A rather sensible prediction.

The PlayStation 4 is firing on all cylinders, and its sales over the last quarter have been nothing short of stunning. It makes sense, too, given just how wonderful a quarter the system has had with so many high profile new releases.

But it looks like Sony has no plans of letting the PS4 slow down, either. They have forecast 18 million units sold for the next one year, which is a crazy amount by any estimation. We decided to ask Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, if Sony can achieve this target, and if the PS4 may be on par to match or even exceed the PS2 at its present trajectory.

“I don’t think it will outsell the PS2, mostly because the competition from Xbox and Switch will soak up too much of the addressable market,” he said. ” Yes, if they price the PS4 correctly, they can sell another 18 million, and I think the forecast suggests that there is a price cut coming.”

Given that the Scorpio is launching later this year, Switch’s phenomenal success, and that Sony will likely be dropping the price of the PS4 Pro and PS4 in response to that, I can’t say I find myself disagreeing with Pachter here.

http://gamingbolt.com/pachter-sonys-latest-forecast-suggests-ps4-price-cut-incoming-may-not-outsell-ps2-in-the-long-run

199$ this black friday & holidays.

I feel "may not outsell the most commercially sucessful console in history" shouldn't be surprising or an expectation for any console of any company. Its a ridiculou standard to expect anyone to outsell the ps2.

Only a minority thinks that the PS4 will outsell the PS2.

Man, everytime people talk about the success of the PS2 I cannot help but think about Michael Jackson and his uber-successful THRILLER. Even though Bad sold extremely well it was seen as a failure because it came nowhere near Thriler's level of success. What album will EVER outsell Thriller??? Nothing has in like 30 years.

So yeah, even if the PS4 sells 120 million that will be AMAZING!!!

This. Only two consoles ever have reached the monster numbers of +150m. I expect the PS4 to reach GameBoy numbers, +120m or so.

still don't think Scorpio will do a damn thing, especially seeing how bad the Xbox seems to be doing so far this year, it will need a big two months to make up for that. I don't think Switch is going to take many sales away either, they offer totally different things.

PS4 will do well to get to 100 million, 150m is never happening

"May not outsell ps2" Come on pachter that's an easy one, no need for the "may".

Well, the world economy and gaming market is growing every year and with normal market conditions it would be pretty normal to beat PS2 sales two console generations later. People also expect car manufacturers and other companies to always increase sales.

But the gaming market is just so different with so many new alternatives nowadays. That is the problem to reach PS2 sales, not the amount of PS2 sales in general. I think PS4 would easily beat PS2 with more potential customers if we wouldn't have so many alternatives nowadays. 

Was anyone expecting it could?