Fact of the matter is this, sony has outsold xb1 in both the u.s. and u.k with almost 1.5:1 in the uk at that. Going by sales Sony is able to manufacture more than m$ too it seems. There is no way of spinning this. PS4 demand/sales/manufacturing are higher than xb1's. The console race is a worldwide race with new BIG emerging markets like brazil, russia, india, south africa and ton of other markets of which sony has released the ps4 in. In the long run sony has made the smart move already establishing market shares in these new emerging markets setting sony up for more sales in the long run than the xb1. If sony just matches xbox in the u.s. then sony will dominate ww and sales will favor sony 1.5-2:1 vs xbox.

Agree with this post.

I think the only mistake Sony made was underestimating demand in the big regions. For the other smaller regions they have set themselves to completely dominate this gen...even more so than last.

I believe 33 is better than 13, but Sony is making a mistake releasing in 48 countries already. Especially since they've just added Muslim countries, which don't even celebrate Christmas They should've stayed with the 33 countries and should have sent as many consoles to USA as possible, the whole Middle Eastern part should go to the USA. That's what I'd do. In Poland right now everyone is pissed at MS for ignoring and thus disrespecting us, so it's good that PS4 is out (even though they won't meet the preorders till the end of the year), cause MS has lost everything they've gained last gen (and might I add - X360 was doing really very well).

So I wouldn't neglect Europe the way MS did, but I'd push Middle East to 2014 and release the console there together with the rest of Asia. They wouldn't complain that much, since they'd be treated just like the rest of the continent, together with Japan, while it'd allow Sony to mop the floor with XO in its stronghold.

You are falsely assuming that either company has the manufacturing capacities to make enough PS4/XBox Ones to meet demand. That is very obviously not the case (we can safely assume 5-10% of current users want the new stuff right away). Right from the start, both companies knew they would not have enough consoles out way into 2014, given both can manufacture around 250k units a week. With the investors on their backs, MS is more or less forced to flood fill NA with its consoles to look good, while Sony tries to secure "owned" territory and make headways into MS territory. As long as both sell what they make, there will roughly be a constant gap, coming from who started earlier with manufacturing.

If either company had wanted to outsell the competitor by a mile, it would have cut their old console manufacturing in favour of their new consoles. That does not seem to have happened. As like every year, there are sh*ttons of cheap X360 $199 bundles available, and a smaller pile of expensive $329 PS3 bundles (even $399 color PS3s), at least over here. Sony obviously needs the money from the PS3s to finance the PS4, MS must have a good reason, too to continue with their customary XMas season blowouts.

I can see advantages to both strategies. Going for 13 HARC (higher attach ratio countries) as the focus can lead to more profits in the long term than losing market share there to gain it elsewhere.

Some people simple see that since the ps4 is outselling it therefore can't possible be losing market share. What it can be losing is potential market share. Until we get more data on how many are shipped to the extra countries it will be hard to say how much of an impact that will have. 20,000 sales lost in a HARC might not be too big a price to pay if it means gaining market share in LARC (lower attach ratio countries) by 10s of percentages. 500,000? a million? that could be enough to make an impact. However if they are able to keep supply close enough to demand they shouldn't lose too much.

It's very often people buy what their friends have, having what can become 70% plus in a LARC by being available even just a bit early can be huge. While only being short a small bit in a HARC might not lose so many if people are willing to wait. There isn't a year before one console hits the market this generation to lead to a year of gaining market share. I don't think that many will buy one console over the other just because one is available.

At worst I could see Sony losing up to 10% of market share in some HARC to Microsoft by going for the LARC as well but I really don't expect it to really be more that 2% while the gains elsewhere (or maintained market share if you prefer to be over 30%

And if we go by vgchartz how much consoles have Sony send to "others"???

Total= 2.4M - USA 1.32M - Europe 0,82M leaving no more than 240k for others... So I wouldn't say it can be said it is a big cost in US to earn the smaller countries for the rest of the gen.

And In the same way Kowen, why didn't you asked why didn't MS just launched in US since they are losing everywhere else by a long shot??? Maybe They could have 2M in US against 1.3M of Sony an then would be forcing Sony... the way its now, it seems like MS and Sony is keeping supply to US (MS a little better) while Sony is outsupplying it everywhere else.

Who cares, I'm just happy that people in the middle east, south africa and other parts of the world are able to get a next gen console. It sucks if you have to wait for consoles. Trust me, I'm from europe. We used to wait all the time in the 90s. Sometimes for years.

Who knows what might or might not be the best business decision. But if you care for the gamers, you'll want to launch in the whole world as soon as you can.

Just my 2 cents.

Yep - Its good advertisement for Sony at the same time.
Sony is "The good guy" right now cause they care for the WORLD - At the end you win if you are doing better WORLDWIDE and Sony is offering those people at least the chance to get some consoles.
33 are better than 13 - Especially if you do better anyway in those 13 too.
Microsoft needs to get all they have to the USA and flood the market cause this is the only market they can compete with Sony in this Gen.
Sony doesn't - They just need to do a lot better than last Gen in the USA(which was horrible) to win this Gen easily cause outside of the USA there is no competition for them.
And right now they have the advantage in the USA too.They aren't the ones playing catching up in their most important and only strong territory.

Actually my post was based upon the fact that each company would be/is supply constrained. I know I said, "Meet demand and sell 10 million" but I meant it figuratively, I don't actually know how many units it would take to reach demand. My point was simply that Sony could have waited to ship consoles into other territories and just shipped to NA/UK where you would do the most damage to the competition. Whenever there's a time that the PS4 is sold out, each consumer will have the option of buying an Xbox One instead. Xbox One doesn't have that advantage in the 20 other countries that PS4 is available in. Yes PS4 is gaining ground in those territories but its ground that would have been gained anyway when it released there before the Xbox One. The only difference? Much more supply at hand once NA meets demand. And again, I'm not stating that I know the demand of the PS4, just that I know it is in huge demand.

And I never said anything about 360 or PS3, you don't have to stop selling the PS3 or 360. I'm not talking about Sony's manufacturing pace, I'm talking about Sony's launch date allocations.

I'm not saying Sony doesn't know what they're doing, I'm just analyzing and giving ideas about what Sony could have done differently.

I think they made everything they could without reducing the quality of the system. All they can do now is see how much footing they get in USA/UK.