Assuming the number is accurate, the fact that that’s with Xboxes pretty readily available and PS requiring jumping through hoops for a solid year+ after launch, and the series S being sub 300 is really rough for Microsoft.
Though their naming being so confusing I have to double check after looking at a listing that it’s actually “current gen” or not definitely doesn’t help.
I have no idea on the name thing. What Microsoft are doing? Every one of their products just has a truly awful name now all of them are confusing.
See Microsoft Studio Code (an expensive and entirely average but workable program that is rarely used) vs MS Code (a truly excellent free program that has become industry standard) - Oh and both programs icons look basically identical and are slightly different shades of blue but otherwise have the same image.
Are you talking about Visual Studio Community/Professional/Enterprise and Visual Studio Code? Because if so, I don’t really agree. Visual Studio is an IDE (VS Community is the free tier) whereas VS Code is a code editor (as the name implies).
Yes they’re different products yet they have very similar names.
Your comment says “Microsoft Studio Code” and “MS Code”, neither of which is a thing (as I tried to point out). The actual software you’re talking about is “(MS) Visual Studio” and “(MS) Visual Studio Code”, and that naming convention is pretty common for products (and other things) that are different but similar (think Photoshop and Photoshop Express, PSX and PS2, C and C++ etc.).
It’s mind boggling. I know a lot of other tech has awful naming. But they at least have the excuse that they have a lot of products to name. 360 was dumb, one was dumber. One S/X was just weird. But Series S/X after that? Giant mess. Two S/X would have still been dumb, but at least people would know it was actually better.
What hoops??
It was an insanely long time before you could walk into a store and buy a PS5. You’d have to catch specific retailers right when they dropped a couple units online.
Eventually Sony let you sign up for a waiting list, and if you had a real history on their platform you’d get a shot in a reasonable amount of time to order within like a 12 hour window they gave you.
Xbox wasn’t completely immune to that. But for a long time, if your goal was just “get a next gen console to play Madden or FIFA” (whatever multiplatform game had a mechanically better next gen version that people who mostly play one game would want), it was a lot easier to do that with Xbox.
It’s pretty clear that that’s mostly because PS was way more popular, but the audience I’m talking about might consider switching if it means they can play that one game now.
Since scalpers would buy out all the stores and stuff, many people such as myself initially turned to discord channels for tracking new shipments to different retailers. I would check it a few times a day, checking Best Buy branches’ online inventories. Eventually Sony made a system where you could register with your PlayStation account for a slot ordering from the next available shipment.
Somehow, Xbox really won me over this generation. I own the XSX and the PS5 disk versions, and one is collecting dust. I think it’s the backwards compatibility for old disks that is just so alluring
Not really surprising, Microsoft has been going a lot harder on the PC and cloud front, so it makes sense that their audience is split between those and Xbox, meanwhile Sony exclusives are only available on PS5.
Been playing a lot of cloud gaming on my PC with a fiber connection. I’m just gonna build a new PC.
