Shadow1980 said:
1. Supply constraints are having a negative effect on PS4 sales. This is not a problem with the XBO, which allows it to take advantage of tax return season. It's normal for hardware to get bumps during late winter. Several weeks of increasing XBO sales is hardly a "trend," and looking at typical weekly sales patterns over the course of the year for other systems, it'll likely level back off within a month. 2. PS4 has Infamous, Driveclub, and The Order 1886 as announced 2014 exclusives. How are those not "Westernized"? Meanwhile, the XBO as of right now only has Sunset Overdrive and an unannounced Halo title (possibly Halo 2 Anniversary) releasing later this year as major AAA titles. I don't see how what the XBO has to offer gives it a serious advantage over the PS4. As far as AAA exclusives go, they're a wash... for now. 3. The market will move to whatever offers the best return on their investment. Right now that's the PS4. With 90+% of the same games, a lower retail price, and Sony not locking services like Netflix behind an additional paywall, the PS4 is a better deal. 4. That would help, but with some investors wanting MS to axe the Xbox division (maybe sell it off), cutting into its profitability right now might not help things. Even if they did cut it to $400, what's to keep Sony from following suit by dropping the PS4 to $350? 5. There's no such thing as a "home field advantage" in America. American gamers are the most fickle bunch on the planet. We've swapped our collective brand preferences more often than any other region. In Europe it's pretty much been Sony for 15 of the last 19 years (the Wii actually beat the PS3 for a while). In Japan they've gone back and forth between Nintendo and Sony a couple of times. But in America, in the pat 30 years we've gone from supporting Nintendo all the way, to wavering back and forth between Nintendo and Sega, then switching to Sony a couple of generations, then back to Nintendo again, then to MS, and now back to Sony for the time being. There's no reason to expect U.S. gamers to stay loyal to one brand. They're more loyal to their wallets than anything. 6. This is the cause of #1, and it won't be a problem forever. Supposedly, Sony expects to be able to deliver a steady supply starting in April or May. 7. This won't sell systems. Besides, the PS4 can do 99% of what the XBO can do. It's not like MS has a monopoly on Netflix or Hulu. A couple of exclusive apps and the ability to connect to a cable box (except you can't view DVR-ed programs, which makes that one kind of pointless) will not justify that $500 price tag plus the $60 per annum cost for XBL Gold). And non-gamers will not bother, either. Not when there's far cheaper set-top boxes available as well as the increasing prevalence of smart TVs. 8. And many would argue that PS+ is the better deal. As mentioned, it doesn't gate off everything behind itself like XBL Gold does. It lets you play online (and even some F2P games don't require it) and it gets you some free games, but if you won't want it you can still watch Netflix, etc. 9. They can wait all they want. Until they reach price parity with the PS4 they're going to languish in second place. 10. The company with the most money doesn't translate to the company with most hardware sales. Never has. Systems sell based on a combination of factors like games, price, and marketing, and MS doesn't have any advantage in either of these categories. The PS4, meanwhile, has the price advantage. $400 vs. $500, plus the aforementioned pay wall discrepancies? Sounds like a no-brainer to me. People went with the 360 over the PS3 because it offered a better value at the time. The PS3's high cost was the main thing hampering its sales early in its life, and while Sony made strides to catch up they never could. Once the 360S came out, thus ending the RRoD, that sealed both systems' fates. This time, Sony is the one starting off with all the advantages. Once all the brand loyalists — who are more likely to be early adopters and who comprise a small portion of the overall market — are all spoken for, that leaves the general gaming public, and as long as the PS4 keeps coming across as the better deal it will continue to be the sales leader. |
This 100%. What I find interesting is that even with the lack of supply for PS4, while the Xbox One has NO problems with supply, the PS4 still trumps the One in US sales. Seems that the demand is just lower, and I don't think any of the above points are going to change this.
