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.
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.
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.
Its a little more hit and miss than that.
If we take total software sales as a proxy for profitably:
This shows 8 consoles thare were less successful than their predecessor vs 6 that were more successful.
https://vgsales.fandom.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio
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.