The run up to both PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been weird hasn't it?
I don't really think so, the pandemic has altered things a bit but both companies are just being more cautious this time after what happened at the start of this generation and how Sony were able to trump Microsoft. This time around both companies are super aware of making a mistake that their competitor can capitalise on.
I actually think the PS3 reveal was worse than the Xbox One mess.
I'm not so sure about that. The PS3 E3 conference is notorious and become an incredible meme collection but at least they were showing off a variety of games. The main issue with it was that they had PR suit guys presenting game demos, spent too long talking about Cell technology and the price announcement.
The original Xbox One presentation by comparison was a total car crash. They spent the vast majority of the time talking about Kinect and how you can route your TV box through it to control all of your media through the Xbox. There was a huge misstep with the initial DRM and not being able to play second hand games on it too. Jack Tretton announced during the Sony conference afterwards that there wouldn't be any additional DRM and that you could share discs with friends and the hype and excitement from the audience was enormous.
The Xbox One reveal was so bad that it has single-handedly allowed PS4 to completely trash the Xbox in sales this generation.
I don't think the reveal was the only issue, but it stifled their momentum from the 360 era. I think XBox One's biggest problem has been the lack of exclusives (or the superior showing on PS4).
People were extremely critical of PS3's launch price; $599 was the headline, (the lower end model was $499) literally twice the price of the PS2 at launch. The 360 was $299/$399. There was nothing really wrong with the reveal other than it being a bit awkward. The memes were just an extension of that frustration over pricing.
I didn't realise that the PS3 had multiple launch models, unless you're referring to different sized HDs?
I think the lack of exclusives for the Xbox One at launch is linked with how their main E3 conference was presented. They didn't line up an array of first and third party developers to make exclusives because at the time they very much saw the Xbox as becoming a single home media device and thought they could sell it on the basis of Kinect voice control, linking with Cable channels and their offering of media streaming apps. For some reason Microsoft thought that gamers really wanted all this added connectivity and not just a good console with good games, a concept which Sony have really hammered home this generation with the PS4.
Microsoft have made quite a few good moves in the tail end of this generation to win people back over, particularly now they've finally recognised having the PC market as a boon to include in the eco system rather than trying to stifle it and make everything all about the Xbox.
Yeah, the PS3 launched with a 20gb model and a 60gb model. The 60gb model had memory card readers and built-in Wifi that the 20gb model lacked. Both had hardware-based PS2 backwards compatibility that was later removed. The 360 had neither the hard drive nor built-in-wifi which were both quite expensive extras, so in reality the cost gulf wasn't as massive as it first appeared.
Ken said people should get two jobs to pay for the PS3 and then you had the stuff about different models and the backwards compatibility mess, I think the 20GB backwards compatible version was unavailable in some areas, also the games they chose to highlight during E3 and they way they did it was pretty rubbish. They were both car crashes but at least Microsoft had walked most of the stuff back by the time the console was out.
Sony's brand loyalty in Japan and Europe allowed them to ride out the mess of the PS3 launch so it seems a lot less damaging with time, Microsoft don't have anywhere near the same loyalty outside of the US.
It helps that PS3 had a bucket of excellent exclusives throughout its lifetime too, so people were tempted eventually. I had a 360 for the majority of that generation and didn't buy a PS3 until the later revisions of the slim model came out. It had some absolutely fantastic games, as did 360 at the time.
To this day I still haven't seen a single Xbox One exclusive that would even remotely make me consider buying one. Now that they're releasing them all on PC too I don't think I will be buying into the next console either.
Yakuza was the only thing keeping me on the Sony train and that series is going everywhere now, I find their first party offering rather bland. They would need to get away from the over-produced open-world formula for the PS5 in order to tempt me to get one. If I do purchase one of the new consoles, right now it would be the Xbox purely because of Game Pass and I'd only be doing it so I could play games in a more comfortable setting.
"While we understand gamers worldwide are excited to see PS5 games, we do not feel that right now is a time for celebration and for now, we want to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard".
Presumably they're referring to what's happening in the US right now.
