Say what you will about the heated competition between Microsoft and Sony, with both companies preparing for the launch of their next gen consoles, the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, this November, but even both of them must be aware that the competition is good for business.
Take Microsoft corporate VP Yusuf Mehdi. At the Citi Global Technology conference, he stated that, “First, I do think it’s an incredible time for gamers. One of the things that has never happened is we go head-to-head with a competitor on a console launch.
”I think that’s going to bring a lot of energy to the overall gaming market and a lot of focus and attention, and I think that’s going to further grow the market. So I think in general it’s a good time to be a gamer. We feel good about our business within that.
“Competitively speaking, so far, I feel like we have a much better… more complete value prop. We do things that aren’t found on other platforms with the Kinect, a huge piece of differentiation. As I said before, the fact that we do entertainment and gaming. And then even if you just take gamers, hardcore gamers, gamers buy for the game. They don’t buy for stats on a spec sheet. And if you look at the games we have, according to most industry experts now, a better lineup of games.”
The Xbox One launches on November 22nd worldwide, while the PlayStation 4 launches on November 15th in North America and on November 29th in Europe.