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Next gen price prediction thread - Home straight edition
- Thread starter Deleted member 13077
- Start date
Most of these predictions are relative to ones where people are predicting $499 for XSX/PS5. Based on what we know about the XSS from the Verge and other sources and doing some guess work (it will likely be all digital, it could potentially have a smaller internal SSD) you can get to $299 pretty comfortably if the MSRP for the premium consoles is $499.
If the premium consoles end up $549 or $599 then some of the higher estimates for XSS make more sense.
I guess I have to put some predictions in writing:
XSS $349 ($299 w/o controller option, I think they will want to say next gen starts @ $299 even if there are a ton of caveats)
XSX $549 (MS will be eating more BOM here than PS5, but they will have to match)
PS5 $549 (will not eat as much cost on this model so that they can have a $100 difference in PS5DE)
PS5DE $449
XSS $349 ($299 w/o controller option, I think they will want to say next gen starts @ $299 even if there are a ton of caveats)
XSX $549 (MS will be eating more BOM here than PS5, but they will have to match)
PS5 $549 (will not eat as much cost on this model so that they can have a $100 difference in PS5DE)
PS5DE $449
I think the point is just having digital, whether it could be all-digital or regular all drives more revenue to Playstation one way or another. Another incentive for all-digital is Sony had to deal with disc drive warranty which is a pain in the ass. But I don't think we really disagree on the larger points.
I've guessed this in so many threads I dont even know if I've guessed in here yet... but here goes:
Series S $349
PS5 DE $399
PS5 $449
Series X $499
Honestly series s could make 299 if they wanted to be aggresive but with the new xbox one s having a 299 tag I cant see it being the same price. I think the main PS4 SKU Is going to be the DE, and that's why it will be $399, it's the headline.
I think Series X will be 499, which is a little higher than PS5 but estimates show it is slightly more expensive to make and we know from sonys financials they are predicting to make a loss on the hardware.
Series S $349
PS5 DE $399
PS5 $449
Series X $499
Honestly series s could make 299 if they wanted to be aggresive but with the new xbox one s having a 299 tag I cant see it being the same price. I think the main PS4 SKU Is going to be the DE, and that's why it will be $399, it's the headline.
I think Series X will be 499, which is a little higher than PS5 but estimates show it is slightly more expensive to make and we know from sonys financials they are predicting to make a loss on the hardware.
It's on 7nm, while the XB1X is on 16nm. So a smaller process meaning a much smaller SoC, lower power, smaller PSU and fan, no vapor chamber, less memory, similar GPU power, more powerful CPU, and an SSD which some of us are assuming will be only 500GB which today is near the price of a 1TB HDD. Also no UHD bluray.
XB1X didn't sell much, about 2.5 years after launch they already stopped production, meaning the many hundreds of millions needed to make the custom SoC and the mass production NRE are absorbed on only a few million consoles.
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I'm not sure you can get to $299 easily with a $499 unit.
The difference between the XSS and XsX is less ram (though the XSS ditches the slower, cheaper ram) the drive, and a weaker GPU. Everything else is identical.
I don't see $200 in savings coming from those things at all.
On top of that, since no disc based software can be sold for a DE retail will need a higher margin to convince retail to sell it. I can't say what that number is, but it's not typically part of the price of a launch console and will raise the price.
The only way 299 happens for the XSS if the XsX is 500 is by MS taking a huge hit on it, and that doesn't make financial sense at all.
A lot of the speculation that the XSS would come in at 299 or 249 (I've seen this too) leans heavily on the theory that MS would be taking in huge amounts of digital revenue that they otherwise would not to make up for it... But as discussed that assumption isn't correct.
An all digital unit would shift more revenue to the store, but only another 75 bucks over the life of the unit at most. Taking a 200 dollar upfront hit is a hole they would never recover. The math doesn't work.
We can make the argument that a digital edition with a large discount from the standard PS5 is not as profitable.
But there are other upsides to a low priced Digital Edition that can factor into the pricing of these consoles:
-Lower entry point for price sensitive consumers which means a faster transition from PS4->PS5 or the ability to attract new customers.
-Average price per piece of software sold likely higher
-Further shrinking of the secondhand market which directs more royalties toward Sony.
But there are other upsides to a low priced Digital Edition that can factor into the pricing of these consoles:
-Lower entry point for price sensitive consumers which means a faster transition from PS4->PS5 or the ability to attract new customers.
-Average price per piece of software sold likely higher
-Further shrinking of the secondhand market which directs more royalties toward Sony.
Where are people getting this idea that the PS5 would be a hundred dollars more expensive than the SX?
Your two points contradict themselves somewhat.
A lower entry point to attract consumers
VS.
Higher cost per new software title sold, and elimination of used software.
By and large price sensitive customers are short on cash but they aren't dumb. It's immediately obvious that losing the ability to buy cheaper physical discs, buy used, or sell titles you own is also a cost, and it is a cost that scares off those users.
We also have to consider that if those people have existing physical libraries (likely) they're useless on the DE. Cant sell your current One S or PS4 if next gen won't play the discs you have. This again raises cost.
If I can sell my PS4 to gamestop for 100 dollars off a PS5 that's a discount for me. But I'm not going to do that if it turns the games I own into coasters and I gotta rebuy them on PSN.
The DE has an audience but I don't think it's price sensitive gamers per se (these people typically don't buy at launch or near it) I think it's people who value convenience over cost in the long run.
Because it can be. They have the DE for the next gen starting price and people are willing to pay more on PlayStation and its premium options.
Series S: $349 - Not as cheap as people would hope but enough that, alongside the inevitable 3 months of Game Pass, will have it being able to easily place itself as the 'best value' way to play next-gen games. The aforementioned 3 months of Game Pass is also why I don't expect it to launch this holiday; without big-hitters like Halo Infinite those 3 months will simply not be as valuable as they could be.
Series X: $499 - Whether or not the PS5 is the same price I can't see Microsoft going higher than this amount as doing so would likely prove to be the death knell for the console going forward. Whilst their strategy is different, I can't see Microsoft placing themselves in another similarly bad position at launch as the Xbox One was with the PS4.
PS5 DE: $399 - Whilst the DE obviously won't be $100 less in terms of cost-of-goods-sold, I think Sony will be fine selling this at a loss considering the long-term benefits to them of people going fully digital. It's also much nicer to say "Starting at $399.99" than the opposite.
PS5 - $499 - Again, I can't see Sony going higher than this. Their strategy is all based around selling consoles and they aren't going to risk losing that dominance by pricing at the dreaded $599 price point, especially with them knowing what the economy is going to be like going forward.
Note that whilst these are my predictions I've actually budgeted £550 (or $599) for the PS5 since there's always going to be a chance that it'll go up to that price point. Who knows. Just wish that they'd actually announce these damn prices at this point lol
Series X: $499 - Whether or not the PS5 is the same price I can't see Microsoft going higher than this amount as doing so would likely prove to be the death knell for the console going forward. Whilst their strategy is different, I can't see Microsoft placing themselves in another similarly bad position at launch as the Xbox One was with the PS4.
PS5 DE: $399 - Whilst the DE obviously won't be $100 less in terms of cost-of-goods-sold, I think Sony will be fine selling this at a loss considering the long-term benefits to them of people going fully digital. It's also much nicer to say "Starting at $399.99" than the opposite.
PS5 - $499 - Again, I can't see Sony going higher than this. Their strategy is all based around selling consoles and they aren't going to risk losing that dominance by pricing at the dreaded $599 price point, especially with them knowing what the economy is going to be like going forward.
Note that whilst these are my predictions I've actually budgeted £550 (or $599) for the PS5 since there's always going to be a chance that it'll go up to that price point. Who knows. Just wish that they'd actually announce these damn prices at this point lol
This is where my current thinking is. Maybe the S could go for 299, but I'm leaning towards 349.
The "known" differences between XSX and XSS are:
- 6 GB Less RAM
- <40% of the CUs (20 vs 52) at a slower clock ~ Much smaller SoC + Potentially Improved Yields
- No Disk Drive
- Less powerful PSU
The other potential differences (all rumors) are:
- Smaller SSD (lets say 500 GB instead of 1 TB)
- Cheaper Cooling
- Smaller Form Factor (reduced materials, shipping, packaging, storage cost)
No, the point was that taking a large up front hit of 150 to 200 on an all digital unit expecting the increase in digital sales to make up for it does not work.
It would take roughly 13 *additional* titles per user sold at full MSRP above and beyond what is being bought on physical units via PSN or Live before Sony or MS broke even on a 200 dollar loss, much less made a profit.
It's nonsense. Can't happen.
Digital revenue is important and will be increasingly So- but for Sony at least something like 70% of revenue is already coming via PSN and this is with zero all digital units on the market. It's moving that way even without a discless ps5, so losing billions upfront on a digital unit to push adoption doesn't make sense at all.
There's a point where discounting a digital edition over a physical makes sense, but that point is way, way lower than the 150 to 200 dollar hit I'm seeing tossed around.
All I've got to say on this.
Series S: 299
PS5 DE: 399
PS5: 499
Series X: 499
PS LOVES 399, so they made the PS5 DE to reach that price point.
PS5 is 100 bucks more expensive, Series X same price.
Series S has to be atleast 100 bucks cheaper than PS5 DE, as it's a significant dowgrade in power.
They'll both throw in some extras to convince customers (free months of GamePass/PS+. PS5 also has the free AstroBot game)
Accessories like the DualSense (79), PS5 headset (149) and Xbox storage expansion (199-249) will be expensive, to make up for the low console prices.
PS5 DE: 399
PS5: 499
Series X: 499
PS LOVES 399, so they made the PS5 DE to reach that price point.
PS5 is 100 bucks more expensive, Series X same price.
Series S has to be atleast 100 bucks cheaper than PS5 DE, as it's a significant dowgrade in power.
They'll both throw in some extras to convince customers (free months of GamePass/PS+. PS5 also has the free AstroBot game)
Accessories like the DualSense (79), PS5 headset (149) and Xbox storage expansion (199-249) will be expensive, to make up for the low console prices.
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Interesting speculation. I disagree on some of that - smaller SSD doesn't make sense for an all digital unit, cheaper cooling doesn't seem realistic, and you aren't saving much on packaging and shipping- the size difference isn't significant.
But let's assume we take your 125 dollar discount from part 1 as reasonable (and it is fair).
You've forgotten to build in a margin to convince retail to sell it. Consoles typically sell with a profit margin of $0 at retail, with the profit coming from game sales. An XSS has no games to sell.
We saw a profit margin built into the PSPGO, the Xbox S AD, and the Vita memory cards for this reason. Retail profit has to come from somewhere or it won't be stocked.
So tack on 20 or 30 dollars to your 125 dollar decrease or Walmart won't bother putting it on shelves.
You're at 100, which puts the unit at 399. With a 25 dollar per unit extra hit to profitability, you're at 125. So 375. You'd be looking at a $100 per unit loss to hit $299, without a plausible path to make that back.
So, I'm not 100% confident in a firm price, so I'm going to present ranges. All numbers are US dollars for the US market.
PS5 digital - $449 - $499
PS5 disc - $499 - $549
If I was Sony, I'd look at my social media metrics and conclude that there's no point in take a substantial loss on the PS5 hardware. This is also why I do think a $399 PS5 digital is off the table: the combination of the substantially larger loss on the hardware itself plus the substantially larger margin retailers would demand (since they can't sell these customers discs in the future) would probably won't be recovered by the higher margins of digital sales. The only reason would be for Sony to try to stamp out the Series S, but the aforementioned social media metrics suggest that won't be necessary, at least at launch.
Meanwhile, I have less of a grasp of how Microsoft will handle things.
Series S - $249 - $349
Series X - $449 - $549
Ultimately, Microsoft is going into this new generation with only "Games Pass" and "your existing Xbox library works out of the box" as reasons to buy their hardware, neither or which would be attractive to anyone who isn't already deep into the Xbox ecosystem. Which is why I suspect Microsoft may be compelled into more heavily subsidising their hardware, to try to capture the casual market. After all, there is going to be a significant quantity of people who are only interested in Fifa, Madden, CoD, NBA2k et al, and providing the cheapest next gen console is a valid strategy. The problem is that they may want to instead lean heavily onto Xbox All Access, which would make it way more tempting to raise the sticker price and make XAA more attractive. Ultimately, I don't know which was Microsoft will go.
PS5 digital - $449 - $499
PS5 disc - $499 - $549
If I was Sony, I'd look at my social media metrics and conclude that there's no point in take a substantial loss on the PS5 hardware. This is also why I do think a $399 PS5 digital is off the table: the combination of the substantially larger loss on the hardware itself plus the substantially larger margin retailers would demand (since they can't sell these customers discs in the future) would probably won't be recovered by the higher margins of digital sales. The only reason would be for Sony to try to stamp out the Series S, but the aforementioned social media metrics suggest that won't be necessary, at least at launch.
Meanwhile, I have less of a grasp of how Microsoft will handle things.
Series S - $249 - $349
Series X - $449 - $549
Ultimately, Microsoft is going into this new generation with only "Games Pass" and "your existing Xbox library works out of the box" as reasons to buy their hardware, neither or which would be attractive to anyone who isn't already deep into the Xbox ecosystem. Which is why I suspect Microsoft may be compelled into more heavily subsidising their hardware, to try to capture the casual market. After all, there is going to be a significant quantity of people who are only interested in Fifa, Madden, CoD, NBA2k et al, and providing the cheapest next gen console is a valid strategy. The problem is that they may want to instead lean heavily onto Xbox All Access, which would make it way more tempting to raise the sticker price and make XAA more attractive. Ultimately, I don't know which was Microsoft will go.
Forgive me, I'm a bit of a technical layman in this area. Is what you're saying basically that the cost of production is going to be lower for the series s even though it's going to be more powerful than the one X?
I feel Microsoft has deliberately trimmed the fat and gone basic to hit a good price point like that while Sony hasn't as much and needed a discless SKU to get to under 500 or within shot of Microsoft without bleeding too much. Could be wrong and trimming the fat etc. only means they hit what Sony does.
I think more likely they have the digital version to get closer to the Series S.
Possible but it might be so out of grasp.
I don't think Sony has any problems, they are selling out initially which is why I don't think the price is that big a deal for them but perhaps they think it does.
Why wouldn't Sony bundle in PSNow if MS is including gamepass?
What's the harm?
Sony's concern is that they're virtually uncontested in most of the world (Nintendo aside) except for the US.
Microsoft is very competitive with them there even with the Ps4 being as successful as it is.
If they can leverage the pricing of the PS5DE to reduce the market share of the Xbox further I think they would.
Some speculation: say the XsX comes in at 549, which isn't unheard of, with the PS5 at 499.
If MS doesn't have the XSS ready for launch, a short term hit to profitability to have the DE at 399 might make a lot of sense, especially if Sony's launch lineup is as strong as its expected to be.
$150 cheaper with a better launch lineup through holiday 2020 would do a lot of damage. This ONLY makes any sense with a delayed XSS, an expensive XSX, and a LOT of excess capacity though.
If Sony hadn't doubled their launch allocation to 10 million from 5, I'd never even bring it up.
Sure, and that's why prediction has both XSX and PS5DE at $499. But there are so many people with physical PS4 game collections itching for new hardware, that Sony can position PS5 with disc drive into premium category.
I'll throw my vote behind this, including the no-controller Lockhart option.
In fact, there's a part of me that wonders if they might not sell both consoles without a controller. I could imagine them selling a "Series X Core" sku that didn't come with anything but the box and the power cord. If MS is truly thinking generationless, I think that would make a lot of sense.
Every unit sold is a digital unit, that's the point. There's not a thing called an all-physical edition, because this ain't 20 years ago.
Selling a system without a controller is madness and would result in more negative publicity than anything.
Lockhart comes with no controller? Any Sony marketing exec that didn't have a field day mocking them for it (as they did with game sharing on the XBO) would be fired on the spot
Ok, put some decent thought in these. So first I'll explain my rational before the price.
XSS: 349. Thinking: I believe we are in an inflationary, high demand environment with covid. Further, I feel prices on electronic components are high. So realistically, there were two options with XSS. 299 and 399. I split the difference. I think MS will eat some losses and try to pimp XSS. To think of a 4TF PC card with 10GB RAM...it wouldn't be terribly expensive (something like my RX 570, cost 129 with 8GB). But then you have to add a big CPU and a expensive SSD worth 100 more. And all that plastic tooling and casing such as controller arent cheap either.
XSX: 599. Simple enough. I believe more and more the next gen consoles are not hitting 499.
PS5: 649, PS5 DE 549. A controversial one to be sure, but an increasingly attractive option IMO. I believe PS5 might cost as much or more as XSX, probably more, in BOM, due to the expensive cooling and high clocks. However, they'll also want to come in with a cheaper DE option. This way you cant say PS5 is more expensive than XSX, it is effectively both more expensive but there is also a less expensive option. Now no way removing Optical saves $100, so the reasoning is both that Sony will want to subsidize it a bit, and that some money will be made back on higher margins on digital software.
So:
XSS 349
PS5 DE 549
XSX 599
PS5 649
The above would be my official prediction, but a strong secondary one might look like:
XSX 599
PS5 599
PS5 DE 549
XSS 399
And finally, a XSS prediction for 299 with the above would IMO cover almost all likely realities up to about 90% confidence. Basically meaning, I'm almost 100% sure 499 PS4/XSX are absolutely not happening.
My basic message to everybody is: Next gen is going to be more expensive than you think.
XSS: 349. Thinking: I believe we are in an inflationary, high demand environment with covid. Further, I feel prices on electronic components are high. So realistically, there were two options with XSS. 299 and 399. I split the difference. I think MS will eat some losses and try to pimp XSS. To think of a 4TF PC card with 10GB RAM...it wouldn't be terribly expensive (something like my RX 570, cost 129 with 8GB). But then you have to add a big CPU and a expensive SSD worth 100 more. And all that plastic tooling and casing such as controller arent cheap either.
XSX: 599. Simple enough. I believe more and more the next gen consoles are not hitting 499.
PS5: 649, PS5 DE 549. A controversial one to be sure, but an increasingly attractive option IMO. I believe PS5 might cost as much or more as XSX, probably more, in BOM, due to the expensive cooling and high clocks. However, they'll also want to come in with a cheaper DE option. This way you cant say PS5 is more expensive than XSX, it is effectively both more expensive but there is also a less expensive option. Now no way removing Optical saves $100, so the reasoning is both that Sony will want to subsidize it a bit, and that some money will be made back on higher margins on digital software.
So:
XSS 349
PS5 DE 549
XSX 599
PS5 649
The above would be my official prediction, but a strong secondary one might look like:
XSX 599
PS5 599
PS5 DE 549
XSS 399
And finally, a XSS prediction for 299 with the above would IMO cover almost all likely realities up to about 90% confidence. Basically meaning, I'm almost 100% sure 499 PS4/XSX are absolutely not happening.
My basic message to everybody is: Next gen is going to be more expensive than you think.
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