-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Microsoft: Xbox One is the “Highest-Engagement Console” in the Market; Explains Strategy for Gaming
- Thread starter Rychu
- Start date
Which part is untrue specifically and why? And how is pointing out an example of MAUs being more important than total sales a straw man?
The whole point of total unit sales, is to guestimate how many users are actively using the platform/service, so an investor can get a sense of the total addressable market. MAUs serves the exact same purpose, its just a more accurate indicator.
The whole point of total unit sales, is to guestimate how many users are actively using the platform/service, so an investor can get a sense of the total addressable market. MAUs serves the exact same purpose, its just a more accurate indicator.
I honestly don't know off-hand where I heard or read it. But it's really not all that odd when you consider the current ecosystem.
OK. Sounds like you're probably remembering it differently.
Because you are comparing an active platform to an inactive one. Figures like MAU and other engagment metrics are very valuable, but they, at this point, do not supplant the value of raw user base statistics.
Case in point, I just went through a long stretch (months) of not touching my consoles because of work travel. In that same time period, I bought probably $1,000 worth of games. Or there are those people that game only at specific times, like over the summer, of when that one or two games they play a year come out.
Did a quick Google search and found this. Here is the quote in question:
The conversation was around the Xbox One X. But you can see that he's emphasizing software sales.
Right, and that has always been the case with consoles. It's the razor/razor blades model.
If you have a comment or a question about mod policy, that is a topic for PMs. Do not post about it in a thread.
Currently yeah, but they mid to long term strategy is all but announced with gamepass and streaming.
This is absolutely not the case in consoles right now, but it is possible for a console with half the sales to actually still be more lucrative. (Look at iphone (20% of the market) vs. everyone else just in app store $ until sheer numbers finally let the android stores catch up this past year)
Do you think people would develop for such a small population, and do it often first or only, if the customers were not worth more?
I bring this up because if you are comparing yourself to competition and you need to justify your existence, letting investors (and im sure devs) know these numbers lets them have faith in continued funding of the product/division.
But how can gamers collectively use the x-box more, if there are less X-box 2 to use?
How can he know this with certainty with out Nintendo and Sony's data? I'm lost where am I? Can someone help me?
Right, that is not the case for consoles now, so it doesn't really effect the discussion in this thread.
And yeah, engagment figures are absolutely valuable to investors and analysts and should be reported. Anyone disputing that is straight up wrong.
my point is the dour outlook just based on sales might not translate directly into dour at the end of the quarter (just a point to the xbox will fold tomorrow blah blah bunch)
User warned: Ignoring mod post
come on Matt, we know his intent, let this site be better.
Easy. From their third party partners. Let's be real, the best selling games are third party games and I'm sure EA, Ubisoft etc... have valuable data they share.
i bet you can glean it partially from say, sonys software & services #s vs the # consoles sold, and do the same for ms? no idea but its not something out of the realm of possibility for them to be able to make that statement
User Warned: Platform warring.
Sony is absolutely obliterating this generation, especially as of late and with games like Last of Us 2, Spiderman, Ghosts of Tsushima and Death Stranding hitting in the next two years (hopefully) I see zero reason to own an Xbox console. The sheer amount of high quality games coming out of Sony Worldwide studios is a testament to how engaged Sony is in the gaming business and truly cares.
The difference between Sony and Microsoft are the size of the companies and what their golden egg's really are.
The Xbox division is a small arm of a giant that is M$ and their primary focus is the business/services that make them the most money. Sony's gaming division is a huge portion of their profit pie and we can all see how much involved and engaged in talent they truly are.
While I sound like a fanboy but I literally cannot imagine a future without Sony ip's and wish I could say the same for the xbox platform. It's the same with Nintendo, just like Sony, the two companies seem to have a "soul" and charm that M$ is lacking.
I might have gone off topic in regards to the OP but reading the PR spin it seems as if its a desperate attempt at staying relevant and the above is how I feel about the two companies. My little 2cents. Cheers!
The difference between Sony and Microsoft are the size of the companies and what their golden egg's really are.
The Xbox division is a small arm of a giant that is M$ and their primary focus is the business/services that make them the most money. Sony's gaming division is a huge portion of their profit pie and we can all see how much involved and engaged in talent they truly are.
While I sound like a fanboy but I literally cannot imagine a future without Sony ip's and wish I could say the same for the xbox platform. It's the same with Nintendo, just like Sony, the two companies seem to have a "soul" and charm that M$ is lacking.
I might have gone off topic in regards to the OP but reading the PR spin it seems as if its a desperate attempt at staying relevant and the above is how I feel about the two companies. My little 2cents. Cheers!
Last edited:
Oh..ok? I dont think MS was telling investors why you should buy an xbox. I think this has more to do with how those who own it spend money and how they will continue to offers services for those customers.
Right and MAUs give you a better sense of how active a platform is, whereas total sales do not, that was my point. For instance if I as an investor want to get a sense of what to expect for COD WW2 DLC revenue in the back half of 2018. I want to know how many active users there are, and how often they are engaging with the service. Total COD WW2 unit sales isn't a good indicator of revenue going forward because I have no sense of how many of those original customers are still actively engaging with the service. Its obviously not a perfect indicator, as players may take breaks between DLC releases.. but its still a lot more useful than total sales to me.
MAU on its own would not be the best indicator of expected sales of the DLC actually. That would be historical data, aligned with total unit sales and comparative user activity.
Both Sony and Nintendo are all-in on game development (PS is Sony's most notable brand and its their only non-financial or b2b (semiconductors) that is successful). MSFT arguably stopped doing that around the time of the Kinect, which makes sense given its not their most important subsidiary by a long shot. The OS and Office software vastly outpace anything Xbox does by several zeroes. It would make sense that internally Xbox would be disregarded compared to those, it requires sustained, attention from those outside the division that will always be artificial since the OS/Office problems will always take precedence for the CEO/CFO/Controller. (Xbox can never surpass Office/OS, as they both are both commercial and b2b to extents a gaming system could never be)
One way to not sound like a fanboy is to, well, not sound like a fanboy.
Reading your post it seems as if it is a desperate attempt at deflecting good Xbox news because you feel that Xbox might become more and more relevant in the future, which you don't like. Letting us know that you still don't see a reason to own an Xbox is probably a good means to ensure that you can still sleep at night from now on, therefore it is understandable that you make this point even though it is completely unrelated to the topic at hand. My little 2cents. Cheers!
Did you even read the mod notice at all? What's with the M$ tag? here's a little secret. All the companies are here to make money and profit.
Ok well lets look at an example with a longer time frame then to maybe better exemplify the point. World have Warcraft revenue has been declining over the years. However total sales have been increasing the entire time. So if you were to go off total sales, you would come to the conclusion that world of Warcraft is healthier and more successful than ever. But that's obviously not the case, the MAUs on the other hand, probably follow fairly closely in line with world of warcraft's revenue numbers. Do you see what I'm getting at? Do you see why from an investor standpoint, things like MAUs and user engagement are a lot more useful, and total sales is kind of meaningless?
EDIT: and obviously investors can and do use other data. But MAUs offer a better representation of the current monetizeable audience than total sales, which is why investors like those numbers.
Last edited:
"M$"
Because we all know Sony is a charity organization not out for profit or anything.
But Xbox profits aren't almost completely based on monthly subscription fees like WoW, so that's a pretty shit comparison. The revenue streams that Xbox generates are heavily influenced by whether or not people own an Xbox.
No Xbox? Why pay for Gold? (This one is similar to the example you gave.)
No Xbox? No revenue from 3rd party games (or from 1st party games if the anemic sales from the Windows store is anything to go by).
No Xbox? No revenue from DLC for 3rd party games (though I'm not sure how much of this they're getting in the first place)
Yeah, this was definitely true only because their sales are aligned with not enough of the mass market. One of my friends buys basically every exclusive and major third party plat on One and even he is not playing as much anymore. I told him you just need to get a PS4 dude, but he won't budge lol. People are missing out on such great and memorable games by sticking to one brand.
Night Angel responded to this well. That comparison is a very bad one.
I think the point here is that basically Xbox is regional competitor for PS in US & UK markets.Outside of those 2 markets Xbox is more or less nonentity,unlike PS that sells good numbers all over the world.In my country in continental Europe some stores don't even sell xbox.
However,it shows us how huge and important US market is and that it can essentially very well sustain one console on its own,and of course Americans and Brits are obviously spending much more on games & services then PS owners in Eastern Europe,Middle East ,Asia and other regions where PS sells in large numbers.
However,it shows us how huge and important US market is and that it can essentially very well sustain one console on its own,and of course Americans and Brits are obviously spending much more on games & services then PS owners in Eastern Europe,Middle East ,Asia and other regions where PS sells in large numbers.
Last edited:
Please tell me how you get this idea that they are spending more and i am not talking about avg since that depends on user base size .
It's actually the English speaking narrative they're controlling by staying competitive in the few markets that they do.
It's working great for them.
You can't focus on engagement if you don't release and focus on service games.
Of course you can .
Engagement can come from how many games some one buy , if there member of PSN+ , how much time the spend on the system etc etc .
Unlike PS+ and Xbox Gold that are huge success stories by now,i wonder about PS Now numbers...i bet that thing is a big flop.Sony never released any numbers.They wasted almost 400 million $ on Gaikai.Yeah,i know,streaming is the future in the long run,but still...
Wait 10 years then judge. That's what Sony's doing I'm sure.
I've mentioned it in a couple of threads but they've only just expanded it to a bunch of new countries so can't be doing that bad.
Play anywhere and family sharing has been pretty damn awesome for the few games that support it, makes playing with my wife and kids far more viable and affordable.
I very much doubt it is doing bad enough for anyone to call it a flop at this point. I mean it never was going to set the world of fire, but has to be pulling enough that Sony hasn't axed the division (right word?).
Same here. Great features, without a doubt.
The equation in this business still is as follows:
Hardware Revenue = Hardware sold * Average price of consoles
Software Revenue = Hardware sold * Software tie ratio * Average price of software
Service revenue = Hardware sold * Ratio of subscribers * Average spendings per sub
With "high engagement" users being far more likely to have a subscription or a higher software tie ratio it's a very important metric for revenues.
But the formulas also show the immense role of hardware sold for all three aspects. "High engagement" can offset lower hardware sales to a certain degree, but that's pretty much it. Which is why MS would trade their "high engagement" with "70mn units sold" every time of the day.
Matt, I thought this thread was beyond rescue and than you showed up and used your arguing skills instead of mod powers to save the day. Kudos!
Last edited:
I would unless they repurposed the division (screw it, I am going with this, lol). Not wanting to really go further into derailment, but I am curious if we have any hard numbers on PS Now.
Yes,only in the long run...maybe.
I have PS+ for years now but i can not imagine paying for PSNow.Only future for it i see if they merge it with +. I expect MS to make Gold part of Gamepass.
These nebulous PR terms need to be defined to have any real value ie what is the "Market Engagement" of the Xbox compared to the PS4 and is this for all territories or just the USA? How is "Market Engagement" actually measured? (You can't just assume it's money spent per user). Without any specific information the statement is simply meaningless guff.