MS release a few sales numbers

[vazel]

1. I know Goldeneye was a HUGE game. But back then FPS games in general had a small presence on consoles. I don't just mean the FPS games that were released but games that actually got people excited(not FPS games like Armorines). The games that everyone was hyped up about that were FPS can be counted on your hands.

2. Those N64 sales are nice but the Playstation sold over 100 million.

3. I never said Halo was online.

4. I put the blame on Microsoft and the friendly environment they created for PC developers in the console world. They really didn't have a choice considering how snubbed they were by j-developers. The groundwork was laid with the Xbox but things didn't really explode until the x360 came out. I also mentioned before in that other thread where I know this movement towards a predominately western flavored style of gaming was probably inevitable with me only crediting Microsoft with significantly fastening the process.

5. I disagree with you saying that FPS and 3rd person shooters are the same. They make the game feel different to me. I adore Lost Planet but despise FPS games.

6. I'm not sure if I want to keep arguing this. I know I'll never win on a forum made up primarily of current and ex-pc gaming enthusiasts that just love this flood of western type games...

 

[Pozer]

4. I put the blame on Microsoft and the friendly environment they created for PC developers in the console world. They really didn't have a choice considering how snubbed they were by j-developers. The groundwork was laid with the Xbox but things didn't really explode until the x360 came out. I also mentioned before in that other thread I think where I know this movement towards a predominately western flavored style of gaming was probably inevitable with me only crediting Microsoft with significantly fastening the process.

6. I'm not sure if I want to keep arguing this. I know I'll never win on a forum made up primarily of current and ex-pc gaming enthusiasts...

The westernization of console games has happened in the past but to a lesser degree. A similar occurrence happened when the genesis/mega-drive saw an influx of talented Amiga/Atari ST devs in the late 80' and early 90's. Probably due to familiarization with the motorola 68000.

I think the modern version is more due to a large influx of ex-pc gamers moving to consoles possibly because their getting too old for the $500 6-month graphics card cycles, driver issues, and patches. Most are looking for a fast food version of the PC experience in their living room and not so interested in Final Fantasy or Platfrormers experience.

It just the console market expanding on both fronts. The 'casual' front (wii sports) and the pulling in a new breed of 'hardcore' (any Tom Clancy FPS).

 

[vazel]

I think the modern version is more due to a large influx of ex-pc gamers moving to consoles possibly because their getting too old for the $500 6-month graphics card cycles, driver issues, and patches. Most are looking for a fast food version of the PC experience in their living room and not so interested in Final Fantasy or Platfrormers experience.

Well yea that's true. What with consoles capable of visuals similar to the PC. And Microsoft was right there to greet them with a comfortable environment.

It just the console market expanding on both fronts. The 'casual' front (wii sports) and the pulling in a new breed of 'hardcore' (any Tom Clancy FPS).

Well a lot of casual games from the likes of Nintendo and Sega are fun to hardcore gamers too in the form of ratings or collecting items or extra/hidden gameplay levels and gamers doing speed runs. Easy to play, hard to master.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In their first full 12 months (Nov 2001 - Oct 2002) of the PS2/Xbox/GCN all being on the market at the same time they sold:

PS2: 7,280k
Xbox: 3,090k
GCN: 2,450k
Total: 12,820k

From Nov 2006 - October 2007:

PS3: 2,206k
360: 4,268k
Wii: 4,946k
Total: 11,450k

Thanks for the research, but that's US only. We have 17 million XB360's sold worldwide in 2 years, plus 8 million (?? VGChartz number. Ugh) PS3s plus 19 million (?) Wii's. 44 million units worldwide after two years of the generation.
I've just tried this chart tool at VGchartz.

PS2 launched 18 months before the others. The first year of XB and GC sales would create a worldwide console base of 12 months XB (5 M), 12 months GC (4.5 M) and 30 months PS2 (130 weeks, 31 M). So after a year of XB and GC on the market, the market was about 40 million systems.

Statistics juggling aside to get accurate sales windows etc. (we'd want to knock off the extra 6 months of PS2 sales), it's clear my feeling was wrong. The current market is looking at 40 million boxes in a shorter time span than last gen. I don't know that there's any info to be had here to help understand the market demographics breakdown either. That is, looking at these numbers we could say approximately all the console owners this gen are previous console owners - it's the same market size in the same period. Thus Nintendo isn't attracting new customers. Or, we can say Wii is attracting new customers, evidenced by 2x the sales rate as PS2, and the market for 40 million conventional consoles by 2002 has dwindled to being half that. But then what happened to the old gamers?

I'm still not getting why people feel the urge to split the market between Wii and PS3/360.

Because they offer two different gaming experiences with one known to be attracting new customers, and what I'm trying to figure here is what has happened to the old customers? Last gen there was one option - dual analogue stick gaming. Two years from generation start, 40 million gamers bought into dual stick gaming. A lot of folk didn't care for dual-stick gaming and never bought a console. This gen, half that number have bought into dual stick gaming. The other half have bought into Wii, which attracts people who didn't care for dual-stick gaming. So a part of that Wii market is going to come from that existing gaming market, and a part is going to come from new customers. Now we don't know what percentage that is, but it does show a shrinkage of the original gamer market.

From the 40 million unit market of last gen in 2 years, within 2 years of this gen, 20 million have bought the 'conventional' experience that they were happy to buy last gen, n% has moved to Wii, and o% are new gamers that Wii has attracted, where n = 100-o. If o is large, then the last-gen market has shrunk considerably. Let's say 50% of Wii owners are the new casual market. That'd mean 10 million Wii owners are from this period last gen. So 40 million people bought into last-gen within 2 years and of that 40 million strong market, 30 million have bought into this gen within 2 years. The other 10 million is made up of new customers. Where are they? Why did they buy a new console in 2000-2002 but not buy a new console in 2005-2007? Too pricey? OR is the market the same, and the percentage of new casual Wii owners is actually very small, with the bulk being made up of existing gamers?

If last gen could sell 40 million units to 'gamers', why this gen hasn't 50 million been sold, to that same 40 million strong 'gamer' market plus a new 10 million 'casual gamers'?

 

[Laa-Yosh]

People shouldn't blame MS or western game developers in general for the decline of japanese game development. It's their own fault, caused by many different problems from low salaries to company culture etc. etc. They're also getting aware of this and starting to act against it, as evidenced by successful companies like Capcom.

 

[liolio]

First point:
I still wait for NPD numbers, but it seems that MS did pretty well not only in US.

Second point BRD is almost the Hd optical format.

Ms should restaur the 100$ between the ps3 and the 360 ASAP, even faster than that especially in Europe if they don't to get really quickly obliterated here!

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Yeah, Europe needs a price cut; although there's been a lot of holiday deals, I've got my Premium at about 85% of the street price and I'm sure there's been other ones.

Although I also have to mention that Hungary recieved refurbished 2006 units in the Viva Pinata / Forza 2 pack... kinda embarassing.

 

[StefanS]

Although I also have to mention that Hungary recieved refurbished 2006 units in the Viva Pinata / Forza 2 pack... kinda embarassing.

Wow, that's bad, really bad. That's screwing the costumers over. Are you really sure about that? So much for focusing on Europe, MS.

 

[Acert93]

Pathetic.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

They have the 2006 date in them, and I think we're small enough of a market so other countries had to get them too. And I agree, it's pretty lame, even if the warranty is there and the cooling's supposed to be new...

 

[hey69]

is it just me ? i have a hard time believing there are 8.1 million copies of "Halo 3" around the world... that means 50% of all xbox360 owners have that game. I have lots of xbox360 owning friends, but 50% it aint..

Originally Posted by Laa-Yosh View Post
Although I also have to mention that Hungary recieved refurbished 2006 units in the Viva Pinata / Forza 2 pack... kinda embarassing.

Does remind of the 299€ xbox360 premium pack with Kameo, PGR3 and something else pack they sold out at the new SATURN electronics opening here in Belgium

 

[AlphaWolf]

is it just me ? i have a hard time believing there are 8.1 million copies of "Halo 3" around the world... that means 50% of all xbox360 owners have that game. I have lots of xbox360 owning friends, but 50% it aint..

100% of my friends have it, so I guess it all evens out.

 

[hey69]

haha.. yeah maybe its like that

 

[archangelmorph]

If last gen could sell 40 million units to 'gamers', why this gen hasn't 50 million been sold, to that same 40 million strong 'gamer' market plus a new 10 million 'casual gamers'?

I guess you could probably put it down to pricing over anything else..

As Joshua put it, the current gen platforms have been considerably more expensive than the previous gen platforms over the same time period [relative].. Hence the reason consumer spending has increased (not forgetting the price of software has increased also..)

 

[liolio]

I delete the post as I posted it from my job(so I had to be quiet fast...) and in the wrong topic.

 

[Silent]

Although I also have to mention that Hungary recieved refurbished 2006 units in the Viva Pinata / Forza 2 pack... kinda embarassing.

Reminds of the fact that In Belgium we have the problem that allot of games (and parts of xbox live) are released in the wrong language (french) while the majority here speaks dutch/flemisch.

Microsoft knows the problem but because the 360 doesn't sell well here they don't want to put any resources into fixing this problem. And with the tensions with regards of language that isn't a good bussines decision and sturs allot of irritation.

 

[Hazuki Ryu]

Very impressive numbers!

I wonder if Halo 3 is firmly the most popular online FPS game available right now? The only games I could see challenging that claim would be CoD 4, and Counter-Strike & Counter-Strike: Source. Does anybody have the monthly average numbers for these games? I checked Bungie.net and it reports that there are currently 194,000 people playing Halo. I think it peaked over 1 million at launch, and I have seen it doing 400K plus on a Saturday evening.

I have actually seen in my self over a million online

 

[assen]

Reminds of the fact that In Belgium we have the problem that allot of games (and parts of xbox live) are released in the wrong language (french) while the majority here speaks dutch/flemisch.

Microsoft knows the problem but because the 360 doesn't sell well here they don't want to put any resources into fixing this problem. And with the tensions with regards of language that isn't a good bussines decision and sturs allot of irritation.

The decision is not in the hands of Microsoft, but in the hands of individual publishers. Translation and especially voiceovers are expensive, and can't be justified for a small market.

 

[Silent]

The decision is not in the hands of Microsoft, but in the hands of individual publishers. Translation and especially voiceovers are expensive, and can't be justified for a small market.

It's not the fact that the games aren't localized ! But that they release games in a language that some of us don't speak or is rather difficult to comprehend.

If the games were released (and some are) in English I woudn't be a problem.

 

[infinity4]

Can't most games automatically choose English if you set the dashbard to english? I thought most games were multilanguage in terms of text.