"Today, PlayStation revealed that its PS5 has sold 40 million units. Microsoft doesn’t share hardware numbers typically, but court documents, math, and slides from an ID@Xbox in Brazil seem to suggest the Xbox Series X|S line-up is around 20-23 million units sold globally. That essentially puts the PS5 at a 2:1 advantage against Xbox, but perhaps the split is even worse than that beneath the surface. "
It’s ironic and somewhat revolting to see the behemoth that is Microsoft crying that it can’t compete and it needs to acquire other publishers, when it already has a collection of studios and franchises, means to fund brand new studios and make even better hardware. If they aren’t competitive now, it’s because of their own bad decisions.
Although it seems that despite their hardware not being as popular, they seem to sell GamePass for PC at least decently.
Can’t compete… because Sony is paying publishers to make games exclusive for the PS5.
As a PC gamer at heart exclusives suck.
Over the years I almost bought a console on a few occasions due to exclusives, or games shipping first on console.
Red Dead Redemption and GTA IV, then GTA V.
By the time RDR2 came out I had bought an Xbox One S - because it was the cheapest 4K BD player on the market.
Oh, the irony. Still haven’t bought a 4K BD. Prices were ridiculous. Probably still are. Found that 4K streaming titles on Apple TV were so good I didn’t need better than that.
But since stumbling into the One S led me to buy RDR2 on release day.
Halfway through I upgraded to the One X, and when Series X came out I had it less than a month later after putting in a pre-order about a month before release.
A colleague who pre-ordered PS5 six months before I even thought about the Series X had to wait 7 months from release for his.
I agree that exclusives suck, but acquisitions are worse in every way. At least with a deal you can hope that eventually the game will be out for everything, or the next one will. Now if anyone hopes to get a Bethesda game on other consoles again, they are out of luck.
But also, if first-party XBox games were more appealing they wouldn’t be in this situation. Sony can’t lock Nintendo out of the market because people want Mario and Zelda anyway.
Nintendo does their own thing, “always”* has, and is hardly relevant in this discussion.
What astonishes me is that paying for exclusivity in what is, in practice, a two player market isn’t considered anti-trust.
And yes, with “paying for exclusivity” I do mean both Sony’s approach and Microsoft’s acquisition-based approach.
* : Eg. everyone who was a Nintendo switch also has something else, unless they’re < 12 years old.