Ben-DutkaLast generation, the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 ended up in a dead heat.
Both consoles sold around 82 million apiece worldwide, although each number varies slightly depending on the source. And I think we all know that if the Xbox 360 hadn't owned the North American region, the PS3 would've dominated.
I've said it all along before this generation even began: If the Xbox brand continues to hold sway in the US, that will keep the race close throughout. And if Microsoft can convince other regions to accept Xbox on a wider scale, Sony could be in trouble. Instead, the opposite seems to have happened: Other major territories like Japan, Asia and Europe favor PlayStation more than ever (you never could sell the Xbox in Japan, and Europe has always sided with Sony) and now, the PS4 even has the North American lead.
So, here's the logical analysis: If Xbox can't come back and win this territory back, it's not only going to lose this generation, it's going to lose huge . The PS4 outsells the Xbox One by a 2:1 – even a 3:1 ratio – in most major European regions and Japan hasn't changed at all. Even if it's a tie here in the US, the race is over. For a while there, I thought Microsoft would surge back into the lead after the price drop. But thus far, it hasn't happened, and there's no real indication that it will.
So, what's M$ going to do now? Try to buy another franchise? 'rolls eyes'
"So, what's M$ going to do now? Try to buy another franchise? 'rolls eyes'" I cracked up with this one xD so true tho! I hope they do sell better soon because competition is good for the gaming industry
My only last thought of success in the states for MS concerns what happens when the XO sinks low enough in price to attract it's wider more mainstream/casual audience it owned with 360. Basically, the Xbox 360 has always undercut the PS brand, and there's a good many who still buy XBox 360's. What happens when these late or budget minded users decide to upgrade? Will they stick with MS or will they trade up for Sony. It's hard to say. I still think Sony will come out on top but I can't count MS totally out just yet. I can everywhere else. Just not yet here.
I just don't see Sony allowing this. MS beat Sony at its own game in this arena last generation and I think they are prepared for it this time around. They went off the shelf for a reason. They are also in a much better position to meet MS with price cuts. Unless MS goes PT crazy and cuts down to that sweet price range of $199-$299 this year or early next.
Which is almost certainly not going to happen even at this $400 pricetag Microsoft is losing money on the X1 right now lose any more and Microsoft will simply cut the Xbox division and that would mean Bye Bye Xbox.
Microsoft would NEVER cut the Xbox division. The Xbox play, from the
very beginning, was never *about* video games. It was about
capturing the living room. Video games were simply the foot-in-the-
door. Microsoft saw the demographics shifting away from PCs–from
Windows–and did not want to be left behind.
The "TV-TV-TV-Sports-TV" Xbox One reveal was the natural destination
for this entire brand. Hardcore gamers brought it into the living room;
lightweight family games and non-interactive entertainment kept it
there–that's why they pushed the Kinect so much. Microsoft simply
pushed non-gaming way too hard, way too soon in this current
generation. Their games-then-not ploy worked great on 360. Starting
with "not" on the One was an imbecilic move, and making all of the
family tech decision makers furious over their ham-fisted policies was
digging their own grave.
Xbox isn't going anywhere, but this generation may well be a write-off.
I think we are actually at a tipping point right now. People who have already thrown in with Xbox One will get their Destiny, but people without a new console are going to get a PS4 for Destiny I reckon. Make no mistake, it's gonna be a system seller for Sony especially right here in America, but probably less so for XbO. It could be another coffin nail after all their Xbox TV shows were cancelled.
I figure next MS will purchase Final Fantasy exclusivity.
What do you think? I see 13-15m by fiscal end.
That sounds feasible to me.
I enjoyed Halo Reach and Halo 4 very much. Big improvement over Halo 3, which I thought was very generic with online gameplay (the single player campaign was still pretty amazing though)
Loved the Gears of War Trilogy and Fable 2 was one of my all time favourites from last gen. Still need to play Lost Odyssey though.
Let's not forget that most multi-platform games ran better on 360 because of it's shared GPU and CPU RAM, a hardware feature the PS4 incorporated.
The controller was slightly bulkier and a little more comfortable (The D-Pad was pretty bad, Duel Shock's D-Pad is near perfection).
These things definitely helped the Xbox brand's rise in popularity, particularly with the US gamer with Call of Duty and Madden incentives. But the Xbox One reveal was Xbox giving the consumer the proverbial middle finger in terms of access restrictions. So the consumer gave Xbox the middle finger back by buying the PS4.
Let's not forget Sony learned a lot of harsh lessons from the PS3's sales and marketing. It's fantastic to see a console loved by both developers and consumers alike, and with social media bridging the gap between the two. The PS4 is selling like wildfire because of several key reasons:
1. First party exclusives like Uncharted, God of War, Gran Turismo, Ratchet and Clank, Killzone, The Order 1886, Driveclub, etc.
2. The complete reverse on Microsoft by playing multi-platform games at higher resolutions or frame rates than the console competition.
3. Sony's new humbled delivery and marketing that focuses on the gamer and the consumer rather than themselves. It took them several years, but the PS4 was the best chance for them to start fresh, and Sony nailed it.
The only way I see Xbox winning over the US again is by creating a new message that focuses on the consumer and the games rather than their company. That, and releasing more Halo and Gears of War content. A Gears of War trilogy released a year before Gears 4 on Xbox One might go down well. Look at how popular the Halo Master Chief Collection is!
I suspect that Xbox One sales will truly take off once CoD Advanced Warfare and Halo the Master Chief Collection is released. Maybe enough to match US PS4 sales, but maybe not enough to overtake it.
Uncharted 4 will see a big PS4 sales spike though.
Months ago I stated that MS will become extremely agressive in the XB1 push. Now here we are. I thought they would go drastic and just pull out all the stops with all types of new partnerships and amazing features for mass public consumption. To create at least the perception of this anyway. I was preparing to see a true sales battle between semi equal opponents.
The Tomb Raider Exclusivity announcement changed my entire thought pattern on this. Here I am expecting a worthy opponent only to given a sneaky corporation that will cut throats to achieve if only a small gain. If any at all. Think about it, Xbox One owners did not gain anything from this. It was only Playstation gamers that have been cut with a dull sword. All's fair in Love and Console Wars but I usually stick with a brand that like I said, at least tries to be true to its audience and shows that they have learned from their mistakes.
I do not think the Xbox will return to its former glory in the US. It may show signs of struggle and possible triumphs here and there but the knell is calling. If MS does not turn this around by end of this fiscal year then I ponder as Ben does. What will they do? 'rolls eyes'
But wait…. Buying another franchise I am sure has been swimming in MS heads for awhile. I wonder how many others have they approached already? But they may want to think twice about making another move like that. The backlash would be tenfold considering how some still feel about TR. I can wait.. But its the Principal.
Last edited by FatherSun on 8/23/2014 12:12:07 AM
Xbox One is most likely going to have a big holiday season. They have some system sellers coming out this year while PS4 doesn't. If say to wait and judge what's gonna happen after this year ben
If M$ does crash and burn I won't feel any sympathy for them.
RROD hit me hard and it's what pushed me to the Sony side and I never looked back. I've always held a grudge with M$ for sending me a replacement 360 only for it to RROD on me 3 months later. Then they offered to fix it for me for $150 even though they just sent it to me 3 months earlier because apparently it "fell under the original system's warranty".
So if they do crash and burn, good riddance.
probably that will change when microsoft release whatever new halo or new gears of war game, we all know halo is xbox killer exclusive, but i think microsoft really need new exclusive right now, that new remedy game look great too…
This generation hasn't even started yet people. While I'm a proud ps4 user and love the console sale numbers, until games stop coming out on both the 360 and ps3, we won't truly have a front runner. When the masses fully convert from last gen, then it will start to get interesting.
But you can't ignore the records the PS4 broke. And you also can't ignore 10 million PS4 owners. This race has started. Especially because Sony is outselling by close to 5 million. That is huge. MS has to beat Sony repeatedly for about a year, if not more, to catch up. I don't see that happening. I can see them cutting into the lead maybe by 500k by the end of the year with their exclusives, but that's if people don't go crazy buying PS4s when Destiny comes out.
"So, what's M$ going to do now? Try to buy another franchise? 'rolls eyes'" I see what you did there with the dollar sign. You know because Microsoft has a lot of money. And people hate money… sigh… anyway:
I subscribe to the school of thought that either console "winning in a landslide" is TERRIBLE for people who like games. Sony and Microsoft being on relatively even ground is great for us. Neither company can get complacent. Both have to bring their A-games each and everyday to win consumers. Right now is a fabulous time to be a fan of games. Let's just let the two multi-billion dollar international corporations beat each other bloody. We as consumers will then be able to bathe in that blood (their blood manifests in the form of quality entertainment… this metaphor got weird). I personally hope Xbox has a great holiday so that Sony can't afford to let up on the gas pedal.
Last edited by SHADOW on 8/23/2014 5:11:08 AM
Wouldn't being on even ground also create mediocrity?
I don't even understand your comment. Mediocrity in what? I legitimately don't understand the point you are attempting to make. Could you explain it a bit more?
I say the last few years of last gen show just how "great" games can be. Sony put out some wonderful titles while micro&soft put out nothing better then mediocre. "Level playing field" doesn't really do anything to push competition, in most cases stuff just stagnates. Besides, micro&soft doesn't like to compete unless they are absolutely smashing the competition. Heck, I expect the big wigs at micro&soft to go the way that Nintendo did starting w/ the Wii(possibly even during the Game Cube era) and come up w/ a "oh, we aren't in competition w/ THEM" kind of line any day now.
30% failure rate
Some gamers had 4 360's red ring on them one after the other!
Not many will forgive that,even less will forget.
The North (America's)Remembers!!
First of all, if one company gets so far ahead of another one that one of the companies may stop producing unites entirely, this is very bad for all consumers. We lose in that scenario for obvious reasons. Example: NFL2K5 vs Madden
Secondly, Xbox has the better exclusives coming this holiday and I have said this before, the will move a lot of units with Halo:MC in November.
Sony will still be in the lead obviously and Destiny, although mulit-plat, will sell more on Sony.
I am curious to see the console sales for this winter though.
Fanboys don't understand that logic
Agreed; it is hard for some people to be objective
Sufer you got it wrong. 2k games didn't stop making their football games because of that. NFL went to EA and gave them exclusive rights for more of the money from sales and money on top. So 2k had to stop or make football game with no real teams or players. EA just ran with it.
@KingRed…I know that is my point: competition makes for better games. EA actually went to the NFL because of 2k making a better game and selling it for $19.99. After the deal, they did not have to make any major changes to the series…no competition.
I'm not convinced that xbox is entirely in trouble. They can partially thank Sony for dragging on updates. The Xbox sales they desperately need have driven an internal war for evolving the brand. Good for them. Too bad they're the same company that completely threw their consumer base under the bus with the 360 failures.
The only purpose xbox serves for me, as a gamer, would be the competition to keep Sony in check. I don't believe that I would be as happy with the Playstation brand if Sony didn't have to compete for the sales.
Time for Nintendo to up the ante!
I just can't justify spending more money on a console with less long term potential and no real exclusives.
Sony really hit the sweet spot with price and power this gen. And that's just how I sees it.
Six to seven months from now, I see M$ announcing a new and more powerful console much the same way they did it with the xbox and xbox 360. When the ps2 spanked that ass. (Thats if the current sales trends continue) And all the idiots who bought a xbo will trade in and up, which imo will be awesome for gaming once again…. the only issue I have currently with this gen is the idiocy of people saying they aren't going to buy a Japanese console…they are buying American! lol really? (There is no American console btw, in case some of us needed a little help)
Hahaha love it Ben well said. Particularly the ending line!
The other big mistake MS made is that they don't have a system that will break down 30% of the time in the first couple years. That's gotta be at least 5 million or more consoles they won't sell again right there!
THIS is the sole reason I believe micro&soft "sold" so well for it's first couple years. When you have 2/3rds (and for the first couple years some places put the failure rate even higher, I think some as high as into the 80% range) of your customers having to buy NEW systems w/in a very short period of time, for the first 2 years of the consoles existence that is going to effect your numbers greatly. I wish there was a way to separate original sales and replacement system sale numbers, those would be funny to see.