2018 was an excellent year for all three current consoles on the market, especially so in the Holiday season, but with the next generation of consoles not too long away and the PS4 and the Xbox One entering the final years of their life cycles, it’s fair to say that that might not continue in 2019 as well. According to industry analyst Michael Pachter, though, there will be efforts on part of Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft, to make sure that sales for their hardware remain high.
While speaking to GamingBolt, Pachter said that he expects both the PS4 and the Xbox One to receive price cuts, while for Nintendo, he predicts a handheld-only Switch model to be released that’ll be cheaper.
When asked about whether he sees all three systems continuing to sell well in 2019, Pachter said, “Yeah, I do. I think we’ll probably get a price cut on all of them. And Nintendo may position it as a reinvented Switch. My guess is that Nintendo will take the Switch and get rid of the “Switch” part, so it’ll be handheld only. They’ll probably just make the Joycons part of the integrated body of the tablet, and probably drop the price. Get rid of the docking station, and the external power supply- just turn the thing into a handheld that’s rechargeable with a power cord, you know, like a normal handheld, and charge $200 for it.”
“So they do that, Sony can probably cut the price, Microsoft probably will cut the price,” he continued. “You’ll probably get a $199 Xbox and a $249 PlayStation, and a $199 Switch that’s handheld only, and that’ll probably be enough to drive unit demand to keep it constant year-over-year.”
A Switch revision for 2019 is, of course, something that many have been predicting, while there has also been a fair amount of speculation that it might be a handheld-only version of the system that serves the purpose that the 3DS is serving for Nintendo right now- so it’s definitely a fair prediction. That said, Pachter believes that a handheld Switch is as far as Nintendo goes with a revision, and doesn’t believe that a more powerful Switch, in vein of something like the Xbox One X or the PS4 Pro, is coming out anytime soon.
“Not in 2019, zero chance,” said Pachter when asked about the possibility of a more powerful Switch. “Sure, there’s a chance in a few years, but not next year [2019].”
Our full interview with Pachter will be going live soon, so stay tuned to GamingBolt.
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