Gaming News: Study Shows PlayStation Dominated Black Friday Sale

Black Friday

A recent study conducted by a marketing research firm revealed that the PlayStation 4 was the top console bought by consumers during the Black Friday sale.

The study also showed that Sony's next-gen console was the preferred console of a certain age group, according to IGN.

For the study, research firm InfoScout monitored the purchased of about 300,000 individuals. About 250,000 of them quickly took snapshots of their receipts during Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

Based on the data compiled by the company, millennials, or those between the ages of 18 and 35, purchased a PlayStation 4 instead of Xbox or Nintendo consoles during the annual holiday weekend sale.

As shown in a table provided by the company, 40 percent of millenials prefer the PlayStation 4 than other consoles on a normal day. But during this year's Black Friday, this number jumped by eight percent. The number of Xbox fans, however, dropped by seven percent during last weekend's shopping spree.

Older consumers or those who are considered middle aged, on the other hand, remained loyal to the Xbox consoles.

"Based on the evidence above, Sony PlayStation clearly 'won' Black Friday 2015 among millenials, stealing 7 percent points of market share directly from the Microsoft Xbox," InfoScout wrote in its report.

"Millenials are notoriously fickle, and Sony clearly took advantage at Microsoft's expense," the firm continued. "By contrast, middle aged video game buyers' preferences only changed slightly (away from Nintendo) during the Black Friday shopping spree, with Xbox capturing a slightly higher share of these gamers' wallets than PlayStation."

InfoScout explained that the PlayStation may have dominated in the millenials market because this age group can be a bit picky. Unlike middle aged consumers who generally rely on brand loyalty and familiarity when making purchases, the buying behavior of millenials is more flexible. In addition, they are more likely to take advantage of deals and make compulsive purchase than middle aged shoppers.

"By contrast, millenials are widely regarded as picky consumers who place comparatively less emphasis on brand loyalty," InfoScout stated. "They live in the moment and their shopping consideration sets are comparatively more flexible."

Aside from Sony's PlayStation, another device that emerged as the best-selling gadget in this year's Black Friday sale is the Amazon Fire 7-inch 8GB tablet. It has managed to dethrone Apple's iPad device which was the most purchased gadget during the Black Friday events of 2013 and 2014.