Sony Is Dealing With PlayStation 5 Shortage by Making More PS4s (only producing about 1 million for the entire year)

Do people actually buy a last generation console just because the one they actually want is hard to get? I understand that there are people who buy old consoles and don't feel the need to have the latest one like most of us here do, but I don't understand the logic of "because we can't produce enough PS5s we'll produce more PS4s, and people will buy those instead".
 
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Physiognomonics said:
Exactly. The real anomaly is why did they want to stop PS4 earlier than with their previous consoles. It always striked me as very odd as their main point was to sell games and services, not consoles. And currently most PS5 are playing PS4 games.

And what about Pro? I am sure plenty of people would gladly buy a Pro while waiting for a PS5. Just stupid from Jim. In the future they'll have to backpedal others of his decisions, like their current price strategy.
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I sold my PS4 Slim for 220 bucks about 9 months ago. The demand for PS4 was/is definitely there. Mistake from Jim.
 
Dream-Knife said:
I'm still surprised they killed the ps4 so quickly. However, these would have to be cheaper. Can they make a ps4 super slim at $200? $150?

Cross gen is going to be really long. Interesting idea having all consoles play the same games, but the new consoles are basically super pro editions. Doesn't make sense to artificially lock players out of games if the older hardware can still run it.
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2013 - 2022
gary coleman wtf GIF

Said that wouldn't be more logical for Sony produce more PS4 pro?
 
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I put this theory on twitter.

When it says as a sub, it's a sub for producers so Sony can hit min spend levels not a sub for consumers. This can make financial sense depending on the rebate levels/rates.
 
Dream-Knife said:
I mean they killed it a year before PS5 came out. You couldn't buy a PS4 in 2020. I don't know how it was with PS3, but you could get a PS2 slim at the store up until like 2010.
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In what way they killed it exactly? I knew PS4 is still available in the store.
 
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PS6 will probably release around 2031, which I'm cool with, I'm looking to get as much time out of my PS5 as possible.
 
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Little Chicken said:
I feel like they should dump the PS4 and replace it with the PS4 Pro, perhaps position it as a Series S competitor.
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I'm sure PS4 Pro was still £300 when it was discontinued, if they did this it would still be hampered by the I/O and the CPU unless they just carry on supporting cross gen for years.
An 18CU PS5 lite would have been a great idea with how things have turned out, £249 would have been a winner.
 
Sony's dual model strategy of disc and digital is the best idea for this generation. Any other different spec and weaker model would not have been good at all.

For $100 more than the SS, you get significantly more power and bigger storage space with the PS5 digital. Only $100. SS is a horrible deal that just messes with game development in that aspect.

You people on here really need to stop falling for MS's PR games.
 
On Demand said:
Sony's dual model strategy of disc and digital is the best idea for this generation. Any other different spec and weaker model would not have been good at all.

For $100 more than the SS, you get significantly more power and bigger storage space with the PS5 digital. Only $100. SS is a horrible deal that just messes with game development in that aspect.

You people on here really need to stop falling for MS's PR games.
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Isn't series S aimed at the same group of people who would now go out and buy a ps4 now though? They can get a next gen console and still play the last gen games as well as all future games? Seems like a win win.
 
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I have an even BETTER plan how Sony can compensate for PS5 shortages: Produce more PS5s! Genius, eh? Sony, hire me!
 
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JohnnyFootball said:
I can't for the life of me figure out how this solving any problems. All I see is this hogging resources that could be used to produce PS5s.
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Those resources aren't bounding anything PS5 needs. PS5 need modern processes, while PS4 still uses the old 16nm process (or was it 14nm ...). There is enough headroom to produce a bit more of these processes. The newer processes are the problem. There are just to many products that need those. That's why e.g. nvidia returned with RTX2060 cards on the market, because they can be produced. Memory is also not the problem. The demand is there so they just want to serve the demand and earn some money.

Sony produces as many consoles as they have planned (those contracts are made for years in advance). They just currently have the problem that they can't produce more (more expensive short term contracts, but there are no resources for those to be made).
"We believe in generations" is still valid. They just believe in 2 generations now ;)

And as I state for years now, the current gen is not that different from the last gen. They are just faster and have faster storage. But games should still get "downgraded" quite easy (you can do everything on the GPU just in much lower resolution/precision/...), at least if they were planned to run at 60fps on the current gen. If they were planned to run at 30fps ... the cpu can get into the way (without further downgrades to e.g. physics, npc counts, ....). So at least as long as we get cross-gen titles, we get 60fps titles ;)
 
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phil_t98 said:
Isn't series S aimed at the same group of people who would now go out and buy a ps4 now though? They can get a next gen console and still play the last gen games as well as all future games? Seems like a win win.
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SS was made so Xbox can try and stay competitive in sales with PS5. There's no other reason it was made.
 
On Demand said:
SS was made so Xbox can try and stay competitive in sales with PS5. There's no other reason it was made.
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Series S was made for casual gamers, who do you think is snapping up PS4's at this point? It isn't the hardcore gamers as we all have or pushing for next gen consoles.

Series s was aimed at a specific market
 
KingGhidorah said:
Before the shortages hit, Sony went all in with PS5. They stopped PS4 production and switched their manufacturing to 99% PS5. You CANNOT find any PS4 at retail stores. You see in sales number, PS4 sold less than 200K in the past 12 months....
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What?
Where did PS4 only sell less than 200k in 12 months, surely not world wide.
 
Dedicating more production to ps4 is interesting. I wonder how supply constrained they are for components on ps5? Also im sure they saw this coming when they revised estimates
 
skit_data said:
I really hope this doesn't mean they'll stretch crossgen out even further.
Hopefully it's just to meet a possible increase in demand because of Horizon FW, GT7 and God of War Ragnarök.

Still, doesn't sound like a good thing to me.
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I have a feeling that they will stretch out crossgen even further now. Yeah, it definitely doesn't sound good to me either.
 
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On Demand said:
SS was made so Xbox can try and stay competitive in sales with PS5. There's no other reason it was made.
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Think it was made to expand the potential customer base, while also giving a cheaper entry level to 'Next Gen'.
There is also the Gamepass factor when the XSS becomes the perfect cheap Gamepass console.
There is also the factor of the tens of millions of the masses still stuck on 1080p tv's, with no expectation of upgrading to a 4k set anytime soon.

There is so much right behind the XSS.
 
This could be why the trade-in value of the previous consoles is at an all time high as well. Around $330 at GameStop last time I checked for an XBOX One X or PS4 Pro which is pretty insane. I have a feeling that they will stretch out crossgen even further because of this and because they want to get more sales out of their new release. If this is factual, the PS4 Pro or whatever will still be $400 as well.
 
phil_t98 said:
Series S was made for casual gamers, who do you think is snapping up PS4's at this point? It isn't the hardcore gamers as we all have or pushing for next gen consoles.

Series s was aimed at a specific market
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MS wanted to have the cheapest console again this generation to try and compete with PS5. That's it.
 
On Demand said:
MS wanted to have the cheapest console again this generation to try and compete with PS5. That's it.
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Honstly everytime i read one of your posts when talking about anything Xbox, i just see this picture in my head -

oldgits.jpg


You sound so bitter and salty man.
Just let it go whatever is eating away at you.
 
Ok, if you really wanted a PS5, why in the hell would you go out and buy a PS4? (considering you probably already have one)
 
PropellerEar said:
He had an argument you had none.
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Er -
Stuart360 said:
Think it was made to expand the potential customer base, while also giving a cheaper entry level to 'Next Gen'.
There is also the Gamepass factor when the XSS becomes the perfect cheap Gamepass console.
There is also the factor of the tens of millions of the masses still stuck on 1080p tv's, with no expectation of upgrading to a 4k set anytime soon.

There is so much right behind the XSS.
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At least i explained some reasoning behind the S, as oppose to 'They just want to compete with Sony, facts'.
 
Rhazer Fusion said:
I have a feeling that they will stretch out crossgen even further now. Yeah, it definitely doesn't sound good to me either.
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After reading through the article and seeing that it's only about 1 million consoles I'm way less concerned, it really is no different than previous gens. I thought it was about going back to some full scale production but the whole article is built on the premise that they allegedly were to stop production. Something that there were no confirmations on (quite the opposite actually) and in light of Sonys previous console gen phase out would been unlikely.

We didn't have to suffer through years of cross gen games previous years despite the consoles being in production for at least another 5-6 years after introducing the new gen so I find it hard to believe it will be much of a problem now either (outside of the crossgen games confirmed, which like it or not are primarily developed for PS4)
 
People that complained that the Series S is holding the generation back are the same people that say cross gen games like Horizon and god of war are the best graphical games ever.

I'm seriously glad MSs base console has a much better CPU than sonys underpowered laptop CPU from 2013.
 
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phil_t98 said:
Yeah I am hoping so. There will be things that the ps4 wont be able to do but consoles are like pcs these days and its all scalable. Doesn't mean it will be good on last gen hardware but it can be there.
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Scalability doesn't work well for everything. The easiest would be resolution but last gen games still hold current gen games back
 
phil_t98 said:
I think both Sony and Microsoft should of stopped the last standard version and kept producing the pro versions of the consoles and dropped the prices of them
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Sony had to discontinue the PS4 Pro. It had no spot since it costs same as PS5 Digital.

Sony told their investors they were going to keep the PS4 as $300 and use its profitability to offset the losses incurred by selling PS5s at a loss. That's why they couldn't just cut the PS4 down to $200 and PS4 Pro as $300. They wanted each remaining PS4 sold to be as profitable as possible since they're losing money on PS5s.
 
On Demand said:
MS wanted to have the cheapest console again this generation to try and compete with PS5. That's it.
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Wrong.

They stated why quite clearly, they don't think these consoles are going to have the die shrinks and cost savings that previous generations had, they also know the mass adoption of these consoles is at the £300 or less price point.

So they made a console in that price bracket day one as they don't believe Series X will ever get to that price point and be profitable.
 
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ManaByte said:
I think the real number is probably closer to 12 or 13 million with 7 or 8 million units sitting stacked up in scalper's houses.
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Over 30% in scalper houses?
I think that is quite an over estimate. Sure, scalping is a problem but 30-40% sounds extremely unlikely.
 
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