Xbox Lost Console War Sony PS5 PlayStation 5 1

One consistent theme throughout the entire sorry Activision Blizzard buyout saga has been how both Sony and Microsoft have utterly dismantled their own businesses in attempt to convince regulators to get their own way. The latest effort comes courtesy of the US Federal Trade Commission’s ongoing court case, where trillion dollar tech titan Microsoft has once again attempted to paint itself as the underdog, in an effort to get its $69 billion buyout through.

“Xbox's console has consistently ranked third (of three) behind PlayStation in sales,” the Redmond firm pointed out, parading the fact that it has just 16 per cent market share. “Xbox has lost the console wars and its rivals are positioned to continue to dominate, including by leveraging exclusive content. Xbox has consistently ranked third in consoles behind PlayStation and Nintendo.”

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While it’s true that PlayStation has routinely used its position to secure timed and console exclusives – like Final Fantasy 16, for example, which launched today – it’s a tactic generally employed by all manufacturers. In fact, it was recently revealed that Redfall was in development for PS5 prior to Bethesda’s buyout of the publisher – and Starfield was also famously planned for PlayStation at one point as well.

There’s no arguing with Microsoft’s comment about Xbox trailing PlayStation and Nintendo in hardware sales, as these are facts. However, it’s hard to take a company’s underdog act at face value when it’s only occurring as part of an attempt to close a $69 billion buyout – an acquisition so unthinkably big that the Redmond firm is only one of a handful of companies on the planet with pockets deep enough to fund it.

[source theverge.com, via eurogamer.net]