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Sony did it two days later that its American rival Microsoft released the Xbox series.
Unlike Microsoft, which has opted for a single global launch, Sony puts the console on sale in two stages: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, United States, Canada and Mexico, starting Thursday.
The rest of the world, and in particular Europe, we will have to wait until November 19th. Due to the pandemic, purchases will be made online. Sony has warned that no consoles will be sold in stores on launch days.
At a store in Sydney, Australia, only a handful of customers managed to book in advance online They came for the consul on Thursday morningconfirmed an AFP reporter.
“With COVID-19, I imagine it people didn’t want to crowd into stores“Commented Theo Pasialis, who went to get his PlayStation 5.” Also there weren’t enough for everyone.
Demand is heralded high for the more familiar lifestyle imposed by the pandemic. Copies available for pre-order are sold out in record time, and analysts expect it will be very difficult to get a new console before 2021.
Like his rival The PlayStation 5 will be available in two versions: a “premium”, which Sony sells for $ 499, the same price as the Xbox Series X, and an equally powerful “digital edition”, but without a disc drive, for $ 399, 100 more than the Xbox Series S.
These digital versions, which only allow you to play downloaded games, are a goldmine for the two manufacturers because it allows them to compensate for the weakness of their margins in console sales. They can thus control the prices of the games, eliminating the costs of production and distribution, preventing the resale in the second-hand market.
Repeat the success of the PS4
The consoles of the two giants have globally equivalent characteristics. Sony plans to differentiate itself with highly anticipated games like ‘Spider-man: Miles Morales’, ‘Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’ or ‘Horizon: Forbidden West’, some of which have not been planned for several months.
These games are developed by studios purchased by Sony, a way for the producer to ensure the development of exclusive titles for your console and guarantee your profit on sales. The Japanese company has 14 studios.
Sony, whose video games account for about a third of sales, hopes to collect with this generation of consoles, the ninth in the history of video games, the same success as the PlayStation 4, launched in 2013 and of which it has sold twice as many copies as Xbox One.
The Japanese company got the better of the PS4, says Serkan Toto, an analyst at Kantan Games in Tokyo. “We recommend that you focus on the Western market to make sure you keep the gap” with Microsofthe told AFP.
In recent years, Sony, in fact, has left the Japanese archipelago, where the market for console games, which has shrunk significantly, is dominated by Nintendo. Sony only sold 8% of its PS4s there.
It has focused its strategy on the US market, the only territory where its competitor Microsoft is not lagging behind.. In 2016, he moved PlayStation operations from Tokyo to California and unified his decision-making and production process, led by his American teams.
According to most analysts, Sony will again surpass its American rival in the number of consoles sold. However, in the long run, Microsoft may be on the trail thanks to its strategy focused on subscription video games and streaming.
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