PS4 Hits 7 Million - Consoles Really Aren't In Trouble

[Lightknight]

If you had shown some data first instead of just resorting to make "inflammatory comments" yourself, then maybe I wouldn't have used such a "terrible insult" as Fanboy. And no, I was not attempting to flame bait, merely making an opinion. Good we got that straightened out.

That's not an acceptable justification. If you yourself are ignorant of the subject then you request more before making a wild accusation that the person talking is just a blind little soldier boy doing what big daddy corporation tells them. That's on you.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

In fact relative to release times the Xbox One is outselling the Wii.

No it isn't, it's not even close. They'd need to have sold better than 9 million units by the end of may for that to be the case, they'll probably have just over half.

No kidding; people keep going on about the PR with the new consoles sales, but that's all it is: PR. Fact of the matter is that the XB1 and the PS4 aren't going to touch their immediate predecessors' numbers, let alone that of the Wii's. They would have to sell 20 million. In ONE YEAR. Neither of them have even hit 10 million and I just can't see that happening anytime soon. They'll hit the "hardcore", but I really wonder if anyone besides the "hardcore" really cares that much about the new tech.

 

[BrotherRool]

In fact relative to release times the Xbox One is outselling the Wii.

No it isn't, it's not even close. They'd need to have sold better than 9 million units by the end of may for that to be the case, they'll probably have just over half.

No kidding; people keep going on about the PR with the new consoles sales, but that's all it is: PR. Fact of the matter is that the XB1 and the PS4 aren't going to touch their immediate predecessors' numbers, let alone that of the Wii's. They would have to sell 20 million. In ONE YEAR. Neither of them have even hit 10 million and I just can't see that happening anytime soon. They'll hit the "hardcore", but I really wonder if anyone besides the "hardcore" really cares that much about the new tech.

But we have the cold hard numbers that shows these consoles are already outselling the previous generation. The Wii sold 5.86 million units in it's first 6 months. The PS4 sold 7 million. The 360 sold 3.2 million in it's first six months, the Xbox One has sold over 4 million by most reasonable estimates.

Are you talking about the sales at the end of the second christmas? Because the PS4 is definitely going to beat both the PS3 and the 360 on those numbers. The 360 sold 7.6 million by the end of it's second Christmas. There's no frigging way that the PS4 is going to sell less than 600,000 units in the next half a year. Equally the PS4 is going to be challenge the PS3's second christmas 10.5 million numbers by August, never mind after the actual christmas season.

I agree the PS4 won't outsell the Wii by the end of the year, even if it is outselling the Wii right now. The casual market isn't there and Sony aren't trying to sell to that market in the first place. I still wouldn't be surprised if the PS4 managed to hit 14-15 million by the end of December.


If you're making the argument that strong sales now are held up by the hardcore but they'll flop as soon as the hardcore run out...well it's possible, but if that were true we'd have seen some evidence of it right? If it doesn't attract the non-hardcore then it should attract the hardcore a little less too right? It's not like hardcoreness is a binary state, there's degrees of devotion and if the undevoted are unattracted it should peel away some of the moderately devoted too. Instead we've seen record sales for both consoles. The software companies are onboard with the new generation and everything is behaving like a normal cycle.

It's totally within the realms of possibility, but my point is there's a lot of evidence that this is a normal console cycle and no evidence that it's not. The evidence is nowhere close to conclusive but that still means the side with any evidence at all is more believable than the one without

 

[kaizen2468]

While the competition did screw up a lot, ps4 has done alot of stuff right and deserves the succes

 

[Lightknight]

While the competition did screw up a lot, ps4 has done alot of stuff right and deserves the succes

Right. It didn't just manage to "not screw up". It actually provided a great deal for the price, the right services and a decent lineup of games planned. And it didn't screw up of course.

 

[ShinyCharizard]

Oh yes, and there's soooo many games for those 7mil people to play on their shiny new PS4s.

Like... like, um... well, that one with the, err... ohh, ohh, that one game with the... the, err... the stuff that...

Huh.

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

This is true, why are people buying these things right now? Ain't nothing worth playing on it. I'm going to wait until at least Destiny and Metal Gear Solid 5 come out.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Hahahahahahahahahaha.

This is true, why are people buying these things right now? Ain't nothing worth playing on it. I'm going to wait until at least Destiny and Metal Gear Solid 5 come out.

Because the kind of people who need them are tech junkies. It's not about the games, it's about them gushing over a bunch of technical jargon that no one else cares about. Fact of the matter is that the first year to two years of a console's life is going to be a beta test for figuring out the hardware. And considering how many games are cross generation so far, I doubt that's going to change anytime soon. Oh sure, publishers and devs will try to tempt people with stuff like Batman: Arkham Knight or the next Assassin's Creed, but in all honesty I very much doubt they're going to pull as big of numbers as they THINK they will.

 

[gorfias]

Looking at these posts, this might be a bit counter intuitive, but guess what: Sony's PS4 numbers are good. Very good. And it is going to get better.

I've written before: Rush Limbaugh was spoken to around 2000 by someone stating that 720P would never take off. No one wanted it. Not enough of an advance over 480i to be worth while and too expensive.

He asked, will TV look better by 2050? Of course. We have to get there from here in steps. By 2017, PS3 graphics will be TOTALLY unacceptable. Forget what you see on youtube (can't do the differences justice). The difference is already there (Infamous 2 vs. 3 for instance). PS4 buries PS3. And people are going to want it.

It will do great and TC: the numbers are terrific. Thank you for sharing.

 

[Maximum Bert]

I am surprised that the PS4 and the Xbox One are doing as well as they are because there is so little to play on them that its really not worth buying them imo. I have two friends who bought both and they play neither but then they like being first adopters for some reason.

The WiiU may be worth picking up this year finally (already have one, bought it for a few games) but I cant see any games that will make me pick up a PS4 or Xbox One this year (and im never picking up an Xbox One on principle). Then again I see no games that will make me upgrade my middle of the road 5 year old PC either (middle of the road 5 years ago).

I am glad the PS4 is doing better than the Xbox One after the crap they tried to pull though if they had got away with that and set a trend I would have been out of gaming, well once I had finished my massive backlog and purchased all the great past games I always wanted to play but never had time to.

 

[kilenem]

Sony as a company isn't doing amazing Even with the 7 million sells they just lost 1.1 billion dollars. The VITA TV bombing. They've been laying off Devs for the Last Two years including Devs form the delayed game Drive Club. Even with the Success of the PS4 it isn't clear if Sony will make a profit. I'm scared that Sony won't be able to continue making PlayStations or that the brand gets sold off.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

In fact relative to release times the Xbox One is outselling the Wii.

No it isn't, it's not even close. They'd need to have sold better than 9 million units by the end of may for that to be the case, they'll probably have just over half.

So this was written when Microsoft hadn't given us any of their figures since their Christmas sales, at which point they'd said 3.6 million compared to the Wii's 3.2 million in a similar time period.

And then by the end of March, which is the figure Microsoft have just released, the Wii had only sold 5.8 million, which is less than the PS4 and only a little over the 5 million number MS just announced.

However I made the mistake of not noticing MS were talking about shipping figures, so actually they were fairly largely behind the Wii at both those points (although still ahead of the 360). The Wii sells 9.27 million by it's 9th month which the PS4 may or may not hit but the Xbox One certainly won't.

If I had to guess I'd say that Sony does manage to break Wii sales figures again, but that it's going to be really close. I don't think they've got a big game release scheduled for that time. But it's going to be really close, all the consoles last generation and even the Wii U managed to sell about the same number of units in their third quarter as in their second. Sony sold 2.8 million in their second quarter this time which theoretically leaves them at 9.8 million ish.

arent those 5 million from MS SHIPPED units? theres a difference between shipped and sold

 

[JET1971]

and the PC market isn't dying. The PREBUILT PCs are dying because they are scams, PC gaming is growing and is doing just fine. Nvidia can attest to that. desktops will be around for work, and smart phone around for dicking around.

business is not done on smart phones or tablets by the simple virtue of input.

Dang it I was going to say that. But there is more to it than that, all the big prebuilt PC manufacturers jumped onto the mobile platform and basically ignored the desktop market. Basically started making 1-2 desktop models and 10 notebook/netbook models. It is hard to get good sales for desktop PC's when there's 3 in the store to choose from and 30 laptops. Also PC sales figures is for Desktop's. Laptops and netbooks are factored as a separate category like Linux box's and Apple are. Basically the big prebuilt PC manufacturers shot themselves in the foot.

OT:
As for "Consoles Really Aren't In Trouble", I believe this generation is the last generation of what people consider a "console". Even the last generation has broke from the mold and started becoming something else when they introduced installing and patching games. Then there's the Steam box that is basically a PC running a flavor of Linux but takes all the confusion of a Linux distro and hides it. The Steam box console concept I think is what the next gen of consoles will be like. A new OS built for gaming but can also do PC things and is made to feel like a traditional console. The Steam Box model has all the best that PC gaming offers and all that Console gaming offers and if things go right when they actually enter the market the "Box" manufacturers and Valve will put a serious dent in PC and Console gaming markets especially because you can build your own Steam Box.

But it is not just about the Steam Box that will change the console market from traditional console, it is the direction that the console makers except stuck in the past Nintendo are already heading. At the end of the last generation the consoles were more like a PC than ever before(PS3 used to have a dual boot option and could run Linux!) and this generation is trying even harder to be more PC like but still stuck with trying to be a proprietary gaming machine by just not biting the bullet and adding KB/M support and an OS users can use for other things like posting comments at The Escapist.

If they give up pretending to be a traditional console and become a Personal Computer(PC) for the living room it would benefit everyone including the console makers because they can have others manufacture the hardware to run their OS and use their controller. That's called competition for better hardware for lower prices driving the market to improve rather than the stagnation they seem to prefer these days so they can milk it for all it's no longer worth.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Saying things like "OH YEAH WELL PS4 NO GAMES!" is kind of removed from the point. OP isn't really making any statement about the quality of the actual console. They're saying that the ps4 has sold more consoles in this timespan than the PS3 and 360 combined. It's indicitive of a demand that the industry will see profit in satiating. The fact that the PS4 has sold so well despite not having any huge console movers (aside from maybe infamous) if anything fortifies the point that the thing is very successful so far.

This is a website where the general consensus is that Call of Duty is a terrible game series, big jiggly boobs are stupid, and PC gaming is the future. We're hardly a good place to get a sample of majority market or opinion.

PC gaming is thriving too, don't get me wrong. IIRC League of Legends is the most played game in the world and there's something like 70 million steam accounts. It's really hard to say how many of those people are legitimately PC gamers though. League of Legends is a free game that requires very little hardware power, and having a steam account is pretty much one layer past having a facebook now.

What I do know is a heavily xbox-centric audience made every Call of Duty game a record breaking media launch consecutively for years until the launch of GTA 5, which wasn't even on the PC. It was only on the consoles, neither of which by this point in their lifespan had sold as well as their predecessors especially in the case of the PS4.

So yeah, basically consoles still are and may continue to be a big thing in some way shape or form. The only x factor right now is the whole steam machine project. Depending on the level of its success or failure it will either show investors that the line between console and PC gaming is ready to be blurred or it isn't.

tl;dr: Money and market data make this industry turn and the numbers are there for consoles, especially the PS4.

 

[Savagezion]

This is a website where the general consensus is that Call of Duty is a terrible game series, big jiggly boobs are stupid, and PC gaming is the future. We're hardly a good place to get a sample of majority market or opinion.

LOL, so true. That cracked me up.

Yeah GTA 5 had some crazy numbers too. To not be on PC, that I see as huge. (As a pc gamer) Steambox is a cool and funky device. PC gamers are like "YEAH" but they aren't the target so they don't care. I wouldn't doubt Steam is just a name, if that, to many console gamers.

No Blueray player could hurt. Hell no disc of any kind. A PC without a ROM drive.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

Sony as a company isn't doing amazing Even with the 7 million sells they just lost 1.1 billion dollars. The VITA TV bombing. They've been laying off Devs for the Last Two years including Devs form the delayed game Drive Club. Even with the Success of the PS4 it isn't clear if Sony will make a profit. I'm scared that Sony won't be able to continue making PlayStations or that the brand gets sold off.

That is the thing; the only division really profitable is the PS division. Sony Pictures does alright, but even films making hundreds of millions can't offset Sony's massive debts. Then again, pretty much EVERY game company is like that. The XBox division for MS has been a giant black hole, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft are shaky at best due to how many times people get laid off, Irrational Games completely folded, and it seems that even more publishers are struggling to make the black year in, year out. Not a great position for the industry to be in.

 

[Rattja]

Ok so it sold 7 million units, is that impressive? It's more than the other two, alright, but what about PC? I'd love to see some numbers on that as well.
I know that wouldn't be right, as not all of them are for gaming, and that many are built from parts and not sold as whole units.
Still I would like to see some kind of info on it.

I mean, right now, there are 5,8 million users on steam, that's 5+ million machines right there.

 

[kilenem]

Sony as a company isn't doing amazing Even with the 7 million sells they just lost 1.1 billion dollars. The VITA TV bombing. They've been laying off Devs for the Last Two years including Devs form the delayed game Drive Club. Even with the Success of the PS4 it isn't clear if Sony will make a profit. I'm scared that Sony won't be able to continue making PlayStations or that the brand gets sold off.

That is the thing; the only division really profitable is the PS division. Sony Pictures does alright, but even films making hundreds of millions can't offset Sony's massive debts. Then again, pretty much EVERY game company is like that. The XBox division for MS has been a giant black hole, EA, Activision, and Ubisoft are shaky at best due to how many times people get laid off, Irrational Games completely folded, and it seems that even more publishers are struggling to make the black year in, year out. Not a great position for the industry to be in.

According to Packer Activison has enough money to buy take two and EA stock is at 36 dollars, probably the most valuable stock in the video game sector.
Although Activison Parent Company Vivendi almost tried to bankrupt them. I wonder how Activison buying themselves out from Viacom is going.

 

[Blitsie]

Bought mine last week during my road trip through parts of America, damn thing used to cost $600 here and it skyrocketed to $800 for just the base console (I don't even want to see the bundle prices) so $400 is an absolute steal for me.

Anyway, funny thing I noticed while going through lots of gaming and electronic stores in New York, Washington and Atlanta (you guys have some insanely low prices on stuff, so envious) was that they either had not much stock or nothing of the PS4 while there were stacks of Xbox Ones to be found lying around. Sony is definitely doing something right by the looks of it.