Global Hardware Nov 29 to Dec 5 - Switch Dominates Cyber Monday Week

[Alby_da_Wolf]

Wyrdness said:

Alby_da_Wolf said:

I don't think PS5 can easily match NS' peak year either, but it could outsell it lifetime: when XBSS will become the minimum spec for current gen games, both PS5 and XBSX will run them more smoothly and possibly with a little more details, but porting them to NS will become very difficult, so if Ninty wants to keep a good number of multiplat ports, and the good relationships it has again with 3rd party home console games devs and publishers, it will need to release NS2 not too late, so PS5 lifecycle has good chances of being longer, provided that Sony does the final price cut earlier than the still missing PS4 one. Obviously also provided that things go well enough through the whole lifecycle.
Sure, for portable games NS is the unchallenged top, as competition totally surrendered, and those games from 3rd parties plus the whole Ninty offer could allow NS to thrive for a lifecycle as long as the longest lived competitors, but the hybrid concept was invented to recover home console 3rd party support too, it worked quite well and Ninty doesn't want to throw it away again.

Switch never relied on the type of multiplatform titles you're on about to begin with they're not even ported now the main bulk of Switch third party games are indies and games that are easily ported, the NS library itself is mainly driven by exclusives and indies no one is buying a Switch thinking "I hope they can port the next Assassin's Creed" etc... The lack of AAA focus on the platform has created an ecosystem for indies and AA titles to do well, the hybrid concept wasn't created to recover console support it was created to consolidate Nintendo's own support to one platform as to not rely on third parties much as focusing on two platforms became unviable.

NS will hit around 100m next year and likely will surpass the PS4 the year after this means that in order to even be close to the NS the PS5 has to outperform the PS4 while having a longer run consistently maintaining the performance. The 3DS was going for 9 years with 7 of those years being very active the NS having 7 very active years is a possible 130-140m under current momentum.

Unlike portable devs, that are usually happy with the power Ninty delivers for the whole gen even if it lasts very long, 3rd party home console devs tend to become power-hungry faster even when they develop exclusive games. Graphics power isn't a problem in portable and hybrid case, but main RAM size and CPU power eventually start limiting what can be done in a game. AA devs become power-hungry later than AAA ones, but they eventually do. Small devs and indies come last, but they most probably are the only ones that could remain happy with 4GB RAM for home console games for a whole long gen when the bare minimum everywhere else is 8GB and it's going to become 12GB in a couple of years. I perfectly know that 3rd party home console games are a minority of NS library, but Ninty will want to keep home devs with more reasonable desires happy. Anyhow, I don't predict a short life for NS, NS2 could arrive in late 2023 or early 2024 and NS keep on selling as entry-level for another two years at least. 130-140M for NS looks reasonable, while now a late final price cut must not be too late for PS4 to reach 125M, but with expanded market, not making big mistakes and doing the final price cut more timely, PS5 could outsell it by a little more than 10% lifetime.
Anyhow, it's too early to tell if launch sales will be followed, when supply catches up, by proportionally good average sales through PS5 lifecycle, this rough prediction can become true only if record launch isn't just an isolated peak.