While the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One seem to be more or less neck and neck in the U.S., the console race has already been decided in Europe, and PlayStation is the clear winner.

According to Jim Ryan, president of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, PlayStation controls an overwhelming majority of the European game console market.

“We have a very significant market leadership,” Ryan told VG247. “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 percent, and frequently greater than 90 percent in continental Europe.”

One possible explanation for Xbox One’s less impressive performance in Europe is Microsoft’s greater focus on providing features to American customers. The Xbox One is marketed nearly as much as a media center as it is a game console, but many of those media features – such as TV streaming capabilities – are limited or not available at all outside of the U.S.

As a result, there are fewer incentives to choose the console over a PlayStation 4, which already has a greater international focus since it is produced by a non-American company.

“I thought Microsoft put on a very, very decent show [at E3 2015],” Ryan said. “I thought there was a lot to commend in that. But we’ve worked hard in Europe since the PS1 days. It’s difficult. Back in the day there were different currencies, different languages, different sales taxes, all of those things that non-Europeans find harder than we often realise, and we took the plunge and invested in infrastructure and distribution and partnerships, and those things take time.”

He added, “Now a lot of the emphasis is about building out into places like the Middle East, starting to build very significant businesses in places like Saudi Arabia, localising our system software and Store into Arabic, and building big, big businesses in these places.”

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