PlayStation “didn’t necessarily” want to hurt Xbox with its video of used PS4 games | Xbox One

Sometimes there are stories that stick around, and Sony’s video showing how to share a PS4 game is one of them. This communication battle between the Xbox One and the PS4 was won by Sony, and a former executive of the Japanese manufacturer returns today to this very particular episode.

Sony drives the point home during the worst time for the Xbox brand

To understand the impact of this video, you have to put it into context. We are in 2013 and Microsoft and Sony must respectively release their new console at the same time. Everyone uses different arguments, but while Sony is betting on continuity with a new “just” more powerful PlayStation console, Microsoft is aiming for rupture and announcing a series of measures that do not go in the direction of consumers.

At the time, Microsoft confirmed that it would be necessary to connect the console to the Internet every 24 hours for it to work, that the Xbox One would be zoned and that it would include rights management making it almost impossible to operate games from ‘opportunity. We experienced it on Xboxygen, these measures had the effect of a bomb in the community and among players who did not understand what Microsoft was getting into. And if that wasn’t enough, Xbox’s price positioning was well above that of the PS4.

It was on June 19, 2013 at the end of the evening, when Xbox had just had the worst E3 of its life, that Microsoft finally canceled all these measures to return to a classic operation of a video game console.

But before that, Microsoft presented its console at the famous E3 show in Los Angeles. Sony did the same, and did not fail to make fun of its rival by publishing a humorous tutorial video that shows how you simply lend a game on PS4. The joke hits the mark and ridicules Microsoft; the video now has 19 million views. In the Xboxygen comments at the time, you were several old Xbox players to admit that Sony’s communication had struck a blow. This is arguably still PlayStation’s biggest troll today.

Microsoft experienced this episode very badly, and took revenge in its own way a few years later when PlayStation had difficulty offering a simple and effective solution to run PS4 games on PS5. Using exactly the same principle as Sony at the time, Xbox UK publishes a “tutorial” which explains how to play an Xbox One game on Xbox Series X | S with Smart Delivery. Like Sony, the tutorial has only one simple step: “just buy the game”.

Episodes like these are not numerous and show the pressure that exists when launching new consoles. A few small mistakes can ultimately cost millions, and Sony and Microsoft have long been pressing their advantages by looking at what the one opposite was doing wrong.

Nine years after Sony’s nice publicity stunt, former PlayStation executive Jack Tretton returned to this famous video during an interview with Axios and reported by IGN. According to him, the aim was “not necessarily” to

I have a lot of friends at Microsoft now and I had a lot back then, and I wasn’t necessarily looking to do it at their expense. I felt really comfortable with this subject.

It’s hard to believe the video wasn’t openly trying to poke fun at Xbox, which at the time was in serious trouble communicating with the public and journalists. In retracing the history of the Xbox brand for its 20th anniversary, Aaron Greenberg, head of marketing at Xbox, had also spoken of the video as something really ugly.

The complete history of Xbox One in 12 episodes on Xboxygen

If you are interested in the preposterous history of the Xbox One, do not hesitate to consult our series in 12 episodes!