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Norion 5 days ago
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Kyuu said:
Norion said:

Yeah I do think people should be careful not to get carried away with just one game. It's gonna be the biggest game launch of all time but games released that late in the life-span of a console basically never cause any notable boost in hardware sales, RDR2 caused no boost at all for example despite releasing a year earlier in gen 8.

Since GTA 6 is gonna be so insanely huge I do expect it'll still cause a significant boost the period it comes out, perhaps making it sell an extra million or so this holiday than it would've sold otherwise but sales will return to normal quickly after 2027 begins. The people expecting it to cause a much bigger boost than that and even some sort of long term boost are being quite unrealistic I'd say since the vast, vast majority of people who will play GTA 6 on the PS5 will already have one by November this year. Some people will have bought one last year due to expecting to play GTA 6 by May. 

1. GTA today is MANY times more popular than RDR was in 2018. RDR1 sold around 15 million copies by 2018 across all platforms (8 million~ copies less than God of War or Spider-Man on PS4 alone). RDR2, like GTA5, grew slowly and organically.

2. PS4 faced some actual competition from Xbox. Until the PC version is released, 90% of GTA6's system selling effect may go to PS5.

3. Sony didn't have a large playerbase stuck with PS3. GTA6 should transition millions of PS4 players as well as former players who stopped playing the game because it's too old. Unlike PS3, PS4 remains big with a large number of players who didn't yet upgrade. It's safe to say that GTA6 will be a good reason for many of them to finally upgrade.

4. Unlike PS4, PS5 has room for effective pricedrops. Though unfortunately the prices kept climbing outside temporary deals, and the coming days may be worse. A major difference between PS5 and older consoles is that PS5 didn't have a normal price trajectory (and yet it kept up with the PS4). If prices miraculously start dropping, another past trend/pattern would be broken, and we could see PS5 sales increase year on year, reversing the decline for a year. GTA6 would've guaranteed it.

5. GTA6 will have a long term impact. Sales year on year will of course decline. But without the game, the deline would have been greater.

6. Finally, we don't even know yet how long this generation is going to last. The longer it is, the more consoles GTA6 will sell. It's just common sense.

1. That's why I said I still expect it to cause a significant boost the period it comes out. It resulting in an extra million PS5's sold this holiday would already be a big deal. I'm saying that instead of selling only like 5m this November+December without it it could do 6m instead.

2. That is true but there being an Xbox version still matters a lot though since it means current owners won't need to buy a PS5 for it.

3. A big question is how big that playerbase will still be by November, same goes for how many people are still playing GTA 5 on the PS4 or are even interested in GTA in general. I imagine that the average person still using the PS4 this late is just not gonna bother ever getting a PS5 which is why I don't think the COD this year not coming to PS4 and Xbox One is gonna matter since BO7 sold barely anything on those systems. Many will switch platforms, be less interested in video games compared to when they got a PS4 or wait for a PS6 instead.

4. Considering what's going on with RAM it appears likely that the PS5 will be more expensive next year than it is right now but sure a miraculous price drop would help. That old school price trajectory is dead it seems though.

5. I don't think the difference would be that much, maybe a somewhat smaller decline at most but the overall trajectory wouldn't be changed. To be more clear by long term boost I mean the PS5's trajectory getting notably shifted.

6. I expect 2028 for the PS6 so expect it to start getting talked about next year. If someone doesn't bother getting a PS5 this year for GTA 6 they're probably not gonna bother when the next console isn't that far off. Though current market conditions do make things murky so 2028 isn't a sure thing.