| konnichiwa said:
Thats also what makes it kind of annoying and an excuse because it implies 'doing bad with xbox hardware is okay because MS is aiming higher than doing well in the console market'. |
I'm afraid I have to disagree with the caricature of the position, it implies 'doing not so great with Xbox hardware is not critical to MS gaming division as it is already well diversified on the PC gaming market'. Xbox not selling as much as PS is not about the quality of their hardware but the fact that their hardware is not a requirement in their offering.
MS has been officially supporting PC with all their first parties for close to a decade, gamers who want to play MS first party can entirely opt out of the console market, and of course this as a negative impact on the sales of hardware but it's not an issue on it's own.
| konnichiwa said:
Sony is also not competing for just some pure console market share and that they understand that having an attractive platform in the console market can lead to also great market share in other markets. |
Sony is only now committing more to PC than just an afterthought and still not to the extent MS is doing so. Their new strategy has yet to show all its ramifications. Sony is doing so because fighting the console market has stagnated and halted Playstation's overall growth and ROI.
| konnichiwa said:
1) Do you agree that Sony is not just competing in the console hardware market but in other gaming related markets aswell? If you disagree can you explain why? |
Yes and no, Sony recently increased support for PC but it wasn't the case up to this year.
| konnichiwa said:
Because it seems obvious that Sony is also creating a pillar in the PC gaming market and had a ton of new PSN accounts created on PC. |
Is also creating is key, they are not present to the same extent as MS with their catalog of 1st IPs on PC very far from it, even more so when looking at the first half of this gen. As a result, you have a pool of potential Xbox consumers free from choosing between PC and Xbox Hardware while for PlayStation up to this year, there wasn't a choice.
But I'll explain better my thoughts with a prediction, if starting from next-gen Sony does support PC to a similar extent as Xbox, their sales of PlayStation hardware will go down, their consumer pool will go up, there's ROI will go up, as it happened with MS this gen.
If one actor finds another channel to reach consumers even if it would impact negatively its already established channel simply by way of offering more options, if the overall consumer reach, revenue, and ROI are expended then why should said actor refrain from using said new channel?
And on this question, Both MS and Sony have said it makes no sense, the difference is MS said so over a decade ago while Sony said so this year.
| konnichiwa said:
2) If you agree that Sony is not just competing in the console market then why is it okay that MS is creating/created the least attractive console for gamers/consumers/Media/Developpers/retail etc and how will it be beneficial for the other markets they compete in? |
The cause-to-effect relation you try to establish is simply wrong. Xbox selling less hardware does not mean it's the least attractive, it can mean that consumers are using other channels to access MS offerings while those other channels are not offered to the same extent as the competition.
If you try to use a metric for proposition attractiveness then why should Hardware number prevail over MAU?
| konnichiwa said:
I agree with that releasing games like Sea of Thieves/Indiana Jones/Grounded etc on Sony's platform is good for MS but it is BEST for Sony, having those games will increase sales, increase PSN Accounts, Increase PSN subscriptions, Increase confidence in Gamers and Devs to support for future Sony Platforms in the handheld/Console/PC/Mobile markets in the future... |
this is highly debatable especially since we don't know how things will evolve from now regarding multiplatform strategy for MS and Sony with PC support.
But the things we can see are despite Sony almost doubling Xbox on hardware, it's Xbox that has the better ROI and MAU and it's not even close and that's not even accounting for ABK.
Last edited by EpicRandy - on 20 August 2024
