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JGarret on 01 August 2013
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RolStoppable said:
Carl2291 said:

Neither did the PS3, for about 18 Months, yet it never did nearly as bad as the Wii U. Poor support is still support and its far, far better than going weeks on end with nothing releasing.

Support will be strong enough to keep sales at a reasonable level. Nothing brilliant, nothing terrible.

I think it will also help the PS4 at least, that they arent forcing a new peripheral out - Theyre going for the same audience. No gimmicks. No confusion. Just games (with the obvious extras).

I think one of the main problems with Wii U, is that it doesnt appeal to the Wii audience. It doesnt have the killer Wii Sports app. It doesnt have the ease of use that Wii had. It isnt affordable, like Wii. The PS4 will/does appeal to the PS audience. The One will/does appeal to the Xbox audience (though not as much).

The economic conditions have changed drastically, so anytime you extrapolate from previous generations to the eighth one without taking the current world economy into account, you will end up being horribly wrong.

You have seen the Vita which was supposed to do well. It was priced similarly to the PSP, but launched with a much better lineup. About 1.5 years back (right around the Vita's launch in America and Europe) we had a discussion where you were insisting that all the PSV needed was a reasonable amount of games, because everything else was right. That was in response to my claims that the handheld would struggle badly. I then told you that the PSV will definitely need a price cut, because by May 2012 it will have fallen below 100k units in weekly worldwide sales. What happened is that the PSV got there in April, a month before my estimate.

Now you can come up with any excuses you like (smartphones etc.), but there is always Japan where the PSP was popular throughout its entire life. The PSV already got its price cut to 20,000 yen and last week it didn't even get past the 20k mark on the back of a new software release that pushed 80k units. The PSP didn't break a sweat to have a baseline of 30k units. The PSV goes for the same audience as the PSP, but that audience isn't really getting on board just yet. One deciding factor in this is that the PSP was still supplied with plenty of games well into the eighth generation and that is exactly what we can expect for the PS3 and 360 as well. Why go for an expensive upgrade to play the same exact games (or rather fewer games, because not all third parties will be present on the new consoles immediately)? The intial PS4 and X1 exclusives don't scream "killer app", so there will be a widespread lack of incentives for consumers to buy into the eighth generation at first, resulting in disappointing sales for next gen hardware.

As for price specifically, $500 was insane in 2006, so it's even more bonkers in 2013. The X1 is destined to struggle based on price alone. $400 for the PS4 is also a hefty amount, but right now many are under the illusion that it is a great price for two reasons: The PS3 was $600 and the X1 is $500. But just because there is something worse doesn't make something else good. And when you hear news like "40% of the youth in Spain is unemployed" (the age demographic that the PS4 is supposed to sell to intially), then even traditional strongholds of Sony won't help them much. It is possible that a $400 PS4 will do worse than the $600 PS3 because of the current economic conditions.

Lastly, to put some numbers out there, I say that both the X1 and PS4 will go below 100k units in weekly worldwide sales in 2014. For the X1 I am more daring and say that it will go below 50k, because the system has too much going against it, based on the currently available information. Now tell me at which point you would consider sales to be terrible.


That´s a very grim picture you´re describing.

8th generation = worst generation the industry will experience?