hey guys, i have been pondering this topic since around the beginning of this year. sony's success with the ps4. what exactly did they do to make this massive turnaround? i want to know the single biggest reason for it.

there is a second part to this question though. 

once it has been determined what the biggest factor is, my question is: is this success sustainable?

1. let's take a look at nintendo and microsoft fumbling the ball big time. microsoft is making huge strides, changing plans bit by bit. nintendo is making the necessary changes much more slowly. maybe some would argue that they aren't at all, but i believe that their attention to the smash community and catering to their every need shows a lot in how they are becoming more involved with their audience. in any case, i think we can all agree that these two consoles have nowhere to go but up, and i believe that is going to take away marketshare from sony. how much depends on how much these two companies can reconnect with the gamer.

2. i know a lot of you may not want to hear or talk about this, but this is one of the biggest examples (in my opinion, of course) of a console selling very well because of hype and word of mouth. this point does relate to microsoft in particular, fumbling the ball with all their restrictions and ridiculous regulations in the beginning. sony capitalized off of it and was able to make a stark contrast between themselves and the microsoft, promoting themselves as being "for the gamer." my concern for sony, if this is the  biggest reason for ps4 sales, is that this is certainly not going to last. and we have seen the downward slope ps4 sales have been getting since january, so i think this e3 is sony's time to really deliver something heavy hitting because the hype factor i believe will wear off quickly. i honestly believe people would rather just get a ps3 since it is getting the same games and they arent even gimped versions.

3. is the biggest reason for sony sales are that people are looking long term and know that sony is going to deliver those exclusives? this point is tricky. people only buy a console for this reason during the launch window. and its usually bigger fans of the company. so im not so sure this is what is driving ps4 sales day in and day out totalling to 100k+ weeks every week.

what is it, guys? if i had to rate the points it would be:

2>>1>>>>>>>>3

is there anything else i missed? what other reasons are people buying so many ps4s?

also, i think its interesting to point out that if the ps4 wins this gen, which i think we all pretty much know thats going to happen, it will be one of the few times the most powerful console wins a generation. i wonder why there is an exception this time around. 

one last point: i think this discussion should make it perfectly clear to everybody that the ps4 isnt going to do any kind of ps2 marketshare numbers. there is no way. the main reason being that the ps2 had a dvd drive driving sales tremendously. and it actually had exclusive games out the ass. 

Price.

It's the better console

Only 3 main reasons:

1. Price
2. Power
3. First party teams

price is a good point that i havent mentioned. consoles do have to be competitively priced.

so the best console always sells the most? lol. id say most of the time it does, but in this scenario, i really dont see how the ps4 isnt the weakest out of the three. what are you supposed to do with the damn thing? haha. 

Hype, good price, solid third party support, overall image of the Sony brand by drawing in the "cool" crowd with its power and game lineup. Marketing helped as well.

a) Nintendo/MS fucked up
b) Price/Performance compared to wiiU/X1
c) The final years of the ps3 were its greatest years but the final years of the wii/360 were its worst years in terms of quality games

youre totally making sense with this, but (@ bolded) i think people are going to be severely disappointed. ps1 and ps2 were japanese consoles. ps3 and ps4 on the other hand.. these consoles are 100% geared towards americans, and americans only.  

i like that point you mentioned here. i haven't thought of it, but its very true. it was the direct opposite when that generation started. nobody wanted a ps3. everybody wanted a wii and a 360.

A few good decisions.

1) Sony set a good price target of $400, while MS decided pursuing the Kinect is worth releasing a $500 console.
2) Sony picked GDDR5 instead of DDR3+ESRAM, allowed them to ultimately have flexible memory and more GPU cores on-die and have a clear performance win.  A more powerful console for less money sealed the fate more than anything.
3) Sony focused on quick-play from disc, while MS focused on an the idea of digital game library where you only need the disc once. Not having to swap discs is a nice feature, but the backlash over inability to share & sell your games meant this feature never saw the light of day, so Sony again make the right decision from the start while MS wasted effort on an unpopular idea.

Since a camera didn't fit in the $400 target, Sony didn't bundle a camera with the PS4 even though you can see they developed new camera related and motion control features. This was very fortunate since the Kinect was badly received and blamed for the price difference, so Sony just downplayed their own camera product and profited.