Reportedly, Japanese multinational conglomerate Sony Corporation is set to go head-to-head with American technology giant Microsoft Corp. over their flagship video-game consoles in a USD 150 billion gaming industry.

After seven years, the two long awaited consoles are set to be released in the coming weeks, with both being available at around USD 500, cited sources with relevant information. It appears that Sony’s PlayStation 5 (PS5) might again end up being in the pole position among the two, however, this year the stakes are relatively high.

For those uninitiated, the gaming business is Sony’s largest cash cow, bringing in group sales of around USD 77 billion in 2019 fiscal year alone.

In this context, industry experts claimed that Sony has an upper hand and is expected to retain its competitive edge over Microsoft owing to its larger portfolio of games as well as a broader fan base. The company had sold over 100 million units of the previous generation PlayStation 4 (PS4).

Meanwhile, gaming is comparatively a smaller part of Microsoft’s business. Although the hardware sales are not disclosed, experts cite that approximately 50 million units of the current Xbox One have been sold.

Regardless, the advent of cloud gaming, which allows gamers to play without heavy hardware, has been gaining quite the recognition across the globe. Experts cite that this could reduce the sales of console hardware in the subsequent years, benefitting Microsoft owing to its cloud computing dominance.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also resulted in demand and supply gap for the Sony and Microsoft, with the two companies are expected to face storages through the year 2021, sources claimed.

If reports are to be believed, over 5 million and 3.9 million PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles are likely to be sold this year. The combined sales of the two consoles are predicted to be higher than the previous generation.

Source Credits –

https://www.reuters.com/article/gaming-sony-microsoft/clash-of-consoles-new-playstation-and-xbox-enter-150-billion-games-arena-fight-idUSKBN27O0XD