Hey don't give the game away, I could've got another week from him!
Hey don't give the game away, I could've got another week from him!
Not surprised it took this long, what with all the 360 owners having to buy brand new 360's after their first ones crapped out on them.
Really? You don't think I've done a good job accepting how you haven't been able to post without quoting or harassing me for months now, even when you admit that you have nothing else to say? If you'd rather I'd expose you guys in private, I'll just use the report button from now on.Originally Posted by Vivi22
Overall it's been this insane case study in brand loyalty. They were able to make crazy inroads with the year head start, the lower price point, the studio acquisitions and investments, the marketing blowouts, the Kinect hype, and better network features, but more importantly, were able to get people to keep buying that console even when the Red Ring stuff came to light.
By showing that their trolling offends you, you're just giving them an incentive to continue.
Brand loyalty seems less likely than "exceptionally cheaper" as the main reason, not to mention the very un-Microsoft-ily good customer service when the uncommon RROD reared its ugly head. Cost of first batch 360: £150. Cost of repair: £0 + two weeks of time. Cost of PS3: £300. Most people were just smart with their money, as opposed to unusually loyal. Then Microsoft actually kept the cost down to roughly the same level, even after they stopped releasing early models, while Sony adamantly refused to budge for damn near the whole lifetime of the console. Microsoft simply made the more attractive console for people who only had enough money for one, which, apparently, was most people.
Saying it's "brand loyalty" is a bit of a shallow analysis. Quin's already pointed out that even with RROD taken into account, for a very long time a 360 was a hell of a lot cheaper than a PS3. Beyond that though, Microsoft knew they weren't going to win big with the original Xbox in terms of sales and they always intended to use it to build up a solid core of customers and franchises to attract people for their second console. The original Xbox was a surprisingly great console with a terrific lineup and games like Halo put the thing on the map; a decade later that particular franchise is a household name comparable to Mario and Pokemon.
When the Seventh gen came along, Sony lost the plot. They put out a tremendously expensive console that was missing perhaps the most important possible feature, backwards compatibility, in all but one SKU. Their lineup wasn't tremendously impressive but more to the point Microsoft did a damned good job of showing and telling people about their features, whilst Sony pretty much assumed they could coast along. If it had had a sane price point they almost certainly could have but the absurd cost of the PS3 meant people turned elsewhere. Their list of exclusives was frankly underwhelming and those which did exist were subject to tremendous delays. Gran Turismo 5 is probably the best example there.
It seems to me that the crazier brand loyalty is to the system which took forever to arrive, was extortionately expensive, lacked videogames, and was pretty underwhelming in most regards. If people stuck with the 360 despite the RRoD debacle there might be a reason for that beyond people who think Microsoft are really great and Bill Gates looks like such a nice man in his nerd sweaters.
Oh man, GT 5. smurfing hell. I was working in GameStation at the time of its release, and I had to call the massive list of people who had made pre-orders years and sodding years telling them their game had arrived. About half the people didn't bother with it, because they'd got on with their lives and didn't really have time for or interest in gaming anymore. That was a right shambles. xD
While I admit my previous comment was just in hopes of triggering an Iceglow rant, because they amuse me, I do think there was a fair amount of brand loyalty involved. (Something both camps are pretty damned Guilty of.
There was this bizzare notion that some 360 fans were pushing that the PS3 had just as high of a failure rate, which was completely bulltrout, and that the 360 was just as powerful and capable of just as much output as a PS3, also completely bulltrout.
Though yeah, for the most part it was the price, and better online. (Mind you, there was a lot of exaggeration about PS3 being horrid online as well. Having played a fair amount online, I can say that most games worked just fine.
There is some definate exaggeration that happens in regards to just how much of that is just being 'brand loyal', as there were plenty of reasons one could realisticly conjure up to own a 360 instead.
Well, realistically, the 360 was chucking out as much power as the PS3, since very few developers actually used the PS3's full capacity. It's only in PS3 exclusives where you really see the difference, and those were far too few are far too small a deal to really matter.
The idea of someone being brand loyal to Microsoft genuinely boggles me. Everybody who uses a Microsoft product thinks and knows that they are wankers. In the PC market, Linux is too much of a mystery to your general purpose thicky who just wants a computer to do stuff, and Apple are... well, Apple. Microsoft provide a relatively easy and functional service for most people, not to mention it's what most computers come with out the box, which is probably why most people stick with Windows. It's not a question of brand loyalty.
That transfers into the console market. The PS2 was arguably the best console ever made, and the Xbox just couldn't hold a candle to it. Firstly, Microsoft didn't have the quantity of games that Sony had access to, and secondly, the Xbox was quite trout compared to the PS2. One could reasonably argue that Halo is the prime reason the Xbox was as popular as it was. It's unlikely that many people would be brand loyal to that ugly little box with its many drawbacks. I bet my bollocks that more people bought the 360 for the promise of Halo 3 than for Microsoft's sake.
It seems to me that brand loyalty is one of the smallest factors in why the 360 did so well. Cheap console, massive game library, easy to use, easy to get hold of, largely backwards compatible, came out a year earlier. With that stacked in its favour, it flummoxes me why people revert to the old "uh, it's all brand loyalty" argument. As MILF pointed out, it's more reasonable to argue that brand loyalty practically held up the PS3 in its early days. Expensive console, tiny library compared to the PS2, no backwards compatibility (except in one version). It's no surprise that Sony had to wait for the 360 to stop selling so fast and finally stabilise in sales before they reduced the price of the PS3 to try to entice some new people in.
The main reason the 360 performed as well as it did compared to the PS3 is simply because Microsoft performed so much better as a business. They were very clever and aggressive with their tactics, in particular advertising, whereas Sony pretty much put a bullet in the legacy of it's greatest success from the start.
Perhaps 'Brand Loyal' is a bad term to use here.
Because there was a lot of stuff people would claim about PS3 that was just plain wrong, something that isn't going to come from the 360 out preforming the PS3. 360 having a better market strategy doesn't equate to BS lies like saying the PS3 has just as high of a failure rate.
Well, yeah. Once stupid people actually buy stuff, they tend to respond to negative criticism of their stuff with stupidity. xD
I've never heard about the PS3 having many failures, though. Other than glaring security ones! OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHH!
Like XBox's servers had never gotten hacked before.
I know, but it gets such a great reaction from fanboys, regardless of console.
Ah the fun of poking fan boys.
I don't ever have to hear how 360 is the best console ever from Microsoft fanboys ever, ever again now!
*looks around the internet*
Never mind.
Xenogears is the tragic story of how your whole life can take a crappy turn, just because you happened to see a lady in a wedding dress before her wedding.
This boy is crackin' up, this boy has broken down
This boy is crackin' up, this boy has broke down
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