Yesterday we found out that Sony sold 1,9 M PS4 consoles this quarter (April-June) . Last year, the same quarter they sold 3,2 M consoles.
I think it's time for a PS4 price-cut ($299 > $199), taking into consideration the PS5 launch in a few months, and tomorrow State of Play sounds like a great place for this anouncement.
What do you think, Gaf ?
I think a YoY in hardware sales was expected because of its late point in the life cycle of the console, but it became bigger because most physical stores were closed due to covid lockdown. For that same reason, game sales and particularly digital ones skyrocketed. So they shouldn't worry about that decline.
But as of now the console is $299 and the Pro $399, which is way expensive for this point on its lifetime, but since the console kept given them hystoric record hardware, software and services sales and revenue every year they didn't apply price cuts beacause they weren't needed.
Now that PS5 is coming, it would make sense to reduce the price to $199 for the main console and $299 for the Pro. This would push PS4 sales before most people shift their focus to next gen and after PS5 launch would help them to keep the PS4 as cheap entry point console specially to focus targets like families (and they would have for them Dreams, Sackboy Adventures, etc.) and developing countries where people has less budget for games and consoles have insane taxes.
Because if $399 is a thing for PS5 DE, they have to lower Pro and Slim prices to fit that ecosystem, let's say:
PS5: $499
PS5 DE: $399
PS4 Pro: $299
PS4 Slim: $199
It look nice, but I think it's more realistic to expect PS5 DE $449. They would be already making a big effort selling PS5 at 499 and DE at 449 way under their cost.