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This month marks the two-year anniversary of the launches of PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in the UK.
Sony and Microsoft have been going toe-to-toe in the console wars for more than a decade, with fans on both sides claiming victory at various stages for various reasons. The fan-boy wars even inspired a musical… of sorts.
Take a look at the raw sales numbers and it would appear there is only one winner – at least in the UK.
Piers Harding-Rolls, technology and lead games sector analyst for IHS, said: “Things look very good for Sony.
“On a global basis Sony still has very good market share. If you dig into that, it’s to do with regional markets and strength in continental Europe and Asian markets.”
In some countries of continental Europe where PlayStation has always done well at the expense of Xbox, the PS4 lead looks unassailable. In Spain, for example, the PS4 has 85% market share.
In the UK and US, where Xbox 360 had dominated, the picture is better for Microsoft, although the Xbox One still lags behind.
Harding-Rolls said: “It’s a reversal of fortunes of the start of the last generation, but Xbox One is becoming more competitive in the markets it always found traction.
“If you look at UK market, PS4 is still ahead of Xbox One in terms of install base. We’ve seen a slight narrowing in that gap because Xbox One has become more competitive.
“We will continue to see that trend in the final quarter because they’ve got some really big titles coming to market – Halo 5 probably stands out.”
But across Europe as a whole Sony looks to be in a very strong position, Harding-Rolls added.
“If you look at the total European opportunity, PlayStation 4 is still dominating and building market share gradually.”
So what happened in the UK where Xbox 360 had established itself as the dominant machine in the last round of console wars?
Harding-Rolls said: “At launch, the whole positioning and messaging of Xbox One was totally undermining to their proposition at the start of cycle. It was very TV-centric, and had bad press because of messaging that was complex and not clear.
“It was exacerbated by coming to market with a price point significantly higher than PlayStation 4.”
In effect, Microsoft scored both an own goal and left their own goal undefended. Sony stepped up, and gleefully scored.
“Sony’s message was simple – PlayStation 4 was about gaming and gamers.”
With the two consoles now two years into their launch, the focus will shift to widening the appeal of the machines to non-gamers, converting owners of legacy consoles, and to find new ways to convince people to buy a games console for the first time.
While lowering price point will remain a key factor in driving more sales, both Microsoft and Sony are looking to new areas.
Attempts to turn games consoles into set-top boxes looks to have stalled in recent years, as almost every device today comes with catch-up TV apps, such as Netflix or iPlayer.
Pay TV is one possible avenue – Microsoft has already experiment with Halo: Nightfall, and Sony, of course, has a whole film and TV business, it could draw on.
“Lots is spent on pay TV (by consumers). But no-one has definitively brought to market something that is going to deliver on that.”
Both companies are also placing large bets on virtual reality – with Project Morpheus from Sony…
and Hololens from Microsoft.
It looks like neither side is quite ready to surrender yet.
