Sony's viral PlayStation 4 "Used Game Instructional Video" may not be solely responsible for the console's victory over Xbox One, but it was the final blow in a generation-starting defeat that left Microsoft in recovery mode for years. The famous PS4 game sharing tutorial served a colossal diss to Microsoft's already flailing Xbox One reveal, putting PlayStation firmly in first place.
On June 10, 2013, Microsoft's Xbox One E3 showcase cemented the system's bad reputation. After a TV- and Kinect-focused press briefing in May, Xbox doubled down on the things consumers didn't seem to want. It announced the system would cost $499 at launch - a price point most were hoping the new consoles wouldn't hit - and concerned fans with talk of an always-online ecosystem.
Later that same day, Sony announced the opposite of nearly everything Microsoft did. The PlayStation 4 would only cost $399 and required no online connection for single-player games. These reveals earned much applause at the PlayStation 4 E3 press conference, but Sony's greatest move came in the form of a three-minute video.
How PlayStation 4's Game Sharing Burn Set The Tone For The Generation
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of Microsoft's Xbox One announcements was the news that it would restrict the sale of used games and implement a complicated game sharing system, preventing users from freely playing games whose licenses were owned by the original buyer. Publishers could opt out of the used game sale restrictions, but the move was generally seen as an anti-consumer insult to Xbox's fans. Following Sony's conference, Xbox's rival released the "Official PlayStation Used Game Instructional Video" on YouTube. The video, which showed Sony's Shuhei Yoshida simply handing a game to Sony Computer Entertainment America's Adam Boyes, demonstrated in short what the company had announced at the conference earlier that day: It would be engaging in none of the restrictions of the Xbox One.
The PS4 instructional video's brevity and sheer sass made it, fittingly, extremely shareable. It quickly gained popularity and has since earned more than 17 million views, making it the fifth most-viewed video on PlayStation's YouTube channel and more popular than any video on Xbox's (besides a Minecraft update trailer). In the popular gaming community discussion, the clip cemented Sony as the console manufacturer with consumers' interests in mind. Microsoft rolled back many of its controversial policies, but its initial mistake and Sony's sense to capitalize on it set the PlayStation 4 on a course to eventually outsell the Xbox One by an estimated 68 million units. Things have changed since 2013, with Xbox Game Pass and broader crossplay support giving Xbox a more pro-consumer appearance, but it's doubtful the Xbox One could have ever fully caught up from the PS4's early victory.
The PlayStation 4 released on November 15, 2013.