PS4 vs. Xbox One News: Sony Will Win Holiday Sales Battle According to IDC

The International Data Corporation, or the IDC, has predicted that the PlayStation 4 will beat out the Xbox One this holiday season. As Gamespot reported, the IDC came to this conclusion based on a "variety of factors," with the PlayStation 4's lower price singled out as the main reason for Sony's predicted success.

The PlayStation 4 will be sold for $400; the Xbox One will cost $500 at launch. Both consoles have received hundreds-of-thousands of pre-orders, and both Sony and Microsoft expect to have leftovers for holiday sales.

The IDC also predicted the amount of consoles sold in 2013 will be "marginally higher" than the amount sold in 2012, which came in at 33 million units. In addition, the company predicted that the revenue generated from the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live and the Nintendo eShop for DLC and digital copies of games will total more than PC digital content for the first time ever, indicating a shift toward more digital content for consoles instead of physical, disk-based content.

This trend toward more digital content revenue is expected to continue according to IDC gaming research manager Lewis Ward, who predicts that by 2017 165 million people will use digital stores. This will cause the rise of console digital stores to best PC digital content sales, Ward says.

"As a result, the opportunity to sell these gamers digital assets through Wii U, Xbox One, and PS4 online storefronts will grow s-ubstantially in the next several years," said Ward, according to Gamespot.

Ward has another interesting prediction for the year 2017 concerning the home console landscape. He stated that he feels that the recent rash of newly announced consoles such as the Steam Machines and Ouya will not significantly impact the success of the big three consoles.

"It appears unlikely that Nintendo, Microsoft, or Sony will be driven out of the living room from a gaming perspective by 2017 as result of non-console competition from the likes of Valve/Steam, Ouya, cable/telecom companies, or related hardware and Web service providers."

It will be interesting to see if the PlayStation 4 can beat out the Xbox One during the 2013 holiday season and beyond, or if gamers are more interested in the Xbox One than the IDC predicts.