Sony vs. Microsoft (Gaming)

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Wednesday, June 17, 2015, 16:05 (3450 days ago) @ Kahzgul

I don't understand both companies scrapping it with the new systems.

I think the reason they did that initially is that for both companies, they still saw their last-gen systems as active platforms. They're still selling them, selling games for them, and supporting them. From their point of view, they assumed people who want to play PS3/360 games will simply have those systems on hand. That, combined with the not-insignificant engineering effort needed to make an emulator which functions well enough for commercial use, led them to conclude it wasn't necessary.

I think what they didn't take into account is that those last-gen systems will eventually fail and no longer be available (probably very soon), and people want to be able to continue to play their old games if/when that happens.

100% agreed. I feel like the Xbox One has always offered a lot more than the PS4, but because Microsoft's launch focused almost exclusively on the new stuff and ignored that - at its core - the system is still a gaming platform, it suffered dramatically in the press.

All pretty much true. Whether the XBone offers more is a matter of opinion and probably not universal for everyone, but what is definitely true is that Microsoft's marketing message out of the gate SUCKED. And Sony definitely took full advantage of that - remember their outright gleeful tone at last year's E3? It was painful to watch as an XBone owner.

They've been changing that story for over a year now, and it really shows during this E3.

Yeah. Somewhere along the way, Microsoft realized they had shot themselves in the foot. That seemed to coincide with Phil Spencer becoming head of XBox. Perhaps everyone else was clueless, they brought Phil in to fix things, he realized the marketing sucked, and subsequently changed it. Or perhaps others figured out the problem on their own, and just realized Phil was the best person to push the gaming agenda. Either way, things were terrible in the MS camp, and now they're less terrible.