Posted on 10/15/2010 7:52:17 AM PDT by SmokingJoe
Last week, we told you the things that work against Microsoft's new mobile operating system; Windows Phone 7. Today, we list the top 5 things that actually work in its favor. Actually there are six; but since the first one is obvious, we'd rather not discuss it at length.
With Apple you just have two iPhones to choose from. Windows Phone 7 trumps it there with at least four major manufacturers for now - HTC, Samsung, LG and Dell. Different people have different needs; some want a hardware QWERTY, some don't. So, it gives people a wider choice than what is in Apple's store. The following five points are more in correlation to Android than the iOS:
Strict hardware requirements
Forcing manufacturers to use high-end hardware in their phones for WP7 gives competitive OSes like Google Android brownie points for its ability to run on inexpensive hardware. But on the positive side, this ensures a few things. For one, telling manufacturers to put a 1 GHz processor and graphics acceleration gives Microsoft a minimum benchmark to ensure that the User Interface runs buttery smooth.
In Android, manufacturers have a free hand to make phones with 528 MHz processors that tend to slow the UI down, thus spoiling the experience a little. Initially, WP7 devices will have 800 x 480 pixel capacitive displays, but from what we've heard, lower HVGA displays (320 x 480 pixel) will be supported at a later stage. It's reassuring to know that low-end QVGA displays won't be used like the ones on the Sony Ericsson XPERIA X10 Mini Pro that affect readability due to the blurry text.
(Excerpt) Read more at techtree.com ...
What on earth does that have to do with anything. Google doesn't charge for andoid OS so I guess that means we can dismiss it as a player on the phone market...if I follow your logic.
LOL. Great post AMPG.
BTW: From the link I provided here’s NPD #s
August
1.Xbox 360 – 356,700
2.DS – 342,700
3.Wii – 244,300
4.PS3 – 226,000
5.PSP – 79,400
September (released from HW vendor)
1. XBOX 360 - 483,989
2. Wii - 403,000 (approx)
3. PS3 - less than 400,000 (NPD guestimate)
YTD
1.DS – 4,214,800 (approx.)
2.Wii – 3,237,100 (approx.)
3.Xbox 360 – 3,179,889 -> 360 is really gaining since the slim released. Expect it to pass it by end of year.
4.PS3 – 2,031,500
5.PSP – 762,700
If you have a valid link that says otherwise please share.
see post 60 & 63. I think antirepublicrat’s numbers are wrong.
Yep, my numbers were old. I found revised figures, the 360 is back on top. Thanks. One of those sales was almost to me because I didn’t want to pay MS $150 to fix one of my current ones (why when $50 gets a brand-new one?), but I was too pissed off at MS to even buy one.
Financial health of the departments. Google is making quite a bit of $$$ for its small investment in Android through the ad impressions.
It also shows how Microsoft doesn't mind taking a loss leader and rushing poorly-designed products to market even if it's going to cost billions.
How old is your xbox that is broken?
Ok so it’s okay for google to take a loss leader in the Android OS to make money elsewhere. But Microoft can’t do that even though they make money on game sales and xbox live fees/sales.
I think your bias is showing.
It's one of the early Falcon chip systems. It's not RROD, it won't synch with the controller. MS Support says it's a hardware issue and was otherwise not very helpful, and even a bit insulting. After I cool down I may get one of the new ones, should be a lot more reliable with the SoC internals. Until then I have plenty of PS3 games to play. Fable III coming out may get me to finally replace it.
You know if you tell them it RROD they will fix it even if it has other issues ;-)
More than anything else, this would be the killer for me. It's one of my biggest beefs with the iPad, is that you have to jump through all kinds of hoops to attach external storage.
Screw that. I like being able to pop out an SD (or microSD) and either take stuff off, put stuff on, or swap it out for another one.
Traded a Windows phone for an HTC android a couple months ago. I hated the Windows phone and it’s quirks and crashing but didn’t realize how bad it was until I updgraded. Just an aweful system. Good luck with the upgrade, but will never even consider giving a Win phone another shot.
Every company effectively takes a loss leader when developing something, and before money starts rolling in. Microsoft never made any profit off the original XBox, and only started making any profit a couple years ago off the 360. That's about seven years and billions of dollars behind. That's a loss leader. Microsoft basically bought its way into the console business.
Tempting.
Then the iPhone is definitely not for you either. But so far in my experience with my Android, I still haven't had the need to pull out my SD card.
“MS is definitely not too late to the game and it’s very premature to announce winners and losers”
Not announcing. Giving an opinion.
“...only very tiny number(approx 100 million units last year), were smart phones.”
Are your figures worldwide figures? If so, there may be an important reason - cost. Meanwhile in the good ol’ USA...
Study: 42 percent of U.S. uses a smartphone... January 2010 - probably higher now.
http://mobihealthnews.com/6178/study-42-percent-of-u-s-uses-a-smartphone/
Wii - 687,000
Xbox 360 - 347,200
PlayStation 3 - 232,400
PlayStation 2 - 173,500
Ummm..No.
YOU are wrong. Them Seprtember figures you got are from September last year. We just got September's figures for THIS year last night, and the 360 clobbered the Wii, selling close to twice as many units as the Wii did.
As a matter of fact, the 360 has outsold the Wii for FOUR straight months:
Correct September figures are:
Xbox 360: 483,989 Units (Up 37% Year Over Year)
DS: 403,000 Units (Down 23% Year Over Year)
PS3: 312,000 Units (Down 37% Year Over Year)
Wii: 254,000 Units (Down 45% Year Over Year)
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/31012/Analyst_September_PS3_And_Wii_Sales_See_DoubleDigit_Declines.php
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-10-15-npd-results-show-8-percent-decline-in-september
As a matter of fact, for September, the Wii came in LAST, amongst current gen consoles. In addition, NPD has stopped giving out PS2 figures long ago. That alone should have warned you that your figures are wrong, since your figures contain PS2 figures.
In addition, the 360 totally dominated September software sales with Halo Reach alone selling a massive 3.3 million units, and that doesn't not even include Reach sales with bundled Reach/360’s.
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/30991/NPD_Results_September_2010_Industry_Down_8_Percent_As_Halo_Reach_Dominates.php
“The recent XBox increase in sales to this high number is mainly due to a drastic price cut, not sudden overwhelming demand for the system.”
You really don't know much about the games industry do you?
Well, I do.
For your information, there has been no XBOX 360 price cut for over two years now. Last real 360 price cut was in 2008, when the Arcade price was cut to $200, and the Elite was cut to $300. The only thing we had this year was when Microsoft intrduced the 360 “S”(aka 360 “Slim”), and reduced the prices of the old stock of the old Arcades and Elites to clear tham out. Those are normal temporary clearing out sales, not real price cuts. Get it?
“Also remember that Nintendo was making money on every Wii sold from day one”
Nintendo’s profits took a very sharp fall only a few weeks back.
“Nintendo Profit Halved as Wii Console Sales Slow
By Martyn Williams, IDG News
Oct 29, 2009 4:40 am
For the last few years Nintendo has been riding high on the runaway success of the Wii console but now that success appears to slowing considerably. Sales and profit at the Japanese games company fell sharply during the first half of its financial year as demand for the console dropped.”
http://www.pcworld.com/article/174633/nintendo_profit_halved_as_wii_console_sales_slow.html
And you are late, see 65.
As a matter of fact, for September, the Wii came in LAST
Given that the main selling point of the Wii was its much lower price, it was inevitable that the others would catch up if Nintendo didn't drastically lower the Wii price to keep it well below the others, which didn't happen.
Nintendo’s profits took a very sharp fall only a few weeks back.
That doesn't really hurt the financial strength of the company. Nintendo has been making money on each Wii since day 1, and the profit increased as manufacturing cost went lower. That profit just slowed down again. The XBox line, even with the current profit-making sales, still isn't even close to paying off its loss leader. The gaming division was already $4 billion in the hole when the 360 was released, and then proceeded to take a several hundred dollar loss on each 360 sold until 2008.
Yup. antirepublicrat has no idea what he ie talking about. I have posted the correct figures for September in my post # 78
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.