The big three have
put forth their best foot forward in the new generation and mounting evidence
suggests Microsoft stumbled again, Sony soared and Nintendo was ignored. Sony
dominated on the PR battle, and rightly so. Although many of the same features
derided on the Xbox One were present in the PS4, including but not limited to
publisher-driven DRM and subscription-based online play, Sony managed to come
out of its conference virtually unscathed. Add to the fact that many games that
appeared to be exclusives, but were later shown to be multiplatform, were
announced during Sony’s conference and you have a clear winner.
Sony managed to cut
the Xbox One of at the knees with a $399 price point, but that doesn’t include
the $60 PS Eye. In the short term, failure to include the webcam-esque device
with every console works in Sony’s favor, but in the long-term the Xbox One is
the smarter move. Not only does it remove doubt about Kinect from the
developers mind it also maintains the promise of smart Kinect use. Like the
dual sticks use from Halo on the original Xbox, all the Kinect 2.0 needs is
that one brilliant game that uses the Kinect in a way that others will copy.
Attach rates of peripherals are deemed high when they are around 33%, yet the
Kinect is guaranteed to be owned by every Xbox One owner.
