Sony exclusives on the PS5 and a dearth of quality exclusives on Microsoft's side definitely have a lot to do with this but I wonder whether the Xbox Series S/X distinction contributed as well.
The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.
The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they're getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.
They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.
On another note, it'd be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.
Xbox ultimately made the same mistake as Nintendo with the Wii / Wii U.
Just give the console a number. And. Increment.
That's it. You can still have Pro / Slim / whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.
Nothing convinces me that this isn't the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That's it.
Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft's marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It's unbelievable.
I don't think Xbox made the same mistake. Because while the naming is pretty bad, people do actually know it's the latest generation console.
The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people's radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that's all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.
I just had to look up the difference between the series X and S. It wasn't obvious to me. It's not even obvious which is the more powerful model, there's no mention anywhere of what X and S stand for. Is 'S' Small or Super? And I guess the 'X' is for eXperience.
Compare that to PlayStation 4/PlayStation 4 Pro/PlayStation 5 (and yeah, I'm not going to argue that 'pro' isn't a stupid designation for a slightly-more-powerful-than-before console), but it's at least obvious where they sit in the lineup.
I do not believe that you tried to figure out which was more powerful and it was not immediately obvious. MS even made a page comparing them and highlights the differences: one can do 12 teraflops the other 4. One does 4k the other only 1440p.
You wouldn't google Playstation 4 and 5 to find out which is which. I have no idea why Microsoft would do this. Try sending your mother out to buy one. Would she know which one to buy and understand the difference?
The person you’re responding to’s point is that you know that a PS5 is better than a PS4 without cursory investigation because you know 5 > 4. When you’re dealing with mass market consumers, there are many that won’t perform cursory investigations of products. Busy parents, technologically illiterate grand parents, kids with limited internet access, etc.
I believe the point they were trying to make is that the naming is confusing for consumers. Even if you’re aware of the difference, the naming is still confusing. If someone with knowledge of the product can’t figure out the naming, then how can anyone else?
Having to open a comparison page means it's not immediately obvious. Picture an office worker who has one December evening to run through the mall, buy and wrap gifts for the whole family. Opening his phone, googling the differences between X and S, and also between Xbox series X and Xbox one X? He'll just take Playstation 5 instead.
It really isn't obvious at all. In the past, the slimmer model tends to come out after a few years, maybe with some minor upgrades. Having two released at the same time within the same generation is just... stupid.
Yea, I couldn’t tell. It felt like it, but the way he kept responding implied that maybe he really did think it was simple for some reason I wasn’t getting.
> Because while the naming is pretty bad, people do actually know it's the latest generation console.
Do they? I don't. At this moment, I couldn't tell you the name of Microsoft's newest console, because their naming convention is so convoluted. Meanwhile, I can tell from a glance that the PS5 is newer than the PS4.
Granted, I'm not a console gamer, but neither are (most) parents buying consoles for their children.
"Ehh, people will know what we're talking about" seems like a haphazard marketing strategy.
I work in the industry and mostly play on consoles (admittedly Sony’s) and even I’m not sure at first glance. I have to stop and think a bit every time.
I used to own Xbox consoles but the last few generations have only had Playstation (and PC). I would have absolutely no idea which of the last 3 (4?) released Xbox versions came before which. The naming is horrible. The X is top dog with S below? What was the last generation even called? Where there 1 or 2? I have no idea even though I have used it (them?) many times at a friend's house.
Edit: I googled it. Xbox X and the old one is Xbox One X? That is simply hilariously stupid.
It's not just stupid, it's demeaning to the audience. Be like Intel/BMW and give your models numbers that roughly correlate to the performance/size/features.
Sony/Apple/Samsung have this one solid - just release the next semver and market the hell out of it. Don't make me confused when I'm thinking about paying you money. Note: even the ones that aren't "on the version treadmill" do poorly: "iPhone mini" vs. "Samsung Fold" etc are niche products and exist to essentially sell the mainline item.
I honestly though the Wii U was an accessory until years after it was released, and at this moment now I couldn't tell you whether an Xbox X or S is better. Is S better because 'S-tier' is the top rating, or is X better because 'X'box? Either way could make sense, you can't intuitively divine this.
It wasn't very long ago that kids were struggling to get their parents to stop calling xbox and playstation "the nintendo". Young parents today are probably comfortable with the brands of xbox and playstation, having grown up with those brands, but expecting them to be up-to-date on the latest models isn't smart. There can be a considerable gap in understanding between those who are tuned into gaming matters and those who might be making the actual purchase. The value of simple branding should not be underestimated.
There's probably an entire department within Microsoft that makes their own alphabets and number systems. 95 comes after 3.1, right, but before 10? And XP is bigger than 365 but smaller than One? If you have a series of something, it obviously stands to reason that X is bigger than Vista.
But fret not, there's an easy shortcut to see which Microsoft product is newer. Just try them side by side and whichever has more advertisements is newer.
This seems like it assumes the Xbox's target audience are kids, which doesn't automatically follow. It's like thinking rock music is greasy kids' stuff: Update your mental model. The MTV generation has grandkids now.
In short, Ford doesn't release the Ford 5 because it knows the Ford 4 is old news. (Also, get a horse, ya durn kids.)
Nintendo wants to communicate in their platform what they are targeting, so it will usually make sense. In comparison, Xbox tried, but always failed with clearly communicating their names.
I don't think non-numbers are a bad naming scheme, just the simplest. It means its easiest to keep up with and archive, but it can also mean it's hard to tell audiences what fancy new features you're marketing. If the Wii was the Nintendo 5 and the Switch was the Nintendo 7 I'm not sure if it would be quite as snappy in consumer minds.
The difference is that Microsoft released consoles with very similar purposes and names in the same generation.
Labelling the Switch as a new version of the Wii doesn't make much sense because it occupies a different niche, comparable to PlayStation/2/3/4/5 vs the PlayStation Portable.
PlayStation's addition of "Pro" in it's own naming scheme clearly distinguishes the more powerful console. Delaying the release of the pro model until later in the generation's lifecycle also helps reduce friction.
> 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age.
I don't know a single kid that would not know which models are current gen and which are better or worse. Argument about non technical parents is valid but any kid today will know which Xbox to get and will tell their parents. Kids these days know much more stuff than you seem to think, they spent 1/3-1/4 of their lives on the internet. My 11-12yo nephews built PCs just following youtube guides, they do video montages of their Fortnite games to put on youtube and almost every single friend of theirs is similarly familiar with current tech.
Xbox having lower numbers is purely fault of PS dominating the market over last decade, people will continue buying it cause they trust Sony to deliver exclusives and they have existing game libraries. I converted two Sony fanboys to Xbox with Game Pass and they both love it. Noone these days buys a PS "because they are confused with Xbox naming", 5 minutes of googling answers any questions. The only people who might really have an issue with this are boomers+ who are not even going to buy a console for themselves cause "games are for kids and a waste of time".
The Xbox line goes: Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X.
The kids may know and understand this, but parents may not. If you go to a store today, you will only find the latter two, and you won’t have an issue picking the one your kid asked for (i.e. the X). But when both generations were on sale, the parent might end up buying "One X" instead of "Series X" because it’s cheaper, or buying "360" instead of "One" because it’s clearly bigger (by 359 no less).
15+ years ago when I worked at Target's electronic dept over the summer, it was hard enough for parents to track whether the PS2 or PS3 was the latest one much less where a "Wii" or "360" fit into that.
The Xbox line-up is just comical. I walk through any gaming department and see an "S", "X", or sometimes even both "S" and "X" on Xbox games. If it was just "Xbox 7" and "Xbox 8", you'd at least have some idea of what's going on.
It's like someone who knows nothing about cars trying to figure out SE vs LE vs CE vs XLE trimmings when looking at accessories.
You have to go younger. My son is in first grade, he knows we have a PS bit he couldn't tell you what number. His friend is in kindergarten and loves his Xbox, and I'll wager a box of donuts he couldn't tell me what Xbox he has.
If he doesn't know, no way grandma and grandpa are going to be able to get him a birthday present.
Every DS could play the same games at the same level of quality. So, unless a kid really wanted a specific console feature, it didn't really matter if you bought the wrong one.
Xbox is the opposite, if you get the cheaper console games will look worse and/or run at lower FPS. It only has one option for internal storage, leaving you with ~360gb after accounting for the OS, five or six modern games can fill that pretty easily. Official external storage costs about as much as the console itself.
For many people the trade-offs won't matter but it does make the PlayStation a much simpler choice if you're looking for a console for a kid that doesn't already favour one or the other.
That would be a good thing for Microsoft. I don't think the data supports this. A quick google search showed that there are 25 million Game Pass subscribers and 125 million people in the Xbox ecosystem. There are also still plenty of games that aren't included in Game Pass.
It doesn't help at all that Microsoft's usual brand insanity infected this product. So whereas Sony have made the Playstation, the Playstation 2, the Playstation 3, the Playstation 4 and now the Playstation 5 - Microsoft names products based on picking a handful of "hot" words with no specific meaning, and so like a modern CPU you need to go read a detailed specification document to even figure out what you're actually buying.
Do we need Windows Azure .NET Live? No idea, maybe it's similar to Microsoft Active Core X except targetted at a different market? Here's a blurb telling us it's "For the smart professional", presumably as opposed to products which are only for dumb amateurs ?
Microsoft couldn't follow the 1,2,3... naming convention because the first Xbox came out when the PS2 was out. They'd always seem one behind if they released the Xbox 2 when the PS3 released.
Windows XP and Windows ME have joined your party. They corroborate your story, but seem to be carrying a text only version that claims to be Windows 1.0, who asks in a wheeze where 2 is. Windows 2.1 hides their face and pretends not to notice as they walk away, but they awkwardly trip over Office 365 in the process.
Don't forget Windows 2000. Between Millennium Edition and 2000, Microsoft had two versions of windows simultaneously named in reference to the new century, but with different underlying technology and no way for average users to determine which was better (hint: not the one they marketed to average users.)
The funny thing is even as a consumer that understands all the confusing branding and power differences, I would still buy the cheaper system if it had compelling games to play compared to the PS5…it just doesn’t, and when it comes to first party titles everything Microsoft puts out is mid at best (Halo), or downright awful (Redfall). I also own a Nintendo Switch and I think I own more games on that than any other console I’ve owned in my entire life so raw power is t an issue for me. I want to want to buy an Xbox but the most important thing (games) just is t there. I may still buy one when Starfield comes out because it would be more expensive to build a gaming PC to play it (mac user), but I’m waiting to find out from reviews if it lives up to the (admittedly impressive from what they’ve shown) stuff they’ve shown off recently.
Funny thing is, that video was made within Microsoft. It's fascinating that everyone can be aware of the problem, but they still can't steer the behemoth.
I'm surprised that with all the money that MSFT has that they can't just put 1 or 2 Bm into a few few AAA titles / or just create them to drive the experience.
On the hardware note, I would not discount the impact that covid chip shortage had on the ability for MSFT to pivot on this problem.
Microsoft put over 200 mil in Halo 5, only to promptly abandon it. Needless to say, Microsoft has not been a great steward for first party games. Ninja Theory has been making Hellblade for god knows how many years, Redfall, Sea of Thieves... All massive investments with very little return.
Yeah I think the problem is MSFT being directly involved in the game. I think the better model for them would be if they just sprinkled money on studio's with ambition. It's like the movie business, there'll be misses, but there'll be big wins.
IIRC they weren't directly involved in Redfall's development. They may have pushed for it to release when it did though.
HiFi Rush is exactly what you describe. Published by Bethesda but developed by a smaller studio. Very well received without requiring a huge investment.
Do non-technical consumers care though? The Series S is an amazing little machine, and it's the cheapest. I think that's all most non-technical or casual gamers really want.
I'm pretty technical but I'm definitely a casual gamer, the Series S serves me perfectly.
I don't think the Series S is selling that particularly well. Back when the consoles were in very short supply in 2021-2022, the Series S and the Switch were the only consoles advertised in electronics stores print ads – the PS5 and Xbox Series X would be long sold out before the print ads would even get to circulation.
The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.
The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they're getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.
They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.
On another note, it'd be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.