Over the past decade there has been a fierce battle between Microsoft with the Xbox and Sony with the PlayStation to attract gamers to their respective platforms. They both had a different strategy and focus to attract users to their platforms.
Sony focused with the PlayStation 3 more one free online gaming while the Xbox 360 had a slightly more powerful graphic processor, but users had to pay to make use of these online gaming possibilities. Although this was a paid service, the online gaming experience was relatively similar to the PlayStation 3 (Diffen, 2016).
When the next generation consoles were introduced Sony made sure that this time they were the ones to launch their console first and make use of this first mover advantage to attract more users to their console. They clearly differentiated the PlayStation 4 from the Xbox one with a significant higher amount of graphic capabilities of PlayStation 4 compared to the Xbox one. The PlayStation 4 has a 1.84 teraflop GPU compared with the less powerful 1.31 teraflop GPU of the Xbox One (Techradar, 2016). Microsoft tried to counter this by trying to let the Xbox One be the all-round entertainment centre for the living room. But as the graphics of the PlayStation 4 were clearly better than that of the Xbox One hardcore gamers preferred the PlayStation 4 over the Xbox One. This can be seen in the amount of PlayStations sold (40 milion) compared to the Xbox One (20 milion) (Techradar, 2016).
With the next generation 4k televisions becoming increasingly cheaper they become more affordable for consumers to buy. Sony and Microsoft try to catch on with this trend by introducing new consoles that are able to play 4k games. Sony has already announced that the PlayStation Pro will be released on the 10th of November, while there is no release date for the next Xbox console. This gives Sony again the first mover advantage over Microsoft when introducing its new console.
The most important point is that Microsoft has done something completely different this time. They have made the new Xbox (Scorpio) comparable to a high end gaming PC. With a massive amount of 6 teraflops (compared to 4 from the PS4 Pro) they can now target the PC gamer to also consider a console to get the same type of graphics on their 4k screen (Trustedreviews, 2016).
This will become an interesting new episode to get hardcore gamers to choose between a Playstation Pro or Xbox Scorpio. Although Sony has the first mover advantage, Microsoft has the better graphics this time which could draw more gamers to their console.
Trustedreviews, 2016. PS4 New VS Xbox Scorpio. http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/ps4-neo-vs-xbox-2-xbox-scorpio-specs-comparison
Techradar, 2016. Ps4 VS Xbox One. http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/ps4-vs-xbox-720-which-is-better-1127315/2
Diffen, 2016. PS3 VS Xbox 360. http://www.diffen.com/difference/PlayStation_3_vs_Xbox_360
I think that for gaming the user experience is worth more than the hardware specs alone. You see that xbox becomes more and more a full blown entertainment platform while Sony keeps their focus only on gaming. With the release of universal apps for xbox I think Microsoft has actually a competitive advantage over Sony as they provide a one stop shop for all your entertainment needs.
In my opinion, the 4K TV gaming is on the way but still far from popular. To make it pop, either Sony or Microsoft needs the combination of three different components: hardware (powerful gaming devices and 4K TV screens), software (games) and external support (e.g. broadband Internet). 4K TVs are still noticeably costly and once games have to be downloaded from Internet, the time consumption can be terrible if the internet speed is not extremely fast. The recent news shows that gaming devices are getting updated but still not powerful enough. For instance, PS4 Pro is said to support 4K but actually it doesn’t generate 4K resolution but simply enlarges the resolution from 1080P to 4K, namely it would be better to work under 1080P resolution. Not to mention there are not many 4K games available on the market. So even Sony takes the first step, it didn’t differentiate itself from Microsoft much enough. Therefore I think the fans have to wait for another while until they could finally enjoy 4K games.
The battle of gaming platforms is a very interesting one and clearly shows how the value is created through communities and not just products. In my opinion the first-mover advantage of the Playstation 4 is therefore one that is not purely based on technical advantages. Whilst the early adaptors of the better and first next generation of gaming consoles were eager to try the new product features first, the majority of sales of the Playstation 4 is due to friends of early adaptors.
The joy in online gaming can mostly attributed to playing with friends. As the platforms are not compatible, there is a slight winner-takes-all situation, because groups of friends would all have to be on the same platform to play together. Microsoft seems to have realized the value of the community and is now enabling PC gamers (Windows 10) to play online against/with XBOX One players. This could be a very smart move and greatly increase the value of their gaming platform.
Hi Rene,
Interesting post and good to hear that these two consols are still competing and bringing some innovative and new versions of their gaming platforms. But don’t you think that virtual reality is the new future of gaming? And how long do you think it will take that these two big companies bring their first Virtual Reality consol to the market? Or that they add some virtual reality components in one of their games?
Greets,
Thieme
Hi Rene,
Thank you for the interesting blogpost. This is indeed a hot topic. Besides the actual hardware information, I think you also have to consider the exclusive games available for each platform. After all, these cannot (or should not be) accessible through other platforms. As a comparison, PS4 has under 600 games where 100 are exclusive for this console. This amount is low when compared to Xbox One’s 629 games (Swider, 2016). However, the latter console has only 33 exclusive games. PS4 has games such as Uncharted, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last Guardian and Bloodborne. On the other hand, Xbox One has Halo, Gears of War and Forza Motorsport (Gematsu, 2016). However, Xbox recently announced that they are enabling Xbox exclusives on Windows (Kuchera, 2016). This means that Xbox One is not needed in order to play these games. In my opinion, this is good for Microsoft as a company but not for Xbox as a console. What are your thoughts on this matter? Do you think this has a significant impact on the console market?
Sources:
Gematsu, 2016. List of Xbox One Exclusives – Gematsu. [online] Gematsu. Available at: [Accessed 23 Oct. 2016].
Kuchera, B., 2016. How Microsoft removed the need to buy an Xbox One (while still coming out ahead). [online] Polygon. Available at: [Accessed 23 Oct. 2016].
Swider, M., 2016. PS4 vs Xbox One: which is better?. [online] TechRadar. Available at: [Accessed 23 Oct. 2016].