Sony's Playstation 4 is set to come up on top of the console wars, as one analytics group had summed up in its news release.
In a report published early this year by Strategy Analytics, Inc., one of the many analytics groups that handles market intelligence for technology companies, Senior Analyst Eric Smith details that game console shipments had increased to 34 million units by 2014, with 18.5 million units being identified as PS4 consoles. Forecasted sales places Sony's latest console at the top spot by 2019, estimated to reach 80 million units as opposed to Microsoft's Xbox One's projected sales of 57 million consoles.
Additionally, tallies comparing Sony units show the continued strength of the PS4 relative to its predecessors. Using the same time period, Strategy Analytics found out that the latest console version far outsold the PS3s, with only 10.5 million units shipped in the first year of its availability. Playstation 4 sales also nearly matched that of PS2, having shipped 20.1 million units during the same period of time.
As a result, Microsoft is actively pursuing an aggressive marketing campaign, aimed to entice new players to try their Xbox One and for game veterans to switch consoles. Marketing strategies are numerous, ranging from releasing more and more Xbox-exclusive titles, to making tweaks to its console features such as allowing screenshots.
Meanwhile, for those who think that consoles are now being smothered by handheld devices, Smith counters, "Despite reports to the contrary, the game console market is not dead. Core gamers have moved faster to this current generation than in any previous generation. The main difference in this generation is that casual gamers who bought a Wii are remaining largely on the side lines as free-to-play casual games and mid-core games on tablets and smartphones have captured this segment of consumers."
