PS2 2005 vs PS4 2018 NPD

[DonFerrari]

zorg1000 said:

DonFerrari said:

Consumer don't take inflation in account on those situations. We still have people complaining that 60 USD per a game is to expensive even if we already had 50-60 USD pricetag as early as SNES games (perhaps earlier). Electronics in general go lower on pricetag even if they should be higher due to inflation, this creates a distorted impression on the pricetags. Hell 600 USD today would be cheaper than most consoles launched up to PS2, still that is a no-go for customers.

At the fifth year on its life PS2 had much more pricecuts than PS4.

This is basically another discussion on the same Switch and PS4 aligned launch that used the excuse that PS4 had a Holiday to launch and that gave it better sales while ignoring that Switch was sold out for basically 6 months so even if launched on Holiday it wouldn't have more inventory to sell. So it isn't pushing a narrative. PS4 aligned outdo PS2 and pricecuts, more games and improved production benefits the staggered launch if you pretend you have to align them separately (or do you think PS4 wouldn't have more consoles to sell if they launched only in Europe or US instead of both?).

And sure we know PS4 have but a near 0 chance of finishing ahead of PS2, but that is more because it will be almost impossible to have the sales PS2 had after PS3 when PS5 launch unless Sony make a very bad launch of PS5. Just look at SW sold and with over 30% of retail games being sold digital and about 50% on all SW being digital you'll see that at end of gen PS4 will have sold SW on a very comparable and far from competitors level.

Consumers also dont think "PS4 is overpriced because 15 years ago I could get a PS2 for $100 less". Whether you want to acknowledge it or not, inflation is a real thing and needs to be factored in.

And the time a console releases argument is valid, console manufacturers will make sure a holiday launch has more stock available than a spring launch hence why Nintendo only planned on shipping 2 million at launch for Switch vs Sony shipping 4.5 million at launch for PS4.

They may not think it is overpriced because they remember the price of PS2 at the time. But mental barriers still exist and you could see how much the sales of PS4 accelerated and kept high with a 100 USD price cut. And most people expect the sweet spot for PS4 sales and final stretch to mass market price will be 199 regular plus occasional discounts.

Yes sure, and Nintendo that couldn't ramp production for a full 6 months after release would have over the double the inventory and also would hold the launch for another 6-8 months.