While Michael Pachter has been talking about the upcoming Nintendo NX more than anything else, that doesn’t mean he doesn’t also have some opinions about Microsoft’s Xbox One and Sony’s PS4. On the latest round of his new podcast, Pachter talked about the gap in sales between the Xbox One and the Sony PS4. In short, while Microsoft has been doing things to try and get into a real fight during the console wars, the industry analyst believes the war has already been lost.
During the podcast, Pachter was asked what, at this point Microsoft could do in order to make up ground against the PS4. In response, he answered that there really isn’t anything the company could do. Microsoft is going to have to be happy finishing second and that the firm should just be glad it isn’t finishing behind Nintendo. Pachter pointed to the two companies’ sales numbers for their most popular consoles. For Sony, the PlayStation 2 sold more than 170 million units. Microsoft’s best selling console, the Xbox 360 is sitting at around 80 million units sold. “We should start every console cycle assuming Sony’s going to outsell Microsoft 2 to 1, because they have twice as many people who know what their console is and like.” Pachter said in his podcast.
The analyst also said that it’s rather remarkable Microsoft is able to hang steady the way it has been the last few months. Despite it being competitive in some regions, holding steady is about as good as Microsoft can hope to do. “My guess is Microsoft is gonna really try hard to win in the U.S. and they’re probably going to fail. They’re gonna hope to win globally and they’re pretty definitely gonna fail.”
Thanks, Twinfinite.
