November Circana (NPD) 2023 Thread + Predictions

[Shtinamin_]

Shadow1980 said:

Historically speaking, the state of the economy seems to have no bearing on the health of the video games market...

The PS5 & Series X have been $500 since they launched, with nary any price cuts, even temporarily for the holidays. They could very well be exhausting their sale potential at that price point. We are after all already three years into the current generation (time flies, doesn't it?).

Also, the Switch is closing in on the end of its life, so declines like this are not entirely unexpected. Estimates indicate that Q3 2023 was the Switch's worst quarter yet in the U.S., down by over 30% YoY. It was down over 42% YoY in November in Japan as well. So it being down by at least 44% in November in the U.S. probably wasn't totally unexpected. Everybody was expecting big drops, just not that big, maybe 25-30%. The sixth year in a row of the MK8 bundle and a Smash bundle thrown in for good measure just isn't going to hit as hard. The system is reaching saturation. It wouldn't surprise me if 2024 is its lowest year even before the Switch 2 is released (whenever that is; wouldn't surprise me if they go back to a November release).

Thank you for that, you were very informative and it was a joy to read. :)

So why don't Sony and Microsoft lower their prices to $400 or $350? Sony and Microsoft understand that their consoles dont make a lot of money (in terms of profit), but their games make so much profit fort them. Sony and Microsoft when they first started selling the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S was selling them at a loss, in fact Microsoft still sells them at a loss (-$200 in profit per console). They make so much more in subscriptions, games, controllers, etc.
Nintendo is not a price cut kind of company, though they do have a good deal every once in a blue moon.

Should we expect to see some huge holiday discounts for Nintendo and Sony?
We've already seen Costco Xbox Series prices, and wow that's crazy low.