How many extra consoles will GTA 6 sell?

[EricHiggin]

Norion said:

EricHiggin said:

Inflation isn't just one linear thing where you can do 'simple math' and figure out where it will end up exactly. It's more like the weather, where there's a bunch of things at play, constantly varying, and figuring out the result in advance is difficult, but doable to a degree. Inflation doesn't just go up, it can rise 'more than it should' and can fall back down to 'where it should be'.

Even with things being more expensive as time goes on, you have to take into consideration that wages don't line up perfectly with inflation, and typically lag behind it. SNY can't just pick what performance they want, and if that ends up $599, just tell people, too bad, cough it up, that's what we're offering, so it's that or nothing. That's what they basically did with PS3, and we all know how that turns out. In 2028, assuming inflation settles down by then because it should, $499 is still going to be the max price that casuals will be willing to pay for a next gen console. SNY has no choice but to cater to that.

A PS handheld in 2028 won't be PS6 level capable. With software like AMD's FSR4 or beyond, maybe it could reach PS4 Pro to PS5 performance when docked, but then you're still talking $499 for that hardware. Problem with that, is people like me and my friends. If SNY has a $499 handheld/hybrid that's around PS5 performance, and a PS6 that's $599, then if they keep their existing business model of not dropping the prices, then they will lose us as customers. The only way they keep us in that situation, is if they go back to dropping their hardware prices as quickly as possible across the entire gen, which is doubtful at this point. None of us would be interested in a PS5 level handheld hybrid. We want a next gen dedicated home console, and again, assuming inflation settles down by 2028, there's no way we pay more than $499 for a PS6.

As for the, 'PS6 won't be enough of a leap beyond PS5 Pro if it's only $499 in 2028', well, who's fault is that? Plenty of people thought Pro wasn't necessary, or was much too expensive, or that it was just a bad business move based on the future, but SNY went ahead and put it on the market and for $699, without a disc drive, or a stand. Anyone who wanted to pay that much for such a minor leap in performance should've known better if they can't live with a $499 PS6. It's not like they couldn't have known PS5 Pro wasn't a great value unless they were living under a rock.

PS5 Pro was flat out overpriced, and not by a hair either. With a disc drive and stand, then $699 would've been borderline reasonable. With what came in the box, they charged at least $100 more than they should've, if not more. When you take that into account, with a settling of inflation, a $499 PS6 in 2028 doesn't seem that unreasonable. It can still have a decent enough performance upgrade with new bells and whistles, and for a price that the masses will accept.

What I've said is simple math though. $499 in November 2020 is already equal to $615 now so 2-3 years from now it'll be even higher than that. The exact number is up in the air of course though I was never making an exact guess. 

For the bolded what are you basing that on? The PS5 is keeping pace with the PS4 really well despite costing more at launch and never getting a price cut. A PS4 at this point in its life was $299 but the $499 PS5 is outpacing it in the US so the notion that a PS6 that is just $100 more expensive would struggle to sell seems silly to me when a $200 increase isn't harming things much.

A weak PS6 would also lose customers though cause Sony will probably have a hard time getting most PS5 owners to upgrade regardless so if the leap to the PS6 is quite modest then even more of them will decide to not bother and just stick with the PS5 since it'll be getting almost every game the PS6 gets for a long time. A lower price will help of course but I dunno if it would make up for that and becoming outdated compared to PC gaming even faster.

The PS5 Pro is actually a significant leap, the rasterization improvement isn't that big but the ray tracing one is and combined with its upscaling tech will make it age a lot better than the base PS5. Monster Hunter Wilds is a good recent example where the PS5 Pro version is significantly better than the other console versions and a few years from now many big games will be struggling a lot on the base console with rough image quality while the Pro will be doing a lot better. For the power you get it's actually decent value since a similar PC would be notably more expensive, stuff like this just costs more nowadays in general. I do agree that the disc drive not being included for the price is shitty though.

This reminds me of some people thinking the Switch 2 being $349 was possible when that wasn't reasonable and was just wishful thinking. An underpowered Series S type console would cost at minimum $399 by 2027-2028 so a $499 PS6 wouldn't be much better than that. I genuinely think that as low as $599 would be a bit surprising especially since the PS5 could potentially cost that much in a few months.

If inflation is out of control or 'higher than it should be', than it can be lower in the future. While inflation may only go up overall, it fluctuates day to day. Doing an inflation calculation online only tells you the answer based on inflation as of this moment in time. Now inflation is never going to be less than $499 in 2028, because back in 2020 inflation was right about where it should have been, give or take, but that also doesn't mean it couldn't be say, $575 come 2028. PS5 Pro launched at a time when inflation was far far higher than it should have been, which is part of the reason for it's outrageous cost, aside from the greedy mark up. SNY could make a $550 PS6 and then sell it for $499. They were losing $25 to $50 on PS5 when it launched, so it wouldn't be any different assuming inflation continues to settle down.

There's a reason why PS1 was $299 and not $499. Same reason why PS2 was $299. There's a reason why PS3 was $599, and that's because SNY went full retard due to the third console curse. There's a reason why PS4 was $399. Same reason why PS5 was $499.

PS1 was $299. PS2 was $299. PS3, like the 360, should have been $399. PS4 was $399. PS5 was $499. See the trend? PS6 needs to be $499. Those prices weren't just randomly pulled out of SNY's butt, they're based on things like wage increases, inflation, the markets, brand growth/profits, etc.

People are buying PS5's at about the same rate as PS4's because that's the economic situation we've been in for a while (largely due to things like covid). We also don't know if PS5 is going to have the legs to match PS4's total sales by the end of the gen, assuming 2027/2028. Assuming inflation calms down over the next 5 years, leading to all prices of goods coming down, people won't accept a $599 PS6. It would be way to blatantly obvious that SNY is price gouging people, or that they've lost their minds again like with PS3, and sales would suffer. It the same reason why PS5 Pro's aren't flying off shelves still. The hardcore, or uninformed went out and got one asap, while the majority aren't paying that kinda money for a console, period.

Every PS console has been less of a leap than before, and we're nearing the point of graphics becoming so good that it's getting more and more difficult to tell the difference between the next upgrade. There's a reason why SNY focused so much on things like the new DualSense controller or the SSD speeds, and not so much the Tflops when it came to the PS5 launch. Look how many sales Series S was able to get at 4TF. Look at how many sales Switch got. Why are there likely legit rumors of a SNY handheld if performance is what matters so much to PS gamers? That handheld would be PS5 performance at best come 2028, which may launch around or alongside a PS6. If PS5 Pro owners don't think PS6 is enough of a jump, then they can wait for PS6 Pro, just like how some PS4 Pro owners stuck with that console until PS5 Pro, or are waiting for PS6. Either that or they shouldn't have got a PS5 Pro and just waited.

You're also not taking into account the business model changes the console companies have made. They're making record profits, and more than they used to, because instead of considerably subsidizing the hardware, they're breaking even, if not profiting, by a fair amount throughout the gen. SW2 could have been $399, but Nin has always liked to make profits off the hardware day 1, and has always charged a premium for their products. $349 was being too optimistic, but $399 wasn't out of the question. Nobody knew to expect tariffs back then either when guessing at the pricing.

A $599 PS6, while the max they could try and get away with, won't fly long term, even if it's due to continued out of control inflation. It would end up something like PS3, but this time because people couldn't justify such a high price after so much hardship due to a lengthy wild inflationary period. People can justify the price now with PS5 because the assumption is that inflation will be reined in sooner than later, so they can afford to still be a bit generous when it comes to gaming. That will change though, next gen, if inflation is still much too high and hasn't settled down, and sales will suffer. At $499 next gen (2028), even if inflation continues to be rampant, console sales would still be decent because they'll be borderline affordable still. If inflation has settled down by then, PS6 at $499 will match PS4 and PS5 sales trajectories.