Microsoft has lost over 4 billion dollars on the XBox and 360. The only game that has made money for them is Halo 3. Microsoft has publicly stated that they only expect to be generating a profit in 2008.
The Wii has already over taken the total userbase of the 360, the PS3 is starting to catch up and both of those consoles were released a year after Microsoft.
Plus the 360 is dying a slow death in Japan where even the PS2 is outselling it on monthly basis.
What I meant was the sale price of the 360 covers the cost of the hardware.
It's much worse for Sony.
Don't be confused by sales volumes. They have nothing to do with profitability. Nintendo could sell a half of what Sony sell and *still* make more money.
Carni: your logic is short-sighed. If Sony can use the PS3 as a lever to move Blu-ray, the benefits are vast. The CD has been going-on for almost thirty years, and to great benefit to Sony.
Sony has traditionally succeeded by introducing new formats and then profiting from the ongoing business that follows. CD and DVD were great examples. Minidisk and UMD not so much.
The Playstation brand was one of the strongest on a planet. So Sony could have bundled up a box of horse-poop and still sold a few million units.
Amazingly that is exactly what happened. Look at Sony's financials. The iceberg has been struck and she's going down by the head. The iceberg was Nintendo.
What I meant was the sale price of the 360 covers the cost of the hardware.
It doesn't. Nintendo is the only one who is making a profit from hardware sales alone. The 360 is still being sold as a loss leader. Plus Microsoft have estimated that they have spent roughly 1 billion dollars on fixing bricked XBoxes.
Quote:
It's much worse for Sony.
Yup - those Cell processors certainly aren't cheap
Quote:
Don't be confused by sales volumes. They have nothing to do with profitability. Nintendo could sell a half of what Sony sell and *still* make more money.
Sales volumes are important because they determine which console is the market leader, and the market leader is what publishers want to put their games on. Because Sony and Microsoft make their money on licensing games, the only way to make a profit is by getting publishers to go with their platform. The 360 was the market leader and that's why there are more games on that platform.
Nintendo (and Apple) are smart enough to generate a profit from hardware sales alone - they don't need to rely on software sales to the same degree. It helps that Nintendo (and Apple) make some of the best software for their own platform.
SONY and Apple don't get along well. SONY got gashed by the iPod and has been a complete prick with regards to Movies and iTunes.
Apple has no interest in being a PS3 partner.
Unless Apple suddenly released a world beater Gaming SDK and System the idea that a PS3 and Apple OS X being together plainly shows you need to work at Apple or SONY and learn how business relationships are forged.
Get used to the AppleTV expansion and more standard consumer electronics for High Definition Audio/Video.
You guys have good points about game consoles but what is Apple to do about gaming? Do they partner with someone, rely on Boot Camp for PC games, hope native OS X games continue to grow, or jump into the living room with their own media center/game console/Apple TV? It's the billion dollar question everybody is wondering about.
While I don't know for sure if OS X is a good thing on the PS3, it is at least worth a good look. I wish Apple would do something serious for gaming because that is their main weakness. Jumping into the console battle doesn't seem to make sense seeing how MS and Sony lose so much money, but Apple cannot ignore gaming either.
Nobody really knows how much MS and Sony make or lose on consoles. I am sure both companies disguise this info because it is of strategic value to both companies. Showing a weakness makes the competitor stronger and makes developers doubt the longevity of the platform. Nor do we know the long term effects of these battles. So there is no point arguing too strongly about it now.
What about Apple buying up game developers to get their technology and then market the games on all the platforms, including the Mac? Just like Apple has Xcode for developing universal apps that can then run on multiple platforms, why not start at the beginning of the chain and develop a universal platform system that can be used for universal games? Therefore Apple can ensure they get the latest games because they own the game company.
If the game companies are profitable now, they should be under Apple too.
It doesn't. Nintendo is the only one who is making a profit from hardware sales alone. The 360 is still being sold as a loss leader. Plus Microsoft have estimated that they have spent roughly 1 billion dollars on fixing bricked XBoxes.
Sales volumes are important because they determine which console is the market leader, and the market leader is what publishers want to put their games on. Because Sony and Microsoft make their money on licensing games, the only way to make a profit is by getting publishers to go with their platform. The 360 was the market leader and that's why there are more games on that platform.
Nintendo (and Apple) are smart enough to generate a profit from hardware sales alone - they don't need to rely on software sales to the same degree. It helps that Nintendo (and Apple) make some of the best software for their own platform.
While they did lose heaps of money repairing the damn things, mostly because of the extended warranty, Microsoft is indeed making money on the consoles, and has been for at least for a year.
The 'market leader' is not necessarily where the 'most profitable market' is. The 360 may have a small lead on sales (though I wouldn't count on it anymore), the Wii is far less expensive to develop for, meaning publisher get far more profit on it. Just about every publisher out there has admitted they underestimated it, and will be putting more games on it in the future.
If Wii sold 5 million units, and 360, 10, publishers would be no more likely to put the games on the Xbox than the Wii, purely because they know sales volume isn't everything. Besides which, you also have to look at something like the console:game attachment rate/ratio.
While they did lose heaps of money repairing the damn things, mostly because of the extended warranty, Microsoft is indeed making money on the consoles, and has been for at least for a year.
The 'market leader' is not necessarily where the 'most profitable market' is. The 360 may have a small lead on sales (though I wouldn't count on it anymore), the Wii is far less expensive to develop for, meaning publisher get far more profit on it. Just about every publisher out there has admitted they underestimated it, and will be putting more games on it in the future.
If Wii sold 5 million units, and 360, 10, publishers would be no more likely to put the games on the Xbox than the Wii, purely because they know sales volume isn't everything. Besides which, you also have to look at something like the console:game attachment rate/ratio.
The X360 didn't start make a profit until the past two quarters. It's been a long negative.
What about Apple buying up game developers to get their technology and then market the games on all the platforms, including the Mac? Just like Apple has Xcode for developing universal apps that can then run on multiple platforms, why not start at the beginning of the chain and develop a universal platform system that can be used for universal games? Therefore Apple can ensure they get the latest games because they own the game company.
If the game companies are profitable now, they should be under Apple too.
Apple has a sizable war-chest for this sort of acquisition. My guess is that they looked at the busines, ran the figures and went... nah!
Apple *should* have bought Alias Wavefront. When it was for sale. A bargain for only $150m, Apple could have acquired Maya.
Suddenly Macs would be a preferred platform in almost every game studio in the planet, it would have been a smart way of changing attitudes towards the Mac.
I was reading these other forums, and this guy was talking about how he said his cousin was a programmer or something, and how he worked for Apple and that OSX was going to be sold to run on the PS3. Possibly announced this January. Obviously I'm going to be a bit skeptical, but in some ways it makes sense. And in some it doesn't. But a while back, an article was posted here at AI about how it was possible and might happen.
I think it would be amazing.
Thoughts?
It would be awesome if Sony and Apple could work together on something like that.
Apple could increase Sony's market share by adding blu-ray drives to macs, and in return Sony could increase Apple's market share by adding OS X version for PS3. Could be sweet.
Good point. I think, though, that the Autodesk purchase was kind of an ambush that transpired before Apple could react. Their loss.
Alias was looking for a buyer for months. I would have bought it myself, but I looked down the back of the sofa, and the spare-change and furry toffee came up short.
But I supposed no-one would have guessed Autodesk. That would have been crazy!
Good point. I think, though, that the Autodesk purchase was kind of an ambush that transpired before Apple could react. Their loss.
Yes but purchasing Autodesk would not only make Apple the defacto in the gaming environment for the visual aspect but it would make them instantly a big platform in the Architecture, CAD/CAM worlds of Engineering.
They have more than enough money to absorb the Autodesk purchase.
Yes but purchasing Autodesk would not only make Apple the defacto in the gaming environment for the visual aspect but it would make them instantly a big platform in the Architecture, CAD/CAM worlds of Engineering.
They have more than enough money to absorb the Autodesk purchase.
Problem is that Apple isn't likely to buy a company whose largest chunk of revenue comes from dinosaur apps that would cost shit-tons of money to redesign for mac, and whose market is likely to be stuck with Windows for the forseeable future.
Problem is that Apple isn't likely to buy a company whose largest chunk of revenue comes from dinosaur apps that would cost shit-tons of money to redesign for mac, and whose market is likely to be stuck with Windows for the forseeable future.
Maybe.
The only bit of the Autodesk portfolio that I can see would be useful to Apple is Maya. It has a Unix heritage and the Mac version is up to speed. The worst part of Maya is a incredibly messy user interface where there are always five or six ways to do the same thing. And there are menus within dialog boxes, within popups within trays. A few weeks with the human interface gestapo would do wonders for that software.
The only bit of the Autodesk portfolio that I can see would be useful to Apple is Maya. It has a Unix heritage and the Mac version is up to speed. The worst part of Maya is a incredibly messy user interface where there are always five or six ways to do the same thing. And there are menus within dialog boxes, within popups within trays. A few weeks with the human interface gestapo would do wonders for that software.
C.
The DXF standard and it's many apps wouldn't be as difficult to move to Cocoa as you think. I've seen such development first hand in house at NeXT and Apple. It's much easier when you have the right personnel and Apple has it in spades.
What Apple could then do is open up DXF/DWF and more and extend it to the entire FSF/FOSS Community spurring extended growth in areas like SVG and much more.
Apple would then introduce best-of-breed applications to leverage this open standard.
DXF and other "Dinosaurs" as you call them are only in this position due to Autodesk not having the vision nor the technical talent to pull it off.
This is the first OS X licensing scheme that has actually made some sense to me.
It makes sense because gaming is a big phenomenon that the Mac has been essentially shut out of. Sure, we get crumbs and the occasional big app from someone who thought it was the right thing to do, but that's not adequate.
It makes sense because Sony is ailing, and ailing companies take risks. See also: Cingular/AT&T.
It makes sense because Cell is a beast to program for, but Apple just happens to be an old hand at math coprocessors with a huge portfolio of Core libraries that make it easy, even transparent, to efficiently delegate work to whatever processing power happens to be lying around. In real time.
It makes sense because by turning OS X and Cocoa into the development environment for the PS, the Mac is no longer shut out of gaming.
It doesn't hurt that it would mark a return to the PPC. It's in Apple's interest to remind Intel that they're not married, and it will keep Apple's cross-platform chops up.
This might not bear fruit until the PS4.
Or, alternately, someone in Apple Engineering ported OS X to the PS3 as a research project, and it may never see the light of day. Or someone is pulling someone's leg.
Comments
No they're not.
Microsoft has lost over 4 billion dollars on the XBox and 360. The only game that has made money for them is Halo 3. Microsoft has publicly stated that they only expect to be generating a profit in 2008.
The Wii has already over taken the total userbase of the 360, the PS3 is starting to catch up and both of those consoles were released a year after Microsoft.
Plus the 360 is dying a slow death in Japan where even the PS2 is outselling it on monthly basis.
What I meant was the sale price of the 360 covers the cost of the hardware.
It's much worse for Sony.
Don't be confused by sales volumes. They have nothing to do with profitability. Nintendo could sell a half of what Sony sell and *still* make more money.
C.
Carni: your logic is short-sighed. If Sony can use the PS3 as a lever to move Blu-ray, the benefits are vast. The CD has been going-on for almost thirty years, and to great benefit to Sony.
Sony has traditionally succeeded by introducing new formats and then profiting from the ongoing business that follows. CD and DVD were great examples. Minidisk and UMD not so much.
The Playstation brand was one of the strongest on a planet. So Sony could have bundled up a box of horse-poop and still sold a few million units.
Amazingly that is exactly what happened. Look at Sony's financials. The iceberg has been struck and she's going down by the head. The iceberg was Nintendo.
C.
What I meant was the sale price of the 360 covers the cost of the hardware.
It doesn't. Nintendo is the only one who is making a profit from hardware sales alone. The 360 is still being sold as a loss leader. Plus Microsoft have estimated that they have spent roughly 1 billion dollars on fixing bricked XBoxes.
It's much worse for Sony.
Yup - those Cell processors certainly aren't cheap
Don't be confused by sales volumes. They have nothing to do with profitability. Nintendo could sell a half of what Sony sell and *still* make more money.
Sales volumes are important because they determine which console is the market leader, and the market leader is what publishers want to put their games on. Because Sony and Microsoft make their money on licensing games, the only way to make a profit is by getting publishers to go with their platform. The 360 was the market leader and that's why there are more games on that platform.
Nintendo (and Apple) are smart enough to generate a profit from hardware sales alone - they don't need to rely on software sales to the same degree. It helps that Nintendo (and Apple) make some of the best software for their own platform.
SONY and Apple don't get along well. SONY got gashed by the iPod and has been a complete prick with regards to Movies and iTunes.
Apple has no interest in being a PS3 partner.
Unless Apple suddenly released a world beater Gaming SDK and System the idea that a PS3 and Apple OS X being together plainly shows you need to work at Apple or SONY and learn how business relationships are forged.
Get used to the AppleTV expansion and more standard consumer electronics for High Definition Audio/Video.
While I don't know for sure if OS X is a good thing on the PS3, it is at least worth a good look. I wish Apple would do something serious for gaming because that is their main weakness. Jumping into the console battle doesn't seem to make sense seeing how MS and Sony lose so much money, but Apple cannot ignore gaming either.
Nobody really knows how much MS and Sony make or lose on consoles. I am sure both companies disguise this info because it is of strategic value to both companies. Showing a weakness makes the competitor stronger and makes developers doubt the longevity of the platform. Nor do we know the long term effects of these battles. So there is no point arguing too strongly about it now.
What about Apple buying up game developers to get their technology and then market the games on all the platforms, including the Mac? Just like Apple has Xcode for developing universal apps that can then run on multiple platforms, why not start at the beginning of the chain and develop a universal platform system that can be used for universal games? Therefore Apple can ensure they get the latest games because they own the game company.
If the game companies are profitable now, they should be under Apple too.
It doesn't. Nintendo is the only one who is making a profit from hardware sales alone. The 360 is still being sold as a loss leader. Plus Microsoft have estimated that they have spent roughly 1 billion dollars on fixing bricked XBoxes.
Sales volumes are important because they determine which console is the market leader, and the market leader is what publishers want to put their games on. Because Sony and Microsoft make their money on licensing games, the only way to make a profit is by getting publishers to go with their platform. The 360 was the market leader and that's why there are more games on that platform.
Nintendo (and Apple) are smart enough to generate a profit from hardware sales alone - they don't need to rely on software sales to the same degree. It helps that Nintendo (and Apple) make some of the best software for their own platform.
While they did lose heaps of money repairing the damn things, mostly because of the extended warranty, Microsoft is indeed making money on the consoles, and has been for at least for a year.
This is the prediction: http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/02/xb...price-by-2006/
And this is the fact: http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/6312/
The 'market leader' is not necessarily where the 'most profitable market' is. The 360 may have a small lead on sales (though I wouldn't count on it anymore), the Wii is far less expensive to develop for, meaning publisher get far more profit on it. Just about every publisher out there has admitted they underestimated it, and will be putting more games on it in the future.
If Wii sold 5 million units, and 360, 10, publishers would be no more likely to put the games on the Xbox than the Wii, purely because they know sales volume isn't everything. Besides which, you also have to look at something like the console:game attachment rate/ratio.
Titan10
::
Years ago...
While they did lose heaps of money repairing the damn things, mostly because of the extended warranty, Microsoft is indeed making money on the consoles, and has been for at least for a year.
This is the prediction: http://www.joystiq.com/2005/11/02/xb...price-by-2006/
And this is the fact: http://www.neoseeker.com/news/story/6312/
The 'market leader' is not necessarily where the 'most profitable market' is. The 360 may have a small lead on sales (though I wouldn't count on it anymore), the Wii is far less expensive to develop for, meaning publisher get far more profit on it. Just about every publisher out there has admitted they underestimated it, and will be putting more games on it in the future.
If Wii sold 5 million units, and 360, 10, publishers would be no more likely to put the games on the Xbox than the Wii, purely because they know sales volume isn't everything. Besides which, you also have to look at something like the console:game attachment rate/ratio.
The X360 didn't start make a profit until the past two quarters. It's been a long negative.
What about Apple buying up game developers to get their technology and then market the games on all the platforms, including the Mac? Just like Apple has Xcode for developing universal apps that can then run on multiple platforms, why not start at the beginning of the chain and develop a universal platform system that can be used for universal games? Therefore Apple can ensure they get the latest games because they own the game company.
If the game companies are profitable now, they should be under Apple too.
Apple has a sizable war-chest for this sort of acquisition. My guess is that they looked at the busines, ran the figures and went... nah!
Apple *should* have bought Alias Wavefront. When it was for sale. A bargain for only $150m, Apple could have acquired Maya.
Suddenly Macs would be a preferred platform in almost every game studio in the planet, it would have been a smart way of changing attitudes towards the Mac.
C.
I was reading these other forums, and this guy was talking about how he said his cousin was a programmer or something, and how he worked for Apple and that OSX was going to be sold to run on the PS3. Possibly announced this January. Obviously I'm going to be a bit skeptical, but in some ways it makes sense. And in some it doesn't. But a while back, an article was posted here at AI about how it was possible and might happen.
I think it would be amazing.
Thoughts?
It would be awesome if Sony and Apple could work together on something like that.
Apple could increase Sony's market share by adding blu-ray drives to macs, and in return Sony could increase Apple's market share by adding OS X version for PS3. Could be sweet.
Apple *should* have bought Alias Wavefront. When it was for sale. A bargain for only $150m, Apple could have acquired Maya.
Good point. I think, though, that the Autodesk purchase was kind of an ambush that transpired before Apple could react. Their loss.
Good point. I think, though, that the Autodesk purchase was kind of an ambush that transpired before Apple could react. Their loss.
Alias was looking for a buyer for months. I would have bought it myself, but I looked down the back of the sofa, and the spare-change and furry toffee came up short.
But I supposed no-one would have guessed Autodesk. That would have been crazy!
C.
Good point. I think, though, that the Autodesk purchase was kind of an ambush that transpired before Apple could react. Their loss.
Yes but purchasing Autodesk would not only make Apple the defacto in the gaming environment for the visual aspect but it would make them instantly a big platform in the Architecture, CAD/CAM worlds of Engineering.
They have more than enough money to absorb the Autodesk purchase.
Yes but purchasing Autodesk would not only make Apple the defacto in the gaming environment for the visual aspect but it would make them instantly a big platform in the Architecture, CAD/CAM worlds of Engineering.
They have more than enough money to absorb the Autodesk purchase.
Problem is that Apple isn't likely to buy a company whose largest chunk of revenue comes from dinosaur apps that would cost shit-tons of money to redesign for mac, and whose market is likely to be stuck with Windows for the forseeable future.
Maybe.
Problem is that Apple isn't likely to buy a company whose largest chunk of revenue comes from dinosaur apps that would cost shit-tons of money to redesign for mac, and whose market is likely to be stuck with Windows for the forseeable future.
Maybe.
The only bit of the Autodesk portfolio that I can see would be useful to Apple is Maya. It has a Unix heritage and the Mac version is up to speed. The worst part of Maya is a incredibly messy user interface where there are always five or six ways to do the same thing. And there are menus within dialog boxes, within popups within trays. A few weeks with the human interface gestapo would do wonders for that software.
C.
The PS3 is a dog-slow single CPU PPC machine - with six lighting-fast math processors.
If it ran OSX, it would be slower than a Mac Mini.
It isn't going to happen. Sony have enough on their plate trying to get games to run on this turkey. Never mind an OS.
C.
having run F@H on both, I beg to differ.
How exactly does six lighting-fast floating-point units help you to....
a) Run Folding at Home?
b) Playback DVDs?
c) Run OSX?
d) Run a video game?
The answers are...
a) Massively!
b) Amazingly!!
c) Err, Not very much.
d) Help! Anyone know Sony's engineering helpline?
C.
The only bit of the Autodesk portfolio that I can see would be useful to Apple is Maya. It has a Unix heritage and the Mac version is up to speed. The worst part of Maya is a incredibly messy user interface where there are always five or six ways to do the same thing. And there are menus within dialog boxes, within popups within trays. A few weeks with the human interface gestapo would do wonders for that software.
C.
The DXF standard and it's many apps wouldn't be as difficult to move to Cocoa as you think. I've seen such development first hand in house at NeXT and Apple. It's much easier when you have the right personnel and Apple has it in spades.
What Apple could then do is open up DXF/DWF and more and extend it to the entire FSF/FOSS Community spurring extended growth in areas like SVG and much more.
Apple would then introduce best-of-breed applications to leverage this open standard.
DXF and other "Dinosaurs" as you call them are only in this position due to Autodesk not having the vision nor the technical talent to pull it off.
It makes sense because gaming is a big phenomenon that the Mac has been essentially shut out of. Sure, we get crumbs and the occasional big app from someone who thought it was the right thing to do, but that's not adequate.
It makes sense because Sony is ailing, and ailing companies take risks. See also: Cingular/AT&T.
It makes sense because Cell is a beast to program for, but Apple just happens to be an old hand at math coprocessors with a huge portfolio of Core libraries that make it easy, even transparent, to efficiently delegate work to whatever processing power happens to be lying around. In real time.
It makes sense because by turning OS X and Cocoa into the development environment for the PS, the Mac is no longer shut out of gaming.
It doesn't hurt that it would mark a return to the PPC. It's in Apple's interest to remind Intel that they're not married, and it will keep Apple's cross-platform chops up.
This might not bear fruit until the PS4.
Or, alternately, someone in Apple Engineering ported OS X to the PS3 as a research project, and it may never see the light of day. Or someone is pulling someone's leg.