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Comment by programminggeek | Hacker News Reader

The reason Microsoft is doing this is not what you think it is. The Xbox is a subscription business. $50/year * 46 million subscribers. Microsoft can't afford to lose those subscribers.

The box, the DRM, media integration, etc. means nothing if they lose those subscribers to the Wii U or PS4. So, don't piss off your core customers.

Anecdotally, a lot of my friends and family who are longtime Xbox gamers have no intention of buying a $500 DRM laden Xbox 360. Removing a lot of the DRM restrictions still doesn't fix the price and now Microsoft already looks a bit foolish for not being very customer friendly in the first place.

The "console war" is a long game, but Xbox One didn't start out on the right foot for sure.

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> The reason Microsoft is doing this is not what you think it is.

I assumed they were succumbing to pressure from their customer base... what was I supposed to think the reason was?

The people complaining are only a fraction of their total customer base.

Pressure doesn't just mean vocal pressure. By now I assume they have preorder data from Amazon, etc. (For Amazon, the PS4 has been a top seller in the videogame category for most of the past week despite being split up into multiple bundles.)

So has the Xbox One, although there's only one SKU so far.

I should have said, _the_ top seller, ahead of the Xbox One.

I've owned a PS3 for while now (probably since about a year after they were released) and have always enjoyed it, despite a few issues like lagging XMB screens and random system hangs from time to time.

A few months ago, I purchased the Xbox360 after hearing nothing but great things about it. I have to say that it's been a complete disappointment for me: the lag on XBL is exactly the same as on PSN, the games are more or less the same, and the fact that I have to pay Microsoft for access to other subscription services (which makes absolutely no sense) is a complete turnoff for me. Sony got quite a bit of flack for not being as 'cool' as Xbox360, but I have to say that caring about your customers is really refreshing. Kind of sad that that's the state of gaming at this point!

My thought was that they are doing this so that people will actually buy their console and subscribe to their services, giving them money in the process. Guess the reason Microsoft is doing this _is_ what I think it is.

The Xbox 360 released at about $500-$550 as did the PS3. The price was likely not the reason your friends were considering abandoning Xbox. It was the poorly communicated DRM restrictions and Microsoft's initial reluctance to do anything about it.

I would have been one of the people quick to abandon the platform, but now I'm considering purchasing the Xbox One. I'm sure some of your friends might be reconsidering as well.

The most expensive Xbox 360 at launch was $399.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Retail_configurations

Perhaps it was different in the US. But that's the price I paid for my Xbox 360 in Canada.

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