Nielsen Reports about Interest in Microsoft and Sony mid-cycle upgrade Consoles
Nielsen’s annual Games 360 report provides some interesting info about gamers and games in the US. Aside from the constant, and expected, rise of the popularity of competitive gaming and VR, one of the highlights is the fact that mid-gen consoles seem to have flown under pretty much everybody’s radar. Few people know anything about Xbox Scorpio and PS4 Pro. Only 11% and 21%, respectively, have even heard of them.
When it comes to teens and above, the situation is a little better, 14 % have heard about Scorpio while 27% have heard about Sony’s console. When it comes to non-gamers, Xbox Scorpio is almost a non-entity, with only 3% of them knowing anything about it.
Sony’s seems to dominate the US console market with Microsoft falling behind. Many more people have heard for PS4 than Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch is trailing behind both; only 29% of gamers who were surveyed having heard of it. It still stands pretty high among the general population when compared to the “upgrade” consoles, with 22% report knowing about the Switch.
As low as these numbers are, they’re even lower when it comes to the intent to buy any of these consoles. PS4 Pro is the most popular one, as was expected, with 15% of gamers surveyed expressing the intent to purchase it. Comparatively, only 13% of them intend to buy Xbox Scorpio. The numbers are even lower if general population is considered, though not as low as one might expect, 15% intend to buy PS4 Pro, while 9% plan to opt for Xbox Scorpio.
As holiday season approaches and Microsoft releases more info about their console, these numbers stand to shift significantly. Another factor to consider is brand loyalty: considering these mid-cycle upgrade consoles use the same operating system as 8th gen consoles and allow gamers to migrate their game library to the new devices, many gamers will be less reluctant to buy the new, more powerful system.
Of course, this needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Who are the gamers in this report, when they have not heard of Xbox One? This seems to be a more general picture, but still, worth considering.
