| binary solo said: 1) Price. PS4 will be substantially more price competitive through the year, and more importantly during the holidays. Even is xb one manages to win Nov and Dec the margin will be relatively small. 2) games. We all know multiplats are better on PS4 95% of the time. But we also know that the exclusive offerings from PS4 in 2015 has broad appeal. As usual MS will be putting all its eggs in the Halo basket. But really how many people will be swayed by this? It is a franchise who's popularity peaked on 360. It will still sell millions but principally to the xbox core. It won't really sell beyond that. Rise of the tomb raider you say? I say a lot of people are going to wait and see what 2016 brings once the time limit on the exclusivity wears off. I don't see RTR convincing many people who lean towards PS or PC to get a xb one for this timed exclusive. 3) financial position. Mobile is the monkey on Sony's otherwise profitable back. By all accounts that monkey will be gone, or greatly diminished by the end of Q1 2015. This means Sony will be in a better position to put money into shifting PS4s and not just by making price adjustments. 4) non game services. Xb one may continue to have the edge in entertainment and other non game services. But Sony is not sitting still here, they will bring more to the table here too. While this isn't a direct selling point for either console, for people on the fence it can be one of the deciding factor especially if a non-gamer is part of the decision making process. 5) despite what MS managed to do this year for Nov and Dec, I don't see MS being able to repeat this to the same effect. Once Sony drops PS4 price that squeezes what MS can do. And Sony being in a better financial position going into holiday 2015 means they can do holiday specials at least equal in value to xb one. 6) the casual market is diminished. But they will go where the casual games are and Sony has that covered. |
1) This year, the X1 went through multiple "soft" pricecuts. Sony, on the other hand, has yet to officially reduce the price of the PS4. In addition, you can only cut the price so much. Otherwise, you're practically giving the console away for free.
2) Not only does the PS4 have leverage on multiplats, but it has a bunch of exclusives, consoles exclusives, or games that are simply not on the X1. See LordLich's OP here (http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=194947&page=1# ). Yes, the X1 will be getting some exclusives, too, like Ori of the Blind Forest and Screamride. However, it's small compared to what the PS4 is offering for the 1st half of 2015.
3) The loss from last quarter was the result of a massive writedown from the mobile division. I think from now on, Sony's mobile division will at worst, post small losses. I'm not sure how much The Interview will cost Sony Pictures though...
4) The X1 does offer more non-gaming features than the PS4 and will be getting more in tandem with Windows 10's launch. I'm curious to see how Playstation Vue will turn out. The list of programs the service has is very good, in my opinion, though some might complain about the lack of ESPN. Also, I think the service is limited to only major cities thus far.
5) Agree with you here for the same reasons I mentioned in #1.
6) I wont say Sony has it covered, but it is in good position to capture a good chunk of the casual market.
