HiGame

For the last four years, Microsoft has played second fiddle to Sony’s PlayStation 4. There are a number of reasons why, including poor initial communication, an abrupt reversal on system features, a $100 higher price point, and an initial focus on multimedia capabilities as opposed to gaming. The fact that the Xbox One was generally slower than the PS4 and ran at lower resolutions hasn’t helped either.

With the Xbox One X launching next week, Microsoft intends to reclaim the performance crown and hopefully improve its own market share.

Microsoft has good reason to fret about its own position in the console market this cycle. A year ago, just prior to the PS4 Pro’s launch, that console had sold 39.8M units compared with 20.7M for the Xbox One, a gap of 1.92x. Today, the PS4 has shipped 63.4M units, compared with 31.1M for the Xbox One. That’s a gap of 2.04x (all data from VGChartz). To be clear, 31.1 million consoles sold is still a huge install base, but the gap between the two platforms is accelerating. After slugging it out with Sony with the Xbox and Xbox 360, Microsoft isn’t willing to see its formidable market presence weaken any further. That’s why the company is willing to forego a profit on the Xbox One, in the hopes of weakening Sony’s dominance. It also hopes to kick total sales back above the Xbox 360. While the Xbox One historically enjoyed a moderate shipment advantage above its predecessor, that gap had shrunk dramatically by 2017:


The Xbox One has lost its sales lead over the Xbox 360.

The good news is, Microsoft is forecasting high demand for its current console. “”I won’t talk about the exact numbers but the demand is super high, we are very, very excited about Xbox One X right now,” Panos Panay, corporate vice president of devices at Microsoft, told CNBC in a TV interview Tuesday.

more...