The rounds of releases of consoles has always been a war between two producers: Microsoft and Sony. Ever since the introduction of the respective Xbox and PlayStation consoles the producers have been in a war of the game savvy mass-consumer. This led to waves of innovations to the devices and corresponding platforms. With the introduction of the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2010, users were able to wiressly control their games through wireless controllers. This was groundbreaking at the time.
In the above depicted graphs can be seen that sales of Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 equalled each other due to similar functionalities. What is the reason for the shift in sales towards the Playstation console in the 8th generation? What can be learned by this shift in order to leverage this to the advantage of the producers? With the next generation of consoles upcoming in 2020, this question is the a question of key significance.
The disruption that caused Sony to take the lead in sales in favour of Microsoft in the 7th generation next gen consoles wasn’t a disruption at all. Sony simply focused on its core market offering, offering a game console that was more powerful than the Xbox one while retailing at a lower price. Xbox tried to offer all aspects of an entertainment center with no unifying vision. This resulted in a painful process of diminshing sales for Microsoft.
How will Xbox cope with potential new features that are assembled on the next generation consoles? What will both Sony’s and Microsofts’ strategy be?
A new patent release indicated that Sony will use VR as an asset to appeal to the masses. The VR feature that Sony has patented shows an array of features that further differentiates Sony on the basis of pure gaming power. Microsoft has yet to announce any feature regarding VR, naming their new project “Scarlett”. With new players like Google (Stadia) and Apple (Arcade) looking to dominate the market for casual players that are also looking for an entertainment system, Microsoft has to find a new product offering in order to prevent the Xbox becoming obsolete.
Based on these findings, Sony will dominate Microsoft once again. Sony has a strong position in the market in which it dominates the offering based on pure gaming power. If Microsoft is unable to differentiate itself on different aspects, there is no turning back and the results will be disastrous. All alarm bells should be ringing and Microsoft should act fast to not see the Xbox die.
Sources
https://www.polygon.com/2017/12/8/16751740/playstation-vs-xbox
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2019/oct/09/playstation-5-v-xbox-scarlett-the-next-console-war-begins-in-2020
Thank you for the interesting article. I really like how you explained why the PS4 sells better than the Xbox One.
On the other hand, I would like to hear your thoughts on the influence of cross-platform gaming on the competition? Sony and Microsoft announced that they will be working together to enable cross-platform games and multiplayer functionalities to have a stronger competition versus Big Tech and mobile games. I think this may be the beginning of consolidation in the game market and think that Sony will buy the Xbox department in the end.