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[Usobuko]

When it comes to profit with Nintendo finally going into mobile and majority of the fans embrace it ( Eg. gacha fe ) instead of the vocal minority, plus the subscription model it follows Live and PS plus, things will only look better in the long run.

I still remember the twilight years of 360 making over a billion annually from Live subscription so Sony and the bulging PSN overall revenue will make a killing too.

 

[Omnistalgic]

Guys we say stupid stuff all the time like in sports with "control your own destiny". That term doesn't make any sense. Millions of gamers just like to use the word exclusive, PC is considered a separate platform than the big 3, that's all there is to it.

Are PC gamers offended or something someone calls a game exclusive? Come on man...

 

[donny2112]

Last gen, 360 and PS3 needed the PC as a third revenue stream to make games profitable/more profitable with the hard transition to HD development. Think if Tomb Raider would've only gotten an PS360 release. Might've never seen RotTR come about, for example. PS4 and XB1 are certainly doing better from launch than those two, but PC is still a vital revenue stream. The only ones doing console exclusives would really need to be the first-parties, and even Microsoft is putting out most of their stuff on Windows 10 (such as it is), too. They have a vested interest in giving people a reason to pick up their console, so that makes a lot of sense. Otherwise, most games should also have a PC option somewhere to provide the best bottom-line for the publishers.

 

[Mory Dunz]

no Yooka Laylee?

 

[SinCityAssassin]

no Yooka Laylee?

I would think a majority of yooka laylee's userbase were digital.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

I would think a majority of yooka laylee's userbase were digital.

Plus given that the Wii U version was originally the highest backed version, I would guess a substantial portion of players are probably waiting for the Switch version. Especially considering those types of games almost always do best on Nintendo platforms.

 

[Mory Dunz]

Plus given that the Wii U version was originally the highest backed version, I would guess a substantial portion of players are probably waiting for the Switch version. Especially considering those types of games almost always do best on Nintendo platforms.

it doesn't have a release date yet does it?

 

[MatPiscatella]

Do you really see Sony riding PS4 Pro until 2020?

That's my current outlook, but, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2019.

I don't think they'll let Xbox Scorpio be the significant power leader for that long. PS5 in 2019, PS5 Pro in 2022 IMO.

Eh. I think the power question and its future impact on sales may be bit overstated. If Scorpio releases, sells out, and the mass market conversation is around what a technical marvel it is, then maybe that would cause acceleration for a competitive release. But I don't know if this will be the case. Sure, on enthusiast boards and around the core gaming twitterverse this may be what happens. But for the WSJ or USA Today crowd? Dunno. Maybe. But power isn't the primary driver of performance differences between PS4 and Xbox One at the moment imo. Could be wrong.

"Sony family of videogame systems" likes this.

Well, I mean if you look closely enough at the language games companies use you can see what they envision as the future well before they come out with new products and services.

 

[ethomaz]

PS4 January - April 2016: 1,140,000
Xbox One January - April 2016: 789,000

Yeah, that looks right given what we know of high February and March sales for PS4, it is basically impossible for it to be down YoY YTD this month, and XB1 didn't sell enough this month to be up YoY YTD

I'd guess XB1 is ~5% down and PS4 up 5%.

PS4 > 1195k (> 5% up YoY)
XB1 < 753k (> 4.5% down YoY)

 

[Liabe Brave]

Sorry for the delay, but I've finally run a parametric analysis using the results from the Prediction League thread. The Switch number was announced by Nintendo, and Xbox One has a very constrained ambit, so the calculation for it should be solid. Only PS4 has a range of possibilities. Here are the results for April NPD:

SWI: 280k
PS4: 201k - 229k
XB1: 127k

It's typically best to choose the center of the range as an estimated value, unless there are known skewing factors. There is one here, which is the sales decay curve of previous-gen hardware (360, DS, PS3, PSV, WiiU). This lessening would slightly boost PS4 numbers. However, the effect is likely minor, so I'd suggest dismissing it. The neutral estimate for PS4, then, would be 215k.

I'd guess XB1 is ~5% down and PS4 up 5%.

Note that, due to more detailed analysis of confounding factors, I've revised my February estimates for both PS4 and Xbox One slightly downward, to 396k and 226k respectively. Using those new estimates as well as April's above, we get the following:

      April YoY   YTD YoY
PS4   +23.0%      +8.0%
XB1   -25.3%      -5.3%

It's always been a terrible term. Wish the industry could come up with a better way to reference this type of thing. Or make it go away lol.

I think it's still a germane categorization, though I prefer "hard exclusive" and "soft exclusive". The former means the game is available on no other platform; the significance of that is obvious. The latter means it's unavailable on directly competing platforms, i.e. the same generation/tier, and targeting the same market segment. This is still a meaningful factor for skewing sales volume away from particular platforms, even if the destination is multiple.

For example, a PSV/PS4 release in Japan is soft exclusive to PS4, since it disadvantages Xbox One (none of the desirability of the game attaches to that platform). However, unlike with a hard exclusive the consumer appeal of the title can't be simply assigned to PS4, because some portion of it will go to Vita--maybe even the majority, though this is becoming less common.

 

[Square2015]

Using Liabe Brave for the April #s.

Next-Gen/Current-Gen thus far:

*click to enlarge

Edit:fixed

 

[LiquidSolid]

Using Liabe Brave for the April #s.

Next-Gen/Current-Gen thus far:

*click to enlarge*

Persona 5? You think people bought PS4's a month in advance in anticipation of it?

 

[FLEABttn]

That's my current outlook, but, like I said, I wouldn't be surprised if it was 2019.

Is the implication here that the PS4 Pro becomes the base hardware at some point? I guess I'm confused where you say you don't think it's going to be an extended generation but that Sony'll ride out the PS4 Pro until 2020.

 

[Square2015]

Persona 5? You think people bought PS4's a month in advance in anticipation of it?

Fixed.

 

[MatPiscatella]

Is the implication here that the PS4 Pro becomes the base hardware at some point?

Doubt it... but maybe? I'm not forecasting it that way, but that doesn't mean much.

I guess I'm confused where you say you don't think it's going to be an extended generation but that Sony'll ride out the PS4 Pro until 2020.

Launching 2020 makes it 7 years between PS4 launch and PS5. It was 7 years between PS3 and launch of PS4. I'm confused by your question?

In any case, 2019 wouldn't be a surprise. Who knows.

 

[Nirolak]

I imagine they're currently having discussions contemplating both options.

On the one hand, sales haven't completely fallen apart yet, and there's not a huge clamor for a new box.

On the other hand, once that type of thing starts happening, it usually happens very quickly, so if you decided to switch to a new system too late, you have to suffer a really bad year or two for sales.

I will say that I think we've reached the point where there's a notable slowdown in graphical advancement on a year to year basis. It's masked somewhat due to how long it takes sequels to come out, but I suspect you'll start hearing a lot of complaints when three year in development sequels look a lot like the previous game.

 

[FLEABttn]

Launching 2020 makes it 7 years between PS4 launch and PS5. It was 7 years between PS3 and launch of PS4. I'm confused by your question?

My apologies, I guess I'm confused by where you said that you didn't think this cycle would be an extended cycle "like we saw with what Guitar Hero/Rock Band and motion control helped the PS3/360 gen to achieve" but then said that you thought the PS5 would come out in 2020. I guess I'm not following where 7 years in last gen was an extended cycle but 7 years this gen isn't?

 

[LiquidSolid]

Fixed.

I thought it would've made more sense to change Persona 5 to Horizon, since that was a far, far bigger release.

Regardless, great chart.

 

[Nirolak]

My apologies, I guess I'm confused by where you said that you didn't think this cycle would be an extended cycle "like we saw with what Guitar Hero/Rock Band and motion control helped the PS3/360 gen to achieve" but then said that you thought the PS5 would come out in 2020. I guess I'm not following where 7 years in last gen was an extended cycle but 7 years this gen isn't?

Last gen technically went one more year due to the Xbox 360.

 

[Square2015]

I thought it would've made more sense to change Persona 5 to Horizon, since that was a far, far bigger release.

Regardless, great chart.

I'll do that for the next update. Thank you.

 

[MatPiscatella]

My apologies, I guess I'm confused by where you said that you didn't think this cycle would be an extended cycle "like we saw with what Guitar Hero/Rock Band and motion control helped the PS3/360 gen to achieve" but then said that you thought the PS5 would come out in 2020. I guess I'm not following where 7 years in last gen was an extended cycle but 7 years this gen isn't?

My reference point is the most recent gen. So, "extended" I took as "compared to prior gen".