So Pachter has come out with critic of PS5 digital edition. He mentions that he thinks it will sell less than the one with disc drive. But his main point is that Sony hurts themselves with the prizing. The physical edition breaks even while the digital is sold at a loss, and there is no way Sony can make up the gap from digital games:
https://gamingbolt.com/sony-blew-it-with-the-ps5-digital-edition-says-analyst-michael-pachter
I actually agree with Pachter on this. Sony is shooting themselves in the foot with this huge prize gap. I'm not sure about where he gets the exact numbers from, but it's not far from my calculations.
Sony saves around 10 dollars by not including a disc drive.
Consoles typically have a software attach ratio of around 10 games sold per system sold. A lot of these will not be full prize, so lets say 40 dollars per game. Sony gets 30 % per digital game and around 12 % for a physical game. That is $12 - $4.8 = $7.2 more they get per digital sale. Which means the consumer would have to buy at least 12.5 games digitally that they would otherwise have bought physically to make up the $90 revenue difference. That's very unlikely, especially since those with the disc drive version will anyway buy some digital games.
A $399 digital edition might be good for the consumer, but it doesn't make sense for Sony.
Thoughts?
