“More profitable” != “More revenue” as adjusted for inflation. It may mean they have higher mark ups which is netting them more profit on things.
Are they adding the PC releases to the total?
More than the PS2 really? That’s impressive
Well yeah, there are way more gamers now than there were 20 years ago. If anything it would be abnormal if the newest generation isn’t as profitable as previous generations.
If anything it would be abnormal if the newest generation isn’t as profitable as previous generations.
Its a little more hit and miss than that.
If we take total software sales as a proxy for profitably:
- nes > snes > n64 > gamecube < wii > wii u < switch
- master system < megadrive > saturn > dreamcast
- ps1 < ps2 > ps3 < ps4
- xbox < 360 > one
This shows 8 consoles thare were less successful than their predecessor vs 6 that were more successful.
the advantage the PS4 and PS5 had was the physical console sold at a loss in a shorter time window.
the PS2 had to push the DVD format to be mainstream, and the PS3 pushing the Bluray format as mainstream (the PS3 was effectively the cheapest bluray player on launch), while both devices retaining backwards compatibility initially by including the previous generations cpu.
also having the market move to digital saves a lot of cost on logistics and pumping out physical copies.
Yeah, a lot of budget gamers joined the market since the Pandemic.
For the first four years the total spend per ps4 console is given as $580, for the ps5 this figure is $731.
This is equivalent to 3.4% growth year over year but if you allow for inflation it is significantly less impressive.
