Sony forecasted 18 million units for the fiscal year

Exicide

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So if Sony is making back profit from other game sales, PS subs, console purchases, accessories and merch... Explain to me why they should support PC then? If it all still falls back on PS players having to cover the losses from the failed PC initiative?

And yes Sony has damaged their brand and no longer can control the narrative around their brand. It's wild to see so much negativity around the brand non stop, not even the early days of this generation were this bad with the Xbox propaganda machine in full swing.
"Xbox propaganda machine" okay man, take the tinfoil hat off for now. There was no "Xbox propaganda machine," there was a slogan, which is heavily criticized because of the Series S parity mandate which they should never have had.

Sony wants more MAU, why do you think they're throwing everything they can at PC hoping something sticks, look at that, Helldivers 2 stuck pretty well, till they killed it, and now Arrowhead is slowly trying to gain players back (and they are) despite the publisher's incompetence. They support PC because it doesn't cost them tens or hundreds of millions to port, it's single digit millions and it is, at most $1-4m as we've seen in leaks. They can afford to port to PC, why do you think they have dedicated port teams such as Nixxes? Why do you think all of the GAAS games are going to PC as well?

anyways, what exactly has damaged their brand to the average consumer? What narrative are you seeing about their brand?
 

Exicide

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Cool theory, but xbox the console was failing BEFORE gamepass was their main strategy.
Game Pass has been their strategy since June 1st 2017. Anything before that was the disaster of an Xbox One launch that ACTUALLY ruined their brand's name for several years and the massive success PS4 was. PS4 was doing so insanely well because Xbox turned many people off with their disastrous launch and lack of real exclusive games at launch to sell the console to people. You all talk about PlayStation like they're killing their brand like Xbox did in 2013. "If you don't have Internet we have a product for you. It's called Xbox 360." Remember, this was for people excited for the next gen consoles and games.

You would be disingenuous to act as if the failure of that launch didn't help sell PS4 much, much more than the Xbox One. That momentum from PS4's bangers and graphical fidelity pushing the limits at the time, to the explosion that PS5 had coming off the momentum from PS4 while Xbox is still trying to gain ground that is nigh impossible to match because they have no idea how to match it. That absolutely trash reveal in 2013 costed them that entire generation, and trying to keep up with a whole generation's worth of momentum is impossible, which is why they changed their strategy to branching out to mobile, cloud, and pushing Game Pass hard.

"Xbox is about to become the next watercooler."
 
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Exicide

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Just like you don't need playstation to play God of War now
Oh no, a game that sold 5M in the same month it released on PS and garnered many more sales over the years up to the PC release a whole 4 years later that happened in January and sold 23M copies altogether (PS and PC) by November 2022.

You act like that is the only reason to buy a PlayStation, you know what the reason to buy a PlayStation is? To play their exclusives years early before they port it to PC. There's many other reasons why you would get a PlayStation, such as friends, ease of use, the whole catalog they have, they still have games on there that aren't on PC (yet?). The fastest port if I can recall was God of War Ragnarok which only took two years, matched with Horizon Forbidden West.
 

Men_in_Boxes

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Xbox is literally on Console, PC, Mobile, Cloud. Idk if you've noticed but they don't really care about their hardware selling extremely well right now, they've been branching out. Game Pass and Cloud they are focused on much more than their console, which is why I said their console itself is failing while they still make money, their expansion is why they jumped 44% YoY this year. They made $21.5B in revenue this year and they expected to grow in the mid 30s percentage by the end of last month, we don't know what it ended up as yet, at least I don't think.

It's clear they switched strategies upon reflecting on their old console strategy VS PlayStation's, PS as well has learned that their games shouldn't consistently cost ~$200M+ just to make which is why they are trying to cut down on development costs, HFW was around $212M and TLoU2 was around $220M, we learned that all the way when PlayStation and Xbox were in the FTC hearing. When Insomniac was hacked we learned that Wolverine has/had a budget of $305M and Spider-Man 3 (yes, three) has/had a budget of $315M.

Which is why PlayStation called for 12 GAAS to be made, cheaper dev costs, long time investment for money back if they play their cards right, which as of right now seems to not be the case, I think Fairgame$ could be something, it looks interesting to me, but I want to see more already. On top of that, Marathon SOUNDS like it will be fun, but I don't think we've even seen anything about it apart from that one teaser, I could be wrong.
There are people who understand. Not many, but they're out there.
 
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Boswollox

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The graph says that as of March 2024 they almost (must be already achieved by now) generated more revenue than in any previous generation. And more profit than in all combined. So they are better than ever.
Revenue isn't profit. With the high price of everything, generating more revenue is natural and expected.
Better than ever for the share holders or the gamers? Get some perspective.
"disastrous past two years" -> fantasy debunked by that graph
"monumental drop-off" and stagnation" -> fantasy debunked by that graph, revenue keeps growing evey year
How many exclusives have been launched in two years? Yes, disastrous and stagnation
If you mean the drop in profit, according to what Sony said these two years it's because of the costs of their acquisitions (which includes growing their studios) plus also the rise hardware component costs. But still, in half of the generation they made more profit than in all previous generations combined.
They have not made more profit in half a generation than all of the rest combined. That's cope.
Regarding the price drop, they said that in all the previous generations the hardware components got cheaper over time, so even if they starting selling consoles at a loss, over time they ended selling it at a profit, with enough marget to apply price cuts. But in the PS5 happened the opposite, these components got more expensive over time, to the point that they couldn't apply price cut and instead forced them to increase it (in addition to inflation, currency exchange etc) to don't keep the loses from each unit sold too high. They also took several aggresive actions to improve their profitability and compensate that and continue working on it.
Components don't get more expensive over time. Again, Sony cope. They're hoodwinking you and people are believing this shit.
They've made profit per unit since day one, then increased the price of consoles.
How do you think they're recouping the losses for flops and cancelled games? They're not just eating that.
Concord flops, price of PSN goes up. What a coincidence.
Regarding PS5 sales vs PS4, despide having had the shortages issues, not being able to price cut it and the global economical crysis, in terms of units PS5 is outselling PS4 in USA, Japan, China and some EU countries. But not worldwide by a little margin because in some other EU countries is behind. In terms of revenue is outselling PS5 worldwide. And the revenue from accesories, software, subscriptions and off-PS first party revenue is also in all time high, better than in any generation.
Read this again, then engage your brain to see why it's bullshit. PS5 is outselling PS4 world wide but is selling worse overall because small EU countries who buy 100,000 per generation? Imagine believing that.
Regarding PS5 hardware sales slowing down in units, it's normal because it's what happens in all consoles when they past the peak of their sales cycle curve. As you can see in this other graph, the yearly sales make a somewhat curve for all home consoles, having their peak normally between somewhere their 3rd and 5th year and after that they normally keep declining every year. Switch is different because the curves of portables is different, with a later peak and a longer life than home consoles:
image.png
You say it declined, when the PS4 did the exact opposite. PS5 sales have stalled because there's no demand. There's no demand because there are no games worth paying the extortionate price for.
As Sony mentioned, PS5 yearly sales peaked last fiscal year. Which means that going worfard its yearly sales should be decreasing every year, as normal in a console's life cycle.
Except this didn't happen with PS3 or PS4 so...not so normal.
And well, launch aligned PS5 is super close to PS4. At the current point of the graph for PS5 (last march, when the most recent FY ended) was super close to PS4 and Switch and above them there was only the Wii exception, which had a crazy early peak and then faded, barely reaching slightly above 100M units sold at the end of its life. Sooner or later PS5 will pass Wii.

image.png
There's that magic buzzword again, "launch aligned". Corporate cope that fudges the numbers for the shareholders.
PS5 will not pass the Wii.
Use your brain man, good Lord. How can the PS5 sales be stalling yet expected to beat the Wii and PS4? You're high as a kite if you believe this shit.
Regarding potential units sold during the second half of the PS5 generation, we have to consider that around half of the active PS userbase still is in PS4, meaning there's a ton of users who will upgrade later (pretty likely with GTA6 or when games like FIFA, AC, etc stop being crossgen or when big GaaS like Fortnite, Minecraft etc stop getting supported in PS4). And that around half of PS5 sales comes from users who are new to PS5. Meaning they come from Xbox, PC or because of the movies/tv shows.
People aren't upgrading a console for GTA6. GTA6 will be a long-term disappointment. It may sell well to start but it isn't possible for GTA6 to be bigger than GTA5. Line doesn't always go up.
The rest of this is cope. After four years, if the casuals haven't jumped on the console, it's dead in the water.
PS5 sales were front loaded due to COVID, now most people who wanted one, have one, while most either bought one and no longer play it (and issue nobody addresses) or they're just not buying one because gaming has stagnated.
So no, there's no stagnation or lack of demand at all. PS5 is one of the best performers in gaming history and is behaving as expected at this point of its life cycle.
Of course there is. You type all of this fucking word salad and just contradict yourself at every new paragraph.
You say consoles hit their peak and sales slow, then say there's no stagnation, then show a graph showing stagnation which you handwave away then agree there's no stagnation according to nothing 😂
Pick a lane already.

If you can't see that gaming industry sales have stalled, then I question your mental capabilities of correctly processing information.
Xbox has sold the worst it has ever done. IF Xbox series was selling 360 numbers, playstation would be the next sega.
But Microsoft aren't, because demand and interest for consoles across the board is dead.
See the bigger picture and take the blinkers off.
 

Boswollox

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7 Sep 2024
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Cool theory, but xbox the console was failing BEFORE gamepass was their main strategy.
2+2=5 eh?

I wonder what caused the consoles to fail? It couldn't possibly be brand damaged caused by always online, kinect and TvTvTV could it? No of course not, it's the children who are wrong.
 
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mibu no ookami

mibu no ookami

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Idk about you but I don't require an emotional connection to be hyped for a game developers I like are making. If you played Ghost of Tsushima, it will be at the very least similar. Why do you need an emotional connection for what seems like an anthology series.

Can you imagine thinking that people aren't hyped for Ghost of Yotei?

5 million views in 2 weeks, 300K likes to 25K dislikes...

People's biggest complaint about GoT in real time was that they didn't like Jin Sakai. Given time and space, now all of a sudden he's the greatest protagonist in the SIE pantheon? It rings hollow.

I liked Jin Sakai, but I wouldn't say he was a truly special protagonist and Sony needs to build games that can endure the ages. I'm not sure you could tell Jin Sakai's story for another 20 years. By making it anthology series, you're essentially making the Ghost franchise your own Assassin's Creed without the baggage. Where people can get on at any point. The game doesn't even need to stick to Japan or history. They could make a Cyberpunk Ghost game in Neo Tokyo set in the year 3000. They could make a steampunk Ghost game set in 1700s London or a Leon the professional style game set in 1990s New York.

They can do whatever they want, no longer tied down by Jin Sakai and Tsushima island.

The Last of Us is dead after The Last of Us 3 most likely. Maybe the show will give it "forever" type legs. I think that's why they wanted to turn Factions into a GaaS, to keep the franchise alive.

They still need to find out what they want to do with Uncharted.

Santa Monica/SIE can remake the Greek Saga for God of War. That can keep the franchise alive and they can always go to Egypt next. There is a way forward for them.

Gran Turismo is evergreen.

Spider-Man is an interesting one since they don't own the video game rights to Spider-Man, but they're at least looking to expand into marvel with Wolverine and X-Men.

It's why Sony is looking at every avenue it has to bring forward IP. Why they can cheaply take another stab at Until Dawn. A franchise they could easily tell stories about ad nauseum.

If there is criticism for it's GaaS strategy is that they didn't try to focus around IP that had some success in multiplayer spaces, but I get why:

SOCOM: Zipper doesn't exist anymore
Killzone: Horizon is a much bigger priority for the studio and significantly more successful than Killzone
Insomniac: Same thing, but with Marvel. It doesn't make sense for them to put a ton of money into Resistance
 

saltyashell

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People who are moaning about the PS5 price are gonna have a stroke when they see what Nvidia will be charging for the 5000 series - it's a king's ransom.
 

Boswollox

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People who are moaning about the PS5 price are gonna have a stroke when they see what Nvidia will be charging for the 5000 series - it's a king's ransom.
One is one of the most expensive console to launch to date. The other is an overpriced Nvidia GPU.

What gotcha are you trying to score here?
 

saltyashell

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One is one of the most expensive console to launch to date.
You can't be this stupid, right? The value of the dollar isn't frozen in time.

The Xbox One was pretty much the same price adjusted for inflation (~$675). Adjusting for inflation, there are several consoles that were more expensive than the PS5 Pro launch price. The PS3 was $780 adjusted for inflation at launch. The Sega Saturn was over $800 adjusted for inflation. And I'm not even including the crazy priced shit like the Neo Geo, or 3DO, or the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, or the Intellivision.
 
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Boswollox

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You can't be this stupid, right? The value of the dollar isn't frozen in time.
Bet
The Xbox One was pretty much the same price adjusted for inflation (~$675). Adjusting for inflation, there are several consoles that were more expensive than the PS5 Pro launch price. The PS3 was $780 adjusted for inflation at launch. The Sega Saturn was over $800 adjusted for inflation. And I'm not even including the crazy priced shit like the Neo Geo, or 3DO, or the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, or the Intellivision.
Adjusted for inflation, the biggest joke cope in current year. The PS3 was laughed at for being over priced, as was the Xbox one, and money went further back then.
On top of that, those consoles had games and a reason to buy.

Then again, you're arguing that paying £550 for a four year old console with 2 exclusives is the same as buying a day one console with a flurry of launch titles.

Surely you can't be that stupid?
I don't use monopoly money currency like the dollar, I use adult currency like the oldest currency still in existence; the sterling.
 
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mibu no ookami

mibu no ookami

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You can't be this stupid, right? The value of the dollar isn't frozen in time.

The Xbox One was pretty much the same price adjusted for inflation (~$675). Adjusting for inflation, there are several consoles that were more expensive than the PS5 Pro launch price. The PS3 was $780 adjusted for inflation at launch. The Sega Saturn was over $800 adjusted for inflation. And I'm not even including the crazy priced shit like the Neo Geo, or 3DO, or the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, or the Intellivision.

If it was so easy to drop the price of hardware, Microsoft would have permanently dropped the price of the Series X to 400 dollars if not less.

But it seems clear that they can no longer heavily subsidize hardware costs either.

You think that reality would clue people in to the fact that components costs have increased rather than decreased. There is also competition for these components across various industries now that wasn't the case back in the day.

I think people also got accustomed to how cheap the PS4 and X1 were at launch. They probably would have been more expensive if they didn't have extremely old SOCs in them.

The PS1 launched for 300 dollars in 1995. This is up from 200 dollars that the SNES launched for just 5 years earlier.

The PS2 launched for 300 dollars and brought with it significant functionality boost with a DVD player.

But you'll also note that Sony barely profited in either of those two generations.

The PS2 probably should have been 350 or 400 dollars at launch.

The PS3 launched for 500 dollars with a 600 dollar option, largely overcorrecting the lack of price increases on the PS2, but Microsoft was able to undercut Sony, especially with the 360 Core. This is what probably lead to the Xbox Series S strategy.

The PS4 brought this down to 400.

The PS5 launch for 500.

The PS6 will launch for 500-600 dollars.

Not all goods are tied 1:1 with inflation, in fact, most aren't. The price of consoles are pricing them out of competition in Japan, which is a reason Sony should look at cost cutting options.

A cheaper 5nm SOC with the capability to utilize PSSR could result in a much cheaper PS5. This is what Sony should be targeting right now.

Either an entry level PS5 with the exact same capabilities as the base PS5 with a weaker GPU but PSSR capabilities delivering just under the base PS5 or a replacement PS5 SKU with a weaker GPU but PSSR capability matching that current base ps5.

So you could look at a 1080p PS5 for example.

The same process would look at Sony delivering a handheld, but obviously with a different SOC.
 

arvfab

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But it seems clear that they can no longer heavily subsidize hardware costs either.
How is Xbox supposed to subsidize hardware costs if they thought their userbase to not buy games AND at the same time having to subsidize the costs of an expensive service where they offer their (rare and sub-par) 1st party titles day1?
 
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mibu no ookami

mibu no ookami

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How is Xbox supposed to subsidize hardware costs if they thought their userbase to not buy games AND at the same time having to subsidize the costs of an expensive service where they offer their (rare and sub-par) 1st party titles day1?

That's neither here nor there at this point.

The point is that neither Sony or Microsoft can afford to drastically cut prices right now and there really isn't incentive for either of them to do so.