Nielsen: One-Third of PlayStation 4 Owners Switched From Xbox or Wii

With 10 million units sold since November, the PlayStation 4 is currently winning the latest console war. But as Sony Worldwide Studios President Shuhei Yoshida recently told Eurogamer, even Sony doesn’t really know why.

Here’s one possible answer: Gamers just aren’t as brand-loyal as the fanboys online would have you believe.

According to data provided to Re/code, an April Nielsen study found that 31 percent of PS4 owners did not own Sony’s previous console, the PlayStation 3, but did own an Xbox 360 or Wii. Seventeen percent did not own any last-generation console.

The people surveyed were Americans, age 7 to 54, and were a subset of a total of 1,200 “active gamers” surveyed by Nielsen between February and April.

However, there’s one big caveat to the survey, which is that it asked only what consumers currently owned at the time of the survey, not what they had owned in the past. So, people who sold their PlayStation 3 in order to buy a PlayStation 4 would’ve been marked down as non-PS3 owners.

Assuming that most people didn’t do that, though, the numbers underscore why launching at a $100 lower price point than the rival Xbox One was so beneficial for Sony.

At launch, the biggest titles for the $499 Xbox One and the $399 PlayStation 4, according to the NPD Group’s retail charts, were all cross-platform. That is to say, people in November and December were buying games like Activision’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, Ubisoft’s Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag, EA’s Battlefield 4 and Take-Two’s NBA 2K14.

All those games were available on both Xbox One and PlayStation 4, and since neither new console was backwards-compatible with its predecessor, that meant if you wanted to play Call of Duty with your friends, they would have to buy the same console as you.

And if you have to buy a new console, why not buy the cheaper one? The Xbox One didn’t have a “big” exclusive title to justify the Kinect and its higher price point at launch (that pricing decision has since been reversed). While the PS4 didn’t have any top-selling exclusives at launch either, players elected to go with the cheaper option to play the same big games, because duh.

source

tl;dr version:

As of april - 31% of ps4 owners were converted from xbox/wii.   17% did not have a last gen console.    160M ps4's sold LTD confirmed.

I would like to make money saying obvious things.

I said time and time again that price and not power, nor exclusives, nor DRMs was the major advantage of the PS4.

Yeah, I used those study's numbers a lot previously.

I predict at least 5 people in the thread calling this survey invalid because Nielsen didn't interview all 10 million owners. (Because that apparently is the only way any survey can be valid)

were these numbers made public before?   i've heard shu make reference to them but i don't remember the raw numbers being posted.   if they've been posted then i guess this thread is pretty pointless.

Even with a substantial +/-, that number is still impressive. I think it really illustrates how badly both Microsoft and Nintendo misjudged the market.

A couple of years ago, I said something along the lines of, "I hope at least one company launches a traditional console not centered around a gimmick and I really hope that company is Sony." This shows that only good things will happen if you try to please me.

I only owned a wii and 3sexty before now. I am a convert to Playstation this year and very satisfied .

well i think project morpheous is going to end up as a gimmick but at least it wasn't bundled into the raw console.

I though I have read this news before.

I've seen them as early as May. I mentioned them in various threads attacking TLOU Remaster, to point out the obvious target market for it. I guess the sales kinda follow the survey.

But no need to close the thread, I don't remember a specific topic on the survey. The numbers can be further discussed as a forecast of future sales, as it shows that most PS3 owners are still waiting to upgrade.

Another point if discussion is Microsoft obviously losing a portion of their XBL Gold subscribers. They seem pretty unwilling to share those numbers anymore, as they were previously.

Here's the original thread that reported the study.

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=185117&page=1