Why is PS4 dominating Xbox One in sells in Europe???

I cant believe Xbox cant overtake PS4 in Europe even though Fifa legends is an exclusive for it! Help me out here people cause I have googled and nothing definitively comes up as a yes or no, is the Xbox One cheaper than PS4 in Europe? It must be cheaper in the UK for sure? Please are there any Europeans here that can answer this cause its burning in my mind!

I mean soccer/football is the biggest sport in the world and its insanely popular in Europe so you'd think that fifa legends being an exclusive for Xbox would cause most people to opt for it over PS4 (ESPECIALLY IF XBOX IS THE CHEAPER CONSOLE!) but no right now PS4 has 70 to 90% market share over there.

I mean lets face it as of right now Xbox has the best game lineup. I mean the critics tend to think Sony won E3 but gamescom hands down goes to Microsoft (and if Microsoft had shown these games off at E3 instead of gamescom who do you think would have won?) and I know for a fact Xbox One is cheaper than PS4 here in USA! In fact much cheaper! You can get a 500 GB Xbox for $350 compared to a $400 500GB PS4, its gets even better, right now you can get a $400 1 TB Xbox One! YET THE PS4 IS STILL OUTSELLING THE XBOX!!!

Now I do believe that due to the much cheaper price tag and badass game lineup that Xbox will turn things around and outsell PS4 during the 2015 holidays here in North America. So I do think Microsoft will once again be the King here in USA but as for Europe... What the hell's going on over there?

p.s. I didn't mention Japan cause its absolutely hopeless for Microsoft over there lol, but hey now that China's opened up maybe Xbox can reign supreme there, only time will tell.

the likely reason is that the X1 was marketed SOLEY for the US audience at launch, and such damage is hard to cope with.

Basicly the X1 did not go on sale in most European countries for a good long while, most of the features of the X1 was US specific, meaning those would not work in Europe for the most part. And it was more expensive.

The result was that most first adopters in Europe took the logical option, namely the PS4. most people buying consoles after that, tends to do so based on the established user base.

As it stands now, most early adopters in Europe made their choice, or rather MS forced them to chose anyone but them. Sony on the other hand made sure most services worked flawless in Europe, they marketed for the European audience much better, in a bit to retake what was once Playstation "country"

As it stands now the X1 is arguably the weaker of the Console twins, it does have the better lineup, but you won't convince many Europeans of that.

So if MS is to make headway, they will have to set the console speak for itself, and spend more money on adverts, I can tell you just about how many times a day a PS funded advert rolls over the tv, or services that has adverts (a guess would be 4-5) I can not remember the last time I saw a MS advert.

Basicly MS made a lot of headway in Europe with the 360, and they killed all of it with the X1 launch, sad but that is what you get for aiming at one demographic alone, while sending all messages as "yeah we will get to you the second tier people afterwards"

I understand why most people gave MS the finger for that.

Ok yes when the Xbox was bundled with Kinect it was more expensive than PS4 but that was years ago, my question is is a xbox kinectless version cheaper than a PS4 in Europe? So if it is cheaper and the fact that Fifa Legends is exclusive how the hell can PS4 do so well?

Hard to say really, I live in Northern Europe, and they are priced fairly similar.

The issue MS has is to make known that the first year of trainwreck has been cleared up. Make their games seen, and the new message known.

But then that is what they are working on now, they are at GamesCom making it heard as much as possible. And this is what they can do. That and adverts.

They lost the early adopters, so now it is the more casual audience they struggle to get. Honestly, a good showing at Gamescom might go a long way, they need to show the games. Hope that the appeal for the more "average" consumer will help them, and it might.

I am fairly sure the X1 is cheaper in suthern Europe or even central Europe, so they have that, if they make good showings at gamescom, more European sites will show (and more importantly average tv channels (we are talking about that kind of cunsumer they should try to target now).

So honestly, I think they are doing what they can, it is no accident that they have Fifa Legends locked down either. They are doing what they can.

So honestly? we have to wait. See if they can paint themselves in a better light now, then at launch. But I still have to be honest, that launch was pretty much the same as trying to sell a car and say "Oh Brakes? Yeah, no Brakes are only for the American version, Europeans will have to live without" And now having to state "well we have breaks now" In the Case of the X1, it would be "No no we have what is pretty much an entirely new car here"

It is a hard message to sell. Trust me, I ain't stating that Phil and company is doing badly, he is infact doing WAY beter then one could expect. The image is changing.

The issue is "how fast" and does people care anymore?

Then again, I am one of those who are looking at the PS4 and thinks "why the hell does it sell so well?" It does not have alot of good exclusives, and I am willing to bet that most Europeans have a PC, Europe is PC country afterall. Maybe Win10 will help to that too.

I honestly just think they need time now, and exclusives, they have done what they can.

I live in the Northern Europe, and when I thought of (next-gen) I had my mind set on PS4, I don't know why maybe because of the adverts and of course they didn't have the horrendous kinect stuff, but I ended up buying Xbox One, because of its 100$ cheaper price tag, and it also included a game, therefore I went for the more economical choice, and my my I am glad I did. Xbox One <3.

PS: I owned a PS3 before, and a Xbox 360 until it RLD. Perhaps this information is irrelvant haha :P

Xbox mess up they were announcing it with all the controversies, now they are playing catch up

So which country do you live in? Yur saying the Xbox one is cheaper in your country than PS4? Yes you are doing the right thing in purchasing Xbox One. You get scalebound, crackdown 3, quantum break, fable legends, forzo motorsport 6, gears of war 4, Halo 5. Geez what else.

@svb300: I live in Norway, and I bought the Xbox One half a year ago. Was quite a difference in price between them two.

Xbox has always been an Anglosphere thing, their biggest problem was losing the North American market to Sony because of the terrible launch.

@svb300: I have moved this topic to the Game DIscussion lounge as cross platform talk is not allowed on the Xbox board (especially a topic of this nature). I would have moved it to System Wars but I will give it a chance to be discussed in an adult manor here. However, if a Game Discussion board moderator feels you are making topic more to System Wars style posting, I am afraid it will be locked.

Thank you.

What you tryin' to say about SW? :P

As for the topic: Yeah, I don't really know why, but Xbox was never big here in Europe, especially compared to PlayStation, so by the time this gen rolled around, PS4 owners and wanters outnumbered the Xbox One fans by a very, very large margin. This has made it almost impossible for the One to achieve any real level of popularity.

My guess is at some point Sony just did a better job with the marketing than Microsoft, and from then on the battle has been sorely lost for the Xbox brand.

The X1 launched 6 months - 1 year later than the PS4 in parts of Europe (and other parts of the world), it's not the only reason. But it's one of the factors. The 360 managed to dominate the market for the first few years over the PS3 because it released about a year sooner as well. The console sales are most likely going to more or less even out in the next few years to come.

Xbox made the mistake of launching the platform as a living room device rather than a gaming platform. That made them lose market share in US

@Dark_Wr4ith: Yeah, agree with this - over time they are likely to balance out sales wise as PS3 did last gen - if I could afford both, I would.

because ps4 is better !

Microsoft decided to say **** you to most of europe and only release it in 3 countries, Germany, France, UK, forgetting the rest of europe and not releasing it in those countries until a year later. A year where Sony was there and as proven by the X360 when most of your friends have a console you usually end up with the same one.

Also Xbox One has almost zero features meant for the european market, all of its extra features are primarily meant for the american market.

So with that and the fact that Xbox One is an inferior console it's not going to beat Sony.

With that post you just made it sound like your a sour xbox fan who isn't happy about the xbox selling less resulting in a "loss"

At launch i picked playstation as it was cheaper in the UK at launch and i have always been a fan of playstation. i owned a 360 last gen and a ps3 but was extremely disappointed with the lack of support on the 360 towards the end of its cycle. i Purchased an xbox one at the end of last year and i have to say i have hardly touched it.

You listed a few games the xbox is getting stating someone is making the right choice to go with that console, yet i bet you couldn't list a decent amount of PS exclusive titles. I am calling a sad fanboy thread on this one.

Tbh, exclusive don't really bother me, I'm more of a guy that likes the top notch AAA games which are provided on both consoles, but I have to admit this new to be released pirate game on Xbox One seems quite tasty. I can't recall what its called, but you get it right? :)

@ari123: sea of thieves, yes it does look very good.

I live in Portugal and there's never been a strong Microsoft presence here. It started with the PS2 and it's only gotten worse.

You can walk up to any store and the Xbox section will be a small corner, even tinier than the Nintendo one, which is already pretty bad. No advertisements anywhere. You may even have a hard time finding certain peripherals.

This wasn't the case during the Nintendo/Sega days. Things were pretty even. Some kids had the Mega Drive (Genesis), others had the Super NES. Today? Good luck finding an Xbone anywhere, and if you say you're going to buy one, you can bet their first question will be "Why not a PS4?!"

I don't think MS really cares about certain markets, to be honest.

@tlg1991: Yeah, looking forward to throw friend off my ship hahaha, but I don't really understand this Sony vs Microsoft console war. They are the ones selling and ripping us off. If there should be somebody fighting over something, it should be Sony and Microsoft fighting over us fans, giving us cheaper games and stuff. Neutral for life homies!

@svb300: this just sounds like another attempt to start a console war. What does it matter to you how the consoles sell? If Xbox had such a "badass gaming lineup" I think they would've pulled ahead by now.

I wonder what makes the Xbones lineup so much better?

Sony has a long history in Europe. The brand is simply a lot stronger.

Sony also has been a lot more supportive of European markets. Xbox One launched in tiers, many countries had to wait many many months before the console was released there and even when it launched some features just weren't avaible (like voice command), which raises the question why was there even a delay in the first place. Meanwhile Sony launched at the same time in pretty much whole Europe and it was a lot cheaper there. No way Xbox will ever be able to make up for all those months of Sony dominance.

And third..continental Europe is pcgaming land. And from pcgamers perspective PS4 is a lot more enticing proposition than Xbox One, since a lot of top XO games get ported or are in genres PC is swimming in. Look at germany, which is the biggest european gaming market. 55% of german gamers play on PC compared to 25% for consoles.

I don't want to make this into an exclusive games debate, but I'll just say PS4 is getting Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, Until Dawn, The Tomorrow Children, No Man's Sky, Uncharted 4, Ratchet and Clank, Horizon Zero Dawn, Dreams, and The Last Guardian in about that same time frame.

Don't forget that they've had exclusives this year so far (Bloodborne, Order: 1886) and Xbone has had none. The only game you couldn't get on Playstation this year was (I THINK the only one) Ori and the Blind Forest, which is also on PC and 360.

Edit: You also forgot to mention that Xbone is getting Sea of Thieves and Recore, which I personally think look better than the rest of the exclusives list for Xbone.

@Epak_: Idk either. To me none of their exclusives have never been anything to rave about. I understand that Halo and Forza is popular, even though I personally don't care for them, but what else is there? lol Tomb Raider is a timed exclusive for Xbox but TR has nothing on Uncharted. Idc what anyone says.

Price wise, the Xbox One is around £40 - £50 cheaper than the PS4 here in the UK. (Depending on where you buy from of course).

So, to answer your question, although it's sort of been covered above, the reason I think the Xbox One hasn't done so well in Europe is in part due to it's launch campaign, it's back tracking, and now it's price point.

So, it was launched solely with the NA market in mind (in terms of it's main flagship features only working in NA to start with) and it was marketed as a media center for the home. Not a games console. There are a few issues with that. The first one being the territory limitations to NA, that's obvious and the second is that I don't believe the majority of people want a console to be a media center - Perhaps 10 years ago yes, but not now, not with all the tech we have . A lot of console gamers want their console to do one thing, and to do that one thing flawlessly. When MS launched the Xbox One, all they really spoke about is sports and TV and not much about games.

Backtracking wise - MS said a LOT of things at launch that was a little too close to the bone, like their DRM stuff, Internet connection requirements in terms of an ''always on console'' and forcing people to use Kinect among other things. Rather than have the balls to back up their own statements and ideas, once they saw how un-popular their decisions were they back tracked, and basically changed a whole bunch of stuff even though at launch they were saying how GREAT it is, and how awesome it's going to be for your home etc, so what happened to that awesomeness? Guess they no longer felt all this stuff was awesome once they realized they'd lose money. This really damaged their credibility.

What Sony did was release a console and pretty much just said, ''So we're trying to make the PS4 a badass gaming console, for games, for gamers, that plays games, lots of GAMES''. You know...

Price point - So I paid £350 for my PS4 on launch and I believe that was the standard cost around the UK. The Xbox One was priced at around £430 at launch. Now this would have had a small effect on consumers I think, but to be honest, only the people who were ''on the fence'' would have taken the price into consideration. What I'm saying is, if you wanted an Xbox One at launch, the price would not have mattered. The problem we have now and the problem proceeding the events of launch is that the Xbox One has been reduced in price a LOT. You can pick one up now at Game for £280. The PS4 is still £350.

So now I think this is having a huge impact because Xbox One no longer has whatever perceived value it had for some people at launch, but instead it's a console without a real identity and one that's value has been downgraded heavily. All the ''great'' features it boasted at launch that used Kinect are no longer valid, as it doesn't come with it anymore, so now although the console is cheaper, what was once an ''all in one package'' is now an expensive added extra so they've really messed up here with how they launched, how they've back tracked and how they've priced it. Perceived value is key to any premium product and without it, you're in the bargain bin. People know how much the Xbox One was priced at at launch and like it or not, the first thing people are going to think when they see the price of the Xbox One now is not that it's cheaper and a good deal, but that it's so heavily reduced it must not be that good... I am not saying that is true by the way, but this is what a lot of people will think - Just like if Jaguar released a new car for £15k, it would make the perceived value of their entire brand decrease a lot.

Either way, PS4 has at-least a 70% market share in Europe (source). It could be for any number of reasons, but I'm betting the above plays some part.

NB: I didn't mention any specific game titles and exclusivity things because I really don't think with this generation that it plays a huge part. All the major games are cross platform, with the exception of a few of course, but I didn't mention it because obviously whatever exclusive content Xbox One has isn't translating into sales - Meaning it's not making any difference with which console people choose.

Yup, I wouldn't call the current exclusives miles better than what the PS4 has to offer.

@svb300:

I cant believe Xbox cant overtake PS4 in Europe even though Fifa legends is an exclusive for it! Help me out here people cause I have googled and nothing definitively comes up as a yes or no, is the Xbox One cheaper than PS4 in Europe? It must be cheaper in the UK for sure? Please are there any Europeans here that can answer this cause its burning in my mind!

I mean soccer/football is the biggest sport in the world and its insanely popular in Europe so you'd think that fifa legends being an exclusive for Xbox would cause most people to opt for it over PS4 (ESPECIALLY IF XBOX IS THE CHEAPER CONSOLE!) but no right now PS4 has 70 to 90% market share over there.

I mean lets face it as of right now Xbox has the best game lineup. I mean the critics tend to think Sony won E3 but gamescom hands down goes to Microsoft (and if Microsoft had shown these games off at E3 instead of gamescom who do you think would have won?) and I know for a fact Xbox One is cheaper than PS4 here in USA! In fact much cheaper! You can get a 500 GB Xbox for $350 compared to a $400 500GB PS4, its gets even better, right now you can get a $400 1 TB Xbox One! YET THE PS4 IS STILL OUTSELLING THE XBOX!!!

Now I do believe that due to the much cheaper price tag and badass game lineup that Xbox will turn things around and outsell PS4 during the 2015 holidays here in North America. So I do think Microsoft will once again be the King here in USA but as for Europe... What the hell's going on over there?

I'm from northern europe also and have some theories (or rather an essay :P) to why xbox one imo is doing worse than ps4 based on my experience, talking with friends and other gamers from here.

First off we can all agree regardless if we are europeeans or americans that their reveal and the drm bullshit was abyssmal and probably gave sony a few sales right there. And as alot of people mentioned the x1 is catered to an american audience and their way of life. For instance the whole tv through your xbox thing. We already have better electronics for that purpose and where an american might be all for features to raise or lower the volume with their voice (wich of course doesn't apply for most of us as voice commands and even tv guide is not universally available to us anyway), even for the europeans that have these features they often see it as doing more work with a 80W controller instead of pressing a button on a <1W normal controller, hence why it is even disabled as default unlike the x1's in USA. We don't really care for other features like snap or skype. That is not why we want a gaming console, one normal viewpoint is the only way to go for one machine that does all in a good way is pc, doing alot of stuff pretty halfassed or having features we already have readily available in our tv's or phones does not make it more appealing. We mainly want a gaming console for gaming.

Most of "the cool" features they showed off and even marketed did not apply to most eurpeeans and some still don't, only the tier 1 countries. That is still true today. That is one reason MS piss of alot of europeeans, labeling them as "tiers" essentially calling some less worth than others (wich businesswise might be true in terms of potential sales, but still nothing you want to be obvious with as you want to appear as someone for the gamers and not someone who view consumers only as "a wallet"). We have always been "second grade" consumers in their eyes and they have treated us as such since the 360 days. That might make people less inclined to put up with anything negative from the xbox brand. Sony does the same of course with newer features currently in beta etc for US consumers. But they have better rethorics around it and have never labeled countries as or similar to tiers. Also the ps4 does what it was marketed as, was fully localised at launch with all launch features available and was released in all territories regardless of how big or small the market is.

Of course the fact that playstation has been a household name since long before xbox also gives sony an edge here. 360 sold fairly well here but the original xbox is almost non existant here. Far from everyone I know, even knows anyone who has grown up with an xbox console, but almost all of them have/have had or know someone who have/have had a playstation or nintendo console.

Another blow was the initial pricetag and that it officially released almost a year later (stores here still had an abundance of unsold x1's from UK right after the UK launch), supposedly for localisation... wich never happened even when it officially launched. We still lacked our most popular apps and there still was no voice commands and alot of the games like KI wasn't even available at our own official launch. Meanwhile at the time the ps4 was not only cheaper, was fully localised at launch.

Over here today the standard ps4 cost around 50$ more than the standard x1 without kinect not counting different deals etc. But I think the culture of "making a deal" is more prevalent for americans. I believe we are more willing to pay extra for the things we want rather than getting something "similar" but not exactly what we want cheaper. Sony knows this hence why they don't lower the price and it still doesn't really affect their market share.

Alot of people brings up exclusive games as beeing better on x1, wich is completely subjective and can't really be applied as a general reason. Historically last gen Sony exclusives appealed more to europeeans over xbox exclusives except for UK. US and UK loves guns, explosions and cars ("dudebro" games if you will), the rest of europe loves adventures and rpg/jrpg games more. And mostly the most popular games are multiplat anyway.

We still love shooters here BUT mainly on PC with mouse and keyboard. Wich brings me to another potential reason... PC gaming in some form is extremely widespread in europe even if you also game on consoles. US seems to be more EITHER a pc gamer OR a console gamer, rarely both (and for some reason you hate eachother). I know alot of gamers from here both irl and through clans etc in games and every gamer I know except 3 play on PC only or both PC and console. One might think that with the windows 10 integration that might be an edge to microsoft, but in reality it is another reason to go for the ps4 unless you are planning to get both. The general thought of mind is, yeah I'll miss some exclusives but half or more of them end up on pc anyway. PS4 games rarely do, atleast not the big ones people care about. If we look at big hitters exclusive releases on the 360, we have Halo (except 1 & 2 and spartan), all gears except the first and all Forza games that you truly needed a 360 for, everything else ended up on pc and even in some cases on ps3.

RROD and the scratched disc debacle might have had an effect also. They were very late in taking care of their consumers here and they still to this day haven't acknowledged the scratched discs. So yes alot of people I talked to view xbox as shoddier quality than playstation and the customer service and support as non existant.

And of course the snowball effect, as more people you know buy one system the more likely you will buy the same system to play with them.

In lieu of this FIFA legends has no real weight overall. They still get the FIFA and PES games, the most important bits. Sure some extreme football fans might buy an x1 over the ps4 if they have friends who do the same, but not many will sell their ps4 and have none to play with to get FIFA legends.

One thing to be noted is no one I have talked to mentioned "resolution/power" or "drm" as a reason to opt for ps4. I think they reason way blown out of proporsion. No no one really cares about the extra p's and yes everybody is well informed about MS never implementing drm and their policy reversals.

And no one has not bought a x1 for the a xenophobic reason like "beeing an american product". If the latter was the case Iphones/apple products, american movies, netflix, McDonalds and other american products wouldn't be as popular.

As for myself PC is my main platform but I do have and play xbox one & ps4 and oncasionally ps3 (had 360's but never bought a new one when the last one broke as by that time MS didn't release anything new and everything else was on pc). I do hold hope still with some of the newly announced exclusives from microsoft as most of them are a big step away from the dudebro titles Halo, Gears and Forza, wich personally appeal more to me and alot of other people here. Hopefully that is enough to get xbox back into the market here. Sony needs competition so they don't slack off to much in arrogance. Everything is reversed from last gen where we saw microsoft do this while sony pumped out fantastic exclusives right up tp the release of the ps4.

Except for pc my ps4 does get more attention simply for the fact that I only know 2 people I play with that has x1's.

The Playstation brand has always been the leader in Europe. The PS3 ended up selling more than the 360 last gen on the back of extremely strong, unwavering support in Europe. The PS/Xbox divide has only grown in Europe this generation, and Ultimate Team exclusives are hardly a system seller, when all your mates/school friends have a PS4 to play Fifa on.

what a useful post @kadaverhagga. Thanks for taking the time to address the OP thoughtfully

Based on a small search_ Hasn't the PlayStation brand always been stronger in Europe? How are you surprised on it now. Not to mention unless you've got stock in the XBox1, why so gloomy? They're both selling well, in fact selling far better than the PS3/ 360.

Or is this a fanboy topic? . .

@xantufrog: Thank you. I'm just trying to shed some light of potential reasons why ps4 is dominating europe. Xbox fans across the world should demand more of MS to treat every fan alike and not play favourites, that always bites them in the a*s in the end.
I still like it, but it does not do what it is "supposed to do" for me and if I could only choose one of the two consoles it would be the ps4. MS needs to value me as a customer (value my money) as much as an american customer.