Less than 1% of sample size sales is PS5 Digital Edition - cheapassgamer

[AndyMc1888]

In the comments he says this is from a pretty large sample size - more and more this seems like a ps3 20GB situation or do we think the demand is all for the physical?

I suspect it will be artificial stock limiting until the production costs get to a point / sales drop enough that sales make sense?

 

[YaBish]

Paris (sp?) on KFGD yesterday presented his theory that they would produce less units of the Digital Edition so they could market $399 but still sell more of the more profitable $499 Disc version.

As this has gone on that seems to make more and more sense to me.

 

[2Blackcats]

Sounds like their info is off. 1:5 or 20% seems to be the ratio.

There's polls in threads here that say the same. My 2 friends and I all ordered digital

 

[EvilChameleon]

This theory makes me worry about my chances of getting a Series S preorder in on Tuesday.

 

[Stormblessed]

If they're gonna play this way I'll just get a series s for cyberpunk and wait til the inevitable god of war special edition ps5

 

[PopcornMegaphone]

It has to be limited stock because pre-orders are pretty much gone, right?

 

[Tobor]

It's absolutely not a demand issue, it's a supply problem. The digital edition sold out instantly everywhere last night.

 

[Kyuuji]

Has to be stock since Amazon UK sold out in under 3 minutes lol.

 

[Absoludacrous]

Keep in mind there's also some selection bias here. CAG is where people go to get cheap deals, usually at retailers. So a lot of them are going to get the disc version to continue being able to buy retail games for cheap.

 

[KodiakGTS]

Paris (sp?) on KFGD yesterday presented his theory that they would produce less units of the Digital Edition so they could market $399 but still sell more of the more profitable $499 Disc version.

As this has gone on that seems to make more and more sense to me.

Click to shrink...

It is 100% this. The Digital edition sold out faster than the non-digital on Walmart, Target, GameStop, Best Buy, and Amazon yesterday. It is obvious that the stock of the DE is woefully low for the demand comparatively, and is likely deliberately so to minimize losses and push people towards the more expensive unit as an alternative.

 

[MrFox]

Uh... polls are showing 25% of those who successfully preordered have a DE.

 

[Ferrs]

Supposedly stores are getting way more physical than digital units.

 

[digitalrelic]

He also shared this.

I don't see how this could possibly be remotely correct. This would mean 1 in every 500 PS5s sold is a Digital Edition?

Yeah sorry, no fucking way lol.

 

[Nuszka]

Yup. Can confirm. Digital edition sold out in one store I was at. Other one did not get any units whatsoever.

 

[The Traveller]

With how many games are digital sales I find that hard to believe. I've been 95% digital this gen and I'm going all digital next gen.

I think they may be manufacturing a lot more 499 consoles, because they know they will sell regardless and they probably make more money off that SKU.

 

[darkside]

If they're gonna play this way I'll just get a series s for cyberpunk and wait til the inevitable god of war special edition ps5

Click to shrink...

We don't even know what the S vs X split looks like yet. If MS is taking a bath on the S then it wouldn't surprise me if theres more X units out there too.

 

[mordecaii83]

I don't believe that 1% number or anywhere near it, but I could definitely see more disc units than DE units being for sale.

 

[GlacialTruffle]

If everything sold out instantly, then this is just a supply thing, right? Says nothing about consumer interest.

 

[Spacejaws]

They are all sold out so....

My basic maths would say only 1% of the available consoles are Digital versions but I don't think the maths in the original tweet is sound...

 

[Defect]

This theory makes me worry about my chances of getting a Series S preorder in on Tuesday.

Click to shrink...

I think there will be more Series S made than the X.

 

[AegonSnake]

Someone laughed at me for saying this, but I found it odd that Sony would undership a console that will make them MORE money in the long run. they re guaranteed 30% of the $70 pie and they undershipped the more affordable console? Why?

Maybe its too expensive to manufacture now, and this will become the default console a year from now when costs go down.

 

[Htown]

it's not just about sample size, it's about having a representative sample

the subset of people doing CAG day 1 preorders is not representative of the market as a whole

 

[Tagg]

At Canadian retailers, the ratio is approximately 6:1. "Less than 1%" is entirely inaccurate.

 

[Yerffej]

This theory makes me worry about my chances of getting a Series S preorder in on Tuesday.

Click to shrink...

MS wants you to buy that one in droves, though.

 

[ChoklitCow]

I'm just a random scrub, but I think what we're seeing is Sony prioritizing the first rounds of manufacturing based on what they think their day-one buyers want utilizing their demographic data and as we move into the coming years you will see more of a supply of these.

• There isn't a massive difference in cost for them (I think zhuge said something like $20 for the player?)
• You have to purchase everything from them with the digital edition, and as such they recoup the amount in a few third party purchases.
• The market data already shows the trend towards all digital purchases
• With all three of these, they would make more money with the all digital so it makes no sense to not try and sell more of them.

So I don't really agree that it's a push to get people to buy the "more expensive console" because in the end it seems they will be making less from the disc-based console over time. However I don't know trend differences between attach rates with people who prefer physical over digital.

Could they be doing this as a way to get people who don't know the differences between the consoles to buy the expensive one thinking it is the "best" this holiday season? Maybe, but seems more that they just prioritized based off what they felt their early adopter population would want.

 

[Sundrowned]

This theory makes me worry about my chances of getting a Series S preorder in on Tuesday.

Click to shrink...

Why? The Series X and Series S are very distinct SKUs. I mean, anything could happen, but there's no reason to suspect it will just because of the PS5 Digital Edition supply.

 

[LumberPanda]

Paris (sp?) on KFGD yesterday presented his theory that they would produce less units of the Digital Edition so they could market $399 but still sell more of the more profitable $499 Disc version.

As this has gone on that seems to make more and more sense to me.

Click to shrink...

That was my prediction a few weeks ago when the idea of 499/399 was floating around. Taking an additional $80 loss on hardware with prospects of "maybe eventually making it up" was far too good to be true.

 

[AllBizness]

Paris (sp?) on KFGD yesterday presented his theory that they would produce less units of the Digital Edition so they could market $399 but still sell more of the more profitable $499 Disc version.

As this has gone on that seems to make more and more sense to me.

Click to shrink...

Yep, its exactly this. Business is business.

 

[Jomatto]

My bet is on supply being super limited. Luckily, I was able to snag a DE preorder from Amazon last night.

 

[Doctor_Thomas]

Could it be that the people being sampled are more on the enthusiast side where the disc drive still holds value and the people buying the cheaper option don't take part in video game samples?

 

[mentallyinept]

The Gamestop I got my preorder at had *zero* Digital Editions.

 

[Mathieran]

Don't we have a poll on here that puts it more around 20% or so?

 

[CommodoreKong]

It wouldn't surprise me if stock on this is somewhat limited at launch since Sony is probably loosing quite a bit of money on it considering $100 cheaper than the regular PS5 but Blu-Ray drives aren't anywhere close to $100.

 

[PRrambo_]

Both gamestops I visited had like a 10 to 2 ratio of Physical to Digital systems availabe for preorder.

 

[Oreoleo]

What's his methodology for collecting these figures? Is it just people from the forums? Seems to me people on CheapAssGamer would want the $500 PS5 so they could continue to hunt for deals on software instead of paying $70 every time they want a new game. It's the entire conceit the website is built on. But 99% seems like an overly large disparity, still.

 

[Deleted member 16908]

Weren't multiple GameStops saying they got like 2 digital units and 20 physical?

Perhaps Sony allocated the majority of production to the standard SKU since they take less of a loss on it. It definitely seems like that's the primary model in their eyes. They show it at the end of all their trailers and its model number is CFI-1015A while the digital is known as CFI-1015B. A for standard, B for secondary.

 

[Bear]

If this is true then the digital console is a PR move to counter Series S more than anything.

 

[rpm]

The info we were getting from GameStops was that stores were getting like 10 Disc and 2 Digital. Sony is probably undershipping the digital due to a higher loss and will increase the ratio as it gets cheaper to manufacture, but no way it's 0.2%

 

[Astandahl]

Lol 1% lmao...

The ratio is probably 5 - 6 : 1

 

[AntiMacro]

Paris (sp?) on KFGD yesterday presented his theory that they would produce less units of the Digital Edition so they could market $399 but still sell more of the more profitable $499 Disc version.

As this has gone on that seems to make more and more sense to me.

Click to shrink...

Was nobody around for the 20 GB PS3 days? That SKU was really just there so they could advertise the PS3 'starting at' instead of listing the 60 GB's price. They didn't make a ton of them.

This SHOULD be different, since they can far more easily make that money back off digital sales. Doesn't mean it is though.

 

[CasuallyDressed]

I work for the biggest electrical retailer in the UK and it definitely didn't seem this extreme for us today. Probably about 30:70.

 

[Belvedere]

Seems wayyyy off.

 

[Rosebud]

Digital sold out faster in Brazil.

 

[Deleted member 420]

Someone laughed at me for saying this, but I found it odd that Sony would undership a console that will make them MORE money in the long run. they re guaranteed 30% of the $70 pie and they undershipped the more affordable console? Why?

Maybe its too expensive to manufacture now, and this will become the default console a year from now when costs go down.

Click to shrink...

I reckon retailers would much rather stock the physical edition to ensure they still get a cut of game sales

 

[disco_potato]

If they're gonna play this way I'll just get a series s for cyberpunk and wait til the inevitable god of war special edition ps5

Click to shrink...

Hold onto your butts. Aquariusz leak from a few weeks back said XSS die production is only ~10% of the XSX.
Fun times ahead.

 

[entremet]

They're taking a bigger loss on the digital so it makes sense.

 

[AndyMc1888]

At Canadian retailers, the ratio is approximately 6:1. "Less than 1%" is entirely inaccurate.

Click to shrink...

I'm just posting his numbers , to be fair at no point did I think the numbers are actually that low it's not a site I follow and seems a pretty legit site so found it interesting , the artificial scarcity of digital is more my point rather than specific numbers turning into the bone of contention but I'm not the best at thread titles :)

 

[TheChrisGlass]

Was nobody around for the 20 GB PS3 days? That SKU was really just there so they could advertise the PS3 'starting at' instead of listing the 60 GB's price. They didn't make a ton of them.

This SHOULD be different, since they can far more easily make that money back off digital sales. Doesn't mean it is though.

Click to shrink...

That only works if you are FORCING the people to go all digital. In this case, most people already jumped on that ship. They don't have to push people towards it. They're willingly locking themselves into a single retailer.

 

[NewDust]

Cheap Ass Gamers going for the long-term value option?

Who woulda thunk?

 

[Dragon1893]

Less than 1%? Yeah, I doubt it.
If Sony's market research had pointed at anywhere near that number they wouldn't have bothered making it.
It could still sell below expectations of course, but 1% is ludicrous. $100 is still a reasonable price difference that will sway a lot of people.