Xbox 2: Tony Hawks, Spider-Man, Quake 4 and more

Sony is winning because the consumer thinks Playstation = videogames.

The consumer thinks PS = videogames because of the range of quality games on the original PS.

The PS had a range of quality games because Sony made the best 32-bit machine, and bent over backwards for 3rd party developers.

They bent over backwards because... ... ..etc. etc. etc.

The thing is LUPOS, most people are willing to give Sony a chance since they have done nothing but produce quality hardware since they set up. Sony TVs, videos, hi-fis, DVD players, broadcast equipment and even games consoles have all sold like hot cakes in competitive markets. The only way to do that is to produce quality hardware with the features that people need.

Microsoft have produced buggy, bloaty, slow software that crashes often and has no warranty and is covered by a 100% limitation of liability. If MS software kills your business, you have no chance to claim money back from MS. Windows NT caused your Aegis missile cruiser to lock up? Sorry, no comeback. And they have done that in a non-competitive market that they own.

In order to get where they are today, MS made sure every clone manufacturer had a license for MS-DOS that prevented them from buying it if they pre-loaded any other OS. They made sure that Windows didn't work on Dr-DOS, the most popular MS-DOS replacement at the time. And they made sure that the sale of every PC resulted in them getting a cut, even if it was sold without an OS installed. And it goes on, you can't get Windows at the normal OEM pricing if you ever install another OS, making it impossible to compete with your competitiors. Even someone as large as Dell, without the overheads of other companies, stopped installing Linux on their servers for a while due to MS's pricing tactics.

I, personally, can't see MS leaving those tactics behind when their money has bought them an overbearing percentage of the computer games market. Then they'll use their console monopoly to make sure the only game in town is XBox, maybe license it out to hardware manufacturers to make them compete on price, using the above licensing and pricing tactics to make sure they don't stray.

Once they have the console market, they integrate it with the PC market they already own and use it to get hold of the entertainment content delivery market. Your XBox will become the only way to watch downloadable movies or TV or listen to downloadable music. Then when the newspapers are moved totally online, they will own the keys to your opinions.

Sony are not able to do any of that, because they don't have the PC market to back it up. They may get in to bed with Apple to do that, but they still don't have the market share to make a difference, besides Sony Connect is a stab at the heart of Apple's iTunes Music Store. Plus Sony has not yet used the tactics it needs to use to get there, Microsoft have, on the back of poor products.

Based purely on the past experiences I have had with Sony and Microsoft, I'd much rather Sony were in change of the entertainment business than Microsoft.

Of course, I'd much rather nobody owned it, but it looks like Mr. Murdoch might be trying to force the issue and grab control from the content end, rather than the technology end.

The future is coming, boys and girls, the only choice we have is how long it takes to get here and who we give the keys to.

looks like he agrees with me, at least a little bit



let see, does sony wish to monopolize a market buy using their preexisting strangle hodl to their advantage and put out inferior products to simultaneously screw their competitors and the public... yea it sure looks liek ti to me.



sony cant afford to buy every cd player company, nor do they want to. cd players come in many varieties, sony being the high end (at least for peopel who dont knwo any better, there are certainly nicer steroes out their) and coby makign up the low end with several varieties in the middle. The funny thing is sony really doesnt make the best products most of the time, general if you read reviews of items in a particular price range sony doesn't normaly come out on top, samsung has some really nice tv's right now that will almost always beat the sony at the same price, be it with a bigger size or more features or even better image quality. Sony doesnt have a death grip on home entertainment the way they do on videogames. As long as sony is able to produce decent quality items and sell them for high mark up prices they are content to do so because they make a fortune off of their brand recognition alone.



rightly or wrongly? so peopel are buyign their products eve n though they might not be the best? and why woudl they do that? brand recognition, why do you buy nikes instead of payless sneakers, they shure as hell dont last any longer, people liek the name. Sony just liek nike and starbucks, and bed bath and beyond, and any number of other "top shelf item" companies are more than happy to milk people for evey cent they can.

as for buying their way into the market, you must be deluding yourself. The onyl reason sony doesnt own the entire home entertainment market is because they havent managed to do it yet. They keep trying to force propriatary formats in a bid to take profits away from their competitors. memory sticks and mini disks and beta max and nwo the blu-ray, which they are working in tandem with a few other companies o, but thats mos tliekyl because they have learned that they cant force a product all by themselves, they just arent big enough. not like microsoft. However is their "joint venture" pays off they will be able to force this thing into a a large number of homes based entirely on the playstation brand. Using a "video game console" as a "trojan horse" to force you into using their propriatary format. Which in turn will give them a heavier dominance int he home entertainment market as well as keep them riding high in video game land.



sadly i totaly agree with you, which is my realistic/utopian hope for the future is that the super powers that are sony and M$ end up dead locked and we just have out lovely little duopoly liek in the old days, with the ocasional 3d0 or jaguar to make it interesting of course.

sorry for the lack of spell check, im nto in the m00d : )
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DrDee:

I don't agree with the comments about Sony hardware being "quality" (I think it's just an impression rather than a fact), however your comments about Microsoft summarise exactly my thoughts on the matter.

Why can't people see that Microsoft will put us in a single-supplier position if they gain control of the market?

ok since i havent the time or the concern to continue this conversation tod ay i will try and summerize my mad rambling and if anyoen doesnt liek we can agree to disagree (ive probably spent more time on here today than i shoudl have and i havent even been at work two hours)

sony has the same "evil" monopolistic goals as any other company. They however are starting from a much older market, one that has been controled and regulated and forced to not be monopolized since its creation many many years ago. M$ single handidly stole a fledgling market and lock it up forthems selves from the get go. (much like apple is doing with digital music distibution and players) I apreciate keeping an eye on M$ and worryign that they will ruin things but i dont buy into the sony is soem how less evil than M$ line. Historicaly they have made many attempts and monopolisation. they have just failed. They already own alot fo moves and now the psp and ps3 will give them a strong arm into to the distribution of those movies. The psp plays mp3's off of memory sticks and you can buy them from sonys online distribution center.

Any time sony has had a leg up they have shown their true colors, and i believe that the ps2 is a shining example of the kind of underwhelming crap they can get people to buy. I dont want to hand the key to anyone, which is why for now i am an avid M$ supporter. IF they becomne to strong i will switch and ralley again for whoefver is th eunderdog at the time. ( i do also own a game cube after all)

Speaking in terms of the big picture the responsibilty of keeping game makers in check falsl on us, the hardcore gamers. the trand setters. Thsi goes back to my profesional gamers theory a from a coupel weeks ago if anyoen remebrs that :P

i do what i can to make my chosen past time as good as it can be, if you acept crap. they will keep giving it to you, in adundance.

also... i never said M$'s inovative games where good... i just said they tried, seaman wasnt exactly a good game, nor was shenmue if you really think about it, btu they tried, and i aprecite it.
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i se that clear as day, why dont people see that sony would do the same thing if given the chance?

im not all M$4life, just 4now.

And I don't reacall making such comments.

Please check back through the thread.

I DO happen to believe that Sony produces quality products, but I have not said so in this thread.

Hang on, I'm not quite sure I get this. I could understand people forgetting who published Seaman, but surely the massive amount of Sega nostalgia should have clued you into the fact that Shenmue was a Sega production?

For the record, I think both Shenmue and it's sequel are great games. Well, in a sense. Shenmue is a virtual world with an adventure that takes place in it. You're rarely obliged to actually do anything, meaning that the player's progress is almost entirely at their own pace. You can spend an in-game month simply playing Space Harrier if you want. Incidentally, Shenmue 2 is even better for this - the amount of stuff you can do that has no relation to the main game is silly. People can spend hours playing the game and not actually get anywhere, yet still thoroughly enjoy it. When they do finally come to playing it to progress, they're presented with a technically accomplished and well-paced adventure (though it must be said, Shenmue 2's pacing was far better). They have as much fun playing properly as "unplaying" it, and that's what makes the games so good in my mind.


Better still, the late 80s. The NES was more popular than the SNES, which was more popular than the N64, which is looking to finish up more popular than the Gamecube (according to Nintendo's own figures, which I'll present on request). For one reason or another, Nintendo's audience has decreased with every generation of home console hardware.

only now in this late hour do i realize the error of my syntax!

i did not mean to imply that M$ had anythign to do with seamen or shenmue. I was comparing M$'s willingness to support games with new conceptsto segas willingness to do the same.

I for one played seaman for all fo five minutes and cant really speak about tis quality but from what i understand its more of a novelty than anything else.

as for shenmue. i love shenmue dearly... both of them! my onyl point was that shenmue had plenty of flaws. repretitive dialog and repetitive charcter models, and pop in, and load times. but we where willign to over look its short commings because the things it did right where so new and wonderfull.

the difference here is that sega has such a skill with charcters and stories that it can take a good idea wrap it in decent gameplay and still make it memorable, and thats why we love them. Blinx does not hold any sort of special place in my heart.

im rambling, hopefully you get my point, not all great ideas come out right the first time, but somebody has to give them a chance, have you played fable? theres a lot to love, and even more that should have been (which inspired a lot of people to hate). If they do make a sequal it should be a truley awsome game. (should be)

I still stand by my original comment: Microsoft have done everything they can to saturate computers, but Sony have done the same in many a market. Minidisc, ATRAC, Playstation, Sony's film industry presence- ALL have been attempts to convince people to stop using other people's stuff and give them exclusivity.

The Minidisc was a blatant attempt to create a media they controlled. ATRAC was an attempt to beat MP3s and corner the internet music market. Sony's film wing will keep swallowing production companies (like MGM...) until people respect their output. And the Playstation... don't get me started.

So what makes MS so evil in the games industry? That they, too, want a slice of the fastest growing entertainment market? That they, too, see the chance to converge a load of different media forms in one place? That they, too, want to be market leader? Sony want exactly the same stuff, and have already tried in other markets.

A lot of these failed, but the PS series sure as hell hasn't. So, they're going to squeeze that brand name, like Walkman and Discman did, until it's worthless. Look at the exclusivity deals they made on a load of major titles; stuff like the Final Fantasy deal, Tekken, the whole Gran Turismo thing, the MGM buyout meaning they have total control over all their licenses, including that massively valuable Bond license... and they've not really had a real "first party" games wing.

If you think PS3 isn't going to attempt some form of convergence on you, you're blind or stupid. Sony like covering their bases, and hate losing market share. Generation by generation the PS range is slowly sliding into its place in the Sony home; i'm quite surprised that it can't be used like a seperate in a hi-fi yet, frankly. After all, that network cable means they could use for streaming audio, and sell it to that nice DAB radio market that appeared out of nowhere that they have little to do with yet. The PSP is their bid to take yet another market, and it's working by the looks of things. Slowly but surely, when you think electronics you can think of a Sony product. Vaio computers and notebooks. Wega televisions. Playstation consoles. Walkmans, Discmans, Minidisc, Memory Stick, DVD camcorders... i can keep going. So, who is aiming for monopoly? And how big is this monopoly? And which is worse?

yea, what he said! :)

Microsoft has produced a solid machine with the Xbox, no doubting that. It's had some amazing games in terms of gameplay, visual and commercial performance. This isn't being called into question. Convergence isn't the issue, nor is any company's attempt to carve a niche only it can exploit.

What is under scrutiny here is Microsoft's taste for unsavoury business practices to gain an upper hand in a sectors where it is not currently the leader. Its dominate-not-innovate attitude to buying up others in its current "sector du jour", along with a company's sometimes excellent portfolio. A portfolio that is either destroyed or shoe-horned into existing MS wares to create a hideous chimeral beast. While it couldn't exactly buy Sony, let's not forget it has had a pop at Nintendo. Do you really think we'd have a touchy-feely Nintendo DS if MS were at the reins?

Can you say the same for Sony? Sony which, after investing in a product with Nintendo, was given the finger and decided to give it a go anyway. Decided to enter the games market when it was worth a fraction of what it is today, and played a huge part in increasing the value of the market.

There's world between building your position in a market, at the same time investing in the market itself, and stepping into a ready-made lucrative market, buying up assets at a whim, giving little back to that market whilst always, always looking at that market as a stepping stone to a bigger picture where games are very much considered a side salad.

Only the most pyschopathic mega-lo-maniacs crave for absolute domination, and will stop at nothing to reach it. Perhaps Sony's CEO isn't crazy enough??

...or perhaps we just trust japanese companys more because japnese people seem more honorable... way of the samurai and what not... in which case... you're all a buncha racists!!! Don't trust em... if they had normal sized penis's they might have the balls to stab you in the back and take your money like they really want to! As is, their tiny wangs make them insecure so they try harder to please their customers (you think Bill gates woudl have the same problem)! Like how i try extra hard to please wome... CRAP!!... i've said to much!

P.S. that was intended entirely as a joke, please dont take offense, and if you did... sorry about that. I'm sure your dick is plenty big 8=D

It's true, I've seen them in my gyms showers... ... I don't work out, it's just a hobby - (wood)pecker spotting.

Solely in the games industry? Microsoft is not evil.

Games industry combined with PC industry, MS has a decidedly evil tint. Combine its moves into controlling the codecs for next gen DVD players and attempts to ensnare the Internet, bit more evil. Combine them all with its demonstrated willingess for illegal activities to further its own agenda and Old Nick is looking like a nun in comparison.

Why isn't Sony evil too? It is, it's just not in a position to do anything about it.

MS owns the PC market, every other electronic market from shop registers to car dashboards are looking to the PC market for cheap components and an OS to run them. MS stands to be the power behind the throne in every digital market out there. Sony can't compete with that level of invasiveness.

The only thing MS doesn't have right now is a presence in the lounge. Sony has this, from TVs to hi-fis and now the PSX/2/3. If MS dominates the console market with Xenon, it will have it all. It will have the keys to "your digital lifestyle". As all things digital become more and more important, from entertainment to voting in elections, MS will have control over all of it.

It may just be me, but I don't think MS can be trusted to handle that responsibility. Windows was coded to break ontop of Dr-DOS, MS's new search engine deprecates results for Linux and Apple, MS's new spyware software has holes for paying customers and I'm never too sure about the spam blocking in Hotmail and Outlook.


Gran Turismo was developed by Polyphony Digital Inc., part of the Sony Computer Entertainment Group.
Polyphony Website
Sounds like a first party games developer to me, what about all the UK Sony studios? SCEI is the Sony games wing, as well as producing the console hardware.

It's true there's a little prick on this thread, but it isn't the Japanese, Lupos..

dont worry kid_77 i don't think your a prick, i think you're very cool. Just ignore him he's not a nice person!

Yup, and I've found it:

Indeed. As for those UK studios... SCEE Cambridge, of course, developed the wildly popular EyeToy peripheral and some of the best software for it. That's a proven first-party success. Meanwhile, SCEE Liverpool is working on developing Wipeout Pure and has previously worked on Formula 1 2001 and Wipeout Fusion.