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How did Sony manage to keep the PS5DE secret from everyone?
- Thread starter Ivanovic
- Start date
I agree with this. The delay for announcing the Series S is more to do with wanting Sony to reveal the price of the PS5 first rather than the announcement of the DE.
They can hardly go "Here's the Series S: a value for money, affordable next-gen box" "What's the value?" "Wait and see".
Honestly? If they released the PS5 Pro day one even if it was expensive as hell (instead of doing so in 3 years) i'd buy it day one.
Ultimately, this. Disc drive tho, lol.
Its still a surprise because its for cost reasons. But its just a PS5 with no disc drive.
Exactly.
That's what people think when they hear the rumors about PS5 potential price
Microsoft got blindsided by Sony undercutting them by $100 in 2013 and never recovered from this.
There's a difference between assuming your competition might eventually release a digital unit, and knowing your competition will have one ready to go on shelves before you will.
This is what I'm thinking as well. Either Series S has a disc drive or it originally had a disc drive. Microsoft saw PS5 DE and maybe had to go back to drawing board on it.
Don't think they can go back to the drawing board unless there is a delay (or they weren't planning to release the S this year).
Sure. What I meant to say is I don't know why people would care about something that is a pure business decision when there's a lot more interesting shit to leak.
There was one Japanese reporter who knew and mentioned it, but that didn't really get much traction.
OK it's actually "PS5 Digital Edition". Which is quite frankly a ridiculous name, given that it's not like the normal PS5 is analogue in any form.
People keep floating this Sony surprised MSFT narrative which I don't really believe. It is very obvious that MSFT was planning two consoles from the start. Once Sony heard about XSS they had to do something, because otherwise you'd be looking at at least a $200 cheaper next gen Xbox console. This is where the PS5 DE likely came into play.
The reason for the price standoff is likely that MSFT wants a $150 diff and Sony wants $100 diff (between the DE and the XSS) and nobody wants to announce a price and then have to lower it later. That being said, I'd give MSFT the upper hand there because the BOM diff between the two is probably closer to $150 than $100 based on what we know.
The reason for the price standoff is likely that MSFT wants a $150 diff and Sony wants $100 diff (between the DE and the XSS) and nobody wants to announce a price and then have to lower it later. That being said, I'd give MSFT the upper hand there because the BOM diff between the two is probably closer to $150 than $100 based on what we know.
Not sure but the funny thing was before it was announced, when I posted about why wouldn't Sony have a cheaper console in the pipeline to counter the XS, it was shot down because nothing had leaked or was even hinted at it. And here we are.
Microsoft blindsided themselves by going all in with Kinect. This time they look to be playing the waiting game on price and want Sony to finally go first but they don't want to either for some reason.
Microsoft wouldn't have gone all in on kinect if they knew it would have put them 100 more expensive than Sony with a weaker machine.
Doesn't take an MBA to figure that one out. They got kneecapped there and Kinect got stripped out to bring the consoles to price parity in less than a year.
They are playing the waiting game on price here because they clearly did not expect the PS5DE at launch either. The existence of that thing screws the value proposition of the XSS.
Lockhart hasn't even been announced yet. It's still in the leaks and rumor stage. PS5DE has been announced, displayed, and confirmed for holiday launch for months now.
MS got outmaneuvered here.
Microsoft came out with an all digital system already, I'm sure Microsoft was aware of the possibility. The problem throughout the current gen is Microsoft has never been price competitive. The XB1X was $100 more than the Pro and their all digital Xbox One was too high in price too. So it will be interesting if they can get the price right this time but they certainly don't want to hand it over to Sony so easily this time. Now here we are getting into late August with no confirmed price, no confirmed date, no confirmed list of launch games and no confirmation of Lockhart.
Everything Sony does must be a 4d chess big brain move that stuns the world to this place doesn't it
Not at launch they weren't. Even devs had no idea, and there were no leaks. MS wasn't aware of it. No one was.
All things point to the PS5 DE being on shelves before XSS is, and at a lower price point than the disc based PS5 that MS can't predict.
This is why we're playing the waiting game. MS is going to have to take a big hit on the XSS for that machine to make any sense as a competitor to the PS5 DE, and the PS5 DE is likely to release first.
They're waiting to see what Sony does. Sony on the other hand isn't in any rush to do anything because they sold 155k PS4s last month and MS sold 17k XBOs.
Sony has an unprecedented 10 million units shipping for launch window because they know they can sell them all no matter what MS does. Xbox doesn't exist where most units will be sold.
The disc PS5 is redeemed when it's resting horizontally tbf.
The disk saves them what, maybe $17? The Xbox One SAD edition certinaly doesn't paint a picture of being able to undercut drastically. You would not be doing your job properly if you never thought Sony would also come out with a digital only version. It doesn't take a bright person to see how digital consumption has exploded, you seem to be giving Sony too much of a benefit here and to top it all off Sony has not even shown the price of either to make any claims it's going to be a brilliant move or not.
They're not secret. They don't exist. Pricing can remain flexible until very late in the game. Heck, adjustments can even be made immediately post-launch (X1, 3DS, etc).
They are probably gaming different price points now between 399 and 499 for their 2 editions and trying to figure out how to respond to a $349 or lower Series S.
My guess, and bear in mind I predicted the PS5 would be just above 10Tflops way back when it was rumored to be 9.2 TF, which means i'm clearly in sync with the SCE leadership please hire me sony, Is that they will release the DE for $399 and the disc edition for $499.
Yes they will take a substantial loss on the DE but it will be offset multiple times over by the huge digital margins and non-resell-ability of games, so it's a no-brainer in my opinion. Some digital-friendly customers will perceive it as Sony being nice and sticking to the "$399" dream price. Others will be glad Sony pushed the power envelope a bit higher and won't mind paying $499 for the large future savings in game purchases that comes with an open marketplace.
I'd say anybody who buys 6 games or less over the console's lifetime should just stick to digital, honestly. Average attach rate for PS4 is 9.5 games so most people would save more money over time with the disc version at the cost of a small delay to install the game from disc. Instead of playing at zero-second post launch, you'll play at zero-hour, within 1 hour of launch.
The big issue is going to be taking your game to your friend's house only to find out he doesn't have a disc reader for it. This could be mitigated with a $100 uhd addon like the HD-DVD one for the 360 that you could carry in your backpack. Even better if any portable UHD drive is accepted, though I very much doubt that'll be the case for security reasons.
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PSP Go came out in 2009. The game industry's changed since then with the majority of game sales being digital copies:
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Why would they have to tell devs? It has the exact same specs, same dev kit, just without an optical drive...
Seems weird to talk about Sony outmaneuvering Microsoft or catching them by surprise when we don't have the prices yet. Sony will need to cut their price significantly more than Microsoft would to get the PS5 DE close to the Series S price.
Likewise I'm sure Microsoft considered a discless XSX and instead decided the XSS would be the better option for them.
Likewise I'm sure Microsoft considered a discless XSX and instead decided the XSS would be the better option for them.
Lol they removed a disposable item. And created a new shell. Not much to it in the grand scheme of things.
The gaming industry is littered with the carcasses of executives that "did not do their jobs properly." Competency is rare. If everyone did their jobs Sega would have never botched the launch of the Saturn. Nintendo would never have let the WiiU see the light of day. The Vita would never have made it past the drawing board and Kinect never would have been mandatory for the XBO.
People screw up, even highly paid ones and screwing up is the standard, not the exception. Where is Halo Infinite? Why isn't it launch ready? Oh right. Because someone screwed up.
The PS5 in general has a lower build cost than the XsX does. It's cheaper across the board, so a PS5 DE will be closer in price to an XSS than an XsX.
Both units regardless of disc drive and GPU are still expensive. The XSS is a more capable machine than the One X, and removing a drive doesn't save much. It's all about how much of a profitability hit each company is wiling to take to move units. These two are loss leaders.
Sony still has the Ps4 bringing in a LOT of revenue, has no competition for their product in 70% of the market, and is the market leader by a wide margin. Division to division they are in the better position to take that hit.
This is something people keep ignoring when they talk about the prices for all the systems and people thinking the XSS is going to be the cheapest system. Looking at the financial reports, and seeing how much money they make from digital now, they can easily take a hit on the DE and make it back in the games and services side. It would only cost then two full price games
I think the DE at launch is a response to XSS, Sony must of known about it for a while. Why would you go to the trouble of making two skus if you weren't planning on being aggressive with pricing?
Yet you conclude this move of a PS5 Digital got Microsoft rattled, caught off-gaurd, even though it saves them very little and Micrsoft was unable to price the Xbox One Digital aggressively?
The PS2 was also in this position prior to the PS3 to take a big hit, look at what happened. It's obvious Sony is not that comfortable taking another hit, otherwise they would have announced price already.
The price was last time revealed at E3, which Sony bailed out on and than was dropped alltogether anyway due to Corona.
The release date was announced at Gamescom, which will be now be an online event and won't be attended by Sony.
We live in special times.
OP
OP
The difference is that they didn't have online revenue to offset the costs. Also the PS3 costs were insanely massive compared to the PS5 costs so its clearly not comparable at all.