Sony’s PS5 sales are down 29% YoY for the last quarter, missed 21M (20.8M) mark for FY2023, FY2024 target 18M
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I think this news is expected, similar to Nintendo I think we've reached the peak of the console generation already and passed it. What will be interested will be if a similarly priced or more expensive pro console invigorates anything or completely flat lines after a bit. That will tell us how much of it is consumer spending/inflation related.
Mochizuki is just a bad analyst. He's about as accurate with his predictions as Michael Pachter. When he reports on shipments and purchases it's fine, but I've generally observed that when he's trying to predict something he's incorrect.
And I'm speaking as a Nintendo observer more than a Sony one. I used to call him the Wall Street Joker on a different forum (he worked for WSJ back then) back in the NX rumor days because he was incorrect so often lol. Even now, I think one of the reasons Nintendo made a corporate Twitter was because his incorrect predictions were affecting their share price. For a while there it seemed all that Twitter did was refute his claims
the PS4 started at $400 and the PS5 disc model is still the most popular version. keeping up the same pace was going to be very hard at that price.
now the question is if they can drop the price or if the manufacturing is still too expensive to do that move.
now the question is if they can drop the price or if the manufacturing is still too expensive to do that move.
Listen, I'm an outlier who bought one ONLY because I am a FF7 fan. Had that game not come out or it be multiplatform on day 1 I would not have purchased a PS5.
I know im in a very very slim minority.
I know im in a very very slim minority.
Failure doesn't work as a descriptor. Obviously Sony is doing well enough given industry struggles. But where did the people who were there for PS4 go? Sure as shit wasn't Xbox. Where did the ten million or more people that didn't buy Series consoles this gen go? Wasn't Sony. Or at least, not in a meaningful way or you'd probably see PS5 outpacing PS4.
I think the industry is quietly shitting their pants and have been for a while over all of this. No one knows how to react and idk how they could. There's so many variables.
Nintendo: sucks to be you guys.
this. It's like when we see a game failed / underperformed and then it sold like 5 million or something and we're like "oh this industry is fucked isn't it?" :(
I still think it's so weird that the PS5 is already at nearly 60 million… like it's already surpassed things like the original Xbox, Super Nintendo, N64, etc and people feeling like this generation is just barely getting started.
Just kinda weird to think about in terms of expectations.
Just kinda weird to think about in terms of expectations.
PS5 selling less than PS4 is not a faliure, but the highest cost of consoles, highest dev cost and low margins are the big problems Sony is facing now.
We are 4 years now and PS5 is still being sold for 500-ish euros in Europe when PS4 was selling for €300, this is the "big" issue, and PS5 Pro costing even more is not going to help either.
Sony was pretty aggressive in marketing, bundles and discounts last year. Results would be way more down without it.
I think the numbers are good, seems like most people do. But unfortunately, the shareholders with all the money must see record breaking growth every single year for eternity or a blood sacrifice will be required.
Unless the line graph perpetually goes up and to the right, the people with more money than they can count are not happy.
Unless the line graph perpetually goes up and to the right, the people with more money than they can count are not happy.
Call me crazy, but we're still getting cross gen games regularly. What if they're still just on their PS4? Has the average consumer really had a compelling reason to move on, particularly with the PS5 being noticeably more expensive than the PS4 was at a similar point in their lifecycle?
That's just a small part of it. I said it in another thread. Mobile, streaming, free to play games that don't need new consoles to run, ...anything you can think of competing for time is helping shrink this market. People keep burying their heads in the sand and pretending Xbox is the only one truly suffering. Suffering they are, but there's a reason Sony is branching out to PC. Consoles alone will not bring the profits they want anymore.
And honestly, I'm starting to wonder if Rockstar is glad they are waiting until (at least) sometime next year. They can't be happy with these console numbers for the release of their next, long-awaited title. This might be the first time they are thinking maybe they'd like to have PC day and date as an option to boost sales.
IMO I think the people (young teens?) who got into gaming with the PS4 gen and turned into "gamers", a lot graduated to PC.
People younger than the PS4 gen kids are on mobile/iPad now because that's what they have and don't care enough to get a console… and are too young for a PC yet. But if they do end up being really into gaming, they'll probably go PC because that's where the industry is at.
PlayStation needs to do something to expand their reach, PS5 targets too hard on the "gamer" crowd that would probably go mostly PC if given a choice when growing up. Especially when you look at the current audience asking for features like VRR and 1440p support, 60fps etc.All of these features are a PC spec race for the hardcore audience… that probably should just get a PC if they want specs and knobs to tweak.
Thinking maybe they shouldn't necessarily continue to be the choice for "gamers"… maybe they should go more casual if they want to stick to traditional plug and play consoles?
lol maybe they need to look at their own blue ocean strategy? Something to expand their market beyond the best place for "gamers".
I swear in the USA the number of consoles PS5 is up on PS4 and the number of consoles Xbox Series is down on the Xbox One is similar. Just on a very basic level of analysis and Sony saying 30% of PS5 owners didn't have PS4 around that time.
The PS5 has done well considering a multitude of factors:
COVID launch
Everyone is broke in inflation hell
Big games now take way too long to develop, long gaps between event releases
The price
But honestly, it's still too expensive. Wages have been flat for decades and a 500-600 dollar game console is just as pricey for most people today, as 20 years ago. More expensive in fact, since the cost of everything else has gone up.
There is a ceiling on the comfortable price of set top box devices. PS4 was in a real sweet spot for its price and value proposition. But was at the high end of the widely palatable price range.
COVID launch
Everyone is broke in inflation hell
Big games now take way too long to develop, long gaps between event releases
The price
But honestly, it's still too expensive. Wages have been flat for decades and a 500-600 dollar game console is just as pricey for most people today, as 20 years ago. More expensive in fact, since the cost of everything else has gone up.
There is a ceiling on the comfortable price of set top box devices. PS4 was in a real sweet spot for its price and value proposition. But was at the high end of the widely palatable price range.
In blue, the titles that were available on the previous platform (PS3, PS4) Looking at the same time in the PS4 generation, the top 10 of NPD looked like so:
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare
- Battlefield 1
- Tom Clancy's The Division
- NBA 2K17
- Madden NFL 17
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Overwatch
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III
- FIFA 17
- Final Fantasy XV
- Hogwarts Legacy
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III
- Madden NFL 24
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2
- The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Diablo IV
- Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
- Mortal Kombat 1
- Star Wars: Jedi: Survivor
- EA Sports FC 24
The console doesn't have any big system sellers. It still feels like the gen is starting yet we're almost 4 years into this gen and I can't think of a system seller game.
I get some people dislike the framing but investors are going to pay attention to the negative side of things to evaluate their position in the company. Doesn't need to be all sunshine and rainbows all the time lol
Like I said earlier, it's so many things. It's why I think they are all so nervous. There are so many bets to be placed and how it all shakes out will be messy.
See, I get how that sounds like a good thing...but that should put PS5 comfortably ahead of PS4. By however slim a margin, they are behind. Maybe they make it up, maybe they don't. But that shows that a number of people that were on PS4 haven't come back yet. What's keeping them off? Price? Don't care about Sony exclusives enough? Hooked on mobile? Fortnite juts fine on PS4 so no real need to bother yet? I guarantee Sony are trying everything they can to figure this out because I highly doubt they themselves look at these numbers the way this board does.
I used to laugh at the idea that Xbox needed the ABK acquisition. Seeing where the industry is now, of course on top of Xbox's abysmal sales...I think they'd be extra fucked. Like fuck fucked without it. Just weird times.
Yep. Sony misses their own revised projections and people still try painting it as a success. Face it, the market for consoles is flat. Sony is in a much better position in the hardware market than MS, but there's a lot to be concerned about if you're Sony. And a lot to be concerned about if you're mainly a console gamer. I'm not enjoying much of the news lately.
everywhere. or they're just holding on to their PS4s waiting for PS5 to become more affordable (which it might not)
Spider-Man-2
God of War: Ragnarök
Returnal
Final Fantasy XVI
Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth
Demon Souls Remake
Can we stop with this? Like every year they have had at least one tent-pole. Only 1 on that list has come to PC and that's not even all the games that launched as exclusives that could be potential system sellers. I don't get why so many people insist the PS5 has nothing to play, to me they have plenty at this point in the console's life cycle.
But you don't understand, Baby.
It's FUD to *checks notes* use established financial analysis techniques to compare both fiscal year and quarterly results to previous fiscal year and quarterly results using Sony's own guidance for investors.
Only idiots do that, only the enemies of PS do that.
All of those factors add to it yeah. Games like Fortnite and Apex Legends hadn't really released yet if we look at last gen. Also COD was fully Xbox One and PS4 only at this point. If you only play the big F2P games there is probably no reason to upgrade to play just the same game again. We know PS5 is massively lagging behind PS4 in Europe as most of the stock was sent to USA and Japan too. GTA 6 will be the big next gen mover. The price drop is needed too.
It's wild that this is already the 5th year the PS5 has been on the market. Console generations used to last only 5 years, but now they're closer to 10. I wouldn't expect YoY growth at this point as Sony will be content to maintain their level of sales or stay close to that until the next generation is ready
Unfortunately, as is the case with Xbox, I just don't feel like this gen ever even started, or that I'm missing out by not owning either console. Even when I could've gotten either console for $350 over the holidays, I never even batted an eye.
Maybe for you, but for the majority of gamers, well the sales speak for themselves.
It's the 4th year it's been on the market and won't hit year 5 until this November.
I've gone over this in earlier posts but to summarise, there is a lot of information in the earnings report, most of it very positive. Tom has decided to take 2 things that appear negative in isolation and only mention them.
Even then, it misses the context that the quarterly hardware sales YoY decrease was against a quarter where supply was greatly increased and so saw unusually high growth. The FY hardware sales are also the highest number of Playstation consoles sold in a year, but it's only framed as a missed target. The facts may be accurate, but when you omit other facts it creates a different impression.
Im sure Sony isnt worried with GTA around the corner. That game will single handedly change the industry
I dont even think there's a relevant platform for GTA besides PS5? The reach across age demographics must be insane for GTA. Modern GTA Online fans to older gamers who played the PS2 games
Im expecting it to change the sales trajectory
I dont even think there's a relevant platform for GTA besides PS5? The reach across age demographics must be insane for GTA. Modern GTA Online fans to older gamers who played the PS2 games
Im expecting it to change the sales trajectory
There's only so much room in a tweet. The sales graph was included in the tweet. The additional context that you omitted is that the forecast was originally 24M, revised down to 21M, and then they even missed that. Tom also didn't mention that they revised the forecast, which, if he was really going for the "negative spin" jugular, he would have mentioned. Sony expected the growth from early last year to continue, and then it flattened. That's not great. None of this is great. You might even say it's negative.
It's all about context. Sure they sold a lot of consoles but they missed both of their initial targets. And to get these numbers they had to get very aggressive with price cuts leading to thin margins on sales.
Omitting context and focusing on a specific angle is the definition of spin
What price cuts? Hardware revenue was up because they didnt get aggressive with price cuts.
lol refusing to believe this is a genuien question, but go on
Context he omitted:
Original forecast was 24 million. It missed the original target by 3 million.
If that were true, Rockstar would be extra nervous. You better believe they want Xbox performing well to help. V released at the tail end of the 360/PS3 generation. insane numbers of consoles to put out on. then a bump in visuals and whatever else to keep selling to the new gen not that long after. This is a totally different landscape. PS5 is not enough. I truly wonder how long they wait to dump on PC this time. They'll want those sales more than ever.
He didn't have to just put out one tweet, he could write an article and link it, or write a thread like other people did and has been shared in this topic. He chose which things to mention and how much detail to give.
Astronomically high projections that get revised when the circumstances change to still remain the best year of hardware sales ever is indicative of a strong business not quite booming as much as was hoped previously. It was missed by less than 1% too. Not to mention that for the year, hardware sales did grow strongly.
If you honestly think these are negative results then sorry, that's just not living in reality.
That and/or 'if I'm gonna drop $500 or more on a PS5 in 2024 it's gonna be a Pro'. Not knowing what the price is for that, of course.
4.5 million in this quarter is pretty great actually, better than they ever managed with the PS4 I think and last year's was the best ever for them. But being 1% within their publicly revised target is very concerning I'm sure.
I mean it says being up was more less solely on the success of Q1 and early Q2. The rest of the year wasn't up. Furthermore, PS5 is now once again behind PS4 by 2million. The gap between PS4 and PS5 grew in Q3/Q4
The declining sales of ps5s that this thread is talking about? Yeah they're speaking