Global Hardware 6 July 2019

[Bofferbrauer2]

Barkley said:

Bofferbrauer2 said:

If the PS5 flops and people continue buying the PS4 instead, yes.

Otherwise, it's getting tough to imagine the PS4 still selling over 120M. It's already close to 2M down compared to same time last year (2M should be reached in 2 weeks), and the gap keeps growing faster. Even a $100 cheaper Superslim could only do so much anymore, and the longer it takes before it's getting released, the harder it will get to get to 120M and over.

For the record, I expect the PS4 to sell another 7M (without a Superslim) to 9M (with a superslim releasing this year), making it 12-14M for this year and 104-106M total sales. Next year, with the PS5 reveal, I expect the sales to come crashing down to about 6-7M, so 110M-113M, and an additional 4-5M after that, so 114M-118M total. Not far below the 120M, mind you, but not past it either.

"Next year, with the PS5 reveal, I expect the sales to come crashing down to about 6-7M" - The PS3 sold 8.2m in 2013, the PS4 was revealed February 2013... there's no way the PS4 crashes down to 6-7m and sells even worse than the ps3 did in this time frame.

Sony's forecast is 16m shipped this fiscal year. Which would mean 112.8m shipped by March 31st 2020?

For them to ship less than 120m would be insane.

FY 2013/2014 - 7.5m
FY 2014/2015 - 14.8m
FY 2015/2016 - 17.7m
FY 2016/2017 -  20m
FY 2017/2018 - 19m
FY 2018/2019 - 17.8m
FY 2019/2020 - 16m       (FORECAST)

So that puts them up to 112.8m, even if they don't quite meet the forecast this year they'll still be on track for 120m+ over the next few years.

The PS3 didn't stop production/shipments until May 2017, 3 and a half years after the PS4 released, and that was a much less successful console.

FY 2020/2021 - 8m
FY 2021/2022 - 3.5m
FY 2022/2023 - 1.5m

Conservative estimate, would put PS4 at 125.8m lifetime.

I know Sony's forecast. But it's already trailing last year by almost 2M. In other words, Sony would need to sell as many consoles as it did last year during it's second half, and I don't see that happening at all. It's at 140k weekly now while the lowest it got last year was 200k, with September and October being 300k weekly and 1.6M on BF. Even with a $100 pricecut/cheaper superslim, even with Concrete Genie and Death Stranding, I don't see that happening. The baseline just dropped too low already. Hence why I said 14M at best this year.

Also, the forecast is for the FY, so April through March. But even then, in just one quarter, the PS4's sales dropped by over 1M already. And I'm certain they gonna revise the numbers downwards after the holiday season.

As for the PS3, keep in mind that the PS3 had a slow buildup and peaked only in 2011. It also had less market coverage at the time than the PS4 has right now. PS3 also didn't drop nearly as hard in sales in 2012, the year before it's launch, as it's doing this year. In fact, 2012 was just a 2M drop - just like what we had last year for the PS4. It then dropped by a third in the following year - which is what the PS4 will do this year if there's no $100 pricecut or a Superslim at $199 to catch up the sales somewhat.