Business | Video games

Console-ation prize

In the battle of the video-game consoles, we have a winner

The releases last November of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One were seen as the last hurrah of high-end home games consoles. The previous versions of each device had been roundly beaten by the lower-tech Nintendo Wii. And simpler games played on smartphones and tablets were rapidly gaining popularity. Sony’s strategy was to make its new console a more sophisticated, specialist device aimed at hard-core gamers. Microsoft went the other way, making the new Xbox a versatile multimedia device, aimed at a broader market. Sony’s strategy quickly began to prove more successful: in its first six weeks it sold 4.2m of the new consoles to Microsoft’s 3m.

Microsoft replaced the head of its Xbox division and cut its prices. But a year on from the launches, Sony is still far ahead, and IHS, a market researcher, predicts it will stay that way. Still, the Xbox One now outsells the latest version of the Wii, and has done better than previous Xboxes.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Console-ation prize"

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