We’ve seen near-generational winners between Sony and Microsoft, but this time it’s the same guy who dominated the last one coming out on top again.
The PlayStation 2 finished a landslide ahead of the Xbox (making it the most successful console), but the Xbox 360, with its launch a year earlier, managed to overtake the PlayStation 3 in sales for a long time (although the latter caught up towards the end and then won). The PlayStation 4, on the other hand, knocked out the Xbox One, and now the PlayStation 5 is enjoying far more sales than either of the Xbox Series models. The PlayStation 5 has shipped 61.7 million units through June, while the Xbox Series has sold 28.3 million units…
A Wall Street Journal YouTube video explains why the Xbox Series failed. The Xbox Series X was constantly marketed as the most powerful console ever made, but that wasn’t enough to get people to spend money on Microsoft hardware. The exclusives are all coming to PC, but there are exceptions for PlayStation 5 (Destruction AllStars, Demon’s Souls Remake…). Xbox Game Pass, on the other hand, although it has the older major Xbox brands (Halo, Gears of War), doesn’t require subscribers to spend money on a console…
We’ve seen many times that Microsoft has been hammered not only by Sony, but also by Nintendo, which is why the Redmond-based tech giant is focusing on Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Consoles are usually sold at a loss, and in the case of the Xbox, it’s around $200 per sale. PlayStation is struggling in a similar way, and that’s why we’ve seen several price hikes on the PlayStation 5 (presumably the PS5 and PlayStation VR2 price hikes in Japan are spilling over to western regions…), but DualSense controllers have also gotten more expensive recently.
The PlayStation 5 Pro doesn’t help much either: the already expensive console lacks a Blu-ray drive as standard and even a vertical stand! Sony’s price hike in Japan has caused many people to turn to the Xbox Series, and who knows what will happen next…
Source: WCCFTech
