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Forums - Sales Discussion - usa: "PS4 has already sold more units this week > the last several months combined"

Ryng on 28 November 2019
RolStoppable said:
Ryng_Tolu said:

Last November had the Cyber monday included, this year it won't. Because of that, general November sales should be weaker than last year, including PS4 sales.

I can see over 1 million but should be well under last year 1.48 million

Right, that's a topic that has already come up in various threads. The timing of Black Friday is different this year.

For NPD it means a worse November period and a better December period. Something to keep in mind for year over year comparisons, so no jumping the gun when November NPD results somehow get leaked. Better to wait until both November and December are in and make comparisons with both months combined.

for context, last year numbers:

Nov - 1.478.000
Dec - 796.000
Tot - 2.274.000

2017:

Nov - 1.690.000
Dec - 1.080.000
Tot - 2.770.000

Imo personally i expect a drop compared to last year, but i get your point, the drop definitively won't be as big as it was in the past months.



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PortisheadBiscuit on 28 November 2019

That $199 PS4 bundle is already out of stock everywhere online. Geez! Can't help but wonder if Sony shipped even less 199 units than they did last year.



DonFerrari on 28 November 2019
KBG29 said:
BraLoD said:
The deal is real good, so yeah, I should sell really well.
Now selling more than the last several months combined means it had really slowed down before.
Seriously Sony, get it a permanent price cut already, it needs it, there are lots of people that still want it, but $300 is too much in 2020.

Sony stated early in the year that they would be focusing on hardware profit over market expansion. So I don't think we will see them dropping the price anytime soon. 

IMO, this is a short sighted strategy. The real profit is in services and software, which requires getting the hardware in more hands.

At any rate, if this information is true, that is great news for PS4. If it is still selling this well at this point, with PS5 already being discussed by Sony for most of the year, then it just shows how strong the system is. If it continues to surpass expectations, then more people might have to come to terms with the possibility that it may just end up reaching or surpassing PS2 when it is all said and done. 

I would love to see a hint about how PSVR is doing as well. It is a bit slow on hype with Iron Man slipping into next year. I'm curious if Astrobot, Blood and Truth, Everybody's Golf VR, and some of the back catalog, along with the $199.99 + 5 Games bundle will be enough to help it move some decent numbers?

They have been giving PSVR updates every now and then, should be close to 5M by now.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

colafitte on 28 November 2019

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

Oversimplifying things to prove a point....If a PS4 costs, as an example, 190$ to produce, distribute and market it, that will give you 10$ profit per unit at 200$ instead of 110$ profit per unit if you sell it at 300$. You need to sell waaaaay more units at 200$ to reach the same profits than if you sold the console at 300$. In my opinion, those bundles at 200$ are more a marketing tactic than anything else and that's why the stock is always so small. And this is without counting the games you're putting in the bundle for free.

I know is a cheap and a innacurate example of how things really work but it's the easiest way to explain my point, and why Sony is not going to drop the price for PS4 if they still keep a comfortable pace of sales at 300$. Sony learned a lesson with PS2 and PS3 back in the day:

Profits > Sales.



JRPGfan on 28 November 2019
colafitte said:

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

Oversimplifying things to prove a point....If a PS4 costs, as an example, 190$ to produce, distribute and market it, that will give you 10$ profit per unit at 200$ instead of 110$ profit per unit if you sell it at 300$. You need to sell waaaaay more units at 200$ to reach the same profits than if you sold the console at 300$. In my opinion, those bundles at 200$ are more a marketing tactic than anything else and that's why the stock is always so small. And this is without counting the games you're putting in the bundle for free.

I know is a cheap and a innacurate example of how things really work but it's the easiest way to explain my point, and why Sony is not going to drop the price for PS4 if they still keep a comfortable pace of sales at 300$. Sony learned a lesson with PS2 and PS3 back in the day:

Profits > Sales.

But then you have to factor in that the avg. PS4 owner has like 11 games bought for it.
And around 40% of PS4 users have PSplus.

Selling more Units = more profits (just not on the sale itself, but on the games+services).



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colafitte on 28 November 2019
JRPGfan said:
colafitte said:

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

Oversimplifying things to prove a point....If a PS4 costs, as an example, 190$ to produce, distribute and market it, that will give you 10$ profit per unit at 200$ instead of 110$ profit per unit if you sell it at 300$. You need to sell waaaaay more units at 200$ to reach the same profits than if you sold the console at 300$. In my opinion, those bundles at 200$ are more a marketing tactic than anything else and that's why the stock is always so small. And this is without counting the games you're putting in the bundle for free.

I know is a cheap and a innacurate example of how things really work but it's the easiest way to explain my point, and why Sony is not going to drop the price for PS4 if they still keep a comfortable pace of sales at 300$. Sony learned a lesson with PS2 and PS3 back in the day:

Profits > Sales.

But then you have to factor in that the avg. PS4 owner has like 11 games bought for it.
And around 40% of PS4 users have PSplus.

Selling more Units = more profits (just not on the sale itself, but on the games+services).

Yeah, of course, but that user that buys this late a PS4, needs to spend at least 200$ in games (because Sony must get around half of that or even less) to get the same level as profits as the other way....and i don't think that is happening with PS5 launching in a year.



drkohler on 28 November 2019
colafitte said:

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

At $199, no current gen console is profitable on the hardware level. Like last year, Sony limits the number of units available at this price simply in order to limit the losses on hardware. The idea that "selling more units even at a loss is good because software" isn't really an argument anymore at this stage of the console cycle.



DonFerrari on 28 November 2019
colafitte said:

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

Oversimplifying things to prove a point....If a PS4 costs, as an example, 190$ to produce, distribute and market it, that will give you 10$ profit per unit at 200$ instead of 110$ profit per unit if you sell it at 300$. You need to sell waaaaay more units at 200$ to reach the same profits than if you sold the console at 300$. In my opinion, those bundles at 200$ are more a marketing tactic than anything else and that's why the stock is always so small. And this is without counting the games you're putting in the bundle for free.

I know is a cheap and a innacurate example of how things really work but it's the easiest way to explain my point, and why Sony is not going to drop the price for PS4 if they still keep a comfortable pace of sales at 300$. Sony learned a lesson with PS2 and PS3 back in the day:

Profits > Sales.

they receive about 20USD per game sold and each console will make at least lets say 10 games sold on average that is 200USD.

They receive 60USD per year and 40% attach ratio for a 5 year period = 60*0,4*5 = 120USD.

So each PS4 sold gets then additional 320USD. Even if they forfeit 110USD with the promotion they would still make additional 220USD.

The question is how much sales would change with this cut.

Let's say they can sell 1M at 300USD and 1.5M at 200USD.

So it's 1M * 430 vs 1.5M*320, which means 430M vs 480M (or additional 50M revenue). So yes they would need much more sales to justify the cut.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari on 28 November 2019
drkohler said:
colafitte said:

One has to wonder how much profit do Sony really get with PS4 at 200$ instead of the usual price...

At $199, no current gen console is profitable on the hardware level. Like last year, Sony limits the number of units available at this price simply in order to limit the losses on hardware. The idea that "selling more units even at a loss is good because software" isn't really an argument anymore at this stage of the console cycle.

It is always true because people won't buy PS4 at this time to leave it turned off.

What you can say is that market growth speed isn't much relevant at the end of the gen. But with sustainable revenue from subs and locking customers to next gen it is still somewhat important.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

JRPGfan on 28 November 2019
colafitte said:
JRPGfan said:

But then you have to factor in that the avg. PS4 owner has like 11 games bought for it.
And around 40% of PS4 users have PSplus.

Selling more Units = more profits (just not on the sale itself, but on the games+services).

Yeah, of course, but that user that buys this late a PS4, needs to spend at least 200$ in games (because Sony must get around half of that or even less) to get the same level as profits as the other way....and i don't think that is happening with PS5 launching in a year.

If we assume these consumers will act likes others, then yes 200$ in games should be doable.
If you go get 11 games + a PSplus sub (~1year?), Im sure you ll be spending that most of the time.

Imo Sony should have cut price to 200$ long ago, to keep sales numbers up.