Demographic factor rationale in console rivalry between PS4 and X1

First of all, I don't mean that this group of people I'm about to mention accounts for the entire ~16m gap between the two consoles.

However, I have a very strong feeling that this ~16m "chasm" to a large extent consists of gamers who only started playing this gen (I'm not saying if it's good or bad, it just IS).

This would also explain why top Xbox One games kind of underperformed commercially (Sunset Overdrive, Forza Horizon 2 etc., etc.) whereas even averagely rated The Order or (at the beginning, before it was overhauled as a Game as Service) DriveClub sold gangbusters compared to Xbox One top tier games.

I think in this "new demographic", in those new "cool kids" (who prefer PS4 by far) lies the difference between Xbox One games underperforming and the opposite happening on PS4.

Do you think it's plausible?

How well do you think Sunset or Forza Horizon 2 would've sold on PS4?

It might be a contributing factor but a larger part of that gap is filled by people who switched from xbox to PS this gen. Hence why TLOU sold so well on PS4. Most people who traditionally went Sony already played it on PS3 whereas people who made the switch bought it because to them it was new.

Also, MS shooting themselves in the foot at the beginning of the gen lost them almost the entire section of early adopters. The fact PS4 was being touted by press as better hardware accounted for a lot of it too. No matter if the difference was marginal, to the consumer perceived value is everything.

On the other hand, 45% of Gears of War: Ultimate Edition audience were new players:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/gears-of-war-4-release-date-moves-to-fall-2016/1100-6433662/

That really is a weird one. I bought it and it was new to me I only dabbled a bit in the original version but I owned (and still own) a 360 I just never got into Gears. It could be a lot of 360 owners just never played Gears for whatever reason.

Personally xbox is a great rivery for sony and a great machine. Some people just prefer to stick with sonys machine either use to there controllers or the games they bring out. I'm one of thw people that particularly owned the first xbox n just never got use to it hence went back to playstation

It's surely a minor factor, but the main reasons for the gap are the launch prices, Microsoft's plans for the Xbox one and the better hardware of the PS4.

Why would new gamers buy the order and not sunset overdrive? I don't get that one.

Americans don't support their racing games like we do in Europe. Project Cars and Forza Motosport 6 both top sellers in the UK.

@Salt_The_Fries: Both games would have tripled in sales. Because of your reason and the simply fact those games are more Sony's style. Xbox is the place of sports and online shooters. You forgot ? Xbox fell of cuase cod is currently all that matters when it comes to online shooters. On top of that its no longer the only console with very good social features.

I'm gonna go with no

For Sunset - around Infamous or a Ratchet game.

For Horizen - not sure how to place it on the PS4, but might be the same.

How about just ps4 has sold about double the units to xbone so they sell more games?

Same could be said for sports games in general. The biggest-selling sports franchise, FIFA, gets most of its sales from Europe.

Demographics are defiantly a reason, but you are trying to define the wrong group. It's the xbox fanbase and not the playstation one that's the issue for the games you mention not selling.

For your "cool kids" suggestion, isn't that what xbox was supposed to be? Wasn't that what xbox 360 was for America last gen? Yeah, so no, it's the core xbox fanbase that we usually call the "bro" gamer who mainly buy the xbox brand to begin with and THEY are the ones who generally don't buy those games.

Last gen was a shooter's fan dream gen and 360 was, "that" console to get for them. But after an entire generation of nothing but shooter after shooter people seem to want something else but MS's only answer was more Halo/Gears and then some Forza and by the end of the gen MS wasn't offering anything worth talking about at all.

Meanwhile (2012-2013) Sony was busy releasing a diverse range of high quality games like Ni No Kuni, The Puppeteer, GT6, Journey, Disgaea D2, Ratcet & Clank: Into then Nexus, God of War Ascension, MLB 2013, Beyond Two Souls, Guacamelee and TLOU most of which were games people remembered, talked about and enjoyed as PS3 owners while xbox360 and Wii were practically dead systems. I think people remember and take that into consideration.

When people are tired of the same shooters and want quality, fresh ideas as well as variety in games they go with playstation because Sony has shown that's what their systems have, it's simple as that. Being a "Cool Kid" doesn't really have anything to do with the PS demographic, they are just a more open diverse breed of gamer who appreciate and are open to a wider variety of games.

Maybe they're the type of ppl who don't tip and double park too.

Fucking Playstation gamers....bane of society those ones.

its because the 360 cool kids fanbase that just started gaming last gen have grown up and probably sick of halogears and want to try ps games

I know guys in their 30s 40s that never played last Gen at all. They did have PS1 or 2, so quite a few went PS 4, mostly from brand familiarity, and the hype.

Even though we are on different systems it's still cool to be able to talk about games with them.

Why do you keep saying defiantly?

Thinking one thing and spelled another?

But TL;DR version = The main Xbox fan demographic is the reason why the games the TC listed didn't sell well.

TC tried to tie two arguments into one and it doesn't work like that. Trying to understand console sales and then understand games sales between the playstation demographic who are buying more varied games compared to the xbox demographic doesn't work for what the TC wanted to suggest. I.E new? Cool Kids? Like, what is that?

Forget the PS4s overall sells for a minute and we can quickly illustrate the same playstation demographic buying pattern back thru each system generation so this "new/young" gamer conclusion the TC came up with is completely unfounded as the playstation demographic has ALWAYS bought more varied types of games than the xbox demographic who usually stick to shooters and boom boom type games. Furthermore playstation is the older brand and xbox is the "new kid" so to speak.

PS4 is the better system and it's understandable that people buy it more than xbox one so TC should try to focus his argument on either over all console sales or games sales because his conclusion seem to ignore the fact that the OLDER playstation demographic is same as it has always been regardless of overall sales.

What?