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Hardstuck-Platinum on 09 January 2025
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Jumpin said:
Hardstuck-Platinum said:

I'm not trying to take away from it's success, but officially speaking in business market leader is determined by revenue. Playstation has 30B. Xbox about 25B and Nintendo about 15B revenue. In revenue Sony is market leader

Whether intentionally or not, invoking phrases like “officially speaking” introduces an appeal to authority fallacy, specifically a fabricated authority. This form of sophistry aims to lend undue credibility to an argument that lacks substantiated backing. The crux of the issue here is your conflation of platform market share with company revenue share. While revenue share may be synonymous with market share in investment contexts and 1:1 comparisons, that's not the case with the video game industry.

Market leaders in the video game industry are calculated the same way as other electronic platform markets, by user base of the platform. In the video game industry, this is calculated by the unit sales of the current consoles.

As has been pointed out, revenue is not used for this purpose because it includes diverse and unrelated streams—such as services, investments, accessories, legacy platforms, sectors outside the core market, and even products on competing platforms.

In other words, the Switch is considered the market leader because it has the largest number of owners and players within the dedicated gaming console market, measured by total unit sales. Company revenue, while indicative of financial success, does not reflect platform leadership in the market.

Going by your logic, Smartphones is market leader for gaming because that's that's where the biggest numbers of players is. Can't go by that metric alone. Also, what's wrong with including legacy platforms? Why disqualify the PS4 from contributing to PlayStation's success when it still generates Sony 100's millions a year. Same will happen with the Switch when Switch 2 launches. There is no need to disqualify legacy platforms. 

Jumpin said:
IcaroRibeiro said:

But Valve is indeed the king of videogames though

They dominate the PC software market, which is almost as big as the Big 3 console market combined. 2 billion in profits in 2023 is crazy, and their market position is much more stable than Sony or Nintendo and they simple need to keep their store and services. The fact they are private owned is very telling, they have zero need of external capital

Actually, this post is a great way to illustrate the points made in my previous post. If you go by revenue rather than unit sales, then you could argue that the Steam Deck is far more influential in the dedicated console industry than it actually is because Valve's revenue is so high. But Valve's revenue in no way indicates that the Steam Deck is the market leader, or anywhere close to it.

I did a quick google search and it suggests Valves yearly revenue is sitting at around 7.5 Billion. So in revenue they are still 4th place.  

Last edited by Hardstuck-Platinum - on 09 January 2025