| Miyamotoo said: Netherles, more consoles on market means more console for consumers to choose between, fact is that in 2017. we will have two more consoles than we had in 2016. and offcourse that will have some effect on console market in 2017. |
More consoles is only an impact when they sell well enough to compete. I don't think Scorpio will sell more than the X1 S. It won't account for more than 20% of what X1 sells, so it has limited impact. It's a high-end product, it won't sell as well as the cheaper versions. MS would have a larger impact on sales if they cut 50 bucks off the X1 S than by releasing Scorpio. The only thing Scorpio can change is the amount of PS4 Pro sold, which is a minor impact. And even this is pretty hard. X1 is losing 2:1, a new SKU will most likely keep the same ratio.
Switch is a different market. It doesn't have any 3rd party game. People won't be like "Oh, instead of getting a PS4 I will get a Switch. It doesn't have any 3rd party game but that's ok". It's a handheld. It's meant to sell side-by-side. 3DS never had an effect on PS4. PS4 launch didn't changed 3DS numbers. 3DS affected the Vita, because that's the same market.
Pricing is way more related to being up YoY. This year, Sony was pretty much down until the Holidays because they didn't cut the price of the console. A US$ 250 pricing in the Holidays allowed them to be up 8% in that period and 100K units over the year. If they positioned the PS4 Slim in a definitive 250 dollar price point and then cut it to 200 bucks for the Holidays with a bundled game, it would sell gangbusters and keep it up YoY or at least close to 2016 numbers.
It's their call. It may not happen by the same reason it didn't happen this year. They don't care about units sold, but with profit. Someone there probably considered that cutting the price by 50 dollars wouldn't generate a boost big enough to offset the difference. The 300 bucks Slim is BS. It's a redesign, it's cheaper, it can cost the same as the OG unit. They increased the profit margin. I would say that they will at least try to keep the price high. Even if it goes down YoY and sells 16M, it's pure profit. If sales get slow, they will simply cut the price.
