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| Shadow1980 said: There's been a graphics war going on for nearly 50 years. Sure, it's rare for the more powerful system to be the better-selling system (the SNES beat the Genesis and the PS4 beat the XBO), but that doesn't mean graphics are irrelevant. If graphics weren't important, we'd still be stuck with simple 80s-era sprite-based graphics. Improved computing power leading to improved graphics has been a constant feature from the get go, from 8-bit to 16-bit to early 3D to early HD and so on. Pretty much every major video game company has always been chasing better graphics. Even most of Nintendo's consoles, including the Switch 2, were just "better graphics box" version of their predecessors for the most part. I mean, unless it's doing something completely different, what's the the point of releasing a system that's identical in terms of power of the system it's replacing? The Wii is literally the only major system that stayed roughly the same power as its predecessor, but it tried something different with its motion controls.
The main reason the PS5 is running behind the PS4 is because of supply shortages in 2021-22. By the end of 2022, it was running a 5.7M-unit deficit compared to where the PS4 was at the end of 2015. Sony shipped more PS5 units in 2023 & 2024 than than they did of the PS4 in 2016 & 2017, and as a result that deficit has since narrowed to 1.4M units as of Q1 of this year, less than 1.8% behind where the PS4 was at the end of Q1 2018 (and that's pretty much just from Europe, where shortages hit hardest; the PS5 is actually ahead of the PS4 in the U.S. & Japan). Whether it can fully catch up or even surpass the PS4 remains to be seen and can depend on a lot of variables like the effects of big games like GTA6 or potential price cuts, as well as post-replacement legs (which the PS4 had next to none because stock was nearly wiped out before the PS5 arrived due to elevated demand and couldn't be easily replenished). But I do think it could be close to a statistical tie, maybe 115-120M for the PS5. Now Xbox is indeed in trouble. For a good while this maybe could have been excused as a result of MS not having any big holiday deals (nearly all of the XBS's LTD deficit in the U.S. from 2021 to 2023 was just from November & December comparing badly to the XBO's first several holiday seasos). It's hard to make that argument anymore, though. Last Q4 was absolutely disastrous, with it being the worst Q4 for an Xbox console ever in the U.S. during the generation proper. The XBS's performance so far this year has been well behind where the XBO was in 2018. It's sales trajectory is looking more like that of a system getting close to being replaced, except the next Xbox home console hasn't been announced. At best, the XBS will probably sell 50M. It could end up well under that. While this does mean that the total number of conventional home consoles will almost certainly be at least a bit lower than last generation, that doesn't necessarily mean that the number of console owners will have dwindled. There is obviously overlap between PlayStation and Xbox owners, so it's not a zero-sum contest. Market research and surveys suggests a very large portion of PlayStation owners also own an Xbox and vice versa, both last generation and this generation. It's entirely possible that many if not most of the people giving up on Xbox this generation still also own or plan to buy a PS5 (though some may shift to PC instead). Depending on how aggressive MS's multiplatform strategy ends up being, they could end up improving the value proposition of PlayStation while diminishing that of Xbox. That aforementioned collapse in XBS sales that started last holiday season did coincide with the start of MS's "This Is An Xbox" campaign, and there could very well be a causal link between the two. |
That is mainly why it's behind sure but I was referring to how lately the gap has been consistently increasing month on month despite Xbox sales collapsing and it'll be falling behind the PS4 in Japan before much longer. Close to a statistical tie could happen yeah though so the PS5 is in no trouble at all with how well established it is. It's just a bit concerning how it's doing compared to it's predecessor considering the circumstances and with exclusivity mostly dying like I said earlier in the thread I think Sony could have some trouble with getting people to upgrade to the PS6 since the PS5 might be able to play the vast majority of big games till like 2033 or so.
For XBS I'd say slightly over 40m is the best case scenario for it at this point assuming it's not notably undertracked here and the last paragraph is a good point. The total number of traditional console users won't have changed that much in the past several years but even a small decline isn't ideal when other areas like PC are seeing a lot of growth and kids being less into consoles than past generations is a big deal and could have a significant impact on the market over the next decade or so.
