CNN: X-Mas especially critical for X-Box.

[Brisco Bold]

I bet that Halo will be priced *just* right.

[Captain Vegetable]

OK, OK!!! So the deal with Nintendo being in a worse position is purely opinion...geeze! On the other hand, I suppose I should have known I couldn't slip a micky in on you guys.

And, Burg, don't get my taste wrong. I do like my GameCube. And you're correct in stating I avoided very many other games that are must haves (Animal Crossing, Zelda, Animal Leader, Doshin, etc.), but again, I was making an attempt at injecting a baseless opinion, mine, into a hard-facts discussion. My bad.

Now, on to the stuff I know I know about.

You're making a bit more sense, but the staggering Xbox losses are very well-publicized, and give the fragile state of the economy, MS might not be willing to take those losses forever.

Of course they aren't willing to take the losses forever! I was simply making a case against the unyeilding, all encompasing power of the stockholder you seemed intent on expressing. The stockholder has nothing, quite litterally, to do with the operations and decision making of the company aside from their decision to front the initial investment. Even if the holders decide to sell their stock, they aren't selling it back to MS, they're selling it on a secondary market, which means the only money MS owes them are back-logged dividends, not the sum of their initial investment.

The board of directors (IE majority stockholders) can decide to sell the company, by selling their stock to another company, but that's it. That's the only decision they can make. And it doesn't concern operations!

So, it's MS as a company, not the stockholders, who make any and all decisions concerning operations. The production/continued production of the XBOX at a loss is the company's decision.

Not to mention the fact that they have forecast every earning/loss on their accounting ledger prior to it actually happening. It's accounted for as an "Incured Expence." All of the losses they have taken up to this point, give or take, were foreseen and expected. Maybe they're losing a little more than forecast, maybe a little less, but it was all forecast. Them sinking the price of the BOX in EU and JP was accounted for years before they actually did it.

It's the same with all companies. If they don't do it this way, they're doing something terribly wrong.

The argument that MS has so much money is irrelevant - I still get pissed if I lose a $20 bill, even if I have a few Gs in the bank. The only reason that MS will stay in the game is if there's hope for future profits, but as current prospects dim, so do future prospects, and eventually, MS will have nothing left to play for. Unless the circunstances change.

I agree the issue of them "having so much money" is, and always was, irrellivant. I never purpotrated such a sentament.

[burgundy]

I wouldn't even call that an opinion, CV. I'd call it baseless nonsense.

About MS market prospects - MS certainly expected a loss leader on its hands - after all, almost every console is an inital loss - but I also think it expected the Xbox to be more successful in Japan and Europe. And I think you're downplaying the difference. If MS expected to be selling so poorly, it may have offered a lower-priced Xbox from the start, rather than wait to fall behind - at least outside the US.

And I wasn't specifically addressing you - I'm often reading that MS will throw money at the Xbox indefinitely simply because it can, and that's just stupid. MS is what it is today because it makes money, not because it loses money. Nor is MS infallible. It simply has more money to lose upfront in expectation of a future windfall. But if that windfall starts to look risky, MS isn't going to throw good money after bad. And the worse Xbox does, the less rosy the forecast for Xbox 2 looks.

[sleeve]

Well, in spite of MS's losses on the XBox, the fact remains that it makes shitloads of money in OS sales and will continue to do so for years to come.

MS potentially has more to lose at this point by not entering the console market, if this expected TiVo-video game console-DVD player-MP3 player-home entertainment center convergence ever takes place, because such a convergence would threaten the PC market, and thus their OS monopoly. MS's goal is to dominate the OS market in perpetuity, and losing money on the XBox in 2002 is just an operating cost for them.

[burgundy]

Agreed. But that's assuming that the Tivo et al. hybrid is the future of the living room, and if it is, that the Xbox is going to bring MS any closer to it.

[Shinobi128]

Microsoft Xbox Boss Sees 'Green' Christmas

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...rosoft_xbox_dc

Allard, saying he "expected" Xbox to overtake Nintendo's GameCube to become Europe's second-best selling console.

[piku]

Sony has said its next-generation PlayStation console will debut in 2005 for certain markets. Allard responded, "One thing we've learned is they won't get a head-start next time. I'll leave it at that."

Way to go Microsoft! Way to bring the console market one step closer to the fucking video card market in terms of lifespan!

Even if they launched the Xbox 2 in early 2005, that means what, not even four years? Just splendid.

[Saint of Killers]

Originally posted by Briscobold
I bet that Halo will be priced *just* right.

Unless you're definition of *just* right is $50, I'll take that bet.

Microsoft needs to sell Xboxes. No one's saying "Ya know, I'd spend $200 on that Xbox thingy if only they'd drop the price of Halo by $20. $250 is WAY too much, $230 I can handle." On top of that, Halo is still one of the best selling games on the console, and their only consistent seller. You drop the price of a game after it stops selling, not while it's still selling great. Otherwise you're just throwing money away.