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Forums - Sales Discussion - Danial Ahmad - PS5 sold 4,5m by Dec 31st 2020. + XSX/S ~3,1-3,3m

kazuyamishima on 04 February 2021
NoCtiS_NoX said:

One thing to point out on the PS4 debacle it seems PS4 is sold out. I mean in my country I am seeing more of Switch stocks than PS4 which is not normal. There's a lot of Deals and promotions for PS4 and when I went to my usual stores I cannot see any PS4 in stocks. The new deal now doesn't include PS4 units for the Chinese new year, Those deals was a lot last year. It's either PS4 is on it's way out or Sony is preparing for one last push by releasing the super slim with a price cut or they prioritize PS5 to be produced.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/where-to-buy-playstation-4-sold-out/

PS4 has been with extremely limited stock since Covid started. 
But reducing the price to $199 would make it more difficult for Sony to keep with demand.

PS5 demand seems to be even higher that PS4 when the latter launched. Only time will tell if PS5 performs better than PS4. 



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Farsala on 04 February 2021
RolStoppable said:
Farsala said:

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9151486

@bold Nah, I am right on the money with the legs expectations. Everyone else though... Even you designated my prediction as troll.

https://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9153567

This was in May 2020, when things were looking pretty clear too.

I have held this prediction for years, I just need to dig for it in one of Sony's Quarter shipments threads.

Yup, I definitely did not expect it that the PS4 could have something as crazy as its holiday quarter being lower than the preceding quarter. I didn't expect it a few months later either, when in August Sony forecasted 9m for the fiscal year. They've now shipped only 4.8m through the first three quarters of the fiscal year, which looks as if they didn't know how many they'd be able to produce or would be producing. It's odd.

Back in May 2020, I expected sub-10m for the fiscal year, bringing the LTD shipments by March 2021 to at least 118m, with another few million to follow. That's why I had ruled out under 120m entirely. No price cut was a given, but even then more than 1.4m during the holiday quarter seemed like a sure thing, because it's normal for the holiday quarter to be the biggest one of the year.

Some of the low stock makes sense due to the high demand from earlier due to the stimulus checks/ covid. It appears Sony thought the manufacturing shortage would be resolved by now. And then after the high demand for the PS4, the PS5 needs to be manufactured, so they get hit by a double whammy and must choose with the shortages.

Either way both Sony and Nintendo frequently don't know what they are talking about when it comes to demand. PS3 only had ~8m post successor sales, and so if they met their targets, the PS4 would have easily surpassed that, which I thought was unfeasible in the current market.



AJNShelton on 04 February 2021
Mar1217 said:

Though, is the 3,9M shipped for the Series S/X confirmed by Zhuge ? (I didn't see it on his Twitter)


Wouldn't be surprised that despite the stock issues, the disperancy between sell-in and sold-through numbers are due to the Series S not performing as they wanted it to.

Only MS knows the shipping numbers for Xbox Series, the 3.9 million shipped is for the Xbox One (since back then we used to have numbers).

And yeah, the Series S being easily available shows that it doesn't perform as MS would've expect.



Replicant on 04 February 2021
Jranation said:

I voted less than 120mil probably as a troll too but that fact it might actually happen......

Your (and others') console war posts have contributed to me frequenting less. But eh, at least you admit it.



Agente42 on 04 February 2021
thismeintiel said:

It's a shame Sony didn't push PS4 late in it's life like they did the PS2. A $199 price point and continuing shipments and it could have easily reached 130M. But, I guess to ensure PS5 has a good future, they are using profits from PS4 to cover PS5 HW losses, as well as slowly getting manufacturers shifted from making PS4s to PS5s. I understand it, especially since Covid is probably causing quite a bit of it, but still a shame to see it not sell to its full potential.

Sony will bleed money, the early adopter ps5 migrate for the dead system instead. It's not a shame, the Sony way, gain ground by reducing the videogame price for the limit, is not a profitwise scale. PS2 sells 155M but have less profit than Nintendo ( With GC and GBA). Ps3 bleed almost 4.5b when Nintendo have more than 15b profit on generation 7. 

Force migrate to PS5 is the better way.

Profit is the king.



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Kristof81 on 04 February 2021
thismeintiel said:

It's a shame Sony didn't push PS4 late in it's life like they did the PS2. A $199 price point and continuing shipments and it could have easily reached 130M. But, I guess to ensure PS5 has a good future, they are using profits from PS4 to cover PS5 HW losses, as well as slowly getting manufacturers shifted from making PS4s to PS5s. I understand it, especially since Covid is probably causing quite a bit of it, but still a shame to see it not sell to its full potential.

I guess it must be more profitable for Sony to keep the current price. While we're getting excited over volumes, for Sony it's nice-to-have kind of deal (within the reason of course).  



Intrinsic on 04 February 2021
UnderwaterFunktown said:
JRPGfan said:


Only 115,1m PS4's total sold though to consumers.
At its current rate, will it even hit 130m? before they stop production? I'm starting to have doubts (when I was pretty sure, it would years before)

The 115.1 mil is shipped (aka. sell-in) not sell through to consumers, so it's worse actually (though the difference is probably small at the moment)

And while there was a point were 130m seemed possible I think it has been clear for a while that that won't happen. Even 125m looks like a stretch at this point, since Sony are letting its shipments dwindle so rapidly, probably since they have their hands full with the PS5.

The funny thing is, sony keeping the PS4 at $299 is actually a great strategy. 

Yes, it would destroy sales of the PS4, but it would make the adoption of the PS5 easier and more rapid. Hee are two scenarios to support this;

  1. You want to buy a PS4, see that the PS4 slim cost $299, the PS4 pro $399, and a PS5 digital cost $399. But the PS5 can play all the PS4 games. Buying the PS4 starts to seem like a really stupid choice to make.
  2. You own a PS4 and want to buy a PS5, and you are either spending $399/$499. PS4s still costing $299/$399 means that you can relatively easily sell your used PS4 + controllers...etc for around $200. Putting that towards the PS5 purchase makes that easier for most. (this is actually what did, though in my case I sold my PS4pro and accessories long before the PS5 released so I got around $350 for it).


Dante9 on 04 February 2021
Kristof81 said:
thismeintiel said:

It's a shame Sony didn't push PS4 late in it's life like they did the PS2. A $199 price point and continuing shipments and it could have easily reached 130M. But, I guess to ensure PS5 has a good future, they are using profits from PS4 to cover PS5 HW losses, as well as slowly getting manufacturers shifted from making PS4s to PS5s. I understand it, especially since Covid is probably causing quite a bit of it, but still a shame to see it not sell to its full potential.

I guess it must be more profitable for Sony to keep the current price. While we're getting excited over volumes, for Sony it's nice-to-have kind of deal (within the reason of course).  

Yeah, it's pretty clear that their first priority is to have people make the transition to PS5. Otherwise the PS4 models would have been given a price drop already and made sure they are more available.

We're having our fun with the sales records, but the business, at least in the short term, is not about that.



UnderwaterFunktown on 04 February 2021
Intrinsic said:
UnderwaterFunktown said:

The 115.1 mil is shipped (aka. sell-in) not sell through to consumers, so it's worse actually (though the difference is probably small at the moment)

And while there was a point were 130m seemed possible I think it has been clear for a while that that won't happen. Even 125m looks like a stretch at this point, since Sony are letting its shipments dwindle so rapidly, probably since they have their hands full with the PS5.

The funny thing is, sony keeping the PS4 at $299 is actually a great strategy. 

Yes, it would destroy sales of the PS4, but it would make the adoption of the PS5 easier and more rapid. Hee are two scenarios to support this;

  1. You want to buy a PS4, see that the PS4 slim cost $299, the PS4 pro $399, and a PS5 digital cost $399. But the PS5 can play all the PS4 games. Buying the PS4 starts to seem like a really stupid choice to make.
  2. You own a PS4 and want to buy a PS5, and you are either spending $399/$499. PS4s still costing $299/$399 means that you can relatively easily sell your used PS4 + controllers...etc for around $200. Putting that towards the PS5 purchase makes that easier for most. (this is actually what did, though in my case I sold my PS4pro and accessories long before the PS5 released so I got around $350 for it).

Indeed, and I've argued this before myself. If Sony wanted to do another pricecut for the PS4 it should have been much earlier, we're past the point where it would be in their best interests. It's made even more true by the fact that due to their downscaled rate of shipments they barely keep up with demand even at its current price point, but even if they were still shipping PS4s at a decent rate, cutting the price by now would at best have been a double-edged sword.



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Jranation on 04 February 2021
Replicant said:
Jranation said:

I voted less than 120mil probably as a troll too but that fact it might actually happen......

Your (and others') console war posts have contributed to me frequenting less. But eh, at least you admit it.

It was just a voting poll. I didnt think I would contribute a lot with my single vote. And I was also expecting it to be way higher but with the new results it seems my troll vote may actually be correct. 



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