Sony consoles will continue to rule over Microsoft: report

Stan Beer
Wednesday, 18 April 2007 18:12

Your IT - Entertainment

A new sample of more than 3000 Australian consumers indicates that Sony will continue to dominate the games console space in coming years, despite being late to market with the PlayStation 3. The findings of the report The Connected Home in 2007 from Connection Research suggest that Sony is likely to sell more than 100 million PS3 consoles, emulating the success of the two earlier models, according to one of the authors.

The research shows that the consoles market in Australia, which is a fairly close indicator of the main Western markets outside of Japan, has developed into a three horse race. However, any perceptions that Sony has dropped its bundle in the eyes of consumers appear to be off the mark.

According to the research,for consumers under 40, Sony is as popular now as it was before PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii were released. This augurs well for the PS3's success in Australia, and indicates that Microsoft's advantage in being earlier to market will not be significant in the long term, the report concludes.

The report, based on a survey of 3005 consumers, asked a series of questions about individual and household usage of digital technology. One group of questions asked about respondents' preferred suppliers for 20 different technologies, including games consoles. The question on consoles was unprompted - no vendors' names were supplied. A similar question was asked in an identical 2006 survey, allowing responses to be compared year-on-year.

In 2006, Sony was preferred games console vendor of 40% of respondents, a figure that declined to just 39% in 2007. Over the same period Microsoft's figure rose from 21% to nearly 24%, and Nintendo's (following the release of the Wii) rose from 3.6% to 8.6%. All other suppliers, such as Sega, fell in popularity as the games console market rationalised into a three horse race.

"Microsoft's Xbox 360 beat Sony's Playstation 3 to the market in Australia by twelve months. Most commentators believe this has been greatly to Microsoft's advantage, and there is no doubt that one year's start has helped Microsoft's credibility as a games console supplier," says Graeme Philipson, Connection Research's research director.

"But new research shows that Sony has retained its mind share, at least among younger age groups. Sony is still the preferred games console vendor, by a margin of nearly two-to-one over Microsoft. Microsoft has closed the gap, but only slightly, and its growth is largely in the over 40 age group," Philipson said.