January – December 2016: A Tale Of Two Halves
Months Won by PS4 in 2016: 8 (+Jan 2017)
PS4 Total Sales: 53 million
Overall, 2016 was another victory for Sony and PS4, but it was much more tightly contested this time around. New hardware from both companies would play the biggest role in deciding the year’s tussle for supremacy, but Sony’s exclusive software was also starting to make their presence felt, too.
In the first half of 2016, PS4’s exclusive offerings were terrific. The remake of the PS2 classic, Ratchet and Clank, was exceptionally well received, and its lower $40 price point seemed to jive well with gamers. Then, Uncharted 4 arrived, and somewhat inevitably received universal critical acclaim. Players went suitably mad for Nathan Drake’s final outing, and the game went on to sell eight million units – the most of any eighth generation exclusive title.
The PlayStation juggernaut, however, was stopped in its tracks by the release of the Xbox One S; a smaller, sleeker, and slightly upgraded version. The new console launched hot off the back of Microsoft’s Project Scorpio E3 announcement, which had seemed to create somewhat of a renewed buzz for the Xbox brand. The Xbox One went on to claim four consecutive victories from July to October.
Sony had its own hand to play though, or rather, two hands: a double whammy of both PSVR and PS4 Pro. While the PSVR peripheral was arguably a greater boon for current PS4 owners than newcomers, the PS4 Pro certainly made an impression. The holiday months of November and December were once again PlayStation’s for another year running. It’s also worth noting that PS4 Pro did not offer any special deal for Black Friday which, if it had, might well have seen Sony steal October, too.
Moving into 2017 and it was a case of another new year, another win for PS4. Capcom’s Resident Evil VII, though not an exclusive title, did enjoy a timed exclusivity for its PSVR peripheral device: a big hook for many gamers. It had also been shown as part of Sony’s E3 conference and perhaps felt more closely allied to PS4, and both these factors may well have helped swing sales in its favor.
Although most notably, the swath of upcoming exclusive titles in early 2017 has surely been Sony’s most significant asset in attracting new buyers. In particular, the recently released Nioh, and just-around-the-corner, Horizon Zero Dawn, are likely to have further fueled hardware sales.
