As Sony and Microsoft battle for the hearts and minds of gamers, Sony has held one big advantage: the Playstation 4 was cheaper than the Xbox One. But things are different now. Xbox has steadily moved towards cheaper prices, and one of the things that Sony didn’t announce at E3 this year was a price cut that would have kept pace.
A standard Xbox now costs 50 less than a standard Playstation. Combined with Microsoft’s announcement that the Xbox One will be able to run older games, this change could impact the balance of power as the two companies battle to win the loyalty of the most enthusiastic gamers. Playstation’s decision not to follow suit was seen as a surprise in some corners of the gaming industry.
Most people who follow gaming think that Microsoft made a strategic blunder in late 2013 by charging 100 more for the Xbox One than Sony charged for the Playstation 4 (500 versus 400). Since then, Microsoft has been doing everything it can to lower the price of the Xbox without admitting that this is what’s going on.
First Microsoft stopped requiring people to purchase a Kinect along with the Xbox, getting the price down to Playstation levels. Then it offered an additional holiday discount of 50, which ended in January. Less than two weeks later, the company started offering a “special price” of 350 – essentially reinstating the holiday deal.
In the run-up to this year’s E3 it made that price permanent, and allowed
people to spend 50 extra for twice as much storage space and a slightly improved controller.
During the last round of the console wars, Sony consistently sold the Playstation 3 at much higher prices than Microsoft’s Xbox 360. It also sold fewer of them, as the chart above shows.
The price discrepancy then was greater than the current one. But price is likely to become more of an issue the further the companies expand beyond early adopters. For the last two years, millions of so-called core gamers have purchased Xboxes and Playstations, but mostly Playstations.
As time goes on, several dynamics start pushing down prices. The
companies simply get better at making consoles, and start benefiting from the economics of scale in manufacturing, as well as incremental improvements in making the components in the consoles.
But the market also changes after the core gamers have purchased their consoles and Microsoft and Sony begin relying on drawing in more casual customers. Unlike people who waited in line at midnight two Novembers ago, the most recent customers don’t feel that cost is no object when it comes to gaming. A 50 saving could make a difference.
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