Some 31 per cent of people who have bought a PlayStation 4 had an Xbox 360 or Wii but not a PS3 in the last hardware generation, PlayStation’s American VP of marketing John Koller told me in an interview here at L.A. this week. That’s a decent amount of people making a switch to Team PlayStation and/or coming back to Sony after missing the PS3 era.
Koller was citing results of a research study that he said also indicated that as much as 17 per cent of people who have bought a PS4 didn’t own a console in the previous generation.
And who are the people buying the PS4 up until now? Primarily the hardest of the hardcore gaming populating, yes, though Sony has a different name for those gamers.
“The person that we’ve picked up since launch primarily is someone we call the connoisseur, someone that loves, unequivocally, loves games,” Koller said. “They are the people who, when you walk in [to their home], there’s no books on their book shelves. They’re all game packages. They’re the people who stood in line at midnight [for the console’s launch]. They really are a fantastic consumer for us. They’re a great part of the PlayStation nation.”
The PS4 has been pretty hot and is already reaching beyond that crowd, he noted. “One thing that’s interesting, though, is that we’re starting to see a lot more of what we thought were going to be adopters later down the cycle coming in really early.” Koller described that crowd as “indulgers, people that are traditionally a little bit more price-sensitive or down the funnel that have kind of bucked the trend as it were.’”
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21 responses to “Sony: Nearly A Third Of PS4 Owners Only Had A Wii Or Xbox 360 Last Gen”
This has been the first console since my Megadrive that I’ve bought from launch. There’s just an excitement around this gen of consoles so the marketing departments have done their jobs. I’ve also enjoyed the games I’ve played on it so far but admittedly I haven’t played anything that can be properly described as ‘next gen’ yet so the developers need to get a boogie on with that
I find it hard to believe that new buyers of a PS4 missed an entire console generation, that’s 7 years since the PS3 launch, and probably close to 10 years since they would have purchased a PS2.
It’s more like to be people coming across from the Wii or the 360, if so kudos to Sony, but I’d also like to see the numbers going the other way.
\o/ TEAM PLAYSTATION \o/
\o/ TEAM PLATFORM AGNOSTIC BECAUSE I WANT TO PLAY EVERYTHING \o/
Got my freebie coming from Sony, but due to a recent motorcycle accident damaging my left thumb so I can’t get it to 90 degrees anymore I’m team Microsoft for life. Funny thing is I used to hate the forward stick when I got my PS3 vs 360! So up for sale it’ll go, given without games there’s no point in having it for media right now.
Sorry to hear about your motorcycle accident (I ride also). Have you looked into using keyboard and mouse on consoles? I’m a big evangelist for using XIM on my Xbox for shooters, but XIM can be used for pretty much all consoles with USB,
I can play short bursts of Xbox, but having a lot of trouble with the computer at the moment, bought a nice ergonomic Logitech mouse just to be able to use it but end up with mad wrist and elbow pains after using it. Couldn’t use my old intellimouse explorer ergonomic at all.
I had one of those splitfish fragfx for the PS3 and didn’t like how it emulated the controller instead of feeling like a mouse. Also using a mouse at the TV was something I couldn’t get used to haha.
Sorry to hear about the accident, but might as well keep it as I’m sure there will be 3rd party controllers that have the asymmetrical stick layout.
I figure I’ll sell it now while it’s worth good money and get another one when they upgrade it to HDMI 2.0 and add Video Unlimited 4k / 4k bluray support.
Not to mention the WiiU/ pro controller should be good to use too.. I don’t see a reason to sell up seeing how the symmetrical stick layout 3rd parties will hit (Considering the analogous on the PS4 rubbing smooth so fast and the X1’s being so tiny I see why both sides have a bit of an outcry for 3rd party pads.) Unless you need the cash of course, then sure.
Edit: Posted before you (@dknigs) replied.
Hope you don’t do that in multiplayer!
While I have a PS3 and I’m never going to buy a PS4 unless Sony adds basic media/DLNA playback capabilities. Why would I want to pay a large amount of money for a functionally worse device? If all I want is gaming, I have a PC. If you want me to buy a console, it needs to do all the stuff I want a box under my TV to do.
Seriously, $20 MP3 players can play MP3s (obviously)… how hard is it for Sony to use a super powerful console to do this?
I do believe they have promised it, but they seem to be taking their time releasing updates that add new features. IDK, maybe they want the basics sorted out perfectly first I have no idea, but I’m sure it’ll come.
The longer we go without that update, the more cynical I’m becoming about it. I don’t think they want it, and as long as they’re selling by the crapload, I doubt they’re in any rush to add in something like that.
My cynicism is enhanced by the fact that apparently ShareFactory will let you add your own music off USB (I haven’t tried it myself, but I believe it is the case). So obviously it CAN play media when it suits them. Just not when it suits us.
Yeah, I think a LOT of cynicism is justified here. Sony has a long history of trying to push their own music services and locking down music devices to try to force people to play by their rules – they were doing this as long ago as the minidisc era (they had weird DRM which broke minidiscs if you recorded them yourself), then there was that whole rootkit thing with music CDs, and most Sony phones try to shove their streaming music service down your throat. As I understand it the PS4 has Sony streaming media stuff built in.
It is quite obvious that a device which is essentially a semi-decent PC with a fancy GUI and excellent video decoding hardware can play any and all media. Hell, they could probably just run pre-existing software on it perfectly well. So the lack of this option must be a corporate strategy.
It’s not just Sony – as far as I’m aware, the XBone has the same lack of USB media functionality?
Well, both the consoles are new and I think we all understand.
But time is getting on and I think we are all starting to wonder when the simple things they promised at launch are arriving. And the ability to set a wallpaper FFS!
TBH the consoles seem to have fewer issues at launch than the consoles last time around, but I think the updates are also trickling in slower too from both sides if memory serves?
I’m not digressing with you trust me. I am quite frustrated with how slow they are bringing extra functionality and I don’t know why it is. Like I say maybe they want everything to work before adding more IDK, but it is a slow process for sure.
Maybe they’re taking their time because if they do release an update with media functionality on it, people will turn around and think ‘we don’t need the ps3 anymore, let’s sell it and the games’. Keeping media functions off the ps4 means that people will still use the ps3 as their media device.
They’ve promised it in a very non-committal way. They’ve almost been deliberately vague about it.
couldnt you just as easily have said “Sony: Nearly a third of PS4 owners did not own a PS3 last gen…”
That would be different. It would be made clear if I could do an ASCII art Venn diagram.
What is stated in article:
31% of PS4 owners =
people who owned an Xbox 360 and/or Wii but not a PS3
Your headline:
nearly 1/3 of PS4 owners =
people who owned an Xbox 360 and/or Wii but not a PS3
+ never owned a console (which is 17% of the PS4 owners)