Sony Posts its numbers

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Kotaku (I know, lol Kotaku, but they actually cite a source!) is reporting that Tose issued an apology for goofing up the numbers in their slide.
Why would people take a developer's word over the companies who actually do the selling? He's not going to have data other people haven't got, and isn't going to blow open a whole conspiracy. It makes more sense to assume he's wrong than the accounting figures are wrong, and this just highlights that.

This is one of those odd threads that just keeps going against logic! ;) I hope from this point on, everyone can accept the official figures are all the sold-to-retailers figures, from all companies, and so they are comparable and approximately the user base with none of the console companies having a secret stash of many millions of consoles and their userbase being far lower than the sold-to-retail figure.
 
So there was an error and PS3 is still 3M behind X360, however the new figures look very close to VGChartz - so how much weight do Tose carry and do we now trust VGChartz a bit more?
 
This is one of those odd threads that just keeps going against logic! ;) I hope from this point on, everyone can accept the official figures are all the sold-to-retailers figures, from all companies, and so they are comparable and approximately the user base with none of the console companies having a secret stash of many millions of consoles and their userbase being far lower than the sold-to-retail figure.

The actual userbase for both HD consoles will be significantly lower than the sold to retail figure, especially in case of 360. By how much is anyones guess. But thats a whole nother kettle of fish and not really the point you was making :LOL:

Really what it comes down to is the only reliable numbers we have for worldwide sales are figures coming from the manufacturers, and although they dont tell the whole story they tell the only story thats in any way reliable.
 

Would it be fair to say there's probably more replacement X360s out there? Of course any such assumption is guesswork, but we know X360s are less reliable so there's a good chance that more people have purchased replacements (maybe cores) when their machine broke down.
 
Would it be fair to say there's probably more replacement X360s out there? Of course any such assumption is guesswork, but we know X360s are less reliable so there's a good chance that more people have purchased replacements (maybe cores) when their machine broke down.

We also know that there's a 3-year warranty for the RROD issue, so it's likely that many people, rather than purchasing cores, had their machine repaired for free. And if MS, rather than sending back a repaired unit, sent a replacement instead then that is not counted as a new unit.

Additionally, if there is an "out of warranty" repair carried out by the MS service team, that console then gets a full 12 month warranty from the date of repair, as opposed to the 30 day (US) 3 month (EU) repair warranty offered.

So no, I'm not convinced that it's a fair argument to make. Anecdotally, MS pretty much got the RROD/E74 problems down to a more 'acceptable' level for a consumer electronics device with the Falcon revision, with later models getting ever more reliable. Of course, there is still a 3 year warranty in place. Conversely, again anectotally there seems to be more and more cases of old FAT PS3's giving up the ghost, and with Sony repairs being extremely expensive and offering almost no warranty, 'upgrading' to a Slim is often the option taken.
 
We also know that there's a 3-year warranty for the RROD issue, so it's likely that many people, rather than purchasing cores, had their machine repaired for free. And if MS, rather than sending back a repaired unit, sent a replacement instead then that is not counted as a new unit.

Additionally, if there is an "out of warranty" repair carried out by the MS service team, that console then gets a full 12 month warranty from the date of repair, as opposed to the 30 day (US) 3 month (EU) repair warranty offered.

So no, I'm not convinced that it's a fair argument to make. Anecdotally, MS pretty much got the RROD/E74 problems down to a more 'acceptable' level for a consumer electronics device with the Falcon revision, with later models getting ever more reliable. Of course, there is still a 3 year warranty in place. Conversely, again anectotally there seems to be more and more cases of old FAT PS3's giving up the ghost, and with Sony repairs being extremely expensive and offering almost no warranty, 'upgrading' to a Slim is often the option taken.

Whilst not totally disagreeing with your very valid comments, I think you might be surprised how many people simply do not know about the 3 year warranty (or indeed their rights). Also people would go back to the shop for a straight swap-out (faulty for new, like I did) which may attribute some skew. Finally you have to consider time scales - we know that X360s were faulty from day one whereas PS3s started 'dying' around 2-3 years old - that combined with the year head-start X360 had (and higher sales figures) would mean that there have be substantially more faulty X360s compared with PS3s.

Just throwing it in there as a possible reason.
 
goonergaz said:
Whilst not totally disagreeing with your very valid comments, I think you might be surprised how many people simply do not know about the 3 year warranty (or indeed their rights). Also people would go back to the shop for a straight swap-out (faulty for new, like I did) which may attribute some skew. Finally you have to consider time scales - we know that X360s were faulty from day one whereas PS3s started 'dying' around 2-3 years old - that combined with the year head-start X360 had (and higher sales figures) would mean that there have be substantially more faulty X360s compared with PS3s.

Just throwing it in there as a possible reason.

Are you then suggesting that of all of those 360 users who bought a new one (as I have done multiple times) repurchased all of their games as well? If you are not, how do you explain the attach rate and/or tie ratio?
 
Are you then suggesting that of all of those 360 users who bought a new one (as I have done multiple times) repurchased all of their games as well? If you are not, how do you explain the attach rate and/or tie ratio?

I'm just saying it's possible, let's say 1M, in the scheme of things it's only ~2% difference, but that still makes a difference (and wouldn't affect the ratio that much). I'm not surprised the X360 has a higher ratio anyway, it is the cheaper console of the 2 and (I dare say) a more 'hardcore' gamer who will buy more games whereas a PS3 owner might buy some Blurays too.

Again, it's all just thoughts and opinions :)
 
Just throwing it in there as a possible reason.

Warning: The following about recycling is very anecdotal and very localised, so please take with as much salt as you desire

A friend of mine is "da top dog" of a local recycling centre, which covers a population of around 300K. The part of the centre he is responsible for is the "drop in" element, where householders such as myself can take grass, bottles, wood and any other household waste for.... recycling ;) A huge element of what we householders drop there are white goods (washing machines, freezers, cookers) and electrical appliances.

There's a surprising amount of desktop computers, monitors, tv's, dvd players, home cinema systems and laptops taken for recycling.... many times in good working order. But almost never will they see a game console, with the rare exception of the odd Wii (sans peripherals).

Why this is, I don't know. I'm guessing that most either have them repaired (under warranty or not) or possibly just stick them away in a cupboard. The difference between a console and a TV is that the consumer is invested in the console, usually to the tune of hundreds and hundreds in software and other peripherals, making a repair more attractive than dumping it.

Sure, some of those consumers will look at a replacement. But I'm guessing that the vast majority of owners, on turning on their PS360Wii and discovering it doesn't work for whatever reason, will end up on the phone to the relevant support line very quickly, rather than just chuck it and go to the nearest shop and get a new one. The reasons are many, but I'd say the main one is that their purchases and saves are in that box and they want it fixed.

Which is why, even if most consumers aren't aware of the 3 year warranty, when they call with their E74 or whatever they will be told, or if they go to xbox.com support the first question asked is about RROD/E74.

Which brings me onto your point about straight swap. Yes, some retailers will do this if the product is still within the normal warranty period. However, in the grand scheme of things that new console won't count as a new sale. The swapped product will go back to MS, where it will either be reused as a refurb in one of their repair centres, or scrapped if beyond repair (as will any coming into their repair centres). A returned product that isn't reused will be counted as a negative on their balance sheet for auditing purposes. The same for Sony, et all.

Eg: Month 1 - 100 console sales, 10 of which are faulty and returned will still show 100 console sales for month 1, However, if there are a further 100 console sales in month 2, it will show as a net of 90 console sales, therefore coming to the true figure of 190 sales over 2 months. This is only relevant for warrantied products though, as once outside warranty repairs/replacement are chargable and hav no material financial impact on the manufacturer.

All of the above being reasons why I feel it's not so easy to assume certain consoles have more paid replacements than others, especially when one considers that most "bad" 360's are likely to fail within that 3 year warranty period and essentially become a zero sum statistic in terms of console sales.
 
Warning: The following about recycling is very anecdotal and very localised, so please take with as much salt as you desire

***lots of stuff about recycling***

I don't see what recycling centres have to do with buying a replacment? I know folk who buy a replacement and stick broken console into the loft...the question will be (or should be) how many people don't repair things, they just buy a replacement. We live in a 'throw-away' society where it's more common (and convienent) to buy a replacement than fix something that's broken (would a true hard-core gamer wait 2 weeks for a replacement and suffer Halo withdrawal!?).

I would imagine some would buy a replacement core (the cheapest alternative) - send their machine off for repair (if they are so minded - again - not all are) and then when it comes back either keep or sell on. I suggest such folk sell these refurb machines on and then the refurb buyer needs to buy some games - and 'hey-presto' you have a higher attach rate ;)
 
I would imagine some would buy a replacement core (the cheapest alternative) - send their machine off for repair (if they are so minded - again - not all are) and then when it comes back either keep or sell on. I suggest such folk sell these refurb machines on and then the refurb buyer needs to buy some games - and 'hey-presto' you have a higher attach rate ;)
Guy owns 360 A. Buys 5 games, attach ratio 5:1. 360 A breaks. Buys 360 B. Gets 360 A fixed and sells it on/passes it on. New owner buys 5 games. Attach ratio remains 5:1.

Basically not passing a console on affects the attach ratio, as you have a machine for which games aren't being bought. It's far more likely old 360's get passed on somehow. Unless there are people out there who commonly put working and valuable gear away never to use it, only dead consoles won't be contributing to the userbase derived from the shipped figures. So if Sony sold 40 million PS3's to retail, and 10 million of those died, then the install base is 30 million. If those 10 million were returned and fixed, irrespective of what the original owner decides to do regards getting a new console or waiting, there'll be good as 40 million PS3's out there in homes being used.

And the whole 'in use' issue is making things even harder anyway! Let's consider Wii's numbers. If Nintendo report 80 million shipped, you'd have some people up in arms saying that isn't the actual sell-through, so we don't know how many people have actually bought Wii. After several pages of thread discussion perhaps they could be convinced that the shipped numbers are about equivalent to owners, barring failed consoles and all the current 360 discussion...we still don't know how many of those Wii's in houses are being used and how many are gathering dust. Which is true for all consoles.

So basically, what is the point of wanting to know exact install base?! AFAICS it's just for bragging rights for those partisan to want their console of choice in front of the other. What if 360 gets more play hours than Wii on average, does that make it the winner? Or PS3's are switched on for more time than any other console, is it the winner? Shipped, sold, attach ratio, etc. are all figures that don't tell the whole story regards the heatlh of a console paltform, but give enough for us to know they all platforms are healthy. Isn't that good enough?! Whatever machine you have, you can rest easy it isn't becoming a Dreamcast. It has an install base now of about twice what XBox got in its lifetime, and will only get bigger.
 
....and 'hey-presto' you have a higher attach rate ;)

I think you're getting youself confused.

I agree that sometimes people will have their machine refurbed and then use it as part of a trade in. I myself have traded an old Elite for a new S. I also happen to have a dead PS3 at the moment just sitting there.

But let us take the scenario you mentioned:

Gamer A has 10 games
Gamer A gets RROD
Gamer A buys a new console
Gamer A then had his old console repaired
Gamer A sells the repaired console to Gamer B
Gamer B buys 5 games
The net attach rate for 2 consoles is 15, equalling 7.5 games per console
So the attach rate has gone down.
Gamer B Console is still counted as an original sale from when Gamer A bought it and adds nothing to the shipped sales as reported by MS

So you have 2 consoles sold by MS (or Sony, Nintendo, etc), 2 buyers and 2 people purchasing games. The only potential adjustment to attach rate is that Gamer B is new to the 360 and therefore is likely to take awhile to get a collection that positively affects the overall attach rate.

Really, it's the same for every manufacturer, just as there's the same chance that a gamer will pay to have their PS3 repaired after 1 year or a 360 after 3 years, or stick it in the loft after those same time periods.
 
sorry guys, I just meant higher ratio than expected (assuming my example of people just buying a new console was right).

Shifty hits on some great points - I mean obviously a lot is bragging rights, but much is also about devs knowing what console to target. Indeed, as Shifty says, what about 'usage' (and then of that usage how much is gaming!?) - I have all 3 and the usage is around 80% PS3 and 10% for the other 2 (if that)...is that because PS3 is better? Well certainly LBP & Singtar are really popular with us as a family - however I only buy exclusives for the other 2, any x-plat I get on PS3 as that's where my firends are (and it's free online). So withou a really 'in depth' study it's all fudged.

Rotmm, I see what you're saying - but the new 'sold' unit will still be effectively a new gamer with 5 games (the amount B purchased) - so it all balances out really. I also think it's more likely to have a PS3 repaired based on them being more expensive to replace and losing all your data!

Something that will fudge things even more is the question "how many of each console are available 2nd hand?". I look in my BB games window and there's LOADS of Wiis and fair amount of X360s (older style - due to the recent slim I suggest) and a few PS3s.....then there's the plathora oon eBay (some working some faulty). All of those are "sold" according to these stats. :)
 
Shifty hits on some great points - I mean obviously a lot is bragging rights, but much is also about devs knowing what console to target.
They're a majorly involved party, and also the whole investment/shareholder side is. For the shareholders, they only want to know how much money these companies are making, from selling machines and software, which is where shipped-to-retail is perfectly adequate. For developers, they want to know who's buying software, which requires install-base and tie ratio figures. But that again isn't an exact science, and I imagine they get just as good an idea looking at how other games are selling as anything. I mean, even if a platform has a guaranteed user base with a guaranted high tie ratio, doesn't mean they want to buy the game that you are making!

This thread really stops are the investor level though. Sony posted its numbers for the investors, which is how many consoles they've sold. What that means for the PS3 market is a bigger topic, which we can't really deduce for the above reasons. Lots of different ways of looking at things, and lots of different perspectives depending on why you want to know.
 
As far as numbers go, the Japanese are trying to counter currency exchange losses:
http://www.andriasang.com/e/blog/2010/11/11/nintendo_rising_yen/

One of the recurring themes in the financial reports from the past couple of weeks is that the rising yen lead to losses. This was a particular issue for Nintendo, whose operating income turned into a net loss due in large part to a 62.1 billion yen foreign currency exchange loss.



It turns out that Nintendo's currency related loss wasn't just standout amongst fellow game companies. As reported at Sankei Biz on the 9th, Tokyo Shoko Research did a study of 813 Japanese companies that shared midterm earnings and found that 323 had such losses. Of these 323, Nintendo's loss was the highest.



The total loss for the 323 companies over the first six months of the year was 269.5 billion yen, 2.3 times the amount of the same period last year.

Fifty-four companies, including Sony, recorded exchange gains totaling 35.5 billion yen.

I guess they learned how to handle the situation better. Wonder if it's a lucky shot. ^_^
 
Sony's finance guys are pretty nifty at predicting the future of currency values. Nintendo are on the opposite side and are absolutely horrendous. The JPY has all but stabilised at 82 for 1USD, 115 for 1EUR and 130 for 1GBP, yet Nintendo are still using a rate of 88/120/130 in their financial filings, expect further write downs next year.

The only currency I can see which is going to gain on the JPY is GBP, there is a lot of evidence that the UK economy is bouncing back faster than any other world economy and this is at a time of fiscal consolidation by the government which means the growth is all coming from the private sector (out of 0.8% growth for the three months ended just recently 0.7% came from the private sector, unsupported by government spending). If this is the case (and many over here believe it is) then UK currency will strengthen as the appetite for imported goods comes back.

The other fact that people are overlooking is that this recent bout of currency strength in Japan is probably good for the longer term survival of the massive manufacturing sector in the country. Japanese producers had long gotten used to easy margins based on weak Yen, it made them complacent and they let companies like Samsung and LG take advantage. Now with Japanese companies forced into streamlining their business we are seeing the fruits of that labour. Sony are set to make their 5% margin next year (analysts around these parts think a 10% margin isn't out of the question if Sir Howard can finish what he has started, our team says 10-13% is a good target for Sony to aim for by 2014), Panasonic are on the path of profitability and Toshiba have diversified away from CE into higher growth areas.

Anyway, this is all OT, just though people might find it interesting. The point is that strong Yen is not the worst thing that has happened. There are silver linings, and the public will see that in the next couple of years as Japanese CE start to dominate once more with lower cost structures and as the USD and EUR rebound.
 
Where is 'here'? US? UK?

City of London, but I think it is a settled view across a lot of investment banks and analysts worldwide. I think the only 'economists' who are betting against the UK economy are Krugman and his ilk.

The view is that as government spending is reduced the private sector in local economies will expand to fill the gap left in the market, and it looks like it is working and then some as the inefficiency of government spending is replaced by private sector frugal tendencies.

Anyway it's all OT, but the analysis is that of the western economies in the crapper right now, the UK economy is best placed because of fiscal retrenchment by the government while the US economy is set for a slowdown (but not a double dip) because government spending has not been reigned in and interest rates (and inflation) will rise while joblessness will remain at 9-10%. None of it is certain of course, but given the political and economic realities of each country I know most banks/analysts around the City aren't backing a job creating recovery in the US (even if they don't say it for fear of losing US government contracts).

Obviously this does have an effect on the real world and more specifically an expensive past time such as gaming. According to latest estimates, spend on gaming as a percentage of total media spending (it is actually a good measure of a country's wealth, better than number of foreign holidays) has started to increase in the UK and some EU countries where the unemployment rate has started to go down, while in the US where joblessness is stubbornly high the spend on gaming has stayed the same as 2009 and is set to stagnate over the next couple of years while Japanese spending has begun to show signs of increasing again as their economy begins to pull out of the lost decade.
 
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