| Chrkeller said: Ps5 just isn't gaining traction. Too pricey? Too big? |
Hardware sales are more than fine, because a significant number of these units are going to China. Last generation the PS4 had a 20k-30k baseline during its best times.
This week's hardware boost for the PS5 was certainly underwhelming, but it's clear that the baseline is distorted to begin with, so the traditional pattern of "big game release results in big spike for hardware sales" doesn't apply anymore.
Sony's main problem in Japan is that third parties haven't locked out Nintendo like in America and Europe. You'll easily find people who will say that Sony and Nintendo don't compete, but that's nonsense and the Japanese market shows it. All that Sony has left is the AAA level, but there's not much of that in Japan because most developers can't afford those budgets. Therefore the majority of third party games that matter (defined as selling 100k+ lifetime in Japan alone) are on Switch too, so gamers have the choice and Switch is the better console. The difference in graphics is often negligible, because as mentioned before, most Japanese developers can't afford high-end graphics for their games to begin with.
Worth repeating that a baseline of above 30k for the PS5 is better than what was expected going into this gen (the PS4 did not manage that). The PS5 was never going to have Switch sales.
Legend11 correctly predicted that GTA IV will outsell Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I was wrong.
