Sony is a shoo-in, Microsoft Xbox One has lost?

Reading: November 9, the Kinect, cut prices, bonus games, Microsoft has done its homework, but its video game console Xbox One sales have not improved.
November 9, the Kinect, cut prices, bonus games, Microsoft has done its homework, but its video game console Xbox One sales have not improved.

Microsoft's latest promotional activities include the introduction of the Kinect's Xbox One console for US consumers, priced at only 350 dollars, with a bonus game. The price dropped by nearly 40% from last November's recommended retail prices. While such cuts are huge, Microsoft seems to be struggling to shake up the current situation: Sony's leadership seems impassable.

Some may find this kind of view a bit extreme, after all, the Xbox One has been launched for a year. If the previous generation of products as a reference, then Microsoft's Xbox One and Sony's PlayStation 4 in the next 10 years in the retail sector will still have a fight. However, in the next few years, a lot of things will change.

While Microsoft is likely to reverse its current slump, it is rather difficult to narrow the gap with Sony.

Microsoft has not tried. Its bundled sales are the initial attempt. In March this year, Microsoft donated a game to the Xbox One seller, "Titan Falls" (Titanfall), which was the hottest game at the time.

Finally, however, Sony's PlayStation 4 won, with sales exceeding Xbox One in March and April.

In May, Microsoft cut the price of Xbox One by 20% and launched the Xbox One, which is not bundled with Kinect, for $399. However, this move is still ineffective. Throughout the summer, Sony's game-machine sales are still ahead.

Then in September, Microsoft raised the stakes and announced a free game for the Xbox One seller. This means that the seller can get an Xbox One and two free games only if it costs about 400 dollars.

For such promotions, Michael Pachter, an analyst, was optimistic that in September, Xbox one sales would eventually surpass the PlayStation 4, as players simply couldn't resist the temptation of Pacht like Microsoft. But, it turns out, players are finally blocking the temptation of Microsoft. Although Microsoft has done a lot of work, Sony PlayStation 4 sales in September again surpassed the Xbox One.

Sony now sells a total of 13.5 million PlayStation 4 worldwide. This is likely to be twice times more than Microsoft's Xbox One sales. The reason this is "probable" is that Microsoft has not disclosed the sales of Xbox One. In the last quarter, it claimed to have sold 2.4 million Xbox consoles, but declined to separate the Xbox One and the old Xbox 360 sales. In April, Microsoft announced that Xbox One had reached 5 million shipments, but it was reluctant to reveal how many Xbox One they actually bought.

Sony has little action compared to Microsoft. The retail price of PlayStation 4 is still maintained at the level last year when it was launched: 399 dollars. This is a further contrast to Microsoft's dilemma: If Microsoft's Xbox One sales are now up to PlayStation 4, Microsoft will be even more difficult to match when Sony cuts or promotions.

There are a number of factors that explain why Sony PlayStation 4 's sales have remained ahead of the game, such as more powerful gaming consoles, stronger marketing and a friendlier attitude to older versions of the game. However, these may not be the real factor in determining the sale of game consoles in the future.

Sony now has 7.9 million PlayStation Plus members, most of which are likely to be PlayStation 4 users. (PlayStation Plus's growing popularity is in line with the strong growth of PlayStation 4 sales.) PlayStation Plus offers a lot of benefits to its members, but its main role is to get players involved in multiplayer games online--the core element of most popular games. For example, Destiny only has online mode: The player must play the game on the server and play with friends mainly.

Don Mattrick, a former head of Microsoft's Xbox department, has observed that "the first companies to break the 10 million mark in game sales" often win game consoles. Since most of the game's core elements are online multiplayer games, the network effect is starting to work here-players and their friends must have the same brand of game consoles to play online multiplayer games together. If a person's friend owns a PlayStation 4 game console, he or she is likely to buy a PlayStation 4.

Sony clearly has the upper hand in the game consoles of Microsoft and Sony. Unless there is a miracle, Sony is absolutely a shoo-in.