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Report: PS4 Is Selling Twice As Well As Xbox One (arstechnica.com)
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.
Both are viable platforms with lots of games and players. Who cares if one is twice the size of the other?
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
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.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Appbox One only has appy app apps on Appdows 10! LUDDITE PS4 only has LUDDITE games!
Apps!
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 and GPU. Staying on x86 (and AMD) makes perfect sense because it lowers cost, lets them maintain compatibility with older titles so people can keep their existing games as they upgrade to later versions of the console, and makes development easier. It also helps make maintaining the back end services (PSN and Xbox Live) simpler if you don't radically change things every few years.
Scorpio will almost certainly have games that ONLY play on Scorpio, but the PS4 Pro games are (for now, at least) all guaranteed to run on the PS4. This is what demarcates a generational divide. MS is trying hard to get marketshare back, and they had a great opportunity when Sony fucked up with the PS4 Pro (no 4K BluRay support), but they can't seem to get any traction. This is why they're making the first move with Scorpio.
Nintendo, as always, does its own thing on its own time.
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 with a rumored high price tag, launching about 2 years before the expected next generation of consoles 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....
Twinstiq, game news
They sell twice as many consoles but have about 1/5 the amount of games as Xbox. This is what happens when people get too dependent on DirectX when OpenGL is soooo much better and available to everyone.
But the Playstation doesn't use OpenGL anyway, one advantage of those high level APIs is they allow abstraction of a vast range of hardware with a cost of overhead for doing so. The Playstation does not have a range of graphics hardware so suffering that overhead would be pointless, they use their own low-level graphics API.
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.
Brian Fundakowski Feldman
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 getting one.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
So they like Chinese smartphones. Imagine that.
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.
Twinstiq, game news
But the Playstation does have a range of hardware with the release of the PS Pro.
Yes, a range of 2, just like the XBox One and Project Scorpio. And it is forward compatible meaning that you can develop for the PS4 and it works just as good on the PS4 Pro, you only need to put in additional effort if you want create a unique experience on the PS4 Pro.
MS will have the advantage here as the DirectX API originating from the PC was designed from the start to easily develop for a range of hardware. It will be significantly easier for developers to take advantage of the extra power in Project Scorpio then it is for the PS Pro
Well given the assumption that Project Scorpio will be backwards compatible with the XBox One what is a specific example of something that will be so much easier to do with DirectX on Project Scorpio to create a unique experience that will be difficult to do on the PS4 Pro with PSGL?
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.
No, it really isn't. Vulkan is a hardware abstraction layer more than an API. Really good for getting down and dirty with the hardware, but way too low level for actual practical use.
They [...] have about 1/5 the amount of games as Xbox
It's the other way around, a lot of indie and not so indie titles (mainly Japanese stuff, but also games like Tropico 5) are out on PS4, but not on Xbone.
No. I realise I'm using the jargon inaccurately, but the point is that the applications programmers will rarely use the Vulkan API as the programming interface. They'll use higher level libraries. The benefit of Vulkan is that the high level libraries can access the hardware without needing any specific details about the hardware. In other words, it abstracts the hardware.
The ps4 pro has the exact same Cpu as the ps4 just clocked considerably higher, and is has the exact same gpu too, just with twice as many compute units and again clocked higher. The hardware is very closely related, optimisations on one can directly carry over to the other. Also ps4 supports directx if devs choose to go that way.
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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.
If only their numbers were up to date...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
The main reason to own a console is that it's much cheaper than a gaming PC. Many families can't justify the cost of more than one gaming PC, and besides,
I don't believe the claim that game consoles are cheaper than gaming PCs for a few reasons:
1) Most families still need or want a computer at home for reasons besides gaming (e.g. internet, word processing, tracking finances, online banking, digital storage, remote connections to workplaces). This is particularly true for families with children because many school homework assignments today require or are greatly assisted by online research. So, if a family will have a home computer anyway, but buys a separate console for gaming at nearly the same price as the PC, where's the savings?
2) The price of games should be factored into the cost of a game system and games are cheaper on PC through digital distributors like Steam, Origin, etc., which over time off-sets the initial cost of the PC.
3) If you want to play games online (which many people do) you have to add the life-time cost of an online subscription to a console.
4) You don't need an expensive PC to play games. A $500 PC (which is comparable to a new PS4+accessories) will play ~98% of the PC games. If you have to buy a new monitor a PC is a little more expensive, but it is a more versatile device (see point 1). PC tech upgrades cycles are much slower than they were years ago it shouldn't become obsolete right away either.
Yes, the initial sticker price of a console is very likely cheaper than a PC, but if you add up life-cycle costs and versatility it's much harder to justify a console over a PC based on price. Consoles used to have a cost advantage in that they double as DVD/Blueray players, but that is less of factor as more people view movies/shows in digital streaming formats.
...life's too short to deal with driver incompatibility.
10+ years ago this would be a valid argument, but it's not the norm anymore. As long as you are tech savy enough to connect your computer to online, from there most peripherals and programs search and install their own drivers in seconds.
Forza Horizon 3 and Gears of War 4 look stunning on my 4K 70" Samsung when played on my XBOX 1S.
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 PS4 Pro.
We'll have to wait until the next generation and a break in compatibility to get games that are significantly different from what we have now. No matter how much punch the Scorpio packs, it will only get minor enhancements like resolution and frame rate. This may well anger gamers who spent a lot of money on a new box where MS is marketing the sheer hardware performance that doesn't manifest in actual practice.
My guess is only MS's own games will take any real advantage of Scorpio's hardware, while third parties continue to target the base PS4 and Xbox One. Just wait until the next generation, these half step consoles are expensive and offer little benefit in practice. Their advantages are paper-only.
Twinstiq, game news
Curiously though DirectX does not seem to help with compatibility. Games on Windows still have major issues with different hardware, and interestingly on the GPU side we have Nvidia and AMD modifying their drivers to aid with game compatibility!! It seems like DirectX barely does anything to help with the situation... if at all.
Twinstiq, game news
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 friends used to be Xbox, now many of them have moved on to the PS4.
I tend toward PC in principle, but sometimes I argue the other side to help keep both sides honest and help bring out both sides' strongest arguments.
Most families still need or want a computer at home for reasons besides gaming (e.g. internet, word processing, tracking finances, online banking, digital storage, remote connections to workplaces).
First, these non-gaming applications can be done with a cheap eight-year-old PC with a Core 2 Duo and Intel integrated graphics. I'm told just dropping a video card into a PC with a CPU that old isn't enough to run AAA games from the present generation (2014 and later), which would quickly become CPU-bound. Second, these can be done with a laptop, and I've seen no evidence that people routinely upgrade a laptop with a separately purchased MXM video card. Third, a console can be used while someone else is using the family PC.
The price of games should be factored into the cost of a game system and games are cheaper on PC through digital distributors like Steam, Origin, etc., which over time off-sets the initial cost of the PC.
First, though Steam has sales. PlayStation Store also has sales. Second, console games have historically been more likely than PC games to support same-screen multiplayer with two to four gamepads, and if you have more than one gamer in the house, one copy of a $60 game that supports multiple gamepads is cheaper than three copies of a $30 game that requires a separate copy per player. Third, if everybody were to wait for the sale instead of buying in release month at full price, publishers would have no money to continue to fund development of high-production-value games.
If you want to play games online (which many people do) you have to add the life-time cost of an online subscription to a console.
PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold cost $60 per year. But in addition to online matchmaking, this includes rental of a rotating selection of games (PlayStation Plus Free Games and Games with Gold respectively). What's the analogous way to try PC games?
You don't need an expensive PC to play games. A $500 PC (which is comparable to a new PS4+accessories) will play ~98% of the PC games.
Or you could go for a pre-owned PlayStation 4 console with a 500 GB HDD, which costs $280 (source). Which accessories were you including in the price?
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.
Was Apple any worse with its "Pink" and "Copland" projects?
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.
We all know Vulkan is the future of computer graphics, but OpenGL is far from dead. It's right now the standard API for Linux, Android and the web. Also, the new Doom uses OpenGL, and is probably the best performing game of 2016 (although the Vulkan version performs even better).