European console sales data from October 2023.

[Kyuu]

RolStoppable said:

Train wreck said:

Is Sony back to luck boxing its way to this level of success?

The consensus on this site in 2020 was that the combination of Microsoft buying studios along with Gamepass, coupled with its two tier attack with the S and X, along with the Switch stealing 3rd party titles away from Sony in Japan would mean trouble for Playstation for the PS5 generation. I'm trying to figure out how that all is panning out now.

Naturally you will have trouble to figure something out when you start with a completely wrong premise. Here's the poll from October 2020, asking for the lifetime sales of the PlayStation 5:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=243547

The three most popular options were 100-110m, followed by 120-130m, followed by 110-120m. Together they account for roughly 50% of all votes, so the consensus on this site in 2020 was that Microsoft's increased efforts and Nintendo's success would have at best (or at worst, depending on how you look at it) only a small negative impact on PS.

Here's the same kind of poll for the Xbox Series from October 2020:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=243506

The three most popular options were 60-70m, followed by 50-60m, followed by 70-80m. Together they account for roughly 55% of all votes, so the consensus was that Xbox will do just a bit better than in the generation before.

And for Switch I'll take the November 2021 edition, because the poll from mid-2020 still had the consensus underestimating Nintendo despite three years of sales data already.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=245431

The four most popular poll options cover the range of 120-160m, all with rather similar distribution. Together they account for roughly 70% of all votes. The Switch poll's accuracy after 4.5 years of sales data relative to actual final lifetime sales figures is roughly equal to the PS5 poll's accuracy with no sales data whatsoever.

The bottom line is that PS fans lack the grounds to say that the PS5 was greatly underestimated. It wasn't, and most of the final margin of error will come down to the widespread assumption of a 7-year-lifecycle instead of a possible 8-year-lifecycle, because the impact of Microsoft's moves was perceived as small to negligible three years ago.

...

On topic, or rather a more general observation for the year 2023: Microsoft has scaled back a lot on Xbox deals compared to a generation ago, hence why Xbox hardware sales are in a dire state. What's amplifying this lately is that Sony is doing a lot of temporary PS5 deals since July, so if Microsoft does little to nothing this holiday season, Xbox Series will have had a really poor 2023.

1. These polls were made before any knowledge about MS acquiring ABK, before knowing COVID would be limiting PS5 sales for over 2 years, and inflation keeping productions costs too high. PS5 would have crushed Xbox were it not for developments that no one in this poll took into account. Microsoft lucked out, and yet it turns out Xbox got overestimated again.

2. The poll results still show a clear underestimation of PS5's performance (you will concede when the generation ends), and an even clearer overestimation of Xbox performance. Not many people took the PC day and date damage seriously, but soon enough everyone will.

3. The more "pessimistic" Xbox predictions came more often from Playstation players (including some multiplatform users who don't play on Xbox). And the more "optimistic" PS5 predictions also came more often from Playstation fans. In other words, Playstation fans skewed the data closer to the correct prediction ranges for both systems. This generation's hardware sales are looking notably more one sided than the previous one despite Microsoft's lucky start and major acquisitions. The consensus was that it would be much closer, the consensus was wrong again.

4. PS5's temporary deals are cancelled out by unpredictable price hikes (people expected permanent pridedrops by now). Xbox Series XS's crazy deals didn't move many systems in late 2022 when PS5 finally became available in decent quantities. Series XS is simply riddled with issues and inherent flaws that a lot of people chose to ignore.

5. Switch was massively underestimated due to a poor prior generation and doubts as to whether or not Nintendo was going combine their library into one platform. And contrary to Playstation and to a smaller extent Xbox, the pandemic significantly boosted its hardware sales. But I don't think anyone argues that it wasn't underestimated. No console in the internet age was more underestimated.

Last edited by Kyuu - on 22 November 2023