Global Hardware 12 october 2019

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Radek said:

The weekly sales gap between Switch and PS4 is getting smaller every week. How can a 6 year old console still sell over 200K every single week?

I've been thinking about this, and here are the conclusions that I've come to.

1) It's mostly Europe where the PS4 is still going strong.  Japan and NA sales have taken a noticeable dip this year, like they always do in the sixth year.

2) Sony's presence has grown in some parts of Europe but not others.  If you look at the numbers for UK, France and Germany, you'll see that total hardware PS + XB sales are about the same in the UK and France as they were last generation.  However in Germany sales have grown significantly.  There are plenty of other countries in Europe where we don't have specific sales data, so it is hard to say where Sony has grown and where it hasn't.

My guess would be that Sony's presence has grown the most in central and eastern Europe.  Western Europe has had access to some sort of Playstation for a long time.  In central and eastern Europe, Playstation probably still has plenty of room to grow.  I mean, I can't think of a significant Polish developer before CD Projekt Red.  Just having their games available on console can sell more PS4's in Poland.  But I also suspect Sony is making an intentional push to expand further into certain European countries where there is definitely room for the market to grow.  Playstation sales numbers can stay high as long as Sony keeps expanding.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 22 October 2019