Xbox One's and PS4's Numbers Don't tell the Whole Story

[vivster]

JayWood2010 said:

1. First off, there's the cost of building each one. Console teardowns from research firm IHS speculate that Microsoft makes $28 from each Xbox One sold, whereas Sony only gets $18 from each PlayStation 4. The two companies, IHS concludes, roughly break even when the leftover money is used to pump into distribution or offsetting R&D costs. Doesn't sound like too much, until you realise that could be $84,000,000 for Microsoft compared to $75,600,000 for Sony. While there's nothing to conclude from all these imprecise mathematics -- there are no official figures, crucially -- it's important to remember that things might not always be how they seem.

2. There's also the matter of territories to consider. The PlayStation 4 is available in considerably more countries than the Xbox One right now, and neither console has launched into the lucrative Japanese market yet. Both companies claim that their consoles are selling faster than people can buy them, which also severely impacts the ability of a true picture of consumer interest to form right now. I'd also say keen, long-time gamers are more likely to favour the all-in gaming philosophy behind the PlayStation 4 right now than Microsoft's gambit of turning the Xbox One into a media swiss army knife. But who knows just how many people will place the latter console under their living room TV as the price inevitably falls over the next couple of years?

3. And let's not forget the real prize, lurking unsaid beneath those whopping sales numbers. What both Sony and Microsoft want is an impressively commanding install base -- this gives them enough brute force to entice third-party publishers into signing exclusives and platform-specific bonuses, and an increases the likelihood of making oodles of cash out of customers buying games. The exact figures aren't public, but I've often been told that both Sony and Microsoft take a good, sizeable chunk of the revenue from the sale of each game. If everyone went out tomorrow and bought a dozen EA games on PlayStation 4, then, we'd be injecting enough money into Sony's accountancy department for them to have enough capital to recreate the fiscal decadence seen in The Wolf of Wall Street.

What a load of bull.

1. Neither Sony nor MS care about the raw hardware cost. They are currently both losing money because News Flash: The hardware cost isn't the only thing the companies have to pay to develop, build, market and ship a console.

2. The PS4 has outsold the X1 in every market while also releasing in a lot of other markets and also being sold out constantly. The X1s are sitting on the shelfs in the countries released so far. Sure the X1 would've sold more if it released in the same countries but if the major markets are any indication it would never have sold more. I think that paints a pretty clear picture.

3. Now that is just ridiculous spew from a left wing extremist. Of course they want to make money and we gamers should hope they make a lot of money. More money means more games. Also more consoles sold for Sony means less 3rd party exclusives for MS, which is a good thing :)