Microsoft then responded and said that they had sold 5 million units, to retailers. The 7 million PS4 sales mean that there are 7 million units in the living rooms of people. The Xbox One sales merely mean that 5 million units have been on the shelves of retailers, with some of them having ended up in the living rooms of gamers. Of course these numbers don’t mean that Sony is winning the fight of the consoles by sales of 2 million, it just shows that the Sony PS4 is selling faster.
The gap in sales isn’t about the games on the consoles as both have many of the same games. It could be more about the Kinect on the Xbox One. However if this trend continues and Sony widens the gap then it could mean that we could see some big exclusives on the PS4 and the Xbox One could get left behind.
Sony has been narrowing down the gap for exclusive content and they have around 200 games in their library, in comparison to the 150 of Microsoft. They have 27 exclusives planned out to the 17 that Microsoft has. At the moment this gap isn’t all that big, however if the sales continue to favour the PS4, then more people are going to go the way of Sony.
The Xbox One could be behind thanks to the fact that it costs $100 more than the PS4. You can get the PS4 in 72 countries, while you can buy the Xbox One in just 13, these are Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom, US, and New Zealand. When it was launched Microsoft delayed it in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland. They did say that there were many factors behind this, but it could be that the biggest reason for the delay came down to the Kinect and Voice commands.
In the 13 countries where the Xbox One is sold, people buying it need to be fluent in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. The countries in which it has been delayed speak 10 languages that are not part of the Kinect system. Every owner has had some issues with the voice commands of Kinect and Microsoft continues to fine tune it. So Kinect is a WIP, so is there any wonder that Microsoft are having issues trying to teach it Swedish?
So there are fewer people able to buy the Xbox One and they are turning to the PS4. Microsoft is losing out on potential customers thanks to Kinect. Peter Molyneux called the Kinect nothing but a joke recently and he said that Microsoft should get rid of it.
“I actually wish Kinect wasn’t a requirement. It feels like an unnecessary add-on to me. Maybe it’s because we’re in England, and it doesn’t really use the TV stuff, but it feels more and more like a joke,” he said. “My son and I sit there saying random things at it, and it doesn’t work. They could cost-reduce it [by removing Kinect]. I’m sure they’re going to release an Xbox One without Kinect. It would be unthinkable that they wouldn’t.”
At the moment Microsoft is losing in the sales war simply because they are too stubborn to give up Kinect. Perhaps they know something that the rest of us don’t know? Kinect however is keeping the Xbox One out of markets and adding on $100 to the price tag of the console.
The Kinect is a failure at the moment and Microsoft should be careful as it could end up being the downfall of the Xbox One and Microsoft.
