There is absolutely no way the PS4 still costs $249+ to manufacture.  In mid-2017 Sony said the primary reason for their large increase in their gaming division's operating income was due to lower manufacturing costs, with SW sales being the secondary reason.  MS has been selling the XBO for effectively $199 for most of the year, $220-$240 with a game or two.  MS knows it lost already, there's no way they are going to continue to lose money on the systems, since it doesn't make a difference.  And Sony has been doing the $199 deal for 3 years.  First year, it was the system by itself.  Second year, it was with Spider-Man.  This year, they bundled 3 games with it.  Obviously, the price to make the console has dropped.  At the very worst, they are breaking even, but I don't believe that to be the case.

The reason Sony is selling the PS4 for $299 isn't because they'll lose money if they drop the price.  It's because they can sell it for that price and it still sells well.  Just like Nintendo could drop the price of the Switch to $249 and still profit, but don't need to, yet.  Sony is trying to build up profit, because they are more than likely going to be heavily subsidizing the price of the PS5.

This is NOT what Sony said in their fiscal reports, unless you selectively quote things out of their reports. In fact, the list price of the PS4 INCREASED sometimes in 2017 (at least in Europe) due to higher costs (the ram deal probably had to be renewed). Also, contrary to what you think, manufacturing costs generally INCREASED year over year the past decade. That is simply a fact of higher labor costs in China (go figure why the Chinese actually moved manufacturing into third world cuntries like Vietnam and Bangla Desh, for example) and lower product quantities ordered.

There is no question that Microsoft loses shittons of money on hardware (the $99 XBox1 SAD is a particularly glaring example). Contrary to what you think, Microsoft had to play the price card to stay at least somewhat relevant (outside of NA). For the past years, XBox consoles have at all times sold considerably below the prices of the PS4 in Europe. Often $100 below the price of the PS4. And $100 on a $300 product is way, way, way, way, way, way below the manufacturer's margin of a console. That is a simple fact of mass manufacturing.

And lastly, I can only repeat what I already said: At $199, no current gen console is profitable on the hardware level.

Nope. Here's a direct quote.

”Operating income increased 46.9 billion yen year-on-year to 135.6 billion yen (1,210 million U.S. dollars). This significant increase was primarily due to PS4 hardware cost reductions and the above-mentioned increase in PS4 software sales, partially offset by the impact of the price reduction for PS4 hardware and a decrease in PlayStation®3 software sales."

You also say manufacturing costs have increased, yet where's the proof? The costs electronics continues to drop.  You can go grab a 50" 4K Smart TV for $200-$225, now, sometimes less. Something that would have cost $500+ just a few years ago.  Those companies aren't losing money on those. So yea, try again, next time.

Sub 1 million easy, in nov and dec.

If it had this week at like ~650k units, and still had 3 other weeks at like ~120k... it could be over 1m in november.
Its too early to say it didnt hit 1m in november.

And even if it didnt, it would probably be very close, likely in the 900k+ range.

Even if it continues its ~25% drop, it should hit just over 1M. Something tells me this month shouldn't be quite so far down. I'd imagine Sony put out just as many units as last year, hopefully a few more, and those things were sold out in just two days. We also have no idea what he meant by several months. 3? 4? 5, maybe? 

Either way, it just shows that the demand for the PS4 at $199 is there. I wanted them to drop it this year, at least to $249, then $199 next year. But, like I've been saying, I think Sony is keeping it there because they want to offset the cost of the PS5. So, I only expect a cut to $249 next year. That will offset some of the drop in sales, while still bringing in some profit.

PS4 total 2019 sales are down YOY by more than 36%, not 25%.

The last 2 months, PS4 was down YOY by more than 50% (actually closer with -55%)

Depends on what info you trust and what region you're looking at. If you look at shipment data, which is the only concrete info we have, the PS4 is only ~16% down for the FY so far. Sony only expects to be down by 24% for the entire FY. 

My guess is the holiday quarter shouldn't be too far down, as demand for a cheaper PS4 is obviously there.  It was down only 10% last year.  I could see it being anywhere from 10% to 18% down, or 6.6M-7.3M.  1M+ easily coming from the NA in Nov, with a steep decrease in Dec if there are no more deals.

Q4 will probably be significantly down, though. I see it being down anywhere from 23% to 42%, or shipping 1.5M-2M.

01. We are talking about USA, using Worldwide numbers doesn't make sense. In USA PS4 has been down YOY by well over 50% the last months, and like i said, in total the PS4 is down YOY by almost 40%. In any case we talk about a trend way worse than the 25% you mentioned. 1 million in November can still happen but need a way better YOY performance than what it had so far, that's what i'm saying.

02. Well if we want to talk about Worldwide, using shipments numbers is not a good thing to do. Sony clearly overshipped PS4 those past months, and is not something that "i feel like it", it's basically obvius looking at Sony forecast decreasing for 2 consecutive quarters, and also from some data we got from some important markets. (Mostly USA and Japan, but also some Europe like UK, or Spain). In every markets, PS4 showed a YOY drop way worse than what worldwide looks like. As for Sony forecast, they expect PS4 shipments to reach 13.5 million for the FY (down from the 15m the last quarter). This mean they expect to ship only 7.5 million units from October to March. My guess would be around 5.7 million this quarter, and 1.8 million in Jan-Mar 2020. In any case, don't expect over 6 million units for this quarter. Sony had much time to look at PS4 worldwide sales and adjust the forecast, if by the end of October they expected no more than 13.5m this FY, they aren't gonna beat those numbers that easy as many in this thread think, unless sales are a lot better than expected this holiday, but right now there is no reason to think this.

Well that would be a sharp decline in line with most months this year, Jan-Aug were down ~30% while Sept/Oct were down ~50% but those are outliers since last year had Spider Man & Red Dead 2 and this year had nothing come close to those titles.

last year it did 1.48m so 900k-1.1m would put it at a 25-40% YoY drop. I'll go with 1 million for Nov and 600k for Dec giving it a ~30% drop for the holidays. Total year sales would then be ~5.3m for 2018 and ~3.6m for 2019 giving it a ~33% drop.