Year 1 - Week 52 - Global Switch Sales vs WiiU/XboxOne/3DS/PS4

[torok]

RolStoppable said:

1. Andrew House himself said it that the PC is the main reason for the existence of the PS4 Pro.

https://www.polygon.com/2016/9/9/12867004/ps4-pro-vs-pc-xbox-one-project-scorpio

Yet, they aren't blocking games they are funding of launching on PC. There's nobody paying for PC exclusivity, it would be easy to add a "no-PC" clause to this deals. If they are worried, why simply not getting games off PC? 

The Pro is a niche product (same niche as gaming PCs), as its sales are showing. The regular model retails for 200 bucks, it clearly isn't competing with PCs.

2. So Sony won't release the PS5 as long as the PS4 sells reasonably well, but Nintendo will launch a Switch successor regardless of sales and in accordance with the release timing of the PS5. 2019 will already be year 6 for the PS4 and by that time sales could very well be on the verge of dropping below 10m for the year, that's why the PS5 isn't as far away as you think. A game like GTA takes at least one generation to make now, tough luck for them if they don't get it finished before the PS5 launches; I'd still expect a cross-gen release in that case. Similarly, Skyrim released in 2011 and Elder Scrolls VI has yet to be announced, although that game shouldn't have problems to to land within the next two years.

A new batch of shiny consoles from Sony and MS will affect the sales of the current consoles. SNES launched 2 years after Genesis and still suffered a similar fate when the next gen arrived. One thing is competing with old consoles, other is competing with the new batch of high tech devices. Of course, we could also see a scenario where Nintendo basically operates in their own timeframe, so they remain "shifted" half a gen from now on.

You're saying that Elders Scrolls is not even with a release date in the horizon. GTA could not make it before the end of the gen. These studios know much better than we do about when the new batch will arrive. If they're not in a hurry, it's because they aren't launching anytime soon. Your point is that PS4 and X1 will just have a remastered PS360 GTA followed by the crappy version of a cross gen game? 

You're also saying that Scorpio will launch in the end of 2017 and X2 will launch in the end of 2019. That means that it would be announced in early 2019, so basically Scorpio would be a useless device in a bit more than a year. You're also saying that MS will be able to create a massive, new-gen worthy, upgrade over a 400 to 500 console in just 2 years. Moore's law says that they would double the performance in 2 years with the same price point. Considering that PS4 and X1 were 10X upgrades, does this make any sense to you?

3. The PS2 wasn't even out in the timeframe you are talking about. If the market was picking the PS1 and N64 over the Dreamcast (and that's what happened), then I'd say that the PS1 and N64 played a significant part as well.

The NES also competed against the Genesis early on. Does that makes the Genesis a NES-gen device? Dreamcast was selling well until the PS2 announcement. Things went downhill because people were waiting for the PS2 and Sega wasn't able to overcome this market tendence. 

4. There is no such thing as a correct gen definition. Wikipedia lists the most popular classification of generations, but said classification has never been used by any console manufacturer.

As I said, console manufacturers NEVER used gen classifications. The closest they did was the "bit" classifications that died with PS360/Wii. Going with their positions, the whole gen discussion is useless.

5. This assumes that the PS5 won't launch anytime soon. The DC launched in late 1998, the GC and Xbox completed the generation in late 2001; that's a window of three years. You may have noticed that I haven't mentioned Xbox 4 in this or the previous post, that's because it's up in the air if there will even be one. I think the one thing we can agree on is that the dynamics of the video game market are definitely changing.

I agree that they are changing, 100%. In some years we could possibly look back to this whole discussion and it will look pointless in a "no-gen" world. Or a streaming-only world.

6. Nintendo is positioning Switch as the successor to Wii U and 3DS, so the handheld side shouldn't be excluded. Is Switch the same generation as 3DS despite launching six years later? I am quite sure that Wikipedia will ultimately put Switch into generation 9. 3DS launched in early 2011, PS4 in late 2013. Switch in early 2017 and PS5 in late 2019 would be exactly the same timeframe, so nothing out of the ordinary as far as this classification of generations goes. Before shoving Switch into generation 8, it would be for the best to wait if the PS5 is really that far off and how well Switch fares, because the better Switch does, the longer its lifecycle will be. Even a 2020 launch of the PS5 doesn't rule that Switch will spend the biggest part of its life competing against the PS5.

Nintendo is being quite clear that it isn't a 3DS replacement:

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/switch-is-a-home-console-at-heart-not-a-3ds-replac/1100-6446967/

Personally, I call this BS, just like the whole "the DS won't replace the GBA" stuff, but it's their official position.

We will only know if it will compete against the PS5 when it launches. In 2020, it will pack a serious punch and a lot of new functionalities that we can only imagine. It could make the Switch look as obsolete as the PS3 is now. That could force Ninty's hand to launch a new console.

Everytime I turn my PS3 on, it's clear how obsolete it is against the PS4. It won't download patches or upload saves in the background. It can't even take screenshots, let alone record videos or stream its games. It just seems dated and a PS5 could make the Switch look as dated as the PS4 will look by then. People like new and shiny stuff.