After E3 and a whole lot of waffling about, I think I'm starting to see the potential in competition. I still think PS5 will sell 120 million or more, easily (I figure it'll slightly outdo PS4 and end up around 130 million, making it the third highest-selling home console after PS2 and Switch, when it's all said and done). But now that we're actually seeing some of the competition's promises actually come to fruition, it actually has some potential!

For the last ten years it's been Sony truckin' along, releasing a handful of industry-defining games every year alongside Nintendo, absolutely railroading the console market since 2011 or so, with their one main competitor doing a tiny fraction of that and losing a whole bunch of steam. They were going in opposite directions for so long, and momentum is absolutely a kinetic factor in the industry so it's understandable that I felt there wasn't a lot the competition could do. buying all those studios is nice but we've not really seen anything from all these acquisitions in years. Unlimited potential, almost no execution. It did slow the descent, for sure, but it didn't reverse the fortunes.

With E3 in our rear-view window once more, I sat down with a fellow PS lovin' buddy of mine and had a real heart to heart, and we compiled a list of games they have and...finally it might actually appeal! I told myself I'd consider getting an Xbox once they have 5 absolute must-have games on the system and at least 10 exclusives I genuinely want/need. Right now, I count 8 titles that I want/need, so I can finally see myself taking the plunge after all this criticism. I still think they gotta do a lot more, but they're finally branching out into more than just the holy trifecta and a wave of mediocre games that take too long to come out and suck. Now we've actually got real games and pseudo-exclusives for real! We have games that are more than just shooters and racers on the platform (though to be fair a lot are still shooters and racers)

Why am I bringing all this up? Well in the wake of all this, all of Microsoft's aggressive purchasing, Sony has been countering them. Sorta. Insomniac is now Sony, Housemarque and potentially Bluepoint are now Sony, and they got that PC port company working for them, too. For the longest time I always saw Nintendo and Sony as sorta doing their own thing and not REALLY getting too much into reactionary shifts in power or what-have-you, and every time people talked about how 'competition is good in the industry' I just sort of rolled my eyes. Yeah, in theory that's absolutely true, but in practice it seems secondary or tertiary to just...makin' a good console and good games.

But now, with Sony finally actually responding to Microsoft and doing so in a way that's organic and natural, it feels like we're finally getting a proper battle between two titans. I, for one, am excited. I still think the battle will be one-sided, but it's nice to see both sides actually stand a chance this time around.

And with Sony's first year being as insanely strong as it is, I expect that momentum to continue. Between new games, new IPs, sequels and remasters, cross-generational games, and indie exclusives, they've had a truly astounding year so I have no doubt in my mind we're looking at 120+ million sold in the long run...unless they PS3 it up again and absolutely destroy themselves. That said, with VR coming and the innovations in the controller, I genuinely find it hard to imaging they'll mess up this generation. Plenty of room to mess up PS6, but I think they still have this generation in the bag. The Ps5 foundation has been set and it's a very, VERY solid foundation.

I think I may have originally said PS5 would end up around 110 million but... now I think that's a bit of a under estimate. I think around 130 million

I would say the same number.

That's a wild prediction.

So 87m units would mean the PS5 will only sell another 77 million units or so over the next lets say 6 years?

How would a breakdown of yearly sales even look in that scenario? We know they plan to sell 22.6 million units in 2022, but to only reach 77 million units you would have to expect them to massively (half?) miss their sales mark? Or do you expect sales to slump from the fastest selling PlayStation console ever to the slowest?

Given we now have some solid sales history with the PS5, its already approaching 10 million units, and currently sold out worldwide, you would have to predict sales really falling off a cliff to not reach past the PS3 lifetime.

Keep in mind who you're responding to. Liquid-Laser is well known for being weirdly silly when it comes to Sony. 

Yes it's more like "What sales do you want it to be" for some people lol.

Should be pretty easy for PS5 to pass the Wii & PS1. I do hope it even surpasses PS4, but I could see it missing that mark (and maybe even the Game Boy, especially since it's still possible the PS4 will not surpass it). The PS5 is off to a good start so far, even with shortages. It's nice to see all 3 consoles performing well!

The PS4 sits at 115.9M, as of March. It only needs 2.8M to pass the Game Boy. You honestly don't think it will pull that off in the next year or two that it's still on the market?

The way the PS4 is selling now?

The PS4 is selling only marginally better than the PS3 did in 2015 when the PS4 was already out for over a year. That year, the PS3 sold 1.6M and sold less than 1M from there. Oh, and the PS3 already had almost one million sold at this time in 2015.

Long story short, the PS4 sales are dropping too fast and will be happy if it can even sell 2 more millions from here.

Oh, and if you don't believe the sales are dropping so fast, consider this:

January 2021 PS4 mean weekly sales: 60k

February: 50k

March: 45k

April: 40k

May: 32k

June: ~28k

@thismeintiel I do think it will surpass the Game Boy, but I was just saying that it isn't 100% certain that it will do it.