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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Blah blah This gen will be the last blah blah Pachter

Nintyfan90 on 22 September 2015
Shadow1980 said:

The chart, along with the SNES vs. N64 chart, was meant to illustrate the importance of post-peak sales legs for hardware in response to those insinuating that the PS4 could experience a rapid drop-off. As a general rule, the more well-supported a system is, the more gradual of a decline it will experience. When Nintendo had the lion's share of third-party support in the 8-bit & 16-bit eras, we saw the NES and SNES have good legs. No subsequent Nintendo system enjoyed those kind of legs because of the inferior support they got. In fact, the Wii's legs were so weak that its sales in 2013 & 2014 in the U.S. were less than the SNES's sales in 1998 & 1999. Considering that it passed the SNES's lifetime sales in the U.S. within its first 26 months on the market, for it to drop off at such much, much faster rate is pretty significant, and demonstrates what can happen to sales of aging systems that lack sufficient support.

The PS4 will have plenty of support throughout the generation and at least a couple of years into the next generation, and thus we should not expect to see a rapid drop-off in sales after it passes its peak. The decline should be much more modest, in keeping with other systems that got strong support throughout their lives. That was the entire point of those graphs: to make a point about sales legs. Not to say the PS4 will beat the Wii or anything.

Also, the PS3 and 360 both experienced a more rapid drop-off than the PS2 because the dynamics of the seventh generation were odd. The PS3 and 360 both experienced very delayed peaks, and by time it got close to the start of the eighth generation we were likely getting close to both systems' maximum sales potential. By spring 2013, before the PS4 had a release date or price announced and before the XBO was even offcially unveiled, sales of the 360 & PS3 had already dropped to new lows. They needed replacements ASAP. The seventh generation should never be looked at as some sort of standard. The whole generation was one big anomaly.

Ok good post although what you said about the 7th gen can be applied to the 5th and 6th gen because the PS4 wont have the dominate 3rd party support. So all we can do is wait and see what kind of legs the PS4 has. Im personally not buying that the "7th gen dynamics were odd."



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SWORDF1SH on 22 September 2015
Shadow1980 said:
SWORDF1SH said:

Some good points

But we won't know how front loaded the sales are until a few years down the line. Being more front loaded doesn't mean amount of sales but how much sales in the first years of its life account for total sales in its lifetime. We won't get an answer until the gen is done or at least until we start to see a decline.

Well, here's how much of their total lifetime sales each major system attained in the U.S. by the end of their third full year (restricting it to the U.S. since it's the most complete data set):

SNES: 67.3%
Genesis: 31.6%
PS1: 48.8%
N64: 78.6%
PS2: 47.6%
Xbox: 82.6%
GC: 79.1%
360: 32.7%
PS3: 42.2%
Wii: 64.9%

Nintendo systems are consistently the most front-loaded. The Xbox was front-loaded but was also abandoned early as support shifted entirely to the 360 (sales dropped off YoY by nearly 40% in 2005 and evaporated almost entirely in 2006). The 360 & Genesis were the least front-loaded, but they had later than normal peaks. No PlayStation system has garnered more than half its lifetime sales in the U.S. before the end of its third full year. The PS4 has plenty of growing to do. It has an impending price cut in the West and plenty of exclusives to dole out. If it's curve is somewhat similar to the PS2's in terms of overall shape, we could easily see 35 million in the U.S. alone by the end of 2019 and probably over 40 million in Europe. After factoring in Japan and other regions, by time it's discontinued it should have passed 90 million if not 100M. As for the XBO, it should probably end up around 50M, maybe 60M tops globally.

I think the console user base has shrunk a lot since last gen and settling back to what we had in the 6th gen. This is due to the casuals gamers jumping onto the Wii bandwagon (also 360 and PS3 had a lot of casuals last gen but not on the scale of Wii) and not onto the Wii U (mobile gaming could be to blame). Something to that scale of influx of casual gamers we will probably not see this gen or ever again. So while the consoles collectively sold about 280M last gen, this gen we will be very lucky to see it hit 200M or even 150M.

I have my doubts about that "Blue Ocean" theory that posits that "casuals" and non-gamers were the primary market of the Wii, but that's for another discussion. Anyway, sales data suggests that the core console market has remained incredibly stable over the past 15 years, at least in the West (things aren't looking so hot in Japan, though the PS4 is doing well compared to the PS3). So, while we may see an end tally somewhere in the 170-180M range (assuming my projections are correct), that's still pretty damn good once you account for various confounding factors like the Wii.



Some nice data there. I understand what you saying if you are looking at things historically but I can't see this gen being as long as gen 7. You actually have similar predictions as me 90-100M for PS4, 50M X1, 15 - 20M Wii U (depends on NX release) so I'm thinking about 160 - 170M total for all consoles. I do think this gen has shrunk compared to last but it shouldn't be too far away from gen 6 (200M?)

There is room for price cuts and sales increase and still endthe gen early. 2013 4.5M - 2014 14.5M - $350 this year 16M  - $300 (Slim) 2016 17M - $250 2017 14M - $200 2018 12M -  2019 8M - 2020 4M.



SWORDF1SH on 22 September 2015
Shadow1980 said:
SWORDF1SH said:

Some nice data there. I understand what you saying if you are looking at things historically but I can't see this gen being as long as gen 7.

Of course it won't be as long as last gen. Last gen was much longer than the norm. Had the 7th gen been anything like a normal generation, we probably would've seen the PS4 & XBO debut no later than 2011. The 8-year gap between the 360 & XBO and 7-year gap between the PS3 & PS4 was unheard of. 5-6 years had been the normal gap between systems of a given brand, with 4 years happening very rarely (I think the only 4-year gaps were between the Xbox & 360 and the Saturn & Dreamcast). I think the PS5 and Xbox 4 will likely launch in either 2018 or 2019. My current projections for the eighth gen assume a 2019 launch for next-gen (excluding the NX, which likely won't be a conventional system knowing Nintendo).

^^Agree



Nintyfan90 on 05 December 2015
Shadow1980 said:
Nintyfan90 said:

Ok good post although what you said about the 7th gen can be applied to the 5th and 6th gen because the PS4 wont have the dominate 3rd party support

*sigh* It's not about "dominant" third-party support. It's about support in general. The NES was getting games until 1994. The SNES & Genesis were getting games until 1998. The PS1 was getting games until 2004. The PS2 didn't get its last game until two years ago. The 360 & PS3 are still getting games. All these systems had strong support during the generation proper as well. The PS4 & XBO are both getting strong support and thus won't simply drop off into oblivion before the next generation even begins.

So all we can do is wait and see what kind of legs the PS4 has.

There is no "wait and see." We will not see a mid-gen post-peak drop-off like we did with the Wii and other systems that had relatively poor support. There is simply no precedent for it and thus no reason to postulate that such an occurrence will happen.

Im personally not buying that the "7th gen dynamics were odd."

Yes, because a very unconventional console selling 100 million units and the two conventional console peaking 3-4 years after the norm was totally expected. If you don't realize how unusual the dynamics of last gen were, then you can't say you're familiar with the history of the console market. The seventh generation was unusually protracted, which was caused by the extremely delayed peaks of the 360 & PS3, which may have been at least in part caused by high demand for the Wii early in the generation.



I wasnt challenging the 7th gen isnt odd, I was challenging whether the PS4 could suffer a similar fate to 360/PS3. Both had great support and both dropped off quite quickly. Obviously platforms with 3rd party support arent immune to fast dropoffs. Just last gen that happened so thats what i meant by im not buying 7th gen was odd. I think the 7th gen showed us without dominate 3rd party support longer lives become quite challenging.