What is Mutual assured destruction and why is it relevant today? According to Wikipedia, Mutual assured destruction is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two or more opposing sides would cause the complete annihilation of both the attacker and the defender. Why is it relevant, you may ask yourself? An analysis of mutually assured destruction is relevant when we look at the upcoming next-gen gaming landscape. Microsoft and Sony; both stand diametrically opposed as foes, ready to destroy their hardware against each other in for dominion of the gaming space.
In the console market, three players reign supreme, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sony. Currently, two of the three titans in the gaming industry are gearing up to release their newest consoles, Microsoft’s Xbox series X/S and Sony’s PlayStation 5 during the 2020 holiday season. The hype around these game consoles is insurmountable given the last set of consoles released back in November 2013.
Now the question at hand, why is mutually assured destruction relevant in this current instance? We are currently in September and have yet to receive a release date or price for each companies next-gen gaming consoles. If you’re curious why this hasn’t happened yet, all you need to do is take a trip down memory lane regarding E3 summer 2013. It was a hot boy summer day in June, during Microsoft’s E3 presentation, they released the price point of the Xbox One, coming in at USD 500, with restrictive always online and used game policies (interestingly enough, some of the biggest games of this generation are online-only, so in this instance, it seems Microsoft was ahead of their time). A few hours later, Sony launched a full-frontal assault upon Microsoft with the $400 PS4 price point in addition to stark difference to Microsoft regarding their DRM practices, online connection requirements, and used games. If the crowd’s fervor was representative of the coming generation, Microsoft’s Xbox One console was dead on arrival. If you need any additional information regarding this statement, look at the reported PS4 sales compared to Xbox one sales. Sadly, Microsoft does not release these figures publicly any more but a little research shows us that the PS$ has sold 106.99 million units whereas the Xbox One has sold 46.36. This generation is starkly different compared to the generation previous where Xbox dominated the gaming landscape despite being surpassed by PlayStation in total overall sales.
So why the delay in releasing the prices of the next-gen consoles? If you believe reports, one would think it’s because either company wants to undersell the other; although I do not know if this is possible if Microsoft’s rumored Xbox Series S is real. Sony is releasing two consoles this fall, a digital PS5 and a PS5 with an optical drive for physical disc-based media. Currently, Microsoft has revealed the Series X (and it did so back in December 2019) and has a rumored lower-powered next-gen console called the series S (that it questionably hasn’t announced yet) if you believe all of the leaks. Ultimately, it's more likely than not this is console is true given the leaks and the potentially high price of “the world’s most powerful console” Series X. If Microsoft comes out with a $599 Series X console whereas Sony releases a $499 or $399 console, it will just be another repeat of 2013 and Microsoft is well aware of this fact. However, if Microsoft releases the Series S at a price point less than either of Sony’s consoles that manages to keep the specs relatively similar to the X (which I don’t know how they would do this…), then it’s probable the console exists.
But what if Microsoft’s endgame is not to compete with Sony? What if Microsoft wishes to destroy the next-gen console market altogether and continue waiting to release the price before Sony makes the first move? Could we be potentially looking at another Pepsi Crystal and Coca Cola Tab? Surely the lack of releasing a price point at this point from either company is indicative of their reluctance to “pull the trigger” first and open themselves to being undercut by their prominent competitor. Microsoft is currently killing the game with its game pass service, soon to launch on phones all but making console obsolete for the sake of traditional console gaming as we know it. Microsoft’s game pass allows folks to play Xbox games on their PC and consoles.
What do we know so far and when will we know the prices of the consoles? With both companies releasing minimal information about their upcoming consoles only time will tell whether this strategy will play out in the end. We know the appearance of both consoles, which games are rumored to launch at release or not (I'm looking at you Halo Infinite). In recent console generations, gamers knew the price of the consoles at least 5-months before the consoles releasing. The gaming market seems to be a sensitive market in which a $600 console will not produce expected sales, all we have to do is look at the launch of the PS3 to determine this; PS3 launched at $599 and $499. The theory of Mutual Assured Destruction gained its prevalence during the Cold war between the US and the USSR. And thought this lens we characteristics of both countries in either company. Never engaging in outright war with one another but instead through proxy wars. In our gaming console war, both Microsoft never outright critique each other but instead wage “proxy wars” through the lens of backward compatibility, shared online play, and now price and launch date. Like the members of each country, we as gamers bare the brunt of the war between the two companies, eagerly awaiting any tidbit of information each company releases or doesn’t release. If there is anything to say about this upcoming generation is that waiting until September to announce a release date and price point is a bold move and only time will tell whether the strategy works out.
