The releases last November of Sony’s PlayStation 4 and Microsoft’s Xbox One were seen as the last hurrah of high-end home games consoles. The previous versions of each device had been roundly beaten by the lower-tech Nintendo Wii. And simpler games played on smartphones and tablets were rapidly gaining popularity. Sony’s strategy was to make its new console a more sophisticated, specialist device aimed at hard-core gamers. Microsoft went the other way, making the new Xbox a versatile multimedia device, aimed at a broader market. Sony’s strategy quickly began to prove more successful: in its first six weeks it sold 4.2m of the new consoles to Microsoft’s 3m.

Microsoft replaced the head of its Xbox division and cut its prices. But a year on from the launches, Sony is still far ahead, and IHS, a market researcher, predicts it will stay that way. Still, the Xbox One now outsells the latest version of the Wii, and has done better than previous Xboxes.