For gamers, anticipation has been building and this week it is finally time to get at those presents under the tree. From Tuesday, people will be unboxing the latest Xboxes if they managed to get a pre-order in on time - with new PlayStations following just days later.
It's a big moment, not only because there are new experiences to look forward to, but because it's a taste of what the future holds. Microsoft and Sony executives always say in interviews that it's not a competition between the two - and get frustrated sometimes if you ask them about it.
But in reality, gamers compare them all the time, and so does everyone in the industry. With most people not having enough cash to buy two new consoles this month, they're facing a choice - which one to buy? PlayStation heads into this new era of gaming having come out top in the previous generation. When it was first released, the PS4 focused solely on becoming a hub for gaming.
Slogans such as "4 The Players" made it pretty obvious the machine was all about gaming. Meanwhile, the Xbox One team was spending a lot of energy on advertising its broader offering including the Kinect camera and live television capabilities. At the start , the Xbox One limited which older titles you could access on the console as well - this turned many gamers off.
Nintendo's console at the time, the Wii U, also failed to capture the public's imagination. With a competitive price tag and a conveyor belt of exclusive games, PlayStation took an early lead and sales kept rising. This time, Microsoft and Sony are offering different visions for the future of gaming.
Xbox has certainly learned lessons from its Xbox One launch. It is making its new machines very gamer-friendly and focusing less on all the other things a console can offer. Microsoft is also going big on its Netflix-like subscription service Game Pass - offering gamers access to more titles than you can shake a stick at for a monthly fee. But unlike previous launches, they present starkly different visions for the future of video gaming.
Sony continues to focus on providing exclusive content. Meanwhile, Microsoft yesterday launched its Project xCloud game streaming service in Australia — the most recent step in a wider trend towards embracing a subscription-based business model.
Sony and Microsoft have in the past paid millions to developers for exclusivity deals. Sony has also had great success selling hardware peripherals that make its consoles more attractive, evident in recent quarterly revenues. The PlayStation virtual reality headset sold more than five million units worldwide during the last generation.
In contrast, Microsoft quickly abandoned the Kinect. This motion-sensing device bundled with the Xbox One never won over its audience. That said, although Sony vastly outsold Microsoft with the PS4 last generation, it seems in Microsoft has shifted the goalposts of success.
However, like most of the tech industry, the PS5 and the Xbox Series X S have been plagued by a shortage of electronic materials, and it is nearly impossible to find one anywhere today. Eventually, there will be enough electronics to supply the growing demand of these consoles, and Microsoft is marketing the hell out of its product, and setting itself up in a good position to be the dominating gaming force in the market.
Since its inception in , Game Pass has evolved, allowing more and more titles into the program. Just recently it was announced that the highly anticipated action RPG-shooter game Outriders will be available on Game Pass as soon as the game releases on April 1.
The constant addition of new games like this will make Game Pass more attractive to people who like to experience a large variety of new games without having to fork out full price every time.
Having this type of service available on a console will automatically make it appealing. In addition to constantly updating the library and even offering new games on release, Xbox recently announced that a plethora of Bethesda games will be available as part of the Game Pass subscription. These games are classics and having them all available in one place is extremely convenient. Speaking of Bethesda, you may have heard recently that Microsoft has acquired the company, which is one of the biggest video game studios in the entire industry.
Bethesda is comprised of eight different gaming studios that are responsible for some of the most successful games of recent years. The Dishonored series, The Elder Scrolls series, and the Wolfenstein series are just a few of the titles that are produced by studios under the Bethesda name. None of these titles have had Xbox exclusivity in the past, but this could all change after the acquisition.
Though Microsoft has said that it will be honoring any existing contracts that offer timed exclusivity to PlayStation, the company has not ruled out the idea that some future games will be exclusives.
This type of exclusivity could be quite disastrous for PlayStation. With lead executives at both Microsoft and Bethesda wanting to focus on platforms where Game Pass exists, the future looks bright for both Xbox and PC gamers. Personally, I am a PC gamer.
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