13
votes
The UK and other regions are running suspiciously low on Xbox Series X console stocks, why is PlayStation still widely more available?
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- Authors
- Jennifer Young
- Published
- Jan 14 2025
- Word count
- 955 words
I truly wonder if Microsoft is just trying to slowly kill the Xbox hardware line and lean into game publishing like Sega. It's sad seeing the Xbox hardware languish like this.
I hope not. Having only one console manufacturer would be bad for everyone, including PlayStation fans and PC gamers. Microsoft isn’t providing much competition against PlayStation right now, and we have already seen Sony start to rest on their laurels. They need someone to push them to make their best work.
Are we not counting Nintendo as a console manufacturer?
Not really. They do manufacture consoles of course, but they don't compete with Microsoft or Sony. The simplest way to confirm this is to look at the Call of Duty series. How many of the recent games were released for the Switch? Zero. I really like the Switch, and I may buy the Switch 2 when it comes out, but Nintendo doesn't provide any competitive pressure against Sony or Microsoft.
Nintendo is in an entirely different niche than Sony or Microsoft. I'd argue that the Steam Deck and other portable systems like that are their real competition, but even then it doesn't seem right.
The Switch is more what I'd call a casual gamers system, and is more child friendly. My nephew loves his Switch, for example, and takes it everywhere with him. My own kids enjoyed it for a while, but now that they're old enough to have their own phones and chromebooks, they're using those instead, aside from the occasional game of Fortnite.
The last time Nintendo really competed with Sony and Microsoft was in the GameCube era.
I wouldn’t really agree with any of that. Just because Nintendo isn’t selling stuff that’s using the same hardware as everyone else doesn’t mean that they are not competitive. You are forgetting there are decades of history where consoles had vast differences in hardware capability and it wasn’t always the one with the best specs that became most popular. In fact, there are maybe more examples where the stronger hardware wasn’t the most popular within a generation. The PS2 was the weakest hardware of its generation but it outsold everything.
If anything I would say that the “hardcore” gamers are leaving consoles. I don’t have any friends who only play console games. My husband is the only exception. The big AAA games of this generation are so big and expensive to produce that there are really only a handful coming out, and a lot of them are coming out on PC as well, so I think a lot of people are thinking they should just invest in a gaming PC (or something in the line of a steam deck) so they have greater access to games.
I think the nuance here is that Nintendo aren't competing with Sony and Microsoft - in that a sale for gained Nintendo rarely means a sale lost for one of the other two - but they're still competitive in the sense of having a very popular and high quality product.
I would disagree with that. It may not be as strongly correlated but it is correlated nonetheless. People do not have infinite budgets and will be selective about what they purchase, so if one were to enjoy Nintendo’s games there is a good chance they will not purchase another console. Younger kids today, for instance, are much more likely to own a Switch than a current gen Sony or Microsoft system, at least from my personal experience. But almost all of them own some form of PC.
I think we're actually coming from a pretty similar perspective - I didn't say it explicitly, but my thinking is that PC gaming is the actual competitor to Xbox/Playstation, rather than consoles inherently being competitors to other consoles. I'd see it as those kids having a PC to cover the "standard console" base, and the Switch in addition because it's in a separate bubble.
The problem with modern PC gaming is that it's very hit and miss quality wise. Hence why I've ended up playing MH Wilds on my PS5, and not on my PC. It's just not good enough, and it happens too often.
I haven’t played that one specifically - is it an issue of crappy optimisation on the PC version? It’s definitely a frustrating one if so, the combination of high GPU prices, low VRAM, and excessively tight dev timelines isn’t doing anyone any favours.
Not sure if I'm really adding much here but I thought I'd share my thoughts.
I'd definitely still count Nintendo as a console manufacturer here because Nintendo basically own the "casual gamer" segment of the market. Most Nintendo first party games are designed to be easy to just pick up and play. Most games on Playstation and Xbox that are designed to be easy to pick up and play are also available on PC and the Switch. So both Sony and Microsoft have just left this entire segment of the market for Nintendo to own for basically the last 20 years.
Sony have affirmed recently that they do want to try going after this segment more, especially after the success of Astro Bot. It'll be interesting to see them try to contonue to dominate in the "serious gamer" side of the market while also trying to be more Nintendo-like. Though Microsoft and Sony both tried doing this around the time of the Wii with the Kinect and Move and didn't really see much success there.
I guess the optimistic take might be the genericization of what a console is? The underlying tech has been slowly converging with PC hardware for a good 25 years now, so the advantages of a console seem to be more about ease of use for the consumer and a stable common denominator for developers to target.
It seems like it’s been happening in the handheld market since the steam deck took off, and I’d hope that competition between Valve / Ayaneo / Minisforum / Asus / etc (maybe Framework based on their latest announcement?) would be a good thing for the “gaming box you plug into your TV” space too.
Yeah to me it seems like the Steam Deck caused the market to pivot a bit because it showed that handheld PC components were now powerful enough for most games and that you could build these components in a form factor like the Switch.
I do wonder though, could consoles just become standardized PCs with games claiming to run best on
<brand>'s hardware? Similar to what @merry-cherry mentioned in their comment. Xbox could pivot to basically be like a Steam Box, with Microsoft's developers working to optimize their games to run best on the Xbox hardware, but still run okay on other PCs.I wonder if they'll go the hardware partner route and define a min spec. So people will essentially buy PCs with the Xbox OS installed on it. As long as it has the controller communication chips and the console OS, it'll behave like an Xbox. Partners can build them however they want and Microsoft doesn't have to do the hardware battle anymore.
They're likely to go for cloud gaming. Their advertisements are about how every device you own is an Xbox. First off all, those ads show us they're fully out of the hardware game and concede the loss and secondly, they're going to focus on delivering games to you no matter the device. Considering this ad shows phones as being an Xbox I'm unsure they'll go with hardware partnering like your suggestion, but I find it unlikely.
I watched the final episode of Seinfeld last night, where you show up and throw the whole gang in jail.
During the covid GPU shortage I bought an Xbox Series X. That was just over four years ago. Since then I've maintained a Game Pass Ultimate subscription and played many, many games on it. At £450 for the console itself plus the subscription cost it's offered me some incredibly good value gaming.
I've tried to pick up a GPU to build a new gaming PC recently but that's not gone well. The 5070 Ti sold out in seconds in the UK and is now selling for £150 over its supposed retail price. It looks like the new AMD offering may offer a credible alternative if it actually has stock at the supposed retail price.
There's just no competition value-wise when compared to the Xbox Series X though and I suspect that there never will be again.