Sony PlayStation 5 Dilemma: might be too expensive

sony has historically sold at a loss and recouped with first party games.

 

Isn't that how it always was - they sell console hardware cheaper and the games and monthly service fees are bringing the cash back in?

 

This. Also, I doubt that consoles will sell for 400$ until the end of time... inflation's a bitch.

 

I hope people realize that if they get a 4K@60fps capable machine with Navi and SSD for some 400-500$, it's a damn good deal.

 

Yeah i dont get it why people say its too expensive for a console.
And not to mention that Ps5 seems to be a beast considering all the upgrades that are thrown into it.
Can people have a look at phone prices?

 

This feels like a pre-emptive marketing push.

"It's sooooo powerful and has got soooo much tech inside of it, we are having a tough time making it cheap"

It grabs headlines for the hopes of grabbing wallets and minds...


ninja edit: It's only been a few hours, but already the worst videos ever to grace the internet, under the classification of "need to know" have already appeared. So 'PS5 pricing - here's what we know/what you need to know/everything we know/what you have to know'.

These pieces of **** are just the worst people on the planet right now.

 

High end phones are exactly like high-end PC's... completely unnecessary and only for bragging rights.

It's possible to build a PC that runs games very well for under $1000, no need for that massive water-cooled $5000 PC with dual GPUs,
like it's possible to buy a brand new $200 phone that does everything that a $1200 phone does (well maybe not as great pictures, but who really cares...)

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$499 will be acceptable for such a powerful console, I don't think that people will really look at an extra $100, considering that a PC that costs $500 is basically an office PC with almost no gaming ability.

 

Are you guys forgetting the PS3. That launched with a $600 price tag and didnt sell anywhere near what Sony was hoping. They effectively "lost" that generation

 

Nothing to see here whatsoever - every new release with significant tech upgrades runs into the same 'issue'. I'd imagine pricing for the new Xbox is going to be just as problematic too.
What's certain is that new 'next gen' pricing eventually has to increase as time passes.

 

what bothers me is that leak around the xbox spec vs ps5 spec. The Xbox seemed more powerfull. If ps5 is expensive what microsft is going to do?

 

I think they did, after die shrinks and revamps - plus the overall numbers were better than microsoft...by a gnats hair, but still, they did win.

Thinking...

It's an interesting point you raise, what is better, to win the opening games; or the end games? I rhetorically ask this because Sony won the final few years of the PS3 over X360, and by vitue, they won the opening round of the PS4 versus the XB1, and have continued to do this ever since.

Why?

If the largest userbase is the best, then Sony have won the rounds for the PS1, PS2 (landslide victory), PS3 and PS4. What about the PS5? Do we think they will win this round?

If the answer is 'yes - we think Sony will win this round' then, well, why would anyone buy an Xbox? It's a serious and important question.

The userbase of xbox is who, exactly? Fans of gears of war? Fans of Halo? Well, those games do not pull in the numbers they used to pull in. What about people who have got 4KUHD teevee's? Well, those numbers are not that terrific, because your average parent is still using 1080P and your average teenager will not have a better teevee than the teevee in the den. The numbers are 'promising', but not terrific. Moreso, there is every chance that some people will not buy a games console for their child, because they do not realise that their teevee will be 'good enough' or 'compatible' with a games console that advertises '4/8KUHD' when they are using a 1080P. See the problem there? As educated as kids are, parents are less so and are more likely looking for reasons to not buy their kid a games console.

So, Sony have won every round so far and I have every confidence they will win this won - with that in mind, I can only conclude that buying an xbox is the wrong thing to do, and will become a purchase I would regret in the future.

If you win the last, final few years of a console generation, you tend to win the next one.

 

The cost is not the problem. They could give the console away and still make a huge profit. More smoke and mirrors and the MS box won't be any cheaper in reality either. Absorb the cost of the console, make a fortune on the games. Just like Gillette does with razers.

Fueled mostly by game sales and the PlayStation Network, Sony's Games and Network Services segment made roughly $20.8 billion in total sales revenues in FY2018, up a mighty 18.8% year-over-year. These earnings represent 27% of Sony's total revenues for the fiscal year

 

Most consoles are sold at a loss, they get money for every game that's sold, first or third party they still get money

 

And they have just found out this now??? Don´t tell me that no one at Sony realized that good hardware is expensive...

True but people expect consoles to be cheap otherwise they won´t buy it. Personally i normally wait for consoles to drop below 300€, only then i buy them.

 

And there I always thought that the first few batches / years of consoles are sold at the company's expanse to have the platform grow in the first place, earning money via the games sold.
Later on, with hardware refreshes, they grow more profitable, even earning money with the consoles themselves.
And at the end of a cycle, when the hardware is argueably old (and the fab node the chips are done it too, probably), they get cheap anyway, and the company makes the most profit.

 

Afaik the 360 outsold the ps3 overall but to throw another curve ball in there, neither won that generation in terms of unit sales. The Wii crushed it in that regard but still that didn't really help Nintendo in the succeeding generation.

I recognize that Nintendo are a bit of an anomaly in the market so I won't mention them anymore except to point out that a significantly lower price point can lead to massive sales. If the Xbox can undercut the Ps5 by $100 we could easily a shift back to Microsoft.

As for the larger user base argument I'm not convinced that it particularly matters to anyone except fanboys, (That may actually be a significant factor but I have no idea) because the vast majority of big AAA games those users are playing are usually cross platform.

I agree with you that the 4k buzzword features probably won't be a deciding factor for the majority of buyers.

I'll admit I don't have any skin in this fight, I haven't purchased a console since the 360 and have no intention of doing so, though if the switch gets a decent price cut I may pick up one to replace my poor aging wii and add portable gaming as an option.

 

Microsoft announces super expensive Xbox Series X and no one in the media even bothers questioning price. Everyone is just salivating at possible performance targets and specifications.
Meanwhile Sony announces PS5 and all articles for the last two months or so have been negative and various levels of concern-trolls.

 

You do have a point that there is a lot of people out there who don't give a rats ass about resolution or frame rates and just want to play games. For those people I can definitely imagine that 300€ is max for a console no matter the brand.

 

It used to be that way but now things have changed. Sony and MS no longer want to lose huge sums of money on hardware specially after they saw Nintendo making money since the Wii despite being much weaker. Also many seem to be waiting for the commercial explosion of gaming streaming at any moment and if that happens then there will be a chance that the sales of consoles will implode, making it impossible for MS and Sony to recoup the money they lost initially. And we can´t forget that right now consoles are nothing more than PCs with proprietary OSes to run games because creating custom hardware was too expensive...

Bottom line, companies no longer want to lose money on hardware like they used to do. One idea some people have been suggesting is selling consoles cheaper with PS Plus/Xbox Gold contracts for a few years, makes sense and it could work.

Personally i think pricing is extremely important for consoles. One of the key advantages of consoles over PCs is that they are much cheaper and if they lose this advantage i could see many people getting cold feet over buying one. To make things worse the current consoles are going to play lots of games of the next ones becuase the HW is basically the same, only weaker. So many will ask themselfes, is it worth to buy a new console only for better graphics???

I´ve just bought an cheap Xbox and i don´t intend to buy the new one anytime soon... As for the next PS, i´m probably going to get it but i´m gonna wait until it comes close to the 300€ mark.