With November—and the launch of two new consoles—just around the corners, strategies are now quite clear and there's quite a bit to cover. But who's got the best position going in? Who's likely to lead in the early stages? And who's likely to ultimately come out on top? These are questions well worth asking, and the answers—at least, what we can speculate about the answers—might surprise you.
Sony is walking its PlayStation 4 into a field packed with advantages for it. A terrific public reception at E3 coupled with a lower price tag and rumors about a possible proprietary VR system are going to give it a lot of push, but add on to this the fact that, in the United States, the PlayStation 4 will come out a week ahead of the Xbox One—the European launch of the PlayStation 4, meanwhile, comes a little over two weeks later on November 30—and that makes a very welcoming picture for PlayStation 4 fans.
Microsoft, by comparison, will be walking in more expensive, a little later—it plans to launch November 22, and in 13 different countries all at once down from the originally planned launch of 21 countries--and coming off an E3 event that was nothing short of disastrous for it. However, it's worth noting that it's worked hard since then to recover, and according to reports, now has a stock of preorders in line that beats the stock of preorders on hand for the Xbox 360. Perhaps better is the news that Microsoft is boosting the clock speed on its processor, up to 1.75 GHz instead of the original 1.6 GHz. That's good news by many measures; boosting speed suggests there's little in the way of trouble with the current stock of chips so “red ring” style problems are much less likely to happen.
The issue of games follows, and both look to have a fairly strong launch stock on hand. Though some reports indicate that Sony is leaning a bit more toward MMOs than Microsoft, it's likely that both will frequently intersect in terms of what games are offered. More information about this point will likely also follow in the weeks ahead.
So who do I put as likely to come out ahead on this one? Personally, I figure Microsoft will edge out Sony, but only just. Sony had too good a showing for the last few months to count out, and will probably get a few folks jumping ship from Microsoft too. But Microsoft had a pretty big following going into this, and the arrival of “Dead Rising 3” as a Microsoft exclusive certainly can't hurt things either.
One thing, however, is clear: this season is going to be one to watch in no uncertain terms, and though it may be a close battle going into the start of the newest round of the console wars, it may not stay close for long.
Android (operating system) Bethesda Bethesda Softworks Downloadable content Electronic Arts Electronic sports Facebook Fallout (series) Fallout 3 Fallout: New Vegas Gamer Games Google IOS Maryland Massively multiplayer online game Microsoft Microsoft Windows Mobile game Nintendo Oculus Rift PC game Personal computer PlayStation PlayStation 3 PlayStation 4 Sony The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim United States Video game Video game console Virtual reality Wii Wii U World of Warcraft Xbox Xbox 360 Xbox Live Xbox One YouTube
- June 2017
- May 2017
- April 2017
- March 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- September 2016
- August 2016
- July 2016
- June 2016
- May 2016
- April 2016
- March 2016
- February 2016
- January 2016
- December 2015
- November 2015
- October 2015
- September 2015
- August 2015
- July 2015
- June 2015
- May 2015
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- October 2011
- September 2011
Featured Videos