It is way too early for predictions like these.

Predicting what the environment will be like next year isn't that complicated that's less than 6 months away not much can change between now and then. Five years I do agree with.

LOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!

There's literally NEVER been a worse time to make this statement than now.

I'm not talking about in life. Very different situation. Obviously things can change in all kinds of way in life in general. Gaming though isn't going to make some dramatic change in 6 months. Unless hackers release the first ever console virus that infects all gaming consoles or only SonyXbox consoles destroying them.

I still feel like things can change a lot in the next 6 months in the gaming environment, especially right at the beginning of a new gen.  There are tons of questions to be answered in the next couple months that will have a huge impact on that environment.  Will Lockhart release at the same time as the Series X?  How much will all the next gen consoles be?  What games will Nintendo release for Switch the rest of the year?  Answers to these things and more will have a huge impact one way or another.

Near the end of last gen XBox 360 was neck and neck with PS3 and six months later, PS4 was off to a much better start than XBox One.

Its an estimate of shipments from the manufacturer not the creator. It's certainly possible if XSX collapses. PS5 can take a large portion of those remaining 50 million.

I will only believe this if @tbone51 make a bold prediction thread

Sony is not invincible, the rocky start to the PS3 and their own financial state as a parent company in that time is evidence of that.  The more people forget that, the blinder they become to the market as a whole.  Being a "professional" company has nothing to do with the success of a product.

Having said that, I look forward to seeing what the PS5 will offer when it does arrive.

What this tells me is that Sony plans on getting the PS5 down to as low as $199 by 2022/2023 at the latest.

That's the only way I see this kinda prediction coming to pass. You wanna push numbers like those that quickly, you have to be at $199.

I think people would be surprised to know that 6 years into the life of the PS2 it had only sold 103M. Here are some other fun facts though...

PS2 launched at $299
19 months later it dropped to $199
12 months after that to $179
12 months after that to $149.

Basically, in 3.5 years the PS2 was at half its launch price. 50% cheaper.

Almost 7 years on, and the PS4 is still only 25% cheaper than its actual launch price. Bt has somehow managed to sell over 112M units.

If sony can get the PS5 down to $199 within its first 36 months, I don't see it not being able to ship 120M units in 5 years.

This is an interesting idea, if I'm not mistaken the PS4 hit the 100 million mark 67 months in. So not only will the PS5 be able to shave 7 months off that, but add an additional 20% on top of it.

The PS2 was able to make such a price drop due to Sony's, not Sony Interactive Entertainment's, position. Sony as a whole was doing quite well for itself in the early to mid 2000s, which allowed one of their divisions to take a risk by cutting the price of the system by such extremes in order to make a long term profit in the form of game sales. Sony today relies on its gaming branch, if I'm not mistaken aren't many parts of Sony shrinking in revenue? This would make a company more cautious about doing this sort of thing. Afterall many times the ones calling the shots aren't those who know the gaming industry, but those who see potential profits being lost due to uncertainty.

Then there's the financial situation in the US (This really is more important than the world as a whole as that's where the most competition will be for the PS5 and XSX), the Bureau of Economics Analysis saw a 39% drop in consumer spending year over year for the second quarter. It is believed that families are currently saving up (also in the report), and while the gaming market is booming for now, the real question is how long can it boom for? With an unemployment rate steadily going down, its still quite high at 11.1 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I'm not saying this will cause the XSX or PS5 to have an advantage over the other, what I'm saying is that in comparison to 2013 there will be a decrease at some point. This of course can be resolved by COVID-19 numbers going down enough to where it is safe to go back and the unemployment rate continues to go down. However I'm not too confident in this, now I do believe the numbers will get better, but will people go out and back to normal life, I don't think so.