Nintendo Co Ltd may have excited fans when it revealed that its upcoming console, Nintendo NX, and the next Legend of Zelda game will both be arriving in March of next year, but it looks like the House of Mario will have its work cut out for it if the company wants to match the success of PlayStation.

In its recent earnings report for the last fiscal year, Sony Corp revealed that the revenue generated by subscriptions and digital sales on PlayStation Network alone was over 529.1 billion yen (roughly $4.87 billion USD), which is greater than the total revenue generated by all of Nintendo.

This shows not only the popularity of PlayStation 4 as a game console, but also the sheer size of the online PlayStation community, which is an important consideration for gamers who base their console purchasing decisions on whether or not they will be able to play with their friends.

This does not necessarily mean that Nintendo NX will struggle at release, but it will have a hard time prying users away from an established multiplayer community like PSN, especially since PlayStation 4 is only two years into its lifecycle.

Nintendo NX will have the advantage of being the hot new thing when it releases, but Sony has a few new hardware releases up its sleeve as well, including PlayStation VR, which will be launching in October along with the promise of over 200 virtual reality titles.

Sony also reportedly has plans to release the semi-mythical “PlayStation Neo,” a beefed-up version of the PlayStation 4 that will be capable of handling 4k resolutions and improved game performance.

If you believe the rumors, PlayStation Neo could be arriving around the same time as Nintendo NX, which will certainly not make things easy on Nintendo, especially considering the fact that the Wii U has performed so poorly and the PlayStation 4 is continuing to perform so well.

Image by by Jan Vašek (license)