<story><title>Has Xbox lost the console wars?</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/24/23772314/ftc-microsoft-day-two-hearing-summary-xbox-console-wars-sony-playstation-call-of-duty</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>petepete</author><text>I just had to look up the difference between the series X and S. It wasn&amp;#x27;t obvious to me. It&amp;#x27;s not even obvious which is the more powerful model, there&amp;#x27;s no mention anywhere of what X and S stand for. Is &amp;#x27;S&amp;#x27; Small or Super? And I guess the &amp;#x27;X&amp;#x27; is for eXperience.&lt;p&gt;Compare that to PlayStation 4&amp;#x2F;PlayStation 4 Pro&amp;#x2F;PlayStation 5 (and yeah, I&amp;#x27;m not going to argue that &amp;#x27;pro&amp;#x27; isn&amp;#x27;t a stupid designation for a slightly-more-powerful-than-before console), but it&amp;#x27;s at least obvious where they sit in the lineup.</text></item><item><author>Philip-J-Fry</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think Xbox made the same mistake. Because while the naming is pretty bad, people do actually know it&amp;#x27;s the latest generation console.&lt;p&gt;The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people&amp;#x27;s radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that&amp;#x27;s all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.</text></item><item><author>disruptiveink</author><text>Xbox ultimately made the same mistake as Nintendo with the Wii &amp;#x2F; Wii U.&lt;p&gt;Just give the console a number. And. Increment.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s it. You can still have Pro &amp;#x2F; Slim &amp;#x2F; whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.&lt;p&gt;Nothing convinces me that this isn&amp;#x27;t the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That&amp;#x27;s it.&lt;p&gt;Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft&amp;#x27;s marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It&amp;#x27;s unbelievable.</text></item><item><author>Jochim</author><text>Sony exclusives on the PS5 and a dearth of quality exclusives on Microsoft&amp;#x27;s side definitely have a lot to do with this but I wonder whether the Xbox Series S&amp;#x2F;X distinction contributed as well.&lt;p&gt;The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they&amp;#x27;re getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.&lt;p&gt;They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.&lt;p&gt;On another note, it&amp;#x27;d be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ramses0</author><text>AFAIK it’s X, S, Series X, Series S.&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, S is “no physical media”&lt;p&gt;AFAIK, “series” means “fancy”&lt;p&gt;I’ve only ever purchased XBox consoles and currently rock an XBox One.&lt;p&gt;Lemme fix your marketing, XBox: call the “no drive” ones “cloud” or “online” or “vapor” or whatever.&lt;p&gt;Call your next one 9006 so it is simultaneously “over 9000”, and puts you back in the semver race with PlayStation. &amp;#x2F;s</text></comment>
<story><title>Has Xbox lost the console wars?</title><url>https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/24/23772314/ftc-microsoft-day-two-hearing-summary-xbox-console-wars-sony-playstation-call-of-duty</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>petepete</author><text>I just had to look up the difference between the series X and S. It wasn&amp;#x27;t obvious to me. It&amp;#x27;s not even obvious which is the more powerful model, there&amp;#x27;s no mention anywhere of what X and S stand for. Is &amp;#x27;S&amp;#x27; Small or Super? And I guess the &amp;#x27;X&amp;#x27; is for eXperience.&lt;p&gt;Compare that to PlayStation 4&amp;#x2F;PlayStation 4 Pro&amp;#x2F;PlayStation 5 (and yeah, I&amp;#x27;m not going to argue that &amp;#x27;pro&amp;#x27; isn&amp;#x27;t a stupid designation for a slightly-more-powerful-than-before console), but it&amp;#x27;s at least obvious where they sit in the lineup.</text></item><item><author>Philip-J-Fry</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t think Xbox made the same mistake. Because while the naming is pretty bad, people do actually know it&amp;#x27;s the latest generation console.&lt;p&gt;The Wii U on the other hand completely flew under most people&amp;#x27;s radar. People were over the Wii and then Nintendo releases the Wii U. Most people thought it was an addon tablet because that&amp;#x27;s all they kept showing, just Wii remotes and the tablet.</text></item><item><author>disruptiveink</author><text>Xbox ultimately made the same mistake as Nintendo with the Wii &amp;#x2F; Wii U.&lt;p&gt;Just give the console a number. And. Increment.&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s it. You can still have Pro &amp;#x2F; Slim &amp;#x2F; whatever models, but I have no idea why Nintendo and Microsoft both willingly threw away the easiest marketing strategy there is: your kid has the 4 and the 5 just came out. 5 is larger than 4 therefore the kid knows what to ask, regardless of age. The parent also knows what to buy because 5 is larger than 4.&lt;p&gt;Nothing convinces me that this isn&amp;#x27;t the reason why new Playstation models sell like crazy before any decent games are out. 4 was larger than 3 and 5 is larger than 4. That&amp;#x27;s it.&lt;p&gt;Nintendo got out of it by starting a new line of consoles with the Switch, but Microsoft&amp;#x27;s marketing just keeps giving this one away to Sony for free. It&amp;#x27;s unbelievable.</text></item><item><author>Jochim</author><text>Sony exclusives on the PS5 and a dearth of quality exclusives on Microsoft&amp;#x27;s side definitely have a lot to do with this but I wonder whether the Xbox Series S&amp;#x2F;X distinction contributed as well.&lt;p&gt;The current console generation came with a fairly large price hike and Microsoft responded by also releasing a more affordable but less powerful model.&lt;p&gt;The problem is that a non-technical consumer can go out and purchase a PS5 safe in the knowledge that they&amp;#x27;re getting the same gaming experience as anyone else that owns a PS5. Someone considering an Xbox now has to choose between the series S and X.&lt;p&gt;They now need to compare specifications, figure out which one is more powerful and worry whether the console will be able to deliver decent fidelity and performance in newer games.&lt;p&gt;On another note, it&amp;#x27;d be nice to see exclusivity agreements die entirely. Microsoft has always been fairly good at making their titles available on PC and Sony is moving in that direction but still makes heavy use of timed exclusives.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>theropost</author><text>And not to be confused with the previous generation Xbox One X.</text></comment>