Well yeah, most people are still using 1080p TVs. Your average console gamer doesn’t need 4K, nor do they care about framerates. They just want to play games*.
Especially in Asia, which is a shame. My country doesn’t has a game pass and no official store. At least now we have a GP on PC, but not on the console yet
nah, this was true during launch when both were constantly sold out, but now that availability has grown this has not stayed linear. the PS5 currently makes up around half of all consoles sold in the UK, followed by switch and eventually xbox. xbox sales are actually down 20% or so year-to-date.
The X is trying to compete in a premium space, long with the PS5. The X falls short of the PS5 in almost every category that a premium consumer cares about, and I don’t think premium consumers are interested in value-oriented subscriptions like GamePass.
The S is competing with… Well definitely not the Switch. I wouldn’t say the Steam Deck either. It was competing to an extent with the PS4 and Xbox One, but not anymore. The S has kind of been left in its own market, so this news makes sense.
Maybe the Switch 2 will have some overlap in that market, but assuming it’s a hybrid handheld it might still be differentiated enough to leave the S on it’s own. Sony has been working on lowering the cost of the PS5 but I can’t see that getting anywhere near S territory. So unless something else drops I don’t see the S having competition any time soon.
The S is a stellar emulation box that doesn’t need to be jailbroken. It’s a hell of a lot easier to configure than a custom Linux distro like RetroPie and the hardware packs a punch. I don’t own one, but I’d be more likely to buy a series S than a PS5 or series X.
That’s about using emulators in retail mode which nobody with half a brain thought was gonna stick around. You pay $20 to unlock developer mode and do all your emulation stuff in there. Retail is for playing actual xbox games.
When you’re talking about a premium market in particular, I think most high-end consumers who care about the aesthetics of their living room would prefer the official, matching Dualsense charger/stand over Microsoft’s charging kit.
The exclusives are huge, especially factoring in backwards-compatibility. Xbox is undoubtedly a better value if you already have a library of older Xbox games or you are shopping used. But if you divide consumers up into Budget, Value, and Premium tiers, I don’t think the Premium tier consumers care about playing games that old. The PS4 had way more big-budget AAA exclusives than the Xbox One did, so I think PlayStation has the advantage there.
Weirdly, I think there’s some dissonance with this around disc drives. I would think premium consumers would care less about physical media: they aren’t buying used games and probably have concerns for the aesthetic of storing physical media. I personally prefer physical media, but I consider myself a value consumer who has no qualms buying used and can handle a little bit of clutter. So I think disc drive versions are valued less by the premium segment, but costs more to manufacture. So I think that boosts the sales of the diaclsss PS5. Premium consumers aren’t interested in the Series S at all though, so if they do go Xbox they just get the X and don’t use the drive. I kind of wonder how the market will react if the rumors of Sony selling an external drive end up true.
I'm unsure of these "premium" consumers caring about proprietary vs non-proprietary storage. Or caring about VR in the context of consoles instead of PCs. Or that the charger stand being a concern when the PS5 looks like it does.
It makes sense. It may suprise a lot of people on here but their biggest market is not the people who demand 4k 60FPS in all games and will riot if they don’t get it. Their main market is kids playing FIFA and Minecraft and other casual gamers who just enjoy fun games at a reasonable budget. For that they really got it right with the Series S.
Nintendo understanding this market is a big part of how they’ve been outselling MS and Sony in the Wii and Switch generations despite being behind on hardware power.
While I agree with you, the fact that no game has released in the past 10 years without major patches and updates means what’s on that physical media is useless
It’s an absurd value. I have two that I just use as media centers and the house. You can also travel with it very easily. About the same size as my switch one you put a travel case on it.
Well sure, but you said you just use them as media centers. Unless you count games as media too. But for just viewing streaming services there are cheaper options.
I own a Series X, but I also own a 4k TV. So, for me, it made sense to spend the extra $$$ and get a console that could truly utilize my TV’s capabilities. If I had a 1080p TV, I probably would have gone with the Series S.
I’ve been waiting for a game that will be worth it, that I can only play on a new console, and so far I haven’t seen one. I’m closer to upgrading my graphics card than getting a new console at this point.
I would argue that the Steam Deck's emulation capabilities surpass the Xbox. It might not play the latest games at amazing quality and performance, but it covers a wide breadth of games, far wider than what Xbox supports.
Compete in terms of value, not price. The series S gets you Xbox’s current gen game library and a selection of 360 games, and if you’re willing to use dev mode a powerful emulation suite. Deck gets a huge percentage of Steam’s 20-year catalog as one-click installs, most other PC games that don’t use anticheat as slightly more involved installs, every PC game if you want to install windows, and also a powerful emulation suite. Plus it’s a dockable handheld instead of something that needs a monitor and controller.
The series S has better media apps and can be woken up from the couch, though.
the steam deck is also just a regular ol’ PC so you can use it for non-gaming stuff like making a lil’ drawing on the go, or plug in some peripherals and just… use it like an honestly pretty okay performance desktop.
I mean, I would rather have a Steam Deck too, but then we're getting into how much people value openness versus price, and that's definitely not a constant; some people aren't going to care much about openness.
That said, if I were trying to compare Valve's offering and Microsoft's offering, I'd probably compare a desktop PC running Steam to the XBox, as they're more-physically-comparable in terms of what they can do; the Series S doesn't have one having to pay for mobility. If one were comparing to a mobile console, then sure, the Deck is a legit comparison.
I still would say that the XBox Series S is going to be cheaper on the low end, though, than a desktop PC. You can get a $279 PC that can play games and a comparable controller, but I'd bet that it'd be more-limited than a Series S.
That being said, Microsoft sells the XBox at a loss, and then makes it back by jacking up the price of games:
As VGC points out, Wright was also asked if there's ever been a profit generated from an Xbox console sale, which she confirmed has never happened. To put that in context, Microsoft has been selling Xbox consoles for nearly 20 years now, including the original Xbox, the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and now the Xbox Series X and Series S. In all that time, every single console sale cost Microsoft money.
The reason game consoles end up being profitable is through a combination of software, service, and accessory sales, but it's still surprising to find Microsoft has never achieved hardware profitability. Analyst Daniel Ahmad confirmed that the PS4 eventually became profitable for Sony and that Nintendo developed the Switch to be profitable quickly, so Microsoft is the odd one out.
We know that consumers weight the up-front price of hardware disproportionately -- that's why you have companies selling cell phones at a loss, locking them to their network, and then making the money back in increased subscription fees. I assume that that's to try to take advantage of that phenomenon.
If you wanted to compare the full price that you pay over the lifetime of the console, one would probably need to account for the increased game price on consoles and how many games someone would buy.
Now, all that being said, I don't have a Series S or a Series X, and I'm not arguing that someone should buy them. I have a Linux PC for gaming precisely because I do value openness, so in terms of which system I'd rather have, you're preaching to the choir. I'm just saying that I don't think that I'd agree with the above statement that the Deck is as cheap as the Series S.
Not really. If you were going to buy an xbox, you would either just buy the cheaper version, the more expensive version assuming its just better, or look up the difference.
It becomes even more confusing when you think about the fact that the Xbox One is not the Xbox 1, which was just the Xbox. And that the Xbox One X, the souped up version of the Xbox One, can be abbreviated as the XBOX, which again, is not the original Xbox.
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