Xbox released a full demo walkthrough of the Xbox Series X|S platform experience including UI/UX, refreshed interface, dashboard design, and more ahead of the November 10th next-gen launch. It makes sense for them to do so but one thing that was sort of an unspoken theme of the video was what Microsoft has planned for the future of not only Xbox Series X and S but for their entire platform as well. If you are unfamiliar with the history of Microsoft from the 2010s then you might have forgotten about the Windows phones that are now gone from our world but they have learned from their mistakes and it looks like the Console wars belong to Microsoft while Sony Playstation 5 may win the war.
If you look at the video that Xbox official youtube channel has released and go beyond the tech jargon around speed and the occasional heart skip from looking at Cyberpunk 2077 installed on the Xbox Series X then you will see something interesting going on in the background. One of the things that went completely unnoticed in the launch was the back-compatibility of games from the 1st Gen Xbox but that is not the most interesting feature of the video. The most interesting part of the video was the Microsoft aspect of it. Let me break it down for you.
If you take a look at how Sony PlayStation approaches the console war then their strategy does make sense but in the short term. Basically, what Sony does with the Playstation consoles is to give them exclusive game titles. This is a great way to get more people on your platform in the short term but what happens in the longer term. Most gamers use laptops or PCs to play games and even in the console market, you have the Xbox players which basically divides the gaming market into 3 divisions. You have the PC players, the console players, and the mobile players.
Out of these 3 segments, Microsoft rules one segment. It is present in the console segment and has failed in the mobile segment. To put it in perspective, Microsoft is not offering a next-gen console but a platform. From your computers and laptops to your Tv via Console. That is something Sony lacks with the Playstation. As a console, the Playstation 5 may offer slightly better performance than the Xbox Series X or S but where it will miss out on is seamless interaction.
Everything Microsoft is doing is ramping up to make itself the defacto choice for not only gamers but also consumers. From the Xbox Game Pass becoming a part of Windows and offering the same benefits to PC players to launching two different consoles for two different market segments. Yes, technically Sony is also offering two variants of the Playstation 5 but there is no real difference between the two. Both variants of the Playstation 5 have the same amount of internal power while the Xbox Series X offers a huge bump in power compared to Xbox Series S.
What Microsoft has in essence done with the Xbox is quite amazing. They took the exclusivity of the Playstation and turned it up on its head. It’s not even November and the Console wars are drawing blood.
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