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

#sonytoo

PS5 is only 2m behind PS4 despite covid chip shortage and trade war, GTA VI and a longer generation will see it surpass PS4 lifetime sales

Switch is likely going to overtake DS this year to become Nintendo's most popular system ever and Switch 2 is off to a flying start too

Microsoft is the only outlier here, after realising Xbox Series was only going to sell half of what Xbox One sold they just threw the damn towel and went full third party
 
It's just Microsoft that's selling much less. Sony is still doing great.

Too bad though, I had great hopes when they revealed the Series consoles.


Switch 2 will also do less than the Switch 1, but still well over 100 millions. Nintendo is in that weird space where they don't really have competitors, but can still eat pieces of everybody's cake. They are definitely having a greedy and lazy launch though. I hope things start accelerating next year.

And before one of the terminally online basement dwellers mention the steam deck or whatever new Asus ROG ultra gamer nuclear edition, those sell in their lifetime what the Switch 2 did in its launch month. They are nice for benchmarking against the Switch 2, but certainly not competitors.
 
Ozriel said:
It has long been the general assumption that the people ditching Xbox were moving over to PlayStation.

Making the comparison on an Xbox + PS level seems like the right thing to do in that case
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A number of them did but a lot of them have been indoctrinated into believing that PS isn't a better alternative to xbox by a bunch of paid influencers. They've also been taught that Gamepass is the platform now and have been taught to praise that, so they've shifted to PC where they can continue on. This decline is just xbox collapsing and doing things with their own userbase but PS and Nintendo consoles are doing fine. They're not "in trouble".
 
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Russell said:
As some of the posters above have correctly identified, it's fucked up beyond words that Sony chooses to die a slow suicide by porting their games to the personal computer, thereby devaluing the PlayStion brand, wiping out that which makes the PlayStation special, and giving absolutely no reason to buy a PlayStation console. Truly fucking abhorrent, and it's a big reason why I stopped playing video games.

Becoming a third party publisher is nothing but a big fucking slap in the face. Nintendo is the only one left with common sense.
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I never understood this. I go where the games are. I don't care if it's on another system- if it gives a better experience, then I'm in. Is there more content? Does it work better?

Reading this- I am sorry for your loss. I don't let a corporations choices decide whether or not games are enjoyable to me. They can devalue their brand- but Einhander and RType Delta will always be amazing.
 
This generation has just kinda sucked in the AAA space. Folks can still play fortnight on their ps4…. So… there ya go. Between that, the GaaS misfire of Sony, Xbox fucking around… the truly great games aren't coming. (Unless it's from an indie from the cheapseats, BG3, e33, kcd2 and a few others)
 
Zathalus said:
It is curious that as Xbox sales are dwindling we haven't seen a larger uptick in PlayStation sales. Is the hardware cost too high, being almost double it was 7 years ago? Are less people buying both consoles as they realise they only need one? Are they moving over to PC or mobile? Or have they just given up on gaming all together?
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Don't be surprised when people aren't buying a product that gets more expensive over time, which the industry is not accustomed to historically. Now add that with global economic pressures, and it's no mystery why console sales are down for both companies.
 
RetroGamingUK said:
#sonytoo

PS5 is only 2m behind PS4 despite covid chip shortage and trade war, GTA VI and a longer generation will see it surpass PS4 lifetime sales

Switch is likely going to overtake DS this year to become Nintendo's most popular system ever and Switch 2 is off to a flying start too

Microsoft is the only outlier here, after realising Xbox Series was only going to sell half of what Xbox One sold they just threw the damn towel and went full third party
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You're missing the crux of the issue: if Xbox is selling fewer consoles, why aren't PlayStation selling more consoles? In fact, PlayStation is sell fewer consoles despite having less competition. That doesn't happen in a two horse race if things are going well.

Consoles manufacturers are dead-set on pricing double-digit percentages of their customers out of the market.
Producing AAA games that can utilise next-gen hardware is largely too expensive for most developers. The sticker price for AAA games are now so expensive as to limit sales.
Developers have fallen back to AA productions, which don't require top-of-the-line hardware to run and produce more interesting gameplay and experiences.
Everyone except Nintendo has gone multiplatform. With AA becoming a real cornerstone, a mid-level gaming PC capable of running most new AA titles - as well as everything else a PC can do - is well within reach for most families, giving little reason for dedicated high-end consoles, meaning PC is where it's at.
Gen Z and younger aren't interested in gaming consoles. Mobile and PC are their preferred formats.

Add it up, and you get an industry contraction centered around gaming consoles. And given so much of the industry relies on selling millions of full priced titles on consoles, that's nothing but bad news. And with hardware costs looking like they're going to continue to rise, it'll only get worse as fewer and fewer people can even afford to buy a console, let alone their games. This isn't #SonyToo, this is #EveryoneTooButMicrosoftFirstBecauseTheyWereInLastPlace. Buckle up.
 
Unknown Soldier said:
Why is he combining PS and Xbox together

Oh right because of his own agenda lmao

He should combine PS and Switch and suddenly consoles are doing the best they ever have in history!
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Why? Because it doesn't matter. Consoles are PLURAL. They are multiple... which includes Xbox. There's no disregarding Xbox when you're talking about the console market. The simple fact is this.. Xbox may be 20M behind... but Playstation isn't 20M ahead, get it? The console market is contracting... and until Sony and Nintendo make up the 20M deficit... then the console market is shrinking.

It's pretty easy to understand. I don't know what would make people think that Sony is picking up Xbox's slack when they're not even matching their previous generation.

Now does this mean consoles are in immediate trouble... no. But even Xbox doing badly is not helping the console market. Less competition means higher prices.. and higher prices lead to people either only buying one console instead of multiple, or perhaps just dropping it and moving to PC where they get all of these games eventually.. The real issue that for as much as people want to shit on Sony for doing multiplat releases and so called "contributing" to the decline of the console... the fact is that this market and demographic shift will happen whether they like it or not. They understand just exactly how their customers are entering, and leaving their ecosystem. They understand that in the future there will be gamers who have no such loyalty to hardware like we all pretty much did back in the day. They just want to play games on whichever platform suits them... you either meet them where they are/will be... or you miss out.

The biggest threat to Sony was them losing sight of what made them what they are... and to be fair, they almost did that.. but the market sent a direct message. Do your other shit, but never at the cost of what you're known for. They almost shifted all their studios to GaaS multiplayer shit and tried to do it all at once, and they paid dearly for it. And as far as we can see now, they are course correcting and focusing on SP games which will be exclusive for a short time on their console. They'll continue to adapt and make small adjustments to the strategy as things develop.
 
Self_Destructive said:
Why? Because it doesn't matter. Consoles are PLURAL. They are multiple... which includes Xbox. There's no disregarding Xbox when you're talking about the console market. The simple fact is this.. Xbox may be 20M behind... but Playstation isn't 20M ahead, get it? The console market is contracting... and until Sony and Nintendo make up the 20M deficit... then the console market is shrinking.

It's pretty easy to understand. I don't know what would make people think that Sony is picking up Xbox's slack when they're not even matching their previous generation.

Now does this mean consoles are in immediate trouble... no. But even Xbox doing badly is not helping the console market. Less competition means higher prices.. and higher prices lead to people either only buying one console instead of multiple, or perhaps just dropping it and moving to PC where they get all of these games eventually.. The real issue that for as much as people want to shit on Sony for doing multiplat releases and so called "contributing" to the decline of the console... the fact is that this market and demographic shift will happen whether they like it or not. They understand just exactly how their customers are entering, and leaving their ecosystem. They understand that in the future there will be gamers who have no such loyalty to hardware like we all pretty much did back in the day. They just want to play games on whichever platform suits them... you either meet them where they are/will be... or you miss out.

The biggest threat to Sony was them losing sight of what made them what they are... and to be fair, they almost did that.. but the market sent a direct message. Do your other shit, but never at the cost of what you're known for. They almost shifted all their studios to GaaS multiplayer shit and tried to do it all at once, and they paid dearly for it. And as far as we can see now, they are course correcting and focusing on SP games which will be exclusive for a short time on their console. They'll continue to adapt and make small adjustments to the strategy as things develop.
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Another thing to consider that in years past, Nintendo and Sony had both handheld and TV consoles. So if we are going to throw Switch in the same pot, so to speak, we need to count say DS, 3DS, PSP and Vita.

Other than Vita, the rest had great to good sales.
 
ZehDon said:
With AA becoming a real cornerstone, a mid-level gaming PC capable of running most new AA titles - as well as everything else a PC can do - is well within reach for most families, giving little reason for dedicated high-end consoles, meaning PC is where it's at.
Gen Z and younger aren't interested in gaming consoles. Mobile and PC are their preferred formats.
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PC bros sounds like as if PC is not in the same boat, while PC playerbase (not revenue) in developed market probably regress even faster than console one and "analyst" says it'll become even worse as PC gaming becomes more and more expensive
 
Felessan said:
PC bros sounds like as if PC is not in the same boat, while PC playerbase (not revenue) in developed market probably regress even faster than console one and "analyst" says it'll become even worse as PC gaming becomes more and more expensive
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You've misunderstood - you're talking about the high end PC market, which is in the same boat as the home console market: corporate greed has priced out their customers.
I'm talking about the PC gamers on decade-old hardware who drive record Steam numbers month after month.
Greed killed high end gaming and now we get to watch it implode.
 
Consoles are too expensive. This makes buying a gaming pc an increasingly better value. I'd be fine if next gen was just minimal improvements and a cheap hardware price.
 
StereoVsn said:
Another thing to consider that in years past, Nintendo and Sony had both handheld and TV consoles. So if we are going to throw Switch in the same pot, so to speak, we need to count say DS, 3DS, PSP and Vita.

Other than Vita, the rest had great to good sales.
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Yep. People LOVE to talk up how amazingly Nintendo is doing... but the reality is that they just folded their Handheld and console markets together. Their handheld market was always strong... but their console market has been up and down drastically over the generations. Now however, they serve both markets with the same device, so in reality it's less overall.. They're still making more money than ever however because Switch consoles cost more than handhelds of the past.. and their developers can consolidate their output to a single device saving costs, among having a subscription service.

I'm not trying to say consoles are dead or anything.. but all markets are having challenging times right now, and the way things are going on the console side, it could be an issue down the line. Consoles are valued differently than high spec PCs which can be justified with other reasons than solely gaming. Smartphones are necessities.. but consoles aren't. Once it passes the threshold that the market decides is enough... then people will simply not upgrade their consoles nearly as quickly.. which means future generations might find it hard to shift consumers to the newest devices.

MS looks like they don't care anymore and just want out of hardware and are giving their console players an off-ramp with the Console-PC hybrid.. which suits them well. We have to remember that Gaming is a tiny fraction of Microsoft's overall busines. But Sony has to be all in. Gaming is far too important for them, and they've got to be smart about maximizing their potential markets. It's hard to justify watching Microsoft release games on PC and them not being there in that market. The Xbox console is no threat. Nintendo found their lane with the hybrid handheld console... Microsoft's lane will likely be Console PC + handheld PC... Sony's is the traditional console. They're basically the last one left.. so fan's don't have to be worried that they're ditching the console... but they have to understand that Sony needs to expand, and they should want Sony to be as successful as possible on PC and Smart Phones, AND with reasonable attempts at GaaS. I don't get why they're actively trying to fight against Sony becoming more successful through other platforms.
 
Other than Microsoft, I would still say consoles are mostly doing fine, it's just the economics around everything, and core issues in AAA studios outputting less memorable games that factors in.

My backlog only keeps getting bigger, but first-party studios have been hit or miss for me this generation from all 3. I think consoles will do better when they go back to the box getting cheaper as the gen wears on.
 
ZehDon said:
You've misunderstood - you're talking about the high end PC market, which is in the same boat as the home console market: corporate greed has priced out their customers.
I'm talking about the PC gamers on decade-old hardware who drive record Steam numbers month after month.
Greed killed high end gaming and now we get to watch it implode.
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I am talking about all PC gaming
Rising tide lift all boats
There was a thread just yesterday about Win11 upgrade and conclusion was that due to rising cost of hardware PC gaming will lose ten of millions gamers to mobile (and consoles but I dont believe it besides chinese replica of past generations)
In the event if rising prices - high end PC will lose some people to consoles, consoles will lose some people to low end PC, and lowend PC will lose people to mobiles as mobiles are most cheap and universal gaming.

And further it will depends how each tier will adapt to this shifting situation. Sony for now keep it just fine as it keeps PS4 for lowend gaming and PS5 for highend gaming
 
ZehDon said:
You're missing the crux of the issue: if Xbox is selling fewer consoles, why aren't PlayStation selling more consoles? In fact, PlayStation is sell fewer consoles despite having less competition. That doesn't happen in a two horse race if things are going well.
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That is ignoring everything else. The PS5 isn't that far behind the PS4 at this point in its lifecycle with no price drop, a disappointing first-party release schedule and cross gen lasting much longer. It isn't concerning to me that the Xbox players have not converted, after all, we are still in the current generation. I believe the bigger problem for not seeing the increase in PS5 sales over PS4 is that many PS4 players haven't converted.

Sony confirms PS5 has more monthly players than PS4 for the first time

While discussing the upcoming PlayStation 6 during the same meeting, Nishino noted that Sony's console business had evolved into a "multi-faceted platform", with a significant portion of its active users still playing on PS4.
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I expect an uptick in PS5 sales as more PS4 players move over to the PS5. We still have several big titles to release. Even if PS5 hangs a little behind or even with the PS4 in overall sales, this has been a bad generation including covid, tariffs/price hikes and Sony's adventures into wasting valuable time on the next big GAAS titles. I do have some concerns that price is going to hold some people back but I expect the PS6 to get things back on track on Sony's end and the Switch 2 is already off to a good start. The wildcard is Xbox and its users. It will be interesting to see where Xbox users are going to land. Will their next console be enough or will we start seeing the more casual Xbox console users move to PlayStation 6 or Switch 2? Maybe most go PC but even that does not spell doom for consoles.
 
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ZehDon said:
You're missing the crux of the issue: if Xbox is selling fewer consoles, why aren't PlayStation selling more consoles?
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PlayStation has more active players now than any console brand ever had in gaming history thanks to a huge influx of new players in the recent years, many of them coming from Xbox.

One of the reasons of why PS5 sold around 2% less than PS4 launch aligned is because almost half of the PS userbase continues in PS4 5 years later due to still getting great games there, PS+ and GaaS still being supported there, plus some people's economy being more fucked up as when it was in this point of the PS4 generation (combined with price increases in PS5 vs price cuts in PS4 at this point of their lifetime).

In fact, PS5 is outselling PS4 in mostly everywhere except a few key European countries. And well, they are making more money from hardware than PS4 did, and on top of this Sony is making record revenue from games, game subs and accesories.

Durin said:
Other than Microsoft, I would still say consoles are mostly doing fine,
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Sony and Nintendo aren't 'doing fine': they are breaking gaming history records.

Consoles are doing great. MS is just slowly moving away step by step since many years ago from being a console maker to become a full multiplatform publisher with Windows as home base because they saw many years ago that couldn't compete as console makers against Nintendo and specially Sony, that's all.
 
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Basically every business is reporting record revenue and breaking historical records. Everything is much more expensive than just a few years ago.
On average, most Americans are earning far more than they did five years ago, yet they're in far worse shape: https://www.wsj.com/economy/earning-more-worse-shape-poverty-overwhelms-families-eab13800
Record revenue doesn't really mean much in this environment. Even the café around the corner is "breaking records."
Also, doesn't Sony include PC players in its monthly active user numbers?
It's certainly true, though, that a lot of people are still on PS4.
 
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ZehDon said:
You've misunderstood - you're talking about the high end PC market, which is in the same boat as the home console market: corporate greed has priced out their customers.
I'm talking about the PC gamers on decade-old hardware who drive record Steam numbers month after month.
Greed killed high end gaming and now we get to watch it implode.
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It's not just the high end market. The PC market is in the exact same boat as console. PS and Switch MAU has increased this gen too if you're talking ecosystem user numbers increasing. A lot of publishers have just tapped into a global userbase on it now though which they didn't do in the past so publishers are seeing good growth there.
 
RoadHazard said:
This is pretty much entirely due to Xbox crashing and burning this generation.
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You're looking at this the wrong way - Xbox consoles are disappearing because Microsoft quietly won the console war.
Microsoft used the Xbox console to level the gaming playing field by normalizing all of PC gaming's inherent flaws.
Modern 'consoles' from Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox share the exact same flaws (updates, system management, DLC, load times, etc.) that PC gaming has always had.

Gaming on Windows was unthinkable in the SNES-PS2 era when console gaming had a range of extras that PC still lacks.
SNES has proprietary CPU/GPU, near-zero load times, no system management, no DLC and booted directly into games - all advantages that PC can't have.
PlayStation 1 and 2 have proprietary Sony CPU/GPU, no system management, no updates, no DLC, short load times, memory card saves and other advantages that PC can't have.
MS used Xbox to lead PlayStation(PS3-forward) and Nintendo down a one-way road to PC Town.
 
Something I haven't heard a lot of people say is that the big "leaps" that occurred between ps4 gen to ps5 gen weren't really things people cared about that much.

Faster load times? 4k instead of HD? 60fps instead of 30fps?

Those are all nice conveniences, but when push comes to shove for most people, if the same game comes out on a system they already own, but it's just a little less "shiny," then they're not gonna fork over half a grand or more just for a little bit of polish.
 
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Hemingwayoffbase said:
Something I haven't heard a lot of people say is that the big "leaps" that occurred between ps4 gen to ps5 gen weren't really things people cared about that much.

Faster load times? 4k instead of HD? 60fps instead of 30fps?

Those are all nice conveniences, but when push comes to shove for most people, if the same game comes out on a system they already own, but it's just a little less "shiny," then they're not gonna fork over half a grand or more just for a little bit of polish.
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If the main feature of PS6 is 120fps I'm out
 
awwr999999 said:
You're looking at this the wrong way - Xbox consoles are disappearing because Microsoft quietly won the console war.
Microsoft used the Xbox console to level the gaming playing field by normalizing all of PC gaming's inherent flaws.
Modern 'consoles' from Nintendo, PlayStation and Xbox share the exact same flaws (updates, system management, DLC, load times, etc.) that PC gaming has always had.

Gaming on Windows was unthinkable in the SNES-PS2 era when console gaming had a range of extras that PC still lacks.
SNES has proprietary CPU/GPU, near-zero load times, no system management, no DLC and booted directly into games - all advantages that PC can't have.
PlayStation 1 and 2 have proprietary Sony CPU/GPU, no system management, no updates, no DLC, short load times, memory card saves and other advantages that PC can't have.
MS used Xbox to lead PlayStation(PS3-forward) and Nintendo down a one-way road to PC Town.
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Looking back at why Microsoft decided to develop a console in the first place, you make a good point. I haven't really thought of it this way lately when Xbox as a platform has collapsed. Seeing it from this perspective, and knowing how big Microsoft Gaming is now, they've clearly "won" to some degree.
 
yurinka said:
Sony and Nintendo aren't 'doing fine': they are breaking gaming history records.

Consoles are doing great. MS is just slowly moving away step by step since many years ago from being a console maker to become a full multiplatform publisher with Windows as home base, taht's all.
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I didn't say they were doing bad, but breaking records is what this industry does in the macro every gen, and the growth curve is starting to stagnate across the industry for being able to grab new users. Sony & Nintendo benefit from taking Xbox marketshare, but Sony for example is not grabbing new users at the same percentage as PS4 was able to grow vs the PS3.

The reason it still looks great is the revenue generated from subscriptions, services and DLC has grown massively, even to the point where Microsoft's service growth is making up for having less people buying hardware. The industry is making more money per person, but the growth of new people is stagnating. Maybe "good" would've been a better word than "fine", but it's not great imo. PC & mobile gaming are also experiencing similar growth stagnation, with the exception of PC GPUs for AI.

Also, everyone but Nintendo is now a multi-plat software publisher, just Sony has a delay timer on single-player content.
 
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Topher said:
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Will Ferrell Loser GIF
 
ZehDon said:
In fact, PlayStation is sell fewer consoles despite having less competition.
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not eaxtly. In 2022, they only sold 13 million due to shortages, creating a big gap in sales. It was seen back then as losing to the competition, but it was only due to shortage. Now they catch up and the gap between PS4 and PS5 is shrinking each year. But the lack of sales during that big year hurt the sales in the long term
 
I feel like it's been said already but they talking combined Xbox one+PS4 vs Xbox series+ps5? If so I would assume more people that Gen owned both consoles vs this gen. Especially with 1st party going 3rd party. Again I'm sure it was already said by someone.
 
awwr999999 said:
Gaming on Windows was unthinkable in the SNES-PS2 era when console gaming had a range of extras that PC still lacks.
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90's-early 00's was the height of PC gaming until piracy killed it
A lot of current era console heavy hitters came from PC of that time (BG, Fallout, Elder Scrolls etc)
 
Felessan said:
PC bros sounds like as if PC is not in the same boat, while PC playerbase (not revenue) in developed market probably regress even faster than console one and "analyst" says it'll become even worse as PC gaming becomes more and more expensive
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PC Gaming Market Goes Into Overdrive Mode, Hardware Sales Grow By 35% To Hit $44.5 Billion

wccftech.com

PC Gaming Market Goes Into Overdrive Mode, Hardware Sales Grow By 35% To Hit $44.5 Billion

PC Gaming hardware market has seen its biggest growth in years, aiming for a record 35% growth in 2025 & $44.5B in sales.
wccftech.com wccftech.com

 
People have been saying for years that console hardware sales are stagnant at best. It's been the reason behind companies like Sony diversifying while squeezing every penny they can out of software.

It's still a healthy ass profitable business but these corpo types all trade on growth not stagnation. Revenue is up, profits are up, but they look for long-term signals that the industry is growing and squeezing more money out of less people is a bad sign for any business from the stock trading perspective long term.
 
I just think about the huge decline in quality software from ps4 to ps5 and I know I'm not the only one. Makes it very hard to even consider a ps6 if it's going to be another loooong wait for unique software.

If Sony can manage to trick us all again, good for them I guess.
 
Makes sense consoles are trending down despite more gamers and people in the world.

A chunk of Xbox gamers went PC, and PS/Xbox consoles are about $500+. And prices are creeping UP which is insane. At this time last gen, X1/PS4 were probably down to $300.

Given how crazy Steam active user counts are skyrocketing last bunch of years, a lot of gamers probably went to direct Steam too.
 
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I don't think anyone could reasonably expect this generation of consoles to sell with the same volume, considering the lack of price drops over the past 5 years.
 
lastmessiah said:

PC Gaming Market Goes Into Overdrive Mode, Hardware Sales Grow By 35% To Hit $44.5 Billion

wccftech.com

PC Gaming Market Goes Into Overdrive Mode, Hardware Sales Grow By 35% To Hit $44.5 Billion

PC Gaming hardware market has seen its biggest growth in years, aiming for a record 35% growth in 2025 & $44.5B in sales.
wccftech.com wccftech.com

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Did you read past header?

I bolded the most important part from the article. Revenue doesn't always show the whole story.
The report also highlights that the entry-level PC gaming market is projected to shrink by 13% over the next five years. It is stated that around 10 million PC gamers are expected to migrate to other platforms such as consoles, handhelds, and mobile, which might be understandable from a cost point of view.
Click to expand...

nemiroff said:
Yeah, it's funny how some people's defense mechanism twist facts into a fantasy narrative.
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Truly funny how people read only header and make extensive assumptions on it
 
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