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That isn't actually the reality. For example, if nothing else, it's clear that Sony does care about the poor schmuck in rural Nebraska. But more generally, why
by shock-value 13y ago
That isn't actually the reality. For example, if nothing else, it's clear that Sony does care about the poor schmuck in rural Nebraska.
But more generally, why are you only talking about the United States? What you are saying might be true of the US, but plenty of places across the wider world are home to people who play video games but don't have an internet connection. Or have a spotty internet connection. Or have a connection with restrictive data caps (meaning digital download only would be impossible).
- nknighthb 13y agoMuch of the first world is better connected than the US. If you're talking about gamers with both money and poor connections, they're far more likely to be in the US than anywhere else.
- smutticus 13y agoSouth Africa and many countries in Latin America can afford to pay $400 for the console. But they certainly can't count on a >1.5mb/s reliable internet connection. So yeah, MS screwed the pooch on this one and that will now all be Sony territory.
- nknighthb 13y agoI'm not going to canvass all Latin American countries, but the median per-capita income for South Africa is about US$500. Are you unwittingly basing your comment on the standards of the still-privileged White minority, comprising less than 9% of a country of just 53 million?
- na85 13y agoRacial politics aside, 5 million people is a lot of potential MS customers.
- nknighthb 13y agoMaybe, but Microsoft/Xbox One was not the relevant subject, Steam was. Am I the only one who actually read the comment I originally replied to? By the way, even the top 10% of South African households have an average income of just US$15,000, so the actual potential customer base is still smaller than you think.
- mncolinlee 13y agoHaving just arrived back from South Africa from visiting my relatives on vacation, I was shocked to find a few highly computer-literate cousins over there who only had a 3G dongle to provide Internet for their entire homes. Another relative had a bandwidth-capped DSL line that was barely faster than ISDN basic rate. Income was not the issue.
- mikebludd 13y agoyou can get uncapped 4mb/s adsl for under R450pm in soweto and most middleclass suburbs from a multiple ISP.