Shuhei Yoshida: Sony's not sure why PS4 is selling so well

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His musing are what every company goes through with their products, you gotta be in the business to understand.

It is literally the same thoughts I experience in our company when we have new introduction and it goes well above expectations (on much, much smaller level) - first you wonder why the heck is everyone buying it like there is no tomorrow then you get worried if everyone already bought it :-).

It is very typical and something that pretty much every company goes with every successful product.
 
Imru’ al-Qays;126178475 said:
We did no have 100 million+ multi-console ownerships and RRoD purchases last gen. The core market is by far the largest part of the console market.

I'm not disagreeing. But using 160m as a baseline is faulty logic. Even to use it as a guestimate is faulty logic. Last gen we had certain factors contributing to that 160m that aren't going to repeat themselves this time around.
 
In all fairness, we had a fair amount of multi-console ownership last gen as well as multiple 360 purchases due to RRoD (I am specifically talking about purchases made, not returns and refurbs from Microsoft's warranty program).

there's also a large number of people who buy consoles used from gamestop or ebay, and aren't tracked in official figures as well. One console "sale" can easily be 2 or more separate owners, not to mention multiple people in the same household.

It's useless to nitpick the 160 million as "not REALLY 160 million separate people" because there are always caveats. It's a good enough estimate.
 
Okay, who are we defining as core? Because I define it as people who buy 4-5 retail games a year. I think there are about 40 million of those... I could be wrong. I would love some stats on this.

Well exactly, but in this case we are defining the core as those that will buy a next-gen system. I was responding to the post that stated after 30-40 million "core" gamers buy the console, sales will dry up. Last gen shows that is very unlikely since it doesn't include those that only buy 1-2 games a year (the COD/BF crowd).
 
Could it possibly be because of games like FFXV, Deep Down, The Last Guardian etc? Games that get announced SUPER freaking early then get constantly delayed or never get new information on for long periods of time?

That's definitely the case for me at least.
 
I am sorry but at times this guy is a loveable idiot.

I dont know why it is selling

Falls asleep at Gamecom..
 
It's not that hard to understand.

Most powerful hard wear.
Great games coming.
The playstation brand.
Sexy looking design.

Obviously it helped that MS made a weak console and tried to screw over every customer and fan of the xbox.
 
It's obvious Shuhei, there's no need to be coy about it. The truth is, no one can resist the lure of an attractive young lady whipping out her boobies on Ustream in a drunken stupor. It's one of the few universal pleasures left in the world; something we can all revel in. And that's why you're seeing PS4s fly off the shelves.

plus knack
 
Well exactly, but in this case we are defining the core as those that will buy a next-gen system. I was responding to the post that stated after 30-40 million "core" gamers buy the console, sales will dry up. Last gen shows that is very unlikely since it doesn't include those that only buy 1-2 games a year (the COD/BF crowd).
Okay I see your point.
 
Some of the sales they are getting come from people who didn't own any last gen hardware?

That is something to be curious about.
 
Okay, who are we defining as core? Because I define it as people who buy 4-5 retail games a year. I think there are about 40 million of those... I could be wrong. I would love some stats on this.

Eh, these systems have tie ratios that are pretty easy to look up. i believe the PS3 and 360 are about 8-10 games over the lifetime of the system on average, and this is pretty stable for most systems going back to the PS1 era. Your "core" gamers are the ones that are consistently right on this mark and can be relied on to buy 1 or 2 games a year. Anyone substantially below this (1 or 2 games ever) is your casual audience, anyone significantly OVER that is the hardcore.

4-5 games per YEAR is absurdly high. that's not your core audience, that's the hardcore niche. Extremely few gamers (relatively speaking) collect 30+ games for a single system.
 
Honestly no one is sure why, Sony. Game shit show central on the platform, and your first party offerings to date are comically mediocre. I was hopeful that'd change but The Order is being called garbage by basically 85% of all showfloor attendees who played it.

Indies don't count (focus on real games Sony), so Yoshida and I are both perplexed anyone keeps falling for the PS4 scam.
Haha you almost got me there ya rascal
 
Honestly no one is sure why, Sony. Game shit show central on the platform, and your first party offerings to date are comically mediocre. I was hopeful that'd change but The Order is being called garbage by basically 85% of all showfloor attendees who played it.

Indies don't count (focus on real games Sony), so Yoshida and I are both perplexed anyone keeps falling for the PS4 scam.

Not sure if you're serious? If you're just joking, then I apologize. But I haven't found it to be a game "shit show" at all.

Since I got my PS4 at Christmas, I've played and enjoyed the following: Resogun, AC4, BF4, Outlast, Infamous: SS, Watch Dogs, Wolfenstein, Destiny Alpha + Beta, TLOU: Remastered, and P.T. Plus there's a pile of games I'm interested in this fall. Sure many of those are cross-gen third party games, but it's definitely worth it to have the definitive/upgraded visuals now (and several good exclusives), with a bunch more great exclusive games on the horizon (Bloodborne, Uncharted 4, WiLD, Rime, etc).

Live From PlayStation has also been great entertainment, the DS4 is a fantastic upgrade over the DS3, and the price of the console is very reasonable.
 
Shu should just ask Mark Cerny why the console is selling so well. I'm sure Cerny will give him a detailed run down of what he did to make it so successful.
 
Because its main opponent fumbled and it's been seven years without a new console so the core were clamoring for it. After a while sales should start to drop significantly for both Sony and Microsoft.
 
I laughed.
1upshowbeards3.jpg

Those were the good ole days.
 
Because its main opponent fumbled and it's been seven years without a new console so the core were clamoring for it. After a while sales should start to drop significantly for both Sony and Microsoft.

disagree. Sales will only go up for both over the next 2-3 years, as price drops hit the system and "must have" software finally shows up, before slowing down and trailing off in years 4,5,6, etc.

this is pretty much the pattern for all modern systems.

 
am i the only one reading this interview completely differently? Shu's notoriously bad and phrasing things, so here's my translation:

"In the face of all the doom and gloom (that we at Sony were starting to believe) about the console market, the PS4 is doing much better than we anticipated. We assumed consoles were facing such tough competition that PS4, although on track to do well, wouldn't reach the 10 million mark as fast as it did- even in our forecasted best-case scenario. This is making us go back to reassess our analysis on the market to make sure that this is true growth that will continue upwards."
 
social media is one of the main reasons too. nearly all of gamer community is on social media in some way and with power of the internet, you can get all the marketing you ask for. people now have hundreds of followers, friends and they can market your product in most efficient way. (and its free most of the time!) also that works both ways too and you can end up like microsoft.
 
It's pretty simple: they're doing everything right.

Most powerful console, no more expensive than the competition, has the best versions of every game that people want.
 
It probably has something to do with MS's fuck up on xb1. I was going to buy xb1, but bought ps4 instead. I am sure i am not the only one.
 
I still believe that's due to the messy Microsoft Xbox One reveal.
Not just the reveal. The horrible PR and the lack of vision for the console was obvious. Kinect pack-in was huge mistake and probably lost them millions of year 1 sales.
 
Nintendo:

I know people like to mention that:

They fucked up the name.
They fucked up the first E3 presentation.
They fucked up the marketing.

That's all true. But the absolute worst thing they did is to force themselves to radically innovate again. Nintendo revolutionised the console market with motion controls and had huge success, but instead of calming down and capitalizing off of the incredibly established new "Wii" franchise, they had to bring another innovation out, the Wii U Gamepad. I mean, it is cool and shit, but it wasn't neccessary. They've already successfully introduced a radically new control sheme (motion controls) to the world, something you don't do every generation.
After the Wii, all they needed to create was a powerful console named Wii 2, with some improved Motion Controls, maybe introduce a new standard controller along the way (the Wii U Pro Controller) and have a logical evolution of the Wii concept. They should have went the PS1 to PS2 route, but no, they had to innovate again and confuse the shit out of everyone.

They went with 'something different' because it paid off in spades with Wii, and because the last time they tried to compete in the core gamer arena with Gamecube, they failed. But Gamecube's problem was simply PS2's absolute indestructible momentum at that point. There was no top dog or dominant brand going in this gen, and I think that a pedestrian, powerful, premium Nintendo console -encompassing Wii's legacy just like you said- would certainly have worked out better than Wii U. In fact, this gen was probably their best shot since PSone to retake the 3rd party market. But they no doubt realised that such a market is volatile these days to say the least. Given that they're the biggest first party developer in the industry, and that the success of their hardware hinges on their own software, I don't blame them for making a cheaper, less flashy console to keep development costs down.
 
They didn't do anything great to win except undercut MS at every opportunity (which wasn't hard because MS was the equivalent of a character in a Benny Hill joint - bumping in to everything, falling over at the slightest touch etc.)

There was no real innovation from Sony; just good market positioning.

Tell us about those great innovations that MS and Nintendo brought...Please, go ahead!
 
I think it shows that a lot of the "wisdom" about mobile taking over was hogwash.

I mean, PS4 selling like hotcakes, iPad growth declining. That's mud in the eye of every analyst in recent years.

(Although this failed prediction seems true for Japan).

Not that you are wrong about ipad growth declining last quarter, but it is important to keep scale in perspective. iPads sell in a quarter what the PS4 will sell in a year. iPads sell more in a year than all consoles combined.
 
It's selling well because MS decided to scream YOLO and leap off a cliff with a loaded shotgun pointed at their nuts. It's nothing to do with the quality of the PS4. If MS had simply come out with the 360 part 2, there is no way the PS4 would have the lead it has now.

This is why MS needs to either slash the price of the X1 until it's a minimum of £50 cheaper than the PS4, or get a revised console out within 2 years. They seem to be doing well on the software side, but nobody in their right mind is going to buy a less powerful console at the same price as the PS4.
 
Last gen long overdue, the competition made all the mistakes and missteps that they could possibly could make in the preparation and at the start of the cycle, and offering the most powerful console in market at a lower price than its direct competitor. Also, going forward, having a mandatory online subscription will make it more difficult to lose PS4 users to other platforms, so each user won in the beginning of the gen will be a potential customer through the whole gen, that's a continuous stream of revenue from a customer won early on. The effects of this early dominance will progress exponentially through this cycle.
 
Well, it sold better because PS did very few mistakes with the console, lower price also.

What i dont understand is why is still selling so much when there are so few quality PS exclusives in the console right now (not counting indies, and most of them are on PC or are multi). Xbox One on the other hand have way better catalog while we speak but is not selling so well.
 
The reason why PS4 is doing well is the price. Having more powerful hardware is simply a bonus for the more knowledgeable people.
 
It is selling well because the design is good, the price is good, the tech is good, the messaging is good and Sony support for games throughout the lifespan of their home consoles has always been good. But, hey, Sony did not do anything...
 
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