NPD, PS4 2015 vs NSW 2018 (December added)

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Shadow1980 said:

zorg1000 said:

What do you think about PS4 having it's best year this year? It's up by a decent margin for Q1-Q3, do you think it can keep the lead in Q4?

It depends on the kind of deals, and if they have them for both BF and in December. The PS4 did have its best overall Q1-Q3 period to date this year. However, that is entirely due to God of War and Spider-Man. Outside of April and September, the PS4 is down slightly from last year. But it is also slightly ahead of 2015 even ignoring April and September. Nevertheless, the PS4 is so far 370k ahead of what it sold in the first three quarters of 2015, which gives this year an edge going into the holidays. Last year, the PS4 got cuts for BF, but not in December, and as a result December was way down YoY despite November 2017 being the PS4's best month to date. In fact, despite beating the XBO by over 200k in November, it was in turn beaten by the XBO by nearly 300k units, and as a result it actually just about tied the XBO in Q4 last year. To beat 2015, the PS4 will need to sell at least 3030k in Q4. If Sony does a repeat of last year and only issues cuts for Black Friday, then it likely won't get to that number. However, if they also issue cuts in December, Q4 could potentially surpass the 3M mark, putting 2018 on par or ahead of 2015.

 

I would agree with this.  To me Sony is the biggest "?" about what they are going to do during the holidays.  I would have thought that they would cut the PS4 price tag even further by now, but they are still doing pretty well holding on to a $300 price.  I'm not sure how good of a holiday deal they will give.  On the other hand I think the other 2 will do something like this:

Microsoft - XB1 S model will be $200 during Black Friday at least, if not during all December too.  I also wouldn't be surprised if they bundle in a fairly good game with it.  XB1 X will probably get a $50-$100 dollar price cut too during the holidays.

Nintendo - They are releasing all of these Switch bundles for $360 before the holidays.  Then during the holidays they can drop the price to $300.   They are still selling the Switch for full price, but customers are getting a free downloadable game with it.

Sony - Not sure.  At the very least there will be a decent $50 off deal + game for Black Friday.  Or they might go all the way to a $100 off +game for the whole holiday season.  Or it could be anything in between.  It depends on how hard they want to compete with Microsoft.  They also seem more interested in dropping the price of the Pro model than the base model.

If Sony offers great hardware deals, then they can come out on top for the whole year and possibly have their best year yet.  But they may decide they like profits more than market share and just offer more modest holiday deals.

Last edited by The_Liquid_Laser - on 26 October 2018