| noshten said: J Playstation Ecosystem Hardware(2014-2021):
Playstation Ecosystem Sofware(2014-2021):
Hardware will be up YoY but it's fairly obvious that Software will reach a new low after 2020, I think it's likely that 2021 overall software sales will be below 2.5 million. At the moment I believe we are at under 1.5 million software. A far cry from what the PS ecosystem was doing at the launch of the PS4 with over 15 million in 2014, majority of which were from third party titles. The impact of PS Ecosystem falling this far behind and majority of AA becoming either exclusive or multiplat on the Switch in 2022 and beyond is putting the Switch into an unprecedented place late into it's life-cycle in Japan. Next year is going to be another strong year for hardware and pretty much guaranteed to be the Software peak due to Splatoon 3, Legends: Arceus, Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Breath of the Wild Sequel etc. |
This numbers further give me the insights is not PS5 that are being sold for outside Japan, is just japonese moving away from Sony entirely. We could see from 2018 to 2020 that despite increase in PS4 userbase (up 3.4 million) software sales just kept plummeting (54% decline), I see no reason for Sony software sales not decrease another 25-30% yet again in 2021, although seems like you are predicting decline to be even more dramatic (over 50% in a year)
I believe currently PS5 owners are just the more hardcore adopters of PS4, and the "casuals" PS4 owners started to migrate to Switch slowly after 2018. Sony is basically selling software for the PS4 owners that did not abandoned the system in favor of Switch or are buying because some IPs are not in Switch. 2.5 million software in 2021 for something among ~1.1 million hardware is an awful multiplayer, but the truth is that everyone just haven't realized Sony ratio was already dramatic back in 2019 when they had 8.5 million cumulative hardware sales and only 8.87 million software sales meaning the tie-in ratio for physical games in Japan for PS4 was only slightly above 1. To make my point more clear
2018: Userbase (PS4) 7.3 million. Software sales 11.61 million. Tie ratio 1.59
2019: Userbase (PS4) 8.5 million. Software sales 8.87 million. Tie ratio 1.04 (-34%)
2020: Userbase (PS4+PS5) 9.3 million. Software sales 5.5 million. Tie ratio 0.59 (-43%)
2021: Userbase (PS4+PS5, excluding double ownership) likely 9.3 million again. Software sales 2.5 million (your prediction). Tie ratio 0.26 (-56%)
Most likely PS4 userbase isn't using the device anymore and the real active PS4+PS5 userbase (i.e. people who are buying software and playing games) is probably closer to 2 million. I believe Sony can go as high as having 4 million PS5 sold in Japan, but hardly anything higher than that, the general desertion of PS4 software sales seems the biggest indicator PS5 will have no life in Japan
