Switch Sales Top 108 Million - Global Hardware May 15-21

[The_Liquid_Laser]

Chrkeller said:

The_Liquid_Laser said:

As I've said before, crossgen games are like ports.  Ports are better than nothing, but who wants a system of only ports?  Likewise if I said, "the Wii U didn't sell", that doesn't mean that I think it literally sold 0 units.  It means that it didn't sell well.  Context matters.  "Crossgen games don't sell hardware" really means "crossgen games do not sell hardware nearly as well as a game that would require you to buy a new system".  The Vita had a lot of ports and crossplatform games.  It sold more than 0 units, but it didn't sell well.

I entered this discussion when curl-6 said something like the PS5 could sell 30m units per year if supply were enough.  I do not think PS5 demand is nearly so high.  In fact, I think supply will catch up with demand this year in spite of chip shortages.  There is this perception that the PS5 is in demand like the Wii was.  I don't think that is the case at all.  The Wii would continue to sell out, because demand was far greater than Nintendo anticipated.  The PS5 is selling out because of limited supply. 

Wii = excessive demand.  PS5 = not enough supply.  I'm using Economics terms.  These are two common ways for the price of a product to go up.  Either increase demand or decrease supply.  In a video game market either situation could cause an entire shipment to be bought and scalped at a higher price.  The PS5 doesn't have amazing demand like the Wii.  It has limited supply.

Here is my personal confusion, a summary of two statements from you are below:

1) ps5 doesn't have true exclusives

2) true exclusives sell hardware

The problem with statement 1 and 2, is the ps5 is in fact selling very well.  So one of your two statements, by default, has to be false.  

One problem is that this isn't my argument.  I am talking about crossgen games and not "true exclusives".  Another problem is that the PS5 isn't actually selling well.  For a while it was the "fastest selling console of all time".  Now it's behind the Wii, PS4 and Switch launch aligned.  Its sales rate has cooled off significantly.  A third problem, one that hasn't really been discussed yet, is that PS5 has some really hardcore competition this time around from both Nintendo and Microsoft.  Even when it gets some good software, like FF16, that may not help a whole lot, because the other systems may still look more attractive to customers.  Those other systems can get good software too (and in fact the Switch already has a ton of great selling software).