A new poll of US shoppers taken last week, and published by Reuters/Ipsos today, shows the Sony PlayStation 4 is much more popular with US shoppers than the Microsoft Xbox One. The survey found that over a quarter of people were interested in buying a PS4 when the console becomes available while only 15 per cent would opt for an Xbox One.
Drilling down into the numbers gained from the survey responses shows that those aged 40 or below are even keener on Sony’s new console. Reuters says that “Of that group of 408 people, 41 percent picked Sony's PS4 versus 27 percent for Microsoft's Xbox One”.
PS4 retail pack
Part of the reason for Sony’s surge ahead in this pre-release popularity contest is reported to be the chopping and changing of policies concerning usage of Microsoft’s Xbox One. Also money talks and without any experience of either console, buyers are looking at the $100 cheaper Sony offering more favourably.
Looking at the broader gaming industry Reuters asks if either of these next generation consoles can fight off the trend towards mobile, tablet and Facebook gaming. The flipside of the above percentages concerning the purchase of one of the new next gen consoles is that “64 percent of total respondents said they would not buy any new game hardware at all this season, when posed with choices ranging from the Xbox and PS4 to Nintendo's 2DS and Valve's Steam Box,” reports Reuters.
Sony – it’s “marathon, not a sprint”.
Coinciding with the above survey, a new interview with PlayStation UK boss Fergal Gara was published on Eurogamer today. The gaming magazine says that Sony’s fortunes look to be a lot different compared to the PS3 launch – last time the PS3 was 16 months later on the scene than the Xbox 360, it was also “hundreds of pounds more” expensive. As things stand the PS4 now looks like the favourite to grab the biggest market share.
DualShock 4
In the interview with Eurogamer Gara said that since announcing the 1 million pre-sales figure at GamsCom last month demand has not slowed down. Things look set to be record beating for Sony and the company has forecast 5 million units will be sold in the UK by the end of the financial year. “That's 50 per cent up on PlayStation 3 for the same time window,” he added. Also the relative price of the PS4 is “£75 below PS3's launch price back seven years ago,” said Gara.
Looking at the PS3 vs Xbox 360 history in the UK, where Microsoft’s console has outsold Sony’s by 4:1, Gara told Eurogamer that the race with Microsoft “is a marathon, not a sprint”. The PlayStation UK boss added that “We're coming out of the blocks in a strong position, but we're conscious that is no-where close to job done, and we have to continually improve the proposition”.
Asked about the new announcements by Valve including the news of the Steam Controller Gara said that this “broadside disruptive technology” can’t be just be ignored as “Steam is arguably the pre-eminent digital download service for gaming”. Sony will be watching the progress of SteamOS, Steam Machines and Steam Controller carefully.
