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PS5
A new study from VGM, as reported by gamesindustry.biz, is very good news for the PS5 and interesting news for the industry in general. The survey asked 511 representative US gamers about their next-gen pre-orders, and of the 15% who managed to successfully order a next-gen machine, the majority ended up with a PS5:
- 72%: PS5 disk drive
- 30%: Xbox Series X
- 10%: PS5 fully digital
- 8% Xbox Series S
That’s why people ended up buying – the intentions are a little different, because low stocks and the general craze for pre-orders mean that not everyone ended up buying the consoles they wanted. 29% said they wanted to order a next-gen console but couldn’t. The numbers came a bit closer than for those who successfully ordered a console, but even here we see a dominating advantage for Sony.
- 58% PS5 disk drive
- 40%: Xbox Series X
- 21%: all-digital PS5
- 11%: Xbox Series S
Note that these numbers add up to more than 100% because people can order more than one console, as I did. I wouldn’t take too much account of the Xbox Series S numbers here either, both because of low stock and because pre-orders lean heavily towards the less-likely enthusiast type of buying less powerful machines.
What particularly interests me are the two games that respondents said influenced their purchasing decisions more than any other. 52% of PS5 precomputers said that Spider-Man Miles Morales influenced their decision, and 42% said the same about God of War: Ragnarok. Both illustrate the importance of Sony’s own development, especially with regard to God of War: Ragnarok, a game for which we have seen exactly zero images. That’s the degree to which people trust original Sony games.
On the Xbox side of things, Halo: Infinity influenced the decision of 45% of buyers. Interestingly, 63% of those surveyed were unaware that Microsoft had purchased Zenimax Media. Which isn’t really surprising, considering it’s an internal thing to baseball for now – the real impact of that deal will come once major Bethesda games appear as Xbox exclusives.
In general, this is what I expect. While launch sales will be limited by supply rather than demand, Sony is still coming out strong and I expect it to dominate the conversation through 2020 and 2021. Microsoft will regain ground when the Bethesda deal begins to pay off and when the audience more casual starts to get into things and becomes interested in Game Pass, Xbox Series S and xCloud.
