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

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony is reporting soon or has reported. Their profitability picture should be interesting.

From above article:

However, Sony has seen an overall 12 percent increase in game revenue year-on-year, resulting in a 33 percent increase in profit.
That increase can be attributed to both an 18 percent increase in software revenue year-on-year and a 25 percent increase in Network Services revenue - predominantly PS Plus.

Could it be that the overwhelming demand in the first couple of years has led them to think that they don’t need to cut prices as they have with previous console generations?

No, because they can see sales are waning and they even selling below targets.

I know that costs are high now, but I find it short sighted for both platform holders to not subside those consoles. Especially for Sony, every user is very profitable between microtransactions, accessories and games, so selling more would lead to better financials.

From the people willing to buy a $500 console. However, the people who's interest in a new console only extends to $250 might be more frugal, and not worth the subsidy. Sony have metrics on revenue from new PS3's sold at different price brackets, and PS4 at $400 and $300. I doubt they'd miss an obvious win if there's one to be had.

 

[see colon]

How is it that a console launched 4 years ago, with a design and tech even older, can’t get cost-reduced by now?

Sony is reporting soon or has reported. Their profitability picture should be interesting.

Could it be that the overwhelming demand in the first couple of years has led them to think that they don’t need to cut prices as they have with previous console generations?

Previously, the size of your processors would be a significant variable in the cost. Now, the price per transistor has normalized, so doing a process shrink, one of the ways you would traditionally lower your BOM on a fixed hardware platform, doesn't net any savings that you can pass on to the consumer. Might some parts of these consoles be getting cheaper? Yes. Particularly for Sony who are producing a slim model and had a revision with less heatsink. But a large portion of your cost is going into manufacturing parts that can't substantially be cost reduced.

I know that costs are high now, but I find it short sighted for both platform holders to not subside those consoles. Especially for Sony, every user is very profitable between microtransactions, accessories and games, so selling more would lead to better financials. Are they scared to report losses in hardware to investors?

Ps: and for Microsoft, it would boost gamepass numbers, if users were receptive to series x price cuts.

I think they are more scared of losing the money, and while I'm sure investor confidence is a factor, we are also seeing a contraction in the industry with widespread layoffs and consolidation. Adding in a fixed loss with the hopes that you can make it back later is risky in this climate. And to be honest, we don't really know if they aren't subsidizing hardware at this moment. I can tell you that as a retailer, we make essentially $0 on new consoles. Maybe it shows up as a $10-30 gain for the retail cost + shipping, but after the payroll cost of someone opening the boxes and processing the shipment, that's essentially eaten up. A wholesale price cut would be nice.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

"PS5 gets another price rise in Japan, now costs £170 more than at launch

Sony has announced a significant price hike for PlayStation 5 in Japan, which will see the cost of the console's standard and Digital Editions rise by ¥13,000 (around £70)."

That's crazy. Economically driven, but what a world we live in where console prices go up over time instead of down! It's no wonder hardware sales are down versus other machines, particular as the former console still gets games. Imagine how well PS5 would have sold if it hit $200!

 

[Johnny Awesome]

MS was right.

 

[Charlietus]

MS was right.

With what? Series s? I agree. 2gb of additional ram and it would have been perfect.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Console market might be dying though.

 

[Charlietus]

Console market might be dying though.

Let's define "dying". The user cap has been reached for a while, so by that definition it's been dying for 15 years.

What can they do to return to growth?
I think that they need to not only launch cheaper 300$ consoles, like Microsoft has done, but handhelds as well. Just launching 500-600$ consoles is not going to cut it. I wonder if people will criticize a handheld for holding back the generation, as if the millions of low end PC and last gen consoles would not exist.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Let's define "dying".

In Big Business and Capitalism terms, 'dying' is probably defined as 'not achieving greater than 5% growth every year'. If an industry isn't returning massive growth, investors will want to redirect money to other industries that are, pulling out the funding/interest in the market. The fact the industry is potentially self-supporting with a comfortably sized audience and sustainable revenue model isn't good enough.

The user cap has been reached for a while, so by that definition it's been dying for 15 years.

There's always going to be a sizeable number of people (~200+ million, especially given emerging markets although consoles look like they'll be forever priced out of those now) that want to game on a TV. Mobile won't do it and PC isn't offering the same experience as console.

What can they do to return to growth?

If MS had actually marketed and supported XBSS, as the only budget console out there we might be looking at another 20 million console gamers right now. MS not supporting their consoles is a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

"We won't sell much, so we won't bother trying."
four years later: "See? We said we weren't going to sell much."

I think that they need to not only launch cheaper 300$ consoles, like Microsoft has done, but handhelds as well. Just launching 500-600$ consoles is not going to cut it. I wonder if people will criticize a handheld for holding back the generation, as if the millions of low end PC and last gen consoles would not exist.

Core console gamers will, but they are a small (if noisy) part of the market.

 

[Globalisateur]

"PS5 gets another price rise in Japan, now costs £170 more than at launch

Sony has announced a significant price hike for PlayStation 5 in Japan, which will see the cost of the console's standard and Digital Editions rise by ¥13,000 (around £70)."

That's crazy. Economically driven, but what a world we live in where console prices go up over time instead of down! It's no wonder hardware sales are down versus other machines, particular as the former console still gets games. Imagine how well PS5 would have sold if it hit $200!

Sony are stupid to do that while people are more and more attracted by PC + Steam. Now is not the time to decide making money on selling hardware the way Nintendo do! Incredibly short term goals there from the bosses. They can afford to subsidize some hardware losses. But they can't afford to let people buy high end PC instead of PS5 + PS Store, which is what is currently happening right now. I have seen reports of that kind in Japan. What are they thinking? They don't have their own store on PC! And honestly their current sales overall on PC, including their big SP games, are pathetic compared to what they make on console.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Also, where does that put the PS5 Pro? You'd think Japan would be the home of its strongest sales. How do PC HW prices compare? Are they similarly high and so PS5 remains competitive?

 

[RobertR1]

https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-shooter-concord-going-offline-this-week reverse sales lol

 

[Globalisateur]

https://www.ign.com/articles/playstation-shooter-concord-going-offline-this-week reverse sales lol

Deserved. What an unappealing videogame!

Most people (who buy videogames from their own money to have fun) knew it would fail hard. It was so easy to guess that.

Concord will bomb hard as an soulless, uninspired and chatGPT directed production.

 

[see colon]

Physical refunds are a tad trickier but players can check with individual retailers to obtain a refund. Sony will presumably organise a system with them itself that allows all refunds to be processed fully.

Wuff. I hope everyone who bought this physically kept their receipts.

 

[Charlietus]

I remember writing here that if the game was good and streamers picked it up it would have had some success. Well, neither happened. During the beta, I was curious of what twitch chat was saying so I opened a stream, and it was all "DEI, WOKE, PRONOUNS".
I just hope that the developers have a chance at making something completely different.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Those pronouns were a weird addition. You can have those identities without presenting them front and centre - Apex Legends does it well. Just give a name - not name+star sign+blood type etc.

As for the game, it needed more open beta testing and refinement to a good game. I bounced right off because the controls were fixed and not what I wanted. Game like this, keep playing and improving. Valve are doing it better with Deadlock, growing it organically, able to evaluate players and gameplay. Concord needed to be public Early Access for at least a year. And the execs were clear up themselves investing so much into world building and lore before they even had a product anyone wanted. Did they genuinely believe with a website and planned animations, people invest thousands of hours into a janky game??

Also, people say there are too many hero shooters but there aren't that many (still alive) and what people play, they grumble about. A perfect shooter should be able to win the market over. Maybe. Maybe everyone playing the games they hate on is suffering Stockholm Syndrome and unable to change? But I hear so many complaints about the super popular games, cheats, monetisation, etc., that a game lacking all these should be dope and super successful. Concord wasn't it. No-one has been able to land 'it' either, strangely.

I dunno. what's happened to the game design talent? Are we at a low? Feels like clueless execs and calling the design decisions, not artists.

 

[see colon]

Those pronouns were a weird addition. You can have those identities without presenting them front and centre - Apex Legends does it well. Just give a name - not name+star sign+blood type etc.

As for the game, it needed more open beta testing and refinement to a good game. I bounced right off because the controls were fixed and not what I wanted. Game like this, keep playing and improving. Valve are doing it better with Deadlock, growing it organically, able to evaluate players and gameplay. Concord needed to be public Early Access for at least a year. And the execs were clear up themselves investing so much into world building and lore before they even had a product anyone wanted. Did they genuinely believe with a website and planned animations, people invest thousands of hours into a janky game??

Also, people say there are too many hero shooters but there aren't that many (still alive) and what people play, they grumble about. A perfect shooter should be able to win the market over. Maybe. Maybe everyone playing the games they hate on is suffering Stockholm Syndrome and unable to change? But I hear so many complaints about the super popular games, cheats, monetisation, etc., that a game lacking all these should be dope and super successful. Concord wasn't it. No-one has been able to land 'it' either, strangely.

I dunno. what's happened to the game design talent? Are we at a low? Feels like clueless execs and calling the design decisions, not artists.

The answer to the price was to just have it as a premium product that's included on a PS+ tier somewhere above Essential. That way you have what amounts to a free to play game that still has a value in both the form of a price, and a value add for whatever tiers it's on, but still has a built in player base because it's "free". I know people like to compare Concord's failure to Redfall, but I think it's closer to Bleeding Edge, in that Concord and Bleeding Edge were multiplayer only arena games. Bleeding Edge launched day 1 into Gamepass and while it failed to find it's audience, it still had higher concurrent players on Steam than Concord did, by basically double. Concord couldn't attract a crowd enough to find it's audience, and that's sad. I feel bad for the people who are going to lose their jobs over this.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think a bought produce actually necessary and good simply because F2P invites cheats galore. You can't ban them as they just create a new account. An actual walled garden would benefit these games immensely, but it has to be on a popular title.

I'd say, if me running the show, F2P Early Access, get a game people love, then release at cost. Anyone who genuinely likes the game will pay the entry fee and keep the riff-raff out, and provide the best ever arena/hero shooter experience that is worth the asking price and attracts real players, but not the kiddies and cheats.