My point. Is we're in the middle of a pandemic. Many unemployed. And that people are overestimating the amount of disposable income people will have for what's shaping up to be a very expensive toy. And that's assuming shit doesn't get worse than it is now in the fall. This isn't the PS4/X1 launch.
You're right in your general premise. You're just missing that launch window stock is usually limited to a few million consoles and that the bulk of early adopters are upper middle class and above types with disposable income to pay top dollar for new gadgets--and most of those folks are like me and been working from home on full salary--or diehard gamers and fanboys who'll buy day one even if it means credit card debt as they have to have the shiny new toy and post about it online.
Any impact would be more next spring and summer when the usually launch window early adopter market is saturated. If the economy is still down then sales could suffer. However, at least in the US it seems like we're taking a "fuck it the economy is more important" approach so I think unemployment will be way lower by the time the early adopter market has stopped buying up all the consoles anyway. The things where unemployment will likely still be high are things like service industry jobs and waiters etc. don't really make enough to buy consoles at $300-500 anyway (again unless they're hardcore gamers or fanboys and will do credit card debt to buy early).
To be even more blunt, I don't think the console companies give much of a fuck about poor and working class gamers. That's a chunk of the market that, outside of the hardcore among them, usually buys consoles later on after price drops, buys older games cheap or used etc. They want the middle class and above with disposable income that buy consoles at full price, buy lots of games day one at $60, spend money on DLC, MTs and their subscription services. And that's even more true early on around launch when the hardware costs the most it ever will and all the games are full price for a couple months (and longer for the bit titles) as the new owners are thirsty for next gen content.
If they actually cared about the lower income segment of the market during the launch window they would delay and not launch during a pandemic and economic drop that's mostly only hurting the lower income service industry segment of the market as other things didn't shut down and remained open or working remotely. They don't care and know that their launch window stock will fly off shelves as the launch base is a combo of people still making money and diehards/fanboys that will take credit card debt to buy their consoles. They know the lower income folk will mostly buy later in the generation when prices have dropped and the economy is stronger.
