A very large number of buyers in the final quarter are families with children that honestly don't know and don't care too intently about what platform is newer/older  or more powerful than another. They are, however, price sensitive - and I'm not sure if Xbox competes in this area as well as 3DS just yet. Admittedly, there's a lot MS can do with price incentives and they've proven on that before. However, Microsoft honestly got a lot more mileage with this segment back when they supported Kinect in the 360 era. They are totally without anything mainstream to get the excitement and interest of casuals, let alone core-gaming types who have rather soft impressions of XB1X.

I think the Switch will be out of reach for many of that folk - if only for price and overall retail supply conditions - but can make a mindshare impact with them nonetheless.In it's own way, Switch lifts the overall Nintendo brand to bring attention to 3DS. As Nintendo, if you can't sell a Switch for said reasons - selling a 3DS is of course the next best alternative.

I have to disagree. The main reason why original Xbox One failed at launch was that MS have done everything wrong with it in terms of hardware. PS4 had more power and it was easier to develop for. Just like 360 was in compraison to PS3. Sony did a good job and learned their lessons with PS3 so they made PS4 in the same way MS did 360. The other problem is that Microsoft alienated developers from Xbox One platform. 360 was great for indie developers because of XBLA program - MS closed it. You can add here stupid restrictions for disc-based games like no used discs, always online, etc. And betting a lot on Kinect wasn't a good idea either. But now, they've learned the lessons from Xbox One launch. And with Xbox One X they are doing everything right in terms of hardware and relationship with evelopers. The problem is that because it is mid-gen upgrade to already inferior system, it's not gonna change anything.

Actually Sony learned their lessons mid last gen, everything changed with the PS3 Slim launch: better marketing, new price, more games, especially more games. Sony 1st party went into overdrive. Microsoft hasn't learned any lesson, they think Sony beat them because of power and that's all they're focusing on, but where are the games? Their 1st party is on life support. They keep cancelling and delaying games, they just delayed Crackdown 3, a game announced in 2014! They literally skip on the most important part that makes consoles a success: games. PS4 didn't keep winning all these years because it was initially cheaper and more powerful, they kept working to keep their lead. It's like when u got a gym, u need to keep going to maintain fitness.

Given it came out in early 2011, I really love the effort Nintendo put into the twilight years of the 3DS. I really thought my days of picking my 3DS up were mostly in the past after Pokemon Sun & Moon, but they've dragged me back with a few very cool games. I'm actually quite excited to finally get around to playing Ever Oasis.

This is like comparing sales of iPhone to 3DS. Two different products. They shouldn't be compared.

Omg man your posts seriously. Did the Og Xbox fail? Not sure how a failed console can lead to a sequal. Did the X1 fail aswell? 30m+ sold and probably will sell 50m life time is a failure? Damn. Everyone stop what your doing, this is serious $h!t

Yes, I agree that Sony learned their lessons mid gen and did the best they could to save the PS3. But I was literally talking about the approach to hardware engineering. They couldn't change PS3's problematic architecture mid gen so 360 had the advantage in terms of hardware by the end of the gen. They've really done a great job at gaining hardware advantage this gen with PS4. By doing this they've managed to appeal to a large piece of 360 userbase who wasn't looking at PS3 last gen even after all the improvements Sony did mid gen. 

Considering Xbox One and One X it is obvious that MS did a great job hardware wise but as I've said it isn't gonna matter much because of One X being just another addition to the inferior family of consoles with bad first-party support. But I really think that MS could've gotten a good chance to succeed if it was really 9 gen when everything resets again. With the help of proper first party output of course. And MS is known to have fine first party and third party support at launch. I can't really say that Xbox One in its first years had some problems in terms of software iutput. It was on par with PS4. It wasn't up until last year when everything went bad for them. 

I feel exactly the same.  Never thought I'd be playing on it though 2018 but with Ever Oasis, Metroid, Monster Hunter Stories and Pokemon there's plenty of reasons to keep that battery charged.

Ever Oasis is pretty fun by the way, great little rouge-RPG.

I disagree with Sony learning their lesson (they still made the system too expense and took a loss on units sold which help result in a loss in 2013 and 2014). Otherwise, I agree with you. Microsoft and Sony are practically substitutes for each other. Thanks to XBox One blowing the pooch, consumers flocked to the PS4 over the XBox One (which is the reason I disagree since I think Sony's success this gen is sucking less).  Microsoft needs 1st party games to move their console as both systems will have multiplat games. But Microsoft seems so disorganized that they have to keep canceling projects, delaying them and shutting down studios. Do they even have a major title coming out in Holiday 17? 

I really don't know how much longer Microsoft will stick around in games. I suspect they are spinning XBox into PC gaming to defend against the rise of mobile devices, but they still can't release a single game. I feel like Microsoft will fade out in the next few years at this rate.