Pricing
The most talked about topic for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One discussion has been the pricing. During the last generation of consoles, Sony opened with the most expensive hardware for the PlayStation 3 being $599 and $499. The console included the biggest innovation to entertainment being Blu-Ray, which was acceptable at the time; but gamers didn’t like the initial pricing which affected early sales of the console. Sony announced at E3, the PlayStation 4 would launch $100 cheaper than the Xbox One at $399.
The company obviously learned from their mistakes last console generations, and has the momentum in their hands to go for the kill like Microsoft did in America and some Europe for the Xbox 360 being cheaper in 2005. Microsoft didn’t do themselves any favor with the arrogant $499 pricing, due to the fact of the console releasing with an updated Kinect sensor that wasn’t standalone. They pretty much killed any chance of having a cheaper console than the PlayStation, making the Kinect standard with all Xbox One consoles.
The difference for Sony this time around, is their overseas install base starts larger than Microsoft in Europe and Japan (obviously); but also potentially in North America as well which has been Xbox territory. The $399 price point was the smartest thing Sony did since the launch of the original PlayStation in 1995 which will be a Trojan horse to push sales this holiday season higher than the Xbox One in the current economy.
Winner: PlayStation 4