I look at the poll results and shake my head. Way too many people have picked a winner without knowing anything about either Microsoft's or Sony's next console.

LOL

I wish people would elaborate more when they say sony is anti consumer and ms is pro consumer. At the start of the gen MS made the most anti consumer mistakes any company has ever made and the consumers voted with their wallets. in turn, MS has had to backtrack on all that. Sony has been the same since the beginning starting with giving away free games with ps+. no policies have changed in the slightest since the gen started. So far, sony looking more pro consumer.

Time passes
MS backtracks all its blunders. No more drm. removes mandatory kinect. copys sony strategy of free games with gold. Sony still the same as when they started. So far, looks like it took MS a while just to match sony in treating consumers right.

More time passes.
Xbox sales are still in the toilet. Discounting the xbox has had no affect in sales, so they decide to work on backward compatibility. No doubt a pro consumer move. A bit late though. Its been like 2 years and most fans have had to jump into the new gen by now. A lot of MS fans have already jumped ship to sonys team. Still pro consumer while sony has remained the same still. Still dont see any anti consumer practices.

Even more time passes.
Have sales improved by any means for the xbox? not much,still being sold over 2 to 1. Mid gen releases are announced for both consoles. the pro is out people love it, the xbox one x is just announced and is still a year away. Neutral moves. Ps4 sales has another big jump cuz whe have an upgrade. The xbox one s increases sales as well but the spotlight is still on the pro and yutubers are already comparing it to the x even if its a year away so the s is ignored a bit. So here comes the crosplay controversy. Xbox allows it, playstation does not. Keep in ind that no other console has had crossplay before. so now you could say is pro consumer. But can you really say sony is anti consumer for keeping everything as they always have been?

and theeennnnn...
Xbox sales take a nose dive at the begining of the year. No doubt everyone waiting for the X. in the meantime Games like horizon (and I believe uncharted is out by now) are making playstation fans go cazzy. MS games are starting to both drop in quality and becoming more scarse. According to some starting from this point, exclusives start to not matter, but BC is the future. The x releases as sales spike for a few months and the novelty dies very soon as xbox just does not seem to have the games to make the x shine. So what do we do now says phil......Gamepass!!! Nearly free games big new program thats bound to be loved by all. over 100 games for $10 a month...... we can all agree that at the beginning gamepass was largely ignored. I think in less than a month we had free trials, $1 memberships, and other special deals and shortly after, day one releases to big MS games. Means nothing at this point as MS games are being universally criticized. What about sony you say, well they are pretty much in the same boat, all thats changed is that after some critisims they caved and allowed crosplay for some games. So gamepass is a decent pro consumer program in a way but meaningless as they have no games to really want to make you get it.

Now.
Sony near 100m, Xbox probably not gona reach 50m by the time the the gen ends. So after all MS has done, the xbox is still selling well below the ps4. SO what else can they do? How about offer xbox games in other devices like the switch. Has not yet happened but I see ths failing as everything else. Sony is not even in the news.



Now I believe that people are mistakenly seeing being beaten into submission and being forced to basically beg for support as pro consumer tactics from MS's side. And then they see sony not having to grovel for attention and think is anti consumer. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are seeing here is nothing more than a lack of competition. As much as MS have tried they have failed and they are not giving up. So yea this is kind of good in MS's part but what it seems to me thats happening is that they are quiting after seeing that nothing is working. I mean they are basically a multi platform developer now (if you can even call them developers).

This. The_Liquid_Laser you need to accept that Europe is the biggest market and doesn't like Xbox. USA and UK is not enough for the rest of the world. If Sony do as usual, Xbox will never be above.

Console's market is always dominated either by Sony either by Nintendo.

Wow that was a long post. Sorry about that. Here is the conclusion for thouse like me that skip long post.

Now I believe that people are mistakenly seeing being beaten into submission and being forced to basically beg for support as pro consumer tactics from MS's side. And then they see sony not having to grovel for attention and think is anti consumer. Nothing could be further from the truth. What we are seeing here is nothing more than a lack of competition. As much as MS have tried they have failed and they are not giving up. So yea this is kind of good in MS's part but what it seems to me thats happening is that they are quiting after seeing that nothing is working. I mean they are basically a multi platform developer now (if you can even call them developers).

I predict Microsoft will have a very strong comeback. They've invested heavily in new software divisions and are going to make some great games.

This happens because Sony totally did everything wrong. When Sony doesn't do big mistakes, there is no hope for Xbox.

Me personally? I wont be buying the next Xbox. The One S is my first Xbox I have owned, I bought it on whim really cheap to play through Rare Replay. I have started a few other games, the system came with Halo 1-4 so I tried both 1 and 4 which were okay. I played a few other games, but its just not for me. My preference will always be single player games like Zelda, Mario, Uncharted, God of War etc. I do hope the Xbox does well, the video game industry needs competition, and any gamer that likes the type of games Microsoft makes deserves to have a good competitive system just as much as I do. If Nintendo can bounce back twice from failed consoles so an Microsoft!

Not going to E3 is anti consumers how lol.

The thing that most people don't get is that in the console business, the past had no impact upon the future.  Every single generation is different.  That is why the safe best is not on Playstation.

-Nintendo was once the undisputed king of gaming, but since then they've had several flops like the Gamecube, the Wii U and especially the Virtual Boy.
-Sony at one time seemed invincible, but they have gone from a handheld that sold 80m (the PSP) to being completely forced out of the handheld market in humiliation.

Past success does not predict future success.  The PS4 will not help the PS5 just like the PS2 did not help the  PS3.  Right now the PS5 hasn't been announced yet, so we don't even know anything about it.  The only thing we know about the PS5 is that it will be competing against the Switch which is already very successful.

Keiji you need to accept that past generations do not predict future console winners.  We don't even know if Sony will do as usual.  And Microsoft can always come out with a better product.  The future is larely up in the air.  The only thing that is know about the next generation is that PS5 and NextBox will be competing against the Switch, which is already a successful console.  The consumers who do not buy Switch could go either way: Sony or Microsoft.