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Techspot 'Xbox One's struggles are traceable to one bad decision'
- Thread starter jelly
- Start date
xemumanic
Member
They had a stronger GPU last gen.
By nearly a 5th. The reason PS3 came out better graphically at the end of the GEN was because of the Cell (its SPU's), it was much more powerful.
QuickSilverD
Member
it is said that Sony took a gamble with GDDR5 and won, but I'm wondering now, say Microsoft had decided to invest in GDDR5, then with both console manufacturing needing millions of GDDR5 chips wouldn't the availability situation changed? making it more expensive/rare? or is the console market not significant enough that such situation would have happened?
That article was very wrong in the first place, and they finally updated it now that (shipment) numbers are out. It's more like 90-100% better now, not 40.
Yes.
And IIRC Sony already had most of the world's GDDR5 manufacturing capability tied up.. so even if MS had wanted to change course and react.. they effectively couldn't have without massive hardware shortages.
At least that's what I read last year after Sony's GDDR5 announcement.
speculawyer
Member
I agree with that analysis. The Kinect thing was annoying but changed.
But they can't fix the memory issue.
But they can't fix the memory issue.
Bananajama
Banned
The lack of support in the last few years of 360 were a major turn off for me.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I couldn't vehemently disagree more.
Specs don't sell consoles - let alone individual chip parts.
The messaging out the gate was so off for the target market, they haven't recovered yet.
I've said this a hundred times, but the people who launched Xbox One were the people who successfully launched Kinect. And those people took a mid-lifecycle product and turned it into a huge hit with expanded market messaging and disruption.
They lost sight of that context, however.
When you launch a new box at a high price point, you aren't targeting the broad demo anymore. You're targeting the core, early adopters. They led with this 'connected device, TV-entertainment-system' message out the game to a core audience whose been 'cutting the cord' for years. And they showed they lost relevancy to the consumers who are willing to buy into a lifetime of your platform from day one.
They misappropriate the success of Kinect and tried to ride that strategy into the Xbox One launch.
If they included all these features but promoted them 3 years into the Xbox One lifecycle to attract that crowd, it would give them a much needed market refresh - in that context. They should have focused on their core game content and benefits for the 'player community' upfront. They did the reserve - they launch expanded to a narrow market, and just missed it. And that's the mistake they are paying for, and why they are desperate to reposition back in the first 3 years.
I mean, they already let all those people go from inside MS so there's the proof enough
Specs don't sell consoles - let alone individual chip parts.
The messaging out the gate was so off for the target market, they haven't recovered yet.
I've said this a hundred times, but the people who launched Xbox One were the people who successfully launched Kinect. And those people took a mid-lifecycle product and turned it into a huge hit with expanded market messaging and disruption.
They lost sight of that context, however.
When you launch a new box at a high price point, you aren't targeting the broad demo anymore. You're targeting the core, early adopters. They led with this 'connected device, TV-entertainment-system' message out the game to a core audience whose been 'cutting the cord' for years. And they showed they lost relevancy to the consumers who are willing to buy into a lifetime of your platform from day one.
They misappropriate the success of Kinect and tried to ride that strategy into the Xbox One launch.
If they included all these features but promoted them 3 years into the Xbox One lifecycle to attract that crowd, it would give them a much needed market refresh - in that context. They should have focused on their core game content and benefits for the 'player community' upfront. They did the reserve - they launch expanded to a narrow market, and just missed it. And that's the mistake they are paying for, and why they are desperate to reposition back in the first 3 years.
I mean, they already let all those people go from inside MS so there's the proof enough
RoninChaos
Member
Exactly. Between that and the difference in price, MS fucked themselves. The average consumer doesn't give a shit about RAM speed.
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Most of the popular games will be on both platforms.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Well, the 360 had the unbridled genius of J Allard, Robbie Bach and Peter Moore behind it during its early years.
They kept the boat stable, the carriage on the road, the baby in its cradle. The writing was on the wall for the Xbox brand when they left and Mattrick and Hollow Man stepped up to the plate. They didn't have the same fundamental understanding of what sells a console early on like the dream time...
Even with Mattrick gone, they still seem don't seem to have a full grasp on the market. It's a throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks approach and it's not working and won't work until they go back to the fundamentals that the OG and 360 the great consoles they were.
They kept the boat stable, the carriage on the road, the baby in its cradle. The writing was on the wall for the Xbox brand when they left and Mattrick and Hollow Man stepped up to the plate. They didn't have the same fundamental understanding of what sells a console early on like the dream time...
Even with Mattrick gone, they still seem don't seem to have a full grasp on the market. It's a throw shit at the wall and hope something sticks approach and it's not working and won't work until they go back to the fundamentals that the OG and 360 the great consoles they were.
Air Zombie Meat
Member
Yeah I don't agree with this. Pricing, bad press and Kinect were the real issues.
Basically their overall strategy was flawed
I think the its ' DRM + Kinect price is what screwed MS' whilst excluding the power difference by public perception is disingenuous.
Even though the public may not be as nerdy or into the fine-grain specs, they likely have that 1 friend that does and the general public does enjoy bragging rights + 'Which one is better': Translated, which is more powerful.
It is the era of new $500-650 mobile phones every other year, the price difference is a bonus/negative (depending on your perspective) but it can be negligible in a thriving tech-loving world.
Even though the public may not be as nerdy or into the fine-grain specs, they likely have that 1 friend that does and the general public does enjoy bragging rights + 'Which one is better': Translated, which is more powerful.
It is the era of new $500-650 mobile phones every other year, the price difference is a bonus/negative (depending on your perspective) but it can be negligible in a thriving tech-loving world.
People keep overlooking the extent to which multi platform franchises have come to dominate the market. Rewind to 2009 - PS3 had a ton of great exclusives, the price drop to $299, and still got outsold by Xbox 360. Why? That was the system most people played Modern Warfare 2 on. Microsoft's biggest mistake was ceding their advantage with third party software.
SpinningBirdKick
Banned
I own a PS4 and I just picked up the Sunset Overdrive Xbone bundle. All I'll say is this: Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2 both look fantastic, as good as anything I've seen on the PS4. Sure, there is a power difference, but good art styles and smart programing are always going to matter a whole lot more than a (relatively) small difference in power.
100% agree.. in fact I've agreed since before Xbox One was announced.
I was shocked at their Xbox One strategy as the WHY behind their last gen success seemed so obvious.
Which they could heave repeated:
- Release very competent gaming focused product first that is price competitive
- Get as many exclusives as possible
- Don't worry about Kinect 2.0 at launch, do another mid-generation Kinect if the market seems ripe for it.
If they'd just made XBox One compatible with Kinect 1.0 from the start they'd have had a better message, a better price, the ability to focus on what "early adopters" want most (games), and could still do the Kinect 2.0 thing once the main box was cheap enough to appeal to the casual market.
I also think that "casual market" is over-estimated.. looking at Kinect game sales??
I'm convinced Kinect 1.0 mostly sold to gadget minded gamers who mostly ended up using it for "Xbox Pause, Xbox Play" and not gaming.. the fact MS has barely even tried to produce Kinect focused games leads me to believe they are well aware of this.. which makes their strategy even stranger.
It's not just the decision to go with DDR3 and a 32 MB cache of ESRAM. It's the lack of power of the GPU as well.
Sony sold out and buffed up their GPU about as well as they could while trying to keep costs down. Microsoft has more money than Sony, and certainly could have designed a far more powerful GPU - but they didn't. Even if this isn't manifested as a discernible difference in cross platform titles (though it appears to be, in terms of the resolution differences), it's all about perception. People know for a fact that the PS4 is more powerful. So, if the prices are similar, why go for the system with less power?
Sony sold out and buffed up their GPU about as well as they could while trying to keep costs down. Microsoft has more money than Sony, and certainly could have designed a far more powerful GPU - but they didn't. Even if this isn't manifested as a discernible difference in cross platform titles (though it appears to be, in terms of the resolution differences), it's all about perception. People know for a fact that the PS4 is more powerful. So, if the prices are similar, why go for the system with less power?
Air Zombie Meat
Member
That's how I see it. I don't think you can point to just one thing.
The power difference became a bigger deal than it would have been because of the pricing. When you're asking someone to spend 100 more than the competitor a power difference becomes a much more bitter pill to swallow. Along with all the terrible messaging and backlash from gamers it's not surprising most went with ps4 instead. Trying to screw with used games\rentals is huge as well, so many people rely on that part of the market.
And if they did the same mistakes that they did with the One in 2005 the 360 would have never gotten the marketshare it got.
Of course the 1 year head launch was a big advantage, but you are completely negating it's other advantages over the One.
The 360 sold better than the ps3 in the us every month (aside from a 2-3 exceptions), long after the 360 next gen advantage was gone.
Why would that change with this gen?
Truth is Ms had an advantage in the US going into this gen and of course MS had a chance to lead the market, everything else is nonsense.
Earthanoid
Member
I only skimmed the article, but even though its poorly written the point is valid. That is the one decision that was bad (in hindsight) that they can't do anything about. Everything else, from the DRM to Kinect to pricing, has already been changed.
The X1 at launch really felt like a product of a corporate committee. I can imagine all of the meetings with people throwing around words like "synergy" and comparing the business to smartphones and app stores. They've already changed most of that, but the memory of it persists, and they're stuck with that RAM choice. Heck, they could probably retune all of that and bring it back and be successful, but they're still stuck with that RAM choice.
As much as people talk about exclusives, the largest volumes are the multiplats, and the PS4 is the better machine for multiplats pretty much because of that RAM choice, no matter what MS does.
The X1 at launch really felt like a product of a corporate committee. I can imagine all of the meetings with people throwing around words like "synergy" and comparing the business to smartphones and app stores. They've already changed most of that, but the memory of it persists, and they're stuck with that RAM choice. Heck, they could probably retune all of that and bring it back and be successful, but they're still stuck with that RAM choice.
As much as people talk about exclusives, the largest volumes are the multiplats, and the PS4 is the better machine for multiplats pretty much because of that RAM choice, no matter what MS does.
I guess they were thinking of the maximum performance achievable rather than what was typically achieved in practice. The 360 and PS3 are different enough that neither can really be said to be consistently more powerful than the other. The PS3 has an edge in potential performance, but games need to be structured in a way that plays to the strengths of the architecture to realize that potential. The 360 is more forgiving and flexible, having an edge in easily accessible performance, and that has often resulted in somewhat better performance for multiplatform games.
ValeYard
Member
Reading this article I had to think about this:
Sure, in hindsight, GDD5 would have been better and led to MS being able to have more room on the die for the GPU, not be as bottlenecked for graphics, etc.
But they didn't know GDD5 would work out so well, and, as others have pointed out, ps4 and x1 both vying for GDD5 may have caused supply problems.
I'd argue that X1's biggest problem was an unclear message of what the console should be, half-baked TV functions (e.g. IR-blasters and not HDMI-CEC), a marketing strategy just for the US, packing in Kinect for TV functions although not much software was there to support it and justify the console's higher price.
This console's downfall was in the boardroom not in manufacture.
Sure, in hindsight, GDD5 would have been better and led to MS being able to have more room on the die for the GPU, not be as bottlenecked for graphics, etc.
But they didn't know GDD5 would work out so well, and, as others have pointed out, ps4 and x1 both vying for GDD5 may have caused supply problems.
I'd argue that X1's biggest problem was an unclear message of what the console should be, half-baked TV functions (e.g. IR-blasters and not HDMI-CEC), a marketing strategy just for the US, packing in Kinect for TV functions although not much software was there to support it and justify the console's higher price.
This console's downfall was in the boardroom not in manufacture.
Yup, this is what drove all the poor decisions from hardware to policies. MS's vision was fundamentally wrong, Sony was focused on the right things. A complete reversal from last gen.
Media focus -> 8gb DDR3 -> ESRAM to fix slow ram on die -> Weak GPU. It's a snowball effect that started from their media focus.
sir_kevith
Member
I think the problem with the article is that even though they can change all those other things (drm, kinect, high price, etc.), people initially wrote off the console because of those things. Now people have already made the decision to go PS4 whether or not they've bought one yet. They've made their decision and there really isn't any reason to change just because Microsoft changed their mind on some things.
Indeed, the ram is one thing that they can't change but that's all I think this article got right.
funkystudent
Member
No one gives a fuck about the memory.
90% of the problems the system has selling now are down to the used game stuff. It was toxic as hell and lots of people still think they went through with it.
Its their own fault really. On one side you have videos with millions of views of Sony shooting that shit down in front of a roaring crowd.. On the MS side they released a press release some Wednesday morning saying "Used games are cool you guys. Sorry about that" that no one saw.
Its going to take years for people to forget and the userbase to grow after that. Mayne not until a Slim rebrand
90% of the problems the system has selling now are down to the used game stuff. It was toxic as hell and lots of people still think they went through with it.
Its their own fault really. On one side you have videos with millions of views of Sony shooting that shit down in front of a roaring crowd.. On the MS side they released a press release some Wednesday morning saying "Used games are cool you guys. Sorry about that" that no one saw.
Its going to take years for people to forget and the userbase to grow after that. Mayne not until a Slim rebrand
which will probably happen in 2015 for Halo
Sony need money, Im sure some were thinking about the benefit and extra profits DRM could have. We dont know how uniformed sony's vision was, but it is highly unlikely all parties were in complete agreement.
Just because the PS4 might have 180 more P's does not make it the better version.
MS have locked up DLC for a month and Xbox live is still considered the superior service.
Altered Juice
Member
honestly, if they just didn't try to pull that online only console bullshit...
PdotMichael
Banned
Well, Microsoft lead designers and engineers aren't that stupid. The DDR3 ram was the only way to gurantee 8gb ram for all the planned kinect and television features. ESRAM was just an attempt to fix that nonsense done by the higher management.
The system was $100 more expensive for months. That probably swayed millions from XB1 to PS4.
The graphic downgrade from PS4 to XB1 is far less important to the general public I think.
STOP with consumer don't know and/or care about...
Today, anyone can and will google "Best console, PS4 vs X1 vs Wii U, resolutiongate and etc." and get info. National media also handles gaming news now. Thus, most of the info will lead people to getting a PS4. The days where you can only get gaming news from HC gamers are long over.
Today, anyone can and will google "Best console, PS4 vs X1 vs Wii U, resolutiongate and etc." and get info. National media also handles gaming news now. Thus, most of the info will lead people to getting a PS4. The days where you can only get gaming news from HC gamers are long over.
This is going to fall on deaf ears
Pegasus Actual
Member
Well, there's always hope that PSN will improve, whereas the 180 of P ain't ever going to show up (at least not without side effects). The DLC stuff happens on both platforms and sucks for the consumer. I'm comfortable going with CODAW on PS4 to collect my Ps despite it.
I do think in the long run the biggest screwups in Microsoftland all come at the feet of Kinect and TVTVTV. I'll always look at my Xboxes with a bit of disdain for the DD3 and ESRAM within.
They shouldn't have prioritized those non-gaming things then, XB1 suffered from poor engineering management. They wanted to make this all-in-one world beater at $500 that could take over the living room and forgot that they should be selling a games console that can do some nifty media things on the side.
MS absolutely fucked up this gen in every way, $500, DRM, forced Kinect at launch, media focused pr, less powerful than PS4.
People can pooh pooh the power difference all they want but the general public knows that there is a significant difference in power between the two machines and that does influence purchasing decisions.
ScatheZombie
Member
I would strongly disagree that the Xbox One lower specs are the number one cause of the disparity between it and the PS4 right now.
The biggest cause of Xbox One's troubles are the god damn price point it launched with. Historically, the more expensive console has always floundered, regardless of both specs and available games. Some of them have recovered over time, mostly due to price drops and expanding game library, but they have always struggled from the start.
Arguably the second biggest misstep was their opening marketing woes. They had three key points that didn't resonate, at all, with anyone. The first was their 'no used games, always online' mantra that they ultimately backed out of. Many mass market consumers are still unsure or confused about both of those points, despite Microsoft desperately trying to set the record straight. Then, they bundled a peripheral that most of the market doesn't care about with the console and tried to use it as a selling point - in fact, increasing the price (which is the number one issue). And the third nail in the marketing coffin was the news that the Xbox One might be spying on you through that peripheral you don't want. It doesn't matter how accurate any of those reports were because the mass market doesn't research anything. The news said the Xbox spies for the government ... maybe. Sometimes. That's as far as most people remember.
The actual specs of the machine are a distant third, at best. And only because of multiplat performance and developer preference. As much as you want your games to look amazing, so do the developers. So it's in our best interest to support the infrastructure that will give us the best performance and best sales.
The biggest cause of Xbox One's troubles are the god damn price point it launched with. Historically, the more expensive console has always floundered, regardless of both specs and available games. Some of them have recovered over time, mostly due to price drops and expanding game library, but they have always struggled from the start.
Arguably the second biggest misstep was their opening marketing woes. They had three key points that didn't resonate, at all, with anyone. The first was their 'no used games, always online' mantra that they ultimately backed out of. Many mass market consumers are still unsure or confused about both of those points, despite Microsoft desperately trying to set the record straight. Then, they bundled a peripheral that most of the market doesn't care about with the console and tried to use it as a selling point - in fact, increasing the price (which is the number one issue). And the third nail in the marketing coffin was the news that the Xbox One might be spying on you through that peripheral you don't want. It doesn't matter how accurate any of those reports were because the mass market doesn't research anything. The news said the Xbox spies for the government ... maybe. Sometimes. That's as far as most people remember.
The actual specs of the machine are a distant third, at best. And only because of multiplat performance and developer preference. As much as you want your games to look amazing, so do the developers. So it's in our best interest to support the infrastructure that will give us the best performance and best sales.
The interesting thing here is that XBOne probably costs just as much to manufacture as the PS4 due to it having quite a large GPU. It's unfortunate that 1/3 of its GPU is comprised of embedded memory to make up for low DDR3 bandwidth to fulfill their original 8GB target to get TVTVTV snapping across 3 operating systems. But meh, it only impacts games... said the MS exec. Wii sold big with poor specs, it won't matter said the MS exec. Kinect is selling like crazy! Morons will lap anything up said the MS exec. Don't worry, YouTube compression and the games media will mask the difference said the MS exec. We'll just boost contrast (crush blacks) and sharpen everything, she'll be right.
But ultimately I feel this is a good thing for the Xbox brand as it forces MS to regroup and focus on games. I'm now positive XBOne will be graced with great exclusives over its short life. Spend your money on that MS and not on strong arming parity.
But ultimately I feel this is a good thing for the Xbox brand as it forces MS to regroup and focus on games. I'm now positive XBOne will be graced with great exclusives over its short life. Spend your money on that MS and not on strong arming parity.
They aren't stupid, but I think they were overly cautious and strong-armed into requiring 8gigs of RAM. If they had taken a "powerful gaming platform" position first, they would've gone with GDDR5 and would've found that they could fit 8 gigs anyways. It really was a case of the TV/media ambitions outweighing the gaming ambitions of the console.
We're seeing this in the PC add-on market too. Why do you think the 980/970 only launched with 4Gb configurations when there are already games using more than that? I wouldn't be shocked if we see graphics cards next year with upgradeable RAM if this keeps up.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
ALL THOSE PEOPLE?I mean, they already let all those people go from inside MS so there's the proof enough
But that's false. The savior President Phil Spencer His Holiness was a key team member in both the design and the launch of Xbox One. And what about the "TV TV TV" guy from the reveal? He's still on the XBox team. I imagine most if not all of the non-public-facing employees, developers, middle-managers, and team leaders who were involved in the XBox One's design and marketing are also still there at Microsoft.
The only "key figure" to leave was Mattrick. That's it, isn't it? I simply do not understand the narrative of "Xbox One is clean now because all the bad people are gone and now all the good true gamer executives are involved". It is the opposite of the truth.
Guerrillas in the Mist
Member
I think it's more down to Nvidia wanting to prevent their cards from being "future-proof". AMD have been more generous with the amount of RAM in their cards in recent years.
KingJ2002
Member
I disagree with this article... it was clear from day one that the DRM issue scared away many xbox hardcore gamers from transitioning to the Xbox One. There were articles about how Microsoft planned to watch you through kinect, sell your usage data to advertisers, and stop you from renting or trading in games.
On top of that there wasn't much hype around their exclusive launch titles and Xbox gamers were already experiencing fatigue with Halo & Gears of War thanks to GOW: Judgement & Halo 4.
Then of course there was the price... 500 dollars?
So all of that killed the hype for the new system and made sure people migrated to PS4... the technical differences cemented the decision on launch day when the side by side comparisons popped up.
On top of that there wasn't much hype around their exclusive launch titles and Xbox gamers were already experiencing fatigue with Halo & Gears of War thanks to GOW: Judgement & Halo 4.
Then of course there was the price... 500 dollars?
So all of that killed the hype for the new system and made sure people migrated to PS4... the technical differences cemented the decision on launch day when the side by side comparisons popped up.
walltowall
Member
I agree that "ALL THOSE PEOPLE" is a bit much but I think it is fair to say that rotten part of the core has been spooned out. Mark Whitten was the product guy and so probably had a larger hand in the design and he's gone, so is Mattrick. While we know Spencer was there as well, his former team has largely delivered on their promise of games.
I also agree w/ Miles' comment that they are still trying to find their and it's a shame. The content is compelling but the Xbox brand is near poisonous right now and they need to fix that before the next gen starts.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
It wasn't the weaker memory. It really was the PR nightmare that lasted for months and months and still - to a degree - continues on today (negative reactions to Tomb Raider and Minecraft purchases, for instance). There was such oppressive, constant, comically-bad PR nearly every day for a stretch of months leading up to the reveal and for 2 months after that, too. It got on mainstream news channels and Late Night shows and was pasted on every major gaming website, not to mention the Facebook and Twitter campaigns.
I don't understand why people are still trying to spin the mistakes that Microsoft made as "oh, those are in the past and it didn't launch with those mistakes, so it shouldn't matter".
It literally re-wrote the brand in 6 months and eliminated all but the most loyal of fans from the Xbox name.
I don't understand why people are still trying to spin the mistakes that Microsoft made as "oh, those are in the past and it didn't launch with those mistakes, so it shouldn't matter".
It literally re-wrote the brand in 6 months and eliminated all but the most loyal of fans from the Xbox name.
Chittagong
Gold Member
This theory is complete bollocks. Being moderately less powered has never been an obstacle for an otherwise thriving platform. PS2 was massively umderpowered compared to Xbox and did just fine.
Xbox One can deliver an experience in the ballpark with PS4. The real problem is getting off to a bad start because of the DRM scandal, higher price (because of Kinect) and confused message. The weak start is a vicious cycle, just like the strong start is a virtuous cycle for Sony.
The main takeaway should be that you need to hit the announcement out of the park, not that GDDDR5 matters. It's not even the biggest technical weakness of Xbone, the half lower TF is.
Xbox One can deliver an experience in the ballpark with PS4. The real problem is getting off to a bad start because of the DRM scandal, higher price (because of Kinect) and confused message. The weak start is a vicious cycle, just like the strong start is a virtuous cycle for Sony.
The main takeaway should be that you need to hit the announcement out of the park, not that GDDDR5 matters. It's not even the biggest technical weakness of Xbone, the half lower TF is.