Business Approach Comparison Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox

[3dilettante]

From the small GameStop and BestBuy sample their reasons were...

This goes back to what I'm questioning:

"A) The interface is somewhat confusing."
Is this the same as C, and is this confusing to females more than males?
Without controlling for expertise and social trends, we can't determine if there are more confused females as a general trend or if there are disparities in the backgrounds of the potential customers.

"B) Live (especially the males) don't respect females during MP or social interaction play."
While I'm sure this is true, I don't think this is the Xbox One's fault.
It actually hints at underlying social dynamics, like a stronger ratio male-dominated hardcore market for the Xbox One, at least at the higher price bracket it occupies.
Is the market of hardcore Xbox fans willing to shell out 500 dollars at this point in time anywhere near equal in gender ratio?
I doubt it is, for various reasons not related to the Xbox One.

" C) Kinect setup/configuration is to hard and not female friendly. "
But this is where I don't get the term, other than it's really easy to just say something that sounds like an explanation.
The Xbox One, in part due to Kinect, actually tries to do the things that were listed that were female friendly.

On the other hand, the PS4 does less but in a way I'd say is more female-unfriendly if I use the description given earlier.
Being less of a pain in the ass is a benefit that can cross gender lines.
Anecdotally, I can think of a male family member that was put off by Kinect and the price enough to switch platforms.

If Microsoft's most enthusiastic base is male-dominated, it means the likely customer base at this time that is willing to go through extra inconvenience is male-dominated.

 

[temesgen]

I have a really hard time thinking the PS4 exactly screams "I'm for women!"

It's a black core console. And too be honest, I'd think something like Kinect would appeal to females, especially due to fitness aspects. PS4 on the other hand seems if anything more male oriented, with it's games focus and all about (Tim Allen grunts), horsepower.

Too be fair, one of my sisters actually showed interest in PS4 initially based on the Kingdom Hearts reveal, which was sort of assumed to be PS exclusive I think (which will also come to Xbox, but anyway). So maybe a lot of women thought similarly. In general I would think females are more into Final Fantasy games and the like, which are associated with PS, but this would have applied equally to ps3 as ps4.

I think PS4 is selling better because it's more powerful and less expensive, basically. Not very complicated.

I think this is correct. I will say however that all the women in my life all tend to spend less, be more focused on specific needs and don't care about bells and whistles when buying technology. If my mom, sister, wife, sister-in-law and so on are looking for a new laptop its all about the memory, size, and cost - a more powerful GPU for graphics or Blu Ray drive isn't important. When buying a TV its all about size, resolution and price, internet integration is not important and they tend to argue for spending less on all the extra stuff.

PS4 costing less, being smaller probably has more appeal than XB1 with what might be viewed as having a complicated interface (have to learn something new) or requiring a camera which means people will be looking at them.

Perhaps some can see this as sexist but we are talking about the differences between how men and women make decisions buying technology which is going to break things down in terms of gender.

 

[3dilettante]

If a female buyer doesn't care about gaming performance, is it because they are female or because they aren't a core gamer?

There are female gamers that more closely match the consumption profile of the stereotypically male gamer.
Does the Xbox One really throw them for a loop as well, or are we comparing populations with disparate exposure to gaming consoles and the conventions baked into it?

Until recently, and still actually, there's been pretty strong social pressure that kept gaming from being an acceptable female hobby (or things like driving or higher education, if one goes back far enough). There's at least some recognition at this point that estrogen doesn't make one allergic to a console.

Is there something more fundamental about the interface or console that means that two potential buyers that are otherwise the same but for gender will have significantly different outcomes?

 

[Shortbread]

Personally I don't think hardcore or veteran female gamers are the issue with XB1 sales among female gamers. It's the millions upon millions of casual female gamers that may have an issue. One common thing mentioned about purchasing the PS4 was, its simpler to use. Nothing about PS4 performance, nothing about PS4 price, nothing about previous ownership (PS3)... just that it was simple to use. Nothing more, nothing less...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I think PS4 is selling better because it's more powerful and less expensive, basically. Not very complicated.

I think that is true for NA, but not the world. Everything being equal PS4 sells more WW, but Xbox sells more in NA imo.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If a female buyer doesn't care about gaming performance, is it because they are female or because they aren't a core gamer?

For the purposes of this discussion, 'female' has to refer to the stereotypical market defined by statistical average behaviours. 'Females' can incorporate a wide variety of behaviours, of course, but business is about targeting common demographics that can be appealed to in broad, cost effective strokes, and those demographics are named so we can discuss them. So for 'men', a console will be about big guns and fast action and sports even though that doesn't reflect the interest of all men. This gives rise to 'man films' and 'women films', or even stuff like 'feminine side', even though the qualities that the gender references allude to aren't necessarily intrinsic and universal to the similarly-named genders.

So please, everyone, avoid discussion of sexism regards these consoles and business viewpoints expressed in this thread.Take all comments as a generalisation. Even something as potentially offensive an indelicately put as, "women are rubbish with technology," should be considered as a view that technology has to be simple to appeal to the majority of the female demographic, and not that the poster is a misogynist or unduly prejudiced.

The current topic is the report that less women are buying XB1 than PS4. If true, there's a reason for that which is worth discussing that is going to have to involve conversation about the differences between genders and their perceptions of the consoles.

 

[dobwal]

Most of the stereotypes are bunk away. Women are on the verge of becoming the primary buyers of CE devices if they haven't already.

If women don't readily buy consoles its because of the software/features that are offered or the way that consoles are marketed. To me its like using the uptake of GI Joe, He-Man and Voltron figurines amongst females to declare little girls don't like to play with toys.

Most of the women I know that own a iphone or android, game on them heavily.

Women could be choosing the PS4 over the XB1 for a plethora of reasons. More appealing titles, social functionality of the PS4 or blue matches the decor of their living room better. Its can be any one of those things or none at all.

 

[-tkf-]

I am still surprised to the lack of quality games for Girls it amazes me that two huge corporations like Microsoft and Sony can be so stone age in their approach..

Take a look at Lego friends, intelligent toys that is worth buying and playing with and plays(hehe) to girls interest. Now let's play Disney infinity, we have one girl char, guess what my girl wants to play, the other 5 chars we have is left for dead when she plays.

The amount of money waiting is gigantic, why Sims is allowed to run with everything is strange..

 

[betan]

As of today, females are buying far more PS4s compared to XB1, almost 4:1 ratio from the stores that I communicate with.

What is the female/male ratio on PS4 (or XBOne)?

 

[Shortbread]

What is the female/male ratio on PS4 (or XBOne)?

It took me a minute….

Anyhow, I can’t say across the board - don’t have that type of insight. However, sales between BB/GS for the most part, mirror each other gender wise. During November, 8% of PS4 purchases were made by female customers, 1% of XB1 purchases were made by female customers. During December, 21% of PS4 purchases were made by female customers, less than 1% (declined) of XB1 purchases were made by female customers.

So it’s no surprise that MS has taken noticed. The same data that I mentioned weeks ago, before MS mentioned anything, was a small cross sample between GameStop and BestBuy. MS on the other hand, has a larger scope of data metrics across all retail channels (as they should).

Note: One thing that needs to be mentioned, a large percentage of female customers that purchased PS4, are current Wii systems owners.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Note: One thing that needs to be mentioned, a large percentage of female customers that purchased PS4, are current Wii systems owners.

I don't think knowing the gender of the purchaser is as useful as knowing the gender of the users.

 

[milk]

This might sound silly, but these trends might be result of much more superficial things than actual characteristics of the products, but out of the image consumers have of them thanks to the style of their publicity.
I always thought X-Box is a terribly non woman-friendly name. It sounds agressive rather than sexy, It sound geeky rather than cool, it sound beefy rather then slim.
The name itself says "fat nerd playing cod at his mom's basement cursing his friends and saying profanity", or at least to me. MS made all the right moves to create an image of the bro console, and thus its popularity with all the american bros.
Sony went with the freakish personality later on ps2 and early ps3, and that din't really work in ps3's favor. They reverted that to a more broad and universal aproach and that did work, but this whole tech-is-sexy and coolness has always been part of PS comunication and sony's in general, which in marketing terms is more appealing to the avarege female.

 

[RobHT]

Just as supply may start catching up with demand for Xbox One, Titanfall will hit.

Beyond that, as far as the US market is concerned, MS needs to do something to realize their vision of the device being the "One" multimedia source for the living room. This could be the announcement of a collaboration with dish and/or cable companies, partnerships with major networks, etc.
The end goal of having a Jetsons/Minority Report type experience in the home where one can simply decide what multimedia experience you want to enjoy, and convey that desire in a more human way than pushing buttons on a remote control, is within their grasp.

They have the pieces to the puzzle:
*Box powerful enough to handle switching between items seamlessly
*Blu-ray support
*HDMI input
*Ubiquitous camera capable of "seeing" in 3 dimensions
*Microphone with ability to recognize and eliminate sounds from device itself
*SmartGlass to allow interaction via phones and tablets
*Cortana - Siri like AI allowing for more natural speaking dialogue
*Skype
*$$$ and influence
*Software- Essentially this is all tied together by software
*Consolidated guide
*Home integration - MS purchased a company specializing in this a while back. "Xbox, turn off the porch lights, lower the temperature in the bedroom, turn on the alarm, etc"

So what's missing?
Paradigm changes are hard. That's why they happen so infrequently. And that has never been Microsoft's game.
They got into the console business with the original Xbox knowing they were going to lose billions of dollars so they could get to this point. Can they put all these pieces together? Will someone else beat them to it?

 

[deathindustrial]

I don't think knowing the gender of the purchaser is as useful as knowing the gender of the users.

I'm sure that Sony and MS care quite a bit about the person actually dropping the cash.

Cheers

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm sure that Sony and MS care quite a bit about the person actually dropping the cash.

Why is that? How does it matter if mom or pop buys the console for the kids?

Edit: genuine question. I don't get it.

 

[AlNom]

They probably care more about details attached to online profiles (which they can track in more detail), such as games played/bought/ASL/time spent etc. The HW is just a means.

 

[Xalion]

Just as supply may start catching up with demand for Xbox One, Titanfall will hit.

This isn't exactly accurate. Supply caught up for demand for the XBox One sometime around Christmas. Since that time, it has been possible to walk into any store or go to any online retailer and purchase one. Titanfall doesn't release until March. So supply will exceed demand for several months.

Paradigm changes are hard. That's why they happen so infrequently. And that has never been Microsoft's game.

Considering making the console the center of the home entertainment system was Sony's paradigm last generation, and has actually been the center of pretty much every console from the PS2 (PS2 - play your music and DVDs on your console, without needing a second player, PS3 - the center of your entertainment system, with Blu Ray included, XBox 360 - stream all of your content through media center, etc.), I am not sure this would constitute a paradigm shift.

The general paradigm has been a game machine that is the center of your home entertainment system. But I think it is far more correct to classify their innovations as iterations of the previous generation with increased emphasis on media than to say it is a paradigm shift.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Since that time, it has been possible to walk into any store or go to any online retailer and purchase one.

False. While there are many retailers with stock not every retailer has stock.

 

[Xalion]

False. While there are many retailers with stock not every retailer has stock.

I posted this in the sales thread, so read there to avoid cross posting. But simply put, absolutely nothing supports your assertion. Find me a zip code that I can put into Best Buy or Target and not find one in store and I might believe you.

 

[Xalion]

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