In progress NPD predicting tool

[The_Liquid_Laser]

wombat123 said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Normally after a console has been out for 5-6 years like the PS4 and XB1, the price is below $300. If a person is willing to pay $300 for one of these systems, then they likely already have one. This is the time period to try to see to late adopters who want a cheaper console.

Basically these consoles need a price cut. I'm not even particularly a fan of either one, but this type of business just seems crazy to me. I doubt they would be selling at a loss at $250-$200 and they already sell at this price during the holidays anyway. Basically their current model is to sell most of their hardware during the holiday season, because that is when these old consoles are actually at a decent price. Why not just go ahead and make the price cut permanent?

Maybe they want to keep the price as close as possible to the PS5/Scarlett in hopes that the difference will be small enough that late adopters skip the PS4/XB1 and go straight to the 9th gen consoles with backwards compatibility.

This is a good argument for why they wouldn't drop the Pro and X models.  It's not so great an argument for the base models.

chakkra said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Normally after a console has been out for 5-6 years like the PS4 and XB1, the price is below $300. If a person is willing to pay $300 for one of these systems, then they likely already have one. This is the time period to try to see to late adopters who want a cheaper console.

Basically these consoles need a price cut. I'm not even particularly a fan of either one, but this type of business just seems crazy to me. I doubt they would be selling at a loss at $250-$200 and they already sell at this price during the holidays anyway. Basically their current model is to sell most of their hardware during the holiday season, because that is when these old consoles are actually at a decent price. Why not just go ahead and make the price cut permanent?

In the case of the PS4, I think Sony is just content with the amount of sales they are getting right now and are not willing to sacrifice profits in order to expand their install base anymore. I mean, the thing already outsold their previous console by more than 10% and it still has a couple of years left in the tank. So I´m pretty sure it has already exceeded their expectations and then some.

MS is a lot harder to read though. I mean, with all their talk about "games as a service" you would think they would be more interested in expanding the install base as much as possible. I mean, at the end of the day, the more people with consoles in their homes, the more people would be available to sign their gamepass service. Maybe they believe it wouldn't make much difference? That would be a weird way to look at business.

I agree with what you are saying about Microsoft, but it also applies to Sony.  Sony also makes a lot of money off of subscriptions, not to mention digital downloads and physical sales.

This is why the "sacrifice profits" argument no longer applies.  Sony is at a point where they sacrifice profits by not dropping the price.  They make $0 in profits off of the people that they don't sell to.  Keeping the price high was a good argument last year, because PS4 had an extremely strong software line-up last year.  They were selling well even though they didn't need to drop the price.  

PS4 is not selling well anymore.  Software line-up is not so hot this year, especially compared to last year.  It is time to drop the price.

thismeintiel said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:
Normally after a console has been out for 5-6 years like the PS4 and XB1, the price is below $300. If a person is willing to pay $300 for one of these systems, then they likely already have one. This is the time period to try to see to late adopters who want a cheaper console.

Basically these consoles need a price cut. I'm not even particularly a fan of either one, but this type of business just seems crazy to me. I doubt they would be selling at a loss at $250-$200 and they already sell at this price during the holidays anyway. Basically their current model is to sell most of their hardware during the holiday season, because that is when these old consoles are actually at a decent price. Why not just go ahead and make the price cut permanent?

The XBO has been available for $220-$230 with a game/s for months. A price cut isn't helping it at all. 

Right now, I think Sony is just trying to pull in as much profit off of ok console sales as possible. I have no doubt they will drop it to $249 later this year.

I am really surprised Sony hasn't dropped the price yet.  We'll see how long it takes them to do it.  It's been so long since their last price cut, that I really have no clue how long they will take for their next one.