While they could easily slow to a leisurely jog and still outrun their Xbox competitor (just in hardware sales alone) Sony is confident its software offering will bolster sales even more moving forward.
In a recent interview, Sony President Shuhei Yoshida highlighted the strength of the PlayStation 4 line-up for the remainder of the 2014-2015 fiscal year, and how it compares to their Microsoft counterpart. Pointing to a strong install base of brand new gamers, Yoshida states, “One amazing statistic, to me at least, was published by Nielsen a couple of months ago. They researched the PS4, and reported that 17 per cent of PS4 owners had never owned the last gen. A completely new consumer who skipped a generation. 32 per cent additionally didn’t own a PS3, but owned a 360 or Wii.”
While the PS4 obviously receives the lion’s share of attention from media, the gaming community and Sony itself, what of its handheld ventures? While many would still see Nintendo as king of the mobile gaming market (with its ever-popular DS line of hardware), Yoshida revealed that their focus for the Vita moving forward is multitasking, not just gaming. “There are lots of new Vita games…But it’s not about individual Vita games any more. It’s more about how Vita can have multiple uses – with PS4 remote play, PS3 games with PS Now, and the dedicated games. The whole ecosystem…the Vita’s a part of that.”
We’ll bring you more on how the Vita will integrate with services like PlayStation Now and PlayStation TV once we know more.