At CES, Sony may have just proved Microsoft was right when the Xbox One was Announced

Originally posted at Daniel Camilo's LinkedIn.

Sony had been teasing its CES 2020 conference saying “The Future is Coming”. Speculation ensued, and for gaming in particular, people got hyped! Would the PS5 finally be revealed? Turns out, no. But kind of, a little bit.

Microsoft surprisingly revealed the Xbox One X series at the Game Awards in December, officially kicking off the “next-gen wars”, so an answer from Sony and its PS5 was to be expected. Many expected Sony to surprise at CES (an event where game industry announcements are not very common) with its own spectacular reveal. Instead, audiences got a lot of data, corporate fluffing, and a rehashing of information that has been disclosed in past months. It’s as if Sony was making sure that the likes of CNBC, CNN and other mainstream outlets got the message, in case they had missed previous announcements concerning the PS5. And that was exactly the case - a very conservative showing, for conservative/traditional networks.

Still, Sony did reveal the logo for the PS5 and some revealing numbers about the PS4. Some things worth unpacking here...

In my opinion, there’s two standouts from this block of data. First, the number of VR units sold. At 5 million units, PSVR is the most successful VR unit on the market today, easily beating the most powerful, and costly, offerings from Oculus and Vive. That Sony continues ahead in this segment is not a surprise ( for many reasons: pricing, PS4 install base, brand awareness, etc), but it’s worth acknowledging just how little the VR scene has grown in the last few years. The total install base for VR headsets is still roaming around the 10M units for major brands. Abysmal numbers for a market that saw countless companies, start-ups and devices come and go in the last 5 years.

Second (and finally addressing the title of this piece), Sony claims to have 103 million monthly active users on PSN. Considering they also showed us the PS4 sold 106 million units since launch, it means only 3 million PS4 consoles are not being connected to the internet. That’s 97% of connected consoles! If these numbers are to be believed, they show how far we’ve come since the last generation, where still so many users were using their consoles (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii) as offline devices. And if this is the case, are these numbers proof that Don Matrick’s original vision was right when the Xbox One was first announced as an always-online (daily) machine ? Sure, Microsoft went back on their initial plans, but as we can now verify, perhaps the outcry was unfounded? The Xbox One ended up selling much less than the 360 anyway (for many reasons, yes), and the PS4 is apparently showing that most users will be connected online anyway (97%!). So what gives? And can this data be used to justify always-online next-gen consoles, or will Microsoft and Sony still be fearful of another public outcry? I don’t expect next consoles to be always-online, but according to Sony at least, the data is clear: virtually everyone is connected anyway. 

Watch Sony CES 2020 Press Conference here.