in my experience
The Xbox is a Trojan Horse
December 14, 2001 3:39 AM
Sony sells the Playstation as a loss leader, which means it sells the hardware a lower price than what it cost them. They lose money every time someone buys a Playstation. The idea is that the software sales, and lots of them, of games like Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarding will make the money back, and then some. This business model has been around for sometime and has been practiced by Nintendo, Sega, Atari, et al (except 3DO which charged $700 for their 16 bit system back in the early 90's).
December 14, 2001 3:39 AM
Sony sells the Playstation as a loss leader, which means it sells the hardware a lower price than what it cost them. They lose money every time someone buys a Playstation. The idea is that the software sales, and lots of them, of games like Tony Hawk Pro Skateboarding will make the money back, and then some. This business model has been around for sometime and has been practiced by Nintendo, Sega, Atari, et al (except 3DO which charged $700 for their 16 bit system back in the early 90's).
So these days, Sony goes thru the trouble of squashing folks who make Playstation emulators. I have commented on this before, as has Zimran at winterspeak dot com from the stance that Sony 'doesn't get it.' The idea is that if Sony allowed emulators to be sold, the user base for the game system would grow, with out having to take a loss on the hardware due to sales of the emulation software. Bleem and Connectix are the two best examples of this emulation dance. Both of which Sony sued, and eventually squashed. Why? The answer begins to reveal MSFT's plans for the Xbox.