Gaming to Entertainment on Your Console
The holiday season has come and gone with millions of the newest gaming consoles being sold. The launches of Xbox One and PS4 provided technology lovers with the opportunity to take sides on who (Microsoft or Sony) will reign as ‘king of the console’. Since becoming available- both Sony PlayStation 4 and Xbox announced sales figures of roughly 2+ million units sold within the first month of sales. As we move to 2014, those numbers will no doubt increase as gamers look to grab the latest and greatest technology. In addition to gaming, both consoles are trying to position themselves as home entertainment connected devices.
Xbox One has been very aggressive on this front to date by allowing users to control some elements of their set-top boxes through the console. Additionally, Xbox One has 22 media apps available including: Netflix, Hulu, Skype, ESPN and Amazon Video. This compares to the approximately 60 media focused apps Microsoft has for Xbox 360, which have been in the market for now 8 years. Given that Microsoft is actively pushing the platform to media companies and in some cases providing funding, the number of media apps should rapidly increase throughout 2014.
That being said, Xbox One does have a number of drawbacks. One of which includes forcing users to purchase the Xbox Live Gold package that cost up to $60 per year to use any online services.
PS4 currently has 15 apps (See full list here) which like Xbox One, we expect to grow dramatically as users expect the added entertainment value. Unlike the Xbox One, there is no added network fee to access third party apps- which is appealing.
Overall, both platforms to some degree are trying to move beyond their gaming roots. However, in an era when you can buy a ChromeCast device for $40 or AppleTV for just over $100, it will be interesting to see if they gain much traction outside of their gaming user bases.
If you’re attending CES, please send me a note as we would love to meet up with you!