Your move, the PS5: Micro .ft’s running Xbox indicates what Sony does

It was a long game of prize-war chicken, but it has finally come to an end.

Microsoft flew first, and now we know how much the next pay generation of console gaming will cost. The Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X will officially launch on November 10 from 299, the company announced this week, after spending 15 months in Dribbs and Drebs announcing details about its next pay generation Xbox.

Many questions remain, such as whether the 9299 Xbox Series S will actually deliver Seems Next-gen, as it will only have a third raw GPU of 499 Xbox Series X and less than half that of PlayStation 5. (It’s all based on the same AMD RDNA 2 graphics architecture.)

But the biggest question is a little more urgent: what will the PlayStation do? It’s almost time to find out.

Probably a factor as to why they’re doing so poorly. Sony and MicroSt. Have been doing well for over a year now. Presumably, they are waging this fight because no company wants to disclose its value first, just to give others a chance to take advantage. Is too high, and your competitor can infiltrate you; Too little and you are putting money on the table, or selling your product at a loss. When Sony announced that it had downgraded the Xbox One to PS4 by box 100, it immediately seemed as if Sony had revolted.

But there is no reason for Sony to hold back now that Microsoft has revealed its hand. The question is how low Sony should go, how low it can go Affordable To go, because the PS4 is as strong and once felt as weak as the Xbox, $ 299 is an incredible price that seems impossible to meet or beat.

Let’s put 9 299 in perspective. Historically, the price of the “next-gen console” has not dropped as much as the Xbox since 360 ​​since little 299, and if you have chosen the “core” version, which has deducted the hard drive to remove that value. Otherwise, it didn’t happen because the original Xbox and PS2 put it at the end of the millennium., And Kotku Not to point out even after the reality: balanced for inflation, those consoles whose price is almost every 450 today’s money. Nintendo’s Switch, Wii U, Wii, Game Cube and N64 have kept inflation at around $ 300 in modern money, but they have not been able to participate in a technical demonstration since GameCube in 2001.

(9,299 is also so low that you can’t just build a gaming PC at the same price – a 512GB NVM solid state drive in the Xbox Series S alone will take up a sixth of that budget, and a mid-range graphics card 2017 costs more than 140. )

Meanwhile, Sony’s ability to sell the PS5 for less than 500 500 – less than 300 300 has already raised questions. In February and again in April, Bloomberg Games industry reporter Takashi Mochizuki reports that component shortages and rising memory prices are forcing Sony to consider higher prices at launch than the PS4 or PS4 Pro, an estimate suggesting it will cost 50,450 to build a new console for Sony alone.

And while Sony has apparently managed to increase PS5 production by 50 percent (up to 10 million consoles by March 2021), Sony is still signaling that supply will be limited – you have to Apply To Wait in line Just for chance To Pre-order PS5, a process that still seems patently vague even after two weeks.

But before we consider the PS5 to be price-competitive with XB with X, let’s also consider Sony’s advantages – such as its both digital-how And The model equipped with a disk drive will be more powerful than the $ 300 Xbox Series S; Track record of recent exclusive hits (e.g., Sony) Spider-Man And Horizon Zero Dawn, Both of which have PS5 sequels); How Sony makes the case for the next-gen with next-gen exclusive games; And how weak Microsoft’s first-party lineup is by comparison.

I walked away from Microsoft’s big Xbox Games showcase on July 23, thinking there was no good reason for me to buy an Xbox. Exactly, because every key game is also coming on Windows PC. Some are also coming to the existing Xbox One; Many people will be able to run an Android phone through MicroSF’s exclusive cloud gaming service; And there’s a serious question as to whether some of the biggest Xbox games will be available even two years after their launch. Theoretical killer application of micro’s ft, Halo Infinity, Is already delayed until 2021 and has taken the lead of a new project after some fans criticized its graphics.

Sony could argue that it has the games you want – and perhaps even that the Xbox Series S isn’t a “true” next-gen console.

Also, when back Bloomberg Reporting the difficulty of PS5 prices, Sony has yet to announce that it will do the shipping Two This holiday season is reassuring, and it’s quite possible that Sony’s “PlayStation 5 Digital Edition” will give the company some serious pricing.

As far as we can tell, the only difference between the two PS5s is the removal of the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray drive – “the PS5 gameplay experience will be the same,” says Sony – but the disk drive is not necessarily the cheapest part. When Microsoft introduced the same drive in the 9299 Xbox One S in 2016, the research company IHS estimated that the cost of the drive alone was 33.50. When Microsoft removed that drive three years later to create the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition, it shaved the console price to a full $ 50.

Image: micro .ft

The savings for Sony aren’t just in components, either; Sony will not have to pay Blu-ray and DVD licensing fees, which can cost up to $ 8 per console. Anyone who buys a digital version of the PS5 gives Sony a big cut of every game, as it is sold through Amazon, Target, Gamestop or PlayStation Stores like it. Digital games cannot be resold, so more buyers will have to buy new ones at a higher price. People who prefer discs can also find less used discs in the market, as digital buyers have no pick-up at their local game stop.

With all of this in mind, it would be easier for Sony to decide to sell the PS5 digital edition at a loss (or break-even), as those factors could make the commercial model of the razor- and blade work better than before. Assuming people buy the PS5, of course.

Imagine for a second that the Sony PS5 digital version costs $ 400, and the same ડિ 500 disk-equipped version that MicroSD wants for the Microsoft Ft Xbox Series X – maybe even $ 550, even if the PS5 is supply-limited and so much more. Is desirable. Early adopters anyway. Imagine Sony (and reporters) pointing to Micros’ FTA’s $ 300 Xbox Series S against its $ 400 PS5 digital edition, and showing you vividly that cross-platform, cross-gen like games Call of Duty Black Ops: The Cold War Check out that special Xbox.

Heck, imagine that Sony will take advantage of its ridiculous invitation-only PS5 preorder queue Black-B nature x to help its bottom side towards any version of the console, while offering only a few system selections.

Not too hard to imagine, right? The MicroSt .ft can now think of a bigger picture than the console, and if it costs even less than the PS5, some would prefer the Xbox Series S entirely. They don’t think it’s wrong to do so: they think it could be an extraordinary gaming buss for money. But overall, this console race is Sony’s defeat. We’re just waiting for Sony’s choice – and Microsoft has assured everyone that it won’t be “US 5 599” this time around.