All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2024 edition]

[chris1515]

The sales target includes units from the new PlayStation 5 Pro, which was launched Thursday. In the U.S., the enhanced console carries a price tag of $699.99. While Totoki acknowledged that he has received many comments about this high price, he also showed no signs of changing it.

"It is a high-end product targeted at core customers, so we haven't been eyeing a large sales plan to begin with," the president said. "I'm under the impression that the product is performing slightly stronger than the pre-orders of the PS4 Pro during the same period, so I don't think it is adversely affecting the product's sales plan

It seems preorders of PS5 Pro is slightly stronger than PS4 Pro. This is surprising.

Sony raises revenue forecast on strong game and music results

Revision comes after rival Nintendo cut full-year operating forecast on declining Switch sales

asia.nikkei.com

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Precisely. They knew their audience and knew they could command decent margins. Losing those to increase Pro sales would net them nothing. The hand-me-down PS5 that might be passed on won't go to big-spending players. If these players wanted a PS5 by now, they'd have one, so a freebie will just be a 'that's nice' low tier Fortnite/Minecraft box or similar.

 

[iroboto]

It seems preorders of PS5 Pro is slightly stronger than PS4 Pro. This is surprising.

Sony raises revenue forecast on strong game and music results

Revision comes after rival Nintendo cut full-year operating forecast on declining Switch sales

asia.nikkei.com

I suspect this is largely driven by the anniversary edition.

We should be watching post pre-orders to get a real idea.

 

[Globalisateur]

I suspect this is largely driven by the anniversary edition.

We should be watching post pre-orders to get a real idea.

Nonsense. They produced 12300 of those.

 

[iroboto]

Nonsense. They produced 12300 of those.

I don't think it's nonsense.
He provided no numbers and a vague statement that , "I'm under the impression".
There are scalpers as well, which was not a thing during 4Pro times, go on Ebay and type in PS5Pro and see 10+ pages of results, that's not including the pure stock that is sitting in store shelves.

They know the real number of users by looking at PSN activity based on console type. We'll know by next quarter how the market is truly accepting of this product. I'm not saying it can't be successful, I just don't think measuring the first 2 weeks of sales and extrapolating that to being this success that 4Pro continued to be. The price point is much too high for 5pro to compete with 4Pro in an environment where people don't have any money.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

New hardware will sell out, so selling out at launch means nothing. However, PS5 Pro hasn't even done that. It's available now in stock on Amazon. Once initial interest has passed, ongoing interest is indeed where we know how well a hardware is received. I'm reminded of Wii U's initial strong launch sales and trying to convey that meant nothing in the long run, and indeed it didn't!

Mixed opinions of PS5 Pro won't help drive strong long-term adoption, so I'm not expecting great things. It really is for the PS faithful and who knows how large that audience is? Although bringing significant improvements to PSVR2 (@Dictator DF needs to do an article on that!) perhaps makes it more desirable for those enthusiasts who seem more willing to spend large on their experience.

 

[iroboto]

So I just want to offer a second perspective here, though it will come across as negative, is imo, worth noting.

Firstly, compared to PS4 Pro, 4Pro only did something if you actually had a 4K TV set. The backwards compatibility was limited in that way and 4K was only in it's infancy to market. So users had to purchase an expensive 4K set and the 4Pro to really take advantage of it.

Secondly, the market share of ownership was not as lopsided as it is now.

Comparatively, 4K sets are largely the norm today, and 5Pro's main aim is to enhance everything. You only need to buy the 5Pro and they own a much larger chunk of the console market share than they did before.
And the CEO is under_ the_impression that it's close to or barely surpassing 4Pro sales.

IMO, that's useful speak for investors and gamers, but internally the metrics are probably showing that the 5Pro is under performing when compared to 4Pro.

And the only reason I'm taking position, is not because I think it's a bad product, but let's be real, we just had the craziest election in north america, where the richest country in the world, felt like the economy was a disaster these last 4 years, when every other country around the world during the same time period performed several magnitudes worse than the US. If the US doesn't have enough money to buy a 5Pro, no other country will fair better.

I can't see there being any money in the system for them to be wildly successful at this price point. It's going to fall off a cliff next quarter, I'd be curious to see his statement then.

Don't compare yourself to the PC market. Consoles have no where near the utility or value of a high end GPU.

 

[tuna]

Firstly, compared to PS4 Pro, 4Pro only did something if you actually had a 4K TV set. The backwards compatibility was limited in that way and 4K was only in it's infancy to market. So users had to purchase an expensive 4K set and the 4Pro to really take advantage of it.

Not true, there were a lot of games with performance options on the 4Pro.

 

[Globalisateur]

So I just want to offer a second perspective here, though it will come across as negative, is imo, worth noting.

Firstly, compared to PS4 Pro, 4Pro only did something if you actually had a 4K TV set. The backwards compatibility was limited in that way and 4K was only in it's infancy to market. So users had to purchase an expensive 4K set and the 4Pro to really take advantage of it.

Secondly, the market share of ownership was not as lopsided as it is now.

Comparatively, 4K sets are largely the norm today, and 5Pro's main aim is to enhance everything. You only need to buy the 5Pro and they own a much larger chunk of the console market share than they did before.
And the CEO is under_ the_impression that it's close to or barely surpassing 4Pro sales.

IMO, that's useful speak for investors and gamers, but internally the metrics are probably showing that the 5Pro is under performing when compared to 4Pro.

And the only reason I'm taking position, is not because I think it's a bad product, but let's be real, we just had the craziest election in north america, where the richest country in the world, felt like the economy was a disaster these last 4 years, when every other country around the world during the same time period performed several magnitudes worse than the US. If the US doesn't have enough money to buy a 5Pro, no other country will fair better.

I can't see there being any money in the system for them to be wildly successful at this price point. It's going to fall off a cliff next quarter, I'd be curious to see his statement then.

Don't compare yourself to the PC market. Consoles have no where near the utility or value of a high end GPU.

Even if it performed around the same level as PS4 Pro, and they said it performed better (you think he lied? this is some coping).

It did that while costing $700 €800 instead of $400 €400! Perspective. It was objectively a very successive launch and they likely produced more than PS4 Pro for the launch.

 

[iroboto]

Not true, there were a lot of games with performance options on the 4Pro.

So did X1X. But It was marketed as a 4K machine, most people who purchased these high end consoles weren’t playing on 1080p.

 

[iroboto]

Even if it performed around the same level as PS4 Pro, and they said it performed better (you think he lied? this is some coping).

It did that while costing $700 €800 instead of $400 €400! Perspective. It was objectively a very successive launch and they likely produced more than PS4 Pro for the launch.

He said that is he under the impression that it sold more, launch aligned, which is not much of a victory because it hasn’t even been a week yet.

He’s under the impression because it’s only counting preorders, many of which we see are being resold on eBay, many of which don’t count returns. The rest of the month could fall off a cliff.

If people are trying to make a buck because they are broke, but realize that they can’t, they will return.

 

[Globalisateur]

He said that is he under the impression that it sold more, launch aligned, which is not much of a victory because it hasn’t even been a week yet.

He’s under the impression because it’s only counting preorders, many of which we see are being resold on eBay, many of which don’t count returns. The rest of the month could fall off a cliff.

If people are trying to make a buck because they are broke, but realize that they can’t, they will return.

Why do you care and absolutely want this thing to fail? For now, at the price it's sold, it's objectively doing better than PS4 Pro. We'll see if it stays like this in a few weeks.

 

[tuna]

So did X1X. But It was marketed as a 4K machine, most people who purchased these high end consoles weren’t playing on 1080p.

I was.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I was.

I wonder if there's any metrics on that? My feeling is lot are playing at 1080p. Very quick Google, in 2024, 28% of UK homes have a UHD TV. 59% have an HD TV. Rest don't know or neither. I can very readily believe a good half of consoles are on 1080p still.

 

[iroboto]

Why do you care and absolutely want this thing to fail? For now, at the price it's sold, it's objectively doing better than PS4 Pro. We'll see if it stays like this in a few weeks.

I don’t want things to fail. Whether I’m right or wrong is not what I care about. I am trying to offer perspective of the totality 5pro launched in, and it should be considered OK to look at any tech market speak after we laid off 250K tech workers and have a certain amount of skepticism about it.

The ceo was asked to provide a statement because their report landed a day or so after 5pro launched. That’s the best he could offer. As gamers you may take what he said as positive news. As an investor, I would not. Whenever I want to invest money, I do a lot more spot checks to validate. Checking on eBay shows me people are trying to scalp like they did with PS5, yet the stores are flush with stock. So what should happen in this case?

I would ask myself are pre-orders actually the same? What will happen with sales now that pre-orders are done. These are all real questions to ask if you have a couple thousand to spend, would you put it on Sony?

you have to ask these questions. As much as Ife profited from nvidia through AI, until the end consumer starts consuming AI, there’s just no way to continually purchase nvidia. They will stop MS, Meta, and all these companies can’t find a way to monetize AI. So despite the fact that Blackwell is sold out, we need to ask if this the bubble will pop or not.

This is the sales thread right? This is where we start talking the business side of things. The other threads are technical. I make the switch with context as required.

Maybe there is some confusion on where I lie in my posting. I do my best in technical threads to spur discussion on how things work, but more importantly for that to work, spade must be called a spade. For business threads I typically look at trends, patterns and futures using the past.

For fanboy threads, I generally leave people to loving what they love.

If I haven’t been behaving in this way, since becoming a mod, let me know. But you really need to consider trying to separate these items before you start calling people out because you read something you don’t like.

 

[iroboto]

I was.

As was I during pre-order period. I had to wait for my 4K set to arrive.

But my point is, by 2021 44% of house holds in US had a 4K TV. One of the cited reasons were due to game consoles. By 2024 that number is going to be much larger.

Game consoles continue to be the piece of hardware driving 4K adoption. The price point of 4K sets dropping rapidly since 2017 is also probably the major driving factor here.

Though this is a good discussion to have. Sort of points as to why Sony is more focused on frame rate instead of resolution. Actually quite obvious now that we talk about it.

 

[see colon]

I wonder if there's any metrics on that? My feeling is lot are playing at 1080p. Very quick Google, in 2024, 28% of UK homes have a UHD TV. 59% have an HD TV. Rest don't know or neither. I can very readily believe a good half of consoles are on 1080p still.

I have a 4K tv but I play all of my console games on a 1080p set in my bedroom. I can't imagine my situation is unique, either. I'm sure lots of gamers, especially younger ones, play games not on the living room TV, and many probably have smaller sets in their rooms.

 

[chris1515]

Not so surprising remember scalpers during PS5 launch and shortage, the console was sold 1000 dollars/euros maybe they inspired Sony.

 

[iroboto]

Not so surprising remember scalpers during PS5 launch and shortage, the console was sold 1000 dollars/euros maybe they inspired Sony.

Thankfully they are being burned for this behaviour. I can't vouch for the bias poster of this tweet, don't really know him, but it's good to see scalpers lose.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1855982597471351224

hmm can't get tweet to show

 

[Charlietus]

Thankfully they are being burned for this behaviour. I can't vouch for the bias poster of this tweet, don't really know him, but it's good to see scalpers lose.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1855982597471351224

hmm can't get tweet to show

The street price is already lower one week after launch. This is going to be 650€ new and 550€ used by the end of next year. That 800€ price without disc is nonsense.