Customer feedback may crown the winner, as Sony and Microsoft battle it out for gaming subscribers
Updated: Jul 7, 2022
It seems that the old days of innocent video games are long gone. Even the pac man fever of the 80’s and the tamagotchi craze of the 90’s, as well as their innocent songs and music videos, pale in comparison with today’s sophisticated games such as League of Legends/arcane. But the wars and battle actions inside today’s top video games may also reflect the tough and sometimes stiff competition over customers from the gaming companies themselves.
The Sony gaming vs. Microsoft serves as an interesting battleground to follow, as the two giants find themselves competing over customers’ spending and time. And at the center of all this is the important customer feedback, which will determine the popularity and eventually the bottom-line outcome of both services.
Microsoft launched its first Xbox in 2001. Checking the Xbox history shows how the product improved immensely diversified over the years, turning from a fairly simple game console to the current brand featuring streaming as well as an online service called the Xbox network. Games have been released for Windows and mobile devices and can be played through the Microsoft streaming service.
The fourth and most updated Xbox console was released in November 2020.
Sony Playstation, on the other hand, is older (the first version was released in Japan in 1994 and worldwide the following year) and overall more popular.
The most updated version was released worldwide in November 2020.
A little over a year since both companies released their latest versions, Sony decided to up the ante and launch its own pass-style subscription service. Introducing Spartacus, a new monthly subscription in 2022, will give gamers unlimited access to the library of both old and new PS games. The monthly subscription will be offered in tiers, letting users decide how much they are willing to pay. Since the Xbox game pass launched in 2017, it was expected that Sony would follow suit and initiate their own subscription plan. The mega-success of the Xbox pass, with more than 18 million subscribers, simply left them with no choice but to react.
2021 is projected to show a total global video games market revenues of $138.4 billion, so it’s no wonder that each of these two market leaders is looking to at least maintain their piece of the pie, if not increase it.
In order to check how their marketing efforts and investments are doing, and not only with sales, they can use Affogata’s AI platform. Sony, the underdog here, would need to follow how customers are welcoming its new subscription service. They are probably planning to spend a lot on marketing for the launch, so feedback would be crucial here too. Microsoft, on the other hand, would have to follow the “new-kid-in-town” Sony’s Spartacus and figure out how its offerings may hurt its market share.
And as usual, both companies can track their brand reputation score, analyze what customers are raving about or complaining about, engage with them to react to their comments, and measure any product or service issues. Fast-moving companies need to stay close with what their customers need and want so that they maintain their market positions and strive in such a tough competitive market.