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Forums - Gaming Discussion - The console war is over

Intrinsic said:

I'll believe this when Halo, Mario, and Zelda is released on the PS5.

Silly article...

As long as there are platform exclusives, there will always be a console war.

Silly article, except Major Nelson retweeted it. I'm guessing he agrees with it lol.



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Azzanation said:
DonFerrari said:

Use that metric if you want. Sony sell more than double the hardware, more than double the PS+ versus XBL Gold, more than double the 3rd party game royalties and like 5x more first party games sold. So yes Sony completely obliterated MS on revenue and profit this gen.

No one is arguing it this gen, Sony did make more revenue this gen. My point is about the direction.

Who is more successful, Company A or Company B?

RolStoppable said:

Your example demonstrates that you don't know what winning is. The PS4 brings in a lot more revenue than Switch, but Switch is more profitable nonetheless.

Winning is first and foremost about selling the most units of hardware. There hasn't been a generation where the best-selling console wasn't also clearly the most profitable console at the same time. It's only among the runner-ups that oddities could be observed, namely the Xbox (24m) being less profitable than the GC (21m), and the PS3 being less profitable than the Xbox 360 despite slightly higher unit sales.

The best-selling console will continue to bring in the most gaming profits for its manufacturer.

Again, PS4 did make more revenue this gen, no one is debating that, that's not the point i am making. 

Who is more successful in my example, Company A or Company B?

derpysquirtle64 said:

That's a great example, but can you really see and explain how MS can possibly make more revenue/profit than Sony or Nintendo with their current strategy if their marketshare in console business will stay pretty much the same (which is around less than 20%).

Glad you can see what i am trying to say in my example, and not turning this into a PS4 vs XB1 post. The major profits is with the software and subs, the more software and subs sold the more profit is made.

Look what Pokemon GO did for Nintendo, it made $7.5b in revenue for Nintendo just for 1 game and it wasn't on a Nintendo platform. 360 lost $3b in hardware and PS3 lost $5b in hardware by 2013. Excluding the profits Live made for the 360 and the profits from the games sold on both consoles, the Hardware lost billions. 1 game from Nintendo did the complete opposite number 

Currently the top 6 best selling Steam games, 4 of them are from Xbox. Add PC GamePass subscribers to the mix and you can start seeing the growth. Xbox is covering more markets and soon Streaming will be in the mix as well.  

Links to the 360 and PS3 losing billions and Pokemon GOs revenue boosting figures below.

https://www.vg247.com/2013/01/07/xbox-360-and-ps3-losses-total-8-billion-ex-sony-employee-paints-grim-future/#:~:text=Animal%20Crossing-,Xbox%20360%20and%20PS3%20losses%20total%20%248%20billion%2C%20ex,Sony%20employee%20paints%20grim%20future&text=Xbox%20360%20and%20PS3%20have,by%20industry%20veteran%20Ben%20Cousins.&text=%E2%80%9CConsoles%20like%20Xboxes%2C%20PlayStations%20%26,a%20loss%E2%80%9D%2C%20said%20Cousins.

https://www.theverge.com/2016/7/11/12147600/nintendos-stock-pokemon-go

Come on guys. We're all gamers here, not share holders. Who cares which company is making the most money. I only care about seeing full blown next gen games specifically designed for that 12Tflops beast of a console, and GP is getting in the way of that.



sales2099 said:
DonFerrari said:

Ok, so yes calling it a flagship is wrong, but we both can agree that so far MS wants Halo to be the reason to want an Xbox (be it One or Series X) and Sony is with Spiderman MM, unless in the next couple months they show more stuff.

Fair enough, yes my flagship label was wrong. I just meant “day 1 face of the console”. 

That's more accurate, yes. Flagships are flagships no matter when they are released.

In general, I don't think gamers will choose a console based on what they will get on day one, but rather what they will get over the next 5 or more years.



Perhaps they can all win? This could be just a natural evolution, where each company diverges from the original console war and finds their role. MS will go to subscriptions, Sony will handle traditional home console gaming and Nintendo rules the portable space.



padib said:

I think it's the right direction for Microsoft, to try a new approach. Nintendo did it with the Wii in the past, it was the right thing because in a war of attrition Nintendo would come out the loser. They changed their course and it paid off tremendously for them. I believe that Microsoft has gone head to head with Sony but the battle is getting stale. By changing their direction, I believe Xbox is getting closer to its original pedigree and the one of the 360, xbox's best platform since its beginnings. I believe that by pushing games and availability of those games, they are going to come out winners. Perhaps their hardware sales will decrease, but the software is what really matters in the end, and those may very well end up drastically increasing. It will be important to follow software sales next gen due to this, to get a better idea of Microsoft's popularity going forward.

Surprisingly, you managed to all say this without mentioning  the strength of Sony and how it disrupt the console market, and how both Nintendo and MS had to adjust their vision to create a market for themselves...



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Xbox Series X is looking kinda gloom. I see the console getting a Wii U reception sadly.



RolStoppable said:
Azzanation said:

Again, PS4 did make more revenue this gen, no one is debating that, that's not the point i am making. 

Who is more successful in my example, Company A or Company B?

It can be told who is more successful in your example because you don't mention any profit numbers. Apparently you can't tell the difference between revenue and profit because you are talking about them as if they were the same thing. I explained it with a real world example (see: second sentence in the box above) that more revenue doesn't automatically translate to more profit.

The problem is you are avoiding my simple question and keep trying to divert this into a XB1 vs PS4 comparison question. Its a hypercritical. 

Ill say it in simpler terms, Company A who sells more hardware or Company B who makes more money? Who is more successful?

We can all agree that the PS4 was more successful than the XB1 in most avenues this gen.



RolStoppable said:
Azzanation said:

The problem is you are avoiding my simple question and keep trying to divert this into a XB1 vs PS4 comparison question. Its a hypercritical. 

Ill say it in simpler terms, Company A who sells more hardware or Company B who makes more money? Who is more successful?

We can all agree that the PS4 was more successful than the XB1 in most avenues this gen.

How much profit did company A and company B make in your example?

A) Makes $3b profit

B) Makes $5b profit 

A) Sells double the Hardware, 10m consoles sold

B) Sells double the subs/services, 5m consoles sold



Azzanation said:
RolStoppable said:

How much profit did company A and company B make in your example?

A) Makes $3b profit

B) Makes $5b profit 

A) Sells double the Hardware, 10m consoles sold

B) Sells double the subs/services, 5m consoles sold

And since you can`t provide revenue or profit for xbox we can only really look at their hw sales estimatives from several different places.

From the 3 companies the only one that really can have much higher profit than the others with a lot lower sales is Nintendo because first their games budget is a lot smaller, they have a very high attach ratio and mostly sell first party games. MS and Sony their profit is very dependent on the number of consoles sold (with subs about 40-50% of the HW sales, games sold total about 12 per consoles and most being 3rd party). So you won`t have Xbox selling half of PS and profiting double unless you want to pick up money made on other markets (let`s say consider GP, SW, Gold sales done on PC, minecraft sales done on PS, PC and Switch that isn`t a comparison to include against Switch or PS as much as isn`t picking Pokemon Go revenue or anime or merchandise that go to Nintendo) even if in current gen even if you pick every single source of revenue and profit and for the whole department (that have more than even every Xbox market) it doesn`t win from Nintendo or Playstation.

Last edited by DonFerrari - on 31 July 2020

duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

COKTOE said:
yvanjean said:
Major Nelson knows there are many people that are locked to one ecosystem. Microsoft's strategy is to give gamers as many options to join the Xbox ecosystem even if it's just for a short time. Microsoft wants to break the narrative that you need to own a console to play exclusives. I fear what would happen if the Gamepass grows too much and what would happen to the game industry as a result.

As I've mentioned in the past, over and over again, I fear for the industry in regards to Microsoft's general success. Be it Gamepass, or whatever other endeavour. I don't trust them as shepards of the industry, and eagerly anticipate details on what exactly the type of product Halo Infinite will be. I bet one can of Coke that once it's fully rolled out, graphical fidelity will fade into the ether as a hot topic. To be supplanted by.....what? We'll see. One way or the other. I certainly have my suspicions.

I think the Halo Infinite graphical backlash is entirely dumb. If the game is amazing, story appealing and you having a blast playing; then I can forgive a few pop-in and not having the best grass graphic in the industry. Moving to open world and having to locked 60 FPS is key to Halo infinite and if the price is slightly downgraded graphic, I'll take that trade-off. The community obsession with Graphic is why we don't get more games with locked at 60 FPS. Assassin Creed Valhalla should be locked 60 fps but Ubisoft knows that the general public is graphic snobs and will always push for a higher graphic fidelity with a slower frame rate because that is what sells more games.

The best game I've played last generation is Zelda: Breath of the Wild this game alone throws all the graphics snob argument out the door. Halo Infinite is going to be an amazing experience. I think 343 is constantly going to be working on the graphic, so eventually, Xbox series X will deliver the polish the general public expected on Day 1. But, regardless I think playing is believing... I love the direction that 343 took with Halo Infinite. I just replayed all the old Halo games, the last one being Halo ODST, boy does this have me excited for the possibilities of an open world Halo game. 

The main argument against getting an Xbox Series X over a PS5 is that game will be held back and it won't take full advantage of next-gen graphic. But, I look forward to playing with my nephews and two of them are still rocking the OG Xbox one and Xbox one S. Also, once I upgrade to Series X, I'm happy knowing that they will still get lots of mileage out of my Xbox one X. Ps5 locked ecosystem is the main reason I intend to wait a few years before ever considering picking one up. This is a complete reversal of 2013, were Sony mocked Xbox for how to share games.