Games Journalism 2018! They’re Taking it Back!.
Hopefully the Xbox announcement will have more details, when that goes up.
For a lot of families, $35 a month is a lot more palatable than $250 to $400 up front and a monthly payment for services anyway.
Imagine how long smartphones would’ve taken to hit critical mass if none of the companies had offered their sub plans.
Monthly payments on iPhones are why Apple is a $1 trillion dollar company.
Given that it’s “Rent to Own” with services included, it basically is just another option. If it fits, great. If it doesn’t that’s fine too.
Having said that, the company that offers the best service, hardware and multiple options to get those usually wins out in a marketplace.
When you look at the Xbone S, it’s much more competitive. But only if you would have purchased Xbox Live and Game Pass for the full 2 years. The beauty of Game Pass is normally you can subscribe for 1 month, play all the new games, then let it lapse. Can’t do that with this bundle.
MSRP
$249 Xbone S
$120 Xbox Live - 2 years
$240 Xbox Game Pass - 2 years
-------------------------------
$609
Deals
$185 Xbone S
$096 Xbox Live - 2 years
$240 Xbox Game Pass - 2 years
----------------------------------
$520
$22/month * 24 months = $528
The product they’re selling is games. Sony is winning on games, and Microsoft still hasn’t addressed that gap. They have no answer other than they’re working on it.
I can make the best coffee brewer in the world but if it only brews Dunkin Donuts coffee why would you buy it?
They need actual games people want to play. No plan works without them, and that’s where they’re stuck atm.
What the guy above me said… ^^^
I guess it’s just accepted as a fait accompli that nobody wants to play Halo or Gears anymore.
Well, actually, Halo is pretty great as a series! But yeah, unfortunately I do think that a lot of people are really disinterested in both series. I’d love a Halo game that reinstituted four-player split screen (and system link) but I doubt we’ll get that ever again.
The Call of Duty crowd really dislikes Halo because of the sci-fi. The first person shooter crowd dislikes Gears because of the third-person view.
The fundamental business models of Sony and MS are different. by offering a better, more stable platform with Xbox Live,and now trying to get more units and services in the hands of the public, this puts Xbox in a better situation to offer more exclusives and games. In the never-ending “Tastes Great vs. Less Filling” gamer argument, this is a solid win for the Green Machine.
The shooting market is over saturated. Halo and Gears are last generation games that haven’t updated to keep with the times. They made a good move with PUBG but Fortnite came outta nowhere and killed it.
They should get PUBG on Gamepass though!
The other shoe has dropped…
Sure, it’s a loan, just like when you finance a cell phone.
Surprised they’re offering different prices based on credit score, I would have expected a single price and if a consumer doesn’t qualify they get turned away.
Yeah, that’s the bad part. I think it remains to be seen who buys in because you’d think the no or bad credit people are exactly who this would appeal to based on the cheap cost per month, but that’s exactly who won’t qualify for the DPA to start with.
That reads to me like the only thing that varies by customer is the APR, which will depend on credit rating. So any amount unpaid after 24 months will be charged interest, but since the duration of the agreement is 24 months, that’s basically saying if you miss a payment you’ll be paying interest on it. Just like any other loan.
The big difference is cell phone contracts were sold as subsidies. In their hay day you were getting a $600 phone by committing to a 2 year term at the price you were already paying for service. This worked because the phones had a huge markup and so did the service, but to consumers you were getting $600 in hardware for “free”. This Xbox deal is just the cost of the thing spread across two years like any other loan. It doesn’t have the wow factor of “I was already paying for Live Gold and Gamepass, but now I get the console free for committing for two years at the same price.” If you have decent credit and want an Xbox, by all means, take the interest free loan, but this isn’t going to throw open the door to the masses in any appreciable fashion.
Back in the day yes, but I was talking about 2018. When you buy a cellphone today, it typically isn’t subsidized.
True, and I don’t think people buy phones on contract as often anymore for that reason. We went from an era when it was crazy not to take advantage of the subsidy for your iPhone to an era where everyone in my family uses a mid/low end Android phone or bought their iPhone outright to avoid being chained to a carrier.
Not to derail but they weren’t subsidies. The remainder of the phones cost was paid by the user as factored into their 2 year contract. You still paid high price for that phone just not all at once.