GribbleGrunger said:
I believe Sony have played their hand perfectly with the PS4pro. What I think they did was force Microsoft's hand so they had to react much sooner than they wanted. Sony carefully 'under-promoted' the Pro to make sure only those in the know would rush out to buy one initially, knowing full well that MS would seize upon this and heavily promote the Scorpio, cementing it in the minds of a much larger audience.
But why would they do that? I've always said that Sony play chess while Microsoft play poker, and this is a perfect example. There HAS to be a cooling off period between the release of a mid gen upgrade and the release of a brand new generation, otherwise a lot of people will feel slighted. Given that Sony have cleverly positioned the Pro as an upgrade while Microsoft have pushed the Scorpio as a huge leap over the Pro, Sony are sitting in a less vulnerable position, rather like Nintendo has, which has clearly worked for them. It's a slightly different scenario but I haven't seen many people complaining that they bought the Wiiu for certain games only to have those games held back and release on the Switch to give it sales merit. Why? Because they cut and ran, which was the perfect thing to do. Enough time had past for people to forget and move on. This of course meant Nintendo had to be VERY confident in their new console. They obviously had the right to feel that confident. Just look at the sales.
This leaves Sony in prime position with plenty of wiggle room concerning Microsoft's inevitable next gen console. There is no way Microsoft can release a next gen console only one year and six months after the Scorpio, unless they're willing to risk a huge backlash from a lot of their fans. However, Sony CAN risk releasing another console two and a half years after the Pro. They'll certainly get some backlash but nothing like Microsoft. This is why I feel Sony will bring the launch day forward and give themselves as long as they can to gain a substantial lead before Microsoft actually launch their next console.
IF Sony can offer 4K at 60fps on every single forward conpatible game and the majority of exclusive PS5 games then the 'power' agrument is almost impossible to express to the average Joe. Right now it's a simple matter of promoting measurable and visible differences because stepping up from 30fps to 60fps and 1080p to 4K (the games that will be used to promote both consoles, MS having the advantage here) is much easier to promote to the masses. I am absolutely certain that next gen consoles will NOT be promoted with 8K and 120fps so that leaves NO metric to differentiate other than subtle things that are very difficult to express in screenshots or videos. So therefore next gen will be fought even footedly, leaving Sony with the advantage of releasing first.
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First of all, I disagree that Sony did the right choice with releasing the Pro last year. It was a mistake which gives Microsoft a chance to comeback among the gamers who prefer better graphics in a gaming console. I know a lot of people who switched from 360 to PS4 this gen because of that reason. Now, thanks to Sony, MS will get this audience back. Especially those who bought an original PS4 and now willing to spend some to upgrade their multi-plat machine as well as play the games that MS has this gen.
Second, if Sony releases PS5 in 2019, they won't be able to make it much more powerful than Xbox One X. Especially because Sony loves 400$ consoles and most likely will keep this price. We've heard a lot from Sony that they still want to keep generational approach so the PS4 and Pro will probably be dropped after PS5 release while we don't know how Microsoft will play their game. They've said that they don't believe in generations anymore. So I can see them dropping original Xbox One while making X the entry-level next-gen machine. The price for it will probably drop to 300-350 by 2019 and then MS just need to announce the next Xbox for 2020 in the same way they did with One X. One year earlier so those who need power will wait for more powerful console instead of going and buying PS5. This will put Sony in a difficult situation when Microsoft will have a console with price advantage and a console with power advantage. All bases covered.
Also, considering the schedule and announcements of all Sony's games I don't see them releasing all of the announced games by 2019. Will these games be cross-gen titles or what? Also if we look at 2017 it looks bad for both Sony and MS probably because all those delations from both sides were caused by mid-gen upgrades. I can't see how Sony will manage to find time to get new games ready for PS5 release in 2019.
And now about sales. PS4 probably will peak this year. It sells 20 million every year and I don't see a decline coming in the next few years. It would be really stupid to drop such a successful console. Another question - will third-party developers switch from 100m+ PS4 to PS5? The same issue Sony had with PS2->PS3 transition. PS2 was so successful that it was still popular among the developers and was selling well. A lot of consumers didn't see the reason in 2006 to buy 600$ PS3 instead of the cheap PS2 which still had a lot of games.
TL:DR PS5 is not happening in 2019. It will release in 2020 or probably 2021.
And prediction: if it eventually releases in 2019, Sony will lose the next generation and come in the third place
