With the Uncharted 4 delay, a PS4 for $299 later this year does not feel far off.

[binary solo]

Shadow1980 said:

How do I figure? Multiple lines of evidence. The highly atypical sales curves of the 360 & PS3. The overall dynamics of the Japanese market. A Nielsen survey from 2011 showing relatively large rates of multi-console households in the U.S., consistent with console owning households owning both a Wii and a 360 and/or PS3. Another Nielsen report from last month reinforcing the previous report and indicating that very large majorities of current eighth-gen console owners (including 72% each of PS4 & XBO owners) also owned a Wii, with the numbers further indicating that some 30% of U.S. Wii owners are already current-gen console owners despite the PS4 & XBO being not even a year-and-a-half old yet and not having even peaked. Based on the available evidence, I believe the majority, perhaps even the vast majority, of Wii owners were core gamers.

Of course, that's the short-short version, and the subject deserves more detail than I have time for. I've been gathering notes for a long version for this I've been meaning to do for a long time, though much of it I already have in a big sales-related article I've been working on.

Regarding your bit of anecdotal evidence, my bit of anecdotal evidence indicates the opposite. Every Wii owner I know is a gamer. They've owned a console in the past, most of them either a last-gen or sixth-gen system. None of my aunts or uncles or grandparents or other non-gamer family members who supposedly made the bulk of Wii owners were interested in one. Of course, as the saying goes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data."

PS3 had a pretty typical sales curve, anything atypical about it was mostly down to the dynamics with PS3 pricing, and early gen lack of compelling games, not due to external factors. 360 curve was atypical because it introduced a market disruptor (kinect) when you would normally expect things to start to fall away, which surprise surprise was of particular appeal to the same newbie audience that bought Wii in large numbers. The 360 sales curve is almost entirely down to the USA and the USA was the biggest market for Kinect by a huge margin. That a whole bunch of newbies who bought Wii then upgraded to 360 does not mean they weren't newbies when they got into this generation. By the end of 2011 Kinect was already at 9 million in the USA. And that's a lot of people moving from Wii to 360 to up that % of multiconsole ownership. Also by the end of 2011 360 was 5 years old, a lot of gamers are used toi buying a new console every 5 years, and so lots of 360 owners might have decided the PS3 had a good enough exclusive library now to justify buying one despite the very large number of games these two console have in common.

72% of current gen Xb one + PS4 owners having owned a Wii still fits well within my 50 million Wii sales from owners of previous generation consoles. I'm not being crazy and suggesting 80% of Wii sales are from the Blue ocean. But I do think the largest bloc of Wii owners were newbies coming in to the 7th gen. It remains to be seen how many of them will come to the 8th gen in some form or other. I expect that 72% to drop over time.

Also, don't make your long version too long, or break it up into multiple posts. With your big long analyses I get 1/3-1/2 way through and then my eyes start getting crossed. When I take a break and go back I have to try to find where I finished. Putting your analysis in multiple posts means it's much easier to pick up where I left off.

OT. PS4 needs a price cut to maintain sales momentum. PS4 is tracking down YoY and Sony does not want 2015<2014 even if that still means > all the other consoles. Any -ve number for PS4 sales will be percieved badly by the market. Sony is also in a far better cashflow situation than it has been for several years, so from a revenue perspective it can bettter afford to have lower revenue per unit, with higher unit sales. Therefore the balance of interests is increase PS4 unit sales at a lower margin and that will make the market perception happier than reduced unit sales at a higher margin. Over all PS profitability (with > software sales and > PSN+ subs) should not be affected too much, and may possibly improve.