They've been resorting to rampant sales promos across Europe for more or less the whole year to keep numbers from dropping any further than they have. That's not the best sign of a healthy platform.
Yet we will still have people saying that what's happened in Japan is an anomaly and can't happen in other markets
.
NOTHING is "too big to fail", not when we're talking about singular platforms or businesses.
Who cares about MAU? I'm talking sales here. You know, the real metric businesses go by?
Go look at the console market share in Japan vs. PC; the latter's grown to within 5% of console in just four years, while Nintendo is practically carrying console in Japan. So where did the PS owners there go if not to Xbox? C'mon, the answer is PC.
Also MAU doesn't require every person have their own PS5; multiple users can have distinct profiles on a single system. I'm sure each profile (or at least every registered PSN account) counts as a MAU.
Are we talking about PS6? The answer is obvious: less of the hardcore/core enthusiasts would buy one Day 1 or in the launch period, which has a knock-on effect upon casual and mainstream customers. Also, the pricing trends this gen will have their own impact on later-market adoption rates (generally negative).
The inverse to that happening is, SIE's PC sales will probably go up overall, but that's only because some portion of hardcore/core enthusiasts and would-be console owners are just going to buy the games there, instead of getting a PlayStation to play them. The flipside, being that those people won't give a damn to buy their 3P games on a PlayStation, or sub to PS+.
They probably won't even buy many if any PS 1P peripherals. So in terms of revenue it'll be a hit on PlayStation's financials, unless SIE see big growth through other areas to offset those losses.
DS2 will probably be a Day 1 Steam release.
PS5 Pro sales will pace behind PS4 Pro by a considerable margin LTD, after a decent/impressive launch period.
GTA6 won't be the savior of PS5 hardware sales SIE or industry pundits keep hyping it to be. But it'll help prevent any severe drop-off in adoption rates for at least 1-2 years (or until the PC version releases & new GTA Online + NoPixel (GTA Online mod) are out).
My guy we're seeing sales splits growing for PC and shrinking for console with multiple games this gen. Now granted a lot of that is coming at the expense of Xbox, but that doesn't mean PlayStation won't feel it, too. They already certainly are in markets like Japan.
Jeez man it has been like a year since the PSVR2 stuff you need to let it go already. PC VR game streaming to PS5-PSVR2 owners isn't a far-fetched idea, it just required SIE care about prioritizing QOL options for their console owners again instead of seeing them as trail run beta testers and paypigs to guilt-milk before rushing to PC.
Some of you might let it fly when these companies say their console players are the core of their ecosystem but I don't. They have to actually show & prove it through action, and SIE are doing a worst & worst job at that with time. It's why things like this are even being discussed to begin with, when these weren't issues last gen.
Then some of you want to pretend there's no similarities between the path PlayStation is going on vs. what path Xbox has taken, just to act like there's no trouble in paradise. I'm not gonna do that though; I've got too much appreciation for PlayStation as a console brand going back to PS1 to just look at what they're doing today and go "yep. This is the pinnacle of what can be done with PlayStation as a console & a brand.".
It's not. And that's the
actually frustrating part: the missed potential & the legion of people who for whatever reason just enable this more languid SIE.
