Pachter: There's Nothing Xbox One Can Do to Catch PS4

To be fair, even the Vita is outselling the Xbone in some European countries. As of a few months ago, it was outselling the Xbone in Spain by around 8:1 or more. Too many people got burned by the Xbox 360 becoming increasingly pointless as it went on. As someone who had a 360 instead of a PS3 for most of last gen, I know I did. Check out the releases for 2013 for each console, for example.

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The only thing that matters is if they are turning a profit. For Microsoft turning that profit might not even be as important as getting windows 10 incorporated into every home, the xbone is just another way to do that, the CEO recently said as much. That is their bread and butter and always will be. I would prefer Nintendo also be pushing for market superiority, to challenge the big two, but only time will tell.

So now I'm guessing Xbox One will sell 20 million units in the next 24 hours.

@get2sammyb it's definitely been a slow start first party wise but then again it's not exactly affected sales, also who knows maybe that late PS3 momentum is want actually got the PS4 off to its amazing start. Next year that all ends quite dramatically starting with Uncharted and the list of games that I want is as amazing as it is large with many being exclusives. This year has been great for quality but not quantity, however from next year we are getting both and I haven't seen anything from Xbox that comes even remotely close to the standard that we'll be getting.

@get2sammyb I know, but then the Xbox 360 had a barren last few years and its successor still only came out with HD remasters as its biggest hitters (and the MCC was apparently ridiculous buggy and badly made and needed a good amount of patching). It still came down to Microsoft paying for temporary exclusives like Dead Rising 3. It felt like there was something wrong when I didn't see anyone talking about DR3 or Sunset Overdrive, no one at all IRL and I don't recall much online either. It's just got its big release in Halo 5 which is the equivalent of us getting Uncharted 4 now but it wasn't made by Naughty Dog.

Last gen felt like Microsoft blew its wad relatively early with all its timed exclusives, often actually alienating fans in the process since superior versions then came out on PS3 later, like Tales of Vesperia and Idolm@ster 2. Companies like Mistwalker made what they'd been paid to do, like Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon, then jumped ship and haven't gone near Microsoft since. The PS3 was a grower, it was very consistent. It was the same with the first two Playstations and looks to be the same again with the PS4.

Speaking for myself and my friends, it was the fact the PS3 was still going very strong towards the end (if you don't like being an American military dude blowing up aliens, 2013 alone was better on PS3 than any year on 360) that made the PS4 seem like we'd be in good hands, whereas the Xbone would just be a repeat of a few paid exclusives and then bugger all after that. It's a particularly bad choice if you enjoy Japanese games, too.

Xboxone will start matching sales next crimbo season, by then there will be enough exclusives on both consoles for everyone to consider owning the two. I reckon in a couple of years they'll be nearly 10 million households with both consoles, especially when they're both gonna end up $250 and less.

@get2sammyb I personally believe new game titles should have been dropped from ps4/360 1 yr into the new gen. Then kids games, your annual cod and sports titles would continue both gens for another year before cesing support completely

I think the Xbox One can pull out some very good stuff in it's life cycle that will get people to want it, but most people I know want a PS4 because it's getting all the great exclusives, and has a better variety of games then Nintendo and Microsoft offer. Really, Sony has done everything almost perfectly since the system has launched.

@Matroska

You missing the point that once Mattrick took over, Microsoft began to either sell off software affiliates, let them go, or turn them onto Kinect. Hence why the late 360 Era was so barren outside of your 2 or 3 big games for the year.

Pachter predicts something it means the opposite is true so the x1 will be an enormous success outsell the ps4 in a few short years.

I love my Xbone, but I'll be honest, depending on what kind of games you like to play, it may or may not be the console to get. Currently, the only exclusive game that has been announced for next year that I want is ReCore. While it's a game that I absolutely will buy, day 1, I'm kind of bummed out that it's the only one I'm interested in (although there are other multiplat games I'm looking forward to). I wish MS went after more Japanese games, or games with strong female protagonists. But since they haven't, I'm planning on picking up a PS4. And at that point, considering that the PS4 is more powerful, I can easily predict that it will become my main console after a couple of months. MS, you're so close to turning things around from that crappy launch. I really really do wish you the best of luck. But you're just too American.

p.s. but I love your controller more than the dualshock 4. (^_^ )

I watched Pach Attack for the 12 months leading upto the release of the ps4 and x1.

He believed that the x1 would win and that tv tv tv would help sell the console to the main stream. How wrong he was.

"We should start every console cycle assuming that Sony's going to outsell Microsoft two to one, because it has twice as many people who know what its console is," - Pachter

This is complete rubbish. If x1 was the more powerful console, at the lower price, without drm and was the better looking console. We would of all jumped on that.

I'm sure he's a nice guy, but I've never really been too into Pachter. I usually find Kyle Bosman a bit more on the money, and a hell of a lot funnier!

As I'm the one that will always buy the nintendo and the sony consoles (except traded in the Wii U), I would consider the X-box One if more games came out. I had the PS3 and 360 last gen (and went through 3x 360's due to either breaking, not reading discs or not connecting to anything or deleting the hard drive by itself). I had too many problems with the 360, and as I looked into most games for it, it became like having just an updated Wii. PS3 had it's problems too (look at the store now...slow and kicks you off for no reason whatsoever), but it was a better console.

But with Sony taking a year or more for good exclusive first-party games to come out...look at nintendo. The 3DS, Wii and Wii U each took almost a year or more for the good games to start rushing out too. There were one or two good ones before that, but it took a while. Sony seems to becoming the same way, but as I looked at X-box 360 and X-box One, they do the same thing. It seems that everyone is out to throw their consoles for sale, see if they sell, then spend the money to make the good games...and if the console doesn't sell like what they want it too...make games that aren't the best looking or long playing.

I know the XB1 is unlikely to catch up to the PS4 but its still sold more units than the 360 did as well as more units than the PS3 did in their first 2 years. All this despite the DRM issue, the inclusion of Kinect and the resolution issue too.
I actually prefer more of XB1 exclusives and their 2016 line up than Sony's so far. Admittedly 2 of Sony's (Uncharted 4 and Horizon: Zero Dawn) are my most anticipated Exclusives but with Scalebound, ReCore, Gears 4, Quantum Break, Crackdown, Sea of Thieves etc, there are more exclusives that interest me. Its been that way since the XB1 released too and I don't include Halo 5 (its just not 'Halo' anymore). This year I have bought more XB1 exclusives than PS4 again.
Obviously a console is not just about 'exclusives though' and over the course of a consoles life, I buy a lot more 3rd party multi-platform releases anyway.
Whether it does manage to significantly close the gap or not, the XB1 is still likely to be considered a 'successful' console. Sales figures have surpassed last generations figures at the same point and It has a growing list of great exclusives. I am certainly happy with mine.

@get2sammyb @matroska. Last gen I was on Xbox 360 and I loved it. Xbox lost me because I stay informed and the bullshit they tried to pull on us at first with the xbone pissed me off. Also the ps4 is simply more powerful. If all the games run better on ps4, why would I play them on Xbox? However let's not be revisionist here. The Xbox 360 was great and a lot of games ran better on it than ps3. The ps3 had some complicated hardware that seemed to make development harder on it for those multi platform games. My best friend had ps3 and he always complained about his game not running as well as mine. Also Xbox did have some great exclusives last gen. Mass Effect was exclusive back then. So anyway from a former Xbox fan. Yes PlayStation has firmly beat them this gen and I'm not to stubborn to say so. I love games and I want to play them wherever they are best. Having two good consoles would be better for gamers though. Hopefully Xbox will pull their head out of their ass and do better next time.

I won't say it's impossible because I've seen crazy things happen in this industry, but without any sales in Japan and some parts of Europe holding an 8 or 9 to 1 advantage for PS4 it's going to be as close to impossible as it gets. What really hurts MS is that huge advantage in North America is gone this gen and I can't say I'm totally surprised. There were a variety of reasons 360 out-paced PS3 here but it wasn't because NA hates PlayStation. Sony recognized the mistakes it made early with PS3 here and completely turned things around. It's an uphill battle and eventhough I'm not counting MS out from winning the race in NA, worldwide is going to be extremely hard unless there's a massive turn around in Europe as well.

Here's the only way Pachter ever gets stuff right: by stating the obvious.

I think Patcher, catch me as I may fall over, is right this time. The PS4 is leaps and bounds ahead of the Xbox and although we're only 2 years in I can't see the Xbox catching up; Sony's machine is just too popular. But this lead isn't because the Xbox is a rubbish console. This lead is a follow on from the disastrous launch that Mattrick was responsible for. Thanks to that arrogant fool most people have the wrong idea of what the Xbox is all about. Sure it plays your TV through it and all that malarkey, but what was lost in translation is the way in which your TV, or whatever else you plug in it, is incorporated. Switching between games, TV, Blu-Ray, whatever is seamless and instant. Games are automatically paused and continue from where you left it - even if you turn off the console. Snapping the Superbowl or whatever whilst playing a game means you can do both things at once. It doesn't mean that Microsoft didn't make a games console. It just means that they've taken your living room and made it one with it. And it works very well. The kinect was always going to be a tricky sell and I think the whole thing should've been left on the drawing board. I like the voice activation so leave that in but as a separate device it sucks badly. I'm not trying to sell the Xbone here I'm just sticking up for the little guy that's easily bullied. I don't have a PS4 but it's on my list of things to buy once it's cheaper and there's a huge backlog of cheap games to play. But Patcher is right this time. No way can the Xbox catch the PS4 in numbers. I still think at this point in time it does have the stronger games lineup but that doesn't seem to be helping it claw back sales.

@BAMozzy
I think that's what we should take from this console gen. That being second doesn't mean you weren't successful. Xbone is doing well enough that MS considers it worth investing in, and that's good news for all of us.

@hmmnotsure
A lot of the good things that the Xbone has going for it right now is thanks to Phil Spencer. That guy has done an amazing job with what he has had to work with (and has been quite respectful in his treatment of Sony and Nintendo). Personally, I think that he understands gamers so well, he would have probably been able to turn the Wii U around too, if given a chance.