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curl-6 on 05 June 2020
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yo33331 said:
curl-6 said:

Not gonna happen.

PS2 sold as much as it did in its later life due to factors like it being dirt cheap, releasing very late in a lot of developing markets, and PS3 stumbling out of the gate and so not quickly superseding it.

PS4 is in a totally different situation. Sony is showing no inclination to aggressively lower its price, its already been out in the developing markets for years, PS5 is unlikely to have PS3's struggles, and Sony have stated that they plan to move transition customers to PS5 faster than in previous generations.

All this suggests PS4 will not sell anywhere near as much after its replacement as PS2 did, and with PS5 likely less than 6 months away, another 45 million sales from here on out is simply out of reach.

I expect it will settle between 130 and 140 million lifetime; an extremely respectable total and the third highest selling system of all time. Better to celebrate this achievement than hold it to an impossible standard that will only lead to disappointment.

You may be right, no one knows, and this is very probable outcome yes, no question.

However sony can talks as much as they want for a faster transition, but when you have 500$ or 600$ console vs 200$ or 300$ at worst console you can't do fast transition, 200 or 300$ price difference will take at least 3 years at best to transfer most of those PS4 gamers, this is not happening just with one launch or one holiday, with the PS5 being 500/600$ I can see PS4 at 200 or 250$ been bought so many times for the next 2-3 years ...

Which leads to my second point of your comment... (which I already said)

There is no need for the PS5 to be slow selling console or to be as slow as PS3, for the PS4 to continue to sell well.

It will just be okay, let's say some 10M first year and some 12-15M the next 2 years, these are very stable and good numbers for a console.

In the same time PS4 can continue to sell this first year of PS5 - 2021 let's say 10M (example PS2 did 16M in 2007 and PS3 less than that, and their difference was the same it can be with PS4 and PS5 - 350$, PS2 was 149$ and PS3 the cheapest one was 500$) and for the next 2 years PS4 can continue to sell 6-7-8M when PS5 is doing 12 or 15M 2022 and 2023

Of course those are just some possible examples.. but once again, there is no need for one console to fail for the other to be selling good, they can both sell good at the same time, see PS1 and PS2 for example, PS1 for it's sales was doing OK sales numbers after 2000, and PS2 in the same time was doing very good.

The only true fact or thing that can prevent the good sales for the PS4 that I can agree is the willing of sony to drop the price. The customers are there, if PS4 is at the right price, sales will be there. However what sony wants and will do ? Will they do a pricecut ? or 2 ? will they reach 199$ ? will they reach 149 or 99$ in 3-4 years time from now ? On this question pretty much depends the whole conversation and PS4's fate.

If Sony wants a fast transition, their success over the past 7 years suggests they are more than competent enough to make that happen.

Nothing Sony has said or done suggests they're interested in keeping PS4 around for the long haul as a dirt cheap option. It's still $300 to this day, their actions speak loud and clear that their goal is maximum profit per unit, not maximum unit sales.