The company has more space to try and innovate

Jun 30, 2015 22:58 GMT  ·  By

The team at Sony in charge of the gaming division says that at the moment the PlayStation 4 dominates the European video game hardware market, enjoying more than 70 percent market share in all the countries where the company has an official presence.

Jim Ryan, who leads the European division, tells VG247 that, "Well, we have market leadership in every country in Europe and have very significant market leadership in continental Europe. Extremely significant. I don’t think market-share’s any less than 70%, and frequently greater than 90% in continental Europe."

The percentage quoted by Sony is very impressive and explains why the company has been unwilling to talk about a price cut or about any major move to counter the aggressive marketing that Microsoft is trying for the Xbox One.

Sony is also enjoying a solid lead in sales in the United States but the market share there is not as big.

Ryan has also said that the PlayStation 4 has a lot of momentum in Europe and believes that most consumers are happy with the attached price and the kind of value that the home console is offering.

The domination allows the company to take more risks with its games to see what the audience would like to play in the future.

Sony is relying on third-parties for the coming Christmas season

If the PlayStation 4 has one vulnerability at the moment, it is represented by the relatively limited number of exclusive titles that will be offered for the rest of 2015.

Major titles like The Last Guardian and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End will only arrive next year and Microsoft is heavily relying on Xbox One only experiences like Halo 5: Guardians, The Rise of the Tomb Raider and Forza Motorsport 6.

Ryan believes that Sony can rely on player interest for major third party releases, including Star Wars: Battlefront and Call of Duty: Black Ops 3, which will first deliver all downloadable content packs on the PlayStation 4.

It will be interesting to see how the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One perform in the coming months and whether one of the companies can put together a major announcement to change the structure of the market.

Both companies are also seeking to attract more customers with third-party applications and with extra content like movies, music and other entertainment content.