mark fearing

Microsoft choosing to sell their crap console at a loss in no way makes them able to run a closed market. It’s a problem for their managers selling shit below cost, yes? The best option, don’t sell it below cost. And allow for the market to blossom with alternative stores and payment systems.

highframerate said:

freeassociate2 said:

So don’t sell at a loss, and produce enough of them? (Instead of artificial shortages that are obvious ploys to boost desirability.)

The “robust and viable ecosystem for game developers" argument is such horseshit if you look at where indie developers are actually making money (or rather not making money…) Does anyone buy the idea that MS is soooooo into gaming that it loses billions of $$ on a passion project? (Or that that would be legal, given it’s duty to shareholders.) 

I’d argue that MS and others like it intentionally create the economic circumstances that make working for AAA studios the only sad “viable” option for most developers. The only people that are benefiting here are investors.  

If consoles weren't sold at a loss, they would cost 50% more and far fewer people would buy them. You folks don't understand: not very many people buy consoles. About 50 million XBox One consoles were sold over 7 years. That is probably about the number of Google Pixel phones that sold in that timeframe. And no, these shortages aren't artificial. First off, these shortages did not exist with the PS4, XBox One, PS3, XBox 360 etc. These shortages are due to TSMC being the only foundry capable of making an integrated SOC for these devices that don't overheat. This is the same TSMC that also can't fill all of Apple's orders, forcing Apple to prioritize iPhones over iPads, remember?
AMD's Zen 4 chips were supposed to launch in November 2021. At this rate AMD will consider themselves lucky if they launch in October 2022, and they have even had to shift some orders to Samsung, just as Intel - who will use TSMC's fabs for some orders in 2023 - considered doing and Nvidia did last year for Ampere GPUs.

The console business model is totally different from the mobile device one. Samsung alone sells more smartphones in 1 year than the entire console industry - Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft and the minor players - sells in an entire generation. Yes, the Nintendo Switch sells at a profit. But do you know why? The Nintendo Switch is actually the Nvidia Shield K1 Android tablet from 2015 running the Nintendo 3DS operating system (based on FreeBSD) along with some Android components and Nvidia software. The Nvidia Shield K1 tablet was $200 when it originally launched! 

I can see you bashing Microsoft - decades of hate I guess - but you realize that by doing this you are also trashing Sony, whose console costs the same, whose shortages are even worse, and who has nothing to do with these app store battles with Epic Games and regulators. The PlayStation is their last big money hardware product left. The iPod and iPhone killed off the Walkman, boom boxes and the other consumer audio products that were massive for them in the 80s and 90s. Streaming - and streaming boxes - killed off their VHS, DVD and Blu-ray line. They so badly botched their attempts to make Android devices that they don't even bother to distribute more than a few units outside Japan (iPhone 70% market share) anymore. Their TV line is being battered by South Korean and Chinese competition. They are also only "one among many" when it comes to selling headphones (where they get crushed by AirPods) and speakers (getting devalued by smart products from Amazon, Sonos, Google and Apple). And they ditched their PC line ages ago because they could no longer compete with HP, Dell, Lenovo and Apple (Toshiba made the same decision). 

If you have some business plan or strategy where Sony could make $200 per unit on the PS5 and still sell enough to make money selling $70 copies of the Spider-Man game go ahead and share it. My guess is that you don't, and you don't care what happens to Sony or the console market so long as Apple gets to keep doing whatever Apple wants. You are probably ROOTING for the console makers to fail so Apple could take their place. Just as pretty much everyone on this site was rooting for Nintento to fail 5 years ago so Apple could buy them and make Mario, Link, Pokemon etc. exclusives on Apple TV (so that people would actually start buying them), iPads and iPhones.