As part of the lawsuit between the FTC and Microsoft over the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, several documents have surfaced. The Verge thus shares an extract allowing us to learn more about Microsoft’s reaction to the announcement of the PlayStation 5, but also to the increase in its price in 2022.
Microsoft’s reaction to the PlayStation 5 feature announcement
After Sony revealed the specifications of the PlayStation 5 in March 2020, Liz Hamren, former head of platform and hardware engineering at Xbox, gave a summary to Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella, respectively head of Xbox and CEO of Microsoft.
Two days before the public announcement of the specifications of the Xbox Series X, it highlights the strengths and weaknesses of the characteristics revealed by Mark Cerny, head of hardware at PlayStation.
She lists the variable frequencies of the PS5’s GPU and CPU, “while we operate at higher sustained frequencies.” She admits, however, that the rival console’s SSD has a clear advantage over that of the Xbox Series X.
Cerny spoke at length about the move to SSDs and the benefits for game developers and consumers. They optimized for higher raw throughput (2x ours with slightly better hardware compression and associated performance improvements) as opposed to a more integrated streaming architecture made possible by Sampler Feedback Streaming.
She also supported the fact that the question of the famous teraflops was raised by Mark Cerny, thereby attempting to assert that this is not a way of measuring the capabilities of a console.
Cerny insisted that GPU teraflops and CUs were not a good measure of performance. We made the same point with Digital Foundry, but we have a clear performance advantage (12 versus 10)
She also told Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella that the audio-focused portion was too long, with Mark Cerny “spending what seemed like a disproportionate amount of time on audio innovations.” Finally, we learn that she expressed that the PlayStation 5’s expandable storage solution is “similar to ours in reality, due to the minimum size and speed requirements.” Of course, that’s true, but Xbox players are getting away with much more today by purchasing storage solutions from Seagate and Western Digital.
The increase in the price of the Xbox Series
These email exchanges were also able to shed light on Xbox’s reaction when Sony announced the increase in the price of the PlayStation 5 in August 2022. We thus learned that Tim Stuart, financial director of Xbox, sent an email to Phil Spencer and Amy Wood, Microsoft’s chief financial officer, to clarify that the group had “anticipated this and was moving quickly towards a plan now that we had confirmation.”
Unfortunately, the email exchange cannot be viewed in its entirety, but we can still emphasize that Phil Spencer wanted to remain focused on the players. Ami Silverman, who headed sales and marketing, responded “All points are good, let’s be obsessed with games because we’re not out of the woods…we know it might be time to gain fans rather than losing our follower status.”
She therefore admitted that sales of Xbox Series
Finally, Phil Spencer adds that the PlayStation 5 was somehow already sold at $550, since he himself was forced to buy it in a bundle with Horizon Forbidden West.
Sony forced HZD bundle for $50 [supplémentaires] for some time now. I bought my PS5 two weeks ago and the only option was the HZD bundle for $549.
Although he wrote “HZD”, he obviously means the last game, and not Horizon Zero Dawn. In any case, this would explain why Microsoft waited an additional year to announce the increase in the price of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Game Pass.
