So we have a thread a few days (or weeks?) ago about Sony and Nintendo shipped 500m and 700m unit, respectively. Based on this we know that the current gap between them is about 200m. In the last gen Nintendo manages to enlarge the gap thanks to their domination in the handheld (and casuals). With now they are both a single platform company does Sony have a chance to surpass Nintendo total hardware shipment in the foreseeable future assuming both didn't quit the market or is it just too much for Sony?

Only if Nintendo stops producing products. Given Sony will most likely beat Nintendo constantly hardware wise but not overall total before gaming become fully service based. 

If Nintendo products continue to sell poorly, along with Sony's good pace, it could happen, though it'd take several years, if the industry is still making hardware at that point, and not switch to streaming or something.

I think Sony will be selling more consoles than Nintendo most years for the next several. But we are not talking massive numbers. Then who knows what will happen. Even if Sony sell more each year, and consoles continue as they are, it would take three decades or more

define foreseeable future, is that 3 years? 5 years? 10 years?

like Rol said, if its 10 years than Sony would need to outsell Nintendo by an average of 20 million/year and this unlikely since PS4 has yet to sell 20 million in any year and Nintendo isnt going to sell zero units in the next 10 years so its almost impossible.

In 2016, Sony consoles outsold Nintendo consoles by 11 million units, the largest gap (in Sony's favor) in VGChartz history. Of course, this was the PS4's second peak year and the Wii U's death year. But let's imagine that the gap remains 11 million forever. The current gap between PlayStation and Nintendo is roughly 200 million. For Sony to catch up at its 2016 pace, it would take over 18 years.

Of course, Nintendo just launched the Switch, and I don't see the PS4 being up year-on-year by a significant amount, if at all. Since the 3DS and Wii U combined sold 8.5 million units in 2016, it's almost guaranteed that the gap will be smaller this year, even if the 3DS immediately stops being sold, because the Switch alone will sell more than that.

In short, it'll take decades of Nintendo screwing up for that to happen, and that assumes that Sony will continue to make dedicated gaming hardware at all. Who knows what the gaming landscape will look like in 2040?

good post, im going to go with Sony never catches up to Nintendo.

it would take like decades if Nintendo remains in the business.

even in recent times- when you combine Wii U + 3DS and compare it to Vita + PS4- yes, on average in the last few years Sony has sold more- but its not been a drastic amount hardware wise. 

The irony is people almost seem to imply that Sony made up huge ground in the last decade. the reality is Sony's BIGGEST gain in hardware (in comparison to Nintendo's own sales at the same times) would be from their inception with the PS1 until the end of the PS2 era.

PS1- 100 million sales, Nintendo 64 - like 30 million. Sure, no Sony handheld then, but a massive lead in the one department. Obviously the Gameboy Color sort of balances the totals for that gen though.

and if you take away the PS2/PSP generation then Sony's total hardware amounts nearly cut in HALF. Think about that for a moment, that one generation is almost HALF of Sony's entire hardware sales with 150+ million PS2's sold and 80 million PSP's sold, for a total of 230 million (out of their total of 500 million).

considering the Wii/DS generation Nintendo overall sold by far the most hardware (the DS was a PS2 like beast), and even this latest gen with the 3DS (at, what 65 million sales reported by Nintendo?)- Nintendo just has not been losing that much ground.

when you directly look at, say, Wii U comparison charts- it deceptively seems so. But hardware sales include both handhelds and home consoles. And even this Wii U / 3DS period they've been keeping the hardware tallies from changing that much (in terms of Sony vs Nintendo proportions of total sales). After all this latest gen Sony and Nintendo have been pretty much inverse, with one killing it on the home console market and the other continuing to boss the handheld market.

Like one of the first posts suggests- Nintendo would need to essentially entirely drop from the game for Sony to hope to catch them in hardware. And even if Nintendo did drop out tomorrow it would probably take like 2 more generations for Sony to catch up 

the problem is that in even the weakest recent generation Nintendo still has pushed like 75 million+ systems. Sony has done marginally better when you look at both of their hardware markets (with the Vita filling the Wii U role).

Can't emphasize enough that Sony has not really been gaining much in the last few gens on Nintendo in terms of hardware sales but rather that the PS2/PSP era was primarily responsible for a lot of their tally today. 230 million hardware from that gen from Sony versus Nintendo getting like less than half of that with the Gamecube/GBA

Just to put things into perspective - we're comparing 7 generations of Nintendo systems to 4 generations of Sony systems.

last year is an anamoly though, everyone was calling it a dead year for Nintendo since they essentially deliberately abandoned the Wii U. Its not the norm to use as an example. 

Sony's biggest ever hardware advantage in certain years against Nintendo was the PS2/PSP over Gamecube/GBA era. For Sony to hypothetically close the distance in a DECADE from now they would need to annually probably do BETTER every year (compartively to Nintendo) than they did in that period to come close. 

it won't happen.

I also agree with you that at some point there will be giant question marks in the future of whether game consoles will continue to exist, at least home ones. AT some point if they get advanced enough (say a PS6?), the question may begin to creep into people's minds what's the point or difference of going with that instead of a standard PC. For obvious reasons I can see handhelds potentially having longer life into the future since dedicated portable devices is where society seems sort of headed (look at how many people use tablets for specific reasons, whether art, or educational, or now video game focused like the Switch)