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What is making the PS4 a massive success?

yes they did, but people are delusional if they thought microsoft had a chance at selling the same amount of consoles as the ps4, for once thing the 360 was much cheaper then ps3, with hardware that was roughly on par, and came out a year earlier with a controller that was much better, and the ps3 was still was able to outsell it, lets not forget that the 360 got at least a 15 million unit boost, thanks to kinect.

I'm sure RRoD also inflated the 360 numbers as well.
 
Taking away the design duties from that mad man Ken Kutaragi and giving them to this guy:

pg-40-cerny.jpg


Developers love it when you make hardware that works with them and not against them.

If they only gave the software development to someone who works with the cutomers and not against them as well.
 
Microsoft simply fucked up really bad, like worse than cheating on your girlfriend with your side piece in front of her bad. Nintendo simply abandoned the thing consumers care more about than power....price. I'm still shocked that the Xbox One and PS4 are only about $100 more than the Wii U. Sony had the victory given to them before the battle even started.

That said I could see a $300-$250 Xbox One doing very well. Undercutting the PS4 is about all they can do. At $250 I can't think of anyone I know(anecdotal yes) that would care about power anymore. Almost as is just as good then.
 
yes they did, but people are delusional if they thought microsoft had a chance at selling the same amount of consoles as the ps4, for once thing the 360 was much cheaper then ps3, with hardware that was roughly on par, and came out a year earlier with a controller that was much better, and the ps3 was still was able to outsell it, lets not forget that the 360 got at least a 15 million unit boost, thanks to kinect.

MS could have done a number of things to improve their current lot-

1) found a way to include BC, even if it was just software based emulation.

2) offered a $399 model at launch sans kinect, or found a way to include kinect at that price( I guess this may have come at the cost of improved specs under the hood).

3) launch a system technically equal or superior to ps4. The whole 1080 vs 900p thing, regardless of how much it tangibly impacts the overall experience, has caught on.

4) a new gears at launch. What happened to the days of launching with a mega launch titles ala Mario 64?

5) done the exact opposite of the e3 reveal.

I think they'd still be behind, but not nearly as much. Alot of 360 owners shifted to ps4, without MS' reveal fuckup its likely many of those would have stuck with the xbox brand. It may have been 1.5-1 WW sales, as opposed to basically 2-1 like it is now.
 
People want new gaming consoles and the Wii U and Xbone did not handle it well. The PS4 being so successful doesn't mean the gaming console market is growing, its actually significantly contracting, it does mean PlayStation is going back to the PS2 days and taking up the vast majority of marketshare though.
 
Alot of people in here seem to think that the xbone should be selling better than ps4 because of forza and sunset. And screamride i guess. Thats a heavy hitter.
 
I think the no games is going a little too far now. People act as if XB1 has a drastically superior library. I'm not seeing this.

It doesn't if you go by Metacritic. I think someone posted a while ago in another thread, that there's only a two-point split between their exclusives as a whole, and they're both in the mid-high 70s.

I honestly don't even remember when the "no gamez!" meme started; might be worth a book in its own right.

People want new gaming consoles and the Wii U and Xbone did not handle it well. The PS4 being so successful doesn't mean the gaming console market is growing, its actually significantly contracting, it does mean PlayStation is going back to the PS2 days and taking up the vast majority of marketshare though.
Is it though?
 
The four P's of marketing:

Product - most powerful console but still has an attractive form factor.
Price - no explanation needed.
Promotion - #4thegamers etc were the right messages at the right time.
Place - they reached more countries in a shorter time compared to the competition.

Andrew House is a marketing man and it shows.

This guy gets it in my view. Microsoft's fumbling of epic proportions with the Xbox One prior to the DRM removal / the console's release and Nintendo dropping the ball with the Wii U also played a major hand in Sony's success in all four areas: for many gamers and the general public, Sony practically hit all the right notes in all four aspects (or alternatively, hit relatively few -if any- incorrect notes) in contrast to the other two.
 
I think Sony just gets their core audience where Nintendo and Microsoft do not. I was a huge Nintendo fan back in the day but they wandered off course and started focusing on kiddie games. Microsoft just feels like everything goes through a focus group and is a corporate vision of what we as gamers want. Sony has a nice spread of games from Knack to Killzone. Doesnt matter what your opinion of these games are, they have a spread from young to old. Whats the xbox most known for? Halo and Gears. Nintendo is known for Mario and a few others. Sony? Bandicoot, Infamous, Killzone, Spyro, Resistance, I mean they have a large spread of games and mascots, they havent been afraid to create new ones and definitely havent stagnated on old ass mascots, no matter how good. I just feel like Sony keeps things fresh while still having the legacy around at the same time. Maybe we dont get enough sequels but were not mired in Mario from 1985 either. Not that Mario is bad but come on design something new once in a while. Microsoft needs to stop being a company and try to actually understand what people want. The whole DRM thing could have flown if it was presented correctly and offered enough flexibility but nope, just a fucking mess of an announcement.
 
Better price. 1080p.

If Xbox one came out :
1. More powerful
2. Same price or cheaper
3. BC
4. Maybe two Versions. 1 could be the 500 kinect version. But included BC.. And a 350 version that didn't.

I bet that if the Xbox one came out without the launch/PR problems, had stronger hardware, better exclusives and was cheaper... It would still trail the PS4 in much of continental Europe. That's just how that market is, very pro Sony.
 
Its the best choice to upgrade (powerful) but also was cheaper than competitor, was, the first "true" next gen console revealed, and that helped A LOT in associating next gen with PS, good marketing, PS4 is considered the machine for the "hardcore" gamer, even if the others have good games too, and overall strong brand.

Add to this the mistakes of the competition, MS was destroyed PR wise, Nintendo, well its irrelevant now, that means SONY is the de facto leader of the market.
 
Innovation does not imply something appealing....just look at the WiiU.

As I said, the Wii U is not an innovation like the Wii to begin with.

A lot of people just want a well priced console, which is technologically with the era and has all their favourite games (whatever those games may be). PS1 showed this, PS2 showed this, PS360 showed this and PS4 is showing this.

Those "lot of people" we refer to as the "core". There's a much larger base of people who aren't invested in tech or franchises, who will buy products based on an idea, a "gimmick". If VR takes off, it's going to repeat the Wii's success (quite possibly orders of magnitude more so), for the company that can capitalize on it.

Also how many consoles are like the Wii? Not only is such a venture extremely difficult to nail but its also not a sustainable business model.

Apple has shown that it's both possible and quite sustainable to do so, and Nintendo under Iwata seems to be working towards getting there. If you can sell hardware at huge profit margins on the back of an idea, as opposed to championing a loss leader product that largely competes on "bang for the buck" against two corporate giants that have the ability to absorb massive losses (like the PS3), how is that not one of the smarter options? Sony and Microsoft's gaming ventures are not healthy from Nintendo's perspective.

Lastly, innovation in the gaming medium is not something that is restricted to the hardware.

Well, sure. It's just much more difficult to sell something as abstract as software innovation. They're not mutually exclusive either (Wii Sports).
 
I bet that if the Xbox one came out without the launch/PR problems, had stronger hardware, better exclusives and was cheaper... It would still trail the PS4 in much of continental Europe. That's just how that market is, very pro Sony.

Well yeah, but America isn't. Not to mention strength isn't everything. A $300 Xbox One sans fuck ups at launch would've likley been bad for the current PS4 in America imo.
 
I really don't think this is a single issue deal. Sony have done an amazing job of 3 console lifecycles now, with only a relatively small number of missteps. Most importantly, consumers can purchase a Sony machine and know it will be supported for a significant period of time with good software and services. Even my launch fat PS3, castigated at the time for its price, is still under my second TV now 7 years later as a great media player and PS plus feeding it software. My PS3 was incredible value.

Consumers know what is coming for PS4, as Sony has always delivered, the fact the exclusives aren't quite there yet is largely irrelevant.

The relatively early dropping by MS of Xbox, the massive hardware problems on 360, I think these have had an overall negative effect on consumers. I bought both, suffered, and the Xbox brand is damaged to me despite the great games.

Sony has the trust, and the launch of the latest gen just played right into that. It was a no brainer for people invested in Playstation to stick with it and an easy decision for others to move.
 
Alright mate, nobody's saying it anywhere and I just made it up for lols, so please just relax.
No worries!

You made something up (or highly exaggerated it to make a point) and got called out on it. Happens to every GAFer sometime, happened to me before. It's fine.
 
Better hardware and the games.

I would argue what makes the PS4's resounding success so surprising, even to Sony themselves, is the lack overall lack of compelling software.

Past precedent would point to games driving adoption rates, in this case I would agree more with these influences.

The four P's of marketing:

Product - most powerful console but still has an attractive form factor.
Price - no explanation needed.
Promotion - #4thegamers etc were the right messages at the right time.
Place - they reached more countries in a shorter time compared to the competition.

Andrew House is a marketing man and it shows.
 
No worries!

You made something up (or highly exaggerated it to make a point) and got called out on it. Happens to every GAFer sometime, happened to me before. It's fine.

What is wrong with you? The attitude of 'sony getting complacent', 'Soony', 'no OS updates/features' and 'no games' is still rife on this very board. This very thread, even. (The no games part)

Do you simply not read any PS4/XB1 related threads? Because I struggle to see how anyone that frequently reads GAF can say it's not there. The high horse attitude you display is cringe-worthy in this case.
 
1. MS screwed up the xbox 1 reveal.
2. Forcing in Kinect and having a less powerful machine hurt even after the 180s on drm etc.
3. Nintendo flopped with the Wii U.
4. Sony learned lessons from their PS3 launch struggles and did great at designing, pricing and marketing the ps4. So they took full advantage of the above opportunities.
 
I bet that if the Xbox one came out without the launch/PR problems, had stronger hardware, better exclusives and was cheaper... It would still trail the PS4 in much of continental Europe. That's just how that market is, very pro Sony.

Sure, but MS always seemed to care more about NA anyways. They've lost all their momentum from the 360.

MS slashed prices last holiday and won sales in November and December, but it went right back to Sony like nothing happened. MS even shit out a broken Master Chief Collection that may bite them in the ass when halo 5 releases. I won't be buying it and have loved halo since 2002.

Sony did lots right, but MS really fucked themselves too. The reverse of last generation.
 
MS's image over the past year or so has been that of a kid trying to copy his big brother. It's not that of confidence like what the 360 was, when the 360 was also getting games that were previously thought of as "PS" games like GTA, DMC, etc on the same day...

- Matching PS4's ability to play games offline... early on the DRM/always online messaging killed them, they quickly followed with Sony who really were just doing what the industry had always been in this scenario.

- Matching monthly games for XBLG subs. They're getting there with Games with Gold, still more limited with older/less relevant games.

- Matching the price of the PS4, and much cheaper deals many times during the year. After starting with a $500 box it was desperate (but necessary; should have given the option at launch).

- Matching the power of PS4. It's not really possible, but over the year we constantly heard about XYZ update giving ###% more power for this and that. They even sent engineers to make sure Destiny would be 1080p, wow that is dedication to make sure PS4 didn't trump them on that game as people thought would be the next COD/Halo (and it did really well I guess).

Now that the dust has settled a bit with XB1, hopefully for MS they can get over this image once they start no longer focussing on catching up.


This is the one they'll never be able to beat them on. MS makes a lot of noise about "closing the power gap" but it's not as if Sony isn't making improvements of their own. The difference is, Sony doesn't have to shout about it from the mountains each time (but it might be beneficial if they started to do so). There's also the issue that XBO's SDK was probably just not that well developed at launch and needed to improve more to simply be competitive.

Even so, both systems have a static amount of parts and silicone that will never actually change; theirs specs will stay the same. They will still use the same Jaguar CPUs, AMD APUs and 8GB of RAM. Which means that if both made similar gains in improvements, overall the 40% power difference in favor of PS4 will always, always exist, because it has the actual physical capacity for it. XBO does not, and never will*

*Technically they could do what Nintendo did with the new 3DS; bump up the processing power with a faster version of the same CPU, and maybe switch out to a different RAM type. But that doesn't benefit older releases and wouldn't the latter option cause complications with the ESRAM? Other than that it just seems like a waste of resources that could be put to better use in an actual successor.
 
I really don't think this is a single issue deal. Sony have done an amazing job of 3 console lifecycles now, with only a relatively small number of missteps. Most importantly, consumers can purchase a Sony machine and know it will be supported for a significant period of time with good software and services. Even my launch fat PS3, castigated at the time for its price, is still under my second TV now 7 years later as a great media player and PS plus feeding it software. My PS3 was incredible value.

Consumers know what is coming for PS4, as Sony has always delivered, the fact the exclusives aren't quite there yet is largely irrelevant.

The relatively early dropping by MS of Xbox, the massive hardware problems on 360, I think these have had an overall negative effect on consumers. I bought both, suffered, and the Xbox brand is damaged to me despite the great games.

Sony has the trust, and the launch of the latest gen just played right into that. It was a no brainer for people invested in Playstation to stick with it and an easy decision for others to move.

My 80GB MG4 version just gave up the ghost a few months ago....and thats after at least 2 massive drops from a few feet high over the years. Had it since 2008. Playing GTA 5 it died..it survived TLOU...or TLOU got the death started. It looks like the graphics card went bad.

The NXE update killed my launch 360 in 2008, 2009 cant remember which year it died. Died right after the update. I never experienced the YLoD....but have seen the RRoD at least 3 times on 2 different 360's, one time being fatal.
 
I would argue what makes the PS4's resounding success so surprising, even to Sony themselves, is the lack overall lack of compelling software.

Past precedent would point to games driving adoption rates, in this case I would agree more with these influences.

I feel like it has the most compelling software of the three so i can't agree with you.
 
A great late push of the ps3, with naughty dog leading the charge as the best developer in the world, alongside the fact that is an exclusive studio.

But most importantly, the wii brought a lot of people to the console market with disposable income, mobile phones and tablets changed the reserve price of technology for the average consumer, and a lot of kids that grew with playstation 1 are now adults with money
 
All of the core pillars that made the Xbox 360 so successful are present in the PS4.

A lot of the mistakes that caused the PS3 to stumble out of the gate are present in the XB1.
 
People want new gaming consoles and the Wii U and Xbone did not handle it well. The PS4 being so successful doesn't mean the gaming console market is growing, its actually significantly contracting, it does mean PlayStation is going back to the PS2 days and taking up the vast majority of marketshare though.

I don't mind that going back to the PS2 days. Imo it is the best generation ever.
 
Almost every 360 sold in its first couple years is now broken. Given this, I'm surprised at how successful Xbone has been. People have short memories, I guess.

I don't know why people are so desperate to buy a new machine. I think that's the more interesting question. But given they are, it's obvious more people would go with the PS4 right now.
 
Sony has the trust, and the launch of the latest gen just played right into that. It was a no brainer for people invested in Playstation to stick with it and an easy decision for others to move.

I think that's what it comes down to ultimately, trust. Unless the word 'vita' or 'go' is on the system, Sony has shown strong support for their home consoles, each for the greater part of a decade. As a consumer, it makes me feel that buying a playstation is a solid, safe purchase. I first owned a PS in 1996 and at this point, am invested in their ecosystem of franchises and services.

The reality is, and I say this having owned and enjoyed both an OG xbox and 360, they haven't inspired the same level of trust. The old xbox was dropped like a sack of potatoes after 4 years( iirc it had something to do with nvidia chips?) and after the strong 360 start( asides the RROD fiasco) their exclusives dried up around the last 3-4 years of its life coinciding with kinect. The 360 is pretty much dead now in terms of support, meanwhile ps3 is still getting a few high profile titles. All of this for me, if I have only one system to choose, makes it an easy choice. As much joy as halo and gears provided, its not a hard choice for me to move on from the xbox brand. It would be much harder to move away from playstation. I don't have a ps4 yet, but there is no doubt I will get one eventually. There are currently no plans to get an xbone, no matter how many deals MS throws at me to open up my wallet.
 
What is wrong with you? The attitude of 'sony getting complacent', 'Soony', 'no OS updates/features' and 'no games' is still rife on this very board. This very thread, even. (The no games part)

Do you simply not read any PS4/XB1 related threads? Because I struggle to see how anyone that frequently reads GAF can say it's not there. The high horse attitude you display is cringe-worthy in this case.
Here's his original quote/argument I was responding to:

"and most are saying MS has fixed all the early problems while Sony does nothing but grow more arrogant"
I don't think most are saying that MS has fixed all the early problems. I don't think most are saying that Sony does nothing but grow more arrogant.

I'm not saying these sentiments don't exist. They're certainly alive and well... in a part of the MS fanbase. But I'm absolutely denying the argument that "most" people think this way - unless I misunderstood him, the way he worded it was basically implying like this was the overall consensus. Which I find patently ridiculous.

That I'm being dickish about it was just in response to his tone. Sorry for that! :p
 
I would argue what makes the PS4's resounding success so surprising, even to Sony themselves, is the lack overall lack of compelling software.

Past precedent would point to games driving adoption rates, in this case I would agree more with these influences.

That compelling software is anything you can play on the system be it multiplatform or not.
I'd argue that exclusives matter less and less as there are a ton to play without even touching an exclusive game.
 
Almost every 360 sold in its first couple years is now broken. Given this, I'm surprised at how successful Xbone has been. People have short memories, I guess.

I'm guessing that if you purchased a fair amount of DLC early on, it was much harder to break away from the 360. I went through 3 of them (paltry compared to some of the stories I've heard). At the time, If I didn't have much vested in software( physical or digital), gold subs, friends lists etc, I'd have likely given up after #2.
 
Microsoft did as much for the PS4 as Sony did. It all started with the terrible rumors for the Xbox One which ended up partially being true for a time (always online and mandatory Kinect).

MS waited far too long to reverse these massive and glaring issues that any baboon could have pointed out, and meanwhile Sony announced PS4 with 8GB GDDR5 and no bullshit.

Then the we find out pricing and all the specs. You can buy a $500 lower spec box with a forced device that nobody wants, or a $400 one with better specs. Tough choice there.

Fast forward to today and the Xbox price is much better, it currently has a couple great exclusives, they dropped some of the dumb ass paywalls, and could be in a fantastic position right now but I don't really think they are.

Why is that? Because it's too late. The damage is done. The PS4 has won the battle of hearts and minds and so this is where we are. Not to mention a large lineup of exclusives that includes Uncharted 4 and Bloodborne this year.

The PS4 will continue to dominate until MS drops to $300 and gives some release dates for exclusive games like Gears and Crackdown.
 
Let's keep the sodium content to the 20 million thread. Drive by's about the library, where quality is completely subjective is just annoying to see every few posts.

I have plenty of games i'm playing on PS4. Acting like those don't exist just because they dont adhere to the narrative of exclusives being the only thing that matter to the quality of a game llibrary is a fallacy i feel.

XB1 messing up is only a portion of the reason why PS4 is successful. Same reason why 360 managed to be so successful against the PS brand. You can't just say MS would eat up all that marketshare in Europe and everywhere Sony is selling by default if they only 'did the right thing'

(as if that is even a quantifiable)
 
It's a playstation, gaming biggest brand.
It's better.
Games and future exclusives
Ps+

To all that says it "has no games" tell me how those 20/10 Nintendo And xbone exclusives are making their consoles fly off the shelves and incinerating the charts.
 
I'm a day one purchaser, it was a combination of factors that made me get it:

- I had accumulated about €350 worth of GameStop vouchers so it was the perfect thing to buy
- Brand loyalty, I was always going to buy it at some point
- Excited by the possibilities of the console, liked what I'd seen at E3 for example
- Saw no reason at all to buy an XOne.
- Had signed up to PS+ until about 2017 or something
 
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