Sell-through expectations for the PlayStation 5 in 2023?

[VideoGameAccountant]

drkohler said:

VideoGameAccountant said:

There are a lot of structural problems for the PS5 (issues getting consoles to market, a lot of scalpers buying up consoles, third parties not wanting to fully commit, Sony included).

Man it must be really lonely in your world of delusions....

There are ZERO "structural problems" for the PS5 within the next 12 months.

If we take Sony's FY23 plan to manufacture 23.5M units, subtract this fj22 4th quarter of 6M units, and add a pessimistic 4M units for the fj23 4th quarter, we get an estimated lower limit of 21M units shipped for this calendar year. Sony has always been very good with their plans so anyone thinking of less than 20M units shipped this year might think again. Trolls with estimates under 12M should think of finding a new hobby.

I told you what the structural problems were which you didn't address. Thats nice that they can manufacture and ship more, but that doesn't account for consumer demand. We're entering a recession and demand will decline for all platforms. The system doesn't have a ton of games on it, and consumers will likely opt for a PS4 (or stick with the one they have) than buy a new console. This is something more units wont fix. 

ConservagameR said:

VideoGameAccountant said:

Most likely, this recession will be worse than 2008. The problems of 2008 weren't solved and with COVID, there is way too much money in the system. This, coupled with the fact a lot of the world is de-dollarizing, means more inflation in the US, higher rates, and less growth. A decline in the US would result in a decline every, and Europe is going to get hard due to high energy prices. There are also more assests that are overvalued than 2008, one of the most notable being cars. That's the asset I'd watch.

There are a lot of structural problems for the PS5 (issues getting consoles to market, a lot of scalpers buying up consoles, third parties not wanting to fully commit, Sony included). A bad recession could be a tipping point and really hurt momentum. The system did very well in Holiday 2022 thanks to GoW and better availability, but when push comes to shove, and with not a lot of compelling titles coming out, consumers may just stick with their PS4. 

Aside, but a recession will hurt Nintendo and Microsoft as well, but in different ways (and Microsoft may be the one better off). 

Not so sure about that. Maybe, but 2008 wasn't anticipated by most and was quite abrupt, where as things have been weakening for some time now and many have been keeping an eye on it for some time. That's not to say there won't be a crash and it won't be bad, but we're far more aware of the situation this time around so we can much better maneuver. How much that softens the blow is hard to say. There was a general narrative that we were going to see another crash around 2020, but with covid, we may have potentially avoided a hard crash, and instead are riding it out slowly over years. Though it's also possible we've been maneuvering around it for years now and it's going to hit at some point no matter what.

If we do get a crash as I said, then sales will slow a bit. Yet people will still want something to do and gaming is cheap and can be repetitive in a good way, and even cheaper for PS5 come this fall hopefully, so I don't see sales hurting too much even with a crash. Unless the crash is somehow terribly devastating across the board, which at that point all products and markets are in massive trouble.

I'd say right now it looks more like a long slow drawn out recession. That's something that will hold back PS5 sales a bit, but won't cause them to falter much for the next couple years.

Im not sure you can say we saw it coming. Jerome Powell was saying inflation was transient for a year before he realized he needed to raise rates to fight inflation. This is usually want happens in any bust cycle. Rates go up, credit gets more expensive, but the economy needs credit and so you have a contraction, people lose their jobs, bills get hard to pay, defaults happen, banks lose money, meaning less credit and then it cascades from there. The issue now verses 2008 is the issue was primarily isolated to home mortgages back then. Now it's moved into everywhere else, which is why its often termed the "everything bubble." Cars, again, are a good one to look at because the value of cars should always be declining. Instead, they went up, and now we will have an auto loan crash. As for 2020, there is a theory (if you believe it) that a big reason for the lockdowns were the markets were going to crash. In 2019, the Fed injected 50 billion into the Repo market and no one knows why. The crash may have meant to come sooner but COVID pushed it back. The result is more money in the economy than there should be, and its got to come out.

As for the systems, the issue is going to be that a PS5 wont be an attractive purchase. If people have less money, they don't want a $500 console. PS4s are much cheaper now and everything is coming out on the PS4 anyway, so stick with that. There is also the cheaper Switch. This is if they buy games at all, which will be curbed in a recession. The issue for the PS5 is its already tracking below the PS4, so a recession could pop any momentum it has left, leaving it dead in the water. Not that it will have 0 sales, but the next year could be bad and its sales trend could be closer to the Wii's trajectory. We'll know more by the summer.