PlayStation will win this generation in the next 6 months. Here's why.

[Heisenberg007]

Real analysis: "We don't know all the numbers, so we can't make any definitive statements."
Fake analysis: "We ignore the fact that we can't make any definitive statements because it fits our narrative."

Nope. Xbox has one gaming subscription (Gamepass) that they prioritize now. That's the one that they have been building up for more than half a decade now (not XBLG). And they have also been migrating their XBLG users to Gamepass for years with $1 cheap offers that many have availed.

And they share only Gamepass numbers.

Because that's the service that matters to them. I've used their publicly announced numbers.

Why do you want to count subscribers from two different Xbox subscription services anyway? PS Plus / Nintendo Switch vs. XBLG + GP combined. lol.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Just to clarify a few things.

Switch is not relevant to the discussion. It’s a handheld, not a console. DS and 3DS sales were never discussed in previous console wars discussions. It’s not relevant now either. Different demographics; not competing for the same gamers. Nintendo surrendered in the home console business.

Ps Plus Extra and Gamepass users are not the same. Extra piggy backs off existing plus users, which is required for multiplayer gaming. Gamespass is an entirely separate sub from Xbox Live Gold. Comparing Gamepass to Extra while excluding Xbox Live Gold is a disingenuous spin on semantics.

Thirdly, Series S competes against last gen machines like PS4 Pro and One X. Barely a step up for those; will hold Series games back the entire generation.

Next gen comparisons should only be Series X vs PS5 — and there are significantly more PS5s in households over X consoles. Series S is the welfare model that competes with PS4.

Agree for the most part -- except the one in bold.

Just like PS Plus is built on the back of existing Essential users, Gamepass is built on the back of existing XBLG users. MS has literally been offering XBLG users three years of Gamepass for $1. A large majority of Gamepass users has to come from that offer.

 

[Yurinka]

Windows runs on 1.4 billion active devices. So no, that's not how any of this works.

But these supposed 1.4b devices obviously didn't create a user or logged in in the Xbox launcher.

There's 51M XBOs and like maybe a around dozen Xbox Series. Obviously only not all of them will continue active monthly. There should be a small % from mobile but pretty likely the majority of the XBL MAU are from PC.

No, the exact opposite is known, according to the CEO of Microsoft gaming.

Phil Spencer never said GamePass is "profitable".

He said once it's "sustainable", which doesn't imply profitability. May mean they have big loses due to their GP focused gaming strategy in their gaming division but that they can afford it thanks to the profits and money from other divisions of the corporation at least if until in a decade or two they end becoming profitable with GP/their gaming division and end recouping their related investments in the very long term.

Can't be profitable right now compared what they spent only on acquisitions (almost $100B) + the cost of all their gaming teams vs what Sony generates with game subs (can't remember now but it was a few Billions per year and the whole MS gaming divisin makes slightly above a dozen billions per year) being more expensing and having around twice the subs than GP. This is not counting game sales lost for including them day one on GP or money they may spend paying 3rd parties to put games there specially when day one.

 

[Heisenberg007]

MS aren't sharing sub numbers cause they don't want everyone to know they are in first. Same with console sales, they are actually ahead of Switch they just choose not to talk about it

They want to avoid the evil eye

 

[Alabtrosmyster]

Clearly its console sales, which by their definition makes sony the market leader as of now

Also, notice how they limit the scope of their claims as well.

Good for them if they can win in their niche.

 

[Remember_Spinal]

Also, notice how they limit the scope of their claims as well.

Good for them if they can win in their niche.

Thats the thing with microsoft they always talk in corpo-code that you have to decipher. Thats big tech for you, they aren’t going to straight up give you numbers (unless they are big) and they are always going to frame something in a way that sounds positive.

Like the “gamepass is sustainable” line, that could really mean anything for a 2 trillion dollar company. Is it sustainable for the gaming industry, for individual publishers or dev studios, for other platform holders, is it sustainable for the long term future of AAA gaming?

Its really hard to tell

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Nope. Xbox has one gaming subscription (Gamepass) that they prioritize now. That's the one that they have been building up for more than half a decade now (not XBLG). And they have also been migrating their XBLG users to Gamepass for years with $1 cheap offers that many have availed.

As said earlier, that's a very temporary migration for a lot of people. It's not a good argument.

Why do you want to count subscribers from two different Xbox subscription services anyway? PS Plus / Nintendo Switch vs. XBLG + GP combined. lol.

Because Playstation also has three tiers of subscription services, just like Xbox. Of course you should count all of them.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Phil Spencer never said GamePass is "profitable".

The opposite of losing money is not losing money. And that's exactly what he said.

 

[Heisenberg007]

As said earlier, that's a very temporary migration for a lot of people. It's not a good argument.

Why is that temporary? Is that offer still not valid?

Microsoft has been offering that $1 upgrade since at least 2017. It has been nearly 6 years that they have been offering that upgrade, and it is still going on. How is that "temporary?"

 

[ManPhlaps]

The concept of it being called within the next 6 months is absolute fucking nonsense.

 

[Yurinka]

The concept of it being called within the next 6 months is absolute fucking nonsense.

Well, during the next half a year or so there may be some events that may highly push PS:

• Recovering from supply shortages that prevented sales to be way higher judging by huge demand
• To do it on time for the Holydays period, the best selling one of the year, being the year where they released Horizon 2, GT7, Elden Ring, GoWR, TLOU remake, the new PSN, etc
• Potential announcement of a huge acquisition like Square Enix or similar
• Announcement or reveals of upcoming hyping 1st party games and exclusives (like Spider-Man 2, TLOU MP game, Bungie new IP, Firewalk's game, etc)
• PSVR2 launch, which seems to fix and improve most issues that the first one had
• New PS Plus to continue evolving: more exciting games, emulation improvements, cloud gaming on mobile or tvs etc

All these things combined could heavily push them beyond where they are compared to their competition. Specially depending on the amount of consoles they will be able to manufacture during the current FY, this aprox. half a year can be the point of the generation where they could start dominating in a substantial way until the end of the generation.

 

[RickyBooby87]

I think the status quo will be maintained. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, in that order. MS hasn't really done anything different to move that needle. I believe that there are predetermined pie slices that each company will continue to have with a slight variance of a few percentage points.

 

[Heisenberg007]

I think the status quo will be maintained. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft, in that order. MS hasn't really done anything different to move that needle. I believe that there are predetermined pie slices that each company will continue to have with a slight variance of a few percentage points.

I agree. Microsoft has done a lot to give themselves a better chance, but all their efforts were in the wrong direction.

• They spent nearly $100 billion, not to develop new games for their users, but to remove that content from other platforms. In the end, Xbox users will get the same games that they would have gotten otherwise. Nothing changed for the end-user in terms of games.
• They overestimated the impact of Gamepass and underestimated console sales. Gamepass is not growing as fast, and console sales have been deprioritized. On the other hand, Sony has already sold nearly the same amount of PS5s as there are Gamepass subscriptions.

The needle isn't gonna move with this.

 

[peter42O]

Assuming it all plays out like this, after March 2023, Sony would have sold more than 35 million PS5s, while Xbox would be around 19 million consoles (based on current reported and estimated sales data). A ratio of almost 2:1, similar to last gen.

Based on reports, PS5 is at 22m while XS is at 17m as of June 30th, 2022. Your numbers state that Sony would sell 13m PS5 consoles in 9 months (July 2022 through March 2023) while Microsoft would only sell 2m Xbox Series consoles in the same 9 month time period. Is this what you're saying or am I completely missing something?

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Why is that temporary? Is that offer still not valid?

It's temporary because it runs out with your XBLG subscription. Let's say I have 3 months of XBLG left and decide to try out GPU for $1. After those three months, I have to either renew GPU for $15 a month or let the sub run out and then return to my XBLG subscription. Many people choose the latter because they simply don't need GPU.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

Based on reports, PS5 is at 22m while XS is at 17m as of June 30th, 2022. Your numbers state that Sony would sell 13m PS5 consoles in 9 months (July 2022 through March 2023) while Microsoft would only sell 2m Xbox Series consoles in the same 9 month time period. Is this what you're saying or am I completely missing something?

They don't trust these reports, they go with the rather comical (and entirely baseless) estimates thrown around here. Last number I read was 10m, which Xbox surpassed many, many months ago.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Based on reports, PS5 is at 22m while XS is at 17m as of June 30th, 2022. Your numbers state that Sony would sell 13m PS5 consoles in 9 months (July 2022 through March 2023) while Microsoft would only sell 2m Xbox Series consoles in the same 9 month time period. Is this what you're saying or am I completely missing something?

1. The estimated* data puts Xbox at 15.9 million, not 17 million. And that is by VGChartz which is known to overreport. On the other hand, we have Sony's official data.
2. My numbers (which is Sony's official forecast data) state that Sony will sell approx. 15.6 million units in 9 months (not 13 million). That would put PS5 numbers above 36 million units sold by March 2023.
3. We don't have Xbox's official sales or forecast data, but we do know that are forecasting worse console production and supply chain issues in the upcoming quarters, which would lower their production.

"We anticipate the war in Ukraine to continue to impact our business in Q4 with a roughly $110 million impact on revenue and minimal impact on operating expenses. Next, we have taken into account the current impact of shutdowns in China in our outlook. However, extended production shutdowns that reach into May would further negatively impact our outlook across Windows OEM, Surface, and Xbox hardware."

"And in Gaming, we expect revenue to decline in the mid-to-high single digits driven by lower engagement hour’s year-over-year as well as constrained console supply." -- Nadella

"The supply chain environment could remain rocky through 2022 and the holiday season." Xbox CFO, Tim Stuart.

• Assuming that 15 million number is correct (which it likely isn't), Microsoft has been selling 0.71 million Xbox Series X and S units every month (which included the high-production Q1 and Q2 2022). If everything remains the same, they will be able to sell less than 6 million more units over the next 9 months. This will put them around 20-21 million. Take into account the slightly worse production cycle and supply they are forecasting, the more realistic number would be around 19 million.

Hope that helps.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Too many signs that everything is now falling into place perfectly for PS5 to take off -- as I summarized in the OP. The momentum will be insane.

June 2022 NPD: PS5 Sees Double Digit Growth, Biggest Dollar Sales of Year So Far

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[Oogabooga]

 

[thelastword]

PlayStation won the generation the very day it launched.............