Dring: Are consoles in trouble? By the end of 2026, the PS5/XBS gen will be 20 m behind PS4/XBO at the same point in their life cycles

This is a dumb analysis. Yes, console sales (like Xbox) are down, but many people are still playing on older consoles (PS4/Xbox One). And that's due to several factors: higher prices, games still being available on those older systems (including the most played ones), and so on.

Consoles have more active players than ever right now. Suggesting that consoles are declining based solely on sales is a really dumb assumption.
 
Karim said:
PC and phones are always useful. Console are just entertainment and goes too much higher with the price is not wise even deleterious imo.
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True, but we are seeing a trend of customers accepting more premium products and writing off the "value" options. Look at how many people here are hyping the $800 PS5 Pro's sale potential over GTA 6. Or the $500 Switch 2 "secondary console" with it's expensive SD card expansion options.

I wouldn't be surprised if the PS6 launched at $800 and still did decently.
 
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owandeseis said:
PC is eating from the consoles' pie, just 10-15 years ago, even the most PC centric games such as The Witcher 3 or Skyrim were selling better on consoles, even on a single one, be it X360 or PS4, that's unthinkable nowadays for TW4 or next Elder Scrolls, and it has extended to other big games that weren't famous on PC before.

Most Xbox players moved to PC and many new players are starting there too, kids are multitask now, they want to be on youtube or twitch while they play, and consoles don't allow that.

This said, consoles are far from being in trouble, basically because manufacturers adapt, Sony is going from releasing a PS4 or a PS5, to a PS6, a portable PS6, and a Series S-like PS6 it seems, at the cost of what might be a little of the power the PS5 had (for easier porting), which honestly 99% of the console buyers don't give a fuck about, they are gaining a huge potential market.

I never thought PS3, 4 or 5 had a big chance to surpass PS2 total sales, but if i was asked about PS6 right now, if the rumors are true? i think it does yes
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I understand your point, but neither TW3 or Skyrim sold better on any individual console than on PC. You could have used other games as examples.
 
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Last gen I was 70% console 30% PC, this gen it's 99% PC. Steam(rolling) consoles. Consoles haven't dropped in price either, they've gotten MORE expensive with LESS exclusives over time. GTA 6 and late adopters will turn it around somewhat next year or maybe in 2027(I cri).
 
memoryman3 said:
True, but we are seeing a trend of customers accepting more premium products and writing off the "value" options. Look at how many people here are hyping the $800 PS5 Pro's sale potential over GTA 6. Or the $500 Switch 2 "secondary console" with it's expensive SD card expansion options.

I wouldn't be surprised if the PS6 launched at $800 and still did decently.
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PS5 Pro isn't taking more than a fraction of PS5 overall sales. It's really a non starter in the conversation.

I can't see PS6 being $800, Sony has to have a cheaper option which is where that dockable handheld and rumored two versions of PS6 will come in.
 
Are we taking names for when the nuclear blast that is GTA 6 moves the number of consoles sold? I wouldn't want to miss on who are the professional analysts that predict the downfall of consoles.
 
I'm not sure I understand....

Xbox died -> nobody replaced it -> lower console sales

No Shit Sherlock GIF by Team Coco
 
memoryman3 said:
PS3/Wii/Xbox 360/Wii U - 280m

PS4/Xbox One/Switch - 328m

PS5/Xbox Series/Switch 2 - Estimated 207m by the end (assuming 105m PS5, 60m Switch 2 and 42m Xbox Series). That is a significant contraction.
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Are you including LTD with a set period? Those numbers look too high.
Why is he even saying 2026? :messenger_weary:
 
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I think everything is resting on GTA VI - If Rockstar pass up on PC for launch, like it looks like they are and that they do not break sales records of GTA V and sales are down vs GTA V we are going to see panic stations from every investor / studio and publisher out there.
 
StereoVsn said:
PS5 Pro isn't taking more than a fraction of PS5 overall sales. It's really a non starter in the conversation.

I can't see PS6 being $800, Sony has to have a cheaper option which is where that dockable handheld and rumored two versions of PS6 will come in.
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The PS5 Pro was a bad upgrade. But PS6 will have to be $800+ at this point if we're going to see a generational leap in 2027…or what's the point?
 
DenchDeckard said:
I think everything is resting on GTA VI - If Rockstar pass up on PC for launch, like it looks like they are and that they do not break sales records of GTA V and sales are down vs GTA V we are going to see panic stations from every investor / studio and publisher out there.
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There's no way GTAVI sells less than GTAV.

Within 24 hours of its release, Grand Theft Auto V generated more than US$815 million in worldwide revenue, equating to approximately 11.21 million copies sold for Take-Two Interactive.
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I can't think of a single scenario where GTAVI sells less than 11M in 24 hours if GTAV did that with the same platforms back in 2013. By the time GTAV released, PS3 had like 10M / 15M units less than PS5 will have by the time GTAVI releases...even if Xbox is a flop now, the IP is just on a different level than it was back in 2013 and one of the platforms will be bigger.
 
memoryman3 said:
The PS5 Pro was a bad upgrade. But PS6 will have to be $800+ at this point if we're going to see a generational leap in 2027…or what's the point?
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It doesn't have to be in 2027. 2028 is also possible. Also console manufacturers eat the cost increase in the first years of each generation. Are we pretending we've forget about the past 40 years of console gaming or what?
 
The thing is GTA VI is going to move a shitload of consoles. I know some people who game on PC only who plan to get a PS5 just for GTA. Also a lot of PS gamers are still on PS4. It's not like there have been tons of reasons to upgrade when most of the exclusives have been cross-gen. But GTA VI will get them to finally upgrade.
 
It is quite amazing how quickly some of these types of articles rise up and don't these professional pundits or journalists realize the times were in? There's way more competition at many more different price ranges. I think words talk and number scream so go ahead and look at the numbers before falling victim to these kinds of articles
 
kaizenkko said:
This is a dumb analysis. Yes, console sales (like Xbox) are down, but many people are still playing on older consoles (PS4/Xbox One). And that's due to several factors: higher prices, games still being available on those older systems (including the most played ones), and so on.

Consoles have more active players than ever right now. Suggesting that consoles are declining based solely on sales is a really dumb assumption.
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It's like measuring the PC user base by only looking at how many of the newest GPUs have been sold. New consoles are just different entry points to the same ecosystem now. An old console like the PS4 is more than capable enough of running almost any game a software developer wants to make in 2025.

Even then, PS5 is still keeping up with PS4 sales. It's only one other console that completely imploded…
 
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When people said 15 years agø that gaming on mobile phones was going to overtake consoles, they were half right bit it wasnt about games made for mobile phones but being able to play console games on a plethora of other devices.
 
Most kids are playing on tablets and phones. Console gaming is 40+ at this point and as those people drop out and/or die they are not being replaced. The hardcore gamer will start circling PC/Steam while everyone else will stick with gaming on phones.
 
I reckon there's a significant number of people who are fine playing Minecraft/Fortnite on their PS4/XB1( and those games can also be played across a spectrum of phones, tablets and cheap laptops), and a significant amount who bought PS4s around 2018 when Sony was bundling Spider-man with the Slim for $200. Inflation or otherwise, these consoles still being $500+ five years into the gen is too high for the typical budget end of gen gamer who buys in when the systems and software are cheap. GTA6 will move some units, but that's not until next year so if you've held off all this time, what's another 8 months( or whenever the release date is)?
 
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Its the proverbial beginning of the end. This trend is not going to turn back to growth. It might be a slow decay but its not going to change its trajectory.
 
Radical_3d said:
It doesn't have to be in 2027. 2028 is also possible. Also console manufacturers eat the cost increase in the first years of each generation. Are we pretending we've forget about the past 40 years of console gaming or what?
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Are Sony going to take a bigger loss on PS6 vs the PS5? The $800 figure is assuming that PS6 will sell at a loss again.
 
memoryman3 said:
PS3/Wii/Xbox 360/Wii U - 280m

PS4/Xbox One/Switch - 328m

PS5/Xbox Series/Switch 2 - Estimated 207m by the end (assuming 105m PS5, 60m Switch 2 and 42m Xbox Series). That is a significant contraction.
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The problem here is the fact that Wii U and early release of Switch fucked up the alignment of Nintendo consoles with generations.

Orbital2060 said:
Its the proverbial beginning of the end. This trend is not going to turn back to growth. It might be a slow decay but its not going to change its trajectory.
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The market could flatten though. Lack of growth doesn't necessarily mean decline to a given.
 
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Gaiff said:
I understand your point, but neither TW3 or Skyrim sold better on any individual console than on PC. You could have used other games as examples.
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Talking about sales on release, or year 1, PC have always had long legs that's true, but not too long ago, it was a quite niche platform.

witcher-sales-1024x510.png


Can't see Witcher 4 selling over 1,5x times more on PS5-6 on it's first year than on PC, or this version just making 30% of it's total sales.

For Skyrim i thought there were official numbers but it was all estimations by VGC, but they did put PC as 14% of the first 3,5M physical sales during it's first 2 days (you'd have to count Steam ones too, but they weren't that crazy)

And for Oblivion for example, during it's first week or month, it did better on Xbox than it did on PC on UK
 
Tiago Rodrigues said:
There's no way GTAVI sells less than GTAV.


I can't think of a single scenario where GTAVI sells less than 11M in 24 hours if GTAV did that with the same platforms back in 2013. By the time GTAV released, PS3 had like 10M / 15M units less than PS5 will have by the time GTAVI releases...even if Xbox is a flop now, the IP is just on a different level than it was back in 2013 and one of the platforms will be bigger.
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Ahhh, yeah the game should be fine then. It should hopefully sell 12 million on PS5 alone within 24hours.
 
MidGenRefresh said:
We're five years into the current generation, and I can fire up my One X and it still feels modern. From the controller to the UI to 4K 60 FPS gaming.

If I'd fired up my PS3 or Xbox 360 five years into the PS4/Xbox One generation (so in 2018), it would have felt ancient and obsolete.

With this and the lack of truly generation-defining games, I'm not surprised casual gamers aren't interested in upgrading.
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I think the same thing with my One X until the loading screens hit. Then you feel it.
 
This gen housed the highest selling console of all time (at least it will be shortly).

That's not a market contraction, that's just ignoring the market leader! How bizarre (though I only read the OP and not the source).
 
I haven't read the article (getting blocked for some reason) but do they talk about the effect of consoles increasing in price? Revenue and profit are increasing even if sales are lagging a bit.
 
Obviously the people who got canceled from this expensive hobby. Reselling digital copies must be allowed to keep the numbers high. We saw back in the day a game copy run through 15 different owners and this habit pisses these corporates off obviously. From this pov, the benefits out way the cons, that's why they don't care right now about these numbers.
 
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Last generation I bought multiple consoles.

XBO
XBOS
XBOX
PS4
PS4 Slim
PS4 Pro

This gen I bought a Series X and I won't be buying anything else.
 
lh032 said:
i mean... if you take a look at PC hardware, how many people are still using old gen GPUs and latest gen GPUs?

the same logic applies to console.
inflation, economy, pricing, cross gen games and diminishing visual leaps ....people are more reluctant to buy a next gen console every 7-8 years, that is why Sony and Microsoft are going for MAU now.

IMO, they should stick with 10 year cycle with mid gen PRO version and continue with the MAU engagement now. Its not like we are going to get AAA next gen game in 5 years at least anyway lol
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Not the same. GPUs are on a yearly cycle, also Nvidia has never sold more gaming GPUs than they have this year, they've broken all time records. Last Gen GPUs (Nvidia 4000 series) are more feature rich than current gen consoles, the 4060 is the most popular card on the steam hw survey. You would have to go back to Pascal which launched about 10 years ago to be missing current gen features on an Nvidia GPU but even then Pascal can play the majority of new games (only RT only games like Indiana, Doom TDA and Assassin's Creed Shadows can't be played on a 1000 series GPU)

And if you think about the 11 year old Maxwell GPUs can also play those modern games, GPUs like the 970, 980 and 980ti have no problem running the same games Maxwell can run but at lower settings. PC doesn't work like consoles do.
 
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you'd think with Xbox series consoles being so far behind, PS5 would pick up the lost sales. Considering not a high percent of people ever had both consoles.
 
Anecdotally, I have heard a few stories where teens are asking their parents specifically for gaming PCs and there is no desire for consoles. We'll see if the trend catches on, but non-Nintendo consoles could be running into an image problem with younger gamers.

Long term, I think consoles will have a harder and harder time justifying themselves as exclusives disappear and prices go up.
 
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