The company also revealed that more gamers are going digital

May 6, 2015 10:00 GMT  ·  By

Electronic Arts expects the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 install base to grow to 50 million users by the end of fiscal year 2016, or more precisely March 31, 2016.

The prediction was made by EA executives during a conference call following the financial results released earlier today by the company, alongside other comments and predictions regarding the state of the industry and the direction things are heading into.

In a nutshell, the publisher expects Microsoft and Sony's consoles to sell a number of at least 18 million units in the following 12 months, following the current dynamic.

Sony revealed that the PS4 had sold over 22 million units since its launch at the end of 2013, but Microsoft has been a little more cagey with its numbers, only stating that the Xbox One had passed the 10 million mark.

The publisher revealed that the 50 million estimate install base will also mark its interest shifting from previous-gen to current-gen software, and expressed its confidence that this generation of consoles would witness a revolution similar to the one that happened in the PC gaming space.

The company also mentioned that four out of every five copies of its latest blockbuster, the cops and robbers take on the Battlefield series, developed by Visceral Games, were sold on the PS4 and Xbox One home consoles.

Battlefield Hardline's new-gen success is a testament to the strong momentum of the new hardware, and on par with increasingly more developers having delayed old-gen releases or ignoring the old consoles altogether.

The future of new technology is always bright

EA further described the PS4 and Xbox One growth trajectory as being a whopping 51 percent higher than that of the PS3 and Xbox 360 generation.

The two new-gen consoles had sold 27 million units by the end of calendar year 2014, according to EA, and the company expects them to sell 22 million more by the end of calendar year 2015.

If the company's data is correct, it would mean that out of the 27 million consoles sold, around 8.5 million would be Xbox One devices, since Sony made its own numbers public, revealing that it had sold 18.5 million PS4 units by the end of 2014.

In addition to this, EA also revealed that more and more gamers are embracing digital gaming, stating that 20 percent of Battlefield Hardline purchases made in the west have been digital. With growing Internet speeds and improved connectivity, as well as storage becoming more and more accessible, many gamers are letting go of retail purchases.

However, EA mentioned that it was not actively pushing for it, in spite of the reduced costs in manufacturing and distribution that selling digital products entails, due to its great partnerships with various retail outlets.