All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2021 Edition]

[zed]

You can't sell what's not on shelves. And people aren't not willing to spend 300 to buy something they don't want;

Heres actual data from Spain
https://www.resetera.com/threads/playstation-sales-news-and-discussions.393232/page-6#post-76891638

From about week 10 onwards, you can buy a series S ( they have been near constantly in stock), the series X or ps5 has never been in stock, i.e. they sell out immediately.
So the following numbers show the upper bound of what the series S will sell, looks to be 1000-2000, but we still dont know the series X true demand as theres not enough stock to satisfy demand.
Next week may show a large jump for series S (black friday here in spain & the series S had a 10% pricecut to 270 euros. Series X and ps5 no pricecut)

Worldwide the series S should do decent this xmas as its the only next gen console avialable, by the middle of next year when the series X becomes more available, demand for series S will drop.
Even MS's biggest flagship title isn't doing what it was meant to, i.e. display the same game but just at lower resolution (halo infinite seriesX=120fps, series S=60fps)

 

[Riddlewire]

Assuming Microsoft wants to sell Series S as much as they want to sell Series X, I wonder if they could provide a pseudo-upgrade path to Xbox One users who are primarily disc-only gamers.

If they want to encourage me to go all digital, they'd have to provide some means for me to retain access to my existing library without the need to repurchase thousands of dollars worth of digital games. I don't know if something like this could work, but if you could link an Xbox One to a Series S (usb, wifi directly, or through your home network), insert your physical copy into your Xbox One as a key, and have the Series S recognize it and then download the digital game, that would allow physical libraries to remain active on Series S. Xbox One could enter low power mode so you're not running two consoles fully all the time. I'm sure there's some obvious hangup preventing such an arrangement, but I can't think of what it might be at the moment.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Yes.
Because ~90% of my library is physical.

Agreed, backwards compatibility with the 360 is a significant reason I am still in the Xbox ecosystem, and 95 percent of my 360 games are physical. Though if I did not care about backwards compatibility, I would still wait for Series X anyway. I am speaking hypothetically because I already have an X.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Assuming Microsoft wants to sell Series S as much as they want to sell Series X, I wonder if they could provide a pseudo-upgrade path to Xbox One users who are primarily disc-only gamers.

If they want to encourage me to go all digital, they'd have to provide some means for me to retain access to my existing library without the need to repurchase thousands of dollars worth of digital games. I don't know if something like this could work, but if you could link an Xbox One to a Series S (usb, wifi directly, or through your home network), insert your physical copy into your Xbox One as a key, and have the Series S recognize it and then download the digital game, that would allow physical libraries to remain active on Series S. Xbox One could enter low power mode so you're not running two consoles fully all the time. I'm sure there's some obvious hangup preventing such an arrangement, but I can't think of what it might be at the moment.

I imagine liscenses are an issue.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The series S was a good move this year due to lack of supply for X and PS5, but next year MS will lower the price to keep the momentum going. Eventually the S will be even smaller and only $199. Most people don't care that it's 1080p/60 in some games instead of 1440p/120. The people that buy it next year because of the low price will care even less.

PS: The S hits 1440p almost as much as the X and PS5 actually hit native 4K.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Would you rather stick to playing on an Xbox One or One S? And living with 2 to 3 to 4 minute game loads. Until who knows when you can land a Series X.

I think there is overwhelmingly compelling evidence that lots of people don't care. From the days of cartridges, until the current generation, we've generally been drifting from one generation to another with gradually worsening load times (CD, DVD, Blu-ray, more Blu-ray, shite-slow HDDs) and ever-diminishing frame rates. From 60fps solid, to so-many 15-25fps on PS1/PS2/Xbox/PS3/360 to marginally better PS4/XBO back to today. And each time the console gaming market grew. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think this at least a basis for concluding that the vast majority are really not overly concerned about actual game performance. So if paying more for quicker loading and better performance came with a finial cost (like PS4 Pro and One X) then more will go for the cheaper option. As sales of PS4 Pro demonstrate.

 

[BRiT]

I think this at least a basis for concluding that the vast majority are really not overly concerned about actual game performance. So if paying more for quicker loading and better performance came with a finial cost (like PS4 Pro and One X) then more will go for the cheaper option.

Where the cheaper option is remaining on last gen as opposed to Series S for current-gen?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Where the cheaper option is remaining on last gen as opposed to Series S for current-gen?

At the moment it makes no difference. I don't think there are any Series-only games so the only impact of this decision is performance. Perhaps when people are faced with not being able to play newer games on older hardware then it will change, but it's always felt like (and know sales demonstrate) that in the console realm, it is the minority who are willing to spend more for better performance.

If these are the same people playing Fortnite day-in-day-out or any other game that continues to be supported, not being able to play Fable 4 because its Series-only may not make any difference.

 

[BRiT]

There's a few (which escape me now), but if they're on GamePass you can play via xCloud on the old consoles. So yeah, as you say there's not enough carrot to push consumers to upgrade. Especially those living on Epic's Fornite or Rocket League or Activision's COD or EA's BF.

 

[Dr. Nick]

It seems like Microsoft have done their best to make sure they hang on to as many people as they can for as long as they can. In the past especially the Xbox One/PS4 generation it's been like someone asked for a do over. That did not go well for Microsoft the last time. So continued support of older consoles and including xCloud support on last gen consoles ensures that they can keep as many people as possible in their ecosystem making it less likely that people will jump ship this time around.

 

[see colon]

The series S was a good move this year due to lack of supply for X and PS5, but next year MS will lower the price to keep the momentum going. Eventually the S will be even smaller and only $199. Most people don't care that it's 1080p/60 in some games instead of 1440p/120. The people that buy it next year because of the low price will care even less.

PS: The S hits 1440p almost as much as the X and PS5 actually hit native 4K.

I think the Series S stays at 299 and gets a storage upgrade before it drops to 199. I also think a 249 price comes before 199 as well. Maybe even 279.

At the moment it makes no difference. I don't think there are any Series-only games so the only impact of this decision is performance

I think it's just The Medium and Flight Simulator.

 

[AzBat]

I think it's just The Medium and Flight Simulator.

Lawn Mowing Simulator, Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker. Flight Sim isn't compatible yet.

Also, I'm not for sure, but I believe if you play the xCloud versions on your Xbox One you still play the Series X version if it has optimizations. Currently, there are 79 Series X|S Optimized games available & 2 more coming listed as coming soon(The Gunk & Stalker 2)

Tommy McClain

 

[Johnny Awesome]

@colon I said eventually $199. I agree that there might be some stages involved.

MS really only cares about GP, not hardware sales. They love the X One owner that buys GP and plays for the next 5 years on xCloud. That way they don't have to bother even making and selling a new console to that gamer.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think it's just The Medium and Flight Simulator.

Lawn Mowing Simulator, Recompile, The Medium, and The Riftbreaker. Flight Sim isn't compatible yet.

Cool, those passed me by. As BRiT raised, XCloud muddies the waters a bit. If someone is happy with their old Xbox, and have a good connection, there is less reason to buy new hardware as long as Microsoft continue to let you access/buy all the new and old games and stream them.

 

[iroboto]

Cool, those passed me by. As BRiT raised, XCloud muddies the waters a bit. If someone is happy with their old Xbox, and have a good connection, there is less reason to buy new hardware as long as Microsoft continue to let you access/buy all the new and old games and stream them.

The move to MAUs will actually be necessary with their cloud/PC gamepass platform.

there’s no longer a way to really know the health of Xbox population just looking at unit sales for series consoles.

 

[eastmen]

@colon I said eventually $199. I agree that there might be some stages involved.

MS really only cares about GP, not hardware sales. They love the X One owner that buys GP and plays for the next 5 years on xCloud. That way they don't have to bother even making and selling a new console to that gamer.

instead they are making a series x for that customer to use and keeping it and doing all the maintance on it.

I am sure microsoft would love for that person to buy a series s or series x and still have 5 years of xcloud. That way the gamer does the bulk of the gaming on the console with only some games streamed if any at all. More profit that way.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Once again Eastmen, you're ignoring that they are only buying 1/10th of an Xbox blade for that customer...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The move to MAUs will actually be necessary with their cloud/PC gamepass platform.

there’s no longer a way to really know the health of Xbox population just looking at unit sales for series consoles.

From a business perspective, MAU is of limited use without a clear statement of how MAU relates to profitability. I get that Microsoft have money and that profitability is on the TO DO list but still. Lots of services are popular (healthy) but loss-making.

I'm in the Xbox ecosystem and want to know that Microsoft do have a plan. It would be nice to know that the Board do not have some doomclock ticking down for shuttering the gaming division unless it can actually turn a profit. They're spending billions and billions and you can't just do that endlessly with other people's money. I.e investors.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

They have for 20 years. LOL

 

[iroboto]

MAU is of limited use without a clear statement of how MAU relates to profitability.

this is pretty guarded I suspect. This particular calculation is probably not all that different from
# hits/views => profitability

so an older case number I have for instance 1Million youtube views on a single video generates $1000 CAD in advertising revenue about 8 years ago.

And F2P games have something similar to this. # of active players => X revenue, once that ratio is known and set, you can only either make changes to increase the population to gain more profit; or do more things to improve the ratio favourably.

I largely suspect, based on the above 2 examples, there's some connection to MAUs on Xbox being equated to revenue. So if your spending more to grow your MAUs, your revenue should be growing with the MAUs. Eventually they will stop the expenditure to get more MAUs because budgeting is finite and it sees that it owns a large enough % of the market to stop spending more.

But I think at this moment, with Game Pass being on it's own without a competitor, they are going to keep pushing.