Google Predicts Xbox 720 will crush PS4

[binary solo]

Squilliam said:

binary solo said:
There may be some correlation between which is leading in search and which will sell the most. However it would be very hard to say that a big lead in search will mean a crushing defeat. Also, this might be predictive of the first year or 2 of sales , but long term through the generation I don;t think this has much predictive value.

Also HDDVD vs. Blu-ray was as do or die thing. There was only going to be one man standing at the end. And search predictions are probably better at predicting a winner take all scenario than a market share scenario.

However consoles have tended to be winner take all scenarios. Console generations have generally ended with large majorities to the winners. Had for instance the Wii been able to cater to the entire market then it would have likely snowballed to >70% market share. If you don't have the same console as your friends you can't play with them, so in effect your enjoyment of multiplayer is predicted partially on the decisions of other people and the availability of content likewise.

That's not winner take all in the same manner as, say a presidential election or the BD/HDD format war. There isn't a lot of similarity between PS3 vs Xbox360 vs Wii and BD vs HDD or VHS vs Betamax in terms of predicting the scope of a win. BD vs HDD was a life and death struggle and BD killed HDD. The same is not the case with consoles, at least not any more.

The better Google search comparison for predictive purposes would be iphone vs Android vs WP8. But of course that would be really hard to compile for predictive purposes because, especially with Andorid but also with WP8 to a certain extent, people are searching more for the brand names / model names not so much for the operating system.

720 could massively dominate in America (and UK) and that would give the impression of global domination. But the reality will likely be that PS4 and Wii are the leading console in other regions. I don't see any console next gen having the actual global dominance (i.e. every country in which it was sold) of PS1 or PS2 and to a lesser extent Wii.