The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people's radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that's all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.
Compare that to PlayStation 4/PlayStation 4 Pro/PlayStation 5 (and yeah, I'm not going to argue that 'pro' isn't a stupid designation for a slightly-more-powerful-than-before console), but it's at least obvious where they sit in the lineup.
Seems pretty intuitive..
It should be pretty obvious that Series > One > 360.
I think it’s absolutely baffling that somebody might find such a perfectly logical and reasonable naming system confusing.
But why does Series > One?
What is obvious about series being better than 360? why would someone think that if they were just presented with those names and nothing else?
Why would someone think x is better than s without doing any research?
AFAIK, S is “no physical media”
AFAIK, “series” means “fancy”
I’ve only ever purchased XBox consoles and currently rock an XBox One.
Lemme fix your marketing, XBox: call the “no drive” ones “cloud” or “online” or “vapor” or whatever.
Call your next one 9006 so it is simultaneously “over 9000”, and puts you back in the semver race with PlayStation. /s
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/consoles/compare
Yes the names are not as easy to compare as PS5 vs PS4, but upon cursory investigation it's blatantly obvious that the X is more powerful than the S.
The part I emphasize is exactly the argument of the person you're responding.
You wouldn't google Playstation 4 and 5 to find out which is which. I have no idea why Microsoft would do this. Try sending your mother out to buy one. Would she know which one to buy and understand the difference?
"it's not even obvious which is the more powerful model, there's no mention anywhere of what X and S stand for."
At a glance the difference between the X and the S could be like the PS4 vs PS4 Slim, or the PS5 and PS5 Digital Edition.
Do they? I don't. At this moment, I couldn't tell you the name of Microsoft's newest console, because their naming convention is so convoluted. Meanwhile, I can tell from a glance that the PS5 is newer than the PS4.
Granted, I'm not a console gamer, but neither are (most) parents buying consoles for their children.
"Ehh, people will know what we're talking about" seems like a haphazard marketing strategy.
Edit: I googled it. Xbox X and the old one is Xbox One X? That is simply hilariously stupid.
Sony/Apple/Samsung have this one solid - just release the next semver and market the hell out of it. Don't make me confused when I'm thinking about paying you money. Note: even the ones that aren't "on the version treadmill" do poorly: "iPhone mini" vs. "Samsung Fold" etc are niche products and exist to essentially sell the mainline item.
It wasn't very long ago that kids were struggling to get their parents to stop calling xbox and playstation "the nintendo". Young parents today are probably comfortable with the brands of xbox and playstation, having grown up with those brands, but expecting them to be up-to-date on the latest models isn't smart. There can be a considerable gap in understanding between those who are tuned into gaming matters and those who might be making the actual purchase. The value of simple branding should not be underestimated.
If they want me to check on google, they failed.
Also it is funny that you attack people on.. hacker news for not understanding the versioning.
It just proves that microsoft does it in a bad way.
But fret not, there's an easy shortcut to see which Microsoft product is newer. Just try them side by side and whichever has more advertisements is newer.
Everyone subscribes to Game Pass, but nobody buys many games.
Kind of like how Apple hasn't "lost" any "laptop war"
In short, Ford doesn't release the Ford 5 because it knows the Ford 4 is old news. (Also, get a horse, ya durn kids.)
Anyway, research:
https://www.windowscentral.com/heres-some-interesting-stats-...
> Most Xbox One gamers reside in the 25- to 34-year-old bracket, followed closely by the 35- to 44-year-old bracket.
> 56 percent of Xbox One owners live with a married spouse or partner, 10 percent live alone, and 23 percent live with their parents.
> Many Xbox One owners have an annual income of around $75,000.
I'd say I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, but both of those references are outdated these days.
I don't know a single kid that would not know which models are current gen and which are better or worse. Argument about non technical parents is valid but any kid today will know which Xbox to get and will tell their parents. Kids these days know much more stuff than you seem to think, they spent 1/3-1/4 of their lives on the internet. My 11-12yo nephews built PCs just following youtube guides, they do video montages of their Fortnite games to put on youtube and almost every single friend of theirs is similarly familiar with current tech.
Xbox having lower numbers is purely fault of PS dominating the market over last decade, people will continue buying it cause they trust Sony to deliver exclusives and they have existing game libraries. I converted two Sony fanboys to Xbox with Game Pass and they both love it. Noone these days buys a PS "because they are confused with Xbox naming", 5 minutes of googling answers any questions. The only people who might really have an issue with this are boomers+ who are not even going to buy a console for themselves cause "games are for kids and a waste of time".
If he doesn't know, no way grandma and grandpa are going to be able to get him a birthday present.
The kids may know and understand this, but parents may not. If you go to a store today, you will only find the latter two, and you won’t have an issue picking the one your kid asked for (i.e. the X). But when both generations were on sale, the parent might end up buying "One X" instead of "Series X" because it’s cheaper, or buying "360" instead of "One" because it’s clearly bigger (by 359 no less).
The Xbox line-up is just comical. I walk through any gaming department and see an "S", "X", or sometimes even both "S" and "X" on Xbox games. If it was just "Xbox 7" and "Xbox 8", you'd at least have some idea of what's going on.
It's like someone who knows nothing about cars trying to figure out SE vs LE vs CE vs XLE trimmings when looking at accessories.
Wtf, there are two different S's and two different X's? I thought 'Xbox One _' and 'Xbox Series _' referred to the same products.
Xbox One _ :: PS4.
Xbox Series _ :: PS5.
I don't think non-numbers are a bad naming scheme, just the simplest. It means its easiest to keep up with and archive, but it can also mean it's hard to tell audiences what fancy new features you're marketing. If the Wii was the Nintendo 5 and the Switch was the Nintendo 7 I'm not sure if it would be quite as snappy in consumer minds.
Labelling the Switch as a new version of the Wii doesn't make much sense because it occupies a different niche, comparable to PlayStation/2/3/4/5 vs the PlayStation Portable.
PlayStation's addition of "Pro" in it's own naming scheme clearly distinguishes the more powerful console. Delaying the release of the pro model until later in the generation's lifecycle also helps reduce friction.
NES -> SNES
GB -> GBC, GBA, GBA SP
DS -> DSi, 3DS, 2DS
Xbox is the opposite, if you get the cheaper console games will look worse and/or run at lower FPS. It only has one option for internal storage, leaving you with ~360gb after accounting for the OS, five or six modern games can fill that pretty easily. Official external storage costs about as much as the console itself.
For many people the trade-offs won't matter but it does make the PlayStation a much simpler choice if you're looking for a console for a kid that doesn't already favour one or the other.
Microsoft has never been able to do that.
Just give the console a number. And. Increment.
That's it. You can still have Pro / Slim / whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.
Nothing convinces me that this isn't the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That's it.
Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft's marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It's unbelievable.