PlayStation & Xbox Get Gushy as Post-Launch Console War Detente Sets In

• PlayStation and Microsoft congratulate one another on successfully launching their respective consoles.
• Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launched this week amid a global pandemic and significant logistical hurdles.
• The gushy platitudes calm the ongoing ‘console war.’

With the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S now out in the wild, Sony and Microsoft have heaped gushy congratulations on each other, ushering in a post-launch ‘console war’ detente.

While the platform holders have moved away from framing this next-gen as head-to-head rivalry, notably Xbox head Phil Spencer’s stern stance, the console war persists. As much as cooler heads would prefer a move away from this confrontational tribalism, the lead up to the next-gen produced its fair share of console warring.

At least among certain portions of the gaming community, flaunting the merits of their favored plastic box and regaling in highlighting the competition’s perceived inferiority remains a favored pastime. This is evidenced by ever-present impassioned, sometimes toxicity-infused forum posts and comments below social media posts.

Indeed, with both the PS5 and Xbox Series X selling for $500 in their full-fat versions and most gamers unable to justify the hefty cost of buying both, owners need to validate choosing one over the other despite both consoles resembling each other more than ever before. Nothing offers validation, like bashing the competing machine.

Xbox briefly jumped on the bandwagon to land a well-timed blow in response to PlayStation’s perplexing upgrade path policy for the newly remastered version of Marvel’s Spider-Man. A tweet detailing the upgrade path to Xbox Series X/S with Smart Delivery read ‘Just Buy The Game.’

PlayStation and Xbox Calm The Console War

Now, with both sides recording successful launches, they’ve taken to Twitter to exchange congratulatory platitudes, calming the ‘console war.’

PlayStation kicked things off first, responding to Xbox’s tweet, signaling the Xbox Series X/S launch, hinting at the friendship between the two competitors.

Xbox proffered up a similar olive branch, unearthing a tweet from 2013 congratulating PlayStation for the launch of the PS4, wishing Sony a happy PS5 launch day.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer congratulated Sony heavy-hitters, including Jim Ryan, Mark Cerny, Shuhei Yoshida, and Hermen Hulst, shortly after navigating unprecedented hurdles in ‘these challenging times.’

Yoshida echoed the sentiment, thanking Spencer and enthusiastically noting, ‘we both did it!’

Rendez-vous in approximately seven years. A new batch of next-gen consoles is sure to reignite the console war once more.