Xbox 360 and Gamestop - Frustation

LeHah said:
I don't think its so much "sound superior" as hes just smarter than you.
Click to expand...

I sincerely hope you're joking here. You actually want to bring this down to an elementary school "I'm smarter than you" debate?

I read another poster talking about flame-baiting in another thread, and I'm started to wonder if you guys don't get your kicks by trying to piss off new members and then start flame wars. Or do you just make a habit of insulting the intelligence of everyone who registers here?
 
Oh, no, you actually called it. There actually was a global CIC conspiracy against you this time - you signed your walking papers the day you trolled the 'costume' thread. I actually have had it in for you since then.

I don't have to think about it anymore, though.
 
Worf said:
Fact - Microsoft has ordered retailers in Norway that they *MUST* sell out of consoles *ON RELEASE DAY*. Otherwise they will not ship them units. (Other related facts - each store will get 20 units - 14 "premium", and 6 "basic", and each console must go out with at least 2 games each)
Click to expand...

This isn't anything unusual. All console manufacturers replenish sold units based on sell through. The details might be slightly different in this case, but this is standard practice.

Worf said:
Fact - Microsoft has put a bunch of retailers "on allocation". Which means that even if they have 100 units on preorder, they may only get 10. These retailers are almost all exclusively game stores and some electronics stores

Fact - Microsoft has more than enough capacity to fulfill all pre-orders. In fact, they've ordered their production lines *SLOWED DOWN* to crank out less Xbox 360's than if they were running full tilt.
Click to expand...

This is completely false. The Gizmodo article misinterpreted and editorialized the news release referenced below. "Microsoft’s Chief Financial Officer Chris Liddell said there wouldn’t be a big initial spike and promised that the software giant would be able to ship between 4.5 and 5.5 million Xbox 360 consoles by the end of the business year to June 2006." is the quote in question. This is exactly in line with what I was saying earlier. Gizmodo incorrectly takes "no big initial spike" and alters it to mean "going to slow production." That's not what it means at all. All manufacturers have to balance their holiday needs with the monthly capacity of their facilities. If they have excess capacity to facilitate holiday demand, that means they'll need to lay off workers and hold wasted infrastructure during the rest of the year. So they have to strike a good balance. Microsoft has the resources in place to build about 400,000-500,000 a month. They've been manufacturing 360s for several months, and we'll see all those at launch (which even the Gizmodo text confirms). The actual monthly capacity will not (and can't practically) be spiked beyond the 400/500k figure, but that figure will be held constant to meet the fiscal year target they set. This is what the article says and what Gizmodo misreads.


Worf said:
Now, taking the fact that Microsoft has slowed their production lines down, plus that the Xbox 360 is a near-simultaneous release worldwide (Norway was December 2nd or so), could it really be it isn't selling that well?
Click to expand...

Since they haven't actually lowered production, and their launch quantities seem to be about double what they were for the original XBox, I guess we'll see how well they sell over the next month.

Worf said:
Me, personally, I haven't seen any xbox 360 game that looks good - mostly sports (ick) and FPS-type games. Nothing compelling, and the emulated list doesn't include my favorite Xbox games. Maybe mid-2006 when the mass of Xbox 360 games are supposed to come out.
Click to expand...

I haven't even looked at any sports games, but I'll be getting Project Gotham and Dead or Alive right away. If I get more than one game at a time, I always end up neglecting others, so I really should limit it to just a couple for this year. Next year, there's quite a few great ones though: Ghost Recon, Dead Rising, Chrome Hounds, Gears of War, etc. The list of backwards compatible games are pretty much almost all of the top 100 most popular titles and then a hundred or so that just ended up being easy to emulate. I can't wait to play Halo on it. The 360 will be rerendering the engine in 1280x720 and adding some minor graphical effects.
 
I may buy a five-dollar milkshake which I originally had no intention of buying if my friends tell me it tastes really great.

But will people who originally have no plans to buy a 400 dollar console buy a 400 dollar console because the news said it sold out really fast? And will even more people buy it because the thing not only sold out really fast, but also failed to deliver already-paid-for units in time? Huh? Smarten up.
 
So? The X-Box specs look damn good to me. Anything in particular that is weak to you? Yep - of course the PS3 SHOULD blow the X-Box and pretty much any PC away IF the marketing hype proves to be true. Which I want to see first. Also note that a year is half eternity in the computer insustry. The X-Box is there NOW. That said I definitely won't get an X-Box 360. I will maybe get a PS3, but that is to see.
 
Heh, when I was a kid we had this same argument about the SNES and the Genesis.

No one cared then, either. People don't buy game consoles based on how many gigaquads of hyperram they have.
 
I would buy a PS3 instead just because of the specs ,it so blows my current pci express comp away, cell processor is an uber chip too, would be cool to build a comp using that chip.
 
I'm pretty sure the only practical difference between two consoles is what games they have that are worth playing.

I'm sure the 3DO has one ten millionth of the CPU-coring mega-architecture of the Y-Box and the PS3... but I'll still be playing Super Wing Commander when you're complaining that the Z-Box doesn't have the same kind of compressed water cooling fortress as the PS4.
 
Bandit LOAF said:
I'm pretty sure the only practical difference between two consoles is what games they have that are worth playing.
Click to expand...

Exactly. If you look at any game that is made for all 3 current systems, they look and play exactly the same for all 3, so in the end they are all pretty much the same. Now granted I also bought the new Xbox, but I'm not gonna start spouting Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo fanboy crap, because it really doesn't matter.
 
Eder said:
I may buy a five-dollar milkshake which I originally had no intention of buying if my friends tell me it tastes really great.

But will people who originally have no plans to buy a 400 dollar console buy a 400 dollar console because the news said it sold out really fast? And will even more people buy it because the thing not only sold out really fast, but also failed to deliver already-paid-for units in time? Huh? Smarten up.
Click to expand...


Microsoft loves rumors of shortages but they don't want actual shortages. There's no conspiracy but they're perfectly happy with letting people think there will be massive shortages. You're right, the people that had no intention of buying it won't be convinced to run out and buy some when they all sell out so fast. However, the people that were thinking about getting one at some point in the next six months or so those people are the ones that are going to be spurred into action by rumors of shortages. Again, you're right, MS doesn't want actual shortages but the rumors are good for business. Always has been.

I cant believe people are stealing it, when its really not all that if you look at this comparison:
XBOX360specs.doc

or just wait until this comes out...its way better:

PS3.doc
Click to expand...

Ok, after looking over the specs between the two consoles. The biggest overall difference that I can see is that the PS3 will supposedly be capable of 1.8 Terraflops as opposed to the 1 Terraflops by the 360? You think I'm crazy to not wait another year for an extra .8 Terraflops of performance? Look, if MS had waited another year to release the 360 then they could have easily met the extra .8 if not exceeded it. In another year when the PS3 comes out I'll already be looking at the next xbox which will be like 4 Terraflops etc. Don't get me wrong, I may get a PS3 in a year, but more than likely I won't. There's been very few games for the PS2 that I ever wanted to play and I've only seen two for the PS3 that tempt me. Game selection is much more important to me than actual hardware performance.

Also, I truly despise the PS2's paddle setup. Not very ergonomic.
 
Maj.Striker said:
However, the people that were thinking about getting one at some point in the next six months or so those people are the ones that are going to be spurred into action by rumors of shortages.
Click to expand...
I'm not so sure, actually...

Each of those people has a reason why they're thinking about buying it in the future instead of doing it now... so, rumours of a future shortage (or rumours of a permanent shortage) might worry them, but rumours of a christmas/release related shortage don't affect them at all.

"I hope there's no shortage by the time the holidays are over" seems more likely to me than "Damn, now I have to stay in a line for hours to get something that I didn't actually plan on getting until March!"
 
Well truly the greatest benefits of rumors of shortages for Microsoft is all the free news coverage. Everywhere from local to national news will run a little something on it. That's just free publicity. Although MS has run several ads for the xbox, having local news run commentaries on it is even better and free. Like someone said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity." Its all in how you handle it I suppose.
 
Look, just about every single console launch in recent history was accompanied by shortages. LOAF already explained the reasons in this thread - you can't just spike up production for a few months, because to do that, you have to have the infrastructure for it... and if you have the infrastructure for it, you'll be using it, because it'd be a waste of money to just let a production line work at 50% capacity or whatever. In other words, once you increase production, it has to be a permanent increase, otherwise you lose money.

Considering that a shortage would have occured no matter what, ask yourself this - would Microsoft have gotten less criticism had it lied, claiming that there's more than enough Xboxes to go around, when this clearly wasn't true? Under these circumstances, to blather on about how Microsoft benefits from these rumours is downright stupid - the rumours were a consequence of the situation. Microsoft didn't do anything to start them, it merely tried to control them by being forthright and honest about it.

Also, this publicity is anything but free - as many press articles point out, Microsoft is facing a very real risk that customers, irritated by the shortages, will give up on buying the Xbox altogether. Certainly, the parents who want to buy their kids an Xbox for Christmas are a lot less likely to buy one after Christmas if forced to do so due to shortages.
 
And they'll both play the same lousy Tomb Raider port which will almost certainly be significantly less fun than ASCII Space Invaders on a TI-83 calculator. What's your point?
 
Bandit LOAF said:
And they'll both play the same lousy Tomb Raider port which will almost certainly be significantly less fun than ASCII Space Invaders on a TI-83 calculator. What's your point?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but PS3 will play it in a more TFLOP-like manner, so it must be better.
 
And I think this is common knowledge now but the PS2 was downgraded before they would let it be sold in the USA because it was originally using an experimental chip using the same type of chip as the PS3 (but a smaller version), the USA thought it was a security risk and that it was capable of controlling Sats and stuff, I originally played the FIRST one when I was over in Korea and got a look inside it, then I played the one in the USA and the one in the USA ran like crap compared

I know people may dispute this, but I was there and saw an original one, saw how it played, played it myself, got a look inside it. Then I got a look inside the one in the USA ,the USA one didnt look the same inside, didnt play the same(was sluggish instead of running like a bat out of hell with UBER graphics)

mybe its a little off topic, but the 360 seems to me like a runner up compared and im going to wait :D
 
Quarto said:
Look, just about every single console launch in recent history was accompanied by shortages. LOAF already explained the reasons in this thread - you can't just spike up production for a few months, because to do that, you have to have the infrastructure for it... and if you have the infrastructure for it, you'll be using it, because it'd be a waste of money to just let a production line work at 50% capacity or whatever. In other words, once you increase production, it has to be a permanent increase, otherwise you lose money.

Considering that a shortage would have occured no matter what, ask yourself this - would Microsoft have gotten less criticism had it lied, claiming that there's more than enough Xboxes to go around, when this clearly wasn't true? Under these circumstances, to blather on about how Microsoft benefits from these rumours is downright stupid - the rumours were a consequence of the situation. Microsoft didn't do anything to start them, it merely tried to control them by being forthright and honest about it.

Also, this publicity is anything but free - as many press articles point out, Microsoft is facing a very real risk that customers, irritated by the shortages, will give up on buying the Xbox altogether. Certainly, the parents who want to buy their kids an Xbox for Christmas are a lot less likely to buy one after Christmas if forced to do so due to shortages.
Click to expand...


You don't think Microsoft doesn't like the rumors and the resulting media coverage it attracts? There is no real risk of losing customers because there is very little competition (console wise) to lose them to. MS will resupply the stores as the units keep rolling off the line and into the planes and trucks. I'm not saying they're holding anything back at all, or even that they are "feeding the rumors." All I'm saying is they like the hub-bub, it's great hype, it is free tv coverage and they get to have several interviews where they get to talk about the wonderful measures they are taking to ensure that "Timmy gets one for Christmas." For public relations you can't beat that kind of great face time on TV.

I really doubt that they lose potential buyers of the xbox 360 through this. If I hadn't have gotten one yesterday I'm wasn't going to say, "Well screw them! I'll never buy an xbox, that will show 'em." The people that were going to buy an xbox and were anticipating the launch will still go and buy them a week later when the second shipment comes in, or the next one or the one after. A shortage will not deter them permanently. However talk of a shortage of xboxes is great because the casual consumer, the person that was going to get one at some time but not exactly sure when hears all this media hype about a shortage and walks into Walmart a couple of weeks later and sees a couple xboxes still sitting around and thinks to himself, "Hey, these are supposedly in short supply. What the heck, I'll go ahead and get one now, they might not be around later." That's the casual consumer, the mentality of a great deal of Americans, and the object that MS would love to capitalize on.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top