Xbox One matched PlayStation 4 console sales on day one of over one million. Xbox One was released in North America, Australia, and parts of South America and Europe. The console is sold out in most places Microsoft said as they work to refill stocks.
Nonetheless, PlayStation 4's first day totals are a bit more impressive because the console only launched in the U.S. and in Canada, a significantly smaller market.
PS4 and Xbox One deals and bundles
If the $399 price tag was not tempting enough, Sony announced that the PS4 will get an assortment of promotions on launch day. Every retail PS4 box will contain a voucher for a $10 wallet credit for the PSN store, a 30-day free PlayStation Plus trial membership, and a 30-day Music Unlimited trial membership. The two 30-day trials are \ valid for new subscribers only. You also get the opportunity of a month of PlayStation Plus which will get you some free games and $10 is always better than $0.
Features
Xbox One is called the One for a reason. As Matthew Moskovciak says in his deep dive into the Xbox One as a living room device, Microsoft wants to bring all your living room entertainment -cable TV, gaming, and streaming-video -to a single user interface with the help of a sophisticated second-generation Kinect camera/motion sensor and video pass-through functionality that's included with every $499 Xbox One. "That's a stark contrast to Sony's gaming-centric PS4, which has jettisoned -- at least at its launch -- many of the living room features that endeared it home theater enthusiasts, including support for DLNA, CDs, MP3s, JPEGs and any type of digital video file," Moskovciak says. While the PS4 has some impressive new features, including PS Vita remote play the prior game broadcasting (other users can watch you play) and clip sharing, and a $59.99 camera of its own for amplified reality games and facial-recognition sign-in, the Xbox One has a seemingly more robust feature set that seems more futuristic. The concept of switching between playing a game and watching TV at an instant -or even watching TV while playing a game- is very appealing.
The only problem is that Microsoft still has some work to do on the software.
Performance
The PS4 seems to have a slight performance edge but you can expect that most games look almost identical on each console.
Where the Xbox One's performance score took the more significant hit when it came to controlling and navigating the system. The fact of the matter is it only identified voice commands about 75% of the time, which does create frustration. That should improve in the future, but for now it is a problem.
Design The design incorporates the design of the hardware and the designs of the software. The PS4 has the advantage in both instances. From a hardware outlook, the most apparent difference is that the PS4's power supply is integrated into the box while the Xbox One (much similar to the 360 before it) except it still has a chunky exterior power brick. The PS4 controller is also preferable. It has a built-in rechargeable battery doubles as a motion controller (which replaces the PS Move), includes a built-in speaker and headphone jack, in addition to a share button which offers quick links to social media sites. You can now even recharge the PS4 remote while in standby mode.
Value
The PS4 has the leverage of being $100 cheaper than the Xbox One, which includes the Kinect. When you add in the PlayStation Camera ($59.99), which enhances the PS4 experience but is not particularly necessary. Although, the only problem is you cannot really do anything with the Xbox One without an Xbox Live gold membership (which costs $60 per year). That makes the Xbox One's real cost to $560 (including the membership fee).
Sony now requires you to buy a PS Plus account ($50 per year) if you want to do any online gaming. However, you can use applications such as Netflix without buying a PS Plus account.
In the end, if the Xbox TV overlay feature (OneGuide) and all the innovative Kinect features worked perfectly -and without certain restrictions, such as lack of DVR support- it would be easier to say those extras merited spending the extra $100 on the system along with the $60 Xbox Live yearly fee. Until Microsoft works out the kinks, in my opinion the PS4 gets the higher value score.
Production Costs
According to Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Andrew House the PlayStation 4 costs $381 for Sony to build, $18 under its retail price of $399. The figure comes from a hardware teardown by research firm IHS that included the bill of materials, which amounts to $372, as well as per-unit cost of assembly in the assessment. The teardown notes that the system's processor and memory account for about half of the cost of the entire console at $188, and that the PS4's 500 GB hard drive is $1 cheaper than the 120 GB one found in the PS3, thanks to the major decline in HDD costs during the past four years.
A Microsoft executive said that each sale of the upcoming Xbox One console will break-even or be sold at profit from its launch date.
According to Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi, the company plans to make money on selling games for the console and the Xbox Live subscription (which, he noted, has grown to 48 million members now).
“The strategy will continue which is that we’re looking to be break even or low margin at worst on Xbox One,” said Mehdi. “And then make money selling additional games, the Xbox Live service and other capabilities on top. And as we can cost-reduce our box as we’ve done with 360, we’ll do that to continue to price reduce and get even more competitive with our offering.”
Elastic or Inelastic?
According to Investopedia the degree to which a demand or supply curve reacts to a change in price is the curve's elasticity. Elasticity varies among products because some products may be more essential to the consumer.
Regardless of the fact that both of these products are elastic, meaning that they are not particularly necessary, but a luxury, these products are highly desirable.
This is demonstrated by the fact that both products sold over one million units on launch date.
Important aspects of the products such as design and innovative features all contribute to the popularity of the product. The more advanced the features are the more appealing the product is. Additionally, where the product is sold also contributes to the products level of success. You would assume that the larger the market the higher the sales, but in regards to the Xbox One it was available in all of North America, Australia, and parts of South America and Europe but the PS4 still matched the amount of sales (over one million units) in just the United States of America and Canada which is definitely impressive. So you also have to take product loyalty into account. When consumers become committed to your brand and make repeat purchases over time. Brand loyalty is a result of consumer behavior and is affected by a person's preferences. Loyal customers will consistently purchase products from their preferred brands, regardless of convenience or price. Although, the PS4 is available at a cheaper price in comparison to the Xbox One as well.
Another important component to a successful product is how the company markets their product. The company say Sony or Microsoft has to make their gaming console appealing to people of all ages in order to increase their profit. The larger the target group the better the product does in terms of sales.
In conclusion, I think that the PS4 won in practically all categories stated previously.
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