Sony have enjoyed a year of success for many reasons, however, if we’re talking about sale figures, month after month the PS4 has come out trumps with sales over the XBOX One, that was until this November. Many could question what happened in November for Sony, although you don’t need to look far to realise that the USA pre-Christmas shopping day, known as Black Friday, played the main role in gaining XBOX One the first sniff of sales success, all thanks to ultra-low discounts on the American made machine. The XBOX One has plenty to offer, however, when it comes to sales it’s lagging behind by a large percentage.
Ah……….yes!
Did the Sony PS4 win the sales war of 2014?
Not to be anti-climactic or anything, but it appears that the short answer to the above question is a resounding YES. Naturally, sales figures aren’t everything and certainly we’ve seen instances where it looked as if sales were headed on direction only to see them take off on an alternate course, but in this instance things look fairly written in stone.
Furthermore, it seems as if the PlayStation 4’s footprint has been setting and tearing down records left and right. For instance (just perusing some headlines here), we see that the PS4 has become the fastest selling games console in Australian history. Now, whenever you start hearing that a gaming machine has repeatedly broken records on a continental scale, well, that’s something to write home about, as they say. Moreover, it was recently revealed that GTA V had toppled Back Ops 2 for the title of best-selling game in the UK, and some of that thanks should definitely go to the newly released 8th generation version of the title for the PS4 (which also allows for first-person mode play, btw). Yes, it seems as if nearly everything Sony’s flagship machine touches turns to gold.
(Sidenote*) What are people playing on their PS4’s?
More often than not a console’s success can be directly linked with the games it allows access to. Surprisingly, the list of the most popular PS4 titles isn’t dominated by exclusives; instead, you’ll find familiar faces and multi-platform favorites there. The top spot for the month of August in 2014 (apparently, according to some sources) is Madden NFL 15, followed by Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, Minecraft, The Last of Us and Call of Duty: Ghosts. Of course now that November has brought us a new popular titles to play with, like Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Far Cry 4, LittleBIGplanet 3, and Grand Theft Auto V.
Plans for the future
Don’t start thinking that Sony is winding down though, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. With new things on the horizon, like the amazing “project Morpheus” which promises to bring virtual reality to the forefront, one could say that the best is truly yet to come. In fact, they’ve already put out tech demos for journalists to test during various trade shows, there we saw first hand just how incredible this new project truly is and got a taste for how they might be utilizing it as well. In short, it would seem as though it were an attempt to compete with and hedge out the progress made by the Oculus Rift folks. While it’s hard to say just how much progress Sony has made against the aforementioned band of VR specialists, they’re certainly doing SOMETHING.
Naturally, once VR tech becomes fully integrated with the PlayStation 4 we’ll begin to see a whole new set of gaming possibilities emerge, not to mention (perhaps) support for existing titles. Needless to say, this really does have the potential to completely transform the entire gaming industry forever, where full immersion isn’t just a novelty, but it’s an expected necessity. Likewise, we can likely expect more than a few new IP’s to emerge that will make the technology a focus of their design(s) and at the same time, older franchises are likely to follow suit too.
The sky’s the limit
Look at it any way you want to but Sony’s PlayStation 4 is currently on track to surpass the last “best-selling games console”, its older brother, the PlayStation 2. For instance, the PS4 is already outpacing previous first year sales figures, which is really no easy feat to accomplish. Not only has the console itself been constructed to account for increased performance, features, compatibilities, etc. (the list goes on and on), but Sony has also had to make sure all of these branching releases are timed well against one another. Thus far they’ve done quite well to make sure quality hardware and software makes it to market in a timely fashion with prime functionality, which isn’t as easy as it might sound.
Gauging buying trends and making sure consumer get great bang for their buck is also a major consideration, which is why they’re selling units hand over fist in the first place. When you consider the performance capabilities of the PS4 as well as the drive many publishers and developers are now feeling to bring titles to the console in light of the consumer demand it’s pretty obvious that this machine has some real STAYING POWER. Yeah, don’t be surprised if the PlayStation 4 becomes the best selling console of all time, it’s certainly on that track.
