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

[Cappuccino]

Like I said, the console market isn't as healthy as it used to be, but what I'm mainly arguing against is the notion that the majority of console owners view the PC as a viable alternative. Most don't. That's why the PS5 Pro can sell for a lot at launch as the hardcore PS5 users aren't even comparing it to a PC alternative. They're just console enthusiasts that want it.

What I mean by Sony killing scalpers is that at the launch of PS5 Pro they are capturing the surplus that scalpers would ordinarily capture by raising the base price enough and dampening demand.

Ordinarily Sony would build it for $400 and sell it for $500. Netting only $100 and the scalpers would pick up a ton of them and sell them for $700. Now Sony's just selling them for $700 and making $300 instead. Even if they sell half the units they would have, they'll actually make more money. It's smart business. They can always adjust aggressively as their inventory builds. The ideal price for Sony is the one that discourages scalping enough that they are still available at stores.

Maybe the majority of console owners, sure. But this isn’t a product for most console owners, this is a product for enthusiasts, and at this point most enthusiasts are probably on PC. Last gen it made sense for enthusiasts to buy a 4Pro (even if they were on PC too!) because of exclusives, but if you are a ‘hardcore enthusiast’ who would be the type to pay $700 for a marginal improvement then you are probably primed to switch to PC.

 

[homerdog]

I’ve literally never seen this happen in my life lol, if it’s not bootable then UEFI won’t attempt to boot to it, it just goes to the next item on the list.

I’ve got all sorts of esoteric USB devices connected at all times and this hasn’t happened to me, at least in recent memory.

I actually have seen this happen, but it was always because either the BIOS was set wrong (my fault) or the boot drive was dying. Basically the computer was fucked up.

UEFI does a pretty good job of knowing which drive you're supposed to boot from. It will even autoboot from the correct drive after you install Windows even when the Windows install media is still connected. I've always wondered how it knows to do that.

To play devil's advocate, there are probably issues I run into that are trivial for me to resolve but would throw a normie for a loop. Problems I don't even remember having because I knew exactly what was causing it and fixed it with minimal conscious thought. Not calling Shifty a normie just saying consoles might make more sense than I realize.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Maybe the majority of console owners, sure. But this isn’t a product for most console owners, this is a product for enthusiasts, and at this point most enthusiasts are probably on PC. Last gen it made sense for enthusiasts to buy a 4Pro (even if they were on PC too!) because of exclusives, but if you are a ‘hardcore enthusiast’ who would be the type to pay $700 for a marginal improvement then you are probably primed to switch to PC.

It's a niche product at $700, but the point is that it won't be that expensive forever. Sony has some flexibility there.

 

[see colon]

PC proportion seems about the same for both. EA saw a big uptick for PC in 2022 that might be indicative of something, or a change in monetisation that more greatly impacted PC.

EA games returned to Steam in late 2019 or 2020. Perhaps the revenue uptick in revenue corelates with EA releases that year, and it could be something as simple as Madden 22 launching on the platform. I can't remember if 21 launched directly into Steam or got released later with the next gen version, but having a full year of Madden revenue from the most popular PC storefront likely didn't hurt.