By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales Discussion - When will the switch outsell the ps4?

 

When will the switch outsell the ps4?

Second half of 2022 33 11.54%
 
First half of 2023 24 8.39%
 
Second half of 2023 35 12.24%
 
First half of 2024 15 5.24%
 
Second half of 2024 16 5.59%
 
First half of 2025 7 2.45%
 
Second half of 2025 5 1.75%
 
Later than above 2 0.70%
 
Never 149 52.10%
 
Total:286
Nu-13 on 27 January 2020
yo33331 said:
zorg1000 said:

It wont have nearly as strong post-successor legs as PS2. A few reasons being

1. emerging markets now get the consoles at or near the same time as the main markets.

2. PS3 released 5 years after PS2 while PS5 is releasing 7 years after PS4.

3. PS4 will never get close to the price that PS2 got to.

Yes, it will be very difficult to do legs like PS2, and it needs many things for this, one of which is at least 2 major pricecuts at the right time. However PS4 will still have good legs and will pass 130M lifetime. The main reason I think in this way is because I am anticipating at least 1 major price cut, and with this there will be low end entry level PS4 at - 199$ and high end 499 or 599$ PS5. So when parents with kids go to the store, or some casual gamer go there what you think he will buy? good gaming machine with big library for 199$ or next gen super duper machine for 599$ ?

as for your points:

1. Stop with this bulls**t please. These emerging markets like brazil or india or some 3rd rate countries that don't know what gaming is are making possibly 1 or 2% of the sales ... how many of those 158M you thing PS2 did from these countries eh? I am sure that more than 95% of the sales after 2006 are from japan, usa and europe. This is just some added reason to back your theory up.

2. PS3 released 6 years after PS2, and where are 6 there are 7. It's preety much the same.

3. PS4 can get to the PS2 price because PS4 has old parts in it. I mean the blu rey drive isn't new like it was with the PS3, the jaguar chips are so underpowered and cheap .. and everything in this system is very old and cheap by now. It's matter of time for sony to do a price cut. And the reason they haven't done it until now is the good sales. They didn't expect so high sales in 2016, 2017 and 2018, so they prolong the pricecut that they may have been planned for earlier. And because of the good sales of those 3 years, Sony though that 2019 may perform close to 2018. Which it didn't mostly because (imo) of the PS5 announcement. This ruined some 2M sales for the year .. This was mistake, they could wait until 2020 for this announcement. So with this 2019 was a little bit over 14M for PS4 and now that Sony see this and their PS5 unveil event is right around the corner - next month, they will probably do the permanent pricecut on the system to 199$ for the slim and 299$ for the pro. And this with help of some good games this year can boost PS4 sales for the year to the same level of 2019, despite PS5 launch. (As I already said, the difference between both will be at least 300$ which is more than enough to not ruin PS4 sales overral) It will drove some sales away from it sure, but not many at these prices.

Only if they don't do anything to PS4 then I can agree with 10-11M sales this year for the system, but I highly doubt it.

The vast majority will buy switches.

25m or around 16.6% of ps2 sales came from these markets. Sony has also OFFICIALLY claimed the ps2's late life sales were greatly helped by emerging markets. This implies that most of those 25m sales came after the ps2 was replaced. The ps4 already having sold 18m in that group helps zorg's point that those countries now purchase consoles sooner and thus won't help much later.

You're talking about $99, right? Not gonna happen. The switch released for $100 less than the ps4 and even it's cheapest hardware revision might never go lower than $129. If we ignore economics and go only about the company's will, sony won't do it either. They kept ps4 at $299 for years. They clearly don't ever want to sell it for less than $199 outside black friday.

Link_knight30 said:

I first believe it won't beat PS4 but i later think that is not even a direct competition.

I mean: the switch is like an hybrid console, is not entirely a homeconsole and not entirely a portable, however it has the advantage of being both.

It is more realistic to compare the PS4 with another "full" homeconsole.

Conclusion is: the switch will sell more for a little bit not for being better on sales but for being also a portable. (like 2 consoles in one)

As stated by Radek, this thread doesn't care about such behaviour. Only wheter the switch will outsell the ps4 and if yes, when.

Last edited by Nu-13 - on 27 January 2020

Around the Network
curl-6 on 27 January 2020
Radek said:
Link_knight30 said:

I first believe it won't beat PS4 but i later think that is not even a direct competition.

I mean: the switch is like an hybrid console, is not entirely a homeconsole and not entirely a portable, however it has the advantage of being both.

It is more realistic to compare the PS4 with another "full" homeconsole.

Conclusion is: the switch will sell more for a little bit not for being better on sales but for being also a portable. (like 2 consoles in one)

Nobody cares if it's direct competition or not, we just speculate whether it can outsell PS4, same was we speculated if DS would outsell PS2.

This; a comparison does not need to be limited to only very similar devices.

PS4 and 3DS were compared for years, and the former outselling the latter was considered a milestone.



zorg1000 on 27 January 2020
yo33331 said:
zorg1000 said:

Are you aware of what emerging markets are? It's pretty much everything besides North America, Western Europe, Japan & Australia.

Sony choosing huge profits and never having a permanent price cut on PS4 Slim & Pro despite both being over 3 years old and PS5 likely being sold at a loss initially all suggest that Sony has no desire to do any big price cuts for PS4.

Okay, PS2 did 25M, PS4 is now at almost 18M there, so there is still 7M more for PS4 to do there, outside of these markets. With US, europe and japan left, PS4 can reach 140M with proper pricecuts.

As for the profits, there is some logic in that yes, but this is also true for every other past generation, and despite that they have always done at least 1 major price cut, even 2 with PS2 and PS1.

140m isnt realistic, look at regional sales in a similar time frame.

PS2

N. America-47.68 million (shipments March 07)

Europe-44.79 million (shipments March 07)

Japan-20.15 million (sales end of 2006)

NA+EU+JP-~112 million

PS4

N. America-35.30 million (sales Jan 2019)

Europe-43.67 million (sales Jan 2019)

Japan-8.84 million (sales Jan 2019)

NA+EU+JP-~88 million

It currently has a ~24 million deficit in these 3 regions and that will grow as NA/JP are not as strong for PS4 and PS4 not taking as long to reach mass market appeal in emerging markets within Europe (Eastern Europe). This deficit will likely grow to ~30 million when all is said and done.

Even if RotW matches PS2, the deficit in NA+EU+JP will not allow it to reach 140m, 125-130m is far more likely.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

zorg1000 on 27 January 2020

https://www.sie.com/en/corporate/release/2011/110214.html

PR statement from 2011, at the end it mentions that Eastern Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia & South America are the primary markets where it is still selling well.

PS2 legs were mainly due to these regions, PS4 did not have this issue of a super slow start and explosive later growth in these regions so PS4 legs coming anywhere close to PS2 is not happening.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

VideoGameAccountant on 27 January 2020

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how well Nintendo's other handhelds have performed. Here is a brief rundown of each of Nintendo's handhelds by global sales

System Sales
Game Boy 118.69 M
Game Boy Advance 81.51 M
Nintendo DS  154.02M
Nintendo 3DS 75.45 M
Average Sales 107.41 M

Keep in mind too that the GBA was cut off early so it was only on the market for about 4-5 years. But as you can see, the average for Nintendo's handhelds is 107 million. This is already about where the PS4 is at. Switch only needs to sell a bit more above the average which is very doable. Nintendo's Q3 results aren't out yet but so far Switch sales are up about 30 percent through the first 6 months. 

I think this assumption that it can't happen is really driven by people looking at the console side and not the handheld side. There is a reason Nintendo made a hybrid system.



Visit my site for more

Known as Smashchu in a former life

Around the Network
zorg1000 on 27 January 2020
VideoGameAccountant said:

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is how well Nintendo's other handhelds have performed. Here is a brief rundown of each of Nintendo's handhelds by global sales

System Sales
Game Boy 118.69 M
Game Boy Advance 81.51 M
Nintendo DS  154.02M
Nintendo 3DS 75.45 M
Average Sales 107.41 M

Keep in mind too that the GBA was cut off early so it was only on the market for about 4-5 years. But as you can see, the average for Nintendo's handhelds is 107 million. This is already about where the PS4 is at. Switch only needs to sell a bit more above the average which is very doable. Nintendo's Q3 results aren't out yet but so far Switch sales are up about 30 percent through the first 6 months. 

I think this assumption that it can't happen is really driven by people looking at the console side and not the handheld side. There is a reason Nintendo made a hybrid system.

GBA was cut short but on the other hand Gameboy had an insane sales curve thanks to Pokemon & GBC causing it to peak in its 10th year and went 12 years before getting a successor which is unheard of so I think they cancel each other out.



When the herd loses its way, the shepard must kill the bull that leads them astray.

LGBTDBZBBQ on 27 January 2020

Emerging markets were the main reason why PS2 managed to sell a ton of hardware even after the release of PS3, but now PS4 is readily available in those markets since 2014. In the southeast Asian countries, you can easily get the megapack deal of PS4 with 3 free games(GOW+GTAV+HZD) and 3 months of PS+ subscription at $250 while Nintendo Switch + Zelda BOTW bundled is around $400.



aris4me on 28 January 2020

I was wondering why we say "switch 2 " like it may be a completely different console in terms of sales... and why we won't calculate switch + switch 2 vs ps4 + ps4 pro... Cause all these sales of PS4 are ps4 + ps4 pro (Gen 8 + 8,5 or 9 or I don't know :p )



last92 on 28 January 2020
aris4me said:

I was wondering why we say "switch 2 " like it may be a completely different console in terms of sales... and why we won't calculate switch + switch 2 vs ps4 + ps4 pro... Cause all these sales of PS4 are ps4 + ps4 pro (Gen 8 + 8,5 or 9 or I don't know :p )

For the same reason we won't add PS5 sales to PS4 sales. And technically speaking, ps4+ps4 pro is competing against switch+switch lite+whatever future revision that will not have its own exclusive games.



Link_knight30 on 28 January 2020
Radek said:
Link_knight30 said:

I first believe it won't beat PS4 but i later think that is not even a direct competition.

I mean: the switch is like an hybrid console, is not entirely a homeconsole and not entirely a portable, however it has the advantage of being both.

It is more realistic to compare the PS4 with another "full" homeconsole.

Conclusion is: the switch will sell more for a little bit not for being better on sales but for being also a portable. (like 2 consoles in one)

Nobody cares if it's direct competition or not, we just speculate whether it can outsell PS4, same was we speculated if DS would outsell PS2.

Yes, that's what I said in my conclusion: in my opinion, the switch will outsell the PS4 probably after 2023. I was just explaining why i think it will.