This is all done according to the infoscout report of black friday sales.
A lot of people think that MS can continue to win US with the same price, but I will show you that they cannot. It is simply not possible.
To start, here are the year to date sales for 2014 not including black friday.
XB1: 2.5m
PS4: 3.3m
This translates to a per week of 53k and 70k with Sony taking 57% market share, and xb1; 43%
Now, Black friday sales were as follows
x1: 729k
PS4: 554k
Infoscout asked the purchasers if they were buying for a child. The response was YES...
x1: 66%
PS4: 45%
So, 66% of parents bought an xb1 for a child and 45% of ps4 purchasers as well.
If we assume that normally, these purchases wouldn't exist except for birthdays, we can figure that on average, people will buy
x1: 248k
ps4: 305k
This number is inflated due to holiday increase. People simply buy more consoles during the holiday, even for themselves. Generally, this would be affected by price and value. The important thing to notice is that the market share between the two is 45% to 55% in ps4's favor.
What we can conclude therefore, is that even at a lower price, 329-349$ for an xb1, ps4 will still be outselling it in the US by about 15k per week on average during the regular year. (currently 17k per week)
On top of which, these sales have now set precedent for xb1 to have better prices and value during the holiday, which will likely consolidate sales to those periods, lowering per week sales even more.
Basically, the reasoning you have here is that because ps4 purchasers are on average an older demographic, they are more able to afford the purchase during the year, where as younger audiences have to wait until it is bought as a gift, or after saving up for a while.
Last gen, Nielsen did a report which concluded that users of the systems as per nielsen scan survery was this:
Main demographic:
Wii:
Males 6-11
Females 25-34
X360:
Males 12-17
Females 25-34
PS4:
Males and females: 18-24
This is supported by holiday sales.
The PS3 sold consistently less during the final 10 weeks (where holiday purchases kick in) than during the year, while the 360 and wii sold the same and sometimes more during holidays. OTOH, ps3 also outsold both during the regular year.
We can apply the same method to these consoles using the infoscout numbers:
| 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |
| ps3 | 7.58 | 7.73 | 6.4 | 54.14% | 55.17% | 56.14% |
| x360 | 6.42 | 6.28 | 5 | 45.85% | 44.82% | 43.85% |
| Holidays | ||||||
| ps3 | 5.84 | 5.67 | 5.37 | 47.82% | 45% | 48.68% |
| x360 | 6.37 | 6.93 | 5.66 | 52.17% | 55% | 51.31% |
| Minus presents | ||||||
| ps3 | 3.212 | 3.1185 | 2.9535 | 59.72% | 56.96% | 60.54% |
| x360 | 2.1658 | 2.3562 | 1.9244 | 40.27% | 43.03% | 39.45% |
This nicely follows the curve for purchasing during the year, as based on the current gen percentages.
(Important note, that the last gen numbers here are WW, not US. x360 was winning every month in NPD US sales, where the converse is now true)
