Xbox One Versus PS4: Microsoft Expects To Sell 3 Million Units This Holiday Season; PS4 Predicts 5 Million
ByXbox One and Playstation 4 each broke the million-console barrier in less than a day after their respective debuts. One could argue that PS4's launch was more impressive from a sales perspective, given its North America-only release versus the 13 countries that had access to Xbox One, Bloomberg reported.
Cliff Edwards of Bloomberg called it a "lively debate" and said the North America-versus-13-countries debate was overblown. A more pressing issue was supply constrains faced by Microsoft, despite previous reports that Microsoft had been doing a better job than Sony in managing supply and demand.
One reason for Xbox One's early sellouts was its motion-sensing technology, developed with the help of a company called PrimeSense (recently purchased by Apple for $350 million). Kinect is "custom built product for them" according to Edwards; Xbox simply may not have been able to produce as many as it would have liked.
Sony was "feeling pretty good" about its supply count leading up to another launch this Friday's that will include 30 more countries, according to Edwards. Ten more countries will follow in the next few weeks. The South Korean corporation expects to sell 5 million consoles through the holiday season; Xbox predicts 3 million for itself, according to Bloomberg.
Flashy debuts don't always carry long term sustainability, according to Bloomberg. Some have argued that the video game industry has passed its golden age, a concern that reached its height during WiiU's failed debut. Mobile games and less sophisticated (and less expensive) digital adventures have taken some of the market.
Gamers waited seven or eight years for the latest Xbox and PS4; of course early sales are going to astronomical, Bloomberg argued. The real measure has yet to come.