Sony forecasted 18 million units for the fiscal year

[mibu no ookami]

And I felt like they had a pretty decent chance at a delivering that or close to it. We have to wait until Sony's next earnings report (early November) to find out what pace they're on, but we've seen the first sign that perhaps they're slipping.

Sony has at least for the next week discounted the PS5 and PS5 Digital by 50 dollars to get their numbers up. These sales are also present in European countries.

This might be indicative of softer-than-anticipated sales for the PS5 Pro.

Sales like these can be used to bolster up really poor numbers, which might be a precursor to a bad earnings report. If so, it will be truly baffling why they limited the LE PS5 Pros and LE PS5s to such low numbers.

It's also possible that they're clearing stock for some reason. Maybe to make the PS5 Pro the only PS5 readily available during the holidays. The PS5 has been low in stock at most retailers in Japan for weeks already.

Will be interesting to see what prompted this sale well ahead of Black Friday. It's also interesting that there still hasn't been an Astro Bot bundle promotion. I expected we'd see similar sales in November and December, but I was not expecting this in early October, just days before the PS5 Pro goes on pre-order at retail.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

So are you and @Yurinka finally gonna start listening to some of us who've been mentioning the warning signs well in advance, or will you keep burying your heads in the sand?

It's never too late to jump on this train.

 

[Boswollox]

They'll miss that target, again and PS5PRO sales will be much worse than expected.
YMMV but even the biggest Sony fans and normie cattle who buy everything, are not bothering with the PRO. These people spend thousands on DLC in FIFA et al but don't see the value proposition in the PRO

The Cerny presentation was a real misfire by Sony. Instead of trying to hype by giving the raw specs of the pro, saying "PS5 games don't look good" when they look bloody fantastic, killed all hype.

Sony's biggest problem moving the PS5 is price; it should be £299 by now. The biggest problem for PS5pro is the PS5 is too good

 

[mibu no ookami]

So are you and @Yurinka finally gonna start listening to some of us who've been mentioning the warning signs well in advance, or will you keep burying your heads in the sand?

It's never too late to jump on this train.

No, I don't agree with your conclusion. I think softer sales can still be attributed to the cost of the PS5 in general rather than some misguided belief that PC ports that to your own admission aren't needle movers on PC.

They'll miss that target, again and PS5PRO sales will be much worse than expected.
YMMV but even the biggest Sony fans and normie cattle who buy everything, are not bothering with the PRO. These people spend thousands on DLC in FIFA et al but don't see the value proposition in the PRO

I think you somehow feel like Sony is positioning the PS5 Pro to be the main platform in the PS5 family. It isn't.

The Cerny presentation was a real misfire by Sony. Instead of trying to hype by giving the raw specs of the pro, saying "PS5 games don't look good" when they look bloody fantastic, killed all hype.

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think there was going to be any real way to present this otherwise. I don't think putting up a frame time chart and comparing games was a good marketing strategy for Sony themselves. I think PS5 Pro games will largely speak for themselves.

Sony's biggest problem moving the PS5 is price; it should be £299 by now. The biggest problem for PS5pro is the PS5 is too good

What are you basing that on exactly?

 

[Gods&Monsters]

This was all predictable, I'm glad you're finally noticing the pattern everyone here was talking about. They are not going to hit that target because of all the reasons we already said (brand damage and dilution).

It's bad news after bad news, their releases don't hit like before. There's no hype about anything besides nostalgia from the good old days (Astrobot and 30th anniversary). Sony gave up their ecosystem to chase a market that doesn't exist and they get treated like shit with bad PR. It's starting to affect their core business.

They had the best and most sought-after IPs in gaming (outside Nintendo) and they gave it up for peanuts. There's no excitement anymore.

They'll miss that target, again and PS5PRO sales will be much worse than expected.
YMMV but even the biggest Sony fans and normie cattle who buy everything, are not bothering with the PRO. These people spend thousands on DLC in FIFA et al but don't see the value proposition in the PRO

The Cerny presentation was a real misfire by Sony. Instead of trying to hype by saying "PS5 games don't look good" when they look bloody fantastic, killed all hype.

Sony's biggest problem moving the PS5 is price; it should be £299 by now. The biggest problem for PS5pro is the PS5 is too good

The biggest problem for the Pro is PC. I know most people buy consoles for FIFA and Fortnite but when you invest in an ecosystem the biggest selling points are the exclusives and how they look.

Sony lost track of that and gave away their prized jewels while the gaming industry is at a turning point. Watch their sales dwindle more and more.

 

[Boswollox]

I think you somehow feel like Sony is positioning the PS5 Pro to be the main platform in the PS5 family. It isn't.

I'm not. I don't know what difference that makes to demand.

I see where you're coming from, but I don't think there was going to be any real way to present this otherwise. I don't think putting up a frame time chart and comparing games was a good marketing strategy for Sony themselves. I think PS5 Pro games will largely speak for themselves.

Cerny should have spoken raw specs and let the games speak for themselves. Comparing a remaster of a PS4 game with the pro specs was dumb. Showing of ratchet and trying to convince people it looks fuzzy in the distance, despite it looking like a Pixar film, is dumb. Saying the SSD runs faster, when it's already lightning speed, is dumb.

What are you basing that on exactly?

The historical price of four year old consoles, adjusted for inflation.

The biggest problem for the Pro is PC. I know most people buy consoles for FIFA and Fortnite but when you invest in an ecosystem the biggest selling points are the exclusives and how they look.

It is PC but I was trying to stick with a console comparison to keep it simple.
For £700 you can buy a very good PC

Sony lost track of that and gave away their prized jewels while the gaming industry is at a turning point. Watch their sales dwindle more and more.

I agree. They should have stuck steadfast to exclusives and moved their product as the only high end console with exclusives. It worked for switch.

 

[Puff]

This was all predictable, I'm glad you're finally noticing the pattern everyone here was talking about. They are not going to hit that target because of all the reasons we already said (brand damage and dilution).

It's bad news after bad news, their releases don't hit like before. There's no hype about anything besides nostalgia from the good old days (Astrobot and 30th anniversary). Sony gave up their ecosystem to chase a market that doesn't exist and they get treated like shit with bad PR. It's starting to affect their core business.

They had the best and most sought-after IPs in gaming (outside Nintendo) and they gave it up for peanuts. There's no excitement anymore.


The biggest problem for the Pro is PC. I know most people buy consoles for FIFA and Fortnite but when you invest in an ecosystem the biggest selling points are the exclusives and how they look.

Sony lost track of that and gave away their prized jewels while the gaming industry is at a turning point. Watch their sales dwindle more and more.

It was clear from the beginning that this would happen, but they will feel the true negative consequences of their decisions with the PS6. I'm looking forward to seeing how these idiots will respond.

 

[BillyZ]

It's already improbable but most likely Nintendo will say something about their next console soon and it will kill any chance for Sony to reach 18 million.

 

[mibu no ookami]

I'm not. I don't know what difference that makes to demand.

It doesn't change the demand, but it's about what the expectations are for sales. If similar to the PS4 Pro, they'd be expecting 10% of total life time sales. And the expectation there would be around 12 million units over the next 4 years.

Cerny should have spoken raw specs and let the games speak for themselves. Comparing a remaster of a PS4 game with the pro specs was dumb. Showing of ratchet and trying to convince people it looks fuzzy in the distance, despite it looking like a Pixar film, is dumb. Saying the SSD runs faster, when it's already lightning speed, is dumb.

I don't think raw specs really mean anything to anyone.

I think you're pretending to be a bit ignorant. They didn't say it looked fuzzy in the distance. They said the Pro delivers performance at fidelity levels. I don't recall them mentioning anything about the SSD being faster.

The historical price of four year old consoles, adjusted for inflation.

This is a confession that you don't know what you're talking about. BOM has increased outside of just inflation. How can you ignore that?

It is PC but I was trying to stick with a console comparison to keep it simple.
For £700 you can buy a very good PC

Show me.

I agree. They should have stuck steadfast to exclusives and moved their product as the only high end console with exclusives. It worked for switch.

The Switch sells because it has a low cost profile. It seems like you ignore the differences here on purpose. If you think Sony could get away with selling PS3 quality games on the PS5... I think you're at best disingenuous.

 

[mibu no ookami]

It's already improbable but most likely Nintendo will say something about their next console soon and it will kill any chance for Sony to reach 18 million.

I hope you realize that the next Switch is going to be at least 400 dollars and it's going to be no more powerful than the Series S.

If you think that is going to derail PS5 sales, I'm not sure what market you're looking at.

The Switch 2 is going to launch with a handful of Nintendo games, upscaling Switch games, and games like genshin and fortnite. I'm not sure that's going to be sufficient for people with PS4s and X1s to decide, yup I'm going to get a Switch 2 for 400 dollars rather than a PS5 for 450, especially with GTA6 coming.

 

[BillyZ]

I hope you realize that the next Switch is going to be at least 400 dollars and it's going to be no more powerful than the Series S.

If you think that is going to derail PS5 sales, I'm not sure what market you're looking at.

The Switch 2 is going to launch with a handful of Nintendo games, upscaling Switch games, and games like genshin and fortnite. I'm not sure that's going to be sufficient for people with PS4s and X1s to decide, yup I'm going to get a Switch 2 for 400 dollars rather than a PS5 for 450, especially with GTA6 coming.

400 dollars is a great price especially when you consider that it will have games. Exclusive games. Not Steam please help us sell some more games.

 

[Yurinka]

So are you and @Yurinka finally gonna start listening to some of us who've been mentioning the warning signs well in advance, or will you keep burying your heads in the sand?

It's never too late to jump on this train.

Don't quote me for nonsensical things that deserve to be in the doomers thread.

There are no warnings: this is the top grossing and most profitable generation they ever had in Sony gaming history, since the 80s. In this case, a 4 years old console getting a temporal small discount from time to time is normal, specially considering that at this point haven't received a price drop (it even increased its base price).

And well, to estimate 18M for the current fiscal year is very ambitious considering most previous consoles in gaming history, if they wouldn't achieve that forecast by a few millions it would still be a great performance. It wouldn't be the end of the world.

 

[Boswollox]

It doesn't change the demand, but it's about what the expectations are for sales. If similar to the PS4 Pro, they'd be expecting 10% of total life time sales. And the expectation there would be around 12 million units over the next 4 years.

It does change the demand. If the demand for PS5 drops so does the PRO. 12 million lifetime is high demand. They'll hit five million if they're lucky

I don't think raw specs really mean anything to anyone.

I think you're pretending to be a bit ignorant. They didn't say it looked fuzzy in the distance. They said the Pro delivers performance at fidelity levels. I don't recall them mentioning anything about the SSD being faster.

Raw specs are numbers and top trumps, they mean everything to marketing. 8gb ram, 13 tf etc

They said ratchet doesn't look good at a distance.

This is a confession that you don't know what you're talking about. BOM has increased outside of just inflation. How can you ignore that?

I know Boms very well. I know scale of manufacture and age bring down the cost massively. For the PS5 to be more expensive today than four years ago says Sony are; greedy, incompetent at manufacturing or both.

Show me.

Do your own leg work. I'm not your lucky.

The Switch sells because it has a low cost profile. It seems like you ignore the differences here on purpose. If you think Sony could get away with selling PS3 quality games on the PS5... I think you're at best disingenuous.

You're missing the point on purpose, while contradicting yourself. If the switch sells because of a low cost profile, how can you say PS5 will sell well despite being twice the price?

Nintendo aren't selling Wii games on the switch, they're selling proven exclusives, something Sony no longer has. Ironically though Sony are selling PS3 games on PS5; TLoU1 remaster and selling PS4 games on PS5 which, according to some, isn't an issue and a good thing.

 

[Boswollox]

There are no warnings

Yes, there were and still are, which are still being ignored.

 

[Yurinka]

I know Boms very well. I know scale of manufacture and age bring down the cost massively. For the PS5 to be more expensive today than four years ago says Sony are; greedy, incompetent at manufacturing or both.

You don't seem to know that this generation, unlike all the previous ones, all hardware companies that weren't selling their products at with a pretty high profit margin (overpriced) had to rise prices because the costs of the components instead of decreasing over time they increased due to factors like huge inflation in most parts of the world and price increase related to increase of demand of certain components due to things like GPUs wanted first for mining cryptocurrencies and later to train AI, or components also needed for the rising industry of electronic cars. Specially during the years when the manufacturing of these suppliers was specially constrained due to covid.

Yes, there were and still are, which are still being ignored.

There warning signs are only in the mind of fanboys who hate them and wish them to fail.

The objective data shown in the metrics they report show they are in a great position now, with most metrics in all time record numbers and in a multi year growth, with a handful exceptions like hardware unit sales (not the case of hardware revenue) in a some important EU country, which prevented them to have higher worldwide numbers. But even there when comparing launch aligned with the other current and previous consoles launch aligned they are performing great, one of the best selling consoles ever.

But for SIE in general, they already generated more revenue and profit this generation than in any other previous one before even if we're still like 3-4 years way from starting the next generation.

 

[anonpuffs]

No, I don't agree with your conclusion. I think softer sales can still be attributed to the cost of the PS5 in general rather than some misguided belief that PC ports that to your own admission aren't needle movers on PC.



I think you somehow feel like Sony is positioning the PS5 Pro to be the main platform in the PS5 family. It isn't.



I see where you're coming from, but I don't think there was going to be any real way to present this otherwise. I don't think putting up a frame time chart and comparing games was a good marketing strategy for Sony themselves. I think PS5 Pro games will largely speak for themselves.



What are you basing that on exactly?

You're not engaging with the argument presented by people who are calling out Sony this gen in good faith, PC ports are just one of the multifaceted shift in strategy from SIE/Sony in regards to how they approach Playstation.

They have cut advance marketing of their first party games "to make it easier on the devs" - but in reality, this is just to save development costs. They have laid off development staff even from successful studios like Insomniac, again to cut costs. They have cut their 3rd party relationships with important partners like Square (otherwise Xbox would never even sniff one of their Final Fantasy products after Jim Ryan said verbatim that they wanted "Playstation to be the home of Final Fantasy this generation") to save on costs. They are undermining their platform as a go-to place for gaming in order to pad margins on their first party games, something that is extremely shortsighted. They have avoided cutting the price of the PS5 in order to generate more profit per unit sold. They do stupid shit like put PS5s in Hondas that aren't even publicly sold and no one cares about.

All of this points to one fact: the people directing the Playstation strategy have no clue what gaming is about or how to satisfy the market. They're merely looking to cash in on their brand name that has been built up through several generations of their predecessors for a quick buck. And it's already backfiring big time. We see every month that sales have fallen over 30% YoY, some months over 50%. That brings us close to unit sales from when manufacturing was a bottleneck during covid. How you can see this as anything other than catastrophic is a mystery; I'll be surprised if they hit 16 million units at this point.

 

[mibu no ookami]

It does change the demand. If the demand for PS5 drops so does the PRO. 12 million lifetime is high demand. They'll hit five million if they're lucky

LOL... ban bet?

Raw specs are numbers and top trumps, they mean everything to marketing. 8gb ram, 13 tf etc

Not really. The market is changing due to AI upscaling. People used to car about bits and polygons before tflops and its changing again now that consoles will have AI upscaling.

They said ratchet doesn't look good at a distance.

I'll take your word for it.

I know Boms very well. I know scale of manufacture and age bring down the cost massively. For the PS5 to be more expensive today than four years ago says Sony are; greedy, incompetent at manufacturing or both.

You clearly don't know BOM very well. The entire industry is telling you that they're not able to bring the cost of manufacturing down like they used to.

I love people who have never done something in their life to call someone else "incompetent" because they don't like the result.

Do your own leg work. I'm not your lucky.

Convenient.

You're missing the point on purpose, while contradicting yourself. If the switch sells because of a low cost profile, how can you say PS5 will sell well despite being twice the price?

The Switch and PS5 are not the same. The games they sell are not the same.

Nintendo aren't selling Wii games on the switch, they're selling proven exclusives, something Sony no longer has. Ironically though Sony are selling PS3 games on PS5; TLoU1 remaster and selling PS4 games on PS5 which, according to some, isn't an issue and a good thing.

Yes, let the TLOU remaster run on PS3... Would love to see it.

 

[akira__]

I think what is missing from the discussion is that PS started the gen strong with PS games, but have since faltered and removed the traditional yearly showcase.
Gaming revolves around hype, and PlayStation hasn't been able to produce that in the last few years. Other publishers are struggling too.

GTA6 is currently the big hype in gaming, and its release and effect sales numbers will reveal a lot. But relying on a single game from another publisher...

The other point that was already discussed is that the focus on profitability now, instead of long-term growth, is short-sighted. If their digital version was $350 or $325, then we wouldn't have this conversation. Yes, those customers who would purchase the console at that price might only play FIFA or Fortnite. But the network effects of having new generations of kids in your ecosystem are valuable; in the future, they'll have disposable income.

 

[Bryank75]

The issue is that a console needs A strong selling point.

Whether that is the price of the hardware for the underlying performance OR a slate of real exclusive games.

People can see the value, the uniqueness and they feel the excitement around a platform....

The prices have bloated on every front and it's not just due to inflation. Sony could take a bit on one or two of the areas strategically.... Like console price and make it up later on PS+ and gane sales for instance.

They could have been strategic and invested in a very exciting showcase where all their big exclusives would be shown and had very little filler content...but they didn't want to do that either.

Or they could keep their games fully exclusive, forgo a tiny profit on PC and retain some value to owning a PS5....

Now they seem to be pushing for less disc based models which is a other selling point they are eliminating....

I do wonder if they are systematically trying to undermine their own product sometimes.

And sorry if that sounds a bit gloomy.

 

[FatKaz]

Shortsightedness is the motto of the current leadership.

They should be doing everything to get people onto the ps5 and keep them there, but instead there are 10s of millions of gamers on PS4 yet to upgrade that may look else where.