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Playstation 5 sales below expectations.

Eotheod

Member
It's fucking expensive and I have better shit to purchase then another console. Like food, rent, mortgage repayments, building a new house etc etc. Most of the world is in a quasi recession, so spending is dropping like a bucket of concrete and companies are noticing.

Sure we are coming off the back of incredibly high consumer expenditure, but things like interest rate hikes take many months to years for the full effect. Right now in Australia we are experiencing the after effects of the last year of rate hikes. Shit is hard and I'm not wasting dollarydoos on a PS5.
 

MikeM

Member
Imagine the surprise faces when people are facing extreme pressures financially and can’t the cash to buy a console right now…
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
It is Sony that set the excessive expectation of 25M, not shareholders.

And it looks like they may very well reach that number. They need to sell 31% more PS5s this FY than last. Q1 they sold 38% more PS5s than last year's Q1. That's a good start. They are AHEAD of schedule numerically. Plus.........I think people need to remember that Sony actually RAISED the price of the PS5 in many countries like 18 months ago.

A price cut was in order. Even it it reset to the original day one sales price.
 


Well shit, guess I better box up my PS5 and sell it on eBay and go back to my Atari 2600...

bender-dooooomed.gif
 
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mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Like clockwork.

Playstation just had the biggest June since the release of MGS4 in 2008 and that was before the promos in the USA.

They will be fine.

Also...where's the source for those "PS5 hardware shipments was only 3.3mm in the quarter vs 4.45mm expectations."? When did Sony reveal they expected 4.44M shipments?

Yep, just like clockwork. I think some are at the point where talking about Playstation with good news is just boring at this point. So the clicks are generated by "inventing" DOOM news.

Makes the fact that Switch has never had a price cut even that more astounding.

Did you forget that the PS5 had a price "increase" and is still outselling the Nintendo Switch launch aligned?

I'm guessing the price increases outside the US hurt sales more than they expected. Not exactly a shock. The same inflation making it seem a good idea has caused most families to take a massive paycut from a purchasing power standpoint.

Regardless of the cause, I hope this leads to them modifying their information release cycles. Find the sweet spot between announcing way too early and barely showing us what first party is doing.

But the price increases happened last September. They had outstanding sells "AFTER" the price was increased. You can see the data in EU and Japan. It's just a fact. I can't understand why people think selling 3.3 million consoles in Apr-June is bad now.

WTF is happening to people's brains these days?
 

NickFire

Member
But the price increases happened last September. They had outstanding sells "AFTER" the price was increased. You can see the data in EU and Japan. It's just a fact. I can't understand why people think selling 3.3 million consoles in Apr-June is bad now.

WTF is happening to people's brains these days?
I don't think those numbers are bad. Just going off report they were below Sony's expectations. If that's true my guess is the price increase was a significant factor. Nothing more, nothing less.

As an aside, I would assume price would be a bigger issue outside of holiday and big game launch periods.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
It’s not. I genuinely think they sell less consoles by selling games on Pc as well.
Considering their hardware is up, the few sales that they might be losing by selling games on PC - months to years later is hardly making a difference. They just came off of their best June since 2008, but this is the conclusion?
 
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TheKratos

Member
Never said anything of the sort. Investors care that their investments are making money. If Sony is missing targets for its core business, then the share price goes down, and investors lose money.
What I'm trying to say is it's critical to see if it's a permanent loss in business (less sales) due to competition or simply due to temporary macro conditions.

If Xbox/MS is beating expectations in the same macro environment Sony's drop in shares would be far more significant and for a longer timeframe.

Personally I'm always curious to see how competition performed as an investor.
 

zedinen

Member
And it looks like they may very well reach that number. They need to sell 31% more PS5s this FY than last. Q1 they sold 38% more PS5s than last year's Q1. That's a good start. They are AHEAD of schedule numerically. Plus.........I think people need to remember that Sony actually RAISED the price of the PS5 in many countries like 18 months ago.

A price cut was in order. Even it it reset to the original day one sales price.
Let the numbers speaks for themselves:

Time aligned
PS5 41.7 m
NSW 41.67 m
PS2 41.56 m

First Half
2023 PS5 9.6 m
2002 PS2 8.28 m

CY 2002
PS2 24.60 m
 

Killer8

Member
It sounds like they were just a bit too optimistic based on the sales records they'd been smashing earlier this year. Not THE END OF THE WORLD soyfacing that the Twitterati clickbaiters want you to believe.

I feel like Sony's first party releases have been weaker this year which might account for the slowdown. They were banking on FF16 being the big hit of the summer but it wasn't that amazing and got overshadowed by Zelda. It apparently disappointed S-E in sales. What does Sony have for the rest of the year? Spider-Man 2? Slim pickings.
 
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Sony need them ps5 exclusive games. Ffxvi and spiderman 2 is awesome but if 3rd party keep making cross gen then adoption rate would be lower too.
 

Xtib81

Member
No games = lower sales (all things considered ofc, they're still doing well). It's always been about the games. Release successful AAA games and you'll sell millions of consoles.
 
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MS does not focus on the number of units sold / game pass subscribers.
Phil achieved the most important thing, "engagement".

Congratulations on the new marriage, Phil Spencer x Aaron Greenberg. Happy Honeymoon!! 🤵👰🥳💒

Playstation fans should not get defensive about this. Not every quarter is going to smash expectations, and they probably shouldn't. As a PlayStation diehard, while I think Sony's doing well, I don't think they're doing perfectly. PlayStation showcase was a huge disappointment, they're not being as protective of their platform and first party titles as they should be in the incoming paradigm shift, the messaging around the live service push is not appealing to core gamers, and their visible suite of upcoming games does not entice the way it did this time last gen.

Having a "slow" quarter every now and again is healthy if it goes towards Sony constantly being on the ball and reevaluating what they're doing.

Well put. It might surprise some here but if we're purely talking in terms of 1P output for the next couple of years, I'd say Microsoft's potential suite is looking more appealing. Primarily, because we a lot more about their non-GaaS titles in that respect, and also because they have some actual 1P AA titles in the mix, which effectively means more games.

And yeah, I know part of this is also because they can't really compete with Sony at the AAA level in terms of industry-pushing graphics and epic titles, but it doesn't mean I like that Sony's effectively rid of AA-tier efforts among their 1P, or that the 1P variety has reduced a lot. Because as we're seeing, you can't always rely on 3P to fill in that void, if they're getting snapped up by other platform holders and companies that then shutter them shortly after (Embracer Group).

Maybe when Sony starts talking about more of their 1P schedule for non-GaaS beyond Spiderman 2, my outlook will change. But, even with Microsoft's myriad of internal problems on several 1P games (Perfect Dark, Everwild, the Fable smoke-and-mirrors, Forza looking iffy, etc.), I can't say they're lacking variety in their upcoming 1P slate for the next couple of years. And at least some of those are going to hit very well, when you have that many to release. But I'm also liking them doing things with some of the indies out there, like with Replaced, that I'd like to see Sony doing more of (they seem content with the China Hero Project which is nice, but a lot of those games are seeming a bit samey to me. Like they all want to be the next Bloodborne, when Sony has the Bloodborne IP and could literally work with From Software on an actual Bloodborne 2, but choose not to).
 
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DeepEnigma

Gold Member
I love these anal...yst. When sales goes up, "Company X can reach 100B, drop Apple, invest on them". When sales goes down, "Bankruptcy. End of an era".

Anyway, this is even more stupid since PS5 sales are aligned with PS4 despite shortages of microchips and pandemic.
But the sales didn't go down, they are up 40% YoY.

So they had to dig real deep into the sphincter for this one.
 

LordOfChaos

Member
It's 3 year old hardware that was selling like hotcakes for most of that time, I mean, eh

A price drop and Slim are good for us in the end
 

blacktout

Member
Jesus. Sales can be below expectations but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily “bad” or that PlayStation is doomed.

Nintendo had to revise down their sales projections for the Switch in 2018 after Labo wasn't the phenomenon they expected. Obviously that didn't end up meaning much for the system's long-term prospects.

Unless you're a neurotic stockholder or a fanboy anxious for a reason to fight on the internet, it makes no sense to try to draw conclusions from a few months of sales. Otherwise you're just going to experience narrative whiplash from the desperate attempts to spin data to meet different factions' priors.
 
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MrA

Banned
Wth is Trader Joe’s…
The American expansion of one of the Aldi's I forget which though.

It's 3 year old hardware that was selling like hotcakes for most of that time, I mean, eh

A price drop and Slim are good for us in the end
Probably would have hit 22 million as is (I postulate that real demand is basically in line with ps4, which is excellent), but Sony really wants that 25 million, 3.3 million is a solid q1 but sony isn't going for solid, they want exceptional (good for more than just bottom line, pr lines like best selling year matter)

as a shareholder I prefer the aggressive moonshot as soon you sell the razor the sooner you sell the blades.
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Going in there is def an experiance..

I honestly thought Costco would rate higher for whatever reason
I would think Walmart would be higher than Trader Joe's, even Amazon.

Something seems off on their targeted polling since TJ's is in mainly affluent places.
 
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Considering that they stopped reporting PS+ numbers, I guess eventually they will stop reporting hardware sales :messenger_tears_of_joy:

Would not be surprised if people pivot it to some kinda of "master plan" or whatever. But stakeholders don't think so :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
That has to be because of stock constraint. I still NEVER see any in stores for sell.
 
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Monkfish877

Member
Great news. I hope they keep on missing their sales forecasts going forward, Sony needs to be brought down a peg or two. Those of us who miss the old Sony/Playstation better hope they keep on faltering like this, so they change their strategy going forward. It's the only way to get them back to what they used to be.
 
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