A Negative view of Xbox's future?

Admiral Ackbar

Admiral Ackbar

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Here's an interesting opinion column by John Dvorak over at PC Magazine. To be honest, while I find his articles entertaining, he also seems to write for the distinct purpose of sntertainment over substance. It's mostly a MS/xbox bashing article. But maybe he makes some valid points. At least it's a good read.

The Future of Microsoft's Xbox
 
Why does this PC guy feel the need to write about Xbox? Didn't someone else at that magazine make a similar article bashing Microsoft? Weird. I guess there really isn't much to talk about as far as PC gaming.
 
I stopped reading pc magazines because of things like this. PC guys feel this need to constanly point out that consoles will fail. I guess they need to feel good about themselves.
 
People who see Microsoft hold off the sport games for a year, and cancel True Fantasy Online think that Microsoft is showing weakness. The truth is Microsoft tries not to put out crappy games. Microsoft saw that the world did not need another MMORG like True Fantasy Online. Look at Crimson Skies Microsoft fired the development team leaders and delayed the release until they had a great game.
 
You guys do have a point, as there seems to be a lot of negativity among the columnists at pcmag. Here's another article by a different columnist who basically says the same thing. He argues that Microsofts hardware track record is so iffy that it threatens to curtail the xbox.

A Bad Hardware Track Record
 
it's just one man's opinion....i like gaming on both console and PC and hope neither fails!

he should be writing an positive article on how both could co-exist better rather then predicting the demise of one or another
 
I hate to say it but Microsoft will continue pumping money into the Xbox brand name until it becomes #1. Maybe not with Xbox2, but rest assured they will eventually take over the market. When MS chooses an arena to jump in, they eventually come out on top. This is coming from a guy who owns a Gamecube.
 
[quote name='BigNick']I think the pc guys are worried consoles will beat them.[/quote]


Exactly. I get two different PC game mags just for the hell of it (my computer sucks), and sometimes--no--all the time, they act as if consoles are like the little brothers. Like they acknowledge the consoles' success, but they act like it's nothing and PC still reins over all else. You know what? fuck this motherfucker, I hope he rots in hell...
 
[quote name='XboxMaster'][quote name='BigNick']I think the pc guys are worried consoles will beat them.[/quote]


Exactly. I get two different PC game mags just for the hell of it (my computer sucks), and sometimes--no--all the time, they act as if consoles are like the little brothers. Like they acknowledge the consoles' success, but they act like it's nothing and PC still reins over all else. You know what? shaq-fu this mothershaq-fuer, I hope he rots in hell...[/quote]

yea, i dont play many pc games...but consoles i think are the way to go...b/c u dont have to constantly upgrade them in order to play a game...
 
The Xbox would have failed had it been made by any company other than Microsoft. M$ isn't gonna give up on the video game market until it wins, and it has the war chest to back it up.

It'll be interesting to see how the next couple of years pan out. Nintendo has a huge war chest too, but I don't know if the video game market can support 3 consoles.
 
[quote name='BigBen']The Xbox would have failed had it been made by any company other than Microsoft. M$ isn't gonna give up on the video game market until it wins, and it has the war chest to back it up.

It'll be interesting to see how the next couple of years pan out. Nintendo has a huge war chest too, but I don't know if the video game market can support 3 consoles.[/quote]

3 billion dollars in losses and counting.

That war chest is starting to dissipate at an alarming rate.
 
Just a random bit of info about MS, while they have nothing to date but losses, in regards to the Xbox. MS generates $1 BILLION a month in free cash flow from ongoing operations. Their cash horde is not shrinking at all. Although it will take a hit in July when MS announces either a large 1 time dividend payout or a dramatic rise in the ongoing dividend rate.

Regardless, the Xbox losses are not hurting MS cash position or the growth of the company.
 
the 1st article generates an alarming amount of poor reasoning- the rationale behind 3d0's failure, or the rise of the original playstation- no hype! if any company knows hype sony is the one
i think the xbox has done a tremendous job from coming out of nowhere, not as good as sony did with its ps, but better than sega with their master system certainly
there presence so far, is good for the video game industry as they pump money and talent into and as far as acquisitions go, ms is one of the best companies in acquiring another and allowing that developer to maintain its identity (as opposed to some other giants- ea headsup-
but ms will not stay in video games forever if they dont start seeing some type of return- it doesnt matter how much money you have - just throwing it into a pit is a philosophy that eventually runs your company into the ground and the impression i have gotten is gates is not a gungho gamer who has some personal stake/interest in the xbox from a purely gaming perspective
 
[quote name='BillyBob29']Just a random bit of info about MS, while they have nothing to date but losses, in regards to the Xbox. MS generates $1 BILLION a month in free cash flow from ongoing operations. Their cash horde is not shrinking at all. Although it will take a hit in July when MS announces either a large 1 time dividend payout or a dramatic rise in the ongoing dividend rate.

Regardless, the Xbox losses are not hurting MS cash position or the growth of the company.[/quote]

Link. If this were true, they would have a lot more than 50-60 billion, assuming the 1 billion/month cash flow.
 
[quote name='BigNick']I think the pc guys are worried consoles will beat them.[/quote]


I don't see any of that in this article, seems his belief is that only 2 consoles will 'thrive' in the next generation and that he believe Sony and Nintendo will be it.
 
[quote name='Sartori'][quote name='BillyBob29']Just a random bit of info about MS, while they have nothing to date but losses, in regards to the Xbox. MS generates $1 BILLION a month in free cash flow from ongoing operations. Their cash horde is not shrinking at all. Although it will take a hit in July when MS announces either a large 1 time dividend payout or a dramatic rise in the ongoing dividend rate.

Regardless, the Xbox losses are not hurting MS cash position or the growth of the company.[/quote]

Link. If this were true, they would have a lot more than 50-60 billion, assuming the 1 billion/month cash flow.[/quote]

I will try and find a link but that info came from an analyst during MS last conference call and was repeated on Kudlow and Cramer. His numbers showed that based on MS own guidance, they are creating roughly $1 billion per month in free cash flow. That extra free cash flow may be immediately used, hence the reason MS cash position remains around roughly 50 billion and is not declining.....even though the company is continually investing in new ventures and partnerships.
 
[quote name='repetske']Why does this PC guy feel the need to write about Xbox? Didn't someone else at that magazine make a similar article bashing Microsoft? Weird. I guess there really isn't much to talk about as far as PC gaming.[/quote]


He could feel the need because-- I might be wrong but Microsoft has just a a bit of influence in the PC world. If he truly believes his theory that the Xbox is just a money pit and that MS won't stop out of pride, well than (if his theory is true ((which I doubt)) than it would be very appropriate to write about for the MS shareholders and companies that are thinking of doing business ventures with Microsoft in the future.
 
I'd like to see the Xbox fail just to show Gates he can just barg in and 0wn everything he wants, the universe just dosent work that way. I keep thinking at some point M$ is going to look at all the money they loose on Xbx ass oppoesed to how much they make ans start thinking it's really a pointless effort and that they could be focusing their energies elsewhere on products that make more for the money they spend and just say "you know what? forget this xbox stuff." It wouldnt be unheard of... another possible path is to just develope the system and hand the reigns over to another company like sega to handle it's gaming devision, this way Sega becomes a hardware company by association without having to spill the millions of bucks each year on hardware. (of course this'd probably end in Sega being completly 0wned be M$...)

As for PC verses Console, I prefer to think of it as apples and oranges. I play Cosole games for something I can boot up and be playing in less than ten seconds and play for 10 hours, PC games are things I play inbetween moments on the internet or using photoshop, I dont turn on my computer expecting to invest that much in a PC game. That's not to say every game on the PC is the same or that every player feels the same but most people play either one for different reasons than the other.
 
MS has enough money to support the XBox (and it's sequels) for another 70+ years as long as they continue to profit in other forms. I honestly could careless if MS buys out all the compeition they possibly can get their hands on, It's just a matter of what they do with it. EA for example KILLED Westwood studios, who made Command and Conquer. IMHO C&C was the ONLY RTS that stood a chance against Warcraft 2 at launch, and now that Westwood has disbandoned Blizzard owns all. I just hope EA brightens up a bit and doesn't kill Time Splitters 3 or fire AKI after Def Jam 2 is released.

As for MS losing so much money on It's consoles and first party development, who hasn't? It's just MS is doing a very medicore job at decreasing the debt, but OVER TIME I feel it's pretty inevitable that MS will turn a profit. This is why MS is ditching alot of first party efforts that don't generate good sales and/or good ratings, because games that don't do well in the market aren't going to generate a profit. I wouldn't be suprised if MS makes the hard drive a seperate purchase from the XBox2, or requires you to pay even more for their next version of Live. In the end MS is going to make a profit, It's just a matter of how much people are willing to fork over to give them their profit.

This is just my opinion of course.
 
that guy usually has decent articles but that one he pulled out of his ass. Just because MS is losing money on the Xbox doesn't mean they will pull the plug. MS doesn't care about losing money. They want people to buy media players for their tvs and sooner or later that is what the newer xboxes(and ps3 or ps4) are eventually going to try do. MS saw sony making these game consoles and saw the potential to turn a TV in to a computer monitor. MS isn't going to quit, they want your pda, cell phone, game console, computer, fridge, and oven all to talk to each other. And the only way they are going to make that happen is by owning a market share of each catagory.
 
Hey, any of y'all MS haters ever thought that Bill just wants to be in every part of electronical life? Not to necessarily rule all aspects of computers, games, etc, but to be a part of everything. Actually--uh--MS rules!!!
 
I went through a period of feeling (like many here) anti-microsoft.. or to be cute micro$oft. But given the choice of a big company Sony or Xbox I'm going want the biggest company to be based in the states.
 
I have no problem with supporting an american company provided it can earn my respect...

That said, I have no love for the big box, it's redundant to me I had a PS2 a year before the xbox came out, it's not doing anything new that couldnt have been done with a PC. But at the point in all logic that any other company based in reality would have decided to go do something else, M$ Just thows more money at the issue.
 
the reason of Xbox games are being outselling by the PS2 games is simply because their games are not really, i should say, what a game should be. they don't understand, to me, it's completely reasonable. the article mentioned that the xbox games are selling especially bad in Japan, i think, generally in Asia, simply because their games are not what a game should be! For those gamers, who have been playing japanese games for their life, the quality, the style, the innovations, the immaginations and etc...are just what you won't find from the games style 'follower', or ideas 'stealer'. indeed, japan is the father of video games and sony PS2 games, in fact, should be selling way better than xbox, as expected. however, Xbox will not die, provided Microsoft is rich, but that's kinda pointless. oh well, there are still a few xbox games are cool, but then most of them aren't.
I guess microsoft should try to sort this problems out by understanding what video games should be (not what a PC game should be) instead of struggling in marketing strategries~ :wink:
 
xbox games arent selling well in japan, because in my opinion, the xbox games look like they're aimed more at americans.

The majority of xbox's games are FPS, but in my opinion they're damn good FPS.

The japanese like the more compact consoles, therefore xbox itself didnt sell all that great there..

i mean i didnt go over there and study them or anything, but i'm guessing they're more into rpg's... which xbox has a couple of, but of course sony has alot more of.


also i'd like to say .. America is the father of video games.. japan is like the son that learned from the father, and added its own style to it.
 
Like others have said one day MS is going to realize they spend way too much money on something that will never show them a profit. Even though they are the biggest comapny in the world, all their core talent that made the Xbox left. Granted they left it in a good position, but everytime my dad leaves a concrete company, they end up either going under or losing so much money that it becomes unprofitable. This may end up being the same situtation with Fries leaving. On top of that, MS used to have a very large stake in PC games and now they are down to less than a few PC game makers and a miniscule marketshare.

Eventually stockholders will make them exit the market if they follow the current trend and keep losing money. People do not operate in industries to lose money, certainly not one of the biggest companies in the world. They take loses and say they are building marketshare, when in actuality they pin themselves into a corner as the top dog in hardware(which is something Xbox fanboys love to tout). This is probably going to cause the next Xbox to follow the same trend of hardware that costs much more than the competition(SONY, SEGA, and Nintendo rarely had the top hardware in the field, and if they did it was only segments unlike MS). Even though you can say that hardware is not where you make money, if it costs you 431 dollars to make an Xbox and it retails for 299, you lose over 150 after retail gets there share. Considering that then the price dropped another 100 soon after, thats big losses and you gotta sell a ton of games to break even.

people are in business to make a profit, not to make their quaterly reports look bad. When they continue to look bad for a long time, something will have to give.

also if Bill Gates held as much power over the Xbox as people think, Fusion Frenzy 2 would have already come out
 
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