In July, Sony reported that a whopping 78% of the $546 million it earned in quarterly profits came from the segment that encompasses PlayStation, reports Yahoo Finance.
This continued dominance is reflected in the console market with the PS4 having sold 40 million units as of May 2016, compared to the Xbox One’s 20 million (they have subsequently stopped reporting their sales figures).
So they have nothing to worry about right?
That’s not what history says and following the PlayStation 2 (the best-selling console of all time) Sony gave up tremendous ground to Microsoft and its Xbox 360.
While one could argue that this is purely the cyclical nature of the tech industry, there’s also an element of cocksuredness that seems to possess the leading console manufacturer.
Sony did it when they released the PS3 for several thousand Rand more than the Xbox 360 while the Xbox One immediately alienated gamers with its always-online policies.
It looks like the same thing is about to happen again, with Microsoft is making big moves to unify Windows 10 and the Xbox console as part of an ambitious master plan to reinvent itself in the post-PC era.
The Xbox One S already upscales 4K content alongside the PS4 Pro this year, and next year Microsoft will introduce its Project Scorpio which by all accounts doesn’t have a direct Sony competitor.
Sony’s only hope is PS VR, but if that turns out to be a commercial failure, Microsoft could already be the winner of the next console generation.
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Glad it’s doing well but I do hope that it’ll come down in price at some point (especially the games). I honestly think the biggest flaw of consoles in general though for me personally is that they often lead to rather poor ports when they come along to PC but if the prices of the games came down I’d consider replacing my PS3 with one otherwise I’m just going to rather setup a PC streaming environment for those times when I’m not in front of my PC.