In their Holiday 2016 research brief released earlier this week (as reported on by Games Industry), analysts at DFC Intelligence said they’re expecting total PlayStation 4 sales to cross 50 million, while total Xbox One sales will probably fail to reach their original 30 million target and the results will remain flat year-over-year.
Microsoft doesn’t report Xbox One sales numbers anymore, but Sony confirmed earlier today that worldwide PS4 sales are now over 50 million, thanks in part to the strongest Black Friday week in PlayStation history.
Elsewhere in the report, DFC noted the importance of the games-as-a-service model as launch sales on big titles at retail are slowing. “As for recurring revenue, in the console market close to 40% is likely to be from online revenue streams in 2016 with the biggest one being add-on content that releases after a game’s initial launch,” DFC added.
With this new model, they believe it puts less of an importance on the holiday release season:
The Q4 holiday rush is still important; it is just not make or break for most of these companies. The downside for a Call of Duty or Titanfall 2 is fewer initial sales mean less recurrent revenue but we think it is still possible to add consumers after a product launches. A slowdown in CoD or other products simply means Activision needs to work harder promoting the product after the initial blast.
We’ll find out soon if a strong Black Friday showing and the release of PS4 Pro helped PS4 win November 2016 in the United States.
[Source: DFC Intelligence via Games Industry]
