Xbox One's 3m vs. PS4's 4.2m - Sales numbers don't always tell the whole story

[Akali]

 

A few weeks ago we found out that Microsoft has sold 3 million Xbox ones and Sony has sold 4.2 million Playstation 4s but sometimes the number of consoles sold doesn't give you the full story of it.

 

First off, there's the cost of building each one. Console teardowns from research firm IHS speculate that Microsoft makes $28 from each Xbox One sold, whereas Sony only gets $18 from each PlayStation 4. The two companies, IHS concludes, roughly break even when the leftover money is used to pump into distribution or offsetting R&D costs. Doesn't sound like too much, until you realise that could be $84,000,000 for Microsoft compared to $75,600,000 for Sony. While there's nothing to conclude from all these imprecise mathematics. There are no official figures, crucially it is important to remember that things might not always be how they seem.

 

Secondly there is also the matter of territories to consider. The PlayStation 4 is available in considerably more countries than the Xbox One right now, and neither console has launched into the lucrative Japanese market yet. Both companies claim that their consoles are selling faster than people can buy them, which also severely impacts the ability of a true picture of consumer interest to form right now. I'd also say keen, long time gamers are more likely to favour the all-in gaming philosophy behind the PlayStation 4 right now than Microsoft's gambit of turning the Xbox One into a media swiss army knife. But who knows just how many people will place the latter console under their living room TV as the price inevitably falls over the next couple of years?

 

And let's not forget the real prize, lurking unsaid beneath those whopping sales numbers. What both Sony and Microsoft want is an impressively commanding install base. This gives them enough brute force to entice third-party publishers into signing exclusives and platform-specific bonuses, and an increases the likelihood of making oodles of cash out of customers buying games. The exact figures aren't public, but I've often been told that both Sony and Microsoft take a good, sizeable chunk of the revenue from the sale of each game. If everyone went out tomorrow and bought a dozen EA games on PlayStation 4, then, we'd be injecting enough money into Sony's accountancy department for them to have enough capital to recreate the fiscal decadence seen in The Wolf of Wall Street.

 

Source

[Caboose The Ace]

I could not agree more lets take the PS3 for example for the first 3 years Xbox 360 smashed it then Playstation fought back with amazing exclusives and tons and tons of free games and now to this date the PS3 has sold more than the Xbox 360 and so the same can be said now Sony may have the highest numbers now and be on top but in 7 years or so who knows ?  

[Akali]

I could not agree more lets take the PS3 for example for the first 3 years Xbox 360 smashed it then Playstation fought back with amazing exclusives and tons and tons of free games and now to this date the PS3 has sold more than the Xbox 360 and so the same can be said now Sony may have the highest numbers now and be on top but in 7 years or so who knows ?

only time will tell but i think Microsoft will get more money because of the reason i said in this same post.

[Caboose The Ace]

Yang more money from consoles does not mean MS will get more money in the end as more consoles means more sales and more sale mean more money and so more money means you can put them into exclusives and more money into exclusives means better exclusives and better exclusives means more sales of those exclusives and more sales means the cycle starts again.   

 

( But yes yang I agree we can theorise all we want but only time can really tell )

[MCPO Mayh3m]

I could not agree more lets take the PS3 for example for the first 3 years Xbox 360 smashed it then Playstation fought back with amazing exclusives and tons and tons of free games and now to this date the PS3 has sold more than the Xbox 360 and so the same can be said now Sony may have the highest numbers now and be on top but in 7 years or so who knows ?

 

Actually, I believe at the end of their Gen, Xbox 360 was the most sold console. They even sent out e-mails and posted it on their website. ._.

 

OT: That is true, we shall see over the next 5-10 years which console will be the one selected.

[Akali]

Yang more money from consoles does not mean MS will get more money in the end as more consoles means more sales and more sale mean more money and so more money means you can put them into exclusives and more money into exclusives means better exclusives and better exclusives means more sales of those exclusives and more sales means the cycle starts again.   

 

( But yes yang I agree we can theorise all we want but only time can really tell )

however microsoft has made more money from it like i said cos they may not have sold as many consoles and there may be a $10 difference but if you get a big number like they already have then you start getting a lot of money like Microsoft has now also this is a bit more info on the story and showing that the number of consoles you sell isn't the big factor here