Xbox One

So I ask again: don't you think that if you lower the price of 20$ at new release, you are getting about triple the sales? It's just my gut, but even 2x40$ > 1x60$.

Quote from Thrik

It sounds like things are much different in the US, I guess GameStop is successful and doing great over there? Are there any other chains? What about in other countries?

In Italy there's Gamestop and nothing else. You will find games in the mall, but let two months pass, and you get robbed if you still go there, i mean i've seen stuff 6 months old still at 49-59€ while on Amazon is in the €20-30 zone.

Gamestop is the only one that serves the used market btw, and as HP says, they treat a lot of used stuff, not sure about that high percentage, but 60-40 (used-new) is maybe a good guess.

But our sales are a drop in the ocean compared, it's clear that if the american % is something near the one HP approximates, you want to cut them out.

Quote from blackdog

So I ask again: don't you think that if you lower the price of 20$ at new release, you are getting about triple the sales? It's just my gut, but even 2x40$ > 1x60$.

A great question. We don't really know the true elasticity of the demand curve on games. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics))

Clearly, if $40 was the new $60 then more people would buy more games for sure. Publishers are terrified to lower the prices of software for fear they won't make up the profits. They assume that demand for a game is fixed based on quality (metacritic) and some measure of buzz and then ad spending. We know it's not like that in reality, but when you get lots of suits and MBAs in a room...

So anyway, I firmly believe that if $60 went to $50 or $40 there would be these um, how shall I put this, primal explosion of gamerlove for new console games, retail and digital. The problem is quantifying the, um, volume of such gamerlove. So until that is provable (which I doubt it truly is) we're all going to twist in the wind.

Notice how both MSFT and Sony did not announce software prices?

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Oh yeah dude, gamestop is freakign huge over here. Back in Portugal and Germany (and from what I've seen in UK) you walk inside a gamestop or any game shop, and you see mostly new game shelves, and a couple shelves for used games. People over there, for some reason, buy mostly new games. Different mentality i guess, the thought about getting something brand new AND helping those who actually developed the product is very appealing to people.

Over here, gamestop is without exaggeration 75% used games, and 25% new games. Used games shelves are HUGE and full of games. To find the new games you actually have to look around and try to find them, and they have a small text banner on top saying " New games" lol.

And like I said on the PS4 thread, Yesterday I literally had in one hand a brand new Mario game for 3Ds being sold for 39.99$, and on another hand a used copy for 37.99$! Like, wtf! And people over here always grab the cheaper version, ask me, this shit should be illegal and should be somewhat regulated.

My wife convinced me to take a game with me and sell it to gamestop, I grabbed Tomb Raider and they gave me 10$ for it!! I paid 59.99$ for it 3 months ago, and they're selling used copies of this game for 40$. Wont be making this mistake again, that's for sure.

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PS. Although... even with all this shit I don't agree on, used games have HUGE advantages to them as well, and they do help the industry in their own way. They became so big, the industry needs them by now.

Watch this, Patcher makes some really good points: http://www.gametrailers.com/videos/hhgq98/…-gamestop-hate-

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You idiot!! Never trade in any games at gamestop, they fuck you in the ass big time!

I used to trade in games at estarland.com, they are much more honest than gamestop (just checked Tomb Raider and they are giving $32 for it lol). I used to buy a lot of used games from them, despite being one of the few sites that had low cost shipping options to Brazil they also made sure all their stuff was in mint condition (they let you know otherwise), while at gamestop some games don't even have the original box anymore.

Hell, I even got a Super Nintendo at estarland for like 50 bucks and it's pretty much brand new with the original box and shit

This used game debacle reminds me a lot of the music industry's battle with piracy...

Don mattrick apologizes for the xbox one being a failure and not meeting to their customers standards.

Grounds for banning.

Quote from Izuno

A great question. We don't really know the true elasticity of the demand curve on games. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasticity_(economics))

Thanks for the insight Izuno; I wanted to also read the MS engineer post before replying, Jason Rubin points were also intersting.

I understand what you mean, I know it's difficult/impossible to project sales in these scenarios so... did they ever considered, for eg, trying to do this with a couple of (lesser important) titles? I mean, Remedy did that twice with the Max Paynes*... and they were successful (enough).

*as far as I can remember, at the time PC games cost was 49€ and I remember getting MP2 for 35€ – and I remember because it was "oh great, i don't have to wait for discounts. And I even get a 'special edition' lookalike box!"

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Clearly, if $40 was the new $60 then more people would buy more games for sure. Publishers are terrified to lower the prices of software for fear they won't make up the profits. They assume that demand for a game is fixed based on quality (metacritic) and some measure of buzz and then ad spending. We know it's not like that in reality, but when you get lots of suits and MBAs in a room...

I remember you writing something like that already when talking about Metacritic... but from down here, looks quite crazy.

Despite I came about a motto like "Not even free is cheap enough" after the discussions I read everyday, I'd have some more confidence in my products.

I know a lot of people buys new just because they know they can resell it in two weeks, and buy another new at discounted price.

Has anybody tried to track the used-tail market, by this I mean how many time a single copy is sold again. Let's say that in the US, used market is ~75% like HP was saying above, but you find that 30% of these copies are not sold again, that could mean ~30% more would buy a game on D1, if at used price.

I'm curious to see if MS will try juggle prices after reading the thoughts of that engineer. I mean, the whole point of Steam was indeed experimenting, and Valve said that openly to its customers, you can really do that only in a safe environment like that.

I would think they'd place an heavy blow on Sony if they announce their games are coming at less than 60$ (while I think I've read last year people suggesting an increase because the state of the Industry?).

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Notice how both MSFT and Sony did not announce software prices?

Do they usually do that? I don't remember following Press Conferences before halfway thorugh this generation (my Xbox is my first console after the Atari XE I got second hand from my cousin when I was young ).

Quote from knj

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At this point in the interview he turns into full on dick mode, grabs the mic, condescends pretty hard, etc.

Little blog I wrote about clouds. ;/

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/ryanjw…eration/101487/

Quote from Thrik

Little blog I wrote about clouds. ;/

http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/ryanjw…eration/101487/

fan boys and kids all over the internetz are buying that ludicrous idea of "The cloud can augment a console's power infinitely!".

However, I do agree with something about the cloud. Why not use it to process game statistics? I've seen that video about how a map in CS:GO can be improved by means of collecting gameplay data. So... if we extrapolate that to the cloud and many more games, something useful could spring from there.

Quote from 0kelvin

fan boys and kids all over the internetz are buying that ludicrous idea of "The cloud can augment a console's power infinitely!".

However, I do agree with something about the cloud. Why not use it to process game statistics? I've seen that video about how a map in CS:GO can be improved by means of collecting gameplay data. So... if we extrapolate that to the cloud and many more games, something useful could spring from there.

This. I'm worried that devs will be trying to move AI calculations and all that to their servers and then eventually, when the servers are all down, the game will suck. Plus, don't most games pretty much rely on quick calculations? that's something the cloud might not be very good at. We already saw what happens when things don't go fast, so we got a lot of awful looking texture streaming.

Indeed... I'm of the opinion that trying to use servers too much in single-player games is a very bad thing. Even last night my internet connection went down for 15 minutes or so, what am I meant to do when that happens? Play with no physics/AI? Well the game would presumably just stop working completely.

I'd personally prefer to see the cloud largely only used for multiplayer/co-op, because then it can integrate seamlessly. And developers definitely need to be smart and not try and use it for time-sensitive things, because it's guaranteed that there'll be moments where things lag even if it's just for five seconds. Imagine how immersion-breaking it'd be if everything in the game world started warping in The Last of Us, lol.

Something I briefly touched on in my post was the DRM aspect, though. The more you talk to regular dudes the more you realise they have no idea WTF the cloud really is, and Microsoft's marketing makes it worse. I can easily see most next-gen games saying that they use the cloud even though they really don't, the same way SimCity claimed it did yet worked totally fine with no internet connection and a hacked config file. It's a potential always-online DRM trojan horse.

LOL DARK

Quote from Thrik

Even last night my internet connection went down for 15 minutes or so, what am I meant to do when that happens? Play with no physics/AI? Well the game would presumably just stop working completely.

I understand you use the cloud to do some processing, then update something on the local machine; that's what I've got from the Forza demo/unveil. Sure nothing like that can be processed in real time at acceptable performance, so asynchronous jobs.

What's quite clear though, is that all this makes things much more complicated to build/manage.

You can't shift AI calculations etc to "the cloud" without severe lag, On my uber german internet I have a ping of around 30ms to speedtest, to any game server that is probably about the same. That is an entire frame in a 30fps game. So I send the message to "the cloud" then the cloud has to process my AI, then I have to receive the message back. That is probably 45+ms for this calculation. It simply doesn't work with current internet infrastructure and it doesn't matter how "fast" your internet is, all that is is bandwidth, something that isn't an issue, the issue is entirely the ping.

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Amazon ran a poll...

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http://www.psu.com/a019884/PS4-vs…ng-Sony-victory

Quote from Vilham

You can't shift AI calculations etc to "the cloud" without severe lag, On my uber german internet I have a ping of around 30ms to speedtest, to any game server that is probably about the same. That is an entire frame in a 30fps game. So I send the message to "the cloud" then the cloud has to process my AI, then I have to receive the message back. That is probably 45+ms for this calculation. It simply doesn't work with current internet infrastructure and it doesn't matter how "fast" your internet is, all that is is bandwidth, something that isn't an issue, the issue is entirely the ping.

It depends on how the game is put together though, surely? Many multiplayer games today have server-based bots, which are almost exactly the same concept: the assets for the NPC are on the gamer's machine, the logic and placement is handled by the server. I don't see how this same concept couldn't be applied to single-player games.

The latency is a definite issue, which is why this kind of thing is best suited to inherently multiplayer and co-op games more than single-player. Even then, it's best off being used for secondary stuff when possible (eg: animals in the game world).

If I understood it right, in Forza 5 presentation they commented about non realtime AI update. That is, you race, the cloud does some calculatiosn based on your gameplay and then, in the next race, the AI is feed with new parameters.