by Malefico

With both PS4 and Xbox One release dates safely in the past and the Wii U about a year older than the first two, some surprising sales results are available online.

With Microsoft and Sony products well-established in the market, Sony has a commanding lead in global sales with the PS4 tallying roughly 7.4M units sold vs. Xbox One with about 4.4M bought.  Although Wii U is a year older, and therefore direct total sales comparisons can’t be made, it was interesting to me that Nintendo’s newest console has sold around 6.1M units since launch. Then again, I know a lot of Baconeers are digging their Wii U, so it’s clear the console has a wider appeal than just the Capri Sun and GoGurt crowd.

Breaking down sales further, the race between the three consoles changes somewhat. In North America, PS4 has sold 3.42M while Xbox One is a close second at 3.07M consoles. Wii U is a fairly distant third at 2.63M. Looking at sales figures by week, they are roughly even, with Xbox gaining ground.

All this would suggest that Microsoft has all but erased their box’s launch debacle, with the emphasis placed on everything but gaming, the DRM controversy and other faux pas. It’s a good thing for them Americans have very short memories.

Still, they haven’t caught Sony on home ground yet, and in Europe Sony’s lead is much wider (2.65M vs. 1.07M). In Japan, either Xbox One isn’t sold or isn’t selling, either way the Japanese have scarfed up about .55M PS4s while the sales figures I used for this article indicated no Xbox One sales in Japan. In the rest of the world (literally, that’s the chart entry) PS4 is outselling Xbox One three-to-one.

So what is Sony’s secret to success? Clearly they know how to market gaming systems. The best selling game system to date was the PS2, with 157.68M sold worldwide. Clearly the market was different then, but still, that’s a lot of Sony hardware.

Or, is it that Sony just does a better job marketing their products in markets outside North America? Xbox 360 is listed as the 8^th best selling console to date, yet it totaled “only” 81.27M units. Breaking down 360 sales, you can see Sony sold more units, in N.A., but only about 13% more. However, they KILLED Xbox 360 in Europe and especially Japan, where apparently only homeless folks and the mentally handicapped bought 360s. I’m not judging, I’m just saying…

Or is it that Microsoft can afford not to care as much? After all, they still own the operating system market for desktops and laptops, and although iOS and Android are doing well in phones and tablets, Microsoft is still banking on Windows “business” image to sell Windows-based mobile devices to professionals. Lots of people play PC games, and the vast majority of PCs still ship with Windows – even Sony Vaios.

Certainly, Microsoft is still playing the part of the “cool” clique. Their controversial “parity clause”, which forces developers to release Xbox One versions of games at the same time as other platforms, made news last week when it was announced that three new titles published by Curve Digital – MouseCraft, The Swapper, and Titan Attacks will be available on PS4. While I understand Microsoft’s motivation; they want fresh versions available in a timely manner, not hashed up ports that come out three months after nobody is interested anymore, the policy comes across as elitist.

Which brings us to the role of indie developers. Even before PS4 launched, Sony waxed loquacious about the role they wanted indie games to play on the platform. Make no mistake, their warm embrace of indies is based on pragmatism – they want to make money and realize that indie games are an increasingly large part of the software market. But where Sony’s policies can be naively interpreted as warm-hearted camaraderie, Microsoft looks like they’re hanging on Sony’s coattails – “Hey, we’re doing that too, now… sorta.”

So far, the sales charts are looking a whole lot like the comparison between PS2 and Xbox 360 – close sales in N.A., Sony domination elsewhere. Only time will tell, but Microsoft would do well not to forget history.

All the sales data for this article were taken off VGChartz, a site with a plethora of console hardware and software data. The site is worth bookmarking if you have an interest in the business aspect of gaming.

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on the console wars, so post a reply or email me, malefico@nerdbacon.com.