By Camille Chabroud – Posted on Jul 31, 2022 at 1:16 p.m.
Was the console war planned from the start? The former Xbox executive explains why it provided healthy and useful competition.
If Nintendo has never really been part of this console war, offering something family and unique, the strong competition between Xbox and PlayStation has always been relevant. Exclusives, prices, subscriptions… The two consoles from Microsoft and Sony have been rivals for ages now and it seems that this is done on purpose.
Xbox VS PlayStation: A useful console war?
Former Xbox executive Peter Moore, who helped oversee the company during the Xbox 360 era, recently spoke about how he “encouraged console wars” within his team as a way to produce healthy competition. Xbox’s main rival at the time was Sony and its PlayStation 3 console.
“We encouraged console wars, not to create division, but to challenge each other, and when I say each other, I mean Microsoft and Sony. If Microsoft hadn’t stayed the course after Xbox, after the infamous “Red Rings of Death,” you wouldn’t have the competition you have today. » Moore told the Front Office Sports podcast.
The Red Rings of Death was an infamous error message, born from the components ball bearings cracking due to repeated heating and cooling when the system was turned on and off. As revealed in the recent Xbox documentary, this hardware flaw cost Microsoft dearly, and they had to find and fix it. “When we factored in the cost of repairs and lost sales, we ended up with a $1.15 billion problem,” Moore said in The Story of Xbox chapter that charts the journey of the Xbox 360. .
Today, it’s hard to know if this console war is still as healthy and useful as ever, but cross-platform multiplayer features seem to have erased digital boundaries for a very large number of games. In the end, even if there are always very big exclusives to come (God of War, Starfield etc.), the majority of franchises opt for multiplatform in order to target a wider audience. On the other hand, this “war” can still be felt in the many takeovers such as that of Bungie by Sony for example recently.
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