A sizable early adopter niche will still pay for the most powerful console possible.
From Circana analyst Matt Piscatella’s BlueSky account:
PlayStation 5 Pro accounted for 19% of total PlayStation 5 units sold in the month and 28% of dollars. Launch month dollar sales of PlayStation 5 Pro were more than 50% higher than the November 2016 launch month sales of PlayStation 4 Pro, while units were 12% lower.
The hardware hasn’t been sold at a loss for years now though, the last console that they actually sold at a loss was the base ps3 which for 4 years even with accessory sales still didn’t break even, the PS4 had broken even by the 6-month Mark and the PS5 broke even by the 8th month mark
I assume with the PS5 Pro being $200 more, it’s going to break even by the two or three month mark
edit: added ps3 after base, apperently somehow deleted that
Yeah but the consoles still have to be cheap enough for people like me not making the jump to PC gaming.
So I’d say they have to be careful about the hardware price compared to a PC.
Nothing beats the ease of use of a console, but I can tell you that if prices starts getting close, I’d pribably buy a PC that I can use for way more than gaming and watching movies.
Honestly I have to disagree with consoles being ease of use these days, especially if you like really long sessions.
I have to restart games or reboot the console way more often than I feel should be necessary at this point.
And installing from discs takes forever if you even do physical, but then you need the disc in to run it for whatever dumbfuck anti-piracy reason. I won’t pay for digital, at that point you might as well be on pc, it’s the same thing, and since this generation is probably the last with physical media, I’m out…
It seems the model of subsidized hardware is coming to an end.
New semiconductor fab nodes are becoming more and more expensive. And on the flip side improvements in graphics are becoming more computationally difficult while being less substantial compared to earlier console generations.
PC gaming has also somewhat revitalised over the past ~10 years and more and more PCs are benefiting from “good enough” iGPUs (10 years ago even top iGPUs could not be used for even more moderately demanding games).
Oh yeah, they will still have “cheap” ones, but they will make these “Pro” versions more and more expensive.
PCs are a lot easier to use than they used to be, you don’t have to mess around like you used to, just the initial setup (which is done for you if you buy a prebuilt one anyway).
But yeah, the initial cost puts people off, even though the long term savings are incredible. Ignoring the cheaper cost of games, just from the console online subscriptions over 5 years, you are saving over $400 (and the last generation of consoles was 8 years, so that’s well over $600 of savings).
I’d highly recommend anyone tries PC, you have so much more freedom than you do on a console. There’s a reason the PC market share is growing so fast.
I’ve enjoyed how I can still play the games I first got on my PC were increased resolution and fps by just going to the settings instead of begging for devs to push an update. Also not being rendered unplayable on new hardware like on my older consoles. For longevity my PC games have aged really nicely compared to the games I got for consoles over the generations.
Yeah the subscription costs alone pay for the difference between the hardware for the PC and the console, they average 6 or 7 years between releases and the subscription cost is 70 a year, so That’s $420 over the six year period and when the console is $700 that means your budget for a PC would be 1,100, and that’s not including the fact that games very rarely go on sale on Console like they do in PC you don’t have the ability to do much gray Market side and you have no control over the system.
Myself for example, I spent between 1,100 and 1,200 on a PC back in 2016 that’s almost 10 years ago now I’ve upgraded my Hardware a few times, each time averaging about $200. But that was because I chose to I only really would need to have upgraded once and it would have been about a $400 upgrade, I’m spending less upgrading my system I would if I bought a console every time it released, and I have the capability of doing whatever the hell I want on my computer and I don’t have the financial drain of the subscription
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PS5 Pro is a strait up rip off. Only suckers would buy this.
Consoles exist to grift, now they are realising they might not need to sell the actual hardware at a loss anymore.
The hardware hasn’t been sold at a loss for years now though, the last console that they actually sold at a loss was the base ps3 which for 4 years even with accessory sales still didn’t break even, the PS4 had broken even by the 6-month Mark and the PS5 broke even by the 8th month mark
I assume with the PS5 Pro being $200 more, it’s going to break even by the two or three month mark
edit: added ps3 after base, apperently somehow deleted that
Well, yeah, you are right. They only sell at a loss initially until the hardware is old and therefore cheaper.
Yeah but the consoles still have to be cheap enough for people like me not making the jump to PC gaming.
So I’d say they have to be careful about the hardware price compared to a PC.
Nothing beats the ease of use of a console, but I can tell you that if prices starts getting close, I’d pribably buy a PC that I can use for way more than gaming and watching movies.
Honestly I have to disagree with consoles being ease of use these days, especially if you like really long sessions.
I have to restart games or reboot the console way more often than I feel should be necessary at this point.
And installing from discs takes forever if you even do physical, but then you need the disc in to run it for whatever dumbfuck anti-piracy reason. I won’t pay for digital, at that point you might as well be on pc, it’s the same thing, and since this generation is probably the last with physical media, I’m out…
It seems the model of subsidized hardware is coming to an end.
New semiconductor fab nodes are becoming more and more expensive. And on the flip side improvements in graphics are becoming more computationally difficult while being less substantial compared to earlier console generations.
PC gaming has also somewhat revitalised over the past ~10 years and more and more PCs are benefiting from “good enough” iGPUs (10 years ago even top iGPUs could not be used for even more moderately demanding games).
Oh yeah, they will still have “cheap” ones, but they will make these “Pro” versions more and more expensive.
PCs are a lot easier to use than they used to be, you don’t have to mess around like you used to, just the initial setup (which is done for you if you buy a prebuilt one anyway).
But yeah, the initial cost puts people off, even though the long term savings are incredible. Ignoring the cheaper cost of games, just from the console online subscriptions over 5 years, you are saving over $400 (and the last generation of consoles was 8 years, so that’s well over $600 of savings).
I’d highly recommend anyone tries PC, you have so much more freedom than you do on a console. There’s a reason the PC market share is growing so fast.
I’ve enjoyed how I can still play the games I first got on my PC were increased resolution and fps by just going to the settings instead of begging for devs to push an update. Also not being rendered unplayable on new hardware like on my older consoles. For longevity my PC games have aged really nicely compared to the games I got for consoles over the generations.
Yeah the subscription costs alone pay for the difference between the hardware for the PC and the console, they average 6 or 7 years between releases and the subscription cost is 70 a year, so That’s $420 over the six year period and when the console is $700 that means your budget for a PC would be 1,100, and that’s not including the fact that games very rarely go on sale on Console like they do in PC you don’t have the ability to do much gray Market side and you have no control over the system.
Myself for example, I spent between 1,100 and 1,200 on a PC back in 2016 that’s almost 10 years ago now I’ve upgraded my Hardware a few times, each time averaging about $200. But that was because I chose to I only really would need to have upgraded once and it would have been about a $400 upgrade, I’m spending less upgrading my system I would if I bought a console every time it released, and I have the capability of doing whatever the hell I want on my computer and I don’t have the financial drain of the subscription