This week, EA made headlines because they released an estimate which said that 55 million new-gen consoles had been sold so far. That’s a headline because when you take Sony ’s freely offered-up figures of 36 million PS4s sold, that leaves 19 million Xbox Ones, meaning it’s being outsold almost 2:1. The Wii U isn’t included because EA doesn’t make Wii U games, and the math would be nonsense if it was.
But rather than the whole “PS4 is killing Xbox One” narrative, I think it’s more significant that 55 million of these consoles have been sold period. Both the PS4 and Xbox One are tracking above last gen. I believe The Xbox 360 was at about 17 million at this point, while the PS3 was at 21 million.
Why is this kind of crazy? Because all we’ve been hearing about the past five years or so was how this console generation was destined to be the last, and game consoles in general were a trend that was bound to be phased out soon enough.
That hasn’t happened, of course. Sales of the Xbox One and PS4 are booming, and Nintendo already has a new console that’s allegedly coming out this year. Microsoft MSFT -1.92% and Sony haven’t been shy about hinting at future consoles either, even after the multi-year lifespan of their current systems are through.
So why all the doom and gloom predictions? Because I think most of them were coming from the general or tech press, rather than those more inside gaming who really understand the wants and needs of players.
The long and short of it is that despite claims to the contrary, there still is not something that has blossomed into becoming a true replacement for a game console. Here are at least five things that many thought would kill consoles, but haven’t managed to come close as of yet.
An avid video game fan and player since the late 70’s.