Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
First, a big THANK YOU, and terms of usage. The first mass- market console..
This data story has been created by Christian A. Schiller for Udacity Data Analyst Nanodegree (DAND) in January 2018. A big thank you goes to www.MobyGames.com for providing API access to the huge games database for purpose of this Udacity DAND student project.
This data story is made exclusively for this student project and is NOT to be redistributed or used in any other way without explicit permission by both Christian A. Schiller AND MobyGames. Please contact webmaster at carpeludum dot com for inquiries.
What is MobyGames? MobyGames is the working name of an extremely ambitious project: To meticulously catalog all relevant information - credits, screenshots, formats, and release info - about electronic games (computer, console, and arcade) on a game-by-game basis, and then offer up that information through flexible queries and "data mining". In layman's terms, it's a huge game database. MobyGames is the world's largest and most flexible electronic game documentation project in existence. And best of all, it's added to, rated, and reviewed by you--the gaming public. MobyGames is, literally, built by gamers. Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Fir The first mass-market console was Atari 2600, historians name this "generation 2". The console with the longest lifetime The st, (years with >24 game releases per year) is Microsoft's XBox 360 with 13 years, and still going. But who will be the longest view a b runner of current generation 8? on i.. tot..
Platform Lifetime Generation Platform 2 Atari 2600 Intellivision Game releases per year 3 Master System 24 NES 500 Mega Drive/Gen.. 4 1.000 PC Engine SNES 1.422 5 Nintendo 64 PlayStation 1 Saturn 6 Dreamcast Gamecube PlayStation 2 Xbox 7 PlayStation 3 Wii Xbox 360 PlayStation 4 8 PlayStation 4 or Xbox One? Wii U Wii U is already declining Xbox One 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Th The view on total game releases per platform over time shows a general increase of games, reflecting the videogame Look e f industry growth (top graph). There has always been a "battle of systems" - some games are released exclusively for only ing a irs one platform (bottom graph). t the t .. ove..
3K Platform Atari 2600 Master S.. PC Engine PlayStati.. Wii U s
e 2K Dreamcast Mega Dri.. PlayStati.. Saturn Xbox m
a Gamecube NES PlayStati.. SNES Xbox 360 g
l
a Intellivisi.. Nintendo .. PlayStati.. Wii Xbox One t
o 1K T
0K 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 Year
3K s e Hover over a platform in top m
a 2K graph to highlight exclusive g
e games for it in bottom graph! v i s u l 1K c x E
0K 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Th Looking at the overall ratio of exclusive game releases (independent of platform) reveals a steady decline, showing an The i e v industry-trend towards more multi-platform games. But there are visible dips in the years 1984/85, 1996, 2006/07 and nves ie. 2014/15! - Let's investigate those. tigat . ion ..
100
90
80
70 o i 60 t a R e v
i 50 s u l c x
E 40
30 Dip 2 20 Dip 3 Dip 1 10 0 Dip 4 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Lo The investigation shows that these dips correlate with video game generation changes, when game releases decline for the Wha ok then-current generation and ramps-up for the new generation ("total games"). The four graphs show total games and t do in exclusives per dip & generation. es th g.. is ..
Generation Generation 2 3 4 5 . . . .
a 200 Dip 1 a Dip 2 g g 400
l l
a 100 a t t 200 o o
T 0 T . . . .
v 100 v 100 i i s s u u
l 50 l 50 c c x x
E 0 E 0 1982 1984 1986 1982 1984 1986 1995 1996 1997 1998 1995 1996 1997 1998 Year Year Year Year
Generation Generation 6 7 7 8 . . a s 2K l e g Dip 3 Dip 4 a
l 1000 t m a o 1K a t T g
o 500
T 0K . . . .
v 100 v 100 i i s s u u
l 50 l 50 c c x x
E 0 E 0 2006 2008 2010 2006 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2012 2014 2016 Year Year Year Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Th What does this mean for the current generation 8? First, look at the whole lifetime of generation 7. For PlayStation 3 and Play e i Xbox 360, peaks of exclusivity ratio are BEFORE peaks of game releases. For Nintendo Wii, it is the opposite - Exclusivity Stati nv ratio peaks AFTER game release peak. on 3 e.. sho..
Generation 7 800 Platform PlayStation 3
s 600 e Wii m
a Xbox 360 g
l 400 a t o T 200
0 50 40 o i t a
R 30 e v i s u
l 20 c x E 10 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
W PlayStation 3 shows a steady decline in exclusivity ratio after introduction. Wii and Xbox 360 show late pushes of exclusive Inve ha games after initial peaks of game releases. After the respective exclusivity peaks, all platform game releases decline, stig t d resulting in end of life. atio o.. n of..
Generation 7
800 *the small "resurgence" of PS3 and Platform Xbox360 in 2017 should be PlayStation 3 investigated in another data story, s 600 probably other factors than e Wii exclusivity ratio drove this. m
a Xbox 360 g
l 400 a t o T 200
0 50 Wii exclusivity 40 late push in 2009 o i t a
R 30 e
v Xbox 360 exclusivity i s u
l 20 late push in 2013 c x E 10 0 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
Pl Investigation of the current generation 8 reveals that Nintendo's Wii U is already declining due to the shift to the Switch CON ay console. CLU St Therefore, the contest of "winning" this generation (=longest lifetime) is really boiled down to a decision between SIO a.. PlayStation 4 and XBox One! N: ..
Generation 8 - Nintendo drops out 1500 Platform PlayStation 4 s
e 1000 Wii U m
a Xbox One g
l a t
o 500 T
Wii U game releases decline after 0 introduction of Switch. In this case, 50 product strategy instead of exclusivity ratio drives end-of-life for this platform 40 o i t a
R 30 e v i s u
l 20 c x E 10 0 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
In CONCLUSION: PlayStation 4 wins, most likely! Based on the correlation found between exclusive ratio and platform decline BON ve over the past four decades, and the fact that this ratio is already declining for Xbox One, it is highly likely that PlayStation 4 US sti will enjoy a longer lifetime. g..
Generation 8 - Final Contest 1500 Platform PlayStation 4 s
e 1000 Xbox One m a g
l a t
o 500 game release gap widens T in favor of PlayStation 4
0 50 40 o
i Xbox One exclusivity ratio steadily t a decreases. Peak was already at R 30
e PlayStation 4 exclusivity ratio still increases. v
i the very beginning of lifetime! s No peak yet! u
l 20 c x E 10 0 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
CO BONUS An in NC tere LU stin S.. g a..
The following slides are some additional data visualisations created with the data "easily" reachable via MobyGames API.
More interesting correlation investigations, such as based on geography or publisher/developer data, require different usage of APIs (requests per game instead of per platform - would result in thousands of API queries!), which could not be realised within the timeframe of the Udacity DAND project. Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
B An interesting area of investigating could be if there is a correlation of game ratings and generation change. Data shows The O that in general, MobyGames user scores for games increased constantly over the last 40 years. But no (visually) significant avail N dips like for exclusivity ratio. able US dat..
Average Mobygame score per year 5,0 4,5 Number of votes required per game to count for average calculation 10 to 761 4,0 2
e 3,5 r o c S
y 3,0 b o M 2,5 . n h c
s 2,0 h c r u
D 1,5
1,0
0,5 0,0 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2014 2018 Year Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
An The available data also includes genre information of games (action, RPG, strategy, sports, ...). An investigation could BON int correlate that with user ratings. The example below shows the difference of number and rating of role-playing games based US - er on number of votes >12 or <12. addi e.. tio..
Games Well-known RPGs with >12 votes 197 RPGs with <12 votes - insider tips? 450 500 450 1.000 400 1.500 400 s s
e 2.015 e
m 350 m 350 a a g g Generation ) )
G 2 G P 300 P 300 R R ( (
3 g g
n 4 n i 250 i 250 y y
a 5 a l l P P - 6 -
e 200 e 200 l l
o 7 o R R
f 8 f o o
150 150 r r e e b b
m 100 m 100 u u N N 50 50
0 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 0,5 1,0 1,5 2,0 2,5 3,0 3,5 4,0 4,5 Average user rating (n>12) Average user rating (n<12) Who will win - PlayStation 4 or Xbox One?
The BONUS - additional data from Wikipedia. For each generation until 7, the total console sales have increased so far. available Generation 8 is still in it's heyday, console sales are expected to top generation 7. Top-selling console of all times is Sony's data also PlayStation 2! include..
Platform 160M Units Sold Atari 2600 3.000.000 Dreamcast 50.000.000 PlayStation 2 140M Gamecube 100.000.000 Intellivision 155.000.000 120M Master Syste..
e PlayStation 1 Wii Mega Drive/.. d i NES w - 100M d
r Xbox 360
o PC Engine w
d PlayStation 1
l 80M
o PlayStation 3
S PlayStation 2 NES s t i PlayStation 4 PlayStation 3 n 60M SNES in generation 7, PS3 and .. U PlayStation 4 Saturn Xbox One 40M Atari 2600 SNES Mega Drive/Genesis Nintendo 64 Wii Xbox Wii U 20M Master System Wii U PC Engine Saturn Dreamcast Xbox Intellivision Xbox 360 0M Xbox One 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Generation