All purpose sales and sales rumors/anecdotes thread next gen+
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oh.. LOL. Yea they should probably also put up revenues as well then. At least from a subscriber perspective.
Its not dumping the phone division. Its dumping feature phones, which still made up a huge portion of Nokia's business when MS bought it.
RancidLunchmeat
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Seems to me that they are just aligning their revenue reporting with their planned business model, which is Xbox as a service.
Makes perfect sense, no matter the heartache it causes to industry watchers and fanboys. MS does not want to distinguish between those accessing the system through W10 or NXE, or those that are buying new W10 PC's or those that are buying XB1's. Either purchase puts that consumer into their ecosystem and the real metric that is important in terms of revenue is time and dollars spent within that ecosystem. Not how the consumer got there.
Makes perfect sense, no matter the heartache it causes to industry watchers and fanboys. MS does not want to distinguish between those accessing the system through W10 or NXE, or those that are buying new W10 PC's or those that are buying XB1's. Either purchase puts that consumer into their ecosystem and the real metric that is important in terms of revenue is time and dollars spent within that ecosystem. Not how the consumer got there.
ArcticCircle
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I think Microsoft invented almost perfect system here. Even if Xbox console stops selling, production is stopped... numbers most likely will go up for a very long time. Phones, tablets, PCs, in the near future TVs, USB sticks...
I honestly don't know if shareholders care about Xbox anymore. They did care about it in the end of Ballmer era but after that, who knows. Microsoft is so big that even billion dollar scale projects can be ignored. Microsoft clearly see Xbox just a part of bigger picture. And since we don't get numbers, only they know if it's profitable or not. But it's always good to remember that original Xbox made huge losses as told by Robbie Bach in book "Xbox revisited"
If Xbox today have same kind of resources, it's going to be with us for a long time.
It's as Rancid says. XBox hardware is only a piece of the platform puzzle. There's no more need to report consoles sold as there is to report Windows PCs sold, or for Google to announce how many Android devices have been sold. The important point of all of this is how much money MS makes, and the number of users buying content is the key factor there. For the XBox as a console, software revenues and subscription fees are all that matter.
The 'losing' of the hardware sales war at most accelerates this change. It was going to happen eventually (only with hardware numbers too if MS were trouncing Sony
) as XB becomes a wider service.I still think it's pretty lame, at the end of the day I dont think anybody cares about the "monthly active users" metric.
Too me it just seems like an inflated wishy-washy stat that can have a high number (One billion minutes of Halo 5 played! or something) but doesn't really mean anything.
Also, does the MAU stat mean only people who are subbed to XBL Gold? At least that would give it SOME kind of barrier to entry. But I doubt it means that. Or give us # of Gold subscribers? But nope, that would be actual meaningful info.
At the end of the day they dont really want to give us info they want to make it sound like the business is doing well. That's what all these reports do for every company. AMD's reports also make it sound like things are rosy...
Are they even going to be consistent with the MAU? are they going to give it to us when the number is down? Well, given how console cycles work, the nice thing for them is they probably have 2-3 years where the number is guaranteed to grow as the XBO userbase does (contrary to a lot of the comments here, it's actually not selling negative consoles each month), and after that 2-3 years they can come up with some other BS..
Too me it just seems like an inflated wishy-washy stat that can have a high number (One billion minutes of Halo 5 played! or something) but doesn't really mean anything.
Also, does the MAU stat mean only people who are subbed to XBL Gold? At least that would give it SOME kind of barrier to entry. But I doubt it means that. Or give us # of Gold subscribers? But nope, that would be actual meaningful info.
At the end of the day they dont really want to give us info they want to make it sound like the business is doing well. That's what all these reports do for every company. AMD's reports also make it sound like things are rosy...
Are they even going to be consistent with the MAU? are they going to give it to us when the number is down? Well, given how console cycles work, the nice thing for them is they probably have 2-3 years where the number is guaranteed to grow as the XBO userbase does (contrary to a lot of the comments here, it's actually not selling negative consoles each month), and after that 2-3 years they can come up with some other BS..
D
Deleted member 11852
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Given this thread is a thinly vowed justification to argue about wether Sony is beating Microsoft or Microsoft is beating Sony, the lack of breakdown of Xbox One consoles is kind of a big deal. Putting that to one side and just looking at the business operations of Xbox, there are still good reasons for wanting to know whether Live users are on PC or a console and for that you need some sales data.
The console represents a captive ecosystem from which Microsoft profits on all new software sales (through licensing) whereas on PC they do not - particularly with Steam being the 800lb retail gorilla. Monetisation of PC gaming is exacerbated with Microsoft having made Windows 10 a free upgrade for a big segment of the gaming market, i.e. they're not even getting Windows upgrading licensing revenue.
This includes both Gold and Silver, and presumably logins from Windows devices [desktop and phone].
As for more detailed breakdown, someone from Wargaming has mentioned recently that there is 18-20M of Gold users, in January Sony mentioned they have 10.9M PS+ users, and somewhere around 64M SEN users.
RancidLunchmeat
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Which, if anything, demonstrates all the more reason why MS would want to kill off threads like these and fanboy outrage as soon as they can by making such comparisons impossible.
Not following. Right now the cost per subscription is higher due to the inclusion of hardware. If MS removes the cost of the hardware from the cost per subscription, their profit per subscription will increase.
Their goal is to turn a profit. Their competition with Steam is no more important than their competition with the PS4. All that matters is # of subscribers, revenue generated by those subscribers and the cost to acquire those subscribers. Removing hardware lowers the acquisition cost.
While the current situation might be muddy because hardware costs have not been removed and the revenue per subscriber is not equal because the cost to acquire the subscribers differs greatly, that doesn't mean they shouldn't move toward a reporting methodology that mirrors what their ultimate business plan reflects.
http://www.m-create.com/english/latest_research/e_ranking.html
Seems like the price drop helped the Ps4 quite a bit, it's selling better than the 3DS in Japan.
Seems like the price drop helped the Ps4 quite a bit, it's selling better than the 3DS in Japan.
Actually, PS4 was #1 for three weeks now in Japan. Pricedrop will ensure victory for another week.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1121366
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1124289
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1127577
Few more weeks and PS4 will sell 1M units in 2015.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1121366
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1124289
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1127577
Few more weeks and PS4 will sell 1M units in 2015.
D
Deleted member 11852
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I really don't think Microsoft care about threads like this or what fanboys thinks.
I'm not following you. What cost to whom per subscription?
These figures are for investors, this is why they're typically released ahead of investor calls. Investors care primarily about two things: profits now and profits in the future - i.e potential for growth. The potential for growth in the PC sector, or rather the potential for Microsoft to grow profits in the PC gaming sector in the PC platform (which isn't growing but shrinking) with established (and generally liked) entrenched competition isn't great.
So as a potential investor, how does this change to reporting help me work out what Microsoft's potential for profit is? Previously we had years of console attach rates and the economics of profits in game sales/licensing is largely known. In future I can't tell if Microsoft's base of customers is heavily consoles (so virtually guaranteed profit) or on PC which is largely an unknown.
RancidLunchmeat
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I think they do, because these threads feed news stories and then force reactions, we've seen that with the launch of the XB1. How much time has MS spent answering questions about their sales compared to the PS4? All of that goes away if there's no hardware sales figures or focus for these threads or those stories to be based upon.
Thanks for that, I think I've figured out the gap in our discussion. We're working off different sets of base assumptions. I'm assuming that the XB1 is the last piece of console hardware (at least as we currently think of it) that MS will ship. "Next Gen" (and I think even before this gen ends), Xbox will completely be a service. So this change in reporting allows MS to show their investors a wonderful profit curve. Right now, that curve is either shallow or possible upside down, because the costs of hardware are included in the cost per subscriber. As Xbox moves to a service and the hardware costs are removed from the equation that curve will fatten (or reverse itself).
Your assumptions of MS's potential for revenue growth as Xbox transitions to a service are a secondary issue, which I'm happy to discuss as well, but I don't think we should intertwine the two at this point. I don't believe there is a scenario where MS is mixing them, except that it is currently happening in the transition phase.
D
Deleted member 86764
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b) there might be away to get you to the W10 ecosystem without you needing to buy a console, perhaps the battle for the living room is over, as in the winner of the living room, and dinner table, are family members looking down at their phones. So what if I could convince you that your future console is your phone, tablet, or hybrid device
For sure, I hope the computing industry goes in the direction of your mobile being the main computer. And I can see Microsoft pursuing that. If gaming goes to the cloud and VR doesn't kick off, then I'm all for a Spotify-like gaming device in my TV.
RancidLunchmeat
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You keep harping on this as if it's a thing.
Virtuosity was released in 1995. VR still doesn't exist 20 years later, and when it does come to fruition, it will require more computational power than any closed box, consumer level piece of hardware will be able to provide. It will require networking capabilities and cloud computations, which actually makes the Xbox as a service the more likely avenue than a PS5 or Nintendo Mario Has Nicer Pants addition.
Holy crap, hyperbole much? What games did you play on console? Or is this an xbox thing, having to wait an hour before you can play?
Every one of my games this gen was ready to play within 60 seconds without ever having to install anything. If it ever did, it was done in background while I play. I have a PC with a 780 and I still play 90% of the time on consoles. The same will be true for VR despite the fact that I will own both VR headsets.
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