10th August 2019 HW sales

[DonFerrari]

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

Barkley said:

Didn't read his entire post only what you quoted, but I said he didn't make a direct comparison to other consoles (at least in what you quoted) because he was making a comparison of the PS4 to Nintendo Games in how they sell, and didn't make any mention of it doing better than the Switch in that regard. He was just commenting on the PS4's sales pattern.

As for the "early price cut" I'm not saying that if the Switch had a price cut now it would be "early" at all... maybe changing from early to earlier would have avoided confusion. I'm just saying that due to it's lower price point it's easier to go longer without a price cut.

Still having looked over his post, while he does make comparisons, he never did say that the PS4 is doing better than the switch at selling longer without going cheaper. The comparisons he made were to Wii/PS1/PS2. I don't really see how Switch doing better would invalidate his post.

I think you are missing the point a bit. I'm not saying that he was literally making a comparison, in fact I even said in my reply to you that he tried to avoid making one with the Switch. I'm saying his analogy makes less sense with the Playstation 4 than it does with the Switch. And considering the topic he was referring to was already Nintendo related (I.E. Nintendo games retaining their price value for long periods of time but still selling), it seems a little silly to use that as a parallel to the Playstation 4 when the best example of that is the Switch. Because, again, the Playstation 4 has already had two price cuts. So all I'm really saying is that while he's not wrong that the Playstation 4 retains amazing selling power, even at a price that's been fixed for almost 3 years, I think the Switch is a more applicable example of that considering unlike the Playstation 4 it hasn't gotten two price cuts already. For comparison, Switch will get it's first "price cut" in 931 days, whereas the Playstation 4 already had it's 2nd price cut just 107 days after that, and that's if you even consider the Switch Lite (which offers a lot less bells and whistles than the Switch, unlike the Slim to the PS4) a price cut. 

I wasn't confused about your terminology by the way, I was correcting it. Anyways, while it is true that a lower price can potentially with stand longer periods of time without a price cut, when you compare it to other low cost handhelds you can see that Switch retaining it's value probably has a lot more to do with the perceived value of the console after launch. The Gameboy Advance got a price cut less than a year after launch, so did the DS, and so did the 3DS (although that was because it was overpriced already). 

colafitte said:

A little nitpicky you are.....

What i meant was, that after selling A LOT already, the console doesn't need price cuts to keep selling A LOT each year. That was my point. PS4 in 2019 is going to sell very similarly at the same price to what Switch did last year (and more than what PS3 or X360 did any year), despite being a 6 yr old console with already more than 90M sold. That's my point, but ey, if you don't like that i use Nintendo as a comparison (it was a sign of respect) because it seems i'm banned to name the word NINTENDO here, i will use Grand Theft Auto V then..., in fact i think is an ever better comparison, ok??

And yes, 2019 has been way worse in quality AAA games than 2017 or 2018. In 1st half 2017 PS4 had Resident Evil 7, Nioh, Nier Automata, Horizon Zero Dawn, Persona 5, Ghost Recon Wildlands, For Honor, Injustice 2, Tekken 7, Crash Bandicoot N' Sane Trilogy, ... all of those games not only sold way more than those you named but were better received critically. The same can be said about 1st half 2018. Monster Hunter World, Far Cry 5, God of War, Detroit Become Human, Dragon Ball FighterZ ... were way more bigger hitters than anything that has launched this year, and I'm not forgetting the explosion in popularity of Fortnite during that period that helped sell PS4's a lot too. What's the best selling game that has launched this year?? The Division 2?...nah, not even close then. And i was not talking about the second half of 2019, which i consider weaker too than 2018, but that's another topic for another discussion.

I'm not the only saying out there that the GOTY (at least on PS4) has been so poor to choose this year that probably Death Strading is going to be the one in the end, just by default. I liked RE2 remake, but it's not GOTY material, DMC 5 isn't either. Ace Combat 7 is not AAA material. KH 3 has been already forgotten, Days Gone is just an 7/10 game, remember?....The only real candidate for me to GOTY is Sekiro, and besides, none of those games have sold gangbusters like Monster Hunter World, Far Cry 5, Ghost Recon Wildlands, God of War, ....

And yes, from Death Stranding to whichever game launch last (TLOU 2 or Ghosts of Tsushima..., who knows) is going to be amazing for PS4, but that's not happening until November and most of it is in 2020, so no correlation with what is happening right now.

Edit: Oh you already insinuated twice that i'm not considering Switch and PS4 in the same race. I always put Switch and PS4 in the same scenario, when i talk about sales i consider Switch as a home console, i always did. I don't know why you are putting that shadow over me. I never stated otherwise.

No you're allowed to use Nintendo as a comparison, and I'm not saying your comparison is wrong (though maybe it sounded that way, I don't know). It's not an invalid comparison. It just seems incredibly redundant to use Nintendo games as an example, but then ignore that Switch is a much better comparison than the Playstation 4. 

As for the games ... ?

Resident Evil 7 got an 86 on Metacritic and Resident Evil Remake 2 got a 93 (91 if you want to go with the PS4 score), and Resident Evil 7 sold 5.1 million in a year and nearly 3 months whereas Resident Evil 2 has already sold 4.5 million in just 7. (Sales + Reception 2019 > 2017)

Nioh and Devil May Cry 5 got the same metacritic score, and Nioh sold 2.5 million in 2 years whereas Devil May Cry 5 sold 2.9 million already. (Sales 2019 > 2017, Reception Equal)

Nier Automata got an 88 whereas Kingdom Hearts 3 got an 83, but Kingdom Hearts 3 shipped 5 million in one week and also was the best selling game of the year in the U.S. and Japan for quite a while, I think only losing that title in the U.S. after Mortal Kombat 11. (2019 Sales > 2017, Reception 2017 > 2019)

Mortal Kombat 11 shipped 5 million in one week and is tracking to be the best selling Mortal Kombat ever. Mortal Kombat 10 holds that now with more than 11 million sales. MK11 doubled the comparable sales of it's second month compared to every Mortal Kombat game in history. It's hard to say what Injustice 2 sold, but it sold 500k on digital storefronts for all of May, and it released May 11th, so I think it's fair to say MK11 is tracking better. (2019 Sales > 2017, Reception 2017 > 2019). 

Sekiro sold 3.8 million copies with a little over 3 months on the market, and got a Metacritic of 91, making it better received and a bigger seller than Nioh (2019 Sales + Reception > 2017). 

I could keep going but I think you're realizing how silly this is. It's all about how you match it up. I tried to be fair by matching up games that were in the same genre or by the same developer or publisher. 

Don't get me wrong, I think to the general consumer market this year is a little worse than 2018 and 2017. You don't see as much heavy hitters as those years, especially early in the year - there's no Horizon or God of War comparison to be made for example, there just isn't really a replacement. But even then you have games like Days Gone which sold so well despite having very mediocre scores. Or the fact that games in nicher genres are generally getting more sales than other comparable games. I think this year is worse for system sellers , but it's still pretty comparable overall, especially when you consider this is the last year before the Playstation 5 comes out - the game releases are naturally slowing down, and yet 2019 still feels pretty close to those other two years. If anything, it might even be a better year in terms of quality, just not in overall popularity and quantity. 

So again, I think a much bigger contributor to a sales decline is just saturation. Most people who want these games probably have a Playstation 4. Is some of it the selling power of the software? Sure, maybe. In fact, even on the software front we're at a point of saturation, as games like Watch Dogs or The Division are having sales that are generally worse, most likely because they are sequels to games that were received as lukewarm. But even then, if this year's release schedule was the release schedule for PS5's 3rd or 4th year, it would probably sell just as well as Playstation 4 did. 

Also, Death Stranding being the only game of the year material to a large amount of people really has more to do with the general close-mindedness of what should be acceptable for a Game of the Year nomination. It has to usually be exclusive, usually be a huge seller, and usually be acclaimed. I mean, it's not even released yet and people are already betting on it. Devil May Cry 5 definitely deserves a shot at the nomination, but it probably won't get it, and Nintendo has released many games that will probably sell 5+ million lifetime, but won't get the nomination (Fire Emblem, Mario Maker, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon, etc.). 

If you want to go this route of putting Lite as not counting a pricecut them PS4 only got a paultry pricecut (and is still at the same price of Switch, being older and more saturated, still not lagging much behind) since the second one came with the PS4Slim. Or you could count PS4 as the first console to sell so much while increasing price on PS4Pro or that would show that it didn't had a pricecut, just a model replacement (like 3DSi).