The Clay Bird
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Posts posted by The Clay Bird
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What about the people who actually have to quit the game because something important comes up?
Of course there are mad folks who leave because they got down, but how would you create something that punishes those who leave because they are bad and leave those who just quit the game because of more important stuff than a video game?
I think the best and most innovative feature that could help deal with this is an integration of a social networking feature into the main menu/lobby. where you could post something like "looking for high rounds 4 player co-op on origins msg for invite" and other people in pre game lobby could browse and message for invites or what not. that way it would be easier for people to team up and start a private match, whereas you would still have the public lobbies for more casual informal games where someone leaving wouldn't be that big of a deal...
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Appreciate you having my back @Slade
Not trying to brag or whatever, but Pricing is literally my job. I have a B.S. degree in Economics/Finance, and I'm a Pricing Analyst for a industrial equipment parts company, so literally 8 hours a day i spend in spreadsheets of costs, prices, margins, demand, and competitive data and trying to determine what price points will maximize profit.
Obviously i don't have access to the specific data from microsoft and/or sony, but the basic tenants of the pricing strategy is pretty much the same. Electronics in general i know are usually really high % margin items, as it is relatively inexpensive to manufacture them.
Not trying to be a dick, but just wanted it out there so people know i'm not just pulling stuff our of my butt
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Oh so your saying that the fact that you spend up your points and get to a high round where the weapon doesn't wok is the problem? I can totally agree with that. The weapon upgrade needs a patch or something.
right. basically you have to just roll with whatever weapons you have by round 5 and start upgrading them, otherwise you're stuck with terrible guns and no money, and thus no chance of survival lol
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The printer is random. I keep getting the limbo all the time. That is like saying the box hasn't given me a Wunderwaffe yet so I am restarting. They are literally the same thing. The upgrade sucks though.
the point in restarting isnt' to try and up my chances of getting the limbo, it is because by the time i might get one, it is round 15, i have no money from hitting the box to get the limbo, and now i have to somehow get 50,000 pts just to upgrade the damn thing
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So you think that by last November, when they started selling the XB for 349, they had already cut 42 dollars. I could believe that. But when you add in two Assassins Creed games, even at a quarter value, let's call it 20 bucks, they still lost 20*2.8 million or so. Throw in the 50 dollar target gift card, and that's 70 dollars lost on an unknown amount of consoles sold (BF deal).
The BOM breakdown doesn't include shipping, warehousing, or any potential retailer cut. Let's be real, they didn't cut $111 dollars in costs in one year, without a die shrink.That's 25% of the consoles price.
@mocking thank you. In actual units, the gap is tiny, in a % it's quite impressive. The gap would be smallest in the US, as that's where the consoles are closest. The preorders would say something entirely different in the UK or Germany, where Sony has dominated. The US is a small market compared to the rest of the world. Individually it is the biggest market for consoles, but collectively, the rest of the world has outsold the US by almost double on the Sony side. That is where BO3 preorders will favour Sony.
if the console had originally been selling at $500 at a zero margin, then your point would be valid. Microsoft didn't spend $500 on every xbox console they produced. far from it. honestly, they could probably sell the console for $50 and still make profit. That is just a guess. Anyway let's address your point. A) assassins creed was not produced by microsoft. MS would partner with Ubisoft for this, and ubisoft would likely get a kickback from console bundle sales. Target also would likely be a marketing partnership. neither of those things are cutting directly into MS's margins. So what we have is demand declined slightly as the console is almost 2 years old now, so whoever is in charge of analyzing pricing/promos decided to drive more units and maximize profit, they would decrease the price to drive unit sales (which has worked like a charm by the way, xbox sales have out paced ps4 sales since the price decrease in december)
So yes, margins are lower now for xbox sales than they were when it was at the $500 price point, but they are FAR from losing money lol
also:
The US is a small market compared to the rest of the world
LMAOOOOOO!!!!
i get it thoughm you are a Playstation owner, its understandable that you would be very hopeful that you won't have to wait 30 days for new dlc, but don't let that hopefulness cloud facts
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First off, there is no real way to know if XB1 is losing MS money or not, as they bury XB in with the Android, and all other consumer devices division like the surface. All we have to do is a little common reasoning to get to MS losing money off the XB.
The b.o.m breakdown of the two consoles showed MS spent more money to make the XB1, without the kinnect, than Sony did the PS4. You couple in the 50 dollars cheaper, and often a game or more bundle, it's not hard to imagine them losing money on the console, certainly last year during BF when they sold with 2 games + a 50 dollar gift card they were losing a lot of money. The retailer didn't, and would never take the hit for that, it was all MS.
As for PS being a big part of Sony it is indeed. Other than insurance, and other financial investments, Sony is not a profitable company. On the other hand, they are righting the ship selling off things like the PC business, and SOE that do not make them money.
@mocking, i would love to see preorder numbers to back that up. If you are using aspecific site like Gamestop, or amazon, that is arabking, and not anumer, and therefre could be seperated by 10000000 units, or 3. It's very useless to any discussion. Not to mention any specific site would have bias to it that we would have to qualify.
For example COD.com, would carry with it the bias that XB has traditionally been associated with COD, so the preorder numbers would have to account for a larger sample of XB owners being more likely to buy from COD site directly.
Gamestop would be a more nuetral comparison than say walmart for example. XB is cheaper, therefore the people who would be most interested in a consol3 would be more likely to buy a game/system from walmart that is cheaper.
Im sorry, but as a pricing analyst, I am certain that the margins that Microsoft are making, even at a $300 price point, are positive, and most likely still a high percentage. Just saying that MS is losing money on the Xbox doesn't make it so. Microsoft has gotten to be one of the largest most profitable companies ever for a reason, and selling things at a negative margin is not one of those reasons lol
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I personally thought the ending to COTD was the BEST reward ever: A new and powerful weapon! Sure it wasn't upgradable and wouldn't let you throw grenades... But it was so worth it!
All perks is nice too.
I agree. And one cool thing about it is, when my friends and i would go for a good run on CotD, we would do everything up until the "knife the fuse" part, just in case, so that if anyone bled out during a round, when the next round would start they could run, knife the fuse, and have the wunderwaffe so they could survive long enough to get jugg and points etc. BO1 had such awesome EE's :'(
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Pretty much agree with Smith's rant. Here's the thing about exo-zombies. If you don't get one of the top 3 best weapons on your first 2 box pulls, you might as well just start over, because every penny you earn you have to immediately spend on upgrading your weapon a thousand times to make it viable for the next damn round. They are obviously not going to change it at this point, which is a damn shame because if i could save up points to buy all the perks and try and use other guns out of the box instead of spending 100,000 points just to get my guns upgraded, then it might actually be pretty fun.
Not true, you've just got to balance it. Have a weapon you like and upgrade it as much as you can. Then have either a wall weapon or disposable weapon to put into the weapons disposal (for 200 points bonus) and then hit the box again. Most machine guns are great for getting those points back.
Personally, my load out is the OHM (is that right?) and the Limbo. Limbo for clearing crowds, OHM for points. ALWAYS put amo into your POINT weapon, NOT the Power weapon. From there, just keep on top of things.
ive played a dozen or so times, and hit the box probably 40 times total and have yet to see the limbo yet. if i don't get the ohm or limbo by round 7-8 i just quit. other wise you're better off just buying the damn mp11 off the wall and upgrading it a million times spending a billion points. it isn't fun. the upgrade thing is such a buzzkill for the entire mode, and would have been such an easy fix to actually make it fun
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I am 100% against the notion of any game of zombies ending in any way other than death of all players
Why's that?
Because that is how zombies works. The first 13 cod zombies maps worked that way. I'm a zombie purist, and the main allure of the game is the fact that (except in these 3 now instances) success is unobtainable. The only measure of success is warding off death a little bit longer.
Yeah, I was thinking that'd be your answer, and I get that, but I thought the ways to end the game in BO2 were a nice addition for a change.
yeah, i mean it's whatever. One thing is for sure, if a game ending mechanism is there, it should be a "all 4 people turn their key" situation. I remember a game with randoms on MotD, where we were on 31 or so and were doing great and some ass hat was doing all the last EE steps, and expecting to hit a new high round on the leaderboard, next thing i know we're over on the GG bridge trying to shoot the weasel. I personally think its WAYYY better to get a great reward for completing an EE that helps you reach higher rounds, not ends the game completely. Just my personal opinion
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I am 100% against the notion of any game of zombies ending in any way other than death of all players
Why's that?
Because that is how zombies works. The first 13 cod zombies maps worked that way. I'm a zombie purist, and the main allure of the game is the fact that (except in these 3 now instances) success is unobtainable. The only measure of success is warding off death a little bit longer.
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I am 100% against the notion of any game of zombies ending in any way other than death of all players
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It's also worth noting that the default changes from browser to browser. On Chrome, it defaults to PS4 for me. On Firefox it defaults to Xbox One.
and i am on chrome and it defaults to xbox for me. So there obviously isn't a whole lot to be learned from it lol
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Still better than
Hidden Content
@Black Hand Smith They should've named this map: 1/3 Carrier
hahahahaha. so true though. still better
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Ok... so the EE consists of several steps leading up to unlocking the ultra shit MK25 machine before doing a few more steps and... ending the ******* game!?! Really? So for 3 out of 4 maps now we have been unlocking the smelly, unworthwhile MK25 machine through a series of garbage and for the most part nonsensical steps. There has literally been no thought process put into these EE's or the reward system from them.
I don't get what is going on over at Sledgehammer/Raven/High Moon or even Activision for that matter. How are people considering this stuff as acceptable? Does no one actually look into the social media side of things to gage the communities reactions towards these kind of things? I mean, if you want a new(ish) game-mode to take off and be accepted then it makes sense. So why are we still doing pointless and worthless side quests where the rewards is the same each time and to top it off, something we don't even like?
As for the end-game thing. I find that even more tragic than getting the stupid MK25 upgrade station because you go to the effort to unlock the station in the first place only to not use it if chasing the achievement as it automatically ends the game without giving you a choice. Complete dog shit!
I still think the map is OK and will play it from time to time but the EE is a stinky pile of seven types of crap. I hope the EE guy at the studio responsible for this muck get some kind of non fatal and easily curable but itchy and painful nut disease sometime soon.
HA! seriously?? I saw that the cheevo ended the game which is ridiculously stupid, yes even origins and MotD i hate hate hate. But yeah it looks so random. Like the ending cutscene, shouldn't they be commenting on how they had to teleport to an island and go fishing and dig up a treasure chest? lol but it basically ignores all of that and just act like they killed zombies on a boat for a while and then now are leaving the boat
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I definitely shouldn't have used the word evidence there. I'm not sure what I was thinking and the Charlie Intel article even said rumor, so I don't know what I was thinking there saying evidence.
About pre-ordering, it shows PS4 if you're logged out of your account, compared to AW's site which shows Xbox One as the default option.
Yes, I do own a PS4 and I'm sorry if I came across as some sort of fanboy, but my intentions were to show possible reasons why Sony may have early DLC exclusivity.
No, I was not logged in to my account, and it defaulted to xbox.
I was logged out of mine and it still showed PS4.
right so it means nothing basically
Like I said I went onto Advanced Warfare's page and it showed Xbox One.
And I went onto Black Ops 3's page and it showed Xbox One. It isn't significant because it is not the same from person to person
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I definitely shouldn't have used the word evidence there. I'm not sure what I was thinking and the Charlie Intel article even said rumor, so I don't know what I was thinking there saying evidence.
About pre-ordering, it shows PS4 if you're logged out of your account, compared to AW's site which shows Xbox One as the default option.
Yes, I do own a PS4 and I'm sorry if I came across as some sort of fanboy, but my intentions were to show possible reasons why Sony may have early DLC exclusivity.
No, I was not logged in to my account, and it defaulted to xbox.
I was logged out of mine and it still showed PS4.
right so it means nothing basically
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I definitely shouldn't have used the word evidence there. I'm not sure what I was thinking and the Charlie Intel article even said rumor, so I don't know what I was thinking there saying evidence.
About pre-ordering, it shows PS4 if you're logged out of your account, compared to AW's site which shows Xbox One as the default option.
Yes, I do own a PS4 and I'm sorry if I came across as some sort of fanboy, but my intentions were to show possible reasons why Sony may have early DLC exclusivity.
No, I was not logged in to my account, and it defaulted to xbox.
just tried again, followed a link posted in comments on charlieintel, www.callofduty.com/blackops3/buy
i wasn't logged in, and it shows me xbox one version
like we've said earlier, this just doesn't hold any water as far as any rumors of evidences toward exclusivity
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Pretty much agree with Smith's rant. Here's the thing about exo-zombies. If you don't get one of the top 3 best weapons on your first 2 box pulls, you might as well just start over, because every penny you earn you have to immediately spend on upgrading your weapon a thousand times to make it viable for the next damn round. They are obviously not going to change it at this point, which is a damn shame because if i could save up points to buy all the perks and try and use other guns out of the box instead of spending 100,000 points just to get my guns upgraded, then it might actually be pretty fun.
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Finally got a chance to play a little, and this map is much more fun than the first two, They are learning a bit, and the new grenades and other stuff is more in tune with what I thought we would be getting with infection. Im still not very good, i think i got to 16 solo, and haven't gotten the limbo gun, and the upgrade system still blows chunks. My god if they fixed the weapon upgrades, i could finally give exo-zombies a passing grade
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Thank you for that knowledge bomb @Flammenwerfer
And actually I checked yesterday afternoon and the season pass pre-order is available for PC as well on amazon, so that theory even further doesn't hold any water.
Also one of the pieces of "evidence" were that it defaults to PS4 when you go to buy BO3 on callofduty.com. Well this is true if you are a registered user of callofduty.com and have a PSN linked to your account, but if you have an XBOX gamertag linked then it defaults to Xbox lol. no coincidence that all the ones looking for arguments in favor of it coming to PS4 first are people who own PS4's
Like i've said earlier in the thread it all comes down to money, and While the Playstation is doing really really well, that part of Sony's business is about the only one having success. Microsoft has much more money to spend than Sony could ever dream of at this current point in time. So it will come down to basically Microsoft deciding whether or not to continue the DLC exclusivity deal, and if not, then if Sony wants to spend the money to make a deal of their own. From a dollars and cents standpoint, I don't see how Sony could outbid Microsoft if Microsoft wants to keep the early access
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its time to stop the speculation.
no pre-order listings, no console sales, and no conspiracy theories will determine if Xbox retains early content or if Playstation gets it or if nobody does. Only money. Until we know which one offered more money to ATVI for a deal, we know nothing
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Haven't played, but i'm watching @MrRoflWaffles stream right now, and while i like some of the features of the map, i'm just so disappointed by the look of the map. it looks exactly like outbreak... infected too to a point. No variety in the environment at all
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are any of our folks streaming EE hunting? @LiamFTWinter @MrRoflWaffles ??
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You LITERALLY just posted the same thing twice...
Also, PS users arn't crippled or have been treated unfairly at all the way it seems to be thought of. They made the choice to pick a PS over and Xbox, with that there are rewards, and consequences. To unbalance that with a game as big as COD:BO3, WOULD create a large amount of anger from the Xbox community.PS and PC users CHOSE to get the DLC late when they got the PS or PC version. Xbox users chose to sacrifice their own specialities to get DLC early.
Now the game we waited for is coming out and people want to just now bend the tides? How is that fair to the millions that have already bought a next/current-gen console? '
Besides, what are we worried about? If treyarch listened to what people wanted we'd have WAW 2 now wouldn't we?
You made a choice to get an Xbox before the dlc info was released. If you miss out, that's kind of your own fault in every sense of the word. I'm sure Activision would rather piss off the couple million Xbox owners that would buy COD, rather than the possible 8 or so on PS (if it's current gen only, let's all hope).
It makes all the sense in the world to switch, and I think you guys severely overestimate the amount of people who actually bought an XB1 with COD in mind. Contributing factor sure, essential factor not so much.
The only people who will be mad, are those who aassumed, and the people who are part of the competitive community, who will now be forced to buy a ps4. Few thousand people, if that.
Edit: Again though it all comes down to the money. If there is more money to be made by mak8ng the switch, they will, if not then they won't. I just think you guys way over estimate the amount of people who really care, and it's only a big deal for the first dlc anyways.
Not true. I purchased my xbox one in late november '14 after Ghosts and AW already had the early DLC deal. Now the main reason i bought xbox one is that my friends i play with most are xbox guys, but a huge perk is that we like zombies and like getting the DLC as early as possible, so this would be a bit of a slap in the face to the xbox people who made a purchasing decision based on COD DLC (which many did i'm sure)
HOWEVER. This comes down to one thing and one thing only. MONEY$$$$$$$$$
The only way that Playstation gets early dlc deal, is if Sony ponies up a bigger check than Microsoft. Activision doesn't benefit from the Xbox deal because of how many copies of the game are sold for xbox, or how many xbox's have been sold compared to playstations, or any of the other arguments that have been made. Activision benefits because of the humongous check Microsoft writes them in exchange for the deal.
So we can argue all about which console is selling better and blah blah blah, but money makes the world go 'round, and that's no different in this case
What's the one exo upgrade you don't get?
in Outbreak
Posted
honestly since i have to use every last penny to upgrade my terrible guns, I only buy exo health, and exo medic on solo.