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Intrinsic on 11 March 2017
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Ka-pi96 said:
Enemy said:

The lifetime totals. 

It's not new for the PS4 to outsell Xbox One over two to one during multiple, nonholiday months. There have been months where VGChartz shows the PS4 outselling Xbox One three to one for multiple weeks during multiple months. So why is Xbox One always sitting at just above half of whatever the PS4 total is?

We all know the Xbox brand performs its best during holiday months but that shouldn't make up for the months that Xbox One gets outsold three to one or over two to one consecutively during the year. It also doesn't explain why Xbox One is always sitting at just above half of whatever the PS4 total is.

I could be wrong but it doesn't seem like weekly totals and monthly sales are reflecting the lifetime totals. Or it seems like VGChartz is changing their numbers to always have the Xbox One lifetime total sitting at just above half of whatever the PS4 lifetime total is. 

If Xbox One is getting outsold by over two to one globally during multiple months through the year, should the PS4 lifetime totals be greater than twice the Xbox One lifetime total?

Ah, well some weeks/months are simply worth so much more than others. While you say Xbox One's holiday months shouldn't make up for the ones where they are getting outsold 2 or even 3 to 1, they really do. Xbox doesn't even have to get closer to the PS4 in those months, the much higher numbers will mean the PS4's percentage lead over the Xbox will likely be smaller even if the absolute number gap is higher. As an example, say in one month the PS4 sells 300k and the Xbox 100k. PS4 is 200k ahead and is outselling the Xbox 3 to 1. However with higher sales numbers, say PS4 3m and Xbox 2m, the gap has increased to 1m, but PS4 is now only outselling the Xbox 1.5 to 1.

If we were to expand that example, say 5 months of PS4 300k to Xbox 100k and one month of PS4 3m and Xbox 2m, then we'd have lifetime totals of 4.5m PS4s and 2.5m Xboxs. Which means in those 6 months the PS4 outsold the Xbox 1.8 to 1. Despite 5 months of 3 to 1 sales, that 1 month with much higher sales was worth so much more that it massively decreased the ratio, even with PS4 actually having a bigger pure numbers lead that month. Actual sales are a fair bit higher than that example, but that's still what's happening with VGC's figures.

Besides that, ratios are simply harder to increase (or decrease) by any noticable amount the longer something has been going.

Yearly ratios, while still not 100% accurate since again some years are worth a lot more than others, are much closer to lifetime ratios than weekly/monthly.

 

2013 2014 2015 2016
1.46 1.85 2.03 2.06

Those are the ratios the PS4 outsold the Xbox One each year until 2016. As you can see there's an equal number of below 2 to 1 years as there are above 2 to 1. The liftime ratio by the end of 2016 had the PS4 outselling the One by 1.92 to 1, which looking at those yearly ratios is definitely believable, right? It does swing more to the 2015/2016 numbers than the actual mean average would be, but that's because 2013 was simply such a small year compared to the others and throws off the average a fair bit.

Given the pattern so far it seems very likely that the PS4 lifetime sales will pass the 2 to 1 threshold, maybe even this year, but it does take a lot of consistency to actually increase the ratio, and at least it has increased quite a lot from the 2013 level.

 

Of course VGC's figures aren't 100% accurate and the PS4 may well already be over 2 times the Xbox One sales, but even then there would be differences between weekly/yearly/lifetime ratios since ratios are just annoying like that

perfectly explained.... have you been hanging out with shadow?