Xbox putting up big fight against PlayStation in South Africa’s console wars

3 years ago 1

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Xbox and PlayStation are neck and neck in the battle for the most popular console brand in South Africa, a MyBroadband analysis shows.

According to market research firm GfK South Africa, the local console gaming market grew substantially in 2022, despite surging inflation.

GfK South Africa customer success manager for market intelligence, André Brink, told MyBroadband that revenue from gaming consoles sold in the country grew by 7.9% in 2022, while units sold also increased by 8.1%.

“The growth in the market is mainly attributed to Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, as well as [the] PlayStation 5,” said Brink. “However, we also noticed strong consumer adoption of handheld gaming consoles.”

With Valve’s popular Steamdeck not officially available in South Africa, the latter was likely due to Nintendo’s Switch console sales.

PlayStation has ruled over Xbox in global sales for over a decade, but the Nintendo Switch trumped both companies in recent years.

However, Nintendo does not enjoy nearly the same level of brand affinity as PlayStation and Xbox in South Africa.

Unfortunately, GfK does not usually share information on console sales by brand, so figuring out whether Sony or Microsoft’s consoles are the most popular in South Africa is quite a challenge.

Neither companies publish region-specific details on console sales in their financial reports.

In addition, South African PlayStation distributor Gamefinity and Xbox distributor Prima Interactive cannot share these figures with media outlets.

One often-cited independent online source for this data is GlobalStats StatCounter.

According to its latest data, PlayStation enjoyed a monumental 97.98% market share in South Africa, while Xbox accounted for a measly 2.02%.

This distribution seems very unlikely, and it’s important to remember that StatCounter’s figures come from tracking code installed on 1.5 million websites.

Therefore, if a PlayStation or Xbox user doesn’t visit a site running StatCounter tracking code from the console, it’s not counted. Web browsers are probably the least-used app on a console, making this measure unreliable.

Unsurprisingly, PlayStation distributor Gamefinity and Xbox representatives in South Africa previously told MyBroadband these figures were inaccurate.

“My understanding is that Xbox does not work with StatCounter, and the data published by them is not official Xbox data,” said Xbox sales manager Nathaniel Naicker.

To better ascertain the popularity of gaming consoles, MyBroadband has run several polls asking our readers about their gaming console preferences and ownership. These individuals are generally tech-savvy early adopters. They are frequently responsible for making technology purchasing decisions and typically advise family, friends, and their workplace on buying decisions.

More people said they owned an Xbox than PlayStation, but Sony’s brand was the most sought-after.

For example, shortly after the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S launched, we asked readers which console they would buy.

810 — or roughly 54% of the responses — were for the Xbox Series X|S, while both versions of the PlayStation 5 amassed 691 votes — about 46%.

That suggested there was slightly more demand for Microsoft’s console than Sony’s in South Africa.

But in May 2021, PlayStation came out on top when we asked readers what console gaming platform they preferred — at 328 (53%) against Xbox’s 256 (42%) and Nintendo’s 31 (5%).

It also snatched the top spot for the console gaming platform that readers believed offered the best games — at 786 (60%) versus Xbox’s 530 (40%).

Sony is reputed for its excellent slate of platform-exclusive games, so this was no surprise.

Most recently, we ran a poll in which we asked readers what brand of gaming console they owned — rather than trying to gauge sentiments around popularity.

1,555 of the 2,860 votes from users with consoles said they owned an Xbox, while PlayStation got 1,067 votes. 238 said they owned a Nintendo console.

That means over 54% of the votes were for Xbox, 37% for PlayStation, and 9% for Nintendo console, as illustrated in the chart below.

Microsoft’s more affordable Xbox Series S console may be helping to push up its numbers.

Since we allowed users to select multiple consoles in the poll, several people who picked Xbox likely had a PlayStation as their primary console.

With a retail price of R6,999, it is currently R3,300 cheaper than the PlayStation 5 Digital Deluxe Edition.

For those without a PC, the machine offers the most affordable way to access and play games on Microsoft’s increasingly-popular Game Pass subscription service.

While Sony has attempted to replicate Microsoft’s model with its revamped PlayStation Plus plan, it is falling short on several fronts.

Game Pass includes Xbox Studios titles at launch day, many of which come with AAA prices, something which Sony does not do with its own in-house studios’ games.

Game Pass also includes access to many premium Electronic Arts titles in the EA Play library.

At R79 per month, Xbox Game Pass is also substantially cheaper than its rival PlayStation Plus plan.

The cheapest subscription from Sony with its own game catalogue — PlayStation Plus Extra — costs R179 per month in South Africa.