yo33331 said:
Yes, however who said that just because one time ps4 dropped 10% and the next years have to follow the same path and even drop by 30 or 40%. It's not impossible, but if you look at other sony consoles like psp, ps2, ps1 decline years, they also had 1 or 2 years with 20 or 30% decline but most of the decline years are only of about 10-15%, and also if price cut is done, the sales will at least flat with the previous year in this case PS4 with price cut to 199$ can help it reach the same number as this year around 14 to 15M. As for the PS5 launch, yes it will take some of the sales but every analyst and articles points that PS5 and XBX will be around 500 to 600$ price. If PS4 is at 199$ many people will buy it as a cheaper option. Just like they did with PS2 at 2006 and even 2005 and just like PS1 in 2000. 2019 wasn't plannet to be that drop for the PS4 sales .. in every other gen sony are releasing better exclusive titles the year before the next gen, and they normally do price cut and slim (for ps1 and ps2) and super slim (for ps3) for the outgoing console to sustain sales and avoid a big drop. And they succeeded. I think now they didn't do anything because they though that because of the good sales of ps4 from the years before that ps4 won't drop much if they don't do anything. And also probably they had in plan for this year to do the price cut and super slim. Also, other reason for PS4 to reach 2019 numbers or even 15M at my best prediction (with proper price cut, marketing and games) is the fact that in 2020 the exclusives for PS4 will be better, in 2019 we had weak exclusive games for it. And also take in account my worst case prediction. The worst case is only 12M not 10M, because of the relatively small drops that older consoles have had in most of their dying years. (those 20-30% is one time, rarely happens second time in a row and for PS4 in particular I expect to do bigger drop maybe next year - 2021 and not so big drop this year) But we will see. I may be wrong, so can the others with 8M be. Everything can happen. But I am just looking and judging by the history of Sony consoles when they begin to drop year on year. |
That just isn't true.
PS1 shipments dropped 50% the year PS2 launched, PS2 shipments dropped 13% the year PS3 launched, PSP sales dropped 20% the year PSV launched and PS3 sales dropped 30% the year PS4 launched.
There is no trend that can be created from that.
Sony is not going to do a $100 price cut this year, they have demonstrated over the last 3 years that they want to keep profit margins high and just do temporary holiday promotions, that's why the Slim & Pro models have never had permanent price cuts. They arent all of a sudden going to change that strategy in the year they are trying to convince people to get a PS5. Also PS5 launching at $499 goes against what you are saying anyway because they wont want a cheap PS4 stealing sales away from PS5, they want to avoid another PS3 situation.
It's far more likely that if a price cut happens it will be a $50 cut to $249 and such a price cut this late in the game will only help to soften the decline rather than create YoY growth.
As for better exclusives, yes 2020 looks to be a better year with FF7R, TLOU2 & Ghost of Tsushima compared to Days Gone & Death Stranding but diminishing returns are in affect since those games all belong to genres that already have a ton of support on PS4.
PS4 already has huge selling cinematic action games like Uncharted 4, Last of Us Remastered, God of War, Spider-Man, Days Gone, Death Stranding among others so TLOU2 system selling potential will be limited.
Same goes for FF7R, PS4 already has the biggest JRPG like Final Fantasy XV, Kingdom Hearts 3, Dragon Quest XI, Persona 5, etc so much of the fanbase is already there.
Besides big games dont mean bigger sales when a console is this old, what did GTA V do for PS3/360 sales in 2013?
When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.
