Has Sony Opened The Possibility For An Xbox Comeback?

[Norion]

Wman1996 said:

Norion said:

I really don't see Xbox hardware being able to avoid a continual decline before eventually outright dying at some point. They'd need to do something as drastic as going so hard on exclusivity again that they stop releasing PC versions of their games to even have a shot at stopping the decline but that would kill software sales and the long term popularity of those IPs so I highly doubt that'll happen.

People have built up such large digital libraries in the ecosystem they're in that platform switching will be rarer than before and young gamers won't be choosing Xbox much currently so the average Xbox user is probably getting older every year at this point. That's also the case for Playstation I imagine due to young people being less into consoles nowadays but they've become the default home console choice so they're in a way better position.

Phil Spencer nailed it when he said the Eighth Generation was the worst to lose. Xbox One was more competitive with PS4 than Series X/S is with PS5 but they still lost significantly. 

Digital distribution for consoles became a thing in the Seventh Generation but by the early to mid Eighth generation it was the norm for an undeniable majority of players. 

People who have gamed on PlayStation for two generations now are going to be very tough to get over to Xbox as a console and especially unlikely as a primary or sole console. 

Another thing is in Xbox's case switching to PC is relatively easy due to things like Xbox Play Anywhere so in the past few years a higher percentage of Xbox Series owners will have switched to PC than PS5 owners and by and large those people won't be coming back.