IDC research manager Lewis Ward believes that the recent price cut for Xbox One will make sure that Microsoft will be leading the console wars by 2015. Yesterday. Microsoft announced that they will be selling a Kinect-less version of Xbox One at a retail price of $399 beginning this June.
“This change will be enough to push the Xbox One installed base higher than PS4 in the U.S. and Canada in 2015 rather than 2016. It kind of reminds me of Microsoft’s evolution on Windows and IE. The initial design needs some serious help (i.e., last summer’s DRM ‘Xbox 180’) and then improves to point of being a serious contender (this Kinect unbundling) and then vies for market share dominance (although I continue to believe PS4 will have the largest global installed base of any console at the end of 2016),” he explained,” Lewis said to Gamesindustry.
Earlier, Lewis had predicted that Xbox One will take the lead by 2016, however due to Microsoft’s unexpected price cut, the analyst now believes that the US market will now belong to the Redmond based company.
It’s amazing to note that how competition can help companies to take better decisions. It seems that the PlayStation 4 path to victory won’t be smooth after all.