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Kyuu 3 days ago
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Cerebralbore101 said:
Kyuu said:

@Cerebralbore101

The PS5 being behind the PS4 isn't a recent development, which is quite impressive all things considered. When PS5 got its first price hike years ago, I expected PS4 to extend its lead by a lot more than 2 million, and that the PS5 would eventually catch up due to a longer generation + longer crossgen period. PS5 is performing above my expectations (I originally expected around 140 million lifetime but my conditions were a PS4-like price trajectory and a stronger first party lineup. Little did we know that prices would keep rising instead of dropping. I also had no idea shortages would last for over 2 years!).

PS5 will definitely have a longer tail, and should be supported longer than the PS4 in both production and software. Sony implied longer PS5 support BEFORE the RAM crisis started. PS4 sales collapsed unnaturally because Sony initially wanted to convert PS4 players as quickly as possible to PS5. This is not how it's going to play out this time for obvious reasons. Sony would be moronic to launch a PS6 in 2027 and cease PS5 production (which is the only realistic way to give PS4 a chance of winning in hardware sales). A 2027 PS6 would be outrageously expensive, millions of lowend console gamers including the tens of millions stuck with PS4 would rather upgrade to a standard PS5 or a cheap PC. Every Playstation player stuck to PS4 is potentially a PS5 advantage (late PS4 didn't have "reserves" stuck with PS3 so to speak).The ecosystem itself is much bigger than it was during PS4's final days. PS5 can capitalize on this in ways that PS4 never could.

For your 105 million assumption to come true, the PS5 would have to ship only 8 million units this year, and another 4-5 million for the remainder of its life lol. It's plain silly in the context of GTA6 and future titles that will eventually leave the PS4 behind (Football, COD, etc).

So I think I made a mistake in my math. XB1 sold 240,000 units for January 2019. This was long after rumors of a next-gen Xbox had already circulated. There was nothing to stop people from expecting a new Xbox in November 2020. So this number would have been reduced unnaturally by the anticipation of Project Scarlett. Meanwhile, for January 2026 Xbox Series sold only 118,000 units, despite a next-gen Xbox not being expected for winter 2027. So you have this big demand for a console that isn't underpowered and abandoned (as in not being produced in high volumes) in 2026 and the only thing to answer that demand is the PS5. So if you were to delay Project Scarlet by two years and deny rumors of a 2020 launch I would expect January 2019 XB1 sales to go up to something like 300,000 units. And if you combine even half of those missing 182,000 in expected Xbox sales, with PS5's natural sales, then that would push PS5 past PS4 pretty easily. But I think it also means the console market is somehow actually growing. 

 TL/DR; I forgot to factor in the demand for XB1 if Project Scarlett didn't exist and then apply that to PS5 sales expectations for the current gen.  

A whole lot has changed this generation vs previous generations. COVID, wars, AI and tariffs affecting prices and production, Nintendo unifying home consoles with handhelds. A very long crossgen period, lowend hardware popularity persisting, scalability, diminishing returns, rising development costs etc have disrupted everything. So the fact that PS5 could keep up with PS4 at all exceeded my high expectations. Sony managed to achieve that while retaining high PS4 player activity (which may be explained by Xbox players switching to PS5).

PC and Steam popularity skyrocketed and emerged as a legit console alternative/competitor for mainstream gamers. Nintendo consoles are better supported by 3rd parties than ever and now offer a fairly comparable experience to premium consoles in addition to what makes them unique.

But while PS5's success impresses me more than PS4's, the comparison is kinda meaningless. If PS5 sells more than PS4 due to staying much longer in the market, is it really "more popular" hardware wise? PS4's legs got cut abruptly, this is unlikely to happen to PS5. Ultimately it just doesn't matter to Sony which console we're playing on. They would be over the moon if PS5 retains a high active playerbase throughout PS6's generation, and wouldn't give a shit about how many units the PS6 sells annually as long as the combined active playerbase/spenders continue to rise or at least remain stable, which means people still value the brand/platform/ecosystem. The same way Valve wouldn't care whether you're on a GTX 1060 or an RTX 5090 or a SteamDeck.

I think "console wars" and "generations" as we once knew them are dead. It's all about platforms and ecosystems now. Comparisons to the past will confuse and mislead. Console gaming is stilll going strong and may be growing in some ways, and PC's growth as an alternative is a good thing overall, and more than makes up for Xbox's decline. The fact of the matter is that PS4 alone was more popular than PS360 combined if we are to look beyond just hardware sales, which as you explained earlier were inflated by the same users buying multiple consoles (I for one had an X360 and a PS3. Played more games on X360 and spent more time on PS3 due to free online and TLoU Factions).

Last edited by Kyuu - 3 days ago