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curl-6 on 24 August 2022
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Kyuu said:
curl-6 said:

I would argue that while low predictions prior to and shortly after Switch's launch had a lot to do with factors like the poor performance of the Wii U, the absurd underestimations of it that continued for years passed the point of it proving its mettle had just as much to do with bias as a lot of the current lowballs of the PS5, if not more so since the mods have long since banned a lot of the more problematic users that abounded a few years back. (And the forums are just less active in general now than they used to be)

Liquid Laser may be the Quickrick of the PS5, but I don't see too many others wishfully downplaying it, while in the early months/years of the Switch there were several folks openly rooting for it to fail and constantly proclaiming its imminent collapse.

PS5 underestimation is comparable to Switch's in that both of them had/have unknown factors, complications, and "if scenarios" making them quite unpredictable for better or worse. Even 2 years after launch, a large part of Nintendo's own fanbase thought it could be a challenge for the Switch to reach a 100 million lifetime (Wii U residuals lol), let alone pass PS4 numbers (I for one didn't rule out Nintendo continuing their two-console-lines model which would have hurt Switch's potential). Quickrick and a few others stood out for a reason; he made ridiculous predictions even by Nintendo-hater standards.

PS4's underestimation in 2017/early 2018 ("won't outsell the Wii") was too common among non-PS crowd, and had no logical basis whatsoever, so it did stand out to me as a rather strange behavior/trend. It is no coincidence that PS fans were certain (and correct) PS4 would outsell the Wii while others didn't see it happen, and some even ridiculing it. People now often talk about the so called predictability of the last generation as if they never made those predictions or nodded to them.

PS5 and Switch getting underestimated (within reason) is understandable for a good number of reasons. PS4's underestimation was not. It's just that I'm not sure how much of this PS5 underestimation is the result of honest research and foresight, and how much of it is primarily out of subconscious bias and wishful thinking (Some people declared this generation much closer as soon as they learned PS5 "only had 10 TFLOPS" of power. Before Series X was even revealed. Before they knew anything about acquisitions, or COVID shortages, or Sony supporting PC to such an extent. It was a little weird then; no longer weird because of sheer luck and developments no one could predict).


Of course the same can be said about Playstation fans underestimating the Switch, but their predictions were generally in line with the common opinion, so it's a tad harder to blame it mostly on bias (just as it is harder to blame PS5 underestimation on bias). Before the Wii U launch, PS fans thought it'll take the world by storm, which also blended with the general opinion that thought Nintendo wasn't capable of making unsuccessful consoles anymore because "LOOK HOW MUCH THE WII AND DS SOLD!".

I should've clarified I was comparing the downplaying of PS5 and Switch, not PS4, my bad.

While it may not have been obvious it would pass 100 million or outsell the PS4, by the end of 2017 it was obvious the Switch was a success, yet there were still plenty of takes in 2018-2019 about how it would be extremely frontloaded and end up with low/mediocre lifetime sales, which were the result of bias more so than any reasonable doubts.

Again though, a lot of it does come down to the fact that many bad faith posters have been banned since then on both sides, and that there's simply fewer people posting now than then.

Last edited by curl-6 - on 24 August 2022