wraggster
August 18th, 2020, 21:18
As a wise and very bald man will eventually say, it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose.
I've written several times this year (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-06-12-playstation-5s-reveal-was-all-about-continuity-opinion) about how the most remarkable feature of the run-up to this year's next-gen console launches is how adeptly both Sony and Microsoft are handling everything (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-10-could-sony-stumble-on-cross-generation-games-opinion). No balls have been dropped, no feet firmly wedged into mouths, no vainglorious statements made that will come back to haunt everyone involved. Nobody's tried, inexplicably, to turn their console into a glorified viewing device for live TV, or claimed that it's a miracle wonderbox that consumers will gladly get second jobs to afford.
The future visions articulated for Xbox and PlayStation are quite divergent, but each of them has thus far been outlined adroitly and sensibly. Yet even though both companies are deftly navigating around the pitfalls of a pre-launch year, it's hard to escape the sense that the cards are increasingly stacked against them, and successful launches of the scale they would naturally desire may now be impossible. Put bluntly, 2020 might be shaping up to be the worst year imaginable in which to launch a new console -- let alone two of them.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-14-stacking-the-deck-against-the-new-console-launches-opinion
I've written several times this year (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-06-12-playstation-5s-reveal-was-all-about-continuity-opinion) about how the most remarkable feature of the run-up to this year's next-gen console launches is how adeptly both Sony and Microsoft are handling everything (https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-07-10-could-sony-stumble-on-cross-generation-games-opinion). No balls have been dropped, no feet firmly wedged into mouths, no vainglorious statements made that will come back to haunt everyone involved. Nobody's tried, inexplicably, to turn their console into a glorified viewing device for live TV, or claimed that it's a miracle wonderbox that consumers will gladly get second jobs to afford.
The future visions articulated for Xbox and PlayStation are quite divergent, but each of them has thus far been outlined adroitly and sensibly. Yet even though both companies are deftly navigating around the pitfalls of a pre-launch year, it's hard to escape the sense that the cards are increasingly stacked against them, and successful launches of the scale they would naturally desire may now be impossible. Put bluntly, 2020 might be shaping up to be the worst year imaginable in which to launch a new console -- let alone two of them.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2020-08-14-stacking-the-deck-against-the-new-console-launches-opinion