The Reasons for the PS4's Success Aren't Actually Obvious

PS4 is a smashing success, even with the competition matching its price. Why has it tickled the purse strings of so many consumers, even without a particular "killer app"?

[Enemy]

It's pretty clear that everyone who skipped PS3 last gen felt bummed out when they realized they were missing Sony's entire 1st party lineup year after year. Simply, they didn't want to make the same mistake again this gen. We all saw what happened with Xbox 360 last gen as far as exclusives go and it wasn't good.

No diversity in lineup
Kinect shovelware
DVD limitations
RROD

Microsoft gave too many people a reason to be concerned for their next console, and what do they do? They announce DRM and forced Kinect @ $500 launch price for Xbox One.

How could anyone not see where Microsoft screwed up is the question. The fact that they even had DRM in their cards is unforgivable.

[qwerty676]

sony is also implementing the same thing although slowly.

infact they both are (ea access, ps now)

microsoft just tried to unveil the future all at once instead of easing people into it like sony is doing.

[Godmars290]

Both EA Access and PSnow might be about furthering online-only, but they're gradual, piecemeal measures.

What MS wanted to do was overnight and no turning back.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

People disagree in disbelief despite the signs being super obvious. ( PS Now, EA Access, Online only games Destiny, Titanfall, The Crew etc. Pre-loading) little to no features when either console is taken offline.

But when it finally happens everyone will be up and arms and crying like crazy like its some BIG surprise all of a sudden.

That's why you don't ignore the super obvious signs of it happening now. Instead of pummeling your brain in denial.

[Rimeskeem]

I don't see any forced cameras or DRM coming from either now.

Just be happy with whatever you want

[Kleptic]

Xbox Live is the single reason the Xbox division of MS exists...

PS Now, EA Access, etc...those are ALL derivatives of Xbox Live...the xbox division NEVER had a runaway success console; they have/had a successful online service that required the purchase of a particular 'box' of hardware in order to use it...

the 360 took off last generation initially because of XBL...and the PS3's price point mixed with the PSN being relatively feature-less at launch didn't help in 2006, either...

but that changed later on...and, whats obvious now, is that MS didn't recognize that...they instead pushed a device that imposed too many restrictions at too high of a price with too many things nobody wanted...but that on its own doesn't really matter...the 360 has always been a steaming POS of an electronic device, and even owners admitted it...but the problem is that XBL didn't grow at all over the last gen...no new real features, no real incentives to 'jump in'...they spent that money to tie up dlc on 3rd party software...

and low and behold it back fired...to the point where they'll soon be fighting for third...against a freaking WiiU...honestly...$50 million plus for early release of dlc for GTAIV????...can anyone seriously say that was a good long term decision in this industry?...that made ZERO difference from the get go...and decisions like that are why pretty much all of MS's shareholders want the entire line axed from the company and sold off...

i promise...they'll teach business classes to some of our kids years from now...that involve the xbox one and how not to do it...

[sAVAge_bEaST]

In B4 SONY TOO™

LulZ ;)

[sinspirit]

PS Now is for PS3 and older games with non-PlayStation devices in mind.

PS Now has nothing to do with PS4 or future console titles(It's way too expensive to make it with hardware that isn't already almost a decade old).

If you think PS Now has some connection to the future generation of DRM gaming than you're just grasping at straws. It's entirely different from mandatory restrictions on regular media. It is an alternative and is meant for making these games available on platforms that otherwise never could. I believe we will go all digital eventually, but that in itself isn't a bad form of DRM.

[ABizzel1]

The PS4's success is obvious. MS and Nintendo shot themselves in the foot Day 1. Nintendo by producing a console the only a tad ahead of the PS360, and many gamers (myself included) were burned by the Wii.

MS just flat out ruined everything they achieved with the Xbox 360 with their XBO reveal, utter confusion among upper management, arrogant comments like #dealwithit, DRM fiasco, always online fiasco, and more.

When you compare all 3 the PS4 looks like a night in shinning armor, and once that initial hype train starts it's incredibly difficult to stop it, especially with the media endorsing it (once again look at how the 360 took off thanks to the PS3's fiasco).

All it takes is one fiasco (lol), and it can ruin the first couple of years of your console launch. The PS4 is the white knight, and although Nintendo and MS have come a long way since their launches, it's still going to take time for most gamers to forget the fiascos, and save up the money for a 2nd console aka holiday 2015 is the real 2nd chance for MS / Nintendo.

[LordMaim]

Giving someone the option to rent a game on PSNow.

Forcing every person who plays an Xbox One game, even if they have a physical disc, to have an online connection for the game to function.

These are in no way "the same thing".

[Bigpappy]

That's is why you bought it. Most people, believe it or not, actually are more interested in big name and popular multi-plats.

Ps4 is selling better than X1 because it is believed to be a much more powerful console. That's it. It is not complicated or complex.

[TFJWM]

So now its only believed to be more powerful...?

[Bathyj]

Rubbish. The power difference is there, but its not a game changer, its negligible. Its not the sole reason Sony are winning.

People are responding to Sony because of the trust theyve built up and not responding to MS because of all the trust theyve destroyed.

PS3 had a slow start (it actually wasnt) but the last half of last gen was all Sony. MS pretty much pissed away all there good will right back to since Kinect One came out, forgetting about the hardcore that made them successful and chasing Nintendos casuals.

From the reveals, Sony never made a wrong step and MS hardly made a right one. Its true Sony look so amazing now for the simple fact Microsoft look so despicable.

They have turned alot of stuff around, but it just highlights how oily they seem and didnt even believe in their own vision, they were just seeing how much they could push it before people started pushing back.

All those reasons are why we are we are now. The power difference helps. The power difference as well as being cheaper at the start was not a good thing for MS, but theres a lot more to it than just that.

[Why o why]

You missed the colossal core game fall off and switch to casual in your over simplistic view big p

Your fellow gamers took note...trus me. Far more have switched from xbox to playstation than the opposite. Don't take my word for it..... just listen to many of n4gs very own expats and look at the numbers. Of course the power gap has swayed many but there's a myriad of factors, not just 1

[mcarsehat]

No, he's right. Most people just aren't interested enough to know the differences. Initially it was the price, now the xbox one is cheaper in most retailers. The only reason why it's still selling more

The average consumer doesn't like indie games, they don't know the difference in hardware/software, they only know that their neighbour or mate might have said that the playstation is more powerful.

3 1/4s of gamers haven't chosen a console yet, it will get more of a tight competition when the year ends and christmas has gone.

You can't blame the games on each because they're all tech demos, Ryse was, Infamous ss was and even The Order is getting flak for the same problem.

People are still taking games, price and gaming journalism into the argument which is shockign, the consumers that are the biggest source of finance are kids and family figures like mums and dads, do you really think that your mum and dad care?

[AngelicIceDiamond]

"Microsoft gave too many people a reason to be concerned for their next console"

Not really, well I sorta agree. Despite RROD and none gaming focused they had everything great going for them next gen in the masses eyes.

Its just a stupid move to think everyone would love a DRM announcement which nearly axed their 8 year buzz they had building up going with their last console.

[gootimes]

They had a pretty good buzz building with 360, but it cooled off near the consoles later life, I think Xbox hype was toned down a lot heading into E3 last year, and then they almost killed it completely with the DRM announcement. Then it didn't help that they had a bit weaker console (on paper) and spent a lot of time hyping up cable and NFL...

They really did pretty bad with it, and it will be hard to recover. I think they should have kept with Kinect being bundled in but given people more reason to care. Kinect is such good tech but they didn't make killer apps for it like they could have...

[psnCAShville_615]

although i agree, but most people dont give two flacks about exclusive or how microsoft treated them, the reason behind 360 success was purely due to xbox live and call of duty and of course the price, only short percentage of the entire 70-80 million console owners actually cared about exclusives, for xbox it was halo, that every xbox owner praised for ps3- it was socom but that felt short, sony didnt have any historical frenchise that could compete with halo online, socom was the only one, disagree with me if you like but atleast 5 million ps3s sold because of the socom fanbase, hopes died.

[Copenhagen]

Gran Taurismo franchise lifetime sales to date are higher than the Halo series. Go look and tell me Halo is the end all be all because it isn't. There's this mystical belief that Halo has sold more games than any other and it's a joke and its wrong. The fact that Halo is DEAD yet Microsoft is too desperate to put it out to pasture because they literally don't have anything else to replace it is one reason Microsoft is in the position they're in. They have neglected their first party studios situation for a decade now they simply don't have the patience to let a studio grow and now they've got a problem on 2 fronts A) They can't match Sony's first party output and B) Since they don't have the sales numbers Sony does companies aren't letting Microsoft buy and bully their way to buying full on 3rd party exclusives. And before Titanfall and Dead rising 3 or any game where he deals were made and signed BEFORE we all know what we know now IF everyone knew how deep in the hole Microsoft would be they wouldn't have been able to buy those games either.

[breakpad]

it was nt only MS Xbone mistakes but also people got started to understand the fail policy of MS to sell continuously low quality exclusive games aka HALO sequels (only the CE was masterpiece all others were mediocrities),shit COD games (even the new one has no difference at all, same low quality product)and a GEars of War that while it was good centered a lot on multi later..in the other corner PS3 offered not so spectacular first party exclusives(except MGS4 , Uncarted was good but overrated ) but with a lot of variety and decent to very good quality ...also people started to find real quality games like Demon Souls( it was a sleeper hit at first)Valkyria Chronicles..at last dont forget the JApanese low budget RPG support which is non existant for MS

[MasterCornholio]

You summed up the situation pretty well. Its true that some people abandoned the Xbox brand due to kinect (like me...).

[CARROT180994]

I would say its a combination of Sony's 1st party games and the lack of on the 360 towards the end of its life cycle, having the more powerful console, being cheaper than the Xbox One, Microsoft's awful policies and PR from announcement to release, Sony having good marketing and the general public perception at the minute.

[breakpad]

if it wasnt HALO CE (all sequels and remakes are mediocrities) , MS would never had reached that far to the console race but this games was so good and it had so much potential that manged to sell 3 generations of MS consoles

[CARROT180994]

MS has other good exclusives, gears for example, the problem was that their 1st party lineup wasnt very diverse, this is something that they are trying to fix. But they dont really have the studios and are therefore buying a lot of their exclusives

[lifeisgamesok]

Sony is selling units from some of Microsoft's early mistakes

None of their exclusives have been great yet but Xbox One has some solid games so far

[Enemy]

Disagree.

The best game on Xbone already came to PS4, and it was PvZ: Garden Warfare. Unless you were talking about Ryse, which ended up as one of the most mediocre games of the new generation. Forza 5 with no weather and no night racing doesn't save you, and Dead Rising 3, which is multiplatform, wasn't great either, unless zombie games with no AI are impressive to you.

InFamous: Second Son is better than everything listed above. So's Transistor and Resogun. So's Velocity 2X.

[Brim]

Stop ... please ... just stop you love the ps4 we understand but no need to lie to make your system seem better ...

[starchild]

Of course you would disagree. Just like every PC game is crap until it gets released on a Sony console and then it suddenly becomes awesome.

[gootimes]

Right, the reason Sony sells more consoles is due to Micro's mistakes... hmmm. Tell that to the PS3 vs 360 gen with PS3's horrible reputation on it's release.

It's your opinion that X1 has better games, PS4 actually has more high rated games in retail AAA and digital. I am sure many people favor PS4's lineup more, I wouldn't know because I don't own both.

http://www.listwar.com/rele...

[ziggurcat]

@lifeisgames:

You're really on a troll... I mean... Roll today.

You don't own a PS4, so what do you know about the games that are on that system?

[MysticStrummer]

"Sony is selling units from some of Microsoft's early mistakes"

That's part of it, if by "early" you mean things that happened during the 360 years as well as XB1's early days, but there are many factors involved in the current sales situation. XB1 didn't get a year head start, was more expensive yet less powerful now is the same price yet less powerful, multi plats perform at least a little better on PS4, Sony exclusives are historically the more acclaimed, Sony designed their new console based on what developers wanted while MS designed their new console based on how they wanted to steer the industry, Sony presented their new console as a game console while MS presented their new console as a multimedia hub that also plays games, Sony is a stronger brand worldwide… The reasons for PS4's success are actually pretty obvious.

"None of their exclusives have been great yet but Xbox One has some solid games so far"

Your opinion of what's "solid" is your own, but PS4 has the higher rated games.

[BattleAxe]

My guess is that Xbox 360 fans are the main purchasers of the PS4 so far this generation. There were alot of exclusive PS3 games that they never had a chance to play, and Microsoft hasn't really supported the 360 all that well in the last few years, and so the PS4 has been the chance for something new.

Having said that, I think that adoption of both new consoles (Xbox One & PS4) will significantly slow down next year. Many people won't feel the need to upgrade to the next gen consoles like they did when going from the PS2 to the PS3. I believe the reasons for this will be because of online connectivity of the PS3 and Xbox 360 which adds longevity to these systems, people are happy with all of the playback features on the PS3 and to a certain extent on the 360 also, and the graphical jump isn't quite as noticeable when compared to the jump seen going from the PS2/Xbox generation.

Some of the other obvious reasons for what I predict will be a slower uptake of new consoles next year, will be the fact that both consoles require a subscription to play purchased games online, no backwards compatibility, and also, $400.00 plus taxes is still a fair bit to spend on a new system, especially if many people are feeling content with their existing systems.

[Grilla]

I disagree, Sony and MS will most likely drop the price next year. A 300$-350$ price range will be tempting to a lot of ppl.

[S2Killinit]

Sony's success is all due to MS's blunder, in fact the most important contribution is the fact that sony has been delivering the goods generation after generation

[kratoz1209]

PLAYSTATION NATION

[KakashiHotake]

The reason isn't hard to see. Just look at the picture above with PS4 on top of Xbox One like every other picture with the two paired together since launch. Simply PS4 is beating Xbox One in every category. Hardware, aesthetics, software, features, controls, goodwill, reputation, usability, 1st party games, price, etc. There is no single category that Xbox one dominates in and while some may be arguable, others are no contest. I understand owners of Xbox One will disagree with this as it is a nice console as well and no one wants to hear their investment being shat on. But some things you just can't ignore like the fact PS4 has twice as many games coming out and some of them are graphical monsters ( The Order, Drive Club, uncharted ) which Xbox One simply isn't capable of competing with unless Microsoft cuts a check, like with the Tomb Raider situation, and even MS can't afford to keep doing that.

[Scatpants]

So it's not because it's the better of the two systems and the extra long last gen made everybody want a new system?

[Jdoki]

What put me off Xbox was that during the 360 era, MS' entire strategy appeared to be 'Beat Sony', instead of focusing on the customer. They had some awesome games, especially in 2007 - but after that my interest declined massively.

And when the Wii went crazy MS' entire strategy changed to 'Grab the casual market'.

Also, throw in that they only supported the original XBox for 4 years and a lot of good will and trust was lost.

I now own a PS4 and XB1, but I still don't have a huge amount of trust in MS.

[hkgamer]

very true. but i think it was all down to the success of kinect and not so succesful move.

if it was the opposite then we may have saw something completely different from sony.

i do think ms downfall was the last few years of e3 (before ps4,xb1) where they promote kinect kinect kinect and sony were showing exclusives. my memory may have forgotten what actually happened though but thats what i remember.

[hkgamer]

i personally think ithere is 4 main reasons.

1. nintendo fans probably bought this console due to knowing that wiiU will not get 3rd party support. they probably own a wiiU for first party games.

2. ms pissed people off last generation by concentrating on kinect whilst the ps3 was having peetty cool games coming out.

3. ms pissed people off at announcement with drm, lost trust and dont want to pay for expensive console just so that they can have a nsa spying kinect which they wont use.

4. last gen especially if you count from the start of 360 was a very long period. lots of gamers couldnt wait an we practically got an announcement and a released console within the same year.

[uth11]

That explains why many Wii and 360 owners switched to the PS4 (I'm one of those former Wii owners)

but it doesn't explain why people who didn't own a last-gen system are snapping up PS4s

[mochachino]

Xbox destroyed the goodwill it had among gamers.

First, it lost people to faulty hardware and the worst nickel and diming ever seen for a console. Harddrives, Wifi, everything was exploitatively priced.

The ones that stayed for the games then lost Bungie, Mass Effect exclusivity, and Fable turned to crap.

Then to put the final nail in the coffin for the people that endured so much, MS turned its entire focus away from games and put it and the majority of it gaming resources into Kinect...a device that couldn't play games. As a controller it was the equivalent to a laggy dpad with no buttons. All the while, Live Gold seemed more and more like a complete rip off as well. Especially when you needed it to use services that were free everywhere else. MS shot itself in it's foot with terrible excessively greedy policies after terrible policy.

MS lost this gen before it started....at least for me and my friends and their friends. Almost everyone I know actually started off with a 360 last gen and ended up with a PS4. Now, aside from myself, I don't know anyone with an xbox console...of course other people must have them, but I imagine the Canadian market for 360 popularity may be different than the US.