Which Will Sell More in 2025: Xbox Series X/S or Nintendo Switch?

[Kyuu]

Sephiran said:

Kyuu said:

Past trends are irrelevant. Past consoles received multiple pricesdrops while the PS5 and Xbox Series XS didn't in 4 years and counting (instead they got price hikes). Certain hypothetical scenarios may lead to temporary declines that can theoretically be reversed later.

What Totoki said implies they have no plans to do any significant pricedrops anytime soon, and perhaps he overestimated Xbox's competitive ability and is underestimating GTA6's demand, and maybe they plan to accelerate their PC support and thus weaken their hardware even further. It can be interpreted in a thousand ways.

PS5 with little competition from Xbox, a permanent pricedrop in the first half of the year, and GTA6 would 100% reverse the decline. And since Xbox sold extremely poorly last year, it's possible that both can reverse it if Microsoft decides to ship enough consoles (MS ignoring GTA6 would feed into PS5 selling even more). Nothing comparable to GTA6 ever released before. Every generation has its unique trends and changes that override past trends.

Look at yearly sales for consoles, all consoles sell less and less after they have hit peak yearly sales, even with price drops. PS4 continued to sell less even with price drops, Wii continued to sell less even with price drops, and the same is true for all consoles. Permanent Price cuts are a tool to slow down the sales decline, not to make consoles sell more than they did during their peak. So PS5 with price drops would not sell as much as it did during their peak, it will simply slow down the decline in sales. All consoles in history follow the same pattern, a growth phase and a decline phase. The only difference between consoles is that some have better legs and decline slower than other consoles with worse legs do.

Most if not all successful consoles got their first and often second pricecuts before they peaked. If memory serves me right, the Wii was an exception because:

1. It was already too cheap since launch.
2. The first pricedrop was minor.
3. It had a massive initial appeal to a special and temporary demographic (partly because it was too cheap!).

I called it from the early years of the generation that it would have poor legs and I was right (Some people at the time thought it could pass 200 million units lifetime. A minority knew it would drop like a rock). PS5 is yet to get its first pricecut. Pricedropping a console from $450 and $500 (or higher in other markets) in the middle of the generation is logically much more effective than dropping from cheaper pricepoints later in the generation. Keep in mind that the expected launch of the PS6 is 2028.

Even without a pricedrop, chances are high that GTA6 (if released in October or before) will help PS5 go up year over year at least in the US and Europe. And if GTA6 is delayed to Q1 2026, PS5 will no doubt beat its 2025. I don't think you understand how much PS5 is being held back by its high pricetag (especially in Europe, Sony's largest market), or how big GTA actually is. I'll quote this conversation in a year, or you quote me if I forget to lol.

Last edited by Kyuu - on 27 January 2025