An analyst has also shared his thoughts about which next-gen console will sell more.

„[The PlayStation 5 exclusives will be] hugely important. More important, I think, than they’ve ever been. Through their proximity to the system’s designers, PlayStation’s studios can extract the most out of the system performance and that’s a really valuable attribute for a platform holder to have. PlayStation can rely on a studio network that can show off the innovations that we’re trying to put across … when the exclusives are as powerful as Marvel’s Spider-Man[: Miles Morales] or Horizon [Forbidden West], they are important games that people want to play,” Simon Rutter (Executive Vice President Head of European Business at Sony Interactive Entertainment) told The Guardian.

He also praised Gran Turismo 7: „Gran Turismo 7 is going to benefit from almost every single technological enhancement that we have in PlayStation 5. The loading times will be next to nothing compared to what they have been in the past. Sitting in the cockpit, the 3D audio allows you to hear the thunderous roar of a Ferrari behind you or in front of you, and you can recognise the difference between that and the engine noise of a Maserati. Driving the car using the DualSense controller, you’ll have a different feeling in your hands from the smooth undulating tarmac of a racetrack, compared to the gritty sensation on a gravel track. Pressing a soft accelerator will feel very different than pressing on a stiff brake pedal or gear paddle.”

Recently, we already discussed a potential pricing strategy and release date of the PlayStation 5, which were quickly wiped by Amazon France. Albert Penello, a former Xbox marketing executive, said on Twitter that „[There’s] no way this console is over $499.” So the PlayStation 5 Standard Edition could indeed cost 499 bucks at launch.

On Gamesindustry, Ampere’s analyst, Piers-Harding Rolls shared his predictions about the next generation’s sales. He believes that by late 2024 (so in four years), about 66 million PlayStation 5 (PlayStation 5 Standard Edition + PlayStation 5 Digital Edition) will be sold, while the Xbox Series X will reach 37 million sales. (With it, the total sales would be 103 million. In the same period, that’d be six million lower than what the PlayStation 4 and the Xbox One could do.) The analyst believes the decline in lifetime sales will continue to decrease (Xbox + PlayStation 2 – 179 million units combined, Xbox 360 + PlayStation 3 – 171 million, Xbox One + PlayStation 4 – 157 million through March of this year), but despite the decreasing relevance, console gaming will remain the primary form of gaming.

„While the market is still substantial and likely to be consistently large at least during the next console life cycle, what has been proven over the last decade is that even with significant resources ploughed into growing adoption on a global basis, including more serious entry into a series of additional territories, substantial hardware unit sales growth for Sony and Microsoft combined has not materialised,” Harding-Rolls said.

For this year, the analyst predicts 4.6 million sales for the PlayStation 5 and 3.3 million for the Xbox Series X, with both consoles believed to be in the 450-500 USD scene. He thinks Microsoft is in a better position now than with the Xbox One, as they embraced a console gamer focus for the next console, they invested into their first-party studio portfolio, they plan a Halo for one of the launch titles, and they will likely reach pricing parity with the PlayStation 5 (while the unannounced Xbox Series S will potentially do the same with the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition).

Harding-Rolls ends (and so do we) by saying  Sony’s current market leadership over Microsoft, the lineup of PS5 exclusives, and PlayStation’s global brand allegiance „are especially hard to dismantle.”

Source: WCCFTech, WCCFTech, GI

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