Sony should have seen more growth this generation. XB1 was 58 million units lifetime. PS4 was 117 million units lifetime. Xbox Series is unlikely to sell more than 36 million units lifetime. Even if PS5 somehow manages to sell 117 million units (it won't), this leaves a gap of 22 million units from last gen to this gen. Some people always owned two consoles and just went down to a PS5 for this gen, but that can't account for all 22 million losses. The release of PS5 games onto PC is causing former Xbox users to go with PC instead of a PS5. It's also causing PS4 owners to go with a PC instead of a PS5. Nintendo is the only company that even tries to play the traditional console strategy of exclusives and fair console prices anymore and they've sold 150 million Switches. 

TL/DR: PS5 should have seen massive growth over PS4 due to XB Series failing. It didn't because price increases and porting exclusives to PC are hamstringing it. 

Edit: Just to point this out further. 360 and PS3 sold a combined  173 million units. PS4 and XB1 sold a combined 175 million units. This is because PS4 managed to capture most of the marketshare from Xbox and a  little from the Wii U's failure. Anyway even with the Switch's success the PS5 should have gotten 10-15 million more units sold from Xbox customers leaving Xbox and going to PS5. But they didn't. They went to PC. And assuming PS5 ends at 105 million units that would be something like 18-25 million units in growth that PS5 failed to get from the collapse of Xbox. 

DoubleEdit: Mistakes made in one generation often take until the following generation to completely show up in sales losses. So I expect the PS6 to sell less than the PS3. 

We can hardly gauge that, but personally I disagree.

Xbox players may be coming over to Playstation or PC, many things can be atributed to each scenario, the most important one should be the pricing tho, this is the very first time a more expensive Playstation may result in actual sales growth between generations. 

PS1 and PS2 were both launched at 299, PS2 saw insane discounts down the road after the PS3 was out and outperformed the PS1 greatly because of this period, if I recall it right it sold around 50M units after the PS3 was out.

PS3 was 499/599, sales decreased a lot.

PS4 was 399, sales grew back a lot.

PS5 was 499, sales are keeping up, even with price increases instead of price cuts, that every other generation before had to keep their sales trajectory steady.

PS5 should be in a clear disavantage in sales compared to the PS4, but it is not, which can only mean it was able to bring new people over to offset the ones it lost due to the higher pricing.

PS5/XBS was also the first generational transition between consoles with strong digital stores and consolidated libraries, they were and are very relevant, and Microsft easiest path of change is the PC, both because Microsoft was nurturing their audience there by sharing their games on day one between their platforms for years, on Xbox and Windows, and also carrying over Gamepass, which is BY FAR the most relevant thing Xbox has had for year, which could still be used on PC.

So it's only natural it's harded nowdays for someone to leave Xbox and go to Playstation than to just go to PC, regardless of what Playstation does or does not. And in fact, Playstation games on PCs were not big hits, which clearly indicates people already there or migrating over were mostly not due to having access to Playstation games, otherwise they would have gotten way better results, accordingly with the downfall of the Xbox sales.

One thing is clear, as I noted above, despite the bigger price, no price cuts and even price increases, Sony was able to prevent any meaningful losses in total hardware sales, and are likely to even outsell the PS4 with the PS5, so at least it's clear it was able to bring people over to offset this all, when it has never happened before.

And again, based on Playstation games results on PC I can't agree having their games available there was enough to contribute for a meaningful sway for interest for choosing to leave Xbox to PC instead of to the PS5, as those games were not big hits, so where is the interest on them that made people move over there because of them?

Even less when Microsoft ecosystem itself has clearly quite more meaningful reasons in itself to justify a Xbox to PC transition, they have their games there foe years, and specially with the nearly seamless transition to stay on Gamepass which is notedly the biggest drive Xbox players have had since the Xbox One.

We should save this conversation for until after next gen launches, because I don't think PS5 will come close to PS4 end numbers. I did check and it looks like out of 14,463  Series games only 2119 games are in the Xbox play anywhere program. This means a vast majority of Xbox games would have to be repurchased on PC. So I don't think your argument for a PC transition being more natural for Xbox users is as strong as you think. 

Xbox is no longer competition simply because as a console platform they are a spent force.

The Xbox Series will probably sell less than 2 million units for the entire remainder of its life til discontinuation. Their games are getting ported to every other major platform. They are barely producing the thing anymore, yet keep raising the price.

It's dead, Jim.

The world is heading into universal products, it would be suicide for any major player try and enter a market with a closed off console.

PS5 is guaranteed to beat PS4 lifetime. It should end up selling over 130 million units. And it doesn't need to make up for lost Xbox sales. By that logic Switch not coming close to selling even half as many units as Wii, DS, and PSP combined should be seen as a huge failure, and Switch 2 not keeping up with Switch would be another failure. Looking at hardware sales alone without examining the other aspects is not the way to do it.

PS4 sold more traditional software than X360 and PS3 combined. To top it off, it generated obscene amounts of money from f2p and services. The PS5 in turn will beat PS4 in most revelant metrics: Revenue, player engagement, hardware sales, software, f2p, services, profitability, you name it.

PS6 is where things may become challenging. But there too things aren't looking as grim as I initially expected. The RAM crisis will inflate PC prices much more than conole prices. And rumors have it that Sony is looking to stop supporting PC with their best selling singleplayer games. Furthermore, they're expected to launch a portable SKU that will put PC handhelds to shame, which could soften the drop from the PS5 gen.

Edit: No offense but your assumption of PS5 selling 105 million lifetime is hilarious. It should top that by the year's end as it's already shipped 92.2 million. You guys complain nonstop about people underestimating or concern trolling Nintendo consoles, then proceed to make the most absurd predictions imaginable.

The number of hardware units shifted doesn't constitute a success or failure.

It's profit... If your platform is unprofitable, then it has failed at it's main purpose for existing... Which is making money.

Which is why a PC handheld that sells 10 million units is stupidly successful, but the WiiU or Vita at 15 million is a bomb.

The Playstation 5 has generated more profit than the PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4 consoles... Combined. It is Sony's most successful console.

Likewise, Xbox series has generated more profit than Xbox One or Xbox 360, which is why Microsoft can justify next-gen hardware.

The console market is stagnant at best and shrinking at worst. It's not really the most interesting market to invest a lot in to fight for a third place, for the foreseeable future.

PS5 is going to comfortably surpass 100M units sold this year, with no successor announced and actually leads that this generation will last longer than the PS4 did, which should 117M units, which sales the PS5 has been keeping up with remarkably close for over 5 years now.

I would like to understand how not only the PS5 won't surpass it but it "won't come close". That doesn't sound realistic, it IS already very close.

About the Play Anywhere program, you gave an over 2 thousand games library to keep playing on PC, that plus keeping Gamepass for new releases and the rotating game library, which has been the most attractive trait Xbox users have been having on Xbox.

How is that not vastly more appealing for Xbox users already invested in this ecosystem when choosing to leave Xbox and going to PC, than like 20 Playstation games on Steam, that are not even big sales hits over there? Even as I said we can hardly gauge it, how should I not infer that later rather than the first?

Even if those few Playstation games there are more interesting for Xbox players than keeping their library so that's the biggest reason they are moving over, why are they are choosing PC instead of the PS5 even as the PS5 has a lot more of those? And if so, why are those games not having massive sales numbers on PC if even aside from the usual PC users it can sell to, so many Xbox users migrating are doing so because of said games, and not mostly to keep a vastly bigger ammount of their games library and Gamepass?

So even if the reason is because of both, I can only infer the Playstation games there are definitely not the biggest reason to move over, the difference in scale is definitely not pointing to it, and sales are quite honestly nearly proving it. It's an added bonus at best, their presence on PC is hardly the reason people are choosing that route and not the PS5 route.

So the effect on PS5 sales growth is small, and the fact that it can counter such a big increase in price and abandoning price cuts as a sales trajectory, I can only see a good ammount of Xbox players already choosing to go for the PS5 when they want those games, instead of the PC regarding the availabity of PS games, instead of Playstation having more people move over from not owning any console, as it has less available audience it's able to convice with the price being higher the whole generation. Less people not interested on consoles up until now simply have access to give that first step to begin with, other than with any other Playstation system, aside from the PS3 first 4 years of so.

This. At best, we will see more Linux-based handhelds from more companies, though cloud gaming and mobile seem more likely to capture mass-market appeal.