Umm... Hooray for bumped threads? :S

Gotta keep the doom alive :P

If the Destiny bundle provides enough boost in social metric/inertia, then Xbox One will never have a chance of catching up.

There is a certain snowball effect in markets, if a large group of core gamers get onboard with one particular system as their 'main' system of the generation, then they are extremely influential with groups of gamers, friends, families. Additional purchases are much more likely to follow in their footsteps so they can play together, or to simply choose the 'winner'. That was 360's role in the US last gen. For all of the late gen sputtering that 360 did, and the strong late PS3 exclusives, the die was more than cast in the preceding years : the PS3 was always going to be a subsidiary console in the US. At best, a '2nd' console for exclusives. At worst, not purchased at all (see : PS4 owners who never bought a PS3, thus TLOU:R is a *new* title to them).

There really is not a record of this kind of thing unravelling that I can tell. If a market leader controls things for around a year, and builds a solidly larger base, it's extremely difficult to turn around. One could argue that Wii fell apart, but I would argue that a massive portion of Wii buyers were never gamers to begin with. That's not to say that there weren't many awesome 1st party Wii titles, but I personally know at least a half-dozen people in my family that bought Wiis who never bought a console for themselves before or since, and never bought a single game for it afterwards. It was a 'trendy' purchase, to play Wii Sports, Wii Fit kind of pack-ins, then closeted forever. 'Casual' buyers are not the primary market for the PS4 so far, people buy it for Destiny, for COD, for TLOU, for AC, and so on. The same exact prime market that propelled the 360 to prominence in the 7th gen for the US.

A fair bit of this will have to do with how Destiny is received and is talked about moving forward. Review scores actually don't even matter terribly much here. If it's a major sales hit and people talk about it widely, then it's a done gen more or less. Halo rehash won't turn the tide, and Halo 5 comes out ages from now. Gears of War is not even confirmed for 2016 yet.

On the flip side, if Destiny fizzles and fades quickly, XB1 still has a shot to win hearts and minds. But it gets tougher every day.

95% chance imho that XB1 will forever be 2nd or 3rd place, best case winning a week now and again, but never a month, and never truly gain on PS4. The loss of Europe and Japan's complete irrelevance makes it that much tougher.

Remember, PS3 never 'came back' against the 360, they simply continued to sell well in Europe, which balanced their continual strong losses in the US.

The XB1 has no 'Europe' this time. Even the UK has turned solidly blue on the majority.

If the Destiny bundle provides enough boost in social metric/inertia, then Xbox One will never have a chance of catching up.

There is a certain snowball effect in markets, if a large group of core gamers get onboard with one particular system as their 'main' system of the generation, then they are extremely influential with groups of gamers, friends, families. Additional purchases are much more likely to follow in their footsteps so they can play together, or to simply choose the 'winner'. That was 360's role in the US last gen. For all of the late gen sputtering that 360 did, and the strong late PS3 exclusives, the die was more than cast in the preceding years : the PS3 was always going to be a subsidiary console in the US. At best, a '2nd' console for exclusives. At worst, not purchased at all (see : PS4 owners who never bought a PS3, thus TLOU:R is a *new* title to them).

There really is not a record of this kind of thing unravelling that I can tell. If a market leader controls things for around a year, and builds a solidly larger base, it's extremely difficult to turn around. One could argue that Wii fell apart, but I would argue that a massive portion of Wii buyers were never gamers to begin with. That's not to say that there weren't many awesome 1st party Wii titles, but I personally know at least a half-dozen people in my family that bought Wiis who never bought a console for themselves before or since, and never bought a single game for it afterwards. It was a 'trendy' purchase, to play Wii Sports, Wii Fit kind of pack-ins, then closeted forever. 'Casual' buyers are not the primary market for the PS4 so far, people buy it for Destiny, for COD, for TLOU, for AC, and so on. The same exact prime market that propelled the 360 to prominence in the 7th gen for the US.

A fair bit of this will have to do with how Destiny is received and is talked about moving forward. Review scores actually don't even matter terribly much here. If it's a major sales hit and people talk about it widely, then it's a done gen more or less. Halo rehash won't turn the tide, and Halo 5 comes out ages from now. Gears of War is not even confirmed for 2016 yet.

On the flip side, if Destiny fizzles and fades quickly, XB1 still has a shot to win hearts and minds. But it gets tougher every day.

95% chance imho that XB1 will forever be 2nd or 3rd place, best case winning a week now and again, but never a month, and never truly gain on PS4. The loss of Europe and Japan's complete irrelevance makes it that much tougher.

Remember, PS3 never 'came back' against the 360, they simply continued to sell well in Europe, which balanced their continual strong losses in the US.

The XB1 has no 'Europe' this time. Even the UK has turned solidly blue on the majority.