Xbox One vs. PS4 – Blu drives of death

The bark is much worse than the bite.

• It looks bad but the hard drive defect on the Xbox one looks to be no more frequent than the failures reported on the PS4.
• The main difference is that this defect looks to be a design or manufacturing fault whereas the PS4 defects are varied and Sony is currently blaming damage incurred during shipping.
• I am not sure I believe this explanation as none of those with affected consoles have complained of physical damage to the device on unboxing.
• I suspect that this is Sony’s blanket explanation until it can find out what the causes of the defects are.
• Microsoft’s case is worse. Everyone seems to have the same problem which points strongly to a manufacturing or design defect.
• The one advantage that Microsoft has is that the defective consoles still work.
• Games can be downloaded and played and all of the functionality seems to be working without a hitch.
• There was substantial concern some months ago that the fact that the Xbox One has three interlaced operating systems would cause the software to be unstable.
• My research found that there was a massive effort on Microsoft’s part to stabilise the software prior to launch but in the scramble, the hardware seems to have been overlooked.
• Hardware defects are far easier to rectify than software and so Microsoft looks to have made the right choice in prioritising the software development.
• Microsoft and Sony are stepping up and are shipping replacement consoles before the old ones are returned but Microsoft is taking the worse PR hit.
• Large launches such as these always have problems and it looks like less than 1% of all consoles shipped from both camps are defective.
• Hence, I suspect that once these wrinkles have been ironed out it will be a straight fight between the two.
• Here the PS4 looks to me like it has an edge.
• It is somewhat more powerful and costs $100 less.
• That being said, Microsoft has a huge ecosystem of online assets and has done as much integration with its other services as it can.
• Furthermore the console ships with the Kinect and has certain functions such as speech recognition that the PS4 does not.
• Hence, as a product of the ecosystem and as an assault on the living room, Microsoft has an edge.
• It also has much deeper pockets for a heavy marketing campaign than Sony ensuring that it will make more noise.
• Hence, I think the market for the two systems will remain fairly balanced as it has been for many years.

26/11/13:  Correction: The section below is moot as it is based on the erroneous assumption that PrimeSense is used in the Xbox One. It isn’t. Its Microsoft proprietary. Apologies.

• Apple’s acquisition of PrimeSense, the provider of the 3D motion detection technology used in the Xbox Kinect is not a problem.
• The technology is already embedded and hardened in this version and so Microsoft will not need to find a replacement for another 8 years or so when the Xbox TWO comes out.
• Microsoft along with Yahoo! remain the best sticks to look at when making an investment in the ecosystem.
• While Sony remains the only Japanese company with a chance in this space, that is not saying very much.
• It is much too early to be tempted with this one.