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PS5 sales down 49% YoY - Tom Warren
- Thread starter TrebleShot
- Start date
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Yeah, I think that is a huge issue. Vast majority of my son's friends either play on tablet, PC or maybe the Switch. Only a few have a PS5. Nobody even knows how to spell Xbox!
My daughter maybe plays some Switch or her MacBook. It's mainly Mario Kart, Ubisoft's dance game and some farming sims. But overall gaming is like 2% of her time.
So that's a tween and a teenager and neither them or their friends really care about PS5/Xbox consoles.
It's about the same with our friends' kids.
Edit: This is purely anecdotal but it's like a circle of maybe 30-40 kids that we know in average families.
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StereoVsn
Gold Member
People need to stop defending their favorite plastic boxes and Corpos.Thread is about PS5 sales.
More than half the people posting trying their best to derail with "But xbox sales" "PC parts".
Neogaf in a nutshell.
All of them suck. Sony dropping 49% of hardware sales year to year BEFORE the insane price hikes is terrible.
Xbox is dying as well (if not already dead), but that's not the topic at hand.
playbignbox
Member
Well, I'm glad sales have dropped drastically. I'm tired of price increases, a shortage of first-party games, and when they do come out, they're woke games.
Hopefully it gets much worse so we can maybe have hope that Sony will open its eyes, because if it depends on their fanboys, this mess will continue as it is.
ValiantInstance
Member
At which point they become completely useless and Steam wins all arguments until the end of time (or when Gabe's line ends and they're sold to MS or Tencent)
Hector Hall
Member
Yeah, it was a given with data until price hike, but now it's impossible. With puck it will get close to 110 Ltd even with GTA6.
Only way it has to reach PS4 is if a digital only budget PS5 is available for years after PS6 release.
Economy is in the gutter, specially with all this IA madness and components, PC sales are dire this year and Nintendo has adjusted its revisions 3 million down. Playstation couldn't come unscathed.
Sohurmk833
Member
In capitalism it never matters what you have sold in the past. The only thing that matters is what you will sell in the future. And with these kind of prices and the terrible software output future playstation sales will be horrendous.
MrJangles
Member
Thread is about PS5 sales.
More than half the people posting trying their best to derail with "But xbox sales" "PC parts".
Neogaf in a nutshell.
Likewise, go into a Nintendo sales thread and its full of PS warriors.
Baemono
Gold Member
The problem is context.
Switch 1 sales dropped -64% YoY but there is no Tom Warren tweet about it. Cause he knows it would be silly to suggest the 156m Switch is failing.
Q4 is known for being low usually, Sony had unusual great Q4 the past years, but it's not common. And sure, this year's Q4 was weaker, but it followed a Q3 where they sold almost 10m units console. So overall they still sell ganbugster amounts of console and are close to 100M in a smililar pace than the PS4. They will clear that mark by the release of GTA VI if not earlier.
There kind of is.
PC could never sustain big budget productions at the rate consoles have, and that's only gotten worse.
if consoles were to dissappear overnight so would most of the AAA industry. The rest would go when PC ages out (aging population problem is the same there)
Tbf there's a bit of a resurgence with genz etc getting into pc gaming but they don't play big budget releases at all unless a streamer makes them.
Now sure, some would argue that AAA deserves the reckoning etc. but same complaints have been leveled against GaaS, mobile etc.
Reality is, industry landscape is changing, perhaps in ways many here won't recognise as worth staying with.
Sohurmk833
Member
You talk about context and use the Switch as comparison. Nobody would bat an eye at PS5 sales if the PS6 already released. It didn't though and probably won't for years.
He's just providing more context that Tom failed to. The Switch declined like this (3X%) before the Switch 2 too, but the PS5 sold so much last year.
The PS5 sold 2.8M last year in that quarter. To put that into context Switch 2 sold 2.4M in the quarter this year. PS5s 5th year Q4 was unusual, so big that Switch 2 hasn't beaten it in its first year Q4. This drop is a mixture of lower consumer spending in general and an unusual Q4 for PS5 last year.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Context doesn't matter. Sony had their finance call and hardware dropped 46%. That's very significant and news worthy.
Again, I don't care about Switch or Xbox, this is a thread about Sony's performance and Switch 1 comparison doesn't belong anyhow since new hardware is out.
Again, 46% drop before $150 price raise. Console sales are going to absolutely tank from now until maybe GTA 6 and to lesser extent Wolverine release.
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PS5 is at 93m with GTAVI and the holidays coming which guarantees that it will cross 100 million leaving only 18 million to be sold to reach PS4.
The only way that it doesn't reach PS4 numbers is if Sony stop manufacturing PS5 to directly replace them with PS6 .
Bojji
Gold Member
Even Rockstar/T2 admits that PC is much stronger now than in the past:
Even with horrendous problems with GPUs (since first crypto mining) PC is stronger than ever. Obligatory Capcom link:
laynelane
Member
I'm wondering if they'll stay the course with this latest price increase. I get that it's due to issues with materials and market conditions, but raising the price again is not going to motivate anyone still on PS4 to buy a PS5. Agreed that there will be movement with the release of GTA 6 and Wolverine, but it remains to be seen if that will be enough to counter this drop in sales and the upcoming one due to the price increase.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
There are price increases and then there are price increases.
We see a reasonable take from Nintendo. Sony is being greedy AF and probably trying to also increase profitability margins on hardware as well.
We shall see what happens but sales will tank. If people weren't buying PS5 for $500 and Pro for $700-750, they sure as shit won't buy them for $650 and $900.
Mozza
Member
As much as I do not like to defend Sony, we are not really comparing apples with apples here. Sony have a business model where they sell their hardware at a lost and make their profit from software. So as a result are less insulated from unexpected costs, they pretty much have to pass it on. Nintendo on the other hand do make a profit on their hardware so can afford to be a little more conservative with their price increases when these situations arise.
TrebleShot
Member
They also raised prices on their refurbished consoles apparently .Absolute disgrace if true.
I don't think Wolverine is a system seller it's a supplementary game no where near as big as an IP as Spider Man. But. certainly will be popular with Sony fans.
GTA6 will definitely move consoles but there is a barrier. People want to play GTA6 BUT not at ANY cost. People want the cheapest way to possibly play it, right now that's a series s so it depends what the experience is like on that console.
laynelane
Member
I see your point about being greedy. Before the RAM crisis, they had raised the prices on both PS5 models. Even if it's to improve margins, it seems short-sighted. The real money for console gaming is in the services and software sales and that's why the hardware itself has traditionally been sold at a loss (initially) and discounted over time. Sony has reached impressive numbers even with those elevated prices, but I think they could have done even better if they had stuck with how their hardware was priced in past generations.
Someone here recently pointed out that with Xbox's declining hardware sales, Sony should have more consoles sold at this point. There's also the issue of how many long-time customers have chosen to stick with their PS4s. It seems to me that these are directly linked to prices being too high for the PS5. I thought Sony had learned a lesson from the PS3 debacle, but maybe I was wrong.
Among my friends group(anecdotal i know), pc has gained tremendously and both xbox and Sony have lost users. Xbox way worse.
And the main reasons are cross play and discord.
Discord makes it so you can leave your console ecosystem and still talk with people from it. So theres little worry about leaving them behind.
And cross play? If youre playing anything even remotely competitive and youre on console? All you hear is how the game is so much better on pc. Game was cheaper. Has a higher framerate. Runs better. Has better graphics. Has mods. And then the mnk advantage is stark as well. You have to go to pc just to keep up.
People are going to keep moving that direction when they can. $1k console is going to speed that along imo
Baemono
Gold Member
It certain'y does.
Xbox harware falling -30% each quarter since late 2022 doesn't have the sale impact of the Switch 1 falling -64% YoY.
People can spin numbers in any direction they want if we don't put things into their respective context.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Again, this is a thread about Sony's hardware sales. They dropped almost 50% year over year. That is not good.
What is also not good is that it's before the large price increase. This isn't a thread discussing Xbox sales performance (it's dead) or Switch (S2 sold almost 20 mil in 10 months).
It's going to be fascinating seeing the defense force for their favorite corpo after next quarter.
T2 is a complete outlier, if you measure the industry by their metrics, we should be expecting all titles to break 100M unit sales etc.
Anyway PC monetises better, especially after Valve fixed piracy and GaaS took over, yes - but similarly, monetisation has grown dramatically on consoles too (arguably more so - I mean just compare Sony revenues spiking over an order of magnitude since their PS2 heyday, and Nintendo is similarly destroying their NDS success multiple times over - and none of it is on the back of hardware sales for either of them.
The total numbers of the two markets are roughly even - if you remove consoles, you lost 50% of the market directly, but actually more because GaaS (most of which is still F2P) dominates PC market as well, so you're really left with less than a quarter of that market.
And once T2 takes 80% of that - the rest of AAA would be fighting for scraps - Capcom is relatively low cost developer so THEY can afford it (for now) but most of the rest would be dead in the water. Again - maybe deservedly so - but it's just reality.
That was never an actual issue - majority of PC userbase has always been mid-to-low-end and that trend hasn't shifted for 25 years (and I doubt it ever will with new prices). Once people started paying a lot of money, noone cares if they run Intel iGPU or a 5900 - the forumites look at those, but $s don't.
asdasdasdbb
Member
The PS4 gamers have had opportunities to get the PS5 cheaper. Sure it's not $299 or whatever but the PS5 plays most all PS4 games (and better to boot)
They don't care.
Baemono
Gold Member
No, it's a thread about Tom Warren spining numbers.
Sony sold/shipped 16 million PS5 during this fiscal year, which is slighlty bellow last year's 18.5 million.
If my math is mathing correctly, it's a 13.5% decrease YoY (which is natural in any console's life cycle with healthy sales).
But of course it's way less baity than saying « sales colapse -49% OMG Sony Doomed » when you only took one specific quarter.
That's why context matters.
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twilo99
Member
Yeah, I think that is a huge issue. Vast majority of my son's friends either play on tablet, PC or maybe the Switch. Only a few have a PS5. Nobody even knows how to spell Xbox!
My daughter maybe plays some Switch or her MacBook. It's mainly Mario Kart, Ubisoft's dance game and some farming sims. But overall gaming is like 2% of her time.
So that's a tween and a teenager and neither them or their friends really care about PS5/Xbox consoles.
It's about the same with our friends' kids.
Edit: This is purely anecdotal but it's like a circle of maybe 30-40 kids that we know in average families.
What you are describing is more of less "across the board"
It doesn't mean that it's impossible for things to turn around, but at this point it's extremely unlikely.
LordOcidax
Member
Welcome to the new era gaming journalism… According to some journalists the Switch 2 dying and Nintendo is Doomed… That kind of titles generates more clicks than positive news, and "journalists" are clicks whores.
Baemono
Gold Member
No but Tom Warren has a specific talent to spin facts.
Like when Sony sold 21 million PS5 in one single year (which is a amazing feat and pretty rare as only the PS2, Wii and Switch ever did), he focused on other aspects:
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laynelane
Member
Nah, I'll just go with a lack of a permanent price cut and the constant rise of cost of living for why people have stuck with their working older systems. Those are observable facts as opposed to "they don't care".
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Mr Moose
Gold Member
LordOcidax
Member
Gaf warriors waiting for the article to make a thread…Takashi writing his next doom article about Sony/Nintendo:
nial
Member
It's a 6 year old console which a pretty established install base and nearing into the 100M mark. You're overestimating the importance of future sales, especially when Sony (logically) does not see any worth on losing any more money for a rather old platform.
Also, you people have been complaining about software output for the entire generation and it's NOW making a difference? What about any other single factors like over shipments from the previous quarter (which was well apparent with the BF remaining in sale until March) and, intrinsically, the worldwide economy taking a hit (which was WELL reflected on November and December sales in the US)?
asdasdasdbb
Member
But the PS6 can't be a replacement for the PS5 because of the console price.
nial
Member
It's a new console and Sony has already stated that high pricing is an actual concern. We will see.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
As a diehard Sega fan, I'm telling myself this would be the perfect time for those guys to get back in the hardware business. Even better, Sega should bring back the Saturn and Dreamcast, no upgrades or modifications whatsoever, and shout out, "Alright, you losers, let's do it again. And this time, do it right!"
StereoVsn
Gold Member
As we can see Sony, Nintendo and MS don't care. It's short sighted AF yet here we are.
Oh well, if they die they die so to speak.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
You keep talking about context but earlier you got Nintendo and Sony in the mix.
There is no reason to spin this. The 4th quarter was bad for Sony. I suspect it's going to be continuing to be bad or worse for the next 2 quarters till GTA hits and even then we are going to see if people who didnt already buy a PS5 will stomach the hardware prices.
It's certainly going to be interesting to see what happens.
Instant_Classic
Junior Member
Correct
Tiago Rodrigues
Member
I mean him and Jez are on MS's pocket. He's doing what he's getting paid for.
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
S0ULZB0URNE
Member
Failing
Men_in_Boxes
Snake Oil Salesman
DryvBy
Member
It will be. I was going to do a full upgrade on my PC last month until I got to RAM. This RAM cost more than a Switch 2 (currently lol).
If the next gen are at a price point where many don't buy them I worry developers will consider making games for them alone too risky. Not sure if that means there will be a short supply of games to them, no exclusives, or worse post launch support equivalent to Sony's post launch support for hardware for it's perphial systems.