PS4 and Xbox One's Strong Sales Means Console Prices Won't Drop Until 2015
The PS4 and Xbox One will not likely see any price cuts until 2015, a new report on the two consoles predicted.
The huge success of the two launches put Sony and Microsoft in the position to do as they please because at the current prices, people are still purchasing the consoles. PS4 sold a million in the U.S. in its first 24 hours alone. Xbox One sold a million in 13 markets in its first day.
"You would certainly cut the price of hardware because there is a demand issue," said Colin Sebastian, an interactive media analyst with Baird Research, told CNET. "GameStop has 30 million PowerUp Rewards members who are active gamers, and we're only predicting sales of 6 million total units."
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The "demand issues" he is referring to here is "lack of sales," something the two consoles are not experiencing so far. The PS3 sold poorly in its first year because its $599 price tag was too much for people. Once the console price was lowered it began selling just about as well as the Xbox 360, however, it was too late to catch up. Microsoft took the last-generation console wars as far as popularity.
The Wii may have sold the most units last-gen, but it was by far the least used by gamers. Many of those same people remembered their dissatisfaction with the Wii and did not go on to purchase a Wii U. Their horrific sales numbers have already caused them to do one price drop before the console was even a year old.
Some are predicting PS4 and Xbox One will not drop in price for another two years.
"The two new consoles will likely not have official price drops until spring 2015, at the earliest," said Matt Matthews, a game industry analyst who writes for Gamasutra.
Matthews said that this console launch of the PS4 and Xbox One are among the most successful launches of all time, and although both consoles have had hitches with faulty consoles, they are reconciling the problems efficiently.
The Xbox 360 had the "Red Ring of Death," which affected thousands upon thousands of consoles, rendering them useless. PS3 had tremendous shortages that had customers waiting weeks and months to get a system. The consoles of the early 2000s – PS2, Gamecube, and Xbox – each lowered their prices relatively quickly to stay in competition with each other. This led to Microsoft taking the lead by putting out the 360 a year before PS3 and Wii, while the PS2 was strong and Gamecube was fading.
The PS4 launched on Nov. 15 for $399 and the XBox One launched on Nov. 22 and is $499. The Wii U is currently $250 and launched last November.
