All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2021 Edition]

[Johnny Awesome]

I was speaking to comments about affordability, not whether or not consoles were socially acceptable or not. It's up to the big players to bring out appealing content in those regions.

Also, I think the XSS is actually going to do better visually over time as pixel quality becomes more important than resolution as the generation progresses and more and more DX12U features are implemented.

 

[liams]

I think its unrealistic to expect game pass to appeal to everyone in India, especially the least well off. What it does do however is lower the floor for people who might consider gaming as a hobby. After a bit of research it seems that most console games are priced between $50-70 in India, fairly equivalent to the prices paid in the west, with some third party games cheaper than the typical $60-70. This limits gaming as a hobby to families that have a similar income to people in the west, which in India is a higher level than in america for instance. Game pass ultimate on the other hand is $9 per month in India, so it becomes significantly more appealing than paying a large sum for a console then for each individual game. Everyone's favorite game pass comparison point is netflix, and they have ~26 million subscribers in India right now. netflix offers more tiers in india, including much cheaper mobile only tiers, but the price of normal netflix, as its sold in the west is ~$9, comparable to game pass ultimate.

I think game pass in India will be the most appealing to people who's earnings are just below the point where they would feel comfortable shelling out $70 a pop for games, not necessarily for the wealthy where the attraction to either playstation or xbox will be like it is in other markets, based on the content that each platform provides. I think game pass makes console gaming more accessible for people in developing countries, and if microsoft were to introduce cheaper tiers in the same manner as netflix has in India (mobile only tiers, with streaming quality limits, maybe limited hours streamed per month, that sort of thing) that these developing markets are a huge growth opportunity for microsoft in the gaming space, especially since playstation isn't in an established market dominant position yet, with near complete capture of mindshare in the market, like playstation has in continental europe.


Info on netflix subscribers in india
Less Than 5% Internet Users In India Have Netflix Subscription - Dazeinfo

 

[liams]

I was speaking to comments about affordability, not whether or not consoles were socially acceptable or not. It's up to the big players to bring out appealing content in those regions.

Also, I think the XSS is actually going to do better visually over time as pixel quality becomes more important than resolution as the generation progresses and more and more DX12U features are implemented.

Some developers from Remedy were asked about what they thought of the series S and they basically echo what you are saying. Specifically they said that during this cross gen period, with games using engines that arent built around next gen systems yet, that series S hasnt really reached its full potential yet (that is heavily paraphrased from memory, to be clear). Once engines (and games) are built around things like asset streaming and ssds, and especially when the machine learning based upscaling techniques start being used in earnest I think the series s will provide a better experience than people are expecting.

 

[AzBat]

Problem is (IMHO) the target audience doesn’t usually buy at launch.

Yep, the target audience just bought XB1S or PS4 in 2017-2019 when sale prices were under $250.

$300 isn't a mass market price for consoles & I suspect the majority of the Series-S sales thus far are either to people who gave up waiting on a Series X or PS5 because of supply issues or are smart enough to know that it's good enough if they're not using it on a 4K TV. I just don't believe the market it's intended for is actually looking at it until this fall at the earliest. Maybe we'll get some numbers after Halo is released or after Christmas.

Tommy McClain

 

[liams]

Yep, the target audience just bought XB1S or PS4 in 2017-2019 when sale prices were under $250.

$300 isn't a mass market price for consoles & I suspect the majority of the Series-S sales thus far are either to people who gave up waiting on a Series X or PS5 because of supply issues or are smart enough to know that it's good enough if they're not using it on a 4K TV. I just don't believe the market it's intended for is actually looking at it until this fall at the earliest. Maybe we'll get some numbers after Halo is released or after Christmas.

Tommy McClain

I think we will see substantial boosts in series s sales around Christmas each year, by next year (holiday 2022) I bet they could do a bundle for a series S with 6 months of game pass ultimate for $200, I bet that would fly off the shelf with people buying them for Christmas presents

Plus when the 6 months of game pass ultimate runs out, chances are you have a very persuasive child to convince their parents to pay for an ongoing sub, whats $15 a month to shut little Timmy up about this whole game pass thing?

 

[Jay]

Plus when the 6 months of game pass ultimate runs out

I don't see this being the case at all.
At most 3 months like the current offer they are doing. Simply because they haven't ever seemed to bundle a lot of time to their subscription services. Usually 14 days.

$300 isn't a mass market price for consoles

I think $300 is mass market price, especially considering that PS5/DD & XSX won't get price reduced to below that for years, if ever.
That's the point of the XSS, knowing that's the case.

Once the usual sales kick in the XSS will be $250, and usual suspects who are extremely price sensitive will pick up the XSS.
During the normal year, will sell just fine imo.

This is before all consoles gets price lowered by $50.

 

[goonergaz]

Yep, the target audience just bought XB1S or PS4 in 2017-2019 when sale prices were under $250.

$300 isn't a mass market price for consoles & I suspect the majority of the Series-S sales thus far are either to people who gave up waiting on a Series X or PS5 because of supply issues or are smart enough to know that it's good enough if they're not using it on a 4K TV. I just don't believe the market it's intended for is actually looking at it until this fall at the earliest. Maybe we'll get some numbers after Halo is released or after Christmas.

Tommy McClain

It's the prefect stocking filler (as it were) - you could even buy it with a view to upgrading to the XSX in a couple years...problem this year was no supply but I think this Christmas it'll sell really well.

 

[eastmen]

I do not follow the semi-conductor industry. So this might be 180 degrees off, but TSMC have not really been hit by covid nor the drought in any significant way.
Issue has been increased demand for products/production and that chinese companies hoarded stuff when they got banned from buying American tech.
Also Apple booked a ton of production and they also bought Huawei slots when Huawei gave up theirs.

Now, semi-conductors is not my business, but this is the stuff we get told by our vendors to explain all issues. We already had 25% price hikes on our products and now we are looking at anything fromo 25 to 50% more.... YMMW in regards to this info...

But with this all in mind, production capacity is basically a wild west territory, you got cash, you get what you want. And this affects everybody including Sony and MS.
Someone told me that the German state is subsidising Audi so they can get chips and also putting pressure on Taiwan/TSMC, what to belive, I do not know.

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/taiwan-ration-water-1-million-101119505.html

Some TSMC fabs will slightly increase the proportion of water from tanker trucks to improve flexibility. The new requirement for us to cut water usage by 15% starting 6th April will not impact our operations," it said, without elaborating.

Its odd because there isn't much information after the start of april but the drought is getting worse https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...truck-by-power-cuts-for-second-time-in-a-week


Covid spikes seem to be newer
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57135647

So we will have to see what effect if any they have.

I think governments would be smart to get chip production in their own country. I believe Intel is pledged to build in Arizona and I belivee they had some in NY at one point
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/int...-to-build-two-new-chip-plants-in-arizona.html

 

[eastmen]

Regarding why XSS isn’t popular- likely digital only is the biggest barrier, let’s face it XSS is a Trojan horse to get people onto game pass, nice a cheap and low monthly regular payments for games.

Problem is (IMHO) the target audience doesn’t usually buy at launch...I bought one but only because I have GPU for next couple years and knew I would buy PS5 exclusives and 3rd party games on PC.

It’s actually a really good deal for parents IMHO if they are prepared to swallow the ongoing monthly GP.

Digital continues to increase in over all sales vs physical so I doubt its the problem. I think we and other forums are a bit out of touch with what sells consoles. Demon Souls and returnal as nice as they are , are not system sellers. The medium and the like aren't system sellers. So right now in the USA and other countries more people willing to buy now are buying XSX and PS5 because they are the hard core that want the best of the best and don't really care about exclusives. They are people who bought an xbox 360 to play cod 2 and perfect dark zero.

In countries like India you can buy an xbox series s for a similar price to the ps4. The ps4 has a ton of great exclusives but we all know that the days of it getting sony exclusives is coming to and end. Which means you have a 2013 box that eventually wont get new games. Or you can pay a similar price and get a system that plays all the same third party games as that ps4 and trades the sony exclusives for the xbox exclusives for better or worse. Except the XSS has that fast ssd , it plays all the games at higher resolutions and frame rates than that ps4 and while we can debate the merits of exclusive lists , it will have future exclusives to the xbox going forward as well as backwards unlike the ps4.

I think in the states as we start to see the wheel of MS exclusives (again for better or worse) start to spin that $300 price point or $25 a month with game pass will make it popular.

I also think we can all agree that it is likely the cheapest console to make by a long shot. So I figure it will be the first to drop in price which will bring down that all access price too.

Will be interesting how things play out going forward

 

[JPT]

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/taiwan-ration-water-1-million-101119505.html


Its odd because there isn't much information after the start of april but the drought is getting worse https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...truck-by-power-cuts-for-second-time-in-a-week

The people I know and work with that live in Taiwan, does not really talk about it. They never complain, well except for he ones that grew up outside Taiwan and moved back as adults But they handle everything with a very stoic calm, it must be said, my point of reference are adults around 50 years old

Covid spikes seem to be newer
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-57135647

So we will have to see what effect if any they have.

The COVID spike, I heard has its origin from quarantine hotels for the Airline industry, ie it got out from there. But Taiwan has been super strict from day one. It helps when the vice-president (I think) was a Virologist. But the day to day impact has been less harsh, they have done home office, for office workers etc. But again, nobody doesnt really complain, more that they are proud that their country has handled it so well.

I think governments would be smart to get chip production in their own country. I believe Intel is pledged to build in Arizona and I belivee they had some in NY at one point
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/23/int...-to-build-two-new-chip-plants-in-arizona.html

The investments are on the level of a state budget, but I assume that most chip runs are not bleeding edge 5nm and other must be cheaper/easier to do. I wish Norway would look into investing into building something like it here. But of course there is a raw material supplier industry built up around it in Taiwan that also has be "replicated" to some degree.

 

[goonergaz]

Digital continues to increase in over all sales vs physical so I doubt its the problem. I think we and other forums are a bit out of touch with what sells consoles. Demon Souls and returnal as nice as they are , are not system sellers. The medium and the like aren't system sellers. So right now in the USA and other countries more people willing to buy now are buying XSX and PS5 because they are the hard core that want the best of the best and don't really care about exclusives. They are people who bought an xbox 360 to play cod 2 and perfect dark zero.

In countries like India you can buy an xbox series s for a similar price to the ps4. The ps4 has a ton of great exclusives but we all know that the days of it getting sony exclusives is coming to and end. Which means you have a 2013 box that eventually wont get new games. Or you can pay a similar price and get a system that plays all the same third party games as that ps4 and trades the sony exclusives for the xbox exclusives for better or worse. Except the XSS has that fast ssd , it plays all the games at higher resolutions and frame rates than that ps4 and while we can debate the merits of exclusive lists , it will have future exclusives to the xbox going forward as well as backwards unlike the ps4.

I think in the states as we start to see the wheel of MS exclusives (again for better or worse) start to spin that $300 price point or $25 a month with game pass will make it popular.

I also think we can all agree that it is likely the cheapest console to make by a long shot. So I figure it will be the first to drop in price which will bring down that all access price too.

Will be interesting how things play out going forward

Sales for digital may be increasing, but what % are they lower income that want to get cheaper games?

Physical by an extremely large easy win is the cheapest way to buy games, so having a price friendly console with price unfriendly media is not the best solution.

Want BC? You need to rebuy the game digitally. Want the latest release? You have to spend £60 which you won’t get a penny back on or subscribe and have your game selection dictated to you.

Who would likely buy the XSS? Likely parents of kids...what games will they most likely ‘must’ play? CoD.

Another thing, if digital was so popular then the PS5 DE would be more desirable- but it’s not.

 

[liams]

Sales for digital may be increasing, but what % are they lower income that want to get cheaper games?

Physical by an extremely large easy win is the cheapest way to buy games, so having a price friendly console with price unfriendly media is not the best solution.

Want BC? You need to rebuy the game digitally. Want the latest release? You have to spend £60 which you won’t get a penny back on or subscribe and have your game selection dictated to you.

Who would likely buy the XSS? Likely parents of kids...what games will they most likely ‘must’ play? CoD.

Another thing, if digital was so popular then the PS5 DE would be more desirable- but it’s not.

the real silver bullet for the series s is when they make a minecraft version of it and throw in a creeper action figure, would fly off the shelves as gifts for kids

they could probably do a roblox one as well, really corner the young kid market for consoles

 

[eastmen]

Sales for digital may be increasing, but what % are they lower income that want to get cheaper games?

Physical by an extremely large easy win is the cheapest way to buy games, so having a price friendly console with price unfriendly media is not the best solution.

Want BC? You need to rebuy the game digitally. Want the latest release? You have to spend £60 which you won’t get a penny back on or subscribe and have your game selection dictated to you.

Who would likely buy the XSS? Likely parents of kids...what games will they most likely ‘must’ play? CoD.

Another thing, if digital was so popular then the PS5 DE would be more desirable- but it’s not.

Over all digital sales are increasing and now are a higher % of sales verses physical. So even in the lower income brackets physical is dying.

I am not sure if I agree with you unless we are talking about someone only buying one or two games a year. Buying physical new is extremely expensive. Game pass is $10 or $15 a month depending on what you choose. So your looking at $120 a year or $180. That is the price of 2 or so games and thats before any discounts for buying larger amounts of time at once. If your a multiplayer gamer then its even cheaper. Xbox has live for $10 or you pay $15 for game pass. Sony requires PS Plus for online gaming right ? So your looking at $10 a month and I think you can do $25 for 3 months or $60 for 12 months . I think MS also offers live for about the same , $25, $40 , $60 for 3,6,12 months on live.

So When you add on the $60 for a year of ps+ / xbox live you can either buy 1 new game new and your at $120 game pass ultimate at $15 a month gets you to $180 like I said. So your looking at online plus 2 new physical games for the price of game pass ultimate for the year.

Used changes the equation but at least in the states places like gamestop will always give you less than you paid. So even if your able to play more games your going to constantly be adding money into the equation. If you enjoy a game and hold it longer the value goes down . You can also try and sell it yourself but online sites will take a cut and so will most payment processors , same in private sale and they all eat up more time

I think that plus the pandemic is really going to speed up the death of retail.

I also don't know how you would figure out if the DE is more popular than the ps5 physical. They both sell out right away and there is a $100 pricing difference. I think the fact that the DE exists from Sony is proof that digital is getting ever more popular

 

[AzBat]

I think $300 is mass market price

$300 for a dedicated game machine in years past, I would say yeah. But I was speaking of XBSS specifically. It's a device that doesn't have a Bluray drive & it's not a mobile. So it's really in this new weird category. Too expensive for a set-top box/streaming device. And at $300 it competes more with the Switch, phones & tablets, but they have more utility since they're all portable. Had XBSS been a portable, then $300 would have been a great mass market price. The device is really meant as the main entry point to Game Pass or a Fortnite/Halo Infinite box or whatever free-to-play game is hot. Paying $300 a-la-cart is the old way of buying it. It really should be sold mainly via Xbox All Access where you get it & Game Pass Ultimate for $25/mo. As @eastmen says I also suspect we will see more uptake there as time goes on & more 1st party games are available. This holiday should be interesting, but I suspect like you that a $50 price cut isn't on cards until summer 2022 at the earliest. More likely Holiday 2022. I also agree that sales will be OK until then because like you said XBSX & PS5 pricing isn't moving for awhile.

Tommy McClain

 

[eastmen]

$300 for a dedicated game machine in years past, I would say yeah. But I was speaking of XBSS specifically. It's a device that doesn't have a Bluray drive & it's not a mobile. So it's really in this new weird category. Too expensive for a set-top box/streaming device. And at $300 it competes more with the Switch, phones & tablets, but they have more utility since they're all portable. Had XBSS been a portable, then $300 would have been a great mass market price. The device is really meant as the main entry point to Game Pass or a Fortnite/Halo Infinite box or whatever free-to-play game is hot. Paying $300 a-la-cart is the old way of buying it. It really should be sold mainly via Xbox All Access where you get it & Game Pass Ultimate for $25/mo. As @eastmen says I also suspect we will see more uptake there as time goes on & more 1st party games are available. This holiday should be interesting, but I suspect like you that a $50 price cut isn't on cards until summer 2022 at the earliest. More likely Holiday 2022. I also agree that sales will be OK until then because like you said XBSX & PS5 pricing isn't moving for awhile.

Tommy McClain

I think this year is a wash because of how limited production is . I think the xbox series and ps5s are all going to sell out this holiday.

But moving forward you have less / slower ram , smaller SOC and things that are harder to get into but a much smaller foot print allows ms to ship multiple xbox series s vs even the ps5 de.

The Xbox Series S is 4.25pounds , Series X is 9.6 , ps5 9.9 , de- 8.6 ? I believe. So two series s's would be 8.5lbs . So its cheaper to ship two series s's than one ps5.

The xbox series s is also much smaller than the x or ps5. So again you'll be able to fit more of them in a pallet.

Then as I always say there is less plastic , a less complex cooling system vs the other two and so on and so forth. The die size is 197mm2 vs 360mm2 for the x and I believe 306mm2 for the ps5.

All these costs add up. So I think once they stop being supply constrained and series s start sitting you will see pricing changes. I don't want to say it will out right drop to $250 or something. But I think you might see the all access price drop a bit maybe from $25 to $20 and perhaps a $300 bundle with 3 months or so of game pass ultimate.



I still think the major comparison for the series s is to the ps4 / xbox one. All three systems are $300. Obviously the series s is the smarter buy vs the one s. But with the ps4 vs the series s it comes down to , does the customer doing the purchase care more about future exclusives , next gen features including ssd and ray tracing and 1080-1440p BC with 60-120fps gaming or the already released (maybe a few more exlusives this year) sony exclusives.

i think for a consumer going in the series s is the best of the 3 hands down. You can make a case that spending an extra $100 for a ps5 de is the better choice or $200 for the disc or series x. But again that is a lot of money. That is what 6 months of game pass ultimate , maybe 1-2 games if they are on sale. Not everyone can afford that

 

[goonergaz]

Over all digital sales are increasing and now are a higher % of sales verses physical. So even in the lower income brackets physical is dying.

You have absolutely zero evidence this is the case...unless you want to share it?

I am not sure if I agree with you unless we are talking about someone only buying one or two games a year. Buying physical new is extremely expensive. Game pass is $10 or $15 a month depending on what you choose. So your looking at $120 a year or $180. That is the price of 2 or so games and thats before any discounts for buying larger amounts of time at once. If your a multiplayer gamer then its even cheaper. Xbox has live for $10 or you pay $15 for game pass. Sony requires PS Plus for online gaming right ? So your looking at $10 a month and I think you can do $25 for 3 months or $60 for 12 months . I think MS also offers live for about the same , $25, $40 , $60 for 3,6,12 months on live.

So When you add on the $60 for a year of ps+ / xbox live you can either buy 1 new game new and your at $120 game pass ultimate at $15 a month gets you to $180 like I said. So your looking at online plus 2 new physical games for the price of game pass ultimate for the year.

Used changes the equation but at least in the states places like gamestop will always give you less than you paid. So even if your able to play more games your going to constantly be adding money into the equation. If you enjoy a game and hold it longer the value goes down . You can also try and sell it yourself but online sites will take a cut and so will most payment processors , same in private sale and they all eat up more time

Do you have kids? Kids will play the games they and their friends want to...and they will always want the latest version. New FIFA, CoD, GTA (etc) - those are not on GPU and therefore they will 'need' to be purchased.

I'm not saying GP is not worth the money, what I'm saying is that committing to monthly costs on top of the usual purchases is not ideal when you're on a budget. And whilst I agree on your point below about the pandemic, don't also forget a shed-load of people have lost jobs.

I think that plus the pandemic is really going to speed up the death of retail.

And this has skewed the 'popularity' of digital argument.

I also don't know how you would figure out if the DE is more popular than the ps5 physical. They both sell out right away and there is a $100 pricing difference. I think the fact that the DE exists from Sony is proof that digital is getting ever more popular

How I figure out that the demand for PS5 is higher than XSX - by looking at market forces, mark up on the disk edition is higher, so (much like XSX vs PS5) despite there being more disk consoles out there the demand is higher. Also, if digital was so popular (and we know Sony make more money from it) - then why not produce more of the bigger money maker? They simply don't because demand isn't there.

 

[goonergaz]

i think for a consumer going in the series s is the best of the 3 hands down. You can make a case that spending an extra $100 for a ps5 de is the better choice or $200 for the disc or series x. But again that is a lot of money. That is what 6 months of game pass ultimate , maybe 1-2 games if they are on sale. Not everyone can afford that

I totally 100% agree that if you're choosing between last gen and this it's a no brainer (hell at launch I got mine for £10 as I traded in my X), however the XSS is unfortunately limited on the performance/PQ so outside of those who might not care about those things (kids and people with a PS5/decent PC), the PS5 DE is a significantly better proposition for the extra money.

 

[BRiT]

You have absolutely zero evidence this is the case...unless you want to share it?

Have a look at the financial reports of large game publishers like EA and Activision and Ubisoft, they usually have statements around the increase of digital goods. There may be some caveats about it, but thats usually where industry analysts like ZHugeX make their statements about the digital proliferation.

 

[eastmen]

You have absolutely zero evidence this is the case...unless you want to share it?


Do you have kids? Kids will play the games they and their friends want to...and they will always want the latest version. New FIFA, CoD, GTA (etc) - those are not on GPU and therefore they will 'need' to be purchased.

I'm not saying GP is not worth the money, what I'm saying is that committing to monthly costs on top of the usual purchases is not ideal when you're on a budget. And whilst I agree on your point below about the pandemic, don't also forget a shed-load of people have lost jobs.


And this has skewed the 'popularity' of digital argument.


How I figure out that the demand for PS5 is higher than XSX - by looking at market forces, mark up on the disk edition is higher, so (much like XSX vs PS5) despite there being more disk consoles out there the demand is higher. Also, if digital was so popular (and we know Sony make more money from it) - then why not produce more of the bigger money maker? They simply don't because demand isn't there.

1) I mean
https://screenrant.com/digital-game-sales-consoles-outnumber-physical-first-time/
As of july 30th Ea had 52% of its console games sold digital , Take 2 had 55% for FY 2020 , Sony had 51% of PS4 games in FY2020 as digital

And here when you look at PC and Console
https://www.statista.com/statistics... 2018, a record 83,were sold in physical form.
Physical sales in 2018 were only 17% of the market.

2) No I don't have kids , I do have nieces and nephews and I am the Cool uncle some how. So I tend to be the one who sets up their quest or gets them the new console from work. Your right there are some games that aren't on game pass. That is correct no way around it. However in a given year there are plenty of games they want that are on game pass. So at the end of the day they would be buying either the non game pass games plus game pass games either new or used , or they would be buying game pass and then the games they want that aren't on game pass.

Both my older nephews (10-13) are into Apex and call of duty warzone which are both FTP and they both play a lot of halo and gears which are part of game pass. They also both stream a ton to their phones on xcloud. which is something they can't do with their physical copies.

There is also now the rumor that all EA games will be game pass day one.

3) You already have a monthly cost for Live or PSN + however. Adding ultimate over game pass is $5 a month. Also at the end of the day your still going to be shelling out a lot of money for physical games. A new game is $60-70 now and even buying used and selling back your going to be spending money. There is no clear scenario where one is better than the other. Its up to the individual to decided. But don't for get

You can 1) Buy physical either new or used and you can trade / sell when your done. Buy xbox live or psn to play those games online with friends or 2) Buy Game pass ultimate which has xbox live and allows you to play through the game pass catalog and gives you xcloud or 3) do all of it

4) How is sony making more of the digital system vs the physical ? Its the same system right ? But one has a $20-$30 disc drive in it and costs $100 more and the other one lacks said disc drive and costs $100 less. Seems like they would make more money off the physical edition still ? So they have more of an incentive of selling the console where they make the most or loose the least ?

Also from what I can see in the States both the x and ps5 sell for similar prices and both have trouble passing the $1k range as the upper limit.

 

[eastmen]

I totally 100% agree that if you're choosing between last gen and this it's a no brainer (hell at launch I got mine for £10 as I traded in my X), however the XSS is unfortunately limited on the performance/PQ so outside of those who might not care about those things (kids and people with a PS5/decent PC), the PS5 DE is a significantly better proposition for the extra money.

It all depends. We both agree that in terms of last gen and the $300 price point the S is king. You say that the Ps5 DE is a better proposition for the extra money and I agree in some cases. But what if I was an xbox 360 owner and still have a bunch of the games , xbox one owner with a bunch of games ? Both ? The ps5 doesn't play any of those games while the series s will play any of the ones I have digital. If i was a large physical purchaser then the $200 for the series x would be the best purchase.

Then there is another scenario which is a person limited on space the ps5 is gigantic compared to the S. Right now for me that doesn't matter I have plenty of space. But I remember how big the dorms my friends had or some of our first apartments. I also know people who move from one place to another and would want a much smaller and lighter console

Aside from that I would wager for people who have $400 or $500 to spend the xbox series x and ps5 in both formats are better purchases . The xbox series x gets you twice the storage capacity , the ultra hd bluray drive and a much more powerful and capable machine while still having access to all of microsofts services like game pass. The ps5 de would get you into the sony eco system . The disc drive one would allow you to access the ps4 library dirt cheap with used games.

I would actually tell a person who had $300 now to spend on a console to just do a series x all access. Its $35 a month and you get the x and game pass ultimate . Payments are 2 years so your paying $840. Of course its a lot more than a $300 system sure. But you get access to hundreds of games off the bat plus xbox live. That $300 you had saved will get you what 8 months of payments towards the system. So during that 8 months you can put more money on the side to continue payments or that $35 may be money you can easily put together each month.

Same if someone was going to buy a used ps4 or xbox one . The S is $25 a month via all access. You'll spend $600 over the two years but of course you get game pass ultimate. The initial money you'd spend. Heck on gamestop it appears the PS4 slim black is $280 used ! Wow the xbox one phat is $240. Yea def I would say do all access on the s or x over any last gen console