The start of a war between the next-generation consoles from a student point of view

This week the biggest fuzz in the gaming industry was without a doubt caused by E3 and to be more precise: the highlight has been the two press-conferences held by the biggest favorites for the top spot of next-generation console wars, Sony and Microsoft. No matter where you look (at least on the great battleground of personal opinions some people call the internet) you are bound to stumble upon countless different views on who will, or who has already won, the big battle. I will now contribute my own views on this pressing matter and I will do so from a viewpoint of student.

Why are students important for console developers? I mean it’s not like they’re the ones with big bucks, right? That is true, but that does not mean they are not prepared to spend what little cash they have on what else, but games. Often when you don’t have the money for any other entertainment, you collect all your friends to one apartment and play games (and drink some a lot of beer) together. That is our way of socializing. And the consoles our guests play and associate those good experiences with are the ones they are going to buy. As gaming is such an integral and time-consuming part of our lives, the student population is often a big part of early adopters of consoles. And early adopters are important as later on, as the console you want to buy is the one with most players. Below are some highlights of conferences, and how they affect the buying decisions of a student.

Let’s start with the obvious, most talked about subject of the conferences: DRM. Microsoft has gone all the way trying to digitalize the game market. It is understandable, after all if selling of physical copies would stop all together it would mean the end of piracy, companies would gain money for every sold game as it would eliminate the used game trade, and most importantly Microsoft  gains a bigger slice of profits from every game sold through their marketplace. But to have completely digital games library comes at a cost to a player. No longer you can lend your games to friends for a day or two, or take them along for that one night of gaming. This is big among poor students: We can’t afford every game we want, so some of us buy this game and some of us buy that game, and the lending trade begins. Also I personally think that a game lend to another player does not equal a lost sale, because the player in question would have not purchased it anyway as he/she has already prioritized some other game to be more worth of his/her own money. Also gone would be the ability to sell used games. This in itself only set’s the bar to buy new games higher. The fact that you know you won’t be getting any money back from your purchase, in the case that you don’t enjoy the game, forces you to think twice before investing your money to a game. Also pc gamers might be used to this thanks to steam, but console gamers have always paid for the disc. For the most part if you purchase a physical copy of a game for a console the disc is NEEDED to play the game. If the disc breaks for instance the game is unplayable hence it feels absolutely horrid for a console gamer to pay for the disc, only in the end to own only the digital rights to play the game. By saying nay to DRM and limitations on reselling games, Sony won a lot of students over.

The policy of “freedom belonging to player” was evident also in the fact, that unlike Microsoft who forces the user to have Kinect connected to Xbox One,  Sony gives the player a free choice of whether he wants to buy the Playstation Eye camera or not. I personally think that while forcing the use of Kinect gives a chance to innovate games, it is a bad decision. For example most students live in small apartments. More often than not the flats we have do not have a dedicated living room to accommodate Kinects need for a quite big space to work properly. This is for me the biggest decisive thing from these conferences. I just don’t have enough space for a Kinect in my apartment. In fact making a Kinect part of every Xbox One makes me think Microsoft is targeting families, rather than gamers specifically. Well, families and maybe the wealthy.

And from Kinect we come nicely to the prize of the devices. Sony practically won over your average student just by setting the prize of the packet 100$/€ lower than its competitor. And this was just by not forcing the movement controls on the player, while still giving a chance to add them later if you have money and space for it. For a poor student that prize difference could mean whether or not he/she will have money to eat that month.

So summarized, from a student point of view Sony won this, and they won this big. By giving more powerful equipment for a cheaper price and without the need for a huge living room, they have created an attractive packet to students. To us who will be the first ones to adopt the new consoles, and later will persuade our friends and families to purchase that very same console we own. By giving the player more choice on how they want to play, Sony took this first round. I have heard many of my friends who have always owned a Microsoft console say, that they will be buying a Playstation next. Only time will tell, how this fight between the two gaming giants will end.