PlayStation dominates Xbox in South Africa
South African gamers seem to prefer Sony’s PlayStation over Microsoft’s Xbox, though the games consoles’ distributors have declined to reveal their exact market share.
Statcounter’s console operating system market share in South Africa in the last 12 months shows PlayStation sitting at 94.54%, while Xbox is at 5.56% for July 2022.
This is much higher than a recent poll MyBroadband conducted, which showed that around 53% of tech-savvy consumers in South Africa preferred PlayStation 5, while 37% voted for Xbox Series X.
As expected, only around 5% said they preferred the cheaper Xbox Series S.
MyBroadband contacted the distributors of PlayStation and Xbox in South Africa to find out if they could provide more precise market share statistics.
Gamefinity chief executive officer Mario Dos Santos said that although Statcounter’s figures favoured PlayStation, it is inaccurate.
“In our opinion, it’s unlikely that the delta between the platforms can be as wide,” Dos Santos said.
Xbox sales manager Nathaniel Naicker said that Statcounter’s market share is not correct for the current generation of consoles.
“My understanding is that Xbox does not work with Statcounter, and the data published by them is not official Xbox data,” Naicker said.
PlayStation’s dominance over Xbox in South Africa is not surprising, considering the history of the two consoles in the country.
Sony’s original PlayStation was available in South Africa for several years before it was succeeded by the wildly popular PlayStation 2 at the turn of the 20th century.
Microsoft then launched the original Xbox console less than a month after the PlayStation 2 but never brought it to the South African market.
The PlayStation 2 would end up becoming the best-selling gaming console of all time, with 155 million units sold worldwide by March 2012.
By the time Microsoft released the Xbox 360 in South Africa in 2006, the PlayStation brand had become firmly entrenched in South Africa.
While South Africans seem to prefer Sony’s consoles, Microsoft’s game subscription service for PC and Xbox has been unbeatable until recently.
Microsoft’s excellent cross-platform support combined with Game Pass for PC could also be why many South African PC gamers do not bother buying an Xbox.
Since most games available to Xbox Game Pass subscribers are also available to PC owners, they are more likely to buy a PlayStation for the exclusive games on Sony’s platform.
In a bid to keep up with Microsoft, Sony recently revamped its PlayStation Plus subscription service by merging it with its game streaming service, PlayStation Now.
PlayStation Now was Sony’s closest competitor to Xbox Game Pass before the revamp, but Sony never made it available in South Africa.
With the three-tiered PS Plus subscription offering South African gamers access to a library of nearly 400 PS4 and PS5 games, Sony has a better chance to contend with Game Pass.
However, South Africans who subscribe to the PS Plus Deluxe plan still do not have access to the PlayStation 3 game library, which requires a PS Now subscription to play.
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