Video Game Market Analysis Thread

Right. I like the way you think. Carry the momentum from winning 2022 into 2023 with a price cut and bundle. After 2 years of Xbox being the sales leader, maybe PS5 can finally win a year come 2024 :laughing:.

Let me ask you guys a question: when is Sony not gonna have stock issues? I get that thereā€™s a chip shortage, but with Xbox consoles getting more available, why are there limited supply of Playstations?

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Maybe in 2023? Sony expects scarcity throughout 2022. IIRC, At their last quarterly financial meeting Sony lowered their 2022 expectations down to around 11.5 million units.

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Nick recently said that the rumor that Microsoft paid a large sum to get more fabrication time is true, and that it happened last year.

@Brit sorry, for some reason my first reply was to your post.

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I know zilch about fab production, allocation or logistics so this could be a stupid question, but is it always a case of bidding wars for the components? Does sony have other options?

I was reading about how the overclocked apu on the ps5 doesnt help fab production.

Neither do I, but I think I remember reading that the reason for the current bidding wars is because more and more tech requiring these chips, so there are more companies bidding to get their chips made first and make more of them than the competition. I do remember reading something about an expansion being done to be able to fulfill more orders not to long ago, but I donā€™t remember if they ever gave a time frame for when it would be ready.

I donā€™t think PS has a stock issue necessarily, what they do have is a scalper issue though. I think the Series S is actually helping the Series X in this regard. The reason being people arenā€™t going to pay some crazy premium for a Series S, so they arenā€™t profitable for scalpers to hoard. This allows people to buy a Series S and wait for a Series X whenever they become available, which also limits how much a scalper can make on the Series X. Basically $300 XSS + $500 XSX = $800 so nobody should seriously consider buying a XSX for more than $800 from a scalper.

What we need to watch out for are the game sales. Even if Sony keeps close on the hardware, said hardware needs to get into the hands of the actual gamers otherwise Sony is going to lose that exclusivity bargaining position with 3rd parties. I think we are seeing some of this in Japan where PS sales are good but supposedly a lot of them are being shipped out of Japan and being resold. Actual game sales are suffering as a result.

Yes Sony expects them to have issues throughout 2022, although I think the next quarters will not be as bad as this one giving their projections for this quarter. Still, 11.5 million consoles at this stage of a consoleā€™s life for Sony is very low, so it will still be hard to get one.

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One risk is that when PlayStation becomes the secondary console it just becomes an exclusive machine. My PS5 collects dust just waiting for God of War and Spider-Man 2.

Xbox will make more money from subscriptions and royalties being the primary console this generation.

I said over at the other place that yes, there can easily be a bidding war. MS essentially moneyhatted components and production line preference by paying a big premium. A clever tactic that is only now paying off.

When there is a chip shortage and factory closures (as there was during Covid) those that could stay open could charge more for production time. MS threw money at it.

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What isnt helping now is the pandemic lockdown in China that recently happened. That will have an impact for next quarter, or at the very least was listed as a risk during the MS Financial call.

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I bet Sony conference call will be hard to stomach on the chip shortage.

Iā€™m really curious what is up with that, because they delayed it by 2 weeks, right? I know some feel it was because of impending acquisition they want to finalize before the meeting. Regardless, weā€™ll find out soon enough.

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Reposting this in here ā€¦

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It looks like XBS and XBX are on alternating weeks for shipments in Japan.

Stock shortages but Xbox seems to be doing pretty damn well there. To be only outsold by PS 3:1(last week was 2:1) is crazy. Last gen PS4 was regularly otuselling Xbox one near 20:1 on a weekly basis in Japan

Hard to tell in Japan how much is stock shortages for both PS5 and Xbox, how much is consoles (mostly PS5 I assume) leaving the country, and finally how much is real demand.

Despite what those who like to take sides think, Xbox doing well in Japan even if they snag exclusives will help the Japanese gaming industry. One of the worst things to happen to Japan (IMO) was Sega pulling out of the console business. There needs to be more competitors pumping money into the industry, fighting for marketing, shelf space, exclusives, more chances to pay for localization to other countries (not just the US), etcā€¦

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I see Sony posted their playstation results. Pretty much expected but those numbers for the next financial year have me a bit flabbergasted

They think their revenue is going to jump 30%+(over tencentā€™s gaming revenue) but their profits are actually going to drop? Does that mean they expect to ship tens of millions of PS5, a huge amount of software and the yen is going to make a giant recovery? I think those numbers may be very ambitious

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Maybe some acquisition?