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The days of seeing stories like 'PS4's outselling Xbox by almost 2-to-1' could be over as Microsoft looks to have called time on the console sales war.
Last week saw the Big M announce its quarterly results - yes, yes, fiscal announcements, yawn - but the interesting thing noted by Game Informer was the lack of Microsoft's usual hardware shipment metrics.
When quizzed on this a Microsoft source responded saying it was no longer using such figures as its measurement of success. Instead it would be focusing on user engagement, choosing Xbox Live figures as its leading stat. Essentially Microsoft has made a tacit announcement that, in terms of hardware sales at least, it has lost the sales war of this generation of machines.
Long-time industry analyst, Michael Pachter, told Fortune yesterday that he believes Sony's PS4 is set to have another excellent holiday period, outselling Microsoft's console, and would probably do so with or without the price cut which has given it price parity with the Xbox One.
"Microsoft should cut price only if it cares about how many consoles it sells," he went on to say.
And, given that it's both halted reporting on its own sales and refused calls for a price cut of its own, it sure looks like Microsoft has now stopped caring about such figures. Or at the very least wants everyone to stop talking about it...
(Score: 2) by tathra on Tuesday October 27 2015, @02:10AM
more like they'll just keep selling you all your old ps1-3 games that you already own again. if you have any interest in playing ps1-3 games, just install custom firmware on your ps3; even the slims "magically" have the same software ps2 emulation that the later phat ps3 models had (only first and second generation slims support CFW though, it has to predate OFW 3.55). if sony had any interest in releasing emulators to grant backwards compatibility you'd be able to purchase their cell-based PS2 emulator from PSN; instead you have to void your warranty or order one the old designed-to-fail (YLOD/laser failure) phat models. no, there's much more money in cashing in on your nostalgia by continuing to sell or rent you the games you already own but can't play on the latest model.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Tuesday October 27 2015, @01:01PM
I wasn't really into gaming during the PS2 era. I have original discs for most of my PS1 games, and those seem to work fine in my PS3.