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HigHurtenflurst on 14 February 2021
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TheFallen said:

Nice work on drawing up all the data. I appreciate all the effort. I'm only going to comment on one factor at the moment, which is the PS3 '14 vs PS4 '21 data. I believe PS3 holds a significant advantage for a number of reasons; Obviously no Pandemic which has affected the production of both PS4 &5, with Sony having to re-purpose and streamline PS4 production lines into PS5 production.

Another factor is that if consumers wanted to play PS3 games in 2014, you had to purchase a PS3 console as PS4 didn't offer backwards compatibility with PS3 disc games or PSN games. Whereas on PS5, the vast majority of games are backwards compatible and the network is fully connected across the gen 8/9 consoles, which makes the transition from PS4 to 5 seemless. The PS3 and 4 transition felt really separated in comparison. So if i'm a customer looking to jump in to a PS4, well I have an option to pay an extra premium to get essentially a PS4 & 5 console in one package with the purchase of a PS5. I feel this particular point people don't really consider when comparing the sales.

The last point is the fact that there is currently a semi-conducter chip shortage, which is compounding the logistics issues associated with the Pandemic and affecting console production. Again, PS3 didn't suffer with this issue in 2014. All these factors contribute to less PS4 sales in 2021 compared with PS3 in 2014.

I'm sure backwards compatibilty plays a part but unless there are major adjustments to come for Nov/Dec sales then the first holiday of PS4 (& XBOne) post-successor release is incredibly low, a far bigger drop than any previous console afaik whether they had backward compatible features or not. Also given the shortages of the PS5 you would think it might encourage some to settle for PS4 if that's what's available.

I think the earlier lockdown high demand & the chip shortage, plus the increased cost & delays of global shipping are far & away the bigger factors in PS4 poor holiday performance, combined with it's still high price for 7y.o hardware. (the price remaining high may also be partly because of the chip shortage & shipping difficulties)