Or maybe SONY doesn’t need too, given its winning and doesn’t need to guarantee its games on rival consoles for the next 10 years and feel the need to splash out 70 billions while gutting your PR budgets and development staff. Maybe MS could have saved billions and just market its system better 
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Billboards are passe…
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It’s not about marketing.
PlayStation is a cultural juggernaut throughout the world. It’s the Disney of gaming. It’s the biggest brand recognition along with Nintendo. Xbox is just “that American console” made by the same mega corporation that produces Windows operating systems.
That’s the optics. No amount of advertising can fix that. It’ll take Sony screwing up to have any impact & until then I’m going to presume Xbox will constantly be at around 50 million consoles sold each gen - which isn’t bad all things considered.
Or conversely Xbox can continue buying up publishers & putting this stuff on Game Pass or making real exclusives. That can also work, i.e. a release drought on PlayStation in which people also get a bit sick & tired of their cinematic AAA walking simulators (which cost Sony a fortune to make, let’s not forget).
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Oh that marketing is a bit too much… Looks like the ABK deal is gonna have to be called off, MS clearly isn’t as weak as they say…
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I feel Sony have matured as a company & they’ve very cleverly exploited their standing in the industry. They must employ some pretty effective market analysts because the Sony of old in the 1990’s & early 2000’s was the Xbox of today in terms of hardware & affordable product offering, i.e. gaming for everyone. The PS1 & PS2 were affordable & undercut their competition.
Now they’ve taken the opposite approach & they market the console like a freaking Mercedes Benz, i.e. as a quasi luxury expensive product.
And it works. I’d wager mainstream PlayStation buyers really do believe they’re getting a superior piece of hardware, i.e. it’s not just about games, it’s about the aura a PlayStation console now enjoys as a valuable fashion accessory on their tv stand.
Sony could up the price by another $100 and I presume it wouldn’t impact their sales much. Just look at Europe: demand seemed to actually increase after the price increase. It’s crazy.
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Very much this. The price is not an issue here, that’s why the Series S focus and budget gaming approach is not really working and only makes Xbox look like some cheap alternative for the less fortunate. A PS5 cost $700 here and they sell like crazy.
The games also do a lot to cement PS as a premium platform, there is no denying that.
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All their games are performing terribly commercially. I can’t even remember when Sony launched a game remotely comparable to Xbox …maybe ragnorok sold less than half of Forza and Halo and Pokemon…and i can’t see that gap growing smaller.
When your brand revolves around exclusives and CoD and yours are the weakest by far and CoDs joining with Xbox thats a very bad place to be.
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I tend to agree. Xbox should feel pretty confident right now. (Yes I’m in America where my perspective is skewed a bit…Xbox is less relevant elsewhere) but clearly the momentum is on Xbox’s side. I know U.S.A. will support starfield in a big way. Plus who knows what Xbox announces at E3, last years E3 was a disappointment but this year could be much better. If Xbox has an E3 of dreams timed with Starfields hype, and the hype of Activison getting finalized… I just think momentum seems to be on Xbox’s side. Really the only missing piece is Xbox’s unspoken manufacturing problems with series X and the failure to launch of a widespread Xbox smart tv app. Not being able to buy a console is something of a momentum killer lol
The only “Xbox” marketing I see is the odd YouTube promotion and redfall ads.
The only logical reason for the lack of Xbox Marketing I can think of is that they are laying low until the acti-blizz deal is done.
It’s odd that PlayStation seems to have been outspending Xbox in marketing.
That is from November 2020, but I remember reading that Sony still outspends Xbox in marketing, which is so bizarre considering how much Microsoft have been investing in gaming for the past few years. They would not even have to spend much to completely dwarf PlayStations marketing. Xbox are currently spending about $50-100million/year on Marketing which is pathetic, they should be spending at least $350 million/year.
I think they will do a new marketing campaign once the acti-blizz deal is done because they are not investing that much only for the mindshare to be stagnant.
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So are we just gonna lie about stats or something ? Lmao.
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Yes. Even just in terms of visuals with the ‘cinematic’ aesthetic, games like Ragnarok & Horizon off the back of their trailers alone make PlayStation 5 look premium - even though IMO the games themselves are extremely by-the-numbers ‘safe’ experiences which don’t really push the genre forwards (I mean both franchises have become a bit stale with the walk-hack & slash-loot-upgrade gear gameplay loop).
Regarding a broader console market analysis it’s worth noting those who’re economically unfortunate & would be the target audience of the Series S don’t necessarily jump in because the thought of having a less powerful console is depressing or something. It’s not unusual for people with limited finances to have really expensive tech & gear from the moment it’s a fashion accessory & part of their identity.
The Series S meanwhile will appeal to super laid-back ‘I just want to play a video game’ crowd… & I’m not sure that part of the market drives sales enough to justify the console’s existence; Microsoft is also very data driven with its decisions & like the Xbox One’s “tv tv tv” was born out of data showing users watching movies on their Xbox 360, the Series S might have been born based on assessing aspects of Xbox One owners (I imagine looking at their numbers regarding how many Xbox One owners also had a PS4 as well, i.e. the Series S has been sort of designed as a perfect little second console for PS5 owners). Then there’s the damned dualsense controller as well which adds a an extra layer of “this is next gen” on top of the PS5’s already massive lead.
I haven’t actually used a dualsense yet but when youtubers & reviewers keep on raving about the added immersion offered by the haptics & triggers (I was literally just watching a Cyberpunk review in which the reviewer literally said “this is better on PS5 with the dualsense”), then it’s another problem Xbox has no answer for yet (until they produce something similar).
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Yeah , its nice to see some people are aligned in thinking. I don’t think Xbox can advertise or market their way to Playstation. The brand is too established and your later post uses a car analogy that I think is spot on. Take a really established mid-premium car brand like Mercedes or Audi - they sell a shedload of cars. Because people want an Audi or a Mercedes and they can JUST about afford one. There are loads of brands that make cars that are better value, have the same tech and performance but without the cache and brand recognition of Audi or Mercedes or BMW etc…and those brands carve out a particular niche of market share - but won’t ever hit the 7% or whatever that each of those brands have.
This is where playstation is. Its seen by the mainstream (not the hardcore who are following the gaming industry regularly but your average gamer who buys a console without lots of thought) as the default. Its ‘I’m going to buy a Playstation’ and if they can’t MOST probably won’t buy something else. Nintendo becomes the default for younger gamers and maybe people less into the more mature style of games. You can as Xbox do whatever you want but you aren’t really likely to change this bar some sort of gargantuan mess made by Sony.
The thing is Xbox have realised this. They aren’t trying to compete on hardware units sold - it still matters to them of course but it is just one of their entry points. The hardware is a trojan horse to Xcloud and gamepass.
The market that are buying Playstations aren’t absorbing the gamepass value either. They are still people who play a few games they know but the vast majority of releases pass them by. I think its gotten harder too because of the huge amount of F2P’s and GAAS. This doesn’t help MS. A casual gamer who wants to play COD, Fortnite and maybe FIFA buys a ‘PS’ because they can play all these games on their default brand console. They play them. Because the games never end and there is either an annualised release or just a F2P model they are never looking or bothered about what new games are there. They are never filling gaps. So again - the chance to really switch the silicon people are buying is much much less. If you go back 20 years then people might invest in a console but if there was a drought in games for a while might see ads for games on a rival console and be tempted. Now people just aren’t in that sort of space. Go into certain more casual gaming twitch streams and many of those streamers have never even heard of Starfield - why would they? Their content is full with whatever games they play daily - fortnite, animal crossing, sims, warzone, destiny…whatever…and they aren’t looking for new games.
Xbox as you say will sell a certain volume of consoles every gen but I don’t see them breaking through that and I don’t really think that is their aim. If that WAS their business plan they could very easily spend money to just gobble up third party exclusives - which would drive that. But it clearly isn’t what they are trying to do. They are trying to go beyond console hardware into a broader ecosystem with many more customers potentially.
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Xbox needs to buy up Hulu and Disney+ ad space and just market their consoles with game pass more. I don’t fault Microsoft though, when you don’t have games to advertise what do you advertise?
They can’t market without having game after game after game to market, a problem Xbox first party has been dealing with for the past 8 years. Xbox one had tons of tv spots at launch, Titanfall was a huge success with the Xbox brand. Sony still advertises Ghost of Tsushima and other legacy PS4 games with PS5. Meanwhile Xbox basically flunked their last gen by not having enough exclusives to help push this gen. Starfield feels like a new start to AAA for Xbox.
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This is the crux of it. There’s no point going all out with marketing until at least June 11th.
Although I will say, I’ve seen Redfall everywhere for the last few weeks. It feels like there’s something new every other day.
It’s still marketing, right?
Microsoft is now running digital ads for its Activision Blizzard acquisition at some London tube stations. It comes a month after placing full-page ads in two UK newspapers, and ahead of the CMA’s decision on the deal later this month
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SONY didn’t really undercut to competition. The N64 was cheaper at launch than the PS, The Dreamcast was cheap to launch than the PS2 and the 360 was cheaper than the PS3 on launch and there is hardly any price difference between the Series X to the PS5
To me MS have made a SEGA style 32X blunder with thinking price and price alone would win out. Its clear no one really wants the Series S as their main console and it might be giving developers issues with trying to support the 2 different formats.
The more people that move to SONY and get into their eco system are less likely to join XBox . Hopefully Starfield will turn than along with Forza and a strong June showcase.
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Having the entire Activision-Blizzard catalogue (contractual restrictions aside) thrown into Game Pass will also help, a lot.
I feel games like Starfield will work better as part of an ensemble of releases, not as the main focus. It’s just an unfortunate fact anyone who thinks Starfield looks ‘okay’ can simply get it on PC instead, something which won’t move the needle for the Series consoles.
Xbox will find its place in the market through solid repeated releases with a little controversies as possible. Games will need to perform well & Game Pass needs a constant flow of additions which really justify the recurring fee.
It sounds simple but that’s what Microsoft needs to do. I’m talking about consoles here of course, not the broader objectives which include PC, streaming, mobile etc.
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I bought GOW remotely mate, because my PS 5 is digital , it was also I believe SONY best ever selling game in its 1st week with over 5 million units sold
I don’t really care about games sales or silly metric review crap and to be totally honest I find the PS5 a bit poor and the likes of GOD:Rag, Zero Dawn 2 vastly overrated and boring
I do care about a system being the better selling system, because that makes sure to get the best retail and 3rd party support and also brings in a ton of revenue to the console manufacture in terms of development and royalties fee’s.
Sure the XBox isn’t going anywhere soon, but the UK sales are disappointing for what is meant to be the XBox strongest market outside the USA. But with a strong June showcase and Starfield and Forza I believe the XBox can be the best selling console this year
Thats what i mean. When is Sony going to have big huge massive releases like Forza and Halo? Will they ever? Its looking grim.
I guess the ABK sale is good news for you then since Xbox will be overtake Playstation in revenue and profit once final.
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SONY had huge releases more so than XBox and that’s been port of the trouble the last couple of years. Over the next 2 years with all those studios and dosh it will hopefully be MS.
The sale is only good news for me in terms of GamePass. I don’t see PlayStation fans leaving their PSV to play COD on the XBox, given that for the next 10 years COD games will be on the PSV and for as long as SONY can comfortably outsell the XBox, it be the platform COD will sell the most on (but yes all profit to MS) I care about XBox as a console business and what that to be the best, so MS will never think about leaving and for the Xbox to be the best support console out there.
I don’t want to see the hardware sales gap get bigger, but thats me