What should Sony do for the next Playstation?

[EricHiggin]

Otter said:

EricHiggin said:

Nin always likes to make a decent profit from their hardware, so comparing directly to SW2 doesn't really work.

SNY was losing around $30 on each PS5 Disc Edition and around $100 on each Digital Edition at launch. If SNY breaks even or makes a small profit on each PS6 Handheld, while losing $100 on each PS6 Lite, then they would be losing less next gen and would better off than they were with PS5 at launch.

Both of those are crazy. I and most people I know buy a $300-$400 phone in one fell swoop every 4-5 years. Few I know spend huge money or go on contract.

In game ads? Might as well market the PS6 as a TV box like MS did the XB1 in that case. Both are terrible idea's for a game console.

MS won't sell XBS at a loss because they aren't a hardcore console company and mostly care about profits overall. SNY hasn't sold PS5 at a loss for years now simply because they have the momentum and MS had seemingly given up competing.

*My friends are all on PS4 still, except for one who bought a used PS5. I also know others who I wouldn't consider friends who are also on PS4, or older gens who want to upgrade but won't spend that much money to buy something like a PS5 or XBSX now. Some of my friends are seriously considering buying an XBSS due to it being somewhat affordable, and they've always had SNY consoles since PS1 or PS2. The point is that if SNY doesn't launch something cheap enough that can be a 1 time purchase then they're going to lose a bunch of long time customers and lose out on potential future customers. That kind of business model where SNY leaves those kind of consumers behind, is one where everything just keeps getting more expensive and existing PS gamers just keep getting monetized more and more.

Every year the new iphone starts at around $799 and goes up to over $1199. Also all the sources I find say that smrt phones are historically mostly bought through contracts, not outright. It's only now essentially becoming 50/50 which is still a huge number of people preferring contracts.

"According to CIRP, 55% of iPhone buyers report using a monthly installment payment plan compared to 44% of Android phone buyers."

https://www.mactech.com/2023/11/01/cirp-55-of-iphone-buyers-use-installment-payment-plan-compared-to-44-of-android-phone-buyers/?utm_source=chatgpt.com"

As far as the new systems, I'll disagree about their break even point but I hope to be wrong. I don't think the portable PS6 will break even at $599, but that's just guesswork on my end for a 24GB GDDR7 RAM ram device... Regarding taking initial loses, again those are typically made with expectation that hardware will be sold for a decent profit soon down the line (it took PS5 about 1 year on the base system prior to the RAM situation). The market now is quite different, we've seen price rises and not cuts. For now I don't think we'll be seeing any hardware maker doing huge subsidising without some tricks elsewhere to make that money back beyond their regular services & software.

Another issue I have with the PS6 lite (if based on the portable) is that there may be very little market for it. Still an expensive piece of kit but technically weaker than the base PS5. It'd provide a comparable experience with slightly better image quality, and some improvements with RT but I don't think there is a huge audience for that considering many already have PS5s (likely 110m by fall 2027). They're not going to upgrade to the lite. Sony could potentially push it and discontinue the base PS5 but I don't think it'd be meaningfully transitioning their base audienece, it'd just be an option for very late adopters. Fundementally it won't resolve the problem of keeping their core 110-120m users re-engaged. At least the portable offers them something new, increases engagement alongside those improvements in upscaling/ai tasks.

Kinda like the SW2 comparison, but worse, consoles aren't cell phones. Consoles with mid gen upgrades may be slightly more cell phone like than they used to be, but it's far from a new model every year, and SNY went from a 3 year upgrade to 4 years, not the other way around. XB1 and XBS consoles also had contracts offered and that hasn't done much for them, so why would it all of the sudden hugely increase the install base for SNY next gen?

I wasn't saying nobody does contracts, and I wasn't saying my friend group and I are the only demographic, but everything points to a contract offer being something that will barely move the needle in terms of growth. You might get some existing PS5 gamers to sign up for that type of contract, but how would that really help if those same gamers would just buy a PS6 regardless, contract or not?

MLID has done breakdowns of the per part pricing and the PS6 Handheld could be sold at $599, break even, worst case. As for SNY and MS not doing any subsidizing, MS dropped their XBGP pricing recently, and how's SNY offering a monthly hardware package for PS6 much different vs subsidizing the hardware (bundles) $100 at launch? If anything a monthly hardware contract would be an even bigger subsidy. Even if Plus were included, that still doesn't guarantee extra sales anymore than a typical $100 subsidy to launch hardware does.

With all the tech going into the PS6 Handheld (and possibly PS6 Lite in that case) it's going to match if not exceed PS5 (while docked). It wouldn't outdo PS5 by a lot but it very well will be superior to PS5 overall. Kinda like how PS4 Pro punched above its weight along with PS5. PS4 Pro wasn't too far off what XB1X was achieving and PS5 was on par if not exceeding XBSX much of the time. Many didn't see that coming.

There are around 40 million PS4 users at this point. That's not a small market. That also doesn't include any non gamers who've wanted a PS5 but couldn't afford one, or new people looking into getting into gaming for the first time next gen, or getting back into gaming. I only know a couple people who said they'd like a PS6 Handheld, where as the rest have said they would all prefer a cheaper PS6 Lite console. There's no doubt a market for both, but I'd argue you'd see higher sales for the PS6 Lite.