Do you think PlayStation 5 sales will be as good as Nintendo Switch sales?

[Mnementh]

Manlytears said:

Elputoxd said:

Bethesda games will be exclusive to Xbox and PC, that's the main reason why Xbox will grow in market share this gen. And neither Xbox nor PS5 will come close to beating the Switch in sales.

A few years ago I was one of the people who believed that the Switch was not a direct competitor of the Xbox and Playstation... that said, my opinion changed.
Hypothetically, what happens if the first party games on Xbox and playstation continue to grow in number, quality and sales, so that both consoles start to have significant differential factors (exclusive games that can only be played on these platforms)? In this scenario, I can no doubt see the logic "I buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games" also applying to Sony and Microsoft consoles.
Three consoles with differentiating factors that make them unique (Exclusive Games). Suddenly the three "boxes" exist in "blue waters", that said, would it be a case in which the "blue and red ocean" philosophy that brought Nintendo so much success reaches a limit?

I don't believe in the idea that Nintendo will always have a "special Blue Ocean" permanently. That said, if playstation and Xbox differ enough from each other, I can see Nintendo's sales being affected.

In a simplified and direct way:
Fewer people thinking "N + P or X, because P and X are practically the same" and more people thinking "X and P are so different, I prefer (X + P), I don't need N".

Will this affect the switch? I doubt it, but what about the next Nintendo console, will it live in a "blue Ocean"? I have my doubts.

if you don't know the blue ocean strategy. A good 1 min. reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy

Exclusives were never meant to put Nintendo in the blue ocean. The blue ocean strategy was specifically targeted for Wii and DS, finding new customers that were so far not part of the gaming customer base. And I think with motion gaming and games like Big Brain Academy Nintendo really tapped into a new customer base, a blue ocean. A Zelda on the other hand is clearly in the red ocean. Gamecube and GBA were red ocean strategies, as were 3DS and WiiU. Even Wii and DS has red ocean games like Zelda or Metroid. For Switch oyu can clearly asee which games are blue ocean strategy: Labo, Ring Fit Adventure and maybe Mario Kart Live Circuit. That's not what propels Switch to success, it is at most an add on.

I agree that exclusives aren't a blue ocean. That is like saying Nike is in a blue ocean, because some people only buy Nike shoes. But other companies also have shoes, so that argument falls flat. Similarly someone may prefer Zelda over other action adventures. But that someone can only do so, if he already tried previous zelda games and other action adventures and decided in comparison, that he likes Zelda more. That is so much *not* a new market. A new market is a product that someone who never played looks at and says: That seems fun.

That all doesn't mean red oceans can't have niches. But that is less the company creating a new market (blue ocean) than competition abandoning the niche. For instance Nintendo got over the years less and less competition in the handheld space. It is not Sony alone who abandoned it, in the past Nintendo saw competition from Atari (Lynx), Sega (GameGear, Nomad), Bandai (Wonderswan). But by now the market is mostly abandoned. This is a niche the Switch has mostly alone. You could also define niches with game genres, but there the waters are much more muddy. But I noticed while 3rd-party mostly abandoned WiiU, they still brought platformers, so that probably means WiiU attracted platform-gamers.

So does Switch compete with PS and Xbox? I think it does a little. They have not exactly the same market/customers, but there is overlap. I think for many Switch works as a complementary product to another console. So I think that they only slightly impact each others sales curve. But think of it this way: Would it impact Switch sales, if Playstation and Xbox leave the market? I am pretty sure it would. Would it impact Playstation and Xbox sales if Nintendo would go bankrupt? Yes, it probably would. Not all customers would jump ship in these cases, some might stop gaming or switch to PC or streaming. But there would be a substantial amount of customers taking the product left available. And that means they are competing and are all in a red ocean.