there is absolutely no way Sony is going through this holiday season without a price cut. all these third party deals won't make any sense if they priced their console 100$ higher than the competition. people will just buy the cheaper console and buy those games if needed. if there is a time for sony to put the foot down and make sure they don't give MS a foot back in the US market it is this holiday. MS is going to throw everything and the kitchen sink into this holiday behind halo 5 and advertising backwards compatibility along side forza 6 and rise of the tombraider.
Sony strategically announced their plan to have a press conference at paris games week around the launch of halo 5 most likely to announce new games, worldwide price cut alongside bundles for the holiday.
my prediction is there will be $299 500gb bundles with assassin's creed syndicate this fall. $349 1tb bundles with either cod or star wars. there will also be special edition bundles for both those games for 399$. depending on what ms does they will probably bundle in additional digital game codes like god of war 3 remastered, journey and any other first party games or even bloodborne that won't cost them anything since it will be digital codes.
i know it sounds crazy and extreme and sony could sit back and let ms take the win this holiday but I don't think they will let MS get momentum especially this year when a lot of people are going to have to jump into the current gen with major games like ac, fallout and star wars not on previous gen. by taking a small loss they will gain more people to sell their exclusives that are coming next year. it is looking it will be a jam packed year of ps4 exclusives in 2016 alongside additional hardware in morpheus so it benefits them to not lose any potential customers to ms this holiday. ms do have quantum break and scalebound most likely in early 2016 to carry forward any momentum so not a good idea to let them walk away with a win this holiday.
it is going to be exciting to watch what happens either way
I'm thinking the opposite. PS4 is nearly 2 to 1 to Xbox One and has sold more than Xbox One and Wii U COMBINED. PS4 has a user install base of over 23m. That in itself is why majority of third parties are reaching deals with Sony. Third parties are going with the console that has the higher user install base which is what makes the most sense. Why go after 13m users when you can go after 23m users? Third parties are looking at those who already own the console, not those who may or may not buy the console. Most users equal more purchases and thus more money. Even if it doesn't, they already made money by reaching deals with Sony for exclusive content or whatever it may be.
NA wise, Microsoft is only losing by less than a million units, easily won last year's holiday season, are going all out this holiday season yet again but when you think about it, despite their price drops (yes, drops), removal of Kinect resulting in a price drop to $400 and then a holiday price drop to $350 which became permanent is more of a negative than a positive and here's why - how much confidence do you really have in your product if you keep lowering the price and offering these massive bundles? As a consumer, that doesn't look good to me. It shows desperation, panic, worrying and flat out, "we're not good enough to compete at the same price tag".
As for the those games - Halo 5 should sell but nowhere near what it used to as it's simply not as popular as it once was and once you lose the original developer, fans tend to lose interest. I personally have no interest in Halo whatsoever but even I know that after Halo: MCC that even the most hardcore fans are at the very least concerned.
Forza 6 is great racing game and while Horizon is different, it was outsold by DriveClub which is kind of sad in my opinion. The franchise has also declined in sales since 2009 when it was at it's peak. Add in the fact that a lot of Xbox 360 loyalists switched to PS4 this generation and it's not looking good. It will sell between 2m and 3m which is excellent for a racing game but is going to sell consoles? Highly unlikely.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is going to bomb badly and here's several reasons why - 1) the user install base is only 13m compared to 23m for PS4. 2) A lot of people are pissed off that the game is timed exclusive so even those who own an Xbox One but may have preferred to buy and play it on PS4 will most likely wait for a sale, price drop or the PS4 version. 3) Unless the Xbox 360 version has been cancelled, it's cross-gen and I don't care how many times they say it's being built on Xbox One, if it's still cross-gen, the differences will be minimal at best and mainly just in visuals. And this is proven with every cross-gen game thus far. No reason to buy an Xbox One when if you own an Xbox 360, you can play it on that instead. Seriously, what are you losing? Extra strands of hair flowing in the wind??? LOL. Give me a break.
4) This is actually the main reason - Fallout 4. NO ONE expected it to release this year let alone on November 10th. Tomb Raider was an excellent game and I actually preferred it over Uncharted 3 but it didn't sell as good as Square Enix was hoping which is why they took this huge sum of cash to let it be a timed exclusive for Xbox One. The PS4/Xbox One version of Tomb raider was an even bigger disappointment simply because to release it 10 months later is not a good thing at all through the eyes of a consumer and can be seen as nothing more than a huge cash grab which it most likely failed at. Huge difference between exclusives like The Last of Us being re-mastered compared to third party games being re-mastered. Exclusives make sense because you can only play it on that "brand" where as with third party games, you can play it on any of the three (or now five) consoles including PC.
Back to Fallout 4. I would be in the extreme minority that chooses ROTR over Fallout 4. But the majority won't do the same. Fallout is more of an Xbox brand than it is a PlayStation brand (like MGS is more of a Sony brand than a Microsoft brand) and with it including mods at launch and being a huge open world compared to a linear 20 hour game, which do you think is going to do better?
If anything, there's a better chance of Fallout 4 selling Xbox One more than there is Halo, Forza and a timed ROTR combined and granted, im probably over doing it but I wouldn't be surprised at all if Fallout 4 sells more than all three combined and pushes the Xbox One more than those three combined.
I see Sony staying at $400 until next year's E3 unless they go into panic mode which I don't see why they would. Despite the lower price, bundles, free games, etc., PS4 is STILL wining in NA so just imagine if Sony did lower the price? They would kill off Microsoft and Xbox One. I see Sony releasing a $400 1TB bundle with a few of their exclusives packed in via digital codes. As for Star Wars or COD, it will be the same as the Batman bundles. In the end, Sony has NO REASON to lower the price of the PS4.
Let's say for argument sake that Microsoft wins November and December and overall, four months out of twelve for 2015. The difference will be minimal overall. People are just looking at the holidays and that's it. But guess what, it's not a three month race. It's a 12 month marathon. Microsoft can have their holiday win because it doesn't mean a damn thing if you're still losing the rest of the year.
Going by the link in the opening post and via the NPD 2014 archives, Xbox One outsold PS4 2.69m to 2.16m in October, November and December combined for a difference of 530k. Between January and May 2015, PS4 has outsold Xbox One 1.198m to 989k for a difference of 209k.
Despite the removal of Kinect, the $350 price tag, games being thrown in for free, etc., Xbox One has ONLY outsold PS4 by 321k between October 2014 and May 2015.
Sorry but that's not exactly great to be perfectly honest especially when Microsoft is going all out and Sony is just cruising. When PS4's biggest games last year was a flawed at launch and should have been delayed again Drive Club and a cross gen port in Little Big Planet 3 and you can ONLY outsell the competition by 530k despite huge marketing, a better exclusive lineup, cheaper price, free games and promotions, im sorry but that's nothing to be bragging or gloating about.
The fact that Microsoft is even losing in NA is sad in itself simply because despite what they say, they only care about NA where as Sony wants to win worldwide. Unless Xbox One outsells PS4 by at least 2m this holiday season, I don't see a price drop whatsoever and im sure those investors at Sony realize that if Microsoft lowers the price to $300 for the holidays or adds more free games or whatever, they know it's only because Microsoft is basically giving away their console.
Imagine this, Sony waits until E3 2016, lowers the price to $300, includes a 1TB hard drive AND it's a slim version. That in itself will make up for whatever Microsoft wins by in November and December. Add in Uncharted 4 and Street Fighter V and just like im talking about it now, I'll be saying the same thing next year - winning two months doesn't mean anything when you're losing eight months out of twelve.
Looking ahead to 2016, Sony has Uncharted 4, SFV, Horizon, The Last Guardian, No Man's Sky, Hellblade and others as well as Morpheus. Sony hasn't even started with their exclusives kicking in yet while Microsoft is going all out for the holiday season but yet, the rest of the year is non-existent to them.
I can't speak for anyone else but I prefer Sony's setup of having their exclusives spread out throughout the year simply because it gives me more time to play them and once finished, I can look forward to the next exclusive. With Microsoft, it's like by January, im done and they have nothing until October. That's how I look at it.
I don't see Quantum Break or Scalebound coming out until mid/late 2016 and if anything, I wouldn't be surprised if Quantum Break gets delayed until 2017 simply because they're trying to implement a TV show or whatever crap they're trying to do and my guess is that it's going to screw up the game itself. Scalebound is by Platinum Games who I have no worries about but I still don't see the game coming out early 2016 especially with early 2016 being packed already. Being a exclusive, new IP and going against Dark Souls III, I see Scalebound as a mid/late 2016 release. Better to release it after March/April as it will have a better chance of selling.
Sorry for the long post. I just find it funny why so many people think that Sony should lower the price of the PS4 when they truly have no valid reason to do so. 2015 isn't the time for a price cut especially if/when they announce an Uncharted 4 console bundle as that will easily sell at $400.
Either way, it will definitely be fun to watch and in the end, us gamers win.