As we predicted earlier, Microsoft is being very aggressive with their marketing and promotion of the Xbox One as they prepare themselves for the upcoming holiday shopping season. On the strength of very positive early reviews for Sunset Overdrive, and with the release of The Master Chief Collection coming up , Microsoft is reportedly dropped the price of the console to $349.99, which currently gives it a $50 advantage in price point over their chief rival Sony. Anxious to close the gap in sales between the units expect Microsoft to be very aggressive and how they promote the system especially with the latest Call of Duty due out soon were Microsoft has paid a rather lavish and sizable marketing fee to ensure that the Xbox logo is prominently displayed upon all adds for the game.
Sony on the other hand is taking a more reserved approach coming off several months of sales dominance and with only Little Big Planet 3 do as their prominent exclusive, Sony appears to be willing to base holiday sales on the reputation of the unit and the promise of several exclusives in 2015 as well is impressive array of third-party titles that are currently available and will be coming soon.
I would be shocked if Sony does not try some kind of price adjustment or bundling as remember this is like a very fancy game of chess just with very high stakes. Microsoft is made their move, now Sony will make a counter move and wait for Microsoft to respond accordingly. The big question for consumers is whether or not this is enough to close the gap significantly between the two systems. If Sunset Overdrive comes for the PC has many believe it will, it does help lessen the incentive for person to get the Xbox One in order to play the game. Now I know some people say you don’t get a consul simply to play a game but the release of an exclusive for a consul is a huge driving factor in the purchase of the system. Look at the releases of Titanfall, and Infamous: Second Son. The first time the two consoles had exclusives up against one another. Microsoft saw a bump in sales but so did Sony despite being saddled with the fact that they could not get enough consuls to the market in order to meet demand. The fact that Titanfall was also available on PC and would be released soon to the Xbox 360 platform also took much of the incentive out of the need to go buy a new console to play the game.
Now at this point fans of Sony and Microsoft who have the financial means to do so, have likely already picked up the console of their choice. The strategy is to bring in those who have not yet purchased a console, or to get those who have a rival system to purchase one from the competition.
For me personally, it is all about the exclusives as I play most of my gaming on the PC so the consoles are mainly for exclusives and reviews,
Sunset is a good game and it’s very fun, but even at a reduced price it is not worth the investment in an Xbox One in my opinion. Halo fans will show whether the upcoming collection is a big enough incentive but I do wonder if many fans of the series already own an Xbox One which will basically mean that the collection will sell well but may not be the bump in unit sales that Microsoft is expecting. I would suspect Halo 5 will be the one that really has the push behind it to justify purchase of the new system. Sony meanwhile is taking a counterpunchers mentality as they know that both Bloodborne and The Order: 1886 are sitting there waiting for release in February which would be an ideal time for consumers to spend some of the holiday cash and gift certificates that people have accumulated.
Buckle up folks, this is can be one thrilling ride into 2015.
