When to Buy a Next-Gen Console?

Have you ever doubted yourself when making a purchase? Have you wondered if the timing was right? These questions are extremely relevant in the technology sector and even more relevant when it comes to purchasing a video game console. It’s been said that good things come to those who wait, but my big question is, does this hold true when making the plunge on a new console purchase?

Is it better to get in on the ground floor or does it make sense to wait? Obviously, when it comes to pricing, it makes sense to wait until the console gets a price drop along with internal improvements as these are bound to happen with things like quieter fans or hard drives that are less prone to failure. Saving money by waiting comes at the cost of missing out on a few things, but what I really want to know is, when is the mathematical best year for buying a new console during its life cycle. For the purpose of this analysis, I have chosen to use only PS4 and Xbox One data as it is the most readily available data in tandem with being the most relevant. Keep in mind there is never a right or wrong time to buy a new console as there are benefits to buying early or waiting. If you have the means, you should buy a console whenever you want but analytically, we should be able to find the perfect window of opportunity.

There are very clear benefits to buying early, being able to experience every game as soon as it comes out and to enjoy the power of the console as it is constantly dating itself every day.  Buying early isn’t all good news though as you will be the paying peak price for the console as well as being around for all the growing pains. Waiting until later you would be getting the inverse benefits of buying early as you would expect. You wouldn’t be taking full advantage of the systems power at it’s peak, but you would have access to a deeper library of games that would likely be at a reduced cost and properly patched, if you don’t mind missing the conversation.

Companies need early adopters as having consumers early drives improvement. The company gets access to feedback which is then implemented to attract more buyers. It also ensures that the company sees enough positive results that they have the ability to continue to support the product. We have seen many times over the course of the last 30 years, that without support companies will pivot elsewhere. 

The end goal was to see if there was mathematically an opportune time to purchase either the PS5 or the Xbox Series X based on the history of the two previous consoles. A time that takes full advantage of the lowest price possible on the console when weighed against the best exclusive games for each system. Lets see if we can figure it out.

Price Vs Games

One of the primary pillars of my research was price, specifically the cost of the console when it launched, compared to how often and how deep the price drops were. In 2013, the Xbox One and the PS4 launched a week apart, but the main difference was the price. The Xbox One, although weaker from a power standpoint, launched one hundred dollars more expensive. The Xbox One launched at 499US due to the inclusion of the Kinect 2.0, which Microsoft knows all too well now, shouldn’t have been forced upon the consumer.

I think a lot of people tend to look back on the Xbox One era with...well with whatever the opposite of rose colored glasses are? Tinted glasses?  Either way, the main story that hangs around the head of Xbox is that it had no exclusives but during the first three years, the Xbox One started off with some fantastic gaming experiences and could be argued was the better place for overall exclusives. Experiences like TitanFall, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Sunset Overdrive and even Halo MCC, despite its matchmaking issues. The Xbox One also featured three Forza games in the first three years, an amazing indie experience with Ori and the blind forest and Halo 5, which had the opposite problem of MCC with super crisp, competitive multiplayer but a lacklustre campaign.

The PS4 had some great games in the first three years with titles like BloodBorne and Until Dawn but it just didn’t have the quantity and quality that Microsoft had. Looking back through the years on paper it seems clear that around the fourth year is where Sony really hit its stride and never looked back. Not only did Sony’s quality of exclusives start improving, but they also started increasing the quantity. Riding high on the heels of 2015 standouts such as Bloodborne and Until Dawn, PlayStation followed up with some genre defining games such as Uncharted 4, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War and Spiderman. Without a doubt, PlayStation may have started a little slower than Xbox with high quality exclusive games but somewhere around the time of late 2015, it became a very one sided competition.

At the end of the Xbox 360 era, Kinect saw some pretty great success, which caused Microsoft to double down on the experiment. In early 2013, before the launch of the Xbox One, Microsoft announced that the Kinect had sold more than 24 million units worldwide and considering that at the same time it was announced that the Xbox 360 had sold 76 million which means that almost a third of console owners owned the Kinect. Its clear to see why Microsoft was in full support of the Kinect 2.0 being the future, with success like that with the initial Kinect. Hindsight is 20/20 and clearly that was a mistake but with some better games, messaging or implementation, history could be very different. Although it did seem like Xbox has become a better company due to the failures of the Xbox One.

In 2014, just one year after the launch, Microsoft removed the Kinect as a pack in and reduced the price to 399 to match Sony. Unfortunately, the majority of the damage was done and would continue to haunt Xbox for the rest of the generation. Matching the price of Playstation wasn’t good enough though as Microsoft needed to go above and beyond Sony. Xbox once again dropped their price at the beginning of 2015 to 349. Either Sony saw Microsoft making inroads with the price drop or they saw their own sales getting stagnant and followed suit by reducing the PS4 for the first time since launch to 349 in October 2015, almost a full year Microsoft’s second price drop.

Microsoft lost the edge it needed but at this point price was not the only glaring issue as exclusives began to trickle out causing the company to drop the price twice in 2016. The first was in march to 299 and then once again in July to 249. Thankfully this was the bottom floor for the Xbox One as the console has remained at MSRP of 249 until this day not including bundles or promotions. Four price drops in three years is almost unheard of and although price drops are good for potential buyers, how many early Xbox One buyers felt burned if they purchased prior to any of these numerous price drops. This ruins a lot of goodwill for your customer base. Sony only dropped their price once more in 2016 as well to the price of 299 where it has also remained to this day. This meant that PlayStation would have only two permanent price drops compared to Xbox and their four price drops.

Verdict

Now that all the data has been collected the purpose is to pinpoint when the perfect time to buy is, based on price, price drops, exclusive games and their respective score. Unfortunately, this isn’t the most black and white answer as I was hoping for but there are a few keys areas that can be seen using the data. There are two times when purchasing a new console presents itself as the best opportunity. One is the best value and that is where the price is at its lowest and the gaming scores are at their highest. The second would be providing the best experience and that would be the intersection at which the pricing is descending with gaming scores while they're ascending.

When to Buy Xbox Series X?

For Xbox, the best value for the system happened around 36-40 months into the consoles life cycle. Its worth noting that the Xbox One had dropped it’s price four times at the three year marker. It was also producing some high quality exclusives with a decent library at this point and its pricing was near the lowest it would be. In terms of best experience for the Xbox One the point at which gaming intersects with pricing happens between 12-14 months, which was in large part thanks to a near immediate price drop with the removal of the Kinect.

When to buy PS5?

When looking at PlayStation, things are slightly different due to their slower start with higher rated exclusives and their initial lower price, which lead to less frequent and less significant price drops. For the best experience when quality intersects with price, this happens around 20-24 months. In terms of best value for the PlayStation that happens much later in the life cycle due to their near static price. In terms of hard data you are looking around 60-62 months for the best value when pricing is at the lowest and gaming average is at its highest.

Although the data is there, the big question is why would you want to wait so long to enjoy what these system have to offer? Even though you would have the benefit of working through the excellent back log each of the systems offered, the more likely answer is that you wouldn’t have time to do that unless you had zero responsibilities and if that is the case maybe gaming isn’t where your focus should be.

I will always be a day one console consumer if I am able to get my hands on one but I am very aware that typical launch lineups are not excellent and it takes a while before studios are able to put out some true next gen gameplay that justifies the early adoption. I think the best answer using the data for when you should be buying your PS5 or your Xbox Series X will happen when you take the average time for best experience from the two systems which is 17.5 months.

Around 17.5 into the life cycle, quality games are released more frequently, which you will have the ability to keep up with and a price drop should be happening around this time frame. However, If you are like me, you can’t wait to buy the Xbox Series X and the PS5 but if you are looking for the mathematical best time to purchase your next-gen console, then the numbers say to wait about a year and half.

Data Used

PS4 Price

Launch 2013 $399, Drop 1 2015 $349, Drop 2 2016 $299, Final 2020 $299

PS4 Highest Rated Exclusives

2013 - Resogun (84), Knack (54), KillZone: Shadowfall (73)

2014 - Infamous Second Son (80), First Light (73), DriveClub (70) = 74.6

2015 - BloodBorne (92), The Order 1886 (63), Until Dawn (79) = 78

2016 - Uncharted 4 (93), The Last Guardian (82), Ratchet (85) = 86.6

2017 - Persona 5 (93), Lost Legacy (84), Horizon Zero Dawn (89) = 88.6

2018 - God of War (94), Spider-Man (87), Tetris Effect (89) =90

2019 - Days gone (71), Death Stranding (82) = 76.5

*2020 Ghost of Tsushima, The Last of Us 2, The Avengers, Dreams (89), Nioh 2 (85)

Xbox One Price

2013 Launch $499, Drop 1 2014 $399, Drop 2 2015 $349, Drop 3 2016 $299, Drop 4 2016 $249, Final 2020 $249

Xbox One Highest Rated Exclusives

2013 - Dead Rising 3 (78), Ryse (60), Forza Mototsport 5 (79)

2014 - Titanfall (86), Halo MCC (85), Forza Horizon 2 (86), Sunset Over (83)* = 85.6

2015 - Rise of the Tomb Raider (88), Forza 6 (87), Ori and The Blind Forest (88), Halo 5 (84)* =86.3

2016 - Gears 4 (84), Quantum Break (77), Forza Horizon 3 (91) = 84

2017 - Cuphead (86), Halo Wars 2 (79)*, Forza 7 (86), PUBG (85) = 83.3

2018 - Forza Horizon 4 (92), Sea of Thieves (69), State of Decay 2 (69) = 76.6

2019 - Gears 5 (84), Crackdown 3 (60) = 72

*2020 - Ori and the Will of the Wisps (90), Gears Tactics (85)

*not used