Microsoft is fighting tooth and nail to win this console war.

Multiple price cuts have been made and they even abandoned Kinect...tech they spent millions to develop. But the PS4 continues to outsell the Xbox One.

I am left wondering if it is actually possible for Microsoft to win this console war. 

From an engineering perspective, the Xbox 360 was twice as good as PS3 as a gaming machine. Unified shaders, unified memory, legitimate dual threaded tri core CPU, 10 MB edram etc.

With all this tech, 10 million consoles sold, a years head start, and a disasterous PS3 launch, the Xbox 360 still couldn't shake the PS3. They were dead even at the end of the console generation.

Holiday 2014 was really good for Xbox One. Price cuts plus good games and superb console bundles caused sales to spike...but (worldwide) it still couldn't outsell the PS4.

Could it simply be that Playstation is a stronger gaming brand? Playstation has been on the market longer than Xbox. Playstation is also the brand that sold 150 million consoles in one generation (a feat that may never be repeated). To a large number of gamers worldwide, Playstation is synonymus with gaming, and Xbox may not necessarily have that reach.

Should Microsoft concede and simply settle for second place since the Playstation brand is stronger?

Leave your thoughts.

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Yes, Playstation is and always will be the bigger brand. The Xbox brand could have grown with the X1, but we all know what happened at E3 2013. :)

Yeah. Worldwide especially. In NA, it's more of a contest.

Playstation was always biggest gaming brand. Its been since 1995. In Wii / Xbox 360 time people just forgot it. Now they do remember it again. Its simple.

It caught good marketshare early in it's life with PS1. Had a 6yr head start on MS everywhere. With their handhelds helping to keep the crowd glued to their products. PS was everywhere from middle 90s to now. MS made way to many mistakes in the process though. Starting with the 1st Xbox. Yea PS has always been more popular than MS.

This isn't a pretty easy answer if you're only asking who is the biggest 'gaming' brand. Sony hands down. Sure Nintendo has some of the light, but if we are talking overall mass appeal, Playstation has always dominated. PS1 dominated, PS2 dominated, PS3 held it's own and now the PS4 is absolutely destroying everyone in sight. Also, in the United States PlayStation was ALWAYS the bigger brand over X Box until the 360 had it's moment in the sun, and now most everyone is back to PlayStation. People play what's best, and last gen 360 had most of the better multi plats early on and a year head start, they captured the majority of the US market but even with a year head start they were outsold worldwide in the end. Playstation will own this gen, even in the United States, and that's not really surprising at all. It's the way it's always been the last few gens other than the flash in the pan that was the X Box 360.

*oh and obviously I'm talking about the most recent gens, 1996-Present (ish). *

I registered just to post this little rant.

Microsoft only has themselves to blame for the situation of the Xbox brand. They could have killed SONY this gen if it weren't for their greed, but now it looks like SONY will have a monopoly in the hardware market starting next gen (Nintendo is irrelevant and doesn't count).

You know, the funniest thing about this whole flip-flop sales situation is that it was all due to Microsoft's greedy practices. I'm not talking about always-online DRM like what everyone else talks about.
I'm talking about building a good exclusive line-up instead of milking Halo, Forza and Gears and then bribing the media to give those games decent scores. After what happened in the 2nd-half of the generation with the 360, many 360 owners couldn't trust Microsoft to deliver exclusive games on the Xbox ONE.

However, the biggest reason for the Xbox ONE's failure is the bullshit pay2play online fees with Xbox LIVE GOLD. Now that SONY is also charging for online play, there is a huge financial barrier in owning 2 consoles. Both machines are half-gimped without online play, and PlayStation has a far bigger online community for every important online game, so there is more incentive for people to stick with PS+. And this is where the biggest irony comes in. XBL was supposed to be a giant money-making scam by MS, but now it's the main reason why they're getting poor sales. MS is reaping what they sowed.

If Microsoft wants to remain competitive, they should do the right thing and make online gaming FREE. It costs nothing on MS end to host peer2peer online gaming, so they won't be operating at a loss - They just won't be making free money.
In fact, I think this is the only move that can save the Xbox division. It would be big enough for current playstation owners to consider owning a second console just like last generation when many 360 owners bought the PS3 as a secondary console. It would also put enough pressure on SONY to drop their BS online-gaming fees as well, which would benefit all gamers.

Playstation consoles won every generation except one and xbox hasn't won any generation. So yes, sony's playstation brand is more popular and stronger. I think that MS shouldn't give up or just settle for second place. Competition is good for gaming all around. They can probably beat sony if they just stop using gimmicks to sell their console, nickle & diming gamers on things like cords/controllers (it diminishes value) and lastly, don't try to push those asinine policies on gamers.

I'm not going to say that the Xbox brand is weaker, but I'll say that the PlayStation is the biggest and prominent brand worldwide.