In Your Opinion… Do Video Game Consoles Compete or Complement?

[IcaroRibeiro]

I'm thinking on study sales curve for multiple consoles and calculate correlation score

I'm no economist, I only know statistics (and barely), so I by no means an authority to understand whether two products are in direct competition or not

But statistics can help to understand, at least some degree, how two consoles sales interact with time


I have some hypothesis I want to test:

Sony vs Microsoft (First, remove Japan as Xbox don't sell a thing there)

- Original Xbox and PS2 have no correlation
- Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 had strong correlation over time, Xbox One and PS4 too
- Xbox Series and Playstation 5 have weaker correlation compared to other XBONE-PS4, but higher than OXBOX-PS2

Microsoft vs Nintendo

- Xbox and Game Cube had average degree of correlation
- Xbox 360 and Wii had average to high correlation
- None of their other consoles have any kind of correlation


Sony vs Nintendo Handheld line have high correlation... but in a different way. Both increase in sales together, and decrease in sales together. On ecomics this would mean they are complementary products rather than competing products. I know this is a weird hypothesis but alas, I want to test it anyway


Sony vs Nintendo consoles

- PS1 and N64 had strong correlation in America, but not in Japan and Europe
- PS2 and Game Cube had small correlation
- PS3 and Wii had average to high correlation in America and Europe, and small in Japan
- PS4 and Wii U had no correlation
- PS4 and Switch had strong correlation in Japan, but weirdly negative correlation elsewhere (same case of their handheld lines, implying they are complementary devices)
- PS5 and Switch have strong correlation in America and Europe