PlayStationandXboxhave come a long way from the heyday of their rivalry during the seventh generation of consoles. PlayStation has become increasingly more dominant on the hardware front, while Xbox appears to be shifting towards a different business model entirely.
The PlayStation 5 has, at the very least, double the number of sales of the Xbox Series X/S. Xbox’s recent shift towards publishing games on the PlayStation 5, such as Sea of Thieves and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, signals a change in direction for the company, as it focuses more on publishing, Game Pass and cloud gaming.
Cloud Gaming, the Future?
In terms of the latter, Xbox is far more invested in the technology than PlayStation. One of the arguments the Federal Trade Commission raised against Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard was that Xbox would become too dominant in cloud gaming with the IPs granted by the acquisition.
In aFireside Chatwith Sony Interactive Entertainment’s president and chief executive officer, Hideaki Nishino, he revealed that PlayStation doesn’t hold cloud gaming in the same regard.
“The technology is progressing well from a technical standpoint,” Nishino says. “But end-to-end network stability is not in our control. The higher cost per playtime compared to the traditional console model remains a challenge. Cloud gaming is increasingly providing an additional option for players to access content, but our belief is that the majority of players continue to want to experience gaming through local execution, without dependency on network conditions. The PS5 and PS5 Pro have validated this thesis, I believe.”
Nishino was coy about PlayStation’s strategy for its next console, simply saying, “We are committed to exploring a new and enhanced way for players to engage with our content and services.”
The reports of Xboxcancelling development on its handheldto pursue the ROG Xbox Ally could be indicative of the company’s strategy going forward. It’s conjecture, but Xbox could be moving away from acting as a direct competitor to Sony, instead focusing on secondary services like game publishing, Game Pass and, of course, cloud gaming.
