I know there are people in that situation/choice. I just don't know if the amount of people who will only buy $200 consoles is important to Sony.
Sony's objective is to make money, not to reach some random target in millions of PS4 sales.
And the best way to make money is have people in their ecosystem buying software.
Which scenario makes Sony more money?
50 million people buying a $400 PS5 and games on it
50 million people buying a $400 PS5 and games on it and 10 million buying a $200 PS4 and games on it.
Of course it does! Anyone who buys a PS4 in e.g. late 2021 isn't going to consider purchasing a PS5 anytime soon, and at that point Sony is probably able to make more consoles than the ones they can sell.
Anyone buying a PS5 in 2021 wouldn't be buying a PS5 in 2021 or 2022 or 2023 even if the PS4 isn't available. The price difference of the two boxes means reaching different market segments. Sony's plans are to transition as fast as possible, which is going to be limited by how cheaply the PS5 can be sold. Which will be 'not very'. So the expensive console will sell to one market segment as quickly as possible, and the PS4 will be sold to the other, to maximise money and ROI on the PS4 product line.
Again, Sony's own statements can't be ignored.
But they can be interpreted, and I seriously doubt they meant, "ditch PS4 and get everyone onto PS5." They meant, "get PS5 established faster than any other console," IMO. They want great early growth.
They already claimed they do not want to force devs to keep making games for the old console at all, unlike Microsoft.
Having the
option to make cross-gen games isn't the same as
forcing them. nothing different here to any other generation. And if we look at the recent change in Sony's licensing, they require all new games to be certified for PS5, which shows they want PS5 library growing quickly and no devs targeting just PS4. However, they have not stopped certification for PS4. Fastest transition they could make would be to stop devs being able to release new titles to PS4 and only target PS5. Why aren't they doing that? Because they are giving devs options. Sony got established in the early days of PS1 thanks to being relaxed and hands-off with devs. They'll continue that, allowing devs to make news games for PS4 in 2023 if they want, so long as those games also work on PS5.
And they said they want people to transition to the new console as fast as possible.
Yep. They want the quickest time to ten million in PS's history. That doesn't preclude selling a cheap entry-level box for the laggards though.
Buying a PS5 in 2020/2021 grants at least 6 years of a steady stream of game launches. Buying a PS4 does not.
But the people buying a PS4 won't be buying a PS5!!
You're presenting the argument that there are people who haven't bought a console yet who would buy a $200 PS4 but, by not offering that option, Sony will instead sell these people a $400+ PS5. That's nonsense. PS4 sales at the low end don't cannibalise PS5 sales at the top end. They are two different market segments. If Sony don't offer PS4, all those potential PS4 buyers will just buy a <$200 Xbox as the only console they can afford.
The PS4 didn't have backwards compatibility. Back in 2013 if you wanted to buy some PS3 games like uncharted or last of us, you'd either need a PS3 or hope and wait for a remake.
But PS2 did have BC with PS1, and it was even improved BC, so what was the reason to keep PS1 around for so long after PS2 launched? If you want to play TLoU and can't afford a PS5, you'll want a PS4. Sony would rather sell a new PS4 than have these people buy second hand (which plenty of people don't
want to do anyway) because that's expanding PS4's reach to even more people than just hand-me-downs can reach.
You seem confident in your arguments but you haven't shown any single statement from Sony claiming or even hinting at their plans to keep making PS4s for many years.
I can't because they haven't made it yet. But they don't talk about that and never have done. Heck, no company makes a PR statement, "we plan to continue selling out product!"
They'll announce a new product, and then announce when they are stopping production. Sony will just announce a price drop, maybe a Super Slim, and carry on selling it. They certainly won't be announcing the end of PS4 production any time soon. At the next big PS5 showcase where they reveal the price, we won't hear, "PS5 will be priced $xxx and available from xxxxx. We'll also stopping PS4 production to focus on our new platform."
It's you who needs to convince Sony execs they're wrong when they claim they want PS4 users to transition to PS5 very fast and they're working on making said transition as smooth as possible.
No, I need to convince you your logic and processing of the evidence isn't great and mine is better.
None of that is compatible with keeping PS4 production for another 2+ years.
Yes it is.
It's worked okay for three previous generations of PlayStation. What's different this time around? AFAICS the only difference is an intention to transition the fastest ever, but that doesn't preclude continuing sales of PS4. You can transition fastest ever by selling the new console faster, but also have the longest lifespan of any console by continuing the old machine. Because sales of PS4 won't hold back sales of PS5, that statement doesn't really say anything about PS4 plans. And three generations of successful PlayStation have shown long product tails and give precedent to Sony's expected actions, which, coupled with the sense in wanting to make more money by reaching a bigger audience, and expand the brand, makes the smart move to push PS5 hard and keep PS4 going. Same as every other generation, and the same as Sony has done before.
