On November 12, 2020, the day of the PS5’s official launch, a customer carries a PlayStation 5 console to an electronics store in Sydney.
Saeed Khan | AFP | Getty Images
Both Microsoft .ft and Sony released new video game consoles this week: Micro .ft has $ 500 Xbox Series X and $ 300 Series S, while Sony has two PlayStation 5 models, starting at $ 400.
The last pay generation of the console, published by both, lasted about seven years. With the latest systems, Micro .ft and Sony have various strategies in place to attract gamers and generate more revenue from gamers.
A lot is on the line.
The epidemic has given people more free time to play sports. Players could stay lean for years to come, which means big business for both companies.
Gaming represents 24% of Sony’s revenue. It accounts for 8% of MicroSFT’s revenue, but MicroSFT is more widely used as the third most valuable public company behind Apple Pal and Saudi Aramco, and any success in gaming benefits many shareholders.
The last time that happened
In 2013, when Microsoft released the Xbox One and Sony released the PlayStation, Sony shipped technology .2 million new consoles, ahead of Microsoft, which shipped 8. sh million, according to technology industry research company IDC. According to.
Sony set the price of the PlayStation 4 at box 100 below the box 400, and the Xbox One at $ 500. Instead of focusing more directly on gaming, MicroSFT spent time promoting the Xbox’s entertainment capabilities. Initially, the Xbox One came with Kinetic, a device that allows people to control the Xbox with voice commands and motion gestures. It wasn’t a big hit, and Microsoft kicked out the Xbox 400 in Xbox package, which left Kinetic in 2014.
In the years that followed, PlayStation 4 owners gained access to exclusive games available on other systems, including “Uncharted 4,” “Horizon Zero Dawn,” and “Spider-Man.” The Xbox One got a few exceptions of its own, including “Hello 5”.
Still, every year the PlayStation 4 outsiders Xbox One, according to IDC.
Microsoft has tweeted its gaming approach since the launch of the Xbox One. Phil Spencer, executive vice president in charge of gaming at MicroSoft, said in an interview with Verge last year that console shipments, the general measure of success, are not as important as engagement, with the number of people playing.
This change follows the changes in other Microsoft products under Satya Nadella, who made Steve Ballmer CEO in 2001. The company stopped insisting so much on defending Windows. It released versions of its OfficeFish apps for Android and iOS, and brought the Team Productivity app, an open pun-source operating system, to Linux in the OpenFish suite. Linux became accessible in Windows. Microsoft began transferring Office Fee customers to subscriptions, and it offered Windows 10 for free.
Satya Nadella, CEO of Micros.ft, speaking to participants during the Viva Technology Show at the Parc des Expos પો Porte de Versailles on May 24, 2018 in Paris.
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The new Xbox Series X and S have no slate of exclusive new titles like last time. So how will Microsoft stay out?
The answer is Xbox Game Pass, a subs online subscription service that offers customers a list of over 100 games to download, spanning the previous three Xbox consoles – all for as little as 10 a month. Microsoft .ft plans to speed up the service with new titles over time, as Netflix does with video.
Microft’s offering fur is more extensive than Sony’s new PlayStation Plus collection, with 20 PlayStation 4 games the same service people can play if they subscribe to the PlayStation Plus multi-line multiplayer service, which costs $ 5 per month.
Game Pass subscribers who pay an additional 5 5 per month receive access to the service for playing Xbox games on Android devices; Games are offered on the Internet from micro .ft data centers. (Microsoft wants to offer the same service for Microsoft ft iOS devices, but says Apple’s App Store policies prevent it from doing so.)
The mobile option represents the kind of answer on the Nintendo Switch, delivering powerful gameplay in a portable design. Sony’s PlayStation cloud gaming service no longer supports mobile devices.
Studio deals
More games are coming.
The gaming wing of Micro .ft is expanding an acquisition with 23 game-development studios, including .5. The billion-dollar Xenimax acquisitions announced in September by Micro .ft include. It tops 11 in 2018 and is larger than Sony’s 14-studio collection. Microsoft has approached game developers in Japan, Nintendo and Sony’s home country, Bloomberg reported earlier this week.
Micro .ft’s 3 Indust3 Industries Studios was to launch its new popular “Halo” series of sci-fi shooting games with a new Xbox console next holiday season, but in August the company announced that the game would be delayed until 2021.
In contrast, the $ 500 PlayStation 5 and the Play 400 PlayStation 5 digital version (which has no disk drive) can both play exclusive games such as “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales” and “Demon Souls”. The PS5 also promotes software overall and main controller design.
Without any of these features in the new Xbox, people are looking for hardware improvements for the reason of going with Micro .ft.
They are there, but they may not be enough to beat Sony.
Who now cares for micro .ft
“I don’t see any technologies in this pay generation that provide a clear bump to the content,” said Seamus Blackley, a former Microsoft employee who is credited as the father of Xbox, who first pushed MicroSoft to take over Sony.
Blackley has tried out Micro .ft’s new gaming hardware, and he said he thinks Sony’s PlayStation 5 will be at least on hand first.
IDC agrees with Blackley’s expectation. Lewis Ward, IDC’s director of research for gaming, said he expects Sony to sell 5 million PlayStation 5 consoles this year, and that Microsoft will sell 3.8 million Xbox Series X and S consoles. (Microsoft will sell every console made by Microsoft Ft this year and expects a record holiday in terms of gaming usage, “Jarrett West, chief marketing officer of Microsoft’s Microsoft Xbox business, told CNBC in an email. Expected to exceed demand in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter.)
Investors are focusing less on Microsoft console sales anyway. Last year the company introduced a new metric: revenue growth for Xbox content and services, including sales of popular games such as Minecraft for non-micro .ft devices, as well as long-running Xbox Live service for game pass subscriptions and playline play. That figure has been higher than the overall revenue growth of gaming in the last four quarters.
Moreover, high console sales do not help the financial functioning of Microsoft. Microsoft has completed more console revenue in its current fiscal year, ending June 30, which will be as low as the company’s gross margin, Morgan Stanley analysts Keith Weiss and Josh Byrne wrote in a note shared with customers last month.
“I think Sony will come out of the gate quickly with the sale of hardware, but I don’t think MicroSt. He has worked on many PlayStation games, and expects to buy a new PlayStation and a new Xbox – not just right now. He said that Microsoft, unlike Sony, is more focused on accelerating game pass subscribers than dynamic consoles.
The West reacted by saying that Micro .ft offers the most powerful console ever built, and claimed that it takes full care to sell the console.
“But it’s an incomplete way to evaluate the gaming industry and focus on the console in terms of how it will grow in the future,” he wrote. “Developers working with us can reach gamers on PCs, consoles and mobiles through the cloud. And there are many options for how all new players choose to play their games.”
See: Next-Generation Xbox and PlayStation Consoles Face ‘Challenging War’: Analyst
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