assessment?

I disagree with that statement 100%. I think what led to Sega's downfall has much more to do with the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn. After those systems were released there was a sort of stigma about Sega reminiscent of Atari back in the late 80's and early 90's. Sega was though of as the company that put out systems year after year that nobody liked or supported for long. PS was the cool system. I think most hardcore gamers were very impressed by the Dreamcast. I think Sony was too. I suspect that part of the reason the PS2 hardware is so infamous is b/c Sony pulled a "Sega." When the PS was first demoed Sega was so impressed (by the PS) and embarrassed by their hardware (Saturn) that they quickly went back and threw in more chips and processors to make the Saturn more powerful. When they threw in the extra power they also threw in the extra trouble of developing for it. Like I said, I believe Sony did the same thing by throwing together a system.
To say that the reason Sega was booted was b/c they came out first is laughable. Sony had early success b/c of hype and not quality. Even the titles that are generally considered to be their best at launch (Madden, SSX) had graphic problems. Esp. SSX. I don't think the DC was such a failure. Had Microsoft put out the DC instead of Sega it might be around today. The DC did sell pretty well. It sold millions and millions of units worldwide. It couldn't match the PS2 but no system besides the GB and GBA have been able to. I really hope that the next "war" has better balance then the 32bit/64bit and 64bit/128bit wars.

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[crashdummycow01]

Flack PSX is still releasing games :P

anywayz..

McNealy also believes Microsoft will launch its next generation console in late 2005 – a year earlier than has been previously rumored. That would put the Xbox 2 on store shelves up to a full year before Sony's PlayStation 3.

so ps3 isnt launching until late 2006?? thought they were all releasing next year..

[Ed Oscuro]

zmweasel wrote:
Quote:
But showing your hand a year before the industry's 500 lb. gorilla does carries a significant amount of risk. Just ask Sega, which tried doing that with the Dreamcast – and got booted from the hardware business as a result. Gamers looked at what the Dreamcast could do and were generally impressed – but decided to save their dollars for the PS2, since they considered it a sure bet.


Anyone here disagree with that assessment?

I disagree with that statement 100%. I think what led to Sega's downfall has much more to do with the Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn.


Sony had early success b/c of hype and not quality.

So, which is it? If Sony's hype was to blame, then it's true that gamers considered the PS2 a sure bet and saved up for it.

No, I agree with the article again. A lot of folks are going to say "the PS3 is going to be better because of (pick your favorite), and I want to get the new games (because this old one's gonna wear out eventually), but still be able to play my old ones.

That works even better this time around, 'cuz you've got the whole PlayStation library PLUS the PS2 library. If that's not impressive, I don't know what is. They've got what, more games out for the system than the GBA does if you include its legacy titles? Wow.

[RCM]

Ed Oscuro Wrote:

So, which is it? If Sony's hype was to blame, then it's true that gamers considered the PS2 a sure bet and saved up for it.

To answer your question, both. That's why I wrote it. Sega's hardware problems started with those systems (sega cd, 32x, saturn). It ended with the early and continuing domination of the PS2. I thought that was pretty clear. I am not denying the fact that the PS2 sold well or people saved for it. Of course they did. The article makes it sound like everyone passed up the DC though which is false. Gamers did not just pass on the DC and go to the PS2. Over 300,000 people (closer to 400,000 actually) on 9/9/99 picked up a DC. So again, I disagreed with the statements made in the article. There are other factors that contributed to Sega's downfall of course. Too many that I care to list. Hope that clears that up Ed!

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[hu6800]

On CNN.com:

http://money.cnn.com/2004/01/28/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm?cnn=yes


yeah they been talkin bout that for a year now..
the're supposed to make a ps1 sized playstation 2 as well.

[Ed Oscuro]

The point was that you actually end up agreeing with that statement to a great degree. How much do you disagree with it now, especially as Microsoft has had relatively good success penetrating the game market in the States so far, and thus the past failures argument doesn't apply..?

I can't say whether 300-400K people picked up a Dreamcast that day. If Sega had all these marks against their console, why did so many people buy it? Even so, it looks like developers saw a clear choice (and gamers as well) when the PS2 came out. If they already had one, they must not have bought many games for it.

[RCM]

Ed-
I am not agreeing with that statement. Get it out of your mind. The point is that the failure of Sega runs deeper then the PS2 (the 500 lb gorilla). It runs deeper then just being out first. But, the PS2 did contribute to Sega's failure (PS2 hype). The point is that Sega had very different circumstances it was facing then Microsoft. Like money that it lost from sega cd, 32x, and Saturn. Get it? And money it was losing every year. So to make a statement like the writer (i forget his name) did (showing your hand a year before the industry's 500 lb. gorilla does carries a significant amount of risk) and then make examples using Sega was wrong. I disagree with him. I don't think it had much to do with risk coming out 2 years before the PS2 (japan) as it did with Sega just being Sega with all its problems as Ive already said. There is tons of risk entering the hardware market at anytime. I acknowledge that at least. By the way, the DC sold over 300,000 units its first day and about 10 days into its life cycle sold approx. 514,000 units and it hit 1,000,000 units sold by the end of November (all US numbers).

THE ONE, THE ONLY- RCM

[Stamp Mcfury]

Heck I'd buy a Xbox for $99 If nothing else it would be cool to run emulation on it.