I just saw one on Twitter. Kid got a Series S and walked away in disgust. Title said he wanted a PS5. But then under the tweet it shows community notes or whatever its called and it was just a skit. I hope most of them are.
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This is how it starts. Slowly putting out articles like this casting fud then tyhey can justify a low score. kinda bs. Xbox doesnāt need a savior game. its doing great first party wise. Id argue better than sony
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The only one that is trending the most is the kid wanted a PC and not PS5. Either way, a gift is a gift. Using it as console war is jarring and pathetic.
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https://x.com/vgc_news/status/1739679965963227556?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
If this game fails, Mario games will forever play safe!
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Itās good to see Peach back a the main protagonist!
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Is it bad that Iād love to just see Xbox innovate the console away? Consoles are such an outdated concept, and it would be wonderful to stop these console wars finally.
I believe there will come a time where consoles are a thing of the past but no Iām in no rush to see it happen. I miss the 90ās where everyone and their mother were dipping their toes in the console space. Crazy gimmicks , controllers and interesting games.
Console wars were always a thing but the toxicity wasnāt there like it is today. Gaming mags of the time werenāt perfect but they didnāt have to rely on clickbait bullshit to get by , and the only PR mouthpieces in the media were dedicated console mags like Nintendo Power , PSM ,etcā¦
Point being social media ruined gaming discourse.
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There strategy of releasing the console in 2026 could very well make console war (plastic box atleast) obsolete
Thatās why I want it to happen.
Well, I accidentally fell asleep on the couch last night then woke up at 3:30 am. So here are some random musings while I wait for the sun to come up.
All numbers below are based on leaks, guesstimates, assumptions, etc, so while not precise they are hopefully accurate enough to make some interesting observations and draw some broad conclusions.
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It looks like the number of āengagedā users of Xbox and PlayStation are not nearly as far apart as most assume. Ballpark 45 million PS+ subscribers and (probably) close to that for Game Pass across all tiers.
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Iām not sure engaged is the right word here, but it will suffice. Clearly MS and Sony want users in their subscription services. So at the very least roughly the same number are engaging with them - though engaging with the platform may be a different matter.
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So (ballpark) 90% of Xbox users are engaged, while only about 35% of PS users are. (assuming 50 million Xbox users and 120 million-ish PS users).
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Moreover, we know the ālevelā of engagement with the services is essentially reversed on the two platforms, with the vast majority on PS being on the lowest tier and the vast majority on MS being on the highest.
So, I have been asking myself why the above appears to be true. Clearly, the short answer (and obvious one) is that Game Pass is great and PS+ is not, but I think there is probably more to it that that. So here is what I have come up with so far.
- PS has way more casual gamers since it is the ādefaultā platform.
- More PS gamers are physical-only or single-player-only and therefore donāt care about PS+.
- Since PS is much more international than Xbox, many PS gamers may be from poorer countries. PS+ is too expensive or doesnāt offer enough value for the price.
- You donāt need PS+ to play free-to-play games.
Obviously, we donāt have hard data on how many people fall into each of the categories above, but I suspect numbers 1, 3, and 4 above explain a huge percentage of the non-subscribed players.
I really wonder, in particular, how many PS customers are free-to-play only (or mainly). I really donāt engage with FTP games at all, but clearly most of the biggest games in the world have that model. I wouldnāt be surprised if something like 30-50% of PS customers never even buy a game (or buy only 1 a year) because all their time is in FTP games.
So, which customer base would you rather have if you were the platform holder? 120 million customers where 45 million are engaged or 50 million customers where 45 million are engaged?
Anyway, thatās what was rattling around in my head at 3:30 am this morning. I probably need to get outside and touch grass once the sun comes out.
Hope you are all having a great holiday season.
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Same thing happened to me yesterday.
I end up doing some paper napkin math.
I estimated that Sony had to put 22.5B dollars in circulation money to produce 50M consoles. While Xbox only used 10B dollars in circulation money for S and X.
This is how xbox end up making difference in services. They started circulating more money in subscription while PS was busy making boxes. Xbox also managed to buy Bethesda as well.
My suggestion to Sony would be to stop making more consoles and start investing in subs.
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I donāt want them to get rid of the console but I want them to differentiate themselves with it from PS as much as possible
I donāt really care how they do it, different release cycles, mods for every game on the console, unified purchases between pc/console/mobile, switching to ARM etc
Iām not saying any of these are likely or needs to happen, I just want something to shake things up, the constant cycle of one of them releasing a console so the other has to release a very similar console at the same time is boring and I donāt think it needs to continue in the age of GaaS and Subscriptions
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The point about Xbox being the more engaged platform makes a lot of sense. Money and players are engaged with the ecosystem a spend more than most PS, and this is why Sony is turning inward with the accessories Blitz, like the headsets and the portal, because if those casual players leave the platform Xbox revenues will jump it adds to the stable platform as it is, whilst Sonyās will fall.
It is clear that the finances of the market leader are more precarious than anyone couldāve reasonably expected, as theyāve boxed themselves into the AAA+ corner. MS has won out on Live Services and other engagement levels.
Fascinating really, to see where we go from here.
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https://x.com/ign/status/1739783420362866878?s=46&t=O_AGT9SEnlptKOF_2SxtqQ
I donāt know about you, but I think Iām going to play Halow going forward.
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Going Live
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Halow Kwombat Evulved!
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Man, these fuckers canāt even write.
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And they still didnāt edit it. 
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Thatās a cool name for something though. Halow.
Halloween
It is almost surreal how good it feels to control Samus in Metroid Dread.
I tend to forget Microsoft owns the Ori IP. Id love to see a 3D platformer Ori but if a 2D 3rd entry were to exist, I think Mercury Steam would make a more than decent job.
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