The PS5 is declining... but the future of the PS6 looks brighter.
After Microsoft announced its plan to lay off 3,200 employees from the Xbox division, forecasts for the future of the company's consoles have become more pessimistic, as analysts believe that the next-generation Xbox will again fail to keep up with the PlayStation 6 in terms of sales.
These forecasts come from a report by S&P Global Market Intelligence Kagan, relayed by GamesIndustry.biz, where the firm's analysts reviewed the current state of the gaming console market before transitioning to their predictions for the coming years.
The report explained that the market is currently facing a series of accumulating challenges, as current consoles have either become too outdated or too expensive for the average consumer, while the release schedule lacks a sufficient number of blockbuster games, coinciding with economic conditions that make any real price drop unlikely.
The report notes that the crisis of memory chip and electronic component shortages, along with Sony's announcement to abandon physical discs for all new PlayStation games starting in 2028, increase the difficulty of the future of the home console market.
The report also pointed out that Microsoft's gaming division CEO, Asha Sharma, recently described the Xbox as a “unhealthy platform,