Not saying I disagree, but I think Sony would do the same thing that MS is doing now if they were behind... They pretty much did that with the PS3. They started horribly and ended up outselling the X360 by some ~2 million consoles at the end, even though they launched a year easier...
I mean, in general there's not much else you can do - you either level your game or end up like the Wii U...
IMO.
That was a combination of things. The 360 didn't have a huge lead at all compared to the PS3, despite how people exaggerate it. They gambled that the blu-ray in the PS3 would help them win out, and they were only partially right. There's some other factors there, like the free psn, that helped them out a little bit, but they simply kept in pace with how they usually did business and they predictably grew steadily to the point of surpassing the 360. If they really cared about not being in first place as much as Microsoft, they would have super-try hard at beating the Wii.
Microsoft could have maintained their lead if they weren't being ran by a guy who cared little about games at that time. They ultimately lost some of their consumer base simply because they had an abysmal fail rate (I believe some people quote it at 50%, but it was more at 30%. However, those Gen 1 360s were almost guaranteed to die after a couple of years.) They tried capitalizing on the casual market by releasing and focusing on the Kinect, while releasing stupid hardware revisions that had questionable design flaws like a missing optical output or lack of built-in wireless capabilities for years. It didn't help that they ******* suck at the non-US market that the PS3 started cornering. Seriously though, the PS3 did a lot better in other regions, which is what led to its overall success. They didn't need to push anything in the US, and, besides an optional subscription service that gave you free games that they were planning on implementing on a more mandatory basis, they didn't need to.
This generation is different. Last generation, Microsoft was winning so handedly because they had their home market hook-line-and-sinker by almost double its competition (as Microsoft sold over 43 million to PS3's 21 million in the US.) They were literally dominating the US market so hard that it didn't ultimately matter to them how well Sony did everywhere else. This generation though? Even though they have slightly less powerful (the PS4 isn't all that more powerful despite what people tote) console and the huge backing of past purchasers of their system, they completely lost that lead. They had such ****ty PR during their console announcement and made such poor decisions on the console's UI that everything they lucked out on last generation went poof (though they were doing that to themselves seeing as their support for their own console was waning.) Sony, on the other hand, didn't have to do jack-crap and just kept doing what they were doing with no change. They literally gained the US market because Microsoft ****ed it up for themselves and, combined with their success in other regions, are now outselling the One two to one overall.
So, you have a company that wasn't even losing in any stretch of the imagination on their home turf now being beaten by a couple hundred thousand (I'm not kidding, the difference in the US isn't all that much) units, but their lack of worldwide recognition and foothold in those markets put them way the hell behind what numbers they should have had by now. So now the Xbone, despite having a pace that outdoes past generations around this time, are very much in second place. They're doing fairly well and making money, just not as well as the competition. Hence why they're trying hard now and restructuring, as they actually need to put effort into ALL the markets as opposed to just the US that they didn't have to do much to take over.
Then you have the Wii-U. Despite the doom and gloom that people try passing it off as, it is only a failure if you compare it to the Wii's sales. They're actually only slightly behind Microsoft overall, and people that have a Wii-U tend to have a higher adoption rate game-wise than either of those companies (if you look at it percentage-wise.) They also don't sell consoles at a loss, so they aren't exactly relying on games to gain revenue like the other two companies do (the xbone and ps4 are sold at a loss.) The Wii-U is a failure in the public eyes and in the marketing scheme of things, but it isn't doing all that bad in reality. Even if you bring up the fact that the Vita has been selling more than the WiiU, that's because of Japan moving towards more of a mobile market and it has been out a lot longer. However, the revenue isn't there for the Vita as the there's only really a small selection of hit titles (which is the main reason the Vita is actually a failure and the WiiU isn't doing bad enough to be more than made fun of.) Plus, Nintendo doesn't actually seem to care all that much, seeing as they have the juggernaut known as the 3DS that is still doing amazingly in a market that smart phones were apparently being deemed to have taken over years ago. Hell, it has sold over triple the amount of consoles the PS4 has, and it definitely isn't sold at a loss at all.
TL;DR: Sony was never that much in last place last generation, as they had the world market. The Xbone, however, is losing in the US and the world, which makes it second place by a large margin and making them try to actually get people to buy the damn thing. The WiiU isn't actually in dire straights, but Nintendo gives no ****s as the 3DS dominates everything anyway.
Are you playing Destiny on PSN too?
