RolStoppable said:
I am talking about the entire library that is visible at retail, but Nintendo's first party obviously plays a big role in this. Nintendo has several IPs that can sell millions of copies to both genders and a wide age bracket, something that is simply not present on PS anymore. Then there's the juggernaut Animal Crossing that enjoys high popularity among females, something that PS draws a complete blank on. The inclusion of audiences that get barely served on PS is why Switch has higher sales potential. The conventional wisdom is that AAA third party support is a great strength to have, but this premise will be turned upside down in the coming years. The AAA industry heavily targets males of a rather narrow age bracket and consoles are built around that demographic. The reliance on AAA will keep Sony stuck in a box, so it will become more and more of a weakness as time goes on. Development costs rise, new IPs become riskier, it will be more and more of the same each year. This doesn't mean that the PS5 will fall off into failure territory, but it will limit its sales ceiling. The eighth gen was filled with failure and underperformance (Wii U, 3DS, Vita, XB1), but the lifetime sales expectations for the PS4 do not suggest that it can really capitalize on the decline of everything else. It's probably going to finish in the range of 100-120m despite having virtually everything going for it. |
Nintendo certainly has the edge in terms of exclusives catering to a bigger audience, but I wouldn't say that women are barely served on Playstation in general. There are millions of women who play games like GTA, Overwatch, Mass Effect, Uncharted and really most of the biggest franchises. Any women who play on console with a wide range of taste will likely get both, unless she's American in which case she may get Xbox. But the more casual (for want of a better word) female crowd will be more likely to go Nintendo, sure. But how many people is that? There is a reason that 18-35 males is the main target demographic after all.
As for the risks of new IPs, well the same arguments could have been said before the start of the current gen, and while I think it would be nice to have more, there has been a really decent number of new IPs on PS that have done well for themselves. For Sony specifically, they have tried to go for a wider demographic in terms of exclusives, but success has been infrequent and hasn't led to long term IP growth (like LittleBigPlanet). They are making Dreams right now, which is in the same vein, but by and large they seem content to let indies and mid tier studios fill in those blanks, which seems to be doing ok for them.
Overall, I think Nintendo have better IPs than Sony, that can sustain a successful console by themselves, as long as they are used well, anything else is a bonus. Sony can't, although they do have a healthy first-party portfolio right now. They need third parties to help elevate them to the heights of really big hardware numbers. And I think that that will continue to be the case, and Sony will see similiar numbers next gen to this (with the ceiling being around 100m). Nintendo will do well, because they will have Mario Kart, Zelda, 3D Mario, Splatoon, Animal Crossing, Pokemon etc all on one system. I see Nintendo and Playstation coexisting with big hardware numbers for several years or more, while Xbox struggles in the background and possibly even slide off into irrelevance, apart from the US perhaps
