torok said:
Wonktonodi said:
ps2 launched 5 years after the ps1, ps3 6 after the ps2 and the ps4 7 years after the ps3. It's not just about "no competition" between ps3 and ps4 it's about the lifespan of the console. Ps1 and Ps1 were undisputed market leaders of there generations in all reagions the ps3 doesnt have that. That means the sales after this gen started will be more split and retailers will wan't to move on to the next gen where they can make more on the new software.
Pricecuts alone won't keep ps3 sales up.
The only thing some could say is going for the ps3 that the ps1/2 didn't have is that if people want to play ps3 on a console it has to be on a ps3. The ps4 isn't backward compatible. Though if the playstation now works well that might not matter.
How many more years do you see the ps3 selling for? How many do you see it selling each of those years? Do you expect a reasonable decline year over year and lifespan? Or do you expect it to somehow hold on at a higher rate and for longer than is likely?
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I see it selling for 6 to 7 years more. Sony usually follows a pattern of discontinuing a console a little before the sucessor of its sucessor launches and I believe we won't see a PS5 in less than 6 years. Besides that, PS3 has another advantage, the PS4 price point. Both PS1 and PS2 launched at US$ 300, while PS4 is at US$ 400. For late adopters, these difference wil be important. I'm counting on the rise of emergent markets too and that includes the opening of the Chinese videogame market. In these countries, retailers can't move to next gen. Put PS4s and Ones in your store and remove PS360 and you won't sell nothing with that price. Most of people predicting it won't sell nothing are from USA or EU, where it is cheap. In the rest of the world it isn't. It's expensive as hell and PS4 is even more.
Besides that, it wouldn't even have to equal PS1/2 performance. If it did, it would sell 115-120M. Assuming it won't do as good, 100M+ still is reasonable. If they price cut it this year, we can have 6-7M sales, maybe even 8M. The next year? 4-6M. That's 10M more in 2 years, so it already gets to 90M in the worst case scenario. Then it can even halve its average sales rate and do 10M in 4 years and we will be at 100M.
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It's not all about how long sony want the system to sell if for. It's also about how long there is a market for the product. The year the ps3 launched the ps2 sold over 13 million. The ps3 didn't even sell that many in 2012 and last year sold a little over 8 million.
People aren't comparing the price point of the ps4 to the ps1 or even the ps2 (what would there prices be with inflation anyway?) They are buying it faster than any other console before. Part of ps2s long post ps3 launch life was the high price of the ps3. The ps3 actually has a disavantage here.
Yes if some of the developing markets pick up there is a chance, the ps3 could take off but will it be enough to ofset the losses elsewhere? Will the price of the ps3 really come down enough in those markets to take off there? Sony isn't likely to lower the price to be at a loss now since the late adopters of systems don't buy anywhere near the games that the early and even mid adopters do.
The numbers you put up aren't worst case senario. It's not going to hit 8 this year even with a price cut. It got that last year with many great games. 6 million would be down only 25% yoy that is sadly also unlikely. between 4 and 5 this year is more likely. with the year after even less. The rate of the drop isn't likely to slow down. It's probably going to speed up.
