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Report: PS4 Is Selling Twice As Well As Xbox One (arstechnica.com) 136

The latest numbers released by analysts suggest that the Sony PlayStation 4 is selling twice as many units worldwide as the Xbox One since both systems launched in late 2013. The data comes from a new SuperData report on the Nintendo Switch, which is backed up by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad. SuperData mentions an installed base of 26 million Xbox One units and 55 million PS4 units. Ars Technica reports: Ahmad's chart suggests that Microsoft may have sold slightly more than half of the 53.4 million PS4 units that Sony recently announced it had sold through January 1. Specific numbers aside, though, it's clear Microsoft has done little to close its console sales gap with Sony over the past year -- and may have actually lost ground in that time. The last time we did our own estimate of worldwide console sales, through the end of 2015, we showed the Xbox One with about 57 percent as many systems sold as the PS4 (21.49 million vs. 37.7 million). That lines up broadly with numbers leaked by EA at the time, which suggest the Xbox One had sold about 52.9 percent as well as the PS4 (19 million vs. 35.9 million). One year later, that ratio has dipped to just above or even a bit below 50 percent, according to these reports. The relative sales performance of the Xbox One and PS4 doesn't say anything direct about the health or quality of those platforms, of course. Microsoft doesn't seem to be in any danger of abandoning the Xbox One platform any time soon and has, in fact, recently committed to upgrading it via Project Scorpio later this year. The gap between PS4 and Xbox One sales becomes important only if it becomes so big that publishers start to consider the Xbox One market as a minor afterthought that can be safely ignored for everything but niche games.
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Report: PS4 Is Selling Twice As Well As Xbox One

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  • Both are viable platforms with lots of games and players. Who cares if one is twice the size of the other?

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Mostly investors, publishers and developers.

    • Isn't player base critically important for multiplayer games? PS4's advantage should mean that CoD/BF1/TF2/etc online player base for the game should be sustainable longer than for the XBox One.

      • not really, that is only true if a game was struggling for a userbase. One having 10 million COD users and the Other 5 will not make the slightest difference. COD/BF etc are all annual or biannual releases with a constantly moving userbase. This however might be true for some small unpopular games with very low userbases but then those type of games don't matter anyway.
  • by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @06:31PM (#53692655)

    For those not up on computer history, Osborne was a computer maker that announced a great new model coming in a year... so sales started tanking while people waited... which meant there was no model in a year (or maybe there was, my memory is fuzzy on that detail).

    I think MS was really dumb to try and compete with the PS4 Pro by saying they would have improved hardware next year. All they had to do was literally nothing, the PS4 Pro is not big enough of a bump that it would have effected XBox sales...

    Although really it seems like XBox sales have been lagging even before the recent hardware upgrade was announced.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Appbox One only has appy app apps on Appdows 10! LUDDITE PS4 only has LUDDITE games!

      Apps!

    • For those not up on computer history, Osborne was a computer maker that announced a great new model coming in a year... so sales started tanking while people waited... which meant there was no model in a year (or maybe there was, my memory is fuzzy on that detail).

      Microsoft had a pattern of doing this throughout the 90's, and it generally worked out well for them. As soon as other PC operating systems (and OS/2 in particular) started chipping away at the badly aging Windows 3.1x line, Microsoft started promising the moon with Windows 95/PC DOS 7 -- more than two years before it shipped. They didn't deliver on most of their promises, and the end result was worse than the competition, but by that point it didn't matter -- people believed the hype and decided to skip

      • Remember "Cairo"? [...] WinFS probably takes the cake

        I agree that Microsoft has talked a good vapor game. But each component of the Cairo project appears to have seen eventual release in some form.

        • Windows NT 3.1 included DCE/RPC.
        • Windows 95 and Windows NT 4 included Windows Explorer.
        • Windows 2000 included Windows Search as part of MSN Toolbar. It became a core operating system component in Windows Vista.
        • Windows XP included Windows NT Home. At this point, the majority of Cairo technologies had been released, and incidentally the Greek letters Chi-Rho look like t
        • Was Apple any worse with its "Pink" and "Copland" projects [wikipedia.org]?

          I think the difference here was that Apple wasn't announcing their plans from a monopoly position in order to keep people away form the competition. Indeed, when Pink became Taligent, one of the idea of the AIM Alliance was to use a microkernel architecture that would permit various OS "flavours" to run on top of it, including Mac OS "Pink", OS/2, and Windows NT, all running on PowerPC CHRP.

          My feeling was always that the problem with Apple surrounding Copland and Pink was more incompetence rather than mal

    • by gman003 ( 1693318 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @07:54PM (#53693089)

      Good theory, but I think you're wrong. That's not what's hurting Microsoft - Sony did the same thing, with rumors of the "Neo" appearing shortly after the console itself launched. And yet the PS4 still sold quite well from day one.

      What hurt the Xb1 is that it's demonstrably weaker than the PS4, but cost significantly more at launch ($500 compared to $400). Most games are available on both, so the natural inclination is to go with the cheaper and more powerful console. With a wide library of shared games, there's lots of direct comparisons to make, and even before they launched, it was easy to tell the PS4 would be more powerful. That gave the PS4 a very strong advantage during the first year or two.

      Even now, they only have price-parity, with both having an entry price around $250-$300. But more people already have a PS4, making that the more attractive option both for multiplayer gaming (if all your friends are on PS4, you'd want one too) and for the larger percentage of third-party exclusive titles (it's nowhere near as big a deal as it once was, since porting is so easy, but there's still some studios that are deciding to skip the Xb1 because the audience is smaller). And it seems to me (as a non-Xb1, non-PS4 gamer) that Sony's shoveling the money from their console sales into more first-party games, giving it a still stronger library, which is ultimately what every gamer cares about.

      Microsoft doesn't have a lot of options for coming back from this, just as the PS3 struggled to come back from the Xb360's early lead and the XbC never came close to the PS2. They could make the Scorpio be *substantially* more powerful than the PS4 Pro, making it more future-proof and maybe able to handle 4K/VR better. They could slash the price, and hope to catch up that way, but that's a risky move. They could pin it on VR or AR, but that's riskier still. They could double-down on their cross-play with PC bets - make every single Xb1 game PC-compatible and bundle a PC version, which would widen their library (although it would cannibalize Scorpio somewhat). Or they could go on a spending spree and buy up every developer they can, and kill off the PS4's third-party support - Sony is no Nintendo, they can't survive on first-party games alone (even Nintendo might not do so much longer).

      • Microsoft's XBox division and OS division are cannibalizing each other as I see it. And since Windows is paramount to Microsoft's overall sustainability, OS will always get the focus. They can try to sell both together as a strength but really, they are both competing for a gamer's attention. You can only play games on one at a time (for a single gamer obviously, I'm not including a family in this example). There's no defining reason to own an XBox if you are also an avid PC gamer. Cross-play makes it even
      • As you pointed out the PS4 has a giant installed base, with the X1 costing more and selling less, despite promises of enhanced games for free using the cloud to power some physics and graphical elements in games.

        Again the Scorpio will be more expensive, and despite promising more power, it will not be used as developers target the much larger installed PS4 and Xbox One user base. Why should developers spend money and resources enhancing games for a tiny market segment? They don't really do that now with the

      • The biggest factor I think is the whole multiplayer snowball effect. As once a particular system gets a bit of an advantage for one reason or another, and people start migrating to it, the effect becomes magnified the longer it goes on. As you say probably one of the largest decisions to buy a particular system outside of exclusive games is about what system all your friends are on. Once they move, you move, the more, etc... To the point where one system starts crushing the other.

        Case in point most of my fr

    • They did not know the PS4 Pro was coming, so they had nothing ready in time... but had to counter with something. They couldn't say they weren't doing anything with sales already languishing.

  • The danger of not supporting a platform is increased as the platforms differences increase. The Xbox One and PS4 both have similar underlying hardware. Therefore, there is not as much danger as a publisher will ignore one of those two compared to the Switch.

    • by guises ( 2423402 )
      The Switch is an ARM SoC. Everyone but everyone is developing for ARM right now - if anything I'd be more worried about the other two.
      • Switch is competing for game developers with the Xbox and PS, Nintendo has struggled massively with 3rd party support previously and it doesn't look like that will change much. There architecture is massively different and that makes them much more expensive to develop for. Xbox and PS are similar with a combined userbase of more than 80 million. Switch isn't destined for disaster but it has a lot of work ahead to be successful as apart from the gimmicky Wii Nintendo have been in a userbase slide for a long
        • by guises ( 2423402 )
          Switch is competing with the Xbox and PS, among other platforms. At this point there are basically two architectures for gaming: x86 on PC, Xbox, and PS, and ARM on Switch and mobile. Both are very big, very well established architectures with extensive development tools available - neither pose any significant obstacles for developers. Nintendo may have a small edge in this respect, since ARM is the big thing right now.

          Nintendo has struggled with third parties in some cases in the past because of some d
          • if Nintendo plans to just compete with mobile then they are fucked before they even start. They need to compete with Xbox and PS and get ports of the games targeting those platforms not the shitty mobile games which when given a choice the majority will just buy them on their mobile
            • by guises ( 2423402 )
              Where did you get the idea that they were just competing with mobile? That doesn't make any sense.

              I'm a little excited for the Switch for exactly the reason you hint at: I see this as maybe a chance to raise the bar on mobile gaming. Mobile games are, as you say, shit. If devs start porting over Switch games though, real games, it could perhaps help to pull mobile gaming out of that hole. At least to some degree.

              Probably not. This may just be wishful thinking on my part, the interface is different bet
              • well they are, how the fuck doesn't it make sense, they have a mobile type console. they have put themselves in no mans land, they are a poor underpowered console and an overpriced mobile device. I like Nintendo and hope they succeed but I just can't see it happening with the switch, everything is against them from lack of games, underpowered console, competing to get mobile market share and they are introducing paid online to top it off.
          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            Switch is competing with the Xbox and PS, among other platforms. At this point there are basically two architectures for gaming: x86 on PC, Xbox, and PS, and ARM on Switch and mobile. Both are very big, very well established architectures with extensive development tools available - neither pose any significant obstacles for developers. Nintendo may have a small edge in this respect, since ARM is the big thing right now.

            Nintendo has struggled with third parties in some cases in the past because of some diff

            • by guises ( 2423402 )
              Yes, there are many what? You have not given any technical reasons why third parties wouldn't flock to this thing. Sure there are plenty of other potential pitfalls, I would never claim otherwise, but as you say: "3rd parties flocked to 3DS mostly because there's no other option around. Except in Japan, the only other portable system around is mobile." This remains true for the Switch.
              • you want reasons that developers may not flock to this. Will give you lots

                Zero userbase and a past set of consoles that have failed for 3rd party
                Cost of porting, switch is a very different architecture to the 2 consoles it needs to get ports from which means games cost a lot more for a much smaller userbase
                Nintendo userbase has previously shunned 3rd party games, even when they had a large userbase 3rd party ports sold poorly
                The console is significantly underpowered compared to the other 2 consoles it
                • by guises ( 2423402 )
                  I do not want reasons why developers might shun the Switch. I never asked for any such reasons. I have made no indication at any point that I was seeking these reasons.

                  This thread started with someone claiming that system architecture would be a barrier to porting between home consoles and the Switch, i pointed out that that really wasn't true and the rest of this conversation has just been fanboi garbage.

                  Also: your reasons are terrible. I mean, come on - you're citing zero userbase on a product which
                  • sorry but that is bullshit. you just whined in the previous post that no technical reasons had been given for developers not flocking to this. secondly the architecture IS MASSIVELY different so it most definitely is true that it will be a significant barrier. the switch compared to the XB1 or Ps4 is about as significantly different as you can get right down to completely different graphics chipset architectures.
      • Everyone but everyone is developing for ARM right now

        AAA titles are not developed for ARM. I cannot think of any game with more than $10MM in dev. costs that was for an ARM platform.

        • by guises ( 2423402 )
          I can think of a few, but that doesn't matter: (almost) every studio makes ARM games now, regardless of their budget, and that means that (almost) every studio has ARM experience. Thus, ARM does not pose a barrier to entry.
          • The issue isn't "studio has ARM experience", its "how many hours does it take to port from the initial configuration to ARM" Because a AAA product will be designed first for Xbox/PS4/Computers.

            • by guises ( 2423402 )
              This is circular logic: "AAA products won't be designed for ARM because AAA products are not designed for ARM." The fact that it hasn't been done so far means squat, this is the first time that a major gaming console is... Actually, no it isn't the first time. There have been a ton of major gaming products designed for ARM - the DS, 3DS, and PS Vita are all ARM based.

              Regardless, even if all that you care about is ports of other console games the fact that everyone is currently developing for ARM means th
              • It's not circular logic - ports of AAA products won't be designed for ARM because the current AAA products aren't designed for ARM. New AAA products won't be designed for ARM, because ARM doesn't have a history of AAA products that you can point to to demonstrate to the money people that AAA titles are worth it on ARM

                a ton of major gaming products designed for ARM - the DS, 3DS, and PS Vita are all ARM based.

                Handhelds. Not AAA domain.

                Most major gaming engines support both: Unreal, Gamebryo, Blitztech, C

      • I was under the impression that nowadays there's very little to none low level code in games. Also, most bigger engines support a lot of platforms. I don't think using an ARM CPU makes porting games too difficult.
        • I don't think using an ARM CPU makes porting games too difficult.

          Unless one of the binary-only middleware libraries you're using is available only for x86 and x86-64 architectures.

        • by guises ( 2423402 )
          That is basically what I was saying, yes. Though the PS4/Switch use OpenGL, while the Xbox only uses DirectX... That's a quibble though - the barrier which that poses is nothing compared to previous generations of consoles.
          • That is basically what I was saying, yes. Though the PS4/Switch use OpenGL, while the Xbox only uses DirectX...

            No, neither of them use OpenGL. The PS4 uses a custom PSGL graphics library by Sony and the Switch uses the NVN API, a low-level, low-overhead graphics API that was designed for it by nVidia as it uses the Tegra processor.

            • by guises ( 2423402 )
              All right, I should have known consoles would be fully proprietary. Thanks for filling me in.
  • How is the PS4 Pro doing, though? From what I've heard it hasn't been selling all that well.
  • Scorpio isn't an upgraded Xbox One. The Xbox One S is. Just like the PS4 Pro is the upgraded PS4.

    Scorpio is a new generation, though it'll likely be backward compatible, feature a similar UI/OS (Windows 10 everywhere...), tie into the same backend services, etc.

    Outside of Nintendo, the days of console generations being completely new shit are likely dead. Development costs are too high, and established libraries (especially digital) are a huge consideration. Both Sony and MS are using AMD's shit for CPU

    • Scorpio software will be hamstrung by mandatory compatibility with Xbox One hardware. http://www.gamespot.com/articl... [gamespot.com]

      Scorpio's higher price will slow adoption, developers will still focus on the much larger install base of PS4 and Xbox One onwers, meaning developer resources won't be put into significant enhancements for Scorpio compatible games. http://www.gamespot.com/articl... [gamespot.com]

      Scorpio's hardware will be outclassed 2 years later when the PS5 is released. http://www.gamezone.com/news/a... [gamezone.com]

      It will be an exp

      • I seriously doubt MS is going to hamstring Scorpio and treat it as the same generation as the Xbox One. We haven't even had an official reveal of it yet. All we've had is the announcement that it's coming. We'll get the full scoop this E3.

        • Did you look at the link? This is confirmed. http://www.gamespot.com/articl... [gamespot.com]

          Why would MS cut off their legs? Scorpio will have an install base of 0 until end of 2017, PS4 and Xbox One will have at least 100m combined by then (about 80m now combined). Why would devs give a system that will have such a low ownership for such a short time before the next real generation the money and resources required to significantly improve games?

      • First off the specs leaked show it is a AMD Ryzen with an RX 480 underclocked to match performance with an RX 470. No for the parent this is not bad hardware anymore.

        So no developers do not have to target PS 4 pro or Scorpio? They just simply make the same games for the xbox One which are binary compatible and up the graphic details and resolution when a higher end console is available. This is quite smart actually.

        Also MS is making with game mode DirectX xbox compability (which oddly is very different from

        • Exactly, upping the resolution, fps, and anti aliasing are minor upgrades on basically the same game. Scorpio games won't really poush the hardware with more detailed models, physics, AI, bigger worlds with more going on, etc... and they won't be able to either since Scorpio gamers will be matched up with Xbox One gamers online, so they can't even have different physics and AI models going on if they wanted to.

          Haha DirectX and Compatible are funny to have in the same sentence!! Right now on PC they can't ev

    • This got me thinking about a conversation I had with a colleague last week.

      We were talking about emulation and how the underlying design of systems, which chips are used, makes that emulation difficult. It seems consoles at first had off-the-shelf chips that were put to a new and interesting use (NES/Master System era). As the generations went on, the chips got more specialized (XB360/PS3 era), but did not veer too far from the established general-purpose PC architectures. After all, the xbox series used
      • It's an interesting idea but emulation of GPUs is a significant undertaking, and games on PS4 and Xbox One go low level enough to the hardware that it won't be possible to just trap high level API calls and execute those on newer hardware. The Xbox One especially has a unique architecture with eSRAM management that will need to be handled somehow, as games use many tricks to acheive performance on that platform.

        Direct hardware lineage makes more sense, but then console manufacturers are tying themselves to

      • The Xbox used virtually bog-standard Celeron CPU and NVidia GPU; the only real special thing was a unifed memory architecture. The 360 was, IIRC, three PowerPC chips and a fairly standard AMD CPU.

        The PS2, on the other hand, was custom silicon; the Emotion Engine and what not, while the PS3 was Cell architecture.

        The PS1 and Dreamcast were both also fairly standard components, while the N64 was SGI custom.

        Consoles are absolutely migrating towards being PCs with purpose-built cases, and backwards compatibilit

  • by HalAtWork ( 926717 ) on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @07:21PM (#53692905)

    Scorpio, an upgraded Xbox One, is said to have about 3x the power of the PS4, 1.5x the power of the PS4 Pro. And 5x the power of the Xbox One, which it has to be compatible with. Scorpio software must run adequately on the Xbox One despite the huge power gap.
    This is a premium system [gamespot.com] with a rumored high price tag, launching about 2 years before the expected next generation of consoles [gamezone.com] debuts.

    Having to compete with the installed base of PS4 and Xbox One so late in the game, developer focus is expected to reflect this, leading to only minor updates to games such as higher resolution, framerate, and anti aliasing. Not expected are more complex models, more detailed worlds, significant shader and texture differences, increased complexity in physics models, or AI differences (especially since Scorpio gamers are expected to match with Xbox One gamers online, and the games are supposed to remain basically the same, only superficially different).

    Bottom line is they expect knowledgable gamers (casuals won't care about this) to pay a high price for minor cosmetic differences not long before newer powerful machines come out that aren't resterained by compatibility with older less powerful systems. It doesn't seem like this will do much to bolster the Xbox brand, and may even make adopters upset. Probably only Microsoft's own titles will bother to put the resources behind making any significant improvements to games, especially considering how much games already cost, and how much testing will have to be done specifically for a significantly different version, and that's only 2-3 games a year?

    It does not seem like Scorpio will help MS....

    • Unless it's an AMD Steam Box... with upgradeable parts.
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )

      Scorpio, an upgraded Xbox One, is said to have about 3x the power of the PS4, 1.5x the power of the PS4 Pro. And 5x the power of the Xbox One, which it has to be compatible with. Scorpio software must run adequately on the Xbox One despite the huge power gap.

      It wouldn't be the first time Microsoft have gimped specs between announcement and release. When Kinect was called Project Natal it had an onboard CPU/DSP that could do motion tracking of 4 people independently, track fingers & hands, even facial expressions. Then they decided to do all the processing on the 360 instead and the thing could barely recognize a person flailing their arms in an exaggerated bowling motion.

      Microsoft might take a look at the PS4 Pro and decide there is no reason to exceed it

  • by Brian Feldman ( 350 ) <green@FreeBSDMONET.org minus painter> on Wednesday January 18, 2017 @07:32PM (#53692977)

    I am quite curious if Sony is now the leading manufacturer of consumer electronics powered by FreeBSD. The only other manufacturer that I think may be in the running would be Panasonic, with FreeBSD as the basis for their televisions.

    • Sony's TV sets, bluray players, smartphones (Android) etc. are all based on Linux. Their PS3/4 OS is said to be based on FreeBSD and NetBSD, but it is highly modified and integrated with proprietary components, so it may be a FreeBSD system as MacOSX is.
  • I have generally purchased an Xbox first, then later on purchased the same gen PlayStation. But this last go around, MS really shot themselves in the foot when they announced all their 'features' that were going to limit owners and limit how/where games could be used. Then either because they were never going to do that, or they just seized on the moment, Sony said 'we aren't doing that' and basically many of us rushed to buy a PS4 instead of an Xbox One. I still haven't really seriously looked at gettin
    • by DrXym ( 126579 )
      It depends on what you mean by "limit". Having to insert a disc to play a game is a pain in the ass, so if the XB1 did uniquely register a game to a console to avoid that hassle then it has obvious advantages.

      Where they fucked up is they didn't provide a way for people to "de-register" the disc so they could sell or loan it. The obvious way to do it would be to say that whoever owns the disk can play it and other images are invalid. If you try to play from the image the console will check online to see if

  • Microsoft unrolled a plan that put major roadblocks up to trading or selling used games. Consumers told them to go fuck themselves. ...fast forward...

    Sales are 2 to 1, in favor of the company that didn't try to pull this blatantly anti-consumerist bullshit, and rightfully so. Apparently, plenty of idiots were swayed by their last minute reversals.

  • The XBone launch was a disaster. They had to backpedal on just about any announcement made, having sold countless lock-ins as "features", type A Microsoft style. It's only for about a year now that people can trust the XBone to be reasonably fair to the consumer in most areas. And this is the stage of a console lifetime were those interested will go and ask around which console was better marketshare and is likely to have more people playing on- and offline. Hence even potential XBone buyers are craning their necks for the PS4s offerings.

    I own the last iteration of the Xbox 360 and a stack of games, most of which would run on the XBone, and even I am reluctant of the XBone, due to the lock-in and lack of convenience in this generations consoles.

    Consoles are too much of an online service extension and not really that convenient anymore these days. Pop in a disk, run a game used to be. Now it's download the update of Mafia 3 for 4 days flat until you can actually play. People who have no problem with that get a PC. XBones+Kinect "allways-on" non-sense and similar stuff was just the straw that broke the camels back, vis-a-vis the (slightly) less invasive and pretentious Sony and their PS4.

  • Microsoft fucked up the launch of the XBox One. It was overpriced, bundled with a peripheral that nobody wanted, was less powerful and looked uglier. That gave the PS4 the lead and it's been widening since.

    Whether that continues when "Project Scorpio" turns up in some form remains to be seen. The PS4 Pro and PSVR didn't exactly take the world by storm so perhaps there is an opportunity for Microsoft to seize or maybe the same pit to fall into.

  • Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 look stunning on my 4K 70" Samsung when played on my XBOX 1S.

He who has but four and spends five has no need for a wallet.

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