Next gen PS5/XB1SX sales ratio will look the same as this gen's. Huge changes in console marketshare require huge changes in the industry.

[DonFerrari]

Shadow1980 said:
C'mon, people. Be nice.


Personally, and this is just a hunch, I think this generation will be somewhat closer than this generation, but not significantly. Perhaps 110M for the PS5 and 60M for the XSX, with most of the change coming from North America. There's still a lot of unknown factors, including pricing, the first year of exclusive games, and available supply, but assuming they're pretty even in those aspects, I think MS could do better than this generation. The XBO was hobbled by bad momentum out of the gate, and I don't think this will be an issue for them this time around. Both MS and Sony are playing it safe. The U.S./NA market is notoriously fickle and very Xbox-friendly, and with both systems being on an even start at the beginning of the generation, it would not surprise me if they were in a dead heat.

Europe could be closer as well, but the PS5 will still likely win the region overall by a very comfortable margin (the UK will probably still be a rough mirror of the U.S., while the continent will remain PlayStation Country). As for Japan, I'm not expecting anything different: 9-10M for the PS5, and well below 1M for the XSX.

Of course, it is entirely possible that there are no appreciable changes in market share. Sheer momentum could be the driving factor, with an insignificant portion of people wanting to switch brands when transitioning to next-gen. It is after all a reasonable assumption that gamers will not switch brands absent any incentive to do so. Then again, it's possible that that might not even be a rule, really. There could very well be fence-sitters with no real brand loyalty that could be swayed to switch brands by something simple. There are multi-platform gamers to consider. There could even be lapsed Xbox fans turned off by the XBO this gen but willing to jump back if they are sufficiently impressed by the XSX (this almost ended up being the case for me; I bought a PS4 day one because of forced Kinect and because my trust in MS was shaken after their PR debacles earlier in 2013; I did buy an XBO later on, though, and the X1X is my current primary). There's also the wild card that is the Lockhart, assuming it ever materializes.

Also—and this arguably doesn't even really count—Sony did technically lose some market share during the generation proper in Gen 6, at least in the U.S., despite not making any big screw ups (note that by "generation proper" I mean the time span where each system competed with each other and none of them had been replaced, so 1997-2000 for the PS1 & N64 and 2002-2005 for the PS2, GC, & Xbox; the PS2 ended with a larger overall market share than the PS1 in the U.S., but only because of its strong legs). Of course, that's probably more to do with the Xbox being the viable alternative to PlayStation and Nintendo that the Saturn failed to be in the previous generation, similar but much smaller in degree to how having actual competition reduced Nintendo's market share in North America in the 16-bit era (and Japan, to a much lesser extent).

Outside of that, though, there is precious little in the way of hard data to go by. This could be the first time where two existing brands released consoles at the same time, on roughly even terms and with such similar capabilities, and with no truly decisive factors that could turn off large numbers of gamers from any one brand. So, there's no way of knowing for sure whether or not the PS/Xbox split will tilt less heavily in PlayStation's direction next generation. I give it a straight up 50/50 chance of the split staying the same. There will be no way of knowing for sure until the sales data starts rolling in. The first half of 2021 will give us a good idea of what to expect.

TL;DR version: There really is no way to be sure how things will turn out regarding the split between the PS5 and XSX.

Your point does have a lot of merit, but I'm really a believer of the law of inertia, so if neither party do a big change then there is little expectation that the market should change as well. Sure MS will be better of than the last gen, but the momentum is still for Sony.