Regardless of the prediction of Michael Pachter, the well-known analyst of the industry, it seems that Sony’s eighth generation console, the PlayStation 4, is bent on maintaining its yearlong streak of outselling the Xbox One, the console of its rival, Microsoft Corp. Both of these latest consoles were released in November of last year, but each month, Sony’s product continues to hold the lead while Microsoft’s is struggling to keep up with it. Earlier this week, it had been predicted by Machter that due to its steep discounts and an offer of a bundle with a free console game would cause the Xbox One to finally break the losing streak it has maintained.
However, this didn’t seem to be the case as Sony made an announcement via Twitter, declaring the PlayStation 4 as the best-selling current generation console. In September, the sales of the hardware reached a total of $432.7 million, which was a 136% increase in hardware sales since last year. But, in contrast, there was a decrease in software sales, which had totaled $754 million in September of last year, but were only about $481 million this year. The high software sales last year were primarily because of the launch of Grand Theft Auto 5 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, which had been launched on September 17th.
The hardware sales of consoles have seen an increase of 200% from last year. According to an analyst, 85% of the hardware sales of September were contributed by eighth generation consoles and this is the highest percentage to be achieved in a single month by the two consoles since their launch date in November 2013. Apart from that, it also seems that the PlayStation 4 of Sony Corp is the top choice of gamers for playing the best-selling title of September, ‘Destiny’.
Other games that proved to be immensely popular on the console included FIFA 15, Minecraft, Madden NFL 5, Disney Infinity 2.0, NHL 15, The Sims 4, Diablo III: Reaper of Souls and Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor. Analysts said that the launch of Destiny in September, which was developed by Bungie and published by Activision, turned out to be successful in more ways than one. It has become the most successful title of the year and most importantly, it was able to enjoy the best launch month of all time for any IP that’s launched in the video game software.
The multiplayer space shooter game broke records in pre-orders, day and week one sales as gamers didn’t have any problem with regarding this online-only game as a digital product, which marks a significant change in consumer behavior. Sony announced that the revenue of the PlayStation Store has enjoyed about 90% increase in its revenue this September from the same month last year. Destiny has become the most played game in the history of the console. There was a five times higher increase in gameplay engagement as compared to the second biggest game on the console; Grand Theft Auto 5.