Games By Russell Holly Feb. 5, 2014 9:30 am
Which next-gen console is the best? The jury is still out on that one, but one thing we can see for sure is that Sony is consistently more popular on one of the world’s biggest social networks.
Microsoft and Sony are going to spend the next year battling for the hearts, minds, and living rooms of gamers all over the world. From early adopters to those of us who are waiting for something other than an unimpressive list of launch games, the decision to lay down cash and buy a console is going to depend largely on forces outside of Microsoft’s and Sony’s control. Major purchases are almost always influenced by friends and family talking about the product, and if you take a look at the data it’s clear that Sony has the upper hand in one key place right now.
Fractl is a creative digital agency currently working with eBay to build a fun visual that helps show off which of the two consoles is the most popular based on chatter heard on Twitter. The visual is a pair of boxing robots in a ring, one themed like the Xbox One and the other like the PS4. Each time someone mentions the Xbox One on Twitter, that robot scores a punch in the face of the PS4 boxing bot, and the reverse happens when someone mentions the PS4.
The animation happens in real time, so you could watch this fight play out all day long, with a counter keeping score of which bot is doing better. Each day the winner is prominently displayed on the top of the animation, which is used to determine which console should be the prize in a giveaway.
It’s a cute attempt to visualize the daily conversations for each of these consoles, but ultimately all it really shows is which gets mentioned more in a single day. To be particularly useful, you’d have to take a look at the data collected over an extended period of time.
Fractl was kind enough to show us that information, and the results were fairly definitive. Every day but one the PS4 was the most talked about of the two consoles, measuring from 1/20 to 2/4. The one day where the Xbox One saw more chatter than the PS4 was the day Microsoft announced they would take $100 off the cost of the console if you traded in a PS3 at a Microsoft Store. With exception to that one day, the PS4 is the more talked about console on Twitter.
Even on days where the PS4 “wins” in this visual, it’s usually not by much. There’s also no way to measure if the tweet was positive or negative, just that it mentioned one of the two consoles. The percentage seems to hover close enough to a 50/50 split that one will clearly win over the other if there’s news about the console, like the recent chatter around the PS4 1.6 update that should be here any time now.
It’s a relatively thin margin otherwise, but one that is consistently in Sony’s favor. This isn’t entirely surprising since there are currently more PS4 consoles being sold than Xbox One consoles, but it’s just enough hard data added to the pile to show that Microsoft is a little bit behind right now.
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Microsoft and Sony are going to spend the next year battling for the hearts, minds, and living rooms of gamers all over the world. From early adopters to those of us who are waiting for something other than an unimpressive list of launch games, the decision to lay down cash and buy a console is going to depend largely on forces outside of Microsoft’s and Sony’s control. Major purchases are almost always influenced by friends and family talking about the product, and if you take a look at the data it’s clear that Sony has the upper hand in one key place right now.
Fractl is a creative digital agency currently working with eBay to build a fun visual that helps show off which of the two consoles is the most popular based on chatter heard on Twitter. The visual is a pair of boxing robots in a ring, one themed like the Xbox One and the other like the PS4. Each time someone mentions the Xbox One on Twitter, that robot scores a punch in the face of the PS4 boxing bot, and the reverse happens when someone mentions the PS4.
The animation happens in real time, so you could watch this fight play out all day long, with a counter keeping score of which bot is doing better. Each day the winner is prominently displayed on the top of the animation, which is used to determine which console should be the prize in a giveaway.
It’s a cute attempt to visualize the daily conversations for each of these consoles, but ultimately all it really shows is which gets mentioned more in a single day. To be particularly useful, you’d have to take a look at the data collected over an extended period of time.
Fractl was kind enough to show us that information, and the results were fairly definitive. Every day but one the PS4 was the most talked about of the two consoles, measuring from 1/20 to 2/4. The one day where the Xbox One saw more chatter than the PS4 was the day Microsoft announced they would take $100 off the cost of the console if you traded in a PS3 at a Microsoft Store. With exception to that one day, the PS4 is the more talked about console on Twitter.
Even on days where the PS4 “wins” in this visual, it’s usually not by much. There’s also no way to measure if the tweet was positive or negative, just that it mentioned one of the two consoles. The percentage seems to hover close enough to a 50/50 split that one will clearly win over the other if there’s news about the console, like the recent chatter around the PS4 1.6 update that should be here any time now.
It’s a relatively thin margin otherwise, but one that is consistently in Sony’s favor. This isn’t entirely surprising since there are currently more PS4 consoles being sold than Xbox One consoles, but it’s just enough hard data added to the pile to show that Microsoft is a little bit behind right now.
More...
