Since its unremarkable launch in November, the Zune has failed to capture significant market share in the MP3 player arena. It has managed to hang around, though, partly because competition around it has been stale. With the long-awaited move of digital rights management (DRM)-free music to iTunes, however, Microsoft has fallen even more behind the curve.
Aside from the Microsoft fanatics and the impulsive early adopters, the Zune has failed to make any demographic shout out loud in support of the device. That's highly different from what Apple can say about the iPod, which has hordes of loyal devotees.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
Eventually they’ll realize the value is with the employee not the company. Buying an IP means nothing if the people who contributed are let go. They’ll get it one day.
tech is different because they buy threats and then kill them. Twitter bought Vine and did nothing with it. Despite people seemingly liking it. Could've had tiktok a decade before bytedance. go figure.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
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Kind of stupid for anyone to think that a new product; comming from a company without a history of hardware manufacturing, the strong name brand of ipod would just take the market in just a few months.
Yeah, that's what they said about the original xbox and look what the 360 is. One can only imagine how much market share the next xbox will have. I think this product is doing very well compare to other MP3 players. Besides, if one remove all the muble jumble talk and marketting crap to put down the Zune. It kiss the IPod in term of functionality and value any day of the week. Also, it does not have to be 1st if the manage to be 2nd in the industry they will be just fine.
but the wealth of Ipod users is just too much for Microsoft. When people think about MP3 players, the first thing they think of is "Ipod". Hell, my dad is completely incapable of using anything technical, but he knows how to use an Ipod.
Ive got one and i like it a lot. I dont expect Ms to become MP3 king in the near future but i think if they stick with it they're on the right track. The inclusion of firmware updates are what swayed me in favor of getting one bc i didnt wanna have to buy a new mp3 player every time a new feature comes out(ipod). So to answer the question can it survive? Yeah i think so but i think we should ask are self is will it ever be significant competition
The iPod brand is almost synomous with the MP3 market, so why would anyone expect M$ to beat them? The Zune is doing well in its own right....but its definitely a "iPod market" even though IMO opinion there are better, cheaper MP3 players available and I'm not specifically referring to the Zune. M$ doesn't need to "win" or take a significant market share from iPod, whats wrong with just having a good product available for consumers who like what it has to offer, there are many companies/brands that have survived along time without being #1 in any one market they compete in, much less competing in several markets.
I can't imagine a more difficult market to penetrate...the Ipod is a household name now. They used to be Mp3 players, now they're ALL called Ipods...regardless of who made them. If someone asked what a Zune is, I would guess your explanation would be that it's "like an Ipod" and everyone would know what you're talking about.
Of course, if there was any company out there that could compete with Apple it would be MS. They can tie everything into Windows and automatically be in 80% of home computers. They've been able to slowly chip away at the Playstation market share, I don't see why they can't do the same with the Ipod. They certainly have a long road ahead of them though.