This does not exist in a one or the other vacuum.
Sony’s diverse lineup with games that are in the tens of millions of software sales are still a driving force. Hence the sales gap disparity between the two systems. Which both contain the same 3rd party games, but not first party.
I mean, yea, I do personally think it all counts. If Spider Man or God of War caused an extra 700,000+ people who didn't already have playstation 4s by then to buy one, then that's great, but I find that's usually not the case despite the impressive sales of these titles. Usually they're just selling to those who are already among the converted.
I still believe the sales gap had far less to do with sony's first party than people are willing to acknowledge, although I'm not saying it didn't play a factor. I
just don't believe it played the largest factor.
The biggest reason was the fact that Sony was $100 cheaper in addition to a wave of negative press around xbox one, especially those major nsa leaks the very year the consoles were coming out that made it look like Microsoft was one of the earliest supporters of what the government were doing. People were thinking kinect would be spying on them, in addition to the negativity around used games, always online etc. Some Microsoft execs even lost their jobs over it.
And after all that, it also happened to be established as the weaker of the 2 consoles while being $100 more expensive. Those things along with price were to me the biggest reasons.
I will agree though that every little bit counts. It's exactly why I've been advocating for more games like Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey whenever I have the opportunity to speak to anyone at xbox. My argument always was "sure it isn't going to sell like Gears or Halo or whatever, but can you honestly deny that gears and halo isn't likely selling to people who are already firmly in the xbox camp? If Blue Dragon or Lost Odyssey brought in 140,000 to 250,000 new xbox gamers into the ecosystem, is that not potentially just as if not more valuable than the same 5 million + buying Halo? This is how you broaden your base, and that's something that Sony gets right nearly everytime to their credit, even when the ps3 launched with its problems you always knew they were going to get that part right.
I was a full fledged pc gamer (mostly cs 1.6) and a massive playstation fanboy before i saw the words (Hironobu Sakaguchi, 2 exclusive xbox 360 RPGs) In fact, I was so much of a fanboy that I was annoyed that Sakaguchi wasn't releasing them for the playstation 3 instead and desperately searched for any information or suggestion that they may end up being released for the next playstation also. After searching around and reading interview after interview, watching old presentations that were online from when Sakaguchi was talking about the games, it became clear to me that playstation and these games were not going to be a thing, and if I really wanted them, I would have to suck it up and buy an xbox for the first time ever.
I had never played Halo CE longer than an hour or so at that point and dropped it, didn't see what all fuss was about. I had never owned or cared to own an xbox ever. Anything of worth to that platform to me I played on PC, such as fable and kotor. But because of those 2 jrpgs from one of my all time favorite game devs, i was on line for a 360 day. I, once upon a time in 2005, was one of the most unlikely people to buy an xbox, you guys have no idea, but once you already spent your hard earned money, you damn well better find more than just 2 games to validate your purchase, so I naturally started looking into what xbox gamers go crazy over. Prior to the launch of Halo 3 it was suggested to me I read Halo Fall of Reach and Ghosts of Onyx. Just like that, I'm a full fledged Halo fanboy. Went from not giving a damn about Halo and not thinking it was all that special to now thinking the world of it. It wasn't the games that convinced me, it was the books. Suddenly the games had my imagination. I now gave a damn about Master Chief and Cortana because I now knew what made them so special. I use to look at Master Chief like some boring dude in a suit of armor. The universe and all its different factions or elements suddenly mattered, and that's always the way to pull me in.
It was the same way prior to Mass Effect releasing on 360 and all these people were going mad over the thing. I'm here a mostly japanese rpg first style gamer with the occasional must have GTA and Metal Gear, Kingdom Hearts, DBZ, final fantasy fan going like "ehh, I don't like RPGs like this. I like swords, magic, japanese stuff. This looks boring as hell." How did I work myself into caring about Mass Effect? The Mass Effect book released prior to the game. Mass Effect: Revelation. It made me care about the Mass Effect universe, its characters and wanted to dive deeper in to see how the story ends up, and now suddenly I was essentially a believer in xbox. I had to learn to appreciate more western focused RPGs because I've been a life long japanese rpg fan.
Xbox came out the gate very well with their first party for xbox one. I felt they came out better than Sony did at the start. It wasn't until a little later that they started making you go "wait.. where's the big new announcements, wait Scalebound canceled? what's going on! nothing new and exciting being announced." It seemed odd to me. So if Xbox wasn't lacking in solid first parties starting out, why the sales gap? Price and power and negative press, because they came out swinging where it mattered. Ryse, Scalebound, Quantum Break, new Halo, Sunset Overdrive. Even Ryse should have gotten a sequel. That was a great launch game imo and could have been so much more with a followup. Biggest factors to me always come back to price, negative press, bad communication and being weaker while being more expensive.
? It is also nice to see as a consumer that even a late ecosystem investment is valued.
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