The companies are trying to create more stable revenue streams

Mar 18, 2014 00:16 GMT  ·  By

Geoffrey Zatkin, the president of EEDAR, says that the Xbox One from Microsoft, the PlayStation 4 from Sony and the Wii U from Nintendo are all targeting a more mature audience than the consoles of the previous generation.

The executive tells GamesIndustry.biz that the move is designed to reach players who have a bigger disposable income and can create revenue streams that sustain the new devices in the long term.

He states, “E10+ was considered maybe not the kiss of death but only sports games ever got rated E10+. If you look at how it’s shifted from PS3 to PS4 they only have half the number of Everyone games launched. E10+ was boosted and a lot of it has come out of teen.”

The number of Mature-labeled games launched on the PlayStation 4 currently makes up 17 percent of all the titles delivered on the Sony platform, which is more than double the number seen on the PlayStation 3.

On the Xbox One, mature experiences represent 21% of all those launched, and on the Wii U, which Nintendo promotes as a more family-oriented device, the ratio stands at 10 percent.

Zatkin adds, “They have also doubled the amount of Mature games that have been coming out. We usually don’t see such radical shifts. They are redefining who their market is when you look at who they’re targeting age wise. They’ve shifted away in some ways from an audience below 10 fairly dramatically. They are going for an older audience skew on this one.”

Since the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 were first announced, both Microsoft and Sony claimed that they were aiming to create more than simple home consoles.

They are trying to add multimedia content to the next-gen devices and will also introduce more social elements, which are all designed to keep the user interested in the long term and make them pay for services like Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus.

The shift towards more mature content is also in line with the overall increase in the age of the average gamer, which now stands over 30.

Currently, the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4 are both posting better sales numbers than their predecessors at the same moment, during their life cycle.

The Sony device has managed to move 6 million units to gamers and is currently performing better than its Microsoft rival, although the dynamic might change in March, after the launch of Titanfall.