PS5 and Xbox , next round.

[vanessaking2]

Although the Starfield game pushed the Xbox sales it is not enough to endanger the PS5.

According to vgchartz, PS5 is still on rank 2. Only the switch is better.

 

It is good that Sony still can compete the "almighty" Microsoft. I hope it remains so.

[Fallout795]

5 minutes ago, vanessaking2 said:

Although the Starfield game pushed the Xbox sales it is not enough to endanger the PS5.

According to vgchartz, PS5 is still on rank 2. Only the switch is better.

 

It is good that Sony still can compete the "almighty" Microsoft. I hope it remains so.

It's good that all three can compete but to endanger a console that takes alot and i don't think that will happen

[dannyswfc9]

Forget console wars. We are so lucky to have 3 companys on top of their games to produce amazing consoles. I have all 3 and ps will always be my number one (so i hope sony stay on top) but i love my switch and xbox for certain games

Edited November 20, 2023 by dannyswfc9

[vanessaking2]

True words. 

[yowzagabowza]

Competition is typically good but Microsoft has brought on a LOT of the crap we all hate about the current video game landscape, with paid online being front and center.

I would be very happy for MS to leave the console market altogether but would also be very nervous about how Sony would take advantage of us afterward.

[TJ_Solo]

37 minutes ago, yowzagabowza said:

Competition is typically good but Microsoft has brought on a LOT of the crap we all hate about the current video game landscape, with paid online being front and center.

I would be very happy for MS to leave the console market altogether but would also be very nervous about how Sony would take advantage of us afterward.

 

I don't get the assumption that less competition automatically means that Sony will cheat the consumers.

The whole thing about monopolies being bad is mostly theorhetical. Any business can attempt to cheat you regardless of there being competitors or not. Just as easily as a natural monopoly can be run by an honest, fair company.

[colia100]

Competition is ALWAYS good for the consumer. 

 

Even if I only play on Playstation, close competition keeps the technology performing well and the prices in check.

 

The smaller the gap, the better it is for all

[sepheroithisgod]

It doesn't matter what Microsoft does this Gen, they won't catch up. All the acquisitions are for the next-gen, assuming they stay in the console market. Honestly, their best course of action is to abandon their hardware and just release their games everywhere as one of the largest publishers.

 

Keeping the established IPs from Bethesda and Activision off of PlayStation is just bad business and will do them no favors PR-wise.

[yowzagabowza]

4 minutes ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

I don't get the assumption that less competition automatically means that Sony will cheat the consumers.

The whole thing about monopolies being bad is mostly theorhetical. Any business can attempt to cheat you regardless of there being competitors or not. Just as easily as a natural monopoly can be run by an honest, fair company.

Yeah, for sure, but any business can only cheat you so far until you just up and leave. 

Believe me, I hate so many of the PlayStation decisions, even the ones that don't effect me, but it's not bad enough that I want to leave their ecosystem. With nowhere else to go, there isn't much stopping them from doing whatever.

Just now, sepheroithisgod said:

It doesn't matter what Microsoft does this Gen, they won't catch up. All the acquisitions are for the next-gen, assuming they stay in the console market. Honestly, their best course of action is to abandon their hardware and just release their games everywhere as one of the largest publishers.

 

Keeping the established IPs from Bethesda and Activision off of PlayStation is just bad business and will do them no favors PR-wise.

There's no way they're making back the money they spent on all of these studios just from Xbox and software sales. And with the less than amazing reception Starfield got, reputation ain't going to carry them too far.

[TJ_Solo]

The video game hobby is not health care. You can leave or stop at anytime. You are not locked in or forced to be in it for your health or life.

 

Quote

Competition is ALWAYS good for the consumer. 

 

Except when the competition starts buying up publishers and developers then start marking up games and hardware in 3rd world countries.  All the while stopping production of games on certain platforms.

 

Again, that is a theory. Nice for a question on a test. It isn't practically or always true in real life.

Edited November 20, 2023 by TJ_Solo

[Rozalia1]

Microsoft for the sake of 'competition' isn't entitled to be within X% of market share of PlayStation/Nintendo. If Microsoft has a bad product then them falling apart is deserved. Such is competition. Additionally it should be remembered that buying out publishers just to deny them to your competition is not competing.

 

As for Sony being some tyrant if Microsoft isn't around. Sony dominated completely during the PS1 and PS2 eras. Game and console prices fell. Third parties were benefited greatly. By comparison Microsoft came a close third with the 360 and thought they had the cache to do the Xbox One. The Xbox One failed and the Series line has done even worse and yet they're full steam ahead with massive buyouts and price raising even though being so behind they should be trying to do as much good for consumers as possible. If Microsoft operates like this while losing so heavily, imagine what they'd be doing if they actually ever came out on top.

 

Microsoft's best contribution ultimately is making Sony learn the importance of 1st party games. Sony, having overcome Nintendo due to Nintendo's ruling with an iron fist causing third parties to want to see them taken down a peg, were happy to coast with largely just third parties until Microsoft came in and splashed loads of cash around to get timed exclusives with third parties who were all too happy to accept the money. Now it is likely happening again, where Microsoft's splashing of cash around to this time simply buyout publishers wholesale is showing PlayStation that they need to become even more like Nintendo, which ultimately will lead to a better PlayStation because who better to emulate than the best. We'll see how successfully PlayStation can weather this latest Microsoft offensive, but if history repeats than they should become even better while Microsoft continues to be substandard no matter whoever they buy (you can't buy taste).

[colia100]

1 hour ago, TJ_Solo said:

The video game hobby is not health care. You can leave or stop at anytime. You are not locked in or forced to be in it for your health or life.

 

 

Except when the competition starts buying up publishers and developers then start marking up games and hardware in 3rd world countries.  All the while stopping production of games on certain platforms.

 

Again, that is a theory. Nice for a question on a test. It isn't practically or always true in real life.

 

With all due respect,  you're missing the point. Buying up companies is a monopolist move, and exactly the opposite of free competition. So definitely not what I believe is a good thing for us as consumers.

 

And whilst it is totally free market to do so, and limiting this would just be government interference, which I don't condone, this is what can happen in real life; nothing to do with theory/test as you say. I don't like it, but it is what it is.

[Jeanolt]

2 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

I don't get the assumption that less competition automatically means that Sony will cheat the consumers.

The whole thing about monopolies being bad is mostly theorhetical.

It's not theorical, many countries have monopolies in different industries and it's known as a fact that monopolies hurt consumers.

 

Do you think Sony would have regretted their decision of shutting down PS3 & Vita if they were the only console in existence?

Edited November 20, 2023 by Jeanolt

[TJ_Solo]

21 minutes ago, colia100 said:

 

With all due respect,  you're missing the point. Buying up companies is a monopolist move, and exactly the opposite of free competition. So definitely not what I believe is a good thing for us as consumers.

 

And whilst it is totally free market to do so, and limiting this would just be government interference, which I don't condone, this is what can happen in real life; nothing to do with theory/test as you say. I don't like it, but it is what it is.

 

The buying up of companies is being done under the notion of competition. Even in this topic people regard the purchase as a good way for Xbox to stay competitive. 

Pointing out how bad this move was is a way of me highlighing that competition isn't always a good thing for  the consumer. It doesn't create a monopoly. Purely from a numbers game, the purchase just moves Xbox up on the revenue charts from 4-5 overall to 3rd in the video game market. This competitive move did not help consumers. It only shifted money from one company to Xbox. 

 

Limiting this is precisely what various government bodies were created to do in the first place. It isn't interference. It is actual people taking the concept of competition and fair business into practice. If you don't condone that then there is no way to put checks in place over these companies at all.  Just sitting on a forum spouting of idealistic views does nothing. It isn't an action. It isn't enforcing rules. 

[JPtheNeurotic]

I have no idea what the thread is even about, the  OP barely said anything .

 I’ll just keep playing video games 

 

[TJ_Solo]

9 minutes ago, Jeanolt said:

It's not theorical, many countries have monopolies in different industries and it's known as a fact that monopolies hurt consumers.

 

Do you think Sony would have regretted their decision of shutting down PS3 & Vita if they were the only console in existence?

 

 

And many natural monopolies exist that don't treat their consumers poorly.  The capability for bad and good both exist. 
Claiming that Sony WILL cheat or become worse if Xbox leaves is a theory. It is a poor theory based on a generalization.

 

I don't think any company feels regret for making decisions based on business needs. 

Bring up feelings into a conversation about business isn't helpful or condusive.

Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo are retiring their older stores. The decision isn't about competition but rather how much money to waste on servers with fewer and fewer people on them making purchases. 

Maybe they need a more centralized store instead of stores based around console generations. This is topic for another day.

Edited November 20, 2023 by TJ_Solo

[Jeanolt]

1 hour ago, TJ_Solo said:

And many natural monopolies exist that don't treat their consumers poorly.  The capability for bad and good both exist. 
Claiming that Sony WILL cheat or become worse if Xbox leaves is a theory. It is a poor theory based on a generalization.

 

I don't think any company feels regret for making decisions based on business needs. 

Bring up feelings into a conversation about business isn't helpful or condusive.

Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo are retiring their older stores. The decision isn't about competition but rather how much money to waste on servers with fewer and fewer people on them making purchases. 

Maybe they need a more centralized store instead of stores based around console generations. This is topic for another day.

I didn't bring up feelings, Sony retired the decision because it hurted their reputation and sales = hurted business. If they were the only one, they wouldn't care since people that already play videogames, don't have another option available. In the end, this decision would hurt consumers, proving the theory.

 

Without competition, Sony could literally push prices to 100$, we wouldn't have any other choice to buy videogames.

[Zephrese]

I'd rather have a - likely temporary - Sony monopoly (people are ignorant if they think that Sony is going to continue ignoring Nintendo's recent prosperity, or that Nintendo - just because of the Blue Ocean Strategy and approach they've stuck with up 'till this point - hasn't become emboldened by the Switch's unexpected, rampant success and will just continue to completely ignore competition) than Microsoft literally trying to pull a Verizon by completely ruining the industry for their own benefit (which we have literal proof of, including from the courts and official documents/emails, no less). Sony having a monopoly still isn't great by any means, but it poses a far less dangerous, wide-reaching, and long-term threat than what Microsoft is (at least trying) to accomplish.

 

Only thing Xbox is "at the top of their game" with is their excessive spending of Microsoft's money (like a teenager blowing their parents' hard-earned cash on alcohol and drugs) to try and strongarm their way to the top as a means of eliminating their competition, consumer choice, and traditional gaming as we know it. This is all in a vain attempt to try and dig themselves out of the hole that they put themselves into with the Xbox One, but unfortunately this is likely to only hemorrhage more money out of Microsoft's pockets while simultaneously dragging all of the companies, publishers, and dev teams they've purchased - or will purchase - not only away from other platforms (mainly Sony, for obvious reasons), but also down with them when they inevitably have to accept the fact that they've been trying so hard to deny (similar to how they keep hiding sales/unit numbers for certain things, like their consoles) in order to prevent Microsoft from immediately pulling the plug on the Achilles' heel of their business; they're screwed.

 

Halo: Infinite's multiplayer has been spectacularly mishandled despite the multiplayer being a big part of the appeal of the series by this point (and Halo being their flagship IP that put Xbox on the map in the first place), although they've been mistreating the series pretty much since Bungie left so perhaps this isn't much of a surprise. Starfield, despite being delayed (much like Halo: Infinite), didn't really seem to leave nearly as much of an impact as it was expected to, and it's just another buggy Bethesda release utilizing the same ancient, decrepit engine that people will happily eat up with no semblance of critical thought. Redfall was an absolute mess that Phil tried to pretend was expected to rate higher internally, when we all know that this man willingly put this garbage out and is just trying to save face.

 

You can chalk this up to being "console wars" nonsense all you want if it helps you sleep better at night, but then you'd just be willfully ignoring all the evidence and easily read implications of what they've been doing and plan to do that's right in front of you. I'm not interested in console wars BS regardless, but I am against a company so aggressively trying to fuck everyone over while so many people roll over and clap their hands like a bunch of mindless seals either out of sheer ignorance due to being brainwashed by a megacorporation's clear BS PR façade, or out of bizarre and misplaced malicious intent and emotions directed towards others over something as trivial as what plastic box they use or don't use.

 

All three companies (Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony) majorly suck in their own ways, but Microsoft is the one aggressively and openly trying to pull the above crap while blatantly lying about shit on top of it. This is the same company that said that they weren't trying to take games away from people, and now is doing exactly that despite it arguably being of no benefit to themselves either. If that doesn't put things into perspective, then I don't know what will. lol Play what you want and how you want it, but be extra wary of the wolf in sheep's clothing, especially when it's making no good attempt at hiding its deceit in the first place.

Edited Sunday at 03:59 PM by Zephrese
Those last two paragraphs apply pretty well to the person that left the laughing reaction in response to this. Delusional and blind, smh.

[JediKnight_327]

The Playstation vs xbox war is a bit like Blackberry vs Nokia. Whoever wins, they'll both still lose.

 

In the inevitable all-digital world, neither can compete with PC on software, and by the looks of this gen, hardware value either.

 

The kind of person who can afford £70 digital games + annual online subscription on an all digital console that's the same price as it was 3 years ago, could likely afford a decent gaming PC.

 

A big part of the reason the console market grew to the level it is today is because of the marketing and sales support from retailers. This wont exist when every game shop shuts down and no retailer is dedicating a budget to promoting PS or xbox games. Then the primary influence on casuals will be social media and app ads which are full of PC gaming and MTX mobile game influencers.

[Dry]

21 hours ago, sepheroithisgod said:

Honestly, their best course of action is to abandon their hardware and just release their games everywhere as one of the largest publishers.

 

“First time?” - SEGA

Edited November 21, 2023 by Dry

[TJ_Solo]

16 hours ago, JediKnight_327 said:

The Playstation vs xbox war is a bit like Blackberry vs Nokia. Whoever wins, they'll both still lose.

 

In the inevitable all-digital world, neither can compete with PC on software, and by the looks of this gen, hardware value either.

 

The kind of person who can afford £70 digital games + annual online subscription on an all digital console that's the same price as it was 3 years ago, could likely afford a decent gaming PC.

 

A big part of the reason the console market grew to the level it is today is because of the marketing and sales support from retailers. This wont exist when every game shop shuts down and no retailer is dedicating a budget to promoting PS or xbox games. Then the primary influence on casuals will be social media and app ads which are full of PC gaming and MTX mobile game influencers.

 

Nokia was fine until MS bought and closed them.

 

PC, Mobile, and console games are different even though so many people want to view them as all the same. There are very view mobile games that attract me as a console gamer. MTX's on mobile games are just revenue. That can keep going up, it doesn't move people from other platforms.  If Sony and Nintendo can keep making billions from their market they aren't going to close their console department in order to put games on a mobile store. That would mean shared revenue with Google and Apple along with changing their marketing/design because no one is buying 50GB+ games that cost $70 on mobile.
 

There's no exodus happening. There are too many hoops to go through even though it is easy for people on the internet to talk about/

[D-E-U-S-X]

I find it difficult to imagine why something strategically should change as soon as one of the opponents is no longer there. MS will continue to do a gaming Netflix on all devices that use Windows and Sony will create high quality games and additional hardware which are therefore more expensive. The only difference at the moment is that one company is successful and the other has been burning money for 20 years😆

[Rozalia1]

20 hours ago, Jeanolt said:

I didn't bring up feelings, Sony retired the decision because it hurted their reputation and sales = hurted business. If they were the only one, they wouldn't care since people that already play videogames, don't have another option available. In the end, this decision would hurt consumers, proving the theory.

 

Without competition, Sony could literally push prices to 100$, we wouldn't have any other choice to buy videogames.

 

One of the reasons the Pro console was made for the PS4 was because 4K became a thing and they believed that going a number of years without offering that capability could lead to significant migration to PC. Microsoft disappearing tomorrow isn't going to take the threat that Nintendo and PC pose with them. Sony can't put games up to 100 because it will naturally just cause Nintendo/PC to win significant market share off such a move.

 

17 hours ago, JediKnight_327 said:

The Playstation vs xbox war is a bit like Blackberry vs Nokia. Whoever wins, they'll both still lose.

 

In the inevitable all-digital world, neither can compete with PC on software, and by the looks of this gen, hardware value either.

 

The kind of person who can afford £70 digital games + annual online subscription on an all digital console that's the same price as it was 3 years ago, could likely afford a decent gaming PC.

 

A big part of the reason the console market grew to the level it is today is because of the marketing and sales support from retailers. This wont exist when every game shop shuts down and no retailer is dedicating a budget to promoting PS or xbox games. Then the primary influence on casuals will be social media and app ads which are full of PC gaming and MTX mobile game influencers.

 

Since the PS3 era that hogwash has been excreted. Meanwhile in the real world the console market has only grown stronger. Both Nintendo and Sony beyond keeping their current markets strong are also investing into China, India, so forth to in future have additional markets to sell a good amount of consoles and games to. PC gaming has grown also of course, but thus far that hasn't been at the expense of consoles. Likewise for mobile. It ain't a zero sum game.

 

PC gaming is just not for some people and every now and then there will be significant issues that will crop up that will scare off potential converts to PC gaming. Mobile is a whole different kettle of fish entirely where most gamers there don't pay for 'premium' games, and instead getting them on Console/PC.

[JediKnight_327]

2 hours ago, TJ_Solo said:

 

Nokia was fine until MS bought and closed them.

 

PC, Mobile, and console games are different even though so many people want to view them as all the same. There are very view mobile games that attract me as a console gamer. MTX's on mobile games are just revenue. That can keep going up, it doesn't move people from other platforms.  If Sony and Nintendo can keep making billions from their market they aren't going to close their console department in order to put games on a mobile store. That would mean shared revenue with Google and Apple along with changing their marketing/design because no one is buying 50GB+ games that cost $70 on mobile.
 

There's no exodus happening. There are too many hoops to go through even though it is easy for people on the internet to talk about/

 

They dont need to go to go to mobile gaming. They just need to do what got them to where they are which is 1) being a lot more affordable than PC gaming and 2) bringing millions of casuals into console gaming using retail partners.

 

Right now they're heading on a path which is shrinking the cost advantage over PC, and they're wiping out their influence in brick and mortar stores.

 

"PC, Mobile, and console games are different" - Yes and the primary differentiating factors are price sensitivity and preference for physical media.

 

Core gamers wont continue picking PlayStation if it become digital only and the same games cost more than they do on PC, as well as requiring a subscription to play online.

 

Casual gamers also wont continue picking PlayStation over mobile if they're priced out in terms of hardware and subscription fees, just to play MTX filled casual games like Warzone and EAFC. Mobile graphics have come a long way and will continue to chip away at the casuals who traditionally would have gamed on console.

 

These are problems shared by xbox so xbox is the last system playstation should be worried about. The way I see it is that they're both on the same sinking ship which is sinking because they made a hole in it themselves from the inside.

Edited November 21, 2023 by JediKnight_327

[JediKnight_327]

2 hours ago, D-E-U-S-X said:

I find it difficult to imagine why something strategically should change as soon as one of the opponents is no longer there. MS will continue to do a gaming Netflix on all devices that use Windows and Sony will create high quality games and additional hardware which are therefore more expensive. The only difference at the moment is that one company is successful and the other has been burning money for 20 years😆

Tbf they've both burnt plenty of money over the past 20 years being anti-consumer. (Sony Ericsson, VAIO, Older Bravias, PSP Go, PS Now).

The only difference is for one company its a drop in the ocean compared to their total profits, but for the other it a signficant amount.