North American industry tracking firm, NPD Group, has had a few thoughts about this year’s Xbox-PlayStation duel.
Mat Piscatella told GamesIndustry that despite making the Xbox One Project Scorpio for a niche audience, it would have the potential to catch up to the PlayStation 4 and even take over the lead this year. „Adoption among the core gaming audience could be significant. And, while this is a niche audience to target, it’s the niche which is necessary to put the Scorpio on the path for longer term mass market adoption,” he said. (Adoption here means moving into 4K gaming, which can happen as easy as acquiring a 4K TV.) He also added that games would be required to sell the console: if there’s no (exclusive, which won’t happen anymore due to the Xbox Play Anywhere program) game, there’s no interest in the product.
DFC Intelligence boss, David Cole thinks that Microsoft seems to reposition itself from the broad audience to the bleeding edge of gamers, who care a lot about specifications and technical details.
They will also have to win back the developers as well; Microsoft has admitted that they lost a few in two years. It’s going to be fun to see if Microsoft can catch up at this point or not, which could be stopped altogether at the Project Scorpio’s price reveal – the price will be playing a pivotal role against the PlayStation 4 Pro…
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