PS4 sales to hit 49 million sales by end of 2017, Xbox One at 38 million, says analyst firm

Sony will sell 49 million PlayStation 4 consoles worldwide in the next five years, trumping Microsoft’s predicted 38 million Xbox One consoles. That’s the prediction of analyst firm IHS.

[FPSRUSSIA]

i am sure Sony can do more then 49 million before 2017
its the PS4 where talking about here

[infectedaztec]

Are you basing that on the general opinion found on this website or your friends? I'd love to hear your qualifications that give your opinion weight

[theDivision]

He really doesn't need qualifications to have an opinion. That's the whole point of it being an opinion.

How are they even able to claim any sort of accuracy since we haven't even seen a day worth of sales... are they basing this prediction on pre orders? Or just purely speculation

[Naga]

@ TheDivision

You're right that nobody needs qualifications to simply voice an opinion, but Infectedaztec is also right in asking for some substance to make the opinion worth listening to. After all, the quality of the reasoning which we provide is what distinguishes our good opinions from our bad ones.

[ABizzel1]

@infectedaztec

I would have made this huge long post to back him up, but it goes back and forth too many times, so here's the short version.

1. On average at least 1 console sales 100 million units.

2. The PlayStation 4 is the most favored console among online consumers heading into the "next-gen" of consoles, based on polls, pre-orders, game reservations, store manager comments, web comments.

3. On average for a game to reach the 100 million unit mark within 7 years (the generally time frame for hitting 1M) the console must sell an average of just under 14.3 million consoles per year.

4. Therefore, if PS4 hype, news, and enjoyable levels are maintained through out the next 4 years (2017) there is a chance the PS4 could sell up to 57.2 million consoles, especially if it's a breakaway hit or a 1.5 : 1 sales ratio over the predicted 38 million XBO's (which would bring it close to it's expected 2:1 sales ratio over XBO).

Now the reasons against:

1. Consoles don't sale on an "average" such as the 14.3 million. Sales will likely start off much smaller (maybe 7 - 12 million), and then sales will stay stable until a new well priced bundle is released or a price drop hits. In Sony's current position there's no need for a price drop until holiday 2014 - holiday 2015 with the latter being the most likely.

2. Competition. A steep price drop on the XBO could sway number to more balanced sells amongst the two competing consoles. A $349 - $399 (IMO $379) Kinect-less XBO, will be heavily thought about over the next year and will hit either holiday 2014, or E3 2015, because realistically the entire XBO that M$ want to reach everyone with in the US (most services are US only up front) is out of reach for the average household at $500 + $60 / mo. XBL + $30+ ISP, + whatever other subscriptions you pay for just to be able to do everything. The mass market they want to reach isn't going to bite until the XBO drops down to $299, and once it does then PS4 could see a knock to their sales. A steep Wii U, PS3, or PSV drop could affect sales as well.

3. RROD / PSN Outage fiasco. Knock on wood.

4. Microsoft buys the media, retailers, and more. M$ has proven their willing to throw billions around like $1 at a "gentlemen's club" to get their products some spotlight when needed. Problem is it doesn't seem to be working for any of their products right now on a consumer level, but give that check to media, journalist, retailers, TV spots, and more and soon the uninformed will only see XBO this XBO that, and will feel the XBO is the console to get, since M$ will likely out market and out buy Sony when it comes to media attention.

How's that?

[Drewidian]

The PS4 WILL outsell the Xbox One up to 3:1, which is great if you are into the PS4, until MS announces its partnerships with the Cable and Satellite companies with deals like "agree to a 2 year contract and get a free or low priced($99 - $199) Xbox One". Then the Xbox one will overtake and outsell the PS4 by a long shot since there are significantly more people who watch TV and would willing to jump in for such a low price. Once the cable/satellite companies start pushing it, it won't be a contest.

If MS gets that casual TV market, Fitness market by partnering with a gym chain, Skype to kick in to daily adoption, and gets devs to make apps and games work across all of its ecosystem, it may be able to do what the Wii did in getting average users to adopt en mass. The gamer market is at best maybe 200M regular users, but there's far more other people who watch TV and do other things besides gaming.

Let's be perfectly honest. Many of us here might not go for it, but the masses aren't that tech savvy. If it's marketed right (which I highly doubt given MS's track record) they could make it part of mainstream culture. There's really no way the PS4 would become mainstream, but it may dominate the gaming market.

[xPhearR3dx]

Well it took the PS3 5 years to hit 50 million, so I'd say 3 years for 50 million could be about right given Sony's overly positive response from the media and fans alike. We're talking about a system here, not a $60 game. Getting into a new generation of consoles is not a cheap thing to do. I've dropped close to $700 on my PS4 which included 3 games, a year of PS+ and the PS Camera. One of those games I got for free thanks to Amazon.

Casuals aren't going to be dropping that kind of money so soon. Once there's a ton of cheap games, and the price goes down a bit, that's when those casuals will opt in. That way they can get a system and a bunch of cheap games for a decent price. I believe the first year or so for both consoles will mostly be core gamers.

[vacoby5]

You could have, maybe should have waited to get your year plus a PlayStation Plus because it comes for 14 days for free and GameStop is having it for 29.99 on Black Friday that would have saved you $20 but oh well

[jackanderson1985]

production limitations will probably play some part in it not to mention that it took them 7 years to achieve 80 mil so to do 50 mil in 4 and a bit years would be impressive especially as the world is still feeling the effects from the global recession

[JackISbacK]

no, its on what people willl like all of this rage against each other console is because of better performance from sony at e3 and further ,yeah its true first impression is the strongest one ,but we are at the most early stage, this first impression will only last for this holiday .sony will outsell xb this holiday but there will still be more 10 years will left and that console will only win which proves out to be better.if sony turns out to be better ,it will outselll xb1 with more bigger ratio and if xb1 will be better than i dont think most gamers will dont have problem to spent little more $ or Euros for extra feature,but i'am damn sure that wether xb1 turns out to be best, still sony will outsell in japan because evry kid to grandpaa there dreams about sony and their products ,last summer sony experia out sell apple iphone 5 in japan.

[Magicite]

According to my prediction, PS4+X1+WiiU will sell at least 300 million units during their lifetime.
Thats based on a trend of console generations (of course if it continues):

7th

PlayStation 3 - 79.08
Xbox 360 - 78.41
Wii - 100.17
TOTAL: 257.660.000

6th

PlayStation 2 - 157.68
Dreamcast - 10.6
Xbox - 24.65
GameCube - 21.74
TOTAL: 214.670.000

5th

PlayStation - 104.25
Saturn - 17
Nintendo 64 - 32.93
Apple Bandai Pippin - 0.042
TOTAL: 154.222.000

4th

PC-Engine - 7.5
Sega Mega Drive - 14
TurboGrafx 16 - 2.5
Sega Genesis - 29.54
PC-Engine SuperGrafx - 7.5
Super Nintendo Entertainment System - 49.10
Philips CD-i - 0.567
Atari Jaguar - 0.3
TOTAL: 111.007.000

3rd

Famicom - 19.23
Atari 7800 - 4.3
Nintendo Entertainment System - 61.91
Sega Master System - 14.8
TOTAL: 100.240.000

2nd

Atari 2600 - 30
Magnavox Odyssey² - 2
Intellivision - 3
ColecoVision - 1
Sega SG-1000 - 2
TOTAL: 38.000.000

1st

Magnavox Odyssey - 0.33
TOTAL: 330.000

P.S. some numbers might need an update, but overall data is correct.

[CalibriSerif]

that's modest

[torchic]

don't think consoles today can do those outrageous +15mil a year figures of PSone/PS2

+10mil a year nowerdays is very decent

[starscream420]

It will be the other way around

[CGI-Quality]

This would mean Microsoft would have to be winning both EU and JP regions. This ignores completely if they take the US (which could go either way, but being closer than the PS3 was is still a HUGE win for Sony).

Don't know how you see that as feasible, right now, but hey, we all have our dreams and hopes.

OT: Both tallies seem modest, but the ratio is what I expect, at the very least. I can see the PS4 outselling the X1 by no less than 20 million, when all is said and done.

[Allsystemgamer]

Stop celebrating 420 so much and come back to reality

[Jaqen_Hghar]

They said 2.4m PS4s sold by the end of 2013. A man recalls Sony firmly saying they'll hit 3m.

[Goku781]

PS4 has a promising future ahead, and I'm sure there will be many pleasant surprises.

[xReDeMpTiOnx]

Honestly I think I'm going out on a limb but by the end of Friday if they give out #'s I say sony sells about 1m consoles on Friday alone

[cyhm3112]

another biased article.

the difference will be much worse for MS than 49:38
more like 70: 17

[Misaka_x_Touma]

let me borrow that time machine sir

[CC-Tron]

Crystal balls are very fragile. Handle with care soothsayers.

[kewlkat007]

What a job, to be an analyst.

[metus]

Considering we can't even predict the weather I doubt they can predict the sales of two consoles

[ruefrak]

I think it's way too early to make any kind of call. Nobody in 2006 would have called that the PS3 would eventually sell better than the 360. A lot can change over the years.

[mcstorm]

Not bad numbers for both but no one can really say what is going to happen just like last gen. For me I want all 3 to have a good gen in the next gen as having 3 battling it out again as its better for us gamers in then end.

[DCfan]

xb1 would be lucky to reach 6 millions lol

[phoenix_dusk]

They wish it will be that close.

[cyhm3112]

no way it will be that close, they just want to talk up the MS share price, it is their job as an analyst!! xbone is done!! they will be lucky if they can make 20 millions in its lifetime.

[mcstorm]

Why is the xbox done? There were over 260 Million consoles sold this generation and gaming is around 80 million 360s sold there is no way 60 million people are going to jump ship.

Both Consoles and the WiiU will sell fine this new gen just like the 3DS and PSV will do come the end of the gen.

[josephayal]

I guarantee PS4 will have more units sold than XB1, maybe 25M+

[jackanderson1985]

what happens if it doesn't have 25mil more? what do we get?

[MASTER_RAIDEN]

eh….sort of modest number for the playstation 4. even the ps3 managed to put out better numbers in a shorter amount of time. 80 million in 6 years vs 50 million in 4 years? doesn't make sense. lets be honest. at the end of the day the ps4 is an infinitely more attractive offer than the ps3 ever was, simply because its price is so absolutely on-point. the ps3 struggled with a much higher price for quite some time and still put up better sales numbers than these estimates. while it is true that anything is possible, i dont really see the ps3, a console that "struggled" so far into its life outselling the most preordered console of all time.

You're all saying "playstation is back" because you know the days of a 3rd place playstation console is over. suffice it to say that ps4 is on the right track.

[DoctorJones]

If only it were true, I foresee the world ending in 2016. The coffee told me so. And lo, I did predict, and so it was.

[Mogwai]

I remember a month before the launch ps1 mymate aquired a few consoles and gave me one for free, could not believe my luck!.....dodgy bastard! Lol

[khyu7777]

i don't know. i think it will be bigger gap. i mean PS4 will demolish xbox one in europe and japan and xbox one will have small lead in US. my opinion

[wooferine]

I think the $100 price difference is the driving factor in why the Xbox One sales are forecast to be lower than PS4 sales.