| thismeintiel said: This is a joke, right? PS4 only doing ~50M by the end of the year? You do realize that the PS4 was at 43.5 as of June 30th, and shipped 3.5M in the previous 3 months (which aren't exactly the busiest months of the year for HW), right? You really don't think it'll ship another 10M+ in the following 6 months of the year after June? Even with the holiday season coming up and the Pro launching? Awfully pessimistic of you. Especially when it shipped 8.4M the last quarter of 2015 and will probably beat that this year with the Pro and Slim/price cut. This year will most likely not be the peak year of the PS4, either, as I think that will go to 2017. We have a lot of great SW launching next year, which most will have PS4 bundles, and it will be a full year of Pro and Slim sales. Next holiday season, Sony will also most likely be dropping the price of the Pro to $349 and the Slim to $249, with a $199 BF SKU. As for XBO winning (you were right to put that in quotations) the US, the only reason that is even happening is that many are waiting for the Pro. Even with the Pro siphoning sales, the XBO only outsold the PS4 by ~160K over 3 months. Going by Amazon, there's a possibility that the XBO will only slightly outsell the PS4 in Oct, even with GeOW4 and BF1, with a slim possibility that the PS4 actually has a slight edge. Come Nov, I won't be surprised if the PS4 completely wipes out any gains the XBO has made. And this gen will be shorter than last gen, but it will not be any shorter than the PS2 era, which was out 6 years before the PS3 launched. I expect the same for the PS4, with the PS5 most likely launching in 2019. At that point the PS4 will be $199, with the Pro being $299, which will help it continue to sell decently even after the PS5 is launched. Speaking of PS2, the PS4 is still outpacing it. Not saying that will last forever, but it will make 100M+ an easy get. |
PS4 needs a weekly average of 250-288k from June 30th for it to sit at 50 or 51 million by year's end, seeing it steadily around the 150k mark for most of summer. If we figure a ~150k baseline until, say last of October, that means about 3.000.000 sales in those 20 weeks between. That leaves 3.5-4.5 million sales for Novemeber and December, which requires a 437-562k average for those last eight weeks, which is quite low, I agree. My original year end predicton was 54 million by year's end, I don't think it will get there, especially with the famously poor tracking we've had of the PS4 this year, Q1 was a complete disaster with margins of error in the 50% range, it was all over the place. 54-55 million shipped, should be easy enough, especially with the Pro, but I can't see it matching last year's holiday season, to be honest. Start of the year through June was roughly flat in 2016, with Uncharted 4 in the mix and 50$ price reduction, that's not a sign of amazing health in the third CY on the market.
For 110 million + , the Pro would need to give the PS4 sustained momentum for several more years, it would likely require at least two more years in the 15-16 million range, with one 11-13 million year and preferably a couple of years with at least 7-8 million. That's good to decent sales for another five years at least, which is entering the PS4's eighth years on the market, by which time even the PS3 had slowed to a crawl and was barely moving, despite an abnormally late peak and long cycle. Yes, the competitor argument could be used here, the 360 was always neck and neck with the PS3 while the PS4 has dominated. But with that in mind, shouldn't the PS4 at least have managed a 20-25 million selling year already? With market conditions seemingly being so good for it? The Wii U never moved at all and the One has been underwhelming, to say the least, it should be open range for the PS4 and yet it's not really moving all that fast.
As for outpacing the PS2; it just isn't any more, and let's not forget how the Wii crushed the PS2 out of the gate, we saw how that worked (yes, different product, different demographic, but the point is that comparisons don't show the full picture). The PS2 had a heavily staggered launch, we can see that it sold about 18.8 million in its first full fiscal year with global availability, while the PS4 managed about 15 million in a comparable fiscal period, the PS2 then sold an estimated 22.5 million in the following fiscal year, with the PS4 selling about 18.2 million in the following fiscal year. For the third full fiscal year, the PS4 needs to be at around ~60 million lifetime to be equal to the PS2's roughly 20.1 million third full fiscal year, that means that even if my best case scenario comes true and the PS4 is at 54 million, it would need a weekly average through Q1 of about 460k.
So, in short; the PS4 is not outpacing the PS2, the staggered launch with the PS2 being available only in Japan for 7 months and not releasing in EU until 8 months after, that means that the first "full" fiscal year actually included only about 5 months worth of EU sales and 6 months worth of NA sales int eh tally, making the situation even more amazing.
The market is no longer the same, things have changed, the pace has quickened and the PS4 will have a hard time selling 110 million + units lifetime no matter how one looks at it, which was what I was asking that user about. 100 should be within reach, I can see it happening, I always said that the PS1 was far more likely a target than the PS2 for the PS4 to beat. But 110 million (which is PS1 territory) will be too tough from where I'm sitting.
Sustained good sales for several more year just isn't happening, according to the modern market trends and the nature of static product in consumer electronics. In my humble opinion. As always; I could be wrong though, I guess time will tell. 2017 baseline should tell us more, if the PS4 Pro can help the PS4 surpass the famed 20 million limit, there's a pretty chance it might sell as much as 110 million.
