June 2015 NPD: Batman Takes PS4 for a Ride to the Top of the Charts

Batman was good game after all, nice achievement

@BLPs
Don't worry, MS will have Halo 5, Forza 6 and Rise of the Tomb Raider bundles out the a$$ this holiday season so you'll get your wish and see something other than Sony atop the sales charts. I know how much it tears you apart to see PS4 have any degree of success so hopefully it'll make you a lot less miserable when you post here from September through December.

Wait until that FFVII branded bundle drops... holy cow..

Anyone know if they'll sell the 1989 DLC (for the Arkham Knight) separately?

I have to say I am still surprised Sony has been able to maintain such a strong lead in the US. Seems like maybe alot of the 360 owners are making the switch and that kind of surprises me. Back in my younger days if you bought a Nintendo or Sega console it was almost guaranteed that when you got your next console you would stay loyal, at least everyone I knew did. I always preferred Sega bc all my friends had the nes and snes and I wanted to try different games. People forget how cutting edge Sega was back then, and alot of the popular game play mechanics of today originated on obscure Sega games.

I know Microsoft shot themselves in the proverbial foot with the xbone release, but I always figured after a year or so it would even out and Microsoft would lead in the US and Sony would lead everywhere else. That just has not happened, even with all the predictions by pachter and the like. Makes you wonder if people grew tired of the hardware failures of the 360.

Feels like there would have been a little more brand loyalty 20 years ago. In reality I think it has more to do with Microsoft as a whole and it's unfair portrayal as a greedy corporate mega monster. People buy gaming consoles for one overwhelming reason, to play games. Microsoft seemed to look at smart phones and tablets and the success they have being multi faceted technologies and assumed that Americans wanted a gaming console that "does it all". Unfortunately alot of people that buy "new gen" consoles already own newer televisions and smart phones and tablets. These early adopters don't want another box that does what their smart TV and tablets and phones can do, they want it to play games really well.

I suppose when Microsoft lost the battle over the core gamer at the launch of the xbone it created an image problem for them. The hardcore console gamers went the way of the PS4, and almost always the casuals will follow the trendy choice created by the core consumer. So in short, they didn't do enough in the era of the 360 to retain all their core gamers when they had several missteps with the launch of the one, thus creating the image and illusion that the PS4 was where "serious" gamers play, and in turn starting a trend where it was "cool" to bash the small issues with the one further pushing all the casual gamers to the ps4. Whew wee, long winded I know, lol.

I think it is pretty safe to say that when halo 5 drops xbone will win that month, and possibly the next, just off the ridiculously large halo fan base. Unless of course the MCC has turned alot of them away with it's countless problems. We shall see.

@SonyInfinity
Xbox One sold better during the holiday months last year, I think we'll see the same this year unless Sony has a price drop, then I could see it being even or Sony maybe even taking November or December. But since that's speculation I'm just going to go with what we know know. The Xbox One is cheaper, there's a special edition Forza 6 console bundle on the way and a Halo 5 bundle was confirmed in April. That should be enough to nudge Xbox ahead but Sony has done a great job rebuilding consumer interest in the PlayStation in North America close to what it used to be. It's not that gamers here ever hated the brand but Sony dropped the ball big time in the early PS3 days and had a hard time recovering. Roles were reversed this time. MS made some dumba$$ decisions with the DRM and then compounded the problem by letting idiots like Don Mattrick speak.

Xbox One is actually a great console and there are certain features I like better than what the PS4 has to offer such as how the store is integrated into the system, the user interface in general and the fact it lets you install games on external hard drives. But MS made a horrendous first impression with the system and there are still other issues, like taking 20 years to install a game, that need to be ironed out.

@BLPs
Had me fooled judging by other posts you've made here, especially since E3, but that's besides the point. Sony is trying to appeal to the people who have brought it to an 80 million+ user base 3 generations in a row. It's been two years on the market with PS4 in an industry that has changed a lot. There's no telling where any of these consoles are going to go. Hell in two or three years time we may all be looking back laughing about 'console wars' as we're playing on the latest Apple gaming device.

@SonyInfinity Microsoft completely ballsed up at e3 2013 and the core gamers jumped ship. DRM, no trading games, less powerful, kinect, tv tv tv... It was a kick in the teeth and showed Microsoft to be way out of touch.

They have learnt, but for me its too late.

I think it is pretty safe to say the ps4 will have a price drop when you consider the impending release of the 1tb model in the US. 350 with a game for the 500gb and 400 with some free months of psplus for the 1tb. October and November have seemingly become make or break months for microsoft. They seem to have went all out on those months with their exclusives, especially considering how long it has been since a true xbone AAA exclusive. If they can win both of those months consecutively they will have a CHANCE of eventually drawing even with Sony in the US. Im thinking they have already conceded the idea of ever wresting control of Europe, South America, and Japan etc. fromy Sony. The risk for Microsoft is if these exclusives will even be enough when going up against the inevitable ps4 bundles of star wars, metal gear, Drake collection, and possibly a call of duty special and/or the release of no man's sky. (I personally think no man's sky has a real chance to be a smashing success) The problem Microsoft is creating is that they have set themselves up where anything but a dominant win in the holiday season is a failure. What if halo 5 doesn't move the needle the way they expect? Does tomb raider or forza have a large enough fan base to be tent pole exclusives for microsoft? I know halo will hold it's own but not so sure about the others. How will the corporate heads and stock holders react if the xbones biggest holiday season thus far falls short or by chance still can't top the ps4 and the inevitable major third party deals Sony will be promoting. I just feel like first party exclusives are not the barometer of success that they once were. Why release your first party game during the most crowded part of the gaming schedule only to see it swallowed by the annual releases of call of duty etc. I get the impression Sony has planned this very well, let Microsoft exhaust all the aces in the hole battling third party games that are giving promotional and dlc rights to sony. Microsoft has backed itself into a corner making their loyal gamers wait nearly a year for a true xbox exclusive only to release them at a time when the third party titles will undoubtedly be the big, popular, winners. How will they recover their image of competitivness with Sony if they still sell less during the holiday and then as the new year rolls around Sony starts releasing exclusive after exclusive? Not to be a buzz kill but I can easily see them entering panic mode at that point, realizing that even the most popular and biggest release of their entire console life, halo 5, was still unable to dethrone Sony in their own country. Will this lead to a truncated life cycle for the xbone? Unfortunately I could see them doing just that, "well guys, even with halo 5 and the purchase of tomb raider exclusivity, we were still unable to get a win those months". This could mean less and less focus on great exclusive content for the xbone and more focus on ending this console generation as quickly as possible and pushing a new console out the door much sooner. This, ever since I was a child, has always been my greatest fear when purchasing a comsole. How long will they support it? (Growing up a Sega fan those fears were ultimately legitimised twice!) Looking back at Microsofts track record they have little problem distancing themselves from hardware or software that has never took off like they hoped. Certain iterations of windows as well as the windowsing phone can attest to that. I hope I am wrong and both CoNoles do great, but I do feel Microsoft has made this upcoming holiday season a barometer of how much they will stick with the one going forward, and that could turn into a reap shame for their fans.

Cough cough MGS PS4, Destiny Taken King PS4, so far.

@SonyInfinity
The original Xbox only lasted from 2001 to 2005 so yeah, if Sony continues to pull ahead we may be looking at 'Xbox Two,' or maybe an entirely different approach than a console, by 2017. This is why I'm hoping things start evening out in the U.S. and Canada and even if MS can't catch Sony in Europe, I hope it can start having more success so we could get at least a 5-year cycle out of the Xbox One. It's pretty clear Xbox is never going to succeed in Japan in any meaningful way and it may almost be a good decision on MS' part to get out of that market and do things to try and strengthen its position in the West, which is bigger for home console gaming anyway.

It's pretty clear, last gen was such a fluke. The Wii selling 100 million consoles ? That was all casuals buying that terrible system. The PS3 being neck and neck with the 360 also. It's clear that PlayStation is back being dominate as it was during the PS One and PS2 era. It probably won't do PS2 numbers, but it will definitely trump the PS3 in terms of sales.

After doing a little reading on past microsoft business decisions when cutting ties with software and hardware that did not "click" with the public, I am really starting to worry that any continued failure to beat Sony in America will lead them to push out a slightly stronger xbox without all the non gaming stuff, or simply pull out of the console business altogether. In my opinion it is very telling that they want to unify all the hardware under the windows 10 umbrella, further solidifying the idea that they don't really need to create a console to reap

After doing a little reading on past microsoft business decisions when cutting ties with software and hardware that did not "click" with the public, I am really starting to worry that any continued failure to beat Sony in America will lead them to push out a slightly stronger xbox without all the non gaming stuff, or simply pull out of the console business altogether. Correct me if I am wrong but doesn't microsoft still take a loss on all xbones sold? Especially now that they are so cheap? How about the millions of kinect 2 units sitting in warehouses not being sold, or used. How many losses will they be willing to absorb when they can simply bow out of the console race and focus on the all encompassing umbrella that will be windows 10, unifying pc's, as well as giving a considerable boost to the marketability of the sagging windows phone and growing success of the surface pad.

Think about it, with their windows 10 initiative they could still remain in the games publishing business, and create killer apps for windows 10 that can run simultaneously on your phone, tablet and pc. Heck, they could even still sell the xbox controller for those that want to game that way and make it compatible with every device running Windows 10. Going this route would cut all the monetary losses the xbox division has created as well as ending the embarrassment that a mega company like themselves can't even maintain console superiority on it's home turf. It would also surely mean huge profits, because they would no longer really be a direct competitor with Sony or nintendo, instead being more of a hybrid publisher and software developer.

Of course I could be dead wrong about all this (as I often am) and they decide that absorbing the financial losses and embarrassment of the xbone is worth getting windows 10 into

More homes. Hard to tell with a company with that kind of power, they could absorb losses for decades, or decide tomorrow it is no longer worth it. My only hope is that they don't go the route of pushing out a new console in the near future. This would definitely cause Sony to react and I feel like these consoles could have a nice life span if given the chance. I guess it all comes down to how long are they willing to concede first place in the consoles market to sony? I am not sure if their is anything they can truly do to get to number 1 worldwide, not with Sony pushing hard at every turn to maintain it's position.