Dear PlayStation Fans: Trickle-Down Economics Isn't Real!

[DonFerrari]

Shadow1980 said:

SvennoJ said:

The console games market is stagnating, not growing.

The growth in console video game sales is gone. There was an uptick from the pandemic, but that didn't last and now inflation has gone from 3% a year to 10% in some places. Look at an inflation calculator and $60 in 2005 is $90 in 2022. MTX, DLC and better margins on digital don't cover that.

@Bolded. Are... are we allowed to say that now? Am I finally free?

But yeah. The console market is stagnant, but still strong. I don't see it going anywhere, either. In terms of hardware, total combined PS+Xbox sales have remained steady each generation at over 160M per gen, and Nintendo is still going strong with the Switch already at over 110M units. Even with their supply issues, the PS5 & XBS are doing quite well.

In the U.S., combined sales of the two this year are so far outpacing combined PS4+XBO sales from 2015, and last year the only thing that kept their combined sales from outpacing combined PS4+XBO sales from 2014 was the holiday season. Their combined LTD sales as of July in the U.S. were at about 15.3M or so, less than a million units behind where the PS4 & XBO were combined by July 2016. If supply issues weren't a concern, the PS5 & XBS might be doing even better than they currently are. They can easily make up their current deficit against last generation once supply issues subside.

Meanwhile, in Japan the PS5 is still managing to compare favorably to the PS4, and the XBS has already surpassed the XBO's lifetime total and is doing substantially better now than even the 360 was back in 2007.

As for Europe, if VGC's numbers are any indication, the 2021 vs. 2014 situation was about the same as the U.S. (rough holiday season causing YTD sales to fall behind last gen in the final quarter after outpacing them Q1-Q3). The situation this year has been rough for the PS5 (esp. in Q1), but the XBS is easily outpacing the XBO. Overall, combined PS5+XBS sales since April have compared quite favorably to those of the PS4+XBO in 2015. The overall deficit is worse than in the U.S., but by no means insurmountable.

The PS5 & XBS ought to end up selling at least 160M combined worldwide, with 60M+ in the U.S. alone, with the generation being perhaps a bit more back-loaded due to supply issues since launch. If Nintendo sticks with the hybrid model and just makes a Switch 2 (same form factor, just with far more power and various other improvements), that ought to easily sell over 100M units as well.

And we have to remind PS2 needed several years and even 100USD pricetag plus tiered late launch to emerging market to reach 160M, so the faster adoption rate of PS4 gen and this one coupled with higher attach ratio and subs have growed revenue in console gaming.