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Sony’s PlayStation 5 brand still reigns supreme among consumers
It has been a pretty bad month for PlayStation 5 PR-wise. Several negative rumors and recent headlines have come out painting Sony in a poor light. Internal strife among first-party developers, a stronger focus on major AAA games to the detriment of smaller projects, game preservation issues, MLB the show, their major in-house sports title launching into Xbox Game Pass while PlayStation 5 owners have to pay $70.
These headlines have been pretty bad from an optics standpoint and many gamers have not been shy about highlighting that. Over the past month, there has been lots of talk of PlayStation losing its way, showing PS3 era arrogance, and the brand essentially changing into something that doesn’t;t resonate with PlayStation gamers.
Some of that may still be true but the PlayStation brand currently, is still just as strong as it ever has been and consumers are showing that by making the PlayStation 5 a record-breaking runaway success of a console in its first 5 months to market.
The PlayStation 5 is the best-selling game console of all time through its first 5 months. This has happened even with a global pandemic going on and limited PlayStation 5 supply due to manufacturing shortages. Accomplishing this is quite the feat and one has to wonder just how many more consoles they could have sold if they could have produced more consoles to meet demand.
For anyone thinking about this critically, it shouldn’t come off as much of a surprise. The PlayStation 4 was one of the most successful consoles of all time and it dominated much of the gaming market share for its run. It makes perfect sense that many of those same happy PlayStation 4 owners would stay in the PlayStation ecosystem and upgrade to the next iteration.
It may be possible that Sony is slipping, their most direct competitor Microsoft has been making a lot of positive strides in the gaming space, and comparatively Sony has been quiet for much of 2021. Xbox and their services like Xbox Game Pass are gaining a lot of ground and I think that Sony isn’t so much falling off but rather, they are facing some pretty competent competition for the first time in several years and some people just aren’t used to that.
It’s likely much of the Sony doom talk will quiet down soon as they are about to enjoy some big game releases such as Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Returnal. The Sony PlayStation brand is going to continue to do what it does best and that is producing really good games that people want to play and after a somewhat dry start to this new generation, that is going to start happening.
Is Sony doomed or dying? No, they are doing very well and gamers will be enjoying their PlayStation 5’s much more in the near future while playing some new games. Gaming as a whole is in a really great place right now, the PlayStation 5 is breaking records, The Xbox Series consoles are selling out left and right, the Nintendo Switch continues to be the overall best-selling console on the market.
This new generation is only 5 months old and we haven’t even scratched the surface of what we will experience with these new consoles. The talk of PlayStation’s demise is just anxious hyperbole. Maybe in some areas, they will take a step back, maybe they will lose some ground, but that is all a part of healthy competition. In the end, the consumer is going to win big this generation and I can’t wait to experience that.
Have any thoughts on the current state of PlayStation? Are you worried about their future? Leave a comment below and let’s have a discussion.
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