The console war argument is around such an outdated definition of the gaming industry. Self-identifying gamers have had their head in the sand for over a decade now.
Since 2010 mobile gaming has eclipsed revenue of both console and PC gaming _combined_.
Also since 2010, console revenue has stagnated while PC revenue has continued to grow.
This is the landscape to evaluate the different gaming brands. Xboxes are nothing more than a user-friendly gaming PC brand. The total addressable market for Microsoft is much larger than what Sony could hope for. Sony is in the worst bind long-term, trapped in consoles without any leg up in PC or mobile. They invested in VR instead which never became a strong category. In terms of revenue, VR is barely competing with Arcades.
If you had to stack rank gaming devices, iOS would be winning the console wars, followed by Android. In a distant third would be PlayStation, and then Microsoft and Nintendo neck in neck.
If you look at it by company, Tencent would be at the top, then Sony, then Microsoft and Nintendo.
Microsoft is definitely in -- at best -- third place no matter how you count it. The FTC trying to restrict the conversation to an era of console war that expired over 13 years ago shows they have no business trying to regulate this space.
The revenues in mobile gaming overwhelmingly come from predatory in-app item sales. They aren't in the business of selling games to people who like playing games, they're in the business of psychologically exploiting people who are vulnerable to compulsive behaviours. The industry isn't shy about this - they openly brag about their pursuit of "whales" and their use of psychological manipulation. Frankly, everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves.
Slightly tangential, but I've been watching Duolingo go down this road for the past few years since one of Zynga's product people became their head of product. Duolingo was never the best way to learn a language, but it's increasingly become essentially useless as an educational tool as they push for more and more revenue from their "whales". Every aspect of the experience is shaped towards manipulating people into "engaging" for longer and keeping them coming back, ostensibly to make learning more effective but in practice at the expense of learning.
This blog post by their head of product is a great example of the problems in the industry—he talks gleefully about all the manipulative techniques he pulled in from Zynga, and doesn't seem to have any clue that he's sacrificed the mission in pursuit of relentless growth.
I strongly disagree, mobile and console/PC gaming are not competing. It’s a completely different audience, different games and so on. I’d consider them mostly separate markets. The Switch tried to bridge the gap but really didn’t.
They all compete with each other since they're all competing for your time, there's just specializations that make them more attractive in certain situations. If I'm at home poking at a gem game at my phone, that's still taking up time that could be spent on a console. If I'm out and about, it's time that could be spent on a Switch or Steam Deck, or possibly cloud streaming.
There's plenty of overlap between all of them. Hell, most mobile games are mostly adaptions of what are usually called casual or what used to be called "desktop" games on PC. Genshin Impact is an open world RPG, there's CoD Mobile and Mario Kart too.
There's a habit to separate various kinds of media in it's own little lockboxes and it's completely wrongheaded and old fashioned in an age where tech is consolidating so rapidly.
I think it’s important to note the revenue coming from mobile gamers (generally) isn’t the same revenue that Sony/MS are after here. Very different customer segments with very different demographics. You’re right though, it seems that the mobile sector is growing and the console one has stagnated.
I imagine contingent of people who spend big bucks on mobile games _probably_ wouldn’t be spending that money on AAA PS5 games otherwise.
I think it’s important to note the revenue coming from mobile gamers (generally) isn’t the same revenue that Sony/MS are after here.
Just curious if you are making that comment after reading the article, or is your general opinion? Because one of the big points of the article is that Phil Spencer said they tried to by Zynga, and the major reason they want Activision is for the mobile assets. This is Spencer’s testimony quoted in the article:
The deal, as we’ve talked about, expands our business to the mobile platform... the existing business that we run today as the third-place console business is a very difficult business to drive profit and margin. So the opportunity for us to expand in a meaningful way onto mobile, the world’s largest gaming platform, was really both a strategic and business opportunity behind this deal.
It can vary. Genshin Impact and Honkai Star Rail show that there certainly is a console-esque audience you can target, even with mobile style monetization. Their success does make me wonder why the West hasn't attempted something similar since the days of Infinity Blade.
At this point though the PC gaming market is indistinguishable from Xbox which is just a closed down Windows PC with DRM. AFAIK all Xbox games are supposed to be available on PC anyway?
This is like comparing bikes, cars and motorcycles, saying "the car has won, motorcycle sales have stagnated - get your head out the sand". You cannot just change "Console" to "Computing device that can run a game" because you think it is a better way to look at it. You also count Microsoft as PC + Xbox but not Sony as PlayStation + Phones + TVs etc. all of which has apps and games, making this an extremely arbitrary definition.
There's no doubt that a Console is far from the same experience most people have with a PC or a phone. Different, not better. Why do you think most that identify as a gamer own both a Console, a phone and a PC if it is basically the same experience? I own one of each for the exact same reason I own both a car a motorcycle and a bike: They are not at all the same or even related outside having wheels.
So how does one find high quality games on mobile? There's so much crap out there on the Play store, it's really hard to pick games. I don't care much about the genre or the price, I just want to play some high quality, low bullshit (no ads, spam, loot boxes, etc.) games.
Check out some free software titles on F-Droid. Shattered Pixel Dungeon and Minetest are a couple examples. Anuto TD is also a decent low-budget-feeling tower defense game (don't set your expectations too high).
I agree with this sentiment. As much as it lags the competition, it would be doing even worse had they not marketed the ever loving crap out of their flagship Halo. Remember I Love Bees?
"Self-identified gamers" and those extremely profitable mobile games have virtually nothing to do with each other, the commonality of 'games' is superficial. There's basically no overlap between the consumers of these markets.
You might as well compare console games to casino games.
Sony has a stable of desired exclusives (and even exclusive series). Microsoft Gaming doesn’t earn a dime on PC hardware sales. Hell, even the Windows group doesn’t earn more than a couple of bucks on a Windows sale.
I'm evaluating them ultimately from their technical prospects and on a long timeline. Sony has a bright future as a content curator no doubt. It's their hardware business I think looks shaky.
Consider a future where TV sales dwindle, cannibalized by personal screens like tablets and headsets. Or imagine smart tv platforms clamping down on media that they don't get a cut of (anything over that 'obsolete' HDMI port).
Those trends are slowly underway, and part of the reason the console segment is not just stagnating, but shrinking. Sony has a big piece of a shrinking segment and no easy way to move to the other gaming segments. Microsoft on the other hand has 3 generations of games that run on Windows, which is still the dominant OS in a growing gaming segment.
If we could define the console wars as: who will escape the console segment before it disappears? That is the lens by which I say Sony has the worse hand. They're more likely to become an Atari or Sega at this point than Microsoft is.
I don't understand why smartphone games are relevant in determining whether or not the FTC is right to have concerns over competition in the console gaming industry.
Consoles games aren't the same products than smartphones games. Only xbox, playstation and the nintendo consoles are in the same market (edit: and PC)
I do agree console war is outdated and not relevant anymore but it doesn't mean the FTC is wrong. Of course they may be wrong for an entire different set of reasons.
Unfortunately I think you are probably right. One thing I don't get though, why is either ms or Sony still in the console business. It's extremely risky, why bother when real money is mobile?
Edit: is pc gaming really growing? That surprises me, I used to really be in to pc games (late 90s). GPUs are ridiculously expensive, is it really big now? It was niche in my day
I don't consider most of mobile gaming 'the gaming industry' - superficially it's the gaming industry but it's some other thing. That's my own opinion and I guess I'm outdated but I never 'game' on mobile.
> Xboxes are nothing more than a user-friendly gaming PC brand
Also, manufacturer- and publisher-friendly, given the heavy restrictions on the platform. It's bad for preservation that the Xbox One hasn't significantly been cracked yet.
Sony exclusives on the PS5 and a dearth of quality exclusives on Microsoft's side definitely have a lot to do with this but I wonder whether the Xbox Series S/X distinction contributed as well.
The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.
The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they're getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.
They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.
On another note, it'd be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.
Xbox ultimately made the same mistake as Nintendo with the Wii / Wii U.
Just give the console a number. And. Increment.
That's it. You can still have Pro / Slim / whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.
Nothing convinces me that this isn't the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That's it.
Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft's marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It's unbelievable.
I don't think Xbox made the same mistake. Because while the naming is pretty bad, people do actually know it's the latest generation console.
The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people's radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that's all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.
This seems like it assumes the Xbox's target audience are kids, which doesn't automatically follow. It's like thinking rock music is greasy kids' stuff: Update your mental model. The MTV generation has grandkids now.
In short, Ford doesn't release the Ford 5 because it knows the Ford 4 is old news. (Also, get a horse, ya durn kids.)
Nintendo wants to communicate in their platform what they are targeting, so it will usually make sense. In comparison, Xbox tried, but always failed with clearly communicating their names.
I don't think non-numbers are a bad naming scheme, just the simplest. It means its easiest to keep up with and archive, but it can also mean it's hard to tell audiences what fancy new features you're marketing. If the Wii was the Nintendo 5 and the Switch was the Nintendo 7 I'm not sure if it would be quite as snappy in consumer minds.
> 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age.
I don't know a single kid that would not know which models are current gen and which are better or worse. Argument about non technical parents is valid but any kid today will know which Xbox to get and will tell their parents. Kids these days know much more stuff than you seem to think, they spent 1/3-1/4 of their lives on the internet. My 11-12yo nephews built PCs just following youtube guides, they do video montages of their Fortnite games to put on youtube and almost every single friend of theirs is similarly familiar with current tech.
Xbox having lower numbers is purely fault of PS dominating the market over last decade, people will continue buying it cause they trust Sony to deliver exclusives and they have existing game libraries. I converted two Sony fanboys to Xbox with Game Pass and they both love it. Noone these days buys a PS "because they are confused with Xbox naming", 5 minutes of googling answers any questions. The only people who might really have an issue with this are boomers+ who are not even going to buy a console for themselves cause "games are for kids and a waste of time".
It doesn't help at all that Microsoft's usual brand insanity infected this product. So whereas Sony have made the Playstation, the Playstation 2, the Playstation 3, the Playstation 4 and now the Playstation 5 - Microsoft names products based on picking a handful of "hot" words with no specific meaning, and so like a modern CPU you need to go read a detailed specification document to even figure out what you're actually buying.
Do we need Windows Azure .NET Live? No idea, maybe it's similar to Microsoft Active Core X except targetted at a different market? Here's a blurb telling us it's "For the smart professional", presumably as opposed to products which are only for dumb amateurs ?
Microsoft couldn't follow the 1,2,3... naming convention because the first Xbox came out when the PS2 was out. They'd always seem one behind if they released the Xbox 2 when the PS3 released.
The funny thing is even as a consumer that understands all the confusing branding and power differences, I would still buy the cheaper system if it had compelling games to play compared to the PS5…it just doesn’t, and when it comes to first party titles everything Microsoft puts out is mid at best (Halo), or downright awful (Redfall). I also own a Nintendo Switch and I think I own more games on that than any other console I’ve owned in my entire life so raw power is t an issue for me. I want to want to buy an Xbox but the most important thing (games) just is t there. I may still buy one when Starfield comes out because it would be more expensive to build a gaming PC to play it (mac user), but I’m waiting to find out from reviews if it lives up to the (admittedly impressive from what they’ve shown) stuff they’ve shown off recently.
Funny thing is, that video was made within Microsoft. It's fascinating that everyone can be aware of the problem, but they still can't steer the behemoth.
I'm surprised that with all the money that MSFT has that they can't just put 1 or 2 Bm into a few few AAA titles / or just create them to drive the experience.
On the hardware note, I would not discount the impact that covid chip shortage had on the ability for MSFT to pivot on this problem.
Microsoft put over 200 mil in Halo 5, only to promptly abandon it. Needless to say, Microsoft has not been a great steward for first party games. Ninja Theory has been making Hellblade for god knows how many years, Redfall, Sea of Thieves... All massive investments with very little return.
Do non-technical consumers care though? The Series S is an amazing little machine, and it's the cheapest. I think that's all most non-technical or casual gamers really want.
I'm pretty technical but I'm definitely a casual gamer, the Series S serves me perfectly.
I don't think the Series S is selling that particularly well. Back when the consoles were in very short supply in 2021-2022, the Series S and the Switch were the only consoles advertised in electronics stores print ads – the PS5 and Xbox Series X would be long sold out before the print ads would even get to circulation.
Seems to me it's more like Xbox has been redefined into something much bigger, now it's an umbrella of many big name game companies across all three platforms. They've also gained a lot more relevance on PC side of things, and their GamePass is very popular. They've finally embraced their Windows moat, and built a lot on top of it in the last few years.
Xbox as we know it (the console) became irrelevant, but that'd be assumed by everyone incl. Microsoft the moment they promised to bring Xbox exclusives to PC. IMO that was the first visible point of them committing to change course for Xbox. If anything, nowadays Sony seems to be pigeonholed to their own world, while Microsoft seems to be thriving.
From reading the article it also seems like Microsoft is well aware that the console isn't necessarily the point, the games are. Sure, they are in the number three spot for consoles, but doing fairly well for the Xbox division as a whole.
This might also be a case of Xbox having a different user segment, as compared to the PlayStation, and certainly compared to Nintendos offerings. I might be completely wrong, but PlayStation seems very much like the console for people who want large worlds, larger than life scenaries and single player games. Xbox is for when you want to play with friends, either in person of online.
Might as well drop the console then or at least drop the console business model. However I have a feeling they won’t.
Consoles make money via licensing - each game sold they get a cut. Is MS willing to give that up? If no then they are still in the console business - and Windows is an internal competitor; MS earns nothing when someone buys a game for Windows.
I don’t know the statistics but I feel like that misses a huge market segment. Lots and lots of people just have laptops for school / work that won’t run AAA games. Moreover, lots of people want to game in their living room and, while I know they exist, I’ve never met anyone that hooks their PC up to their TV to do that. Doing so might not even cross the mind of less tech savvy people.
They’re trying the opposite, bringing the console model to PC. The consoles themselves are still necessary, since they’re the default hardware non-enthusiasts buy.
It always seems like the kind of gamers who are attracted to the XBox are better off with a PC. Like, if you are a dedicated gamer, maybe you have a gaming PC, a Switch, and a PS5, and that gives you pretty broad coverage / FOMO avoidance. What incremental gain is there from XBox? It seems like it would be better positioned as a PC that you can use on your big TV with less dicking around than attaching a full PC to a regular TV.
But in general I think Valve has beaten Microsoft to the console-ization of PC gaming with the Windows-less Steam Deck. Maybe the Steam Machine is ready for a comeback.
I switched from being a hardcore PC gamer to Xbox and haven't turned on my gaming PC in the 2 years since I got it.
The gain I get is how much easier it is to use. I'm fairly tech savvy, but Windows has been a curse and there've been too many times I've spent my intended gaming time troubleshooting Windows, or a game's display settings, or drivers etc.
Steam as software never felt great to me. I don't have the greatest eyes and I find it difficult to use. Xbox UI is just stupidly simple and intuitive.
I like that the Xbox gamepass experience is so streamlined I can sit down on a couch, turn on my controller, and that will turn the console and TV on and I can be playing a game in 10 seconds. On PC it just ain't even close.
I've had more bugs on the Xbox side than with Steam. Stuff like quick resume server issues where you have to launch the game, then backout to the dashboard, then quit the game, then launch again. I've also seen games get stuck in matchmaking without actually searching and with no way to back out.
The XBox is basically a mid range gaming pc with a better gaming oriented os.
No idea if PS5 has this, but XBox’s ability to suspend games and instantly start back in the game is indispensable for someone with a minimum of gaming time available!
Every gaming console has that functionality, though depending on the game it's better to exit and restart often. Memory leaks and all that, aside from bugs caused by long runtime.
I have a gaming PC, bought it beginning of the pandemic. I turn it on and things start trying to update and eight different game storefronts pop up and windows will reboot to install updates when I step away to go to the bathroom, whole thing is just a nightmare.
I vastly prefer my Xbox. I sit on the couch, power up near instantly, pick a game. Play my games. Everything’s works. The UX is just sooo much better.
I have had both PlayStation and Xbox consoles every generation since the inception of both and every generation I just find Xbox more inviting. Maybe it’s some form of dyslexia but I also have never internalized the PlayStations button labels. Every time it tells me to hit a shape I need to look at the controller.
Microsoft isn't in the business of selling you a box, they want you in their ecosystem. They'll be happy if you play on PC as long as you buy their games to play on it.
With nearly all of the Xbox games I’m interested in being on Windows too and PlayStation having both better exclusives and better genre variety, I have no idea why I’d want an Xbox.
The last time Xboxes were remotely interesting to me was with the 360. Every generation since has been dominated by unremarkable competitive FPS games.
I have a PS5 and Xbox Series S and Series X - the PS5 is just gathering dust, started up only now and then to play one of the few exclusives(last one being God of War.....like 6 months ago?) or Genshin Impact as it doesn't exist on Xbox. It's a brilliant system but the ability to pick up any Gampass Game and have the saves instantly synchronized with my gaming PC is just incredible. I can play something like Forza or Yakuza 0 on my gaming PC upstairs then go to the living room, pick up the controller and continue the same game on the Xbox - that's a complete gamechanger and what makes this console more useful(for me) than PS5.
I do similar with the upstairs/downstairs, except in the living room it’s another PC instead of an Xbox. It does Steam, GoG, etc in addition to Gamepass for a much wider variety of games. It was more expensive than an Xbox sure, but the greater game variety and flexibility is worth it.
My PS5 also hasn’t gotten a ton of usage playing PS5 games, but there are finally some interesting ones brewing now. It’s been nice as a “PS4 Ultimate” with backwards compatibility though.
I like gaming on the couch. All my friends are on either Xbox or PC and, seeing as I don’t want to game on a PC, Xbox is perfect. Quick resume, SSD, and enhanced backwards compatibility make the Series X the best console I’ve ever had. This definitely reads like an ad lol but figure I’d give you some insight into why people still buy Xbox.
Haha this is funny as it reads exactly like the checklist of why I bought a PS5 after playing PC games for the longest. Which like, we’re adults here and I don’t care what console you have, more power to you. I think we’re both comparing to PC more than anything here.
The first game I played after getting my PS5 was… Bloodborne. I’d tried it on PS4 then sold the PS4 as it offended my eyes how ugly the game was back in December 2020. Two years later when the PS5 finally became available where I could just walk into my local store and buy it, it looked very pretty on the new PS5 hardware once the market calmed down. Such a delightfully weird and creepy game.
I've never bought or owned an Xbox, but my friend has a One, bought new at roughly the same time I bought my PS4 new (2014). my PS4 sounds like a helicopter taking off and his One is almost silent. I remember roughly similar experiences for my PS3 and others' 360s. it seems that perhaps Microsoft is (or was) less expectant of you buying their Slim/XS/mini/etc model in 3 years time. no idea how true this still is though
> Every generation since has been dominated by unremarkable competitive FPS games.
PvE games are for unskilled gamers. PlayStation and Switch are the preferred platforms for unskilled gamers. PC is the preferred platform for skilled gamers who can afford a good PC. Xbox is the preferred platform for skilled gamers who are poor (Xbox controllers are better for shooters than PlayStation controllers).
By the time you’re 28 it’ll be impossible to be a ”skilled” gamer as your reaction times will start to slow down due to being a “senior gamer”. No amount of expensive gaming peripherals on PC or XBox can stop this.
Biology catches up fast, and it doesn’t matter what gaming hardware you’re using. I’d suggest chasing fun or develop competency in a longer term skill instead of working on your “skilled” gaming clout.
I think so. Nobody I know has an Xbox, even though we all had Xbox 360s back in the day. But they all have PS5s because Sony has great exclusive games. I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't be able to buy Activision, exclusives would be very helpful for them becoming competitive. But I don't play many (any?) Activision games so it wouldn't really move the needle much for me.
It is interesting the US is trying to block the last place player in the market from growing, which is also the only US company in the market.
> I don't see why Microsoft shouldn't be able to buy Activision, exclusives would be very helpful for them becoming competitive.
Because acquisitions make markets less competitive, not more. There are a zillion US companies making games, and if the platform gatekeepers become an issue, then the US can force them to open up their platforms and quit their rent-seeking.
> Because acquisitions make markets less competitive, not more.
This is just simply not true as a blanket rule.
Also, I don't understand what you're saying. Activision is not in the console market, only Microsoft is. Buying Activision makes the console market more competitive because it makes Microsoft's console more compelling in that market, a market where they are floundering.
You could also look at the game market, which as you say has a zillion US companies making games, and Activision under Microsoft would have to continue to compete in that market.
How does this reduce competition, and in what market?
Objectively they are selling significantly less than the PS5. And subjective estimates put it at 1 Xbox for every 2 PS5s at best, but it's most likely a bit worse.
Sony built its library of exclusives. Microsoft is trying to just gobble up the biggest studios not already owned by a console manufactuerer. That's blatantly anti-competitive.
Let's not act like both companies haven't bought up every independent studio they can get their hands on. Hell Sony just bought Bungie in a multi billion dollar deal.
IMO the only of the big 3 that can truly be said to "built is library" is Nintendo.
They built it off of companies they bought when they were 4/10 big, and they bought like 30. Microsoft is buying like 5 10/10 big companies and everyone starts freaking out.
These kinds of questions are such bullshit too just getting promises from these people are meaningless. Ticketmaster "promised" that buying LiveNation wouldn't lead to more price gouging, venues extorting artists, etc and all that happened nearly instantly because they were able to consolidate the market further and vertically integrate more.
Responding to "can you..." with "I can but won't" is generally obnoxious behavior.
Maybe he was thinking out loud, but they should have known full well what the judge was asking and by refusing to answer the clarified follow-up they seemed to be doing whatever they could to weasel out of saying anything meaningful.
It’s obnoxious because it appears he’s trying to make light of the question by misidentifying its scope. It wasn’t a question about his ability but rather a future state of affairs.
Why would Sony refuse to allow diablo 4, or call of duty for that matter, to appear on the PlayStation? The most contentious thing about the entire activision deal is the titles that currently release on PlayStation becoming exclusive to Microsoft platforms, there’s no chance Sony would ever block those games from their platform arbitrarily just silly business move.
If it isn't a guarantee in writing it isn't even worth wasting the time to perceive it, let alone believe it. Executives are just piles of wet meat whose only function is turning lies into profit.
The guarantee has been spoken, it has been written, is has been commited to in writing with nation states, it has been sworn to under oath.
You obviously have information that is counter to this, I for one would appreciate if you could produce it. Xbox executives can then be charged criminally and prosecuted.
I know this isn't exactly on topic. I haven't played video games since I was a teenager, but I'm struck by how cheap consoles are now!
I remember the Xbox and Playstation being prohibitively expensive. I just looked it up, the Playstation was $749 AUD [1] and the Xbox was $649 AUD [2]. I had to wait yeeeears for the price to fall so I could get an Xbox.
Today, I can get a Playstation 5 Digital Edition for $649 AUD on the Sony website, or $794 AUD for the "normal" edition from Amazon.
The Xbox series X is similarly priced, at $749 AUD.
Given inflation since then, these are prices many teenagers could realistically save up for now.
They’re so cheap for what you get! I walked into a Walmart and for ~$600 USD including tax I got a AAA game (God of War Ragnarok) and a console ready to play it.
As someone who built a high end gaming PC and skipped the PS3/360 and PS4/Xbox One generations, the value proposition of the PS5 is just too good compared to buying a fully specced out PC! Which sure, it can be argued a midrange PC is the actual competitor, but if I decided to start PC gaming again I’d 100% drop $2000 on a 4090, definitely a personal problem), but I had an ultra high end rig with a 2080ti and games were still stuttering in 4K, then the crypto mining boom happened and I sold my GPU for more than I originally paid for it, and bought a PS5.
To do real 4K gaming these days is something like $3500! That’s not even including if you want to use a good monitor instead of a TV to push all those pixels to. I almost convinced myself “well I might use it for ML”, but even then I’m better off renting off of Runpod for a few dollars an hour. It’d take years to break even and by then a new better GPU will be out.
Alternatively, playing on PS5 has been a dream. The Demons Souls remake is a shockingly beautiful game, one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 are games that just work. If I want to play them away from my couch (one of my favorite features of the Switch), my Steam Deck streams them flawlessly using Chiaki4Deck (after a little bit of admittedly annoying config and adding a wired connection to the PS5, it’s a totally seamless, lag free experience. Played for 5 hours yesterday without a single drop.)
Even with a top of the line GPU gaming on a PC with AAA titles like Borderlands 3 and Monster Hunter World felt fiddly and janky, HDR setup was always confusing, and I’d have to identify why things were causing microstuttering which took me MONTHS to figure out. I also learned that games just sort of add experimental bells and whistles that a $1200 video card couldn’t actually run so I’d have to spend hours tweaking the settings for each game no matter how much hardware I threw at it. It just got tedious.
The consoles used to be sold at a loss, that was back a long time ago, Xbox 360, PS3 I believe were the last generation to be sold at a loss. The next gen Xbox at the time was sold for a 20% markup on cogs or there about at the time.
Games sold on the consoles have around a 15 usd flat royalty for big titles, not sure how that affected low cost games at the time. The 360 needed 5 games to brake even, but I believe they had an attach rate of around 3 at launch and that was unreal and unexpected at the time.
Microsoft are going to put the price of the console up in August (in addition to their game pass) in Australia, among other places. Not sure by how much.
They've moved to more standard PC like hardware over the past few generations so they've got far more economy of scale on their hardware bills than they did in earlier generations.
Readit News
Since 2010 mobile gaming has eclipsed revenue of both console and PC gaming _combined_.
Also since 2010, console revenue has stagnated while PC revenue has continued to grow.
This is the landscape to evaluate the different gaming brands. Xboxes are nothing more than a user-friendly gaming PC brand. The total addressable market for Microsoft is much larger than what Sony could hope for. Sony is in the worst bind long-term, trapped in consoles without any leg up in PC or mobile. They invested in VR instead which never became a strong category. In terms of revenue, VR is barely competing with Arcades.
If you had to stack rank gaming devices, iOS would be winning the console wars, followed by Android. In a distant third would be PlayStation, and then Microsoft and Nintendo neck in neck.
If you look at it by company, Tencent would be at the top, then Sony, then Microsoft and Nintendo.
Microsoft is definitely in -- at best -- third place no matter how you count it. The FTC trying to restrict the conversation to an era of console war that expired over 13 years ago shows they have no business trying to regulate this space.
https://www.blog.udonis.co/mobile-marketing/mobile-games/mob...
This blog post by their head of product is a great example of the problems in the industry—he talks gleefully about all the manipulative techniques he pulled in from Zynga, and doesn't seem to have any clue that he's sacrificed the mission in pursuit of relentless growth.
https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-duolingo-reignited-us...
The viewport is a small number of inches, the types of games are wholly different, the controls are awful.
These are not only different consumer segments, they're wholly different products. The FTC is making the right call.
What would the Switch have needed to accomplish to bridge the gap to mobile? Sell 1 billion units?
Try to sell mobile games to "console/pc gamers", you just don't sell them, different market.
From a personal perspective, all my friends who play videogames avoid mobile like plague.
There's plenty of overlap between all of them. Hell, most mobile games are mostly adaptions of what are usually called casual or what used to be called "desktop" games on PC. Genshin Impact is an open world RPG, there's CoD Mobile and Mario Kart too.
There's a habit to separate various kinds of media in it's own little lockboxes and it's completely wrongheaded and old fashioned in an age where tech is consolidating so rapidly.
I imagine contingent of people who spend big bucks on mobile games _probably_ wouldn’t be spending that money on AAA PS5 games otherwise.
Just curious if you are making that comment after reading the article, or is your general opinion? Because one of the big points of the article is that Phil Spencer said they tried to by Zynga, and the major reason they want Activision is for the mobile assets. This is Spencer’s testimony quoted in the article:
The deal, as we’ve talked about, expands our business to the mobile platform... the existing business that we run today as the third-place console business is a very difficult business to drive profit and margin. So the opportunity for us to expand in a meaningful way onto mobile, the world’s largest gaming platform, was really both a strategic and business opportunity behind this deal.
There's no doubt that a Console is far from the same experience most people have with a PC or a phone. Different, not better. Why do you think most that identify as a gamer own both a Console, a phone and a PC if it is basically the same experience? I own one of each for the exact same reason I own both a car a motorcycle and a bike: They are not at all the same or even related outside having wheels.
Is there a website that curates games?
Edit: turned this into an Ask HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36468335
It's kinda a joke, but when I asked myself the question "can I play anything interesting on mobile", the answer I found was that one.
You might as well compare console games to casino games.
Sony has a stable of desired exclusives (and even exclusive series). Microsoft Gaming doesn’t earn a dime on PC hardware sales. Hell, even the Windows group doesn’t earn more than a couple of bucks on a Windows sale.
It’s Microsoft Gaming that is in a bind here.
Consider a future where TV sales dwindle, cannibalized by personal screens like tablets and headsets. Or imagine smart tv platforms clamping down on media that they don't get a cut of (anything over that 'obsolete' HDMI port).
Those trends are slowly underway, and part of the reason the console segment is not just stagnating, but shrinking. Sony has a big piece of a shrinking segment and no easy way to move to the other gaming segments. Microsoft on the other hand has 3 generations of games that run on Windows, which is still the dominant OS in a growing gaming segment.
If we could define the console wars as: who will escape the console segment before it disappears? That is the lens by which I say Sony has the worse hand. They're more likely to become an Atari or Sega at this point than Microsoft is.
Consoles games aren't the same products than smartphones games. Only xbox, playstation and the nintendo consoles are in the same market (edit: and PC)
I do agree console war is outdated and not relevant anymore but it doesn't mean the FTC is wrong. Of course they may be wrong for an entire different set of reasons.
Consoles, handhelds and PCs can still make a ton of money even when studios are not centralized.
Edit: is pc gaming really growing? That surprises me, I used to really be in to pc games (late 90s). GPUs are ridiculously expensive, is it really big now? It was niche in my day
It really is that big a market.
Also, manufacturer- and publisher-friendly, given the heavy restrictions on the platform. It's bad for preservation that the Xbox One hasn't significantly been cracked yet.
The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.
The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they're getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.
They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.
On another note, it'd be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.
Just give the console a number. And. Increment.
That's it. You can still have Pro / Slim / whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.
Nothing convinces me that this isn't the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That's it.
Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft's marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It's unbelievable.
The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people's radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that's all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.
In short, Ford doesn't release the Ford 5 because it knows the Ford 4 is old news. (Also, get a horse, ya durn kids.)
Anyway, research:
https://www.windowscentral.com/heres-some-interesting-stats-...
> Most Xbox One gamers reside in the 25- to 34-year-old bracket, followed closely by the 35- to 44-year-old bracket.
> 56 percent of Xbox One owners live with a married spouse or partner, 10 percent live alone, and 23 percent live with their parents.
> Many Xbox One owners have an annual income of around $75,000.
I'd say I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac, but both of those references are outdated these days.
I don't think non-numbers are a bad naming scheme, just the simplest. It means its easiest to keep up with and archive, but it can also mean it's hard to tell audiences what fancy new features you're marketing. If the Wii was the Nintendo 5 and the Switch was the Nintendo 7 I'm not sure if it would be quite as snappy in consumer minds.
I don't know a single kid that would not know which models are current gen and which are better or worse. Argument about non technical parents is valid but any kid today will know which Xbox to get and will tell their parents. Kids these days know much more stuff than you seem to think, they spent 1/3-1/4 of their lives on the internet. My 11-12yo nephews built PCs just following youtube guides, they do video montages of their Fortnite games to put on youtube and almost every single friend of theirs is similarly familiar with current tech.
Xbox having lower numbers is purely fault of PS dominating the market over last decade, people will continue buying it cause they trust Sony to deliver exclusives and they have existing game libraries. I converted two Sony fanboys to Xbox with Game Pass and they both love it. Noone these days buys a PS "because they are confused with Xbox naming", 5 minutes of googling answers any questions. The only people who might really have an issue with this are boomers+ who are not even going to buy a console for themselves cause "games are for kids and a waste of time".
NES -> SNES
GB -> GBC, GBA, GBA SP
DS -> DSi, 3DS, 2DS
Microsoft has never been able to do that.
Everyone subscribes to Game Pass, but nobody buys many games.
Do we need Windows Azure .NET Live? No idea, maybe it's similar to Microsoft Active Core X except targetted at a different market? Here's a blurb telling us it's "For the smart professional", presumably as opposed to products which are only for dumb amateurs ?
Funny thing is, that video was made within Microsoft. It's fascinating that everyone can be aware of the problem, but they still can't steer the behemoth.
On the hardware note, I would not discount the impact that covid chip shortage had on the ability for MSFT to pivot on this problem.
I'm pretty technical but I'm definitely a casual gamer, the Series S serves me perfectly.
Xbox as we know it (the console) became irrelevant, but that'd be assumed by everyone incl. Microsoft the moment they promised to bring Xbox exclusives to PC. IMO that was the first visible point of them committing to change course for Xbox. If anything, nowadays Sony seems to be pigeonholed to their own world, while Microsoft seems to be thriving.
This might also be a case of Xbox having a different user segment, as compared to the PlayStation, and certainly compared to Nintendos offerings. I might be completely wrong, but PlayStation seems very much like the console for people who want large worlds, larger than life scenaries and single player games. Xbox is for when you want to play with friends, either in person of online.
What new games can you actually play in person, like splitscreen? Seems most don't allow it, or at best it's 2 player.
Consoles make money via licensing - each game sold they get a cut. Is MS willing to give that up? If no then they are still in the console business - and Windows is an internal competitor; MS earns nothing when someone buys a game for Windows.
I don’t know the statistics but I feel like that misses a huge market segment. Lots and lots of people just have laptops for school / work that won’t run AAA games. Moreover, lots of people want to game in their living room and, while I know they exist, I’ve never met anyone that hooks their PC up to their TV to do that. Doing so might not even cross the mind of less tech savvy people.
They earn money from each Windows license though and gaming helps to keep Windows relevant against Linux and macOS, especially for younger people.
But in general I think Valve has beaten Microsoft to the console-ization of PC gaming with the Windows-less Steam Deck. Maybe the Steam Machine is ready for a comeback.
The gain I get is how much easier it is to use. I'm fairly tech savvy, but Windows has been a curse and there've been too many times I've spent my intended gaming time troubleshooting Windows, or a game's display settings, or drivers etc.
Steam as software never felt great to me. I don't have the greatest eyes and I find it difficult to use. Xbox UI is just stupidly simple and intuitive.
I like that the Xbox gamepass experience is so streamlined I can sit down on a couch, turn on my controller, and that will turn the console and TV on and I can be playing a game in 10 seconds. On PC it just ain't even close.
No idea if PS5 has this, but XBox’s ability to suspend games and instantly start back in the game is indispensable for someone with a minimum of gaming time available!
I vastly prefer my Xbox. I sit on the couch, power up near instantly, pick a game. Play my games. Everything’s works. The UX is just sooo much better.
I have had both PlayStation and Xbox consoles every generation since the inception of both and every generation I just find Xbox more inviting. Maybe it’s some form of dyslexia but I also have never internalized the PlayStations button labels. Every time it tells me to hit a shape I need to look at the controller.
The main reasons why game studios love consoles, and the gamers as well, is the development and user experience of using them.
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The last time Xboxes were remotely interesting to me was with the 360. Every generation since has been dominated by unremarkable competitive FPS games.
My PS5 also hasn’t gotten a ton of usage playing PS5 games, but there are finally some interesting ones brewing now. It’s been nice as a “PS4 Ultimate” with backwards compatibility though.
The first game I played after getting my PS5 was… Bloodborne. I’d tried it on PS4 then sold the PS4 as it offended my eyes how ugly the game was back in December 2020. Two years later when the PS5 finally became available where I could just walk into my local store and buy it, it looked very pretty on the new PS5 hardware once the market calmed down. Such a delightfully weird and creepy game.
PvE games are for unskilled gamers. PlayStation and Switch are the preferred platforms for unskilled gamers. PC is the preferred platform for skilled gamers who can afford a good PC. Xbox is the preferred platform for skilled gamers who are poor (Xbox controllers are better for shooters than PlayStation controllers).
Biology catches up fast, and it doesn’t matter what gaming hardware you’re using. I’d suggest chasing fun or develop competency in a longer term skill instead of working on your “skilled” gaming clout.
But what do I know, maybe I just need to git gud.
For what it's worth though, the really skilled FPS players have always been on the PC side.
Nerds. The word you’re looking for is nerds.
It is interesting the US is trying to block the last place player in the market from growing, which is also the only US company in the market.
Because acquisitions make markets less competitive, not more. There are a zillion US companies making games, and if the platform gatekeepers become an issue, then the US can force them to open up their platforms and quit their rent-seeking.
This is just simply not true as a blanket rule.
Also, I don't understand what you're saying. Activision is not in the console market, only Microsoft is. Buying Activision makes the console market more competitive because it makes Microsoft's console more compelling in that market, a market where they are floundering.
You could also look at the game market, which as you say has a zillion US companies making games, and Activision under Microsoft would have to continue to compete in that market.
How does this reduce competition, and in what market?
Yes, because no one you know has an XBox, it obviously means that Microsoft isn’t selling any…
IMO the only of the big 3 that can truly be said to "built is library" is Nintendo.
>Spencer: Can I promise? I am able to promise, yes.
The kind of obnoxious reply I'd expect from somebody on Xbox live, not their chief.
Maybe he was thinking out loud, but they should have known full well what the judge was asking and by refusing to answer the clarified follow-up they seemed to be doing whatever they could to weasel out of saying anything meaningful.
You obviously have information that is counter to this, I for one would appreciate if you could produce it. Xbox executives can then be charged criminally and prosecuted.
I remember the Xbox and Playstation being prohibitively expensive. I just looked it up, the Playstation was $749 AUD [1] and the Xbox was $649 AUD [2]. I had to wait yeeeears for the price to fall so I could get an Xbox.
Today, I can get a Playstation 5 Digital Edition for $649 AUD on the Sony website, or $794 AUD for the "normal" edition from Amazon.
The Xbox series X is similarly priced, at $749 AUD.
Given inflation since then, these are prices many teenagers could realistically save up for now.
[1] https://www.arnnet.com.au/article/82336/ps2_debut_november_3... [2] https://news.microsoft.com/2002/03/14/xbox-goes-global-with-...
The PS1 cost 299$ at launch.
Nintendo64 cost 199$.
Here is an article comparing it:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/every-game-console-pric...
As someone who built a high end gaming PC and skipped the PS3/360 and PS4/Xbox One generations, the value proposition of the PS5 is just too good compared to buying a fully specced out PC! Which sure, it can be argued a midrange PC is the actual competitor, but if I decided to start PC gaming again I’d 100% drop $2000 on a 4090, definitely a personal problem), but I had an ultra high end rig with a 2080ti and games were still stuttering in 4K, then the crypto mining boom happened and I sold my GPU for more than I originally paid for it, and bought a PS5.
To do real 4K gaming these days is something like $3500! That’s not even including if you want to use a good monitor instead of a TV to push all those pixels to. I almost convinced myself “well I might use it for ML”, but even then I’m better off renting off of Runpod for a few dollars an hour. It’d take years to break even and by then a new better GPU will be out.
Alternatively, playing on PS5 has been a dream. The Demons Souls remake is a shockingly beautiful game, one of the prettiest I’ve ever seen, and God of War Ragnarok and Final Fantasy 16 are games that just work. If I want to play them away from my couch (one of my favorite features of the Switch), my Steam Deck streams them flawlessly using Chiaki4Deck (after a little bit of admittedly annoying config and adding a wired connection to the PS5, it’s a totally seamless, lag free experience. Played for 5 hours yesterday without a single drop.)
Even with a top of the line GPU gaming on a PC with AAA titles like Borderlands 3 and Monster Hunter World felt fiddly and janky, HDR setup was always confusing, and I’d have to identify why things were causing microstuttering which took me MONTHS to figure out. I also learned that games just sort of add experimental bells and whistles that a $1200 video card couldn’t actually run so I’d have to spend hours tweaking the settings for each game no matter how much hardware I threw at it. It just got tedious.
Games sold on the consoles have around a 15 usd flat royalty for big titles, not sure how that affected low cost games at the time. The 360 needed 5 games to brake even, but I believe they had an attach rate of around 3 at launch and that was unreal and unexpected at the time.
https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/microsoft-to-raise-prices-o...
Maybe it's not the consoles whoch are cheap. It's just you sitting on that 300k per year FAANG salary.