Console War VII (Part 2) January 31, 2023

Welcome back to the Console War where we are quickly headed into the present. As we start this story, Microsoft had announced their next console and Google’s Stadia was essentially dead on arrival. Pokemania’s second wave had started to cool, but the Switch platform was still going strong. Even the Switch Lite had fantastic ongoing sales, as the lower price point was a big incentive for players who had no interest in owning a modern HDTV. What was going to happen next? Sony was about to announce their next console, the PlayStation 5.

In due time, Sony announced their next console would be the PlayStation 5. The first talk about it was mostly technical details, and some of it focused on 3D special audio capabilities. Eventually, two PS5 consoles were revealed, and the only difference between them was that one would include a disc drive and the other would not. Otherwise they’d still be able to play the same games at exactly the same visual standard and performance.

Like the Xbox Series could support Xbox One titles, Sony announced users would be able to play PS4 games on the PS5 through backwards compatibility. Unfortunately, unless the user was engaging in backwards compatibility, PS4 accessories would not work on the PS5 with the exception of the PlayStation VR. However, the PS5’s camera was incompatible with the PSVR, so VR owners would need to obtain an adapter to get their old PS4’s camera working on the PS5. This adapter could be gotten for free on Sony’s website and would be sent out if a user provided Sony Support their PSVR’s serial number.

When Microsoft announced they would be releasing games for both the Xbox One and Xbox Series moving forward, Sony did as well. Major titles including Spider-Man: Miles Morales would get released on both the PS4 and PS5. When Microsoft announced any Xbox cross platform game would only need to ship on a single game package, Sony refused to go this route. Instead of releasing multiplatform games in a single package or offering one-purchase-both-platform digital sales for PS4 and PS5 games, Sony would continue to publish separate PS4 and PS5 disc packages to retail and charge a premium upgrade fee for several titles that shipped on both consoles. PS4 games would typically play on a PS5 using backwards compatibility, but PS5 discs would not work on the PS4. Some PS4 games (such as Control: Ultimate Edition) would offer the ability to play the PS5 native version of the game natively, but it wasn’t always certain if your game would actually launch as a PS4 or PS5 game even if you inserted a PS5 disc into your PS5. Also, saves from PS4 games would not be compatible with their PS5 version, and developers would need to create a conversion tool inside their PS4 games if they wished their users to carry over their progress to the PS5.

Despite these issues, expectations were high for the PS5. As the PS4 was declared the winner of the previous generation of the console war, Sony was walking into the PS5’s generation as the clear frontrunner. Both the PS5 and Xbox Series consoles launched in Fall 2020, but even if you were a hardcore gamer it would be difficult for you to even know it. As I mentioned before, most major titles for the new consoles would have previous generation releases. Unlike the PS4/Xbox One generation that completely cut new releases for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on day one of the PS4/Xbox One launches, games are still coming to the older Sony and MS platforms to this day. Sadly, multi-generational releases weren’t the only reason most people didn’t realize the new consoles were out and I think now is the time for us to address the elephant in the room.

Most people didn’t realize the Xbox Series X or the PS5 released was because you couldn’t find any of them in any store for years after they officially released. In 2020, one of the worst pandemics humanity had ever seen was running wild, forcing most people to stay home. Since the most common activity for people to do while staying home was to play video games, for several months most people did exactly that. Knowing this, several “opportunistic” individuals focused on buying up as much of the stock of game consoles as they could. I believe their intention was to hoard their purchases with the intention to resell at exorbitant price increases. Since there was no difference in the minds of most people, ALL game consoles, be it a Nintendo Switch, a PlayStation or an Xbox, would be bought up almost as soon as they made it to retail for the purpose of a quick resell.

For two years, new consoles were nearly impossible to find at retail. This was a major problem for gamers interested in upgrading their equipment, or people with existing consoles that failed on them and needed to be replaced. This also makes it difficult to keep track of the console war’s pacing, as due to the resale market, it was literally meaningless to track sales during this time. Since none could be found on shelves, all a sales figure would tell you was how many consoles were MADE as of the time it was recorded.

At the height of this demand for new consoles, Nintendo made the announcement they would release a new Switch revision, a Switch with an OLED screen. This new Switch was capable of playing all existing Switch games on a beautiful OLED screen. However, other than including a built-in Ethernet port, everything else about the OLED Switch was the same as the original model and it still output in a 1080p while docked. Gamers everywhere had been clamoring for Nintendo to launch a Nintendo Switch capable of outputting in native 4K resolution and the Switch OLED just could not do that. However, the new screen was absolutely beautiful and the influx of new stock of consoles helped Nintendo have product on retail shelves in time for the Holidays.

Two years into the console war, the resale market would start to crater, and the new generation of consoles could finally be found on retail shelves for people to purchase. Not including Nintendo Switch, the first console to eventually be able to be found on the shelves of normal retailers was the Xbox Series X, several months later gamers could find PS5s. At the same time PS5s began showing up on retail shelves, Sony released several incredible PS5 exclusives, including God of War: Ragnarok and a remaster of the PS3 masterpiece The Last of Us. Sales for the PS5 and the new games coming for the platform pushed it ahead for this generation.

So why was the PS5 outselling the Xbox once again? It came down to the games. Most of the major games coming to the Xbox platform haven’t generated much interest, especially with Microsoft’s major focus on microtransaction-filled multiplayer arena titles. Halo: Infinite, a major poster child for the Xbox Series launch, was delayed several months past the console’s launch. When it eventually did release, it was a disappointment. Sony, on the other hand has been continuing their tradition of producing epic single-player adventures with a major focus on plot and story.

Why did Sony have the best exclusives? After getting burned badly in the initial launch period of the Xbox One, most third-party publishers ceased doing exclusive games for Microsoft. They knew Microsoft’s market share would not allow them to generate enough sales to warrant an exclusive game, regardless of how much Microsoft offered them up front. Microsoft’s only answer to solve the problem of all these companies refusing to produce exclusive games for them was to just outright buy their companies. Microsoft has purchased not just several independent game developers like Double Fine, they also bought several major publishers including Bethesda and as of this writing they’re trying to get approval to purchase Activision. However, while that may be a winning strategy for them in the long term, in the short term it hasn’t been working out.

Microsoft also devoted itself to making all of its major first-party releases multiplaform. That meant you didn’t need to play Halo: Infinite on the Xbox Series X or S, you could play it on the Xbox One or PC. While this was very consumer-friendly, it meant major titles were left unoptimized for the individual platforms. People who did play the game on the Series X, myself included, were disappointed with its graphics and performance on what was supposedly Microsoft’s high-end console. Meanwhile, Sony’s games took full advantage of the hardware capabilities of the PS5.

At the end of 2022, Google announced they would be shutting down the Stadia service. It turned out the expectations of literally every gamer aware of their history had come to pass, and Google realized they weren’t generating enough income with their individual game sales to justify continuing to operate the expensive service. With the shutdown, gamers who made Stadia purchases would be completely locked out of their games. To relieve the concerns (or possibly to avoid lawsuits) Google announced they would refund ALL Stadia hardware and software purchases made during the platform’s lifespan. They would not, however, refund gamers who paid for the monthly premium Stadia service. Gamers with existing Stadia hardware could continue to use their Chromecast Ultras without Stadia functionality (something I can attest most people were doing already) and Stadia Controllers worked fine on conventional PC games. As a last gesture to generate goodwill, Google released a hardware update for the controllers to enable wireless Bluetooth capabilities, but they also worked fine with their provided USB cable.

As we move into 2023, both Sony and Nintendo could argue their way into the frontrunner positions, and Microsoft was not counting themselves out of the game just yet. Stadia is dead, and will live on as a memory of failure in nearly every way conceivable. Sony has recently revealed their next generation PSVR, that they’re calling the PSVR2. Who’s to say what will happen next?

Console War VII (Part 1) January 27, 2023

It sure has been a while hasn’t it? Welcome back to our ongoing history series on the Console Wars, where we tell the story of our time! When we last left off, the Nintendo Switch, and its spin-off the Switch Lite, had seen tremendous success as a console with the capability to take anywhere. Nintendo wasn’t going anywhere. However, Microsoft and Sony were gearing up to replace their PS4 and Xbox One platforms with entirely new consoles, and a new Console War was about to Dawn. Let’s get started, shall we?

In 2019, the Switch platform was selling very well, and plenty of developers were still producing games for it. When it was first announced, I theorized that the Switch could have been the most ideal platform for a Pokémon game to ever be released on. The original strength of Pokémon was its ability to take it anywhere. For the Game Boy, it was common to play in one on one situations before the mass adoption of online gaming for consoles. With the Switch, a user could play their game while on the go, and when the player brought their games home, they could dock their Switches and continue their solo progress on their big-screen HDTVs. Pokémon Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee proved that method could work in 2018, and those were just remakes of the original Pokémon Yellow. The time was right for an all-new Pokémon title created for the Switch from the ground up. Nintendo announced Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield.

At the reveal, the Pokémon Company offered a glimpse of an entirely new region that offered the ability to interact with Pokémon that was actually visible in the game world. There would even be open “wild areas” where trainers would need to avoid high level Pokemon they would not be able to capture. It looked fantastic. Sadly, before Pokémon Sword and Shield released, it found itself in a controversy. Unlike what was possible with previous games, The Pokémon Company admitted they weren’t able to allow the ability for play and trade every Pokémon that had ever existed, including many popular and fan favorites. With the previous generation’s announcement for cloud platforms for storing Pokémon like Pokémon Bank pushing the idea players would be able to keep their Pokémon forever, this news they would not be able to bring older Pokémon into their newest games set off a slew of negative publicity from the gamers who had literally completed their Pokédexes. They were also concerned it would set a dangerous precedent for future titles. However, in November 2019 the negative reviews of the old guard of players were absolutely eclipsed by the sheer volume of copies Sword and Shield ended up selling. That said, the fans were now split on their previously unified enjoyment of the franchise. It seemed the second wave of Pokemania was starting to wane.

There’s another contender I’d like to briefly touch upon in this article, and that was Google’s Stadia. While not technically a console, in a lot of ways it might as well have been. In 2019, Google came forward to announce they had created a game streaming service of their own. It was capable of hosting most of the major games of the time including upcoming titles like Marvel’s Avengers, but unlike other successful streaming services that charged per month for access to a library of titles, Stadia required users to pay full price for each individual game they wanted to stream. Unlike other consoles, despite ones that failed badly, gamers knew immediately if Stadia did indeed fail, their full priced games would become completely unplayable the second support for it ceased.

Google offered Stadia bundles which included a special 4K Chromecast Ultra and a Stadia controller that directly connected to your Wi-Fi hotspot. At launch, next to nobody bought a Stadia bundle. and those who did complained of latency and overpriced games on sale. To compensate, Google attempted to literally give Stadias bundles away, first to the Gaming Press and then to gamers at events like the 2019 Game Awards.

During the same event I received a free Stadia, Game Awards 2019, Microsoft revealed their next console, the Xbox Series X. It was absolutely massive, capable of delivering 4K HDR games at 120hz (depending on your display). While Microsoft did not have a large amount of exclusive games to show for it, they promised it would also be capable of playing Xbox One games, on top of original Xbox and Xbox 360 games that had previously been made backwards compatible on the Xbox One. They followed up the news later on by announcing a second slimmer, cheaper console, called the Xbox Series S. They promised it would be able to play digital versions of the same games made for the Xbox One and Xbox Series X, but the catch was it had no disc drive and could only display at 1080p resolution.

As information about the Xbox Series launch ramped up, Microsoft made an incredible stand for their retail game strategy. They would release any game that supported Xbox One and Xbox Series a single disc. Some existing Xbox One games could even be ported to become native Xbox Series games with a free patch. They assured customers the console would know what version of the game to install, and since Microsoft automatically cloud-synced save files since the days of the Xbox One, they promised save files from one platform would be able to seamlessly transfer to another. This was probably the most consumer-friendly decision Microsoft ever made.

However, the Xbox Series X was at least a year away from release and in the meantime, Microsoft wasn’t planning to release any exclusive games at launch. Even the next Halo game, known as Halo: Infinite, would also be released on PC and Xbox One. To bide time for launch, gamers were encouraged to either buy Xbox One games for it, or prepare to buy access to Microsoft’s new Xbox Live Ultimate service, which bundled Xbox Live Gold support with monthly access to the full version of many great Xbox titles. Essentially, Microsoft was employing the paid business model Stadia should have used!

2019 was a big year for gaming. While Microsoft was considered to have finished last in their generation, they were still in the fight. However, Sony, the winner of the last generation, was waiting in the wings to make their next console’s announcement. What happened? That’s a story for part 2!

Console War VI Part 4 March 19, 2020

As we entered 2017, the PS4 was dominating the sales charts over the Xbox One, but Microsoft was showing no sign they were throwing in the towel. Nintendo, on the other hand, was. Sales of the Wii U console were in the toilet, despite its incredible library of exclusive games and the imminent release of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Nintendo was preparing to shift their focus to their next console, the NX. Due to the fact it would not be released in time for Christmas 2016, Nintendo took the unprecedented step to not reveal their console at E3 that year. Since E3’s foundation, no new console had ever missed an E3 showing and after the Wii U’s poor sales performance, many mainstream pundits wrote the NX off as Nintendo’s final product just as they had with the Wii nearly a decade earlier. We would find the answer very soon as Nintendo held a press event at the start of 2017. Their topic would be the NX.

Nintendo took the stage to announce the Nintendo NX was going to be coming to retail as the…Nintendo Switch. But what was the Nintendo Switch? Was it a console follow up to the Wii U or a handheld follow up to the 3DS? It was actually both. As the console was presented on stage, it appeared to be a fully functional tablet with detachable motion controllers. Then, it was placed into a charging dock where the game being played moved over to display on the adjacent HDTV. The Press dropped their jaws. There was no latency and no loading time in the transition between tablet and television, and Nintendo also showed the transition from television to tablet was just as seamless.

But what about the games? The Nintendo Switch would launch with a series of exclusive titles and ports of beloved games from the Wii U. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which had already been shown on the Wii U, would get a native Switch version at launch. Mario Kart 8 from the Wii U would also get ported to the Switch at launch as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. This Deluxe version included all of the Wii U version’s DLC and some new features. This was good because the Switch was completely incompatible with the Wii and Wii U’s games and controllers. The Switch didn’t even have a disc drive, so retail games would ship on game cards, similar to the carts used for the DS and 3DS. It also had 32GB of internal memory, but its memory could be expanded if the user installed a microSD which had a transfer speed of 65-95Mb/s. The downside was the Nintendo Switch, even docked, could only produce a maximum 1080p image, making 4K UHD gaming out of reach for the Switch. Even after all that, the final price of the Nintendo Switch in box with controllers and a dock would be just $299 US.

The Nintendo Switch released in March 2017 and sold like hotcakes. Within no time it even surpassed the known sales of the Xbox One. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was a must-own launch title (as expected) but one of the games brought over from the Wii U, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, was a big system seller and became the de facto multiplayer title for the Switch at launch. Players like myself were impressed with the Switch, but we were looking forward to some of the later games that were announced for the system including Octopath Traveler, Splatoon 2 and (of course) Super Mario Odyssey. No new Pokémon game was announced for the Switch, but Pokémon’s arcade fighting game Pokkén Tournament would get a Switch port in the form of Pokkén Tournement DX, and it would include three new characters that until that point had only been seen in the arcade version.

E3 2017 came and Microsoft finally revealed the final specs of the 4K-native Xbox One console they had previously been teasing as Project Scorpio and its name, the Xbox One X. This 4K native X console would feature an improved GPU and CPU and promised superior performance over the PS4 Pro bundled into a console that would have the capability to play 4K Blu-Ray movies on disc. It would be coming in November 2017 for a price of $499 US, a $100 premium over the PS4 Pro. Not a single first-party title was released alongside the Xbox One X to show the possibilities of the increased horsepower, but Microsoft did release a free patch for Halo 5 near the X’s launch to bring the game 4K 60fps support on the X. Other third-party developers also took the time leading up to the X’s launch to prepare patches for multiplatform games they already enhanced for the PS4 Pro including Final Fantasy XV. Since the Xbox One X had an improved CPU as well as a GPU, Microsoft assured players their new console’s performance was just as good as the PS4 Pro, and in some cases might be a little better. That was good since it had a nearly $100 premium over the PS4 Pro.

While few PS4 owners chose to trade in their original PS4s for the newer Slim model, many of them were more impressed by the Pro and made the more expensive upgrade to the 4K console. Sony was even nice enough to add a data-transfer feature into the PS4’s operating system using the console’s Ethernet port. People who chose to upgrade to the Slim or Pro from an earlier PS4 found the transfer process painless if time consuming. At a base price of $399 for the Pro, which was still $100 cheaper than the Xbox One X, PS4 games across the board looked so much better on it. In fact, Sony partnered with companies like EA and UbiSoft to make sure that their third-party titles could take full advantage of the Pro’s improved GPU, so games like Battlefront II and Watch_Dogs 2 would launch with full 4K Pro support when they released. By E3 2017, Sony’s entire lineup of first-party titles including Detroit: Become Human, Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Uncharted: The Lost Legacy would all preview in 4K on the show floor. While The Last of Us Part II would need more development time, all of the other games I listed shipped with PS4 Pro native support, and those games looked fantastic.

After the Nintendo Switch launched, Nintendo allowed its early adopters the chance to play their multiplayer games online for free, but they needed to sign up for an online account because the fact it was free was merely temporary. However, games like Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe had great online functionality gamers enjoyed. However, even gamers who loved their Switch were getting more and more frustrated by the Switch’s limited features. Game saves could not be backed up, which for a handheld (that could be lost or dropped) was a serious issue. Downloadable classic games from Nintendo’s back catalog (which was a big reason why I bought a Wii and a 3DS back in the day) were not offered for sale on the Switch’s digital marketplaces. On top of all of that, The Pokémon Company had not yet announced if an all-new Pokémon game would be coming to the Switch. Pokémon games pushed Nintendo handheld sales unlike any other release, and since the Switch functioned as both a handheld and as a console, I could not imagine a better design for a platform a Pokémon game to be released on than the Switch.

Nintendo assured players this issue would be rectified when they launched their premium online service, Nintendo Switch Online. When it launched, it would allow subscribers to resume playing multiplayer games online, and offer them new features including cloud save sync for selected games and access to a select catalog of NES games. At merely $20 per year, the price Nintendo asked for put the $60 a year price for Xbox Live Gold and PlayStation Plus to shame. In 2019, The Pokémon Company finally announced an all-new Pokémon generation would be coming to the Nintendo Switch which would use Nintendo Network for online functionality, but that is a very long story that is not going to be addressed in this article.

As this generation’s console war comes to a close, the winners are clear. Sony’s PS4 is the winner, Nintendo Switch (despite being a late entry) receives the Silver, and the Xbox One comes in third with the Bronze. The Nintendo Wii U can be considered as coming in 4th place, and receives no medal.

So how did the PS4 come out on top? A few reasons, but I think it can be boiled down to price and superior first party offerings. Microsoft made a lot of mistakes this generation and it cost them deeply. At launch, the PS4 was $100 cheaper than the Xbox One and ran multiplaform games at better performance. The exclusive titles Microsoft hoped would help the Xbox One overcome that price premium were critical flops full of microtransactions gamers were not interested in playing. Great exclusive titles like Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive were not considered enough to put an Xbox One in people’s homes. Those games would have to make up for lost sales when they released on the PC. After third parties looked over just how much they were losing in sales by being Xbox One exclusive and Microsoft did away with the Kinect, no third-party publishers were willing to make exclusive titles for the Xbox One by 2016. This was devastating for the console.

In 2019, Microsoft did their best to cut their losses by releasing a new version of the Xbox One S that lacked a disc drive. This was arguably one of the dumbest calls Microsoft has ever made for two reasons. One, the 4K Blu-Ray Disc player was a major reason why people bought the Xbox One S in the first place, and a disc-free console essentially removed what was the ONLY positive the console had over the PS4 Pro. On top of that, at the same time the disc-free Xbox One S reached retail at a price of $250 US…it had to compete with the thousands of Xbox One S consoles that were already on most retailers shelves…that were at the same time selling at discounted prices far below $250. The budget-minded gamers Microsoft was trying to attract with a disc-free Xbox One S would not pay for a $250 console when they could pay for a superior one that had a major feature they wanted for $50-100 less!

Meanwhile, PS4’s own exclusive titles were considered some of the finest games of the entire generation and Sony refused to fill them with microtransactions. God of War (2016) and Marvel’s Spider-Man went on to critical acclaim and even though it is still too early to tell, could be considered games that will be talked about for years to come. Microsoft can’t say the same about the exclusive titles that were released on the Xbox One. Even Halo 5: Guardians, has been considered by Halo fans to be a disappointment and the worst game of the franchise. Even though the Xbox One X could deliver superior performance to the PS4 Pro on multiplatform titles, by the time it released in 2017 it was far too late in the console war for anyone to care. Now, you could probably find a Xbox One X at retail for $299, whereas the PS4 Pro still commands a full price of $399, and people are still buying it.

As for Nintendo, the success of the Switch was unprecedented in this generation, but its late entry and the already massive existing install base for the PS4 kept them out of contention for the Gold, Nintendo still needs to be commended. They have proven time and time again when they’re more interested in creating a product that can enter the console war at a unique angle, they will succeed. They did it with the DS and Wii to great success, and now the Nintendo Switch is doing it again. The failure of the Wii U will go down as a black mark against the company, but with the Switch it is clear they learned from each of the Wii U’s failures to release an incredible product.

In 2019, Nintendo released the Nintendo Switch Lite, a slimmer Nintendo Switch tablet with integrated controllers and a longer battery life. It was only $199 US but it had a lot of downsides. It had no TV-Out functionality, making the Switch feature of something called the Switch moot. Its integrated controllers lacked rumble, making it incompatible with some launch titles and putting some hurdles into players interested in couch gaming. However its price, size and battery life were major strengths and the Switch Lite sold as a popular alternative to the Switch. Nintendo didn’t care what their customers were buying they were making a profit on each Switch that was sold.

And that is where we will wrap this generation’s console war. As I type these words out Microsoft and Sony have already revealed their successors to the Playstation 4 and Xbox One, and if all goes according to plan we will find those consoles on shelves by this Christmas. There have also been rumors a 4K Switch might be in development, but those are unconfirmed at this time. Stay tuned, because in the next generation we will be pitting the Playstation 5 against the Xbox Series X, and the Nintendo Switch is still very much in the game. What will happen? Only time will tell.

Console War VI Part 3 March 13, 2020

It was 2016, we reached the midway point of the Console War, and we had a clear race. Sony’s PS4 was in the lead, Microsoft’s Xbox One was in second place, and Nintendo’s Wii U was in the far third. At around the same time in the PS3/Xbox 360/Wii generation, Sony and Microsoft had decided to mix things up by adding in new motion control peripherals for their consoles. After the painful launch of the Xbox One with the Kinect, that was not going to be repeated. Something else would need to take its place.

In the PC space, another revolution was making way. Virtual Reality gaming was a big deal in the mid-90s, with enormous headsets that promised to put their users “inside” the game. However, while the headsets of the time could replicate 3D head tracking, the primitive computing technology of the time was far too limited to create detailed real-time 3D environments or characters. By the early 2000s, VR gaming had been passed over as a fad and companies no longer invested in it. However, over the 2000s, PC hardware was becoming more and more powerful, and the Kinect, Playstation Move and Wiimote has proven new methods of motion control tracking were available. By the mid 2010s, PC gamers everywhere started to ask, “The time is right to do VR correctly! Why isn’t VR back?”

Before this time, only multimillionaires had the power to finance major products. But the world had just given birth to services like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo, which allowed millions of regular people to pledge financial support for potential products. A company called Oculus decided to test the waters and asked for financial backing for an all-new VR headset designed to take full advantage of HD gaming on high-end PCs. To say the campaign was a success would be an epic understatement and Oculus would go on to be purchased by Facebook. Even after the successful backing campaign, it would take a while before Oculus would end up on store shelves, but in that time many major companies including Sony and Samsung, stood up and took notice.

There was some disagreement over what kind of hardware would work best with the VR headset. Oculus argued the PC should be the best VR component. Sony, however, argued the PS4 would be the best option for VR, and revealed they were working on a VR headset specifically designed for the PS4, Project Morpheus. Even though the PS4 wasn’t as powerful as a top of the line PC at the time, Morpheus would be able to run most of the same software as Oculus, and get its own exclusives. Soon, Morpheus would get an official name, Playstation VR, and it would be compatible with all PS4s at a price of $399US. Besides the headset, gamers would still need to buy a Playstation Camera and Move controllers to play VR games, but that would be included in the headset’s bundle pack. Plenty of games were announced for it, including a VR sequel to Psychonauts and a VR game that took place in the Batman: Arkham universe. Also some standard PS4 games could ship with VR modes.

In 2016, few had high hopes for Nintendo. The Wii U was floundering at retail despite a lineup of great exclusive first party games and Nintendo had seemed to completely give up on the Wii U. At the time Sony and Microsoft started revealing their PS4 and Xbox One hardware revisions, Nintendo was musing about their next console, dubbed the “NX”. Only one Wii U game was shown at E3 2016, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, with the caveat that it would also come to the NX when it launched. The game impressed everyone who demoed it, but it did not move Wii U sales. Instead, most gamers wanted to know more about the NX, but Nintendo was not talking about it yet.

On the other technology front, 4K televisions capable of Ultra High Definition (UHD) resolutions with High-Dynamic Range (HDR) color had hit the market months earlier (at very reasonable prices) but lacked hardware and content to natively take advantage of all the extra pixels in the television. There were no UHD channels (heck even to this day most HD networks don’t even broadcast in 1080p) and content providers did not have 4K capable cable or satellite boxes to offer customers who bought these new TVs. Most UHD TV home users would have to be satisfied with plugging a high-end PC into the TV to get native 4K content. This was not really the best option. In the last generation, the Xbox 360 and PS3 pushed the sales of HDTVs by offering customers the opportunity to take full advantage of their new televisions. The time was right for that to happen again.

Almost as if it was back to back, Sony and Microsoft announced new hardware revisions to their consoles were coming to retail and 4K would be at the forefront. Sony announced two new consoles would be coming to stores by that Holiday, a slim version of the PS4 that would be functionally identical to the original model (just smaller), and a 4K native PS4 Pro. The PS4 Pro would not only support all PS4 games, Sony promised they would allow developers to make their games run natively in 4K HDR. If a game had already been released, developers could bring 4K HDR support to their game in the form of a free patch. However, while the PS4 Pro could stream movies and video off the internet in 4K, the system would not support the new 4K Blu-Ray Disc format. To prove to their users that the base PS4 could still handle itself, Sony released a free firmware update for the PS4 to give gamers the chance to enable HDR on supported televisions. The catch was that HDR would sadly not work if the user had a PSVR connected to their PS4 although they promised PSVR games played on a PS4 Pro could look or run better.

Microsoft also announced two new console revisions were coming for the Xbox One, but admitted they would not be available at the same time. The first would be the Xbox One S, a slim Xbox One that unlike the PS4 Slim would support UHD Televisions, but only through upsampling their game. However, unlike the PS4 Slim or the PS4 Pro for that manner, The Xbox One S would ship with a 4K Blu-Ray Disc player. They also announced a Xbox One would be coming that would natively support 4K UHD games, and they were calling it Project Scorpio, but it would not be ready for a while.

The PSVR launched in October 2016 with a lineup of exclusive games and multiplaform titles ported from Oculus. Some games got positive praise including Batman: Arkham VR and Until Dawn: Rush of Blood, but Arkham VR received negative points for being a brief game. VR enthusiasts unable to afford a high-end PC bought the PSVR headset day one, but very quickly it became clear that VR-enthusiast market was smaller than Sony expected. Ultimately, it’s high price, small catalog and hardware limitations did not push the PlayStation VR out of being considered a niche accessory to the mainstream consumers, but the users who bought it were very pleased and were eager for more games to come to the platform.

The PS4 Pro launched in November 2016 and eventually sold incredibly well, but not at first. There were stories of hardware issues with the first lot of Pros, although Sony would honor their warranty and replace units when needed. However, despite the improved graphics and native 4K gaming support, the PS4 Pro still used the same CPU as the original PS4, and some games updated for the Pro (like Final Fantasy XV) had minor performance issues the standard PS4 did not have. This made some current PS4 owners decide to wait on upgrading to the Pro. These performance issues would eventually be worked out, but it took time.

The Xbox One S launched around the same time as the PS4 Pro and went on to become the first major positive step for Microsoft in this generation’s console war, due to the fact it was cheaper than the PS4 Pro and could play 4K Blu-Ray Discs. This introduced 4K UHD TV owners interested in buying an inexpensive 4K Disc player the opportunity to also play a hefty library of Xbox One and Xbox 360 games. Since the Xbox One S was merely upsampling its games, performance was pretty on par with the launch model of the Xbox One. However, the Xbox One S lacked the port for the Xbox One’s Kinect sensor, essentially killing that peripheral. Some users would be lucky enough to ask Microsoft to send them an adapter to make the Xbox One’s Kinect work on the new hardware, but Microsoft made VERY few and they disappeared from shelves quickly. This made current Xbox One owners hesitant to upgrade to the S, and many (including myself) decided to wait for Project Scorpio.

The PS4 Pro, PSVR and Xbox One S would all be out by Christmas 2016. The lines were drawn, and consumers were preparing to trade in their consoles for new systems. After 2017 began, Nintendo finally struck. It was going to be a VERY busy year, and that will be a story for next time.

Console War VI Part 2 May 3, 2016

This is the second part of our ongoing history on this generation’s console war. If you’d like to read the first part of this article, please click here.

If there was anything that gamers could take away from E3 2014, it was that Microsoft was going to do everything they could to try and regain their lost customer base.  Without telling their developers, Microsoft announced they were no longer bundling the Kinect sensor with every Xbox One, effectively dropping the price of the console by $100 US.  As for new titles, while Microsoft had its own games coming to the Xbox One including Halo 5, they had bought exclusive console rights to many third-party published games hoping gamers would buy an Xbox One to play one of their exclusives.

Nintendo meanwhile was having their own problems with the Wii U. While the system sold decently at its launch, Wii U sales stagnated after the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One. When a console’s hardware sales slump, sales of third-party games on that console slump as well. Once they saw their games were not selling well on the Wii U, third-party publishers slowly pulled their support from the console, leaving Nintendo alone to develop and publish the vast majority of Wii U games. Nintendo announced they were cutting back on E3 plans in 2014 and decided to focus on showing their next major title, Super Smash Bros for Wii U, directly to fans by making E3 demo units playable to the public at Best Buy retailers.  While the general public could only preview the game for a few hours, Nintendo also hosted an enormous Super Smash Bros tournament in Los Angeles during E3. This epic tournament was not only open to the public, it was streamed live on Twitch.TV to a massive viewership.

When Super Smash Bros was released on the Wii U a few months later, it became a huge seller, but that wasn’t the only hit that Nintendo sold.  Around the same time Nintendo was promoting Super Smash Bros, they announced a new technology would be coming to the Wii U called Amiibo.  Amiibos were collectible figurines which made use of the Wii U controller’s NFC transmitter. They were designed with the likeness of various popular Nintendo characters and Nintendo promised anyone who used them could bring their Amiibos into their game, and that they would become more effective the more they were used. When Amiibos launched alongside Super Smash Bros on the Wii U, retailers could not keep them on shelves.

The PS4 was still selling very well throughout 2014, but even if you looked at events with the perspective of time, it is difficult to precisely determine why. Microsoft’s agressive third party buyouts ensured many popular titles like Dead Rising 3, Sunset Overdrive and Titanfall would remain exclusive to the Xbox and/or PC platforms, but gamers saw these exclusives as corporate pandering and refused to buy the Xbox One on principle, and voiced constant complaints to the publishers. In response, while Sony only had their first-party developers to rely on for exclusive PS4 titles, Sony boasted the PS4 would offer superior graphics and performance over the Xbox One when it came to multiplatform games and many independent testers confirmed this was the case.  The PS4 would get great exclusive titles like inFAMOUS: Second Son and Until Dawn but their releases were widely spaced out.  In fact, a vast majority of the system’s exclusive titles were ports of popular PS3 games like The Last of Us and God of War III.  The strength of the multiplatforms and the promise of great upcoming exclusives like Uncharted 4: Among Thieves made the PS4 the highest selling console of the year.

Instead of hosting a live press event during E3 2015, Nintendo once again chose to host live demonstrations of their games at retail stores across the country. While they had great success with titles like Mario Kart 8 and the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros, their next major Legend of Zelda game was suffering delays in development.  Nintendo had also planned an incredible fan events, including the first Nintendo World Championships in over a decade!  While the gaming press didn’t understand what Nintendo was doing, the fans who attended these events sure enjoyed themselves.  They also had been tremendously successful with their line of Amiibo figures. They were the perfect combination of collectible and game accessory. Limited run figures would sell out immediately.  Heck, they were even being purchased by people who didn’t even own the Wii U.  Everyone was buying them like crazy, so Nintendo started integrating Amiibo support into many of their new games including Super Mario Maker.

By E3 2015, Microsoft got desperate. All of the exclusive titles they had bought were not selling as many consoles as they had expected them to, and the third party publishers were becoming wise that Xbox One exclusivity meant an unacceptable drop in projected sales. Public negativity towards the Xbox One had harmed Microsoft’s image, and even though Microsoft had stopped bundling the Kinect, price matched their competition and pledged not to engage in anti-consumer resale restrictions, gamers were still choosing the PlayStation 4 over their console.  At E3 2015, Microsoft announced they were bringing Backwards Compatibility (BC) for select Xbox 360 games to the Xbox One.  Similar to how the Xbox 360 could play only specific original Xbox games, Microsoft vowed that with a simple update and installation, gamers could play select Xbox 360 games natively on the Xbox One whether they downloaded them or got them at retail!

Microsoft’s Xbox One Backwards Compatibility announcement got a mixed reaction from the mainstream gaming press. While it was undoubtably great news for consumers, it couldn’t guarantee console sales this late in the Console War.  The Wii U had full Backwards Compatibility with Wii games and hardware, and it hadn’t helped them convince most Wii owners to upgrade from the Wii.  Nintendo went to a lot of trouble to make it easy for gamers to transfer all of their purchases, saves and DLC from their old system to their new one, but most consumers weren’t even aware of it.  While Xbox One compatibility with popular Xbox 360 games was a great show of goodwill on Microsoft’s part, there was just no way to know if this would be the decision that changed gamers minds about the Xbox One.

Meanwhile, Sony had no direct response to Microsoft’s Backwards Compatibility announcements, since the PS4’s hardware was completely incompatible with the PS3. If players wanted to play PS3 games on the PS4, they would have to wait for Sony to port it, and if Sony happened to port a major retail title, consumers would usually have to either rebuy it or pay an upgrade fee.

In all, the console war was starting to look like a repeat of the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era.  Sony was on top, Microsoft was trailing behind Sony and Nintendo was in last place making almost all the games on their own system.

As the Console War hit its halfway point, Sony announced they would be entering the Virtual Reality market. That, dear readers, is a story for next time.

Console War VI Part 1 August 25, 2015

In 2011, Nintendo would be the first to enter a new generation of console war.  Fueled by the tremendous success of the Nintendo Wii and Nintendo DS, Nintendo was ready to take another gamble to try to repeat the unbelievable success of the Nintendo Wii.  They planned to create a low powered reasonably priced console which would reinvent the controller in a way that only they were capable of.  Taking inspiration from their successful handheld lineup, and the increasing popularity of personal tablet computers, Nintendo created a console based entirely around a controller equipped with both motion controls…and a touchscreen capable of displaying its own video feed.  The Nintendo Wii U was officially announced at E3 2011 to incredible fanfare, and a wide variety of first and third party games Nintendo was preparing for the console’s launch.

Sony and Microsoft said nothing about the Wii U’s announcement, and they were not concerned about Nintendo launching the next console war first.  They knew their consoles would have at least one more year in the market before they would be considered technically obsolete and they were not ready to reveal what they were working on just yet.  The mainstream gaming press gave Nintendo a lot of positive praise for the Wii U, but many were wary.  The console’s graphics were basically on par with what the Xbox 360 and PS3 were already capable of, and without the tablet controller, the Wii U was essentially a high-definition capable Wii.  The Nintendo Wii U launched at the end of 2012 with a pretty impressive series of launch games including Super Mario Bros U, Batman: Arkham City Armored Edition, and the most anticipated third party game in the Wii U’s lineup, ZombiU,  To best show off the system’s capabilities, Nintendo bundled the game Nintendo Land with every premium black Wii U model sold, hoping that it would bring the same success that bundling Wii Sports with every Wii brought.

Wii U sales were slow, but the system gained a loyal following.  People who did buy the system opted to only buy the premium black model, so Nintendo eventually eliminated manufacturing the cheaper white model.  Reviews for the system ranged all over the place, while players loved Nintendo Land and ZombiU, most felt that the games alone did not merit the console’s purchase, even though it was compatible with every Wii game and allowed players to transfer all their save games, Miis and digital purchases from their Wii to the Wii U.  Meanwhile, Sony and Microsoft continued to promote their current platforms but remained tight lipped if they had any plans to replace the PS3 or Xbox 360 with new consoles.  Christmas 2012 would be dominated by the Wii U, but would it be alone for long?

In February 2013, Sony announced their successor to the PlayStation 3, the PlayStation 4.  They had no demo unit available to show the press, only a controller, a 3D camera, and a very select amount of games.  The PS4’s architecture would be a complete 180 from what the PlayStation 3 used, making it completely incompatible with any PS1, PS2 or PS3 game.  In fact, most of the system’s presentation revolved around Sony’s plans to offer a game streaming service based on Dave Perry’s Gakai service.  After the platform’s creator unveiled some of the system’s major features, including an impressive standby feature, several games were shown including a racing game called DriveClub, as well as new entries in the Killzone and inFAMOUS franchises.  Third party developers like Ubisoft also demoed their upcoming games on the PS4, and showed Watch Dogs would be coming to the platform.

After the presentation concluded, PS4 buzz began almost immediately.  It was undoubtedly a powerful system, but there were still a lot of questions about it.  Since Sony had not included a mock up of what the console was going to look like at its initial presentation and spent so much time going on about the console’s streaming services, players did not know if the PS4 would even include a disc drive until after Sony released the system’s specification sheet.  Also, the lack of backwards compatibility was an issue, especially since Sony was planning to sell new PS3 and PS4 titles over the next year, and Nintendo was able to offer Wii compatibility with the Wii U.  However, the console’s specifications impressed and the games looked incredible.

After Sony’s PS4 announcement wrapped, all eyes were on Microsoft to announce their successor to the Xbox 360.  Microsoft would announce their next Xbox console a few months later.  At the announcement event, Microsoft unveiled what their next console would look like and it’s name, the Xbox One…which happened to be the exact same thing most of the mainstream was already calling the first Xbox console since the Xbox 360 launched.  To show the audience how revolutionary their new console was, they showed a clip from the popular game show The Price is Right to show the world their console could stream regular television feeds by connecting with mainstream cable/satellite provider’s set-top boxes!  That’s right, Microsoft was showing how revolutionary their next generation console was by demoing gimmick features nobody would make use of.  They also announced a new Halo TV series was in development with the help of Steven Spielberg, but to this day absolutely nothing has come of that project.  The first game that was shown on the system was Remedy’s Quantum Break, a game which has not been released at the time of this writing, but still remains my most anticipated Xbox One game.

To cap the presentation off, Microsoft announced that every Xbox One sold would come bundled with its own brand-new Kinect camera which would enable full voice control, motion tracking, and video streaming.  When Microsoft launched the first Kinect sensor for the Xbox 360 in 2010 a lot of people thought that it had a lot of potential, but most game developers were not willing to develop games for such an expensive optional accessory.  Now that Microsoft was planning to bundle new Kinect units with every Xbox One sold developers could take full advantage of everything the Kinect added to the platform.

The Xbox One impressed a few but a lot of people remained skeptical.  With the exception of Quantum Break’s showing, most of the time Microsoft spent unveiling their next generation games console was used to talk about everything the system could do but play games. Also, most of the mainstream press had a bad feeling about the things Microsoft was not saying about the new system.  The Xbox 360’s Kinect was revolutionary when it was released, but anyone who had one knew it was too unreliable to work as well as a controller did.  Plus, with the improved camera, a lot of people expressed major privacy concerns with what they considered should have been an optional accessory.  However, the biggest concern the mainstream media would have about the new platform was how it would handle used and traded game sales.  Several media outlets had heard musings that the Xbox One would deny playability to all resold, rented or traded games, one of the most anti-consumer practices that any game developer could have engaged in.  On video, Microsoft spokespeople denied these claims, but officially Microsoft had planned for the Xbox One to be one of the most anti-consumer consoles in gaming history.

With the last two major console announcements out of the way, all eyes were on E3 2013.  There was no doubt that Microsoft, Sony, and third party publishers would be showing off more games for the Xbox One and PS4.  Microsoft struck first, announcing tons of exclusive titles would be coming to the Xbox One including LocoCycle, Killer Instinct, Dead Rising 3, D4, Forza Motorsport 5, and the next main Halo game.  As the show concluded, they announced the Xbox One’s price, $499 US, and said all systems would include a controller, headset, 500GB internal Hard Drive and a Kinect.  However, Microsoft said nothing about how the system would handle its games or how disc purchases would be handled by the system.  Even after the show wrapped, many were still extremely concerned that the Xbox One would not be usable for players who lacked an internet connection, and that game rentals and used resales would be impossible on the system due to heavy anti-consumer copy protection.

A few hours later, Sony took the stage to show the final version of the PS4 and several of the games that consumers would be able to play day one.  Most of the games shown were multiplatform titles and sadly, Sony had no God of War or Uncharted game to show.  However, near the end of the presentation Sony had a moment that most of the mainstream press considered one of the greatest moments in the history of E3, a “drop the mic” moment if you will.  Sony’s executives made it crystal clear in plain English that the PS4 would ship with absolutely no anti-consumer copy protection and have no problem playing borrowed, resold, and rented game discs.  The system’s final price would be $399 US, a hundred dollars cheaper than the Xbox One’s.  The crowd exploded, and preorders for the PS4 in the US went crazy that night.

Nintendo was the last to present, and they showed off a library of upcoming games for the Wii U including Mario Kart 8, Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, and a Wii U remake of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.  It impressed Nintendo’s loyalists, but Wii U sales had been slumping and many were concerned that these games would not improve the Wii U’s sales.

After the E3 show concluded, both Sony and Microsoft started looking at their preorder numbers.  Sony was happy, Microsoft was not.  Oddly enough, Microsoft’s anti-consumer plans for the Xbox One were not resonating with consumers, and the lower price and solid titles offered by the PS4 was more than enough to earn gamers’ trust.  Fearing their own decisions would make them lose the console war before it even stared, Microsoft scrambled their PR teams to try to fix this debacle before the console’s launch, and they made a public announcement to all of their dedicated retailers that they were changing course with their plans and removing the online requirements and rented/resold/borrowed game restrictions of the Xbox One.  The console would have an initial online activation requirement at launch (similar to how a SmartPhone has to get activated in a store before you can take it home with you), but that would be all.  Many consumers, myself included, breathed a sigh of relief over this announcement, but the news was considered too little too late for many who simply didn’t trust Microsoft and had already planned to buy a PS4.

Fall 2013 came around, and the battle was about to start.  The PS4 launched first and quickly sold out its initial allotment.  Demand for the console was so high many were turned away with their money still in their pockets.  Even though it had no backwards compatibility, few exclusive titles, and a launch lineup of games you could likely get for other systems, new PS4s would not stay on retail shelves for long.  When asked why most players were interested in the system, the mainstream consumer listed price and technical capabilities as their primary reasons for buying a PS4.  They believed the multiplatform games looked and ran better on PS4, and for $399 US, the price was right.

Microsoft launched the Xbox One with a Kinect, a huge lineup of exclusive titles for download and retail release, and a $499 price tag.  Aside from a huge market for people who purchased the Day One edition of the console, any non-Day One Xbox One system sat on shelves to collect dust.  The peripheral that Microsoft felt would give the Xbox One a huge leap over Sony’s PlayStation 4 console became every conspiracy theorist’s whipping boy.  Even though Microsoft had reversed their decision to restrict used game sales and require a persistent online connection to play their games, privacy concerns over the Kinect sensor became the reason many gamers refused to pick up the console.  In contrast, Sony’s console was such a hot seller consumers wouldn’t be able to find it on shelves for another three or four months,  By E3 2014, Microsoft backtracked on their decision to bundle the Kinect with the Xbox One, and announced the Xbox One would be sold without a Kinect for a price of $399 US.

What came of this decision and how did this effect the Console War?  You’ll have to read that next time!