Why isn't XB360 outselling PS3 in Europe? *spawn

[TheChefO]

I think there is more to it than that, the real issue is pure capitalism, you want the cheapest and the best. The number one argument for the 360 when the PS3 launched was price! It did not matter that pretty much everyone that got a 360 ended up buying lots of addons that lvl´d the price difference to a much smaller margin.

And that hunger for cheap and best goes all the way, American, European, every western country is getting goods produced in cheap labor countries that gives great value for money. It´s getting very hard to buy "American" I guess the 360 isn´t manufacturered in the US and i think the same goes for the PS3 so it´s a bit of cheating isn´t it

Anecdote:

Sony still manufactures in Japan for the Japanese market, but elsewhere, the product is manufactured in China/Tawain/etc ...

Funny innit?

As for xbox360, it's all manufactured in China. Even the first one was.

 

[joker454]

Also some of the great success of the 360 in the US can probably be attributed to a preference to domestic products, i.e. it´s more patriotic to buy American products. Yeah I know all Americans are not like that, but the American patriotism is much more present than in most countries. Hey, you can hardly go to a football or hockey game without having to salute some troops somewhere, I even had to stand up for some Veterans at a fucking show at Sea World.

I'm not American, but I've lived in various states here for many years now. I can say two things very concretely. First that vacationing here and living here are two totally different things, vacations will not really give you an idea of what a city is really about. Second is that I'd argue it's impossible to generalize the USA. Every state I've lived in has been different, Texas was very different from Washington which was very different from California. It's more like different worlds here each living side by side. Like the patriotism you mention, I tend to see more the other way around in LA where they criticize more than worship the USA. Unless you are in Orange County where it's the other way around. In Seattle it really depended where you lived, the "west side" or Seattle area was far different from the "east side" or Bellevue, Redmond, Kirkland area. In Austin it also depended where you lived, extremely liberal people in the city but venture outside a bit and it's a different world. Orange county here in LA is very different from LA County, etc. Note I used to think the same about the USA before I ever lived here, I had all the typical stereotypes. Having lived here now for 17 years I can clearly say I was completely wrong. Now when I visit back home and hear family talk about the USA I cringe at how wrong they are, but I used to be that same way.

 

[Crossbar]

I´ve lived in California for 6 months. I know the difference between LA and Orange County, it´s fascinating. As is comparing California to other states.

Anyway, if the "Buy American" phenomenon was totally negligable, the presidential candidates wouldn´t bother, they may be stupid, but their advisers are not.

 

[function]

Yeah I pretty much said the exact same thing few posts back. Even though function seems to think that brand recognition has very little effect on sales and that it's always a clean slate when a new gen appears

Sorry, did you mean me?

If so: I didn't say that - you must have meant someone else. Brand can be really powerful, especially in the absence of other (real*) distinguishing factors or in the presence of customer ignorance.

*philosophical / metaphysical arguments notwithstanding

 

[TheChefO]

Anyway, if the "Buy American" phenomenon was totally negligable, the presidential candidates wouldn´t bother, they may be stupid, but their advisers are not.

Granted, they are trying to identify with the American people that see the Economy in the toilet and are actively trying to find a viable villain to stick it on (without offending a key partner).

Perhaps this sentiment will eventually lead to a sway in buying patterns toward "American made", but as is, there isn't much evidence to support a "buy American" mentality resulting in any real result at retail (unless you have numbers which I think we would all be interested to see).

 

[joker454]

Anyway, if the "Buy American" phenomenon was totally negligable, the presidential candidates wouldn´t bother, they may be stupid, but their advisers are not.

Don't know if it's negligible, but it doesn't seem any different than any other country. In fact I'd argue that Canadians are more nationalist than Americans from what I've seen. Even just watching the local news there was like "A Canadian created a new device in a Canadian lab using Canadian materials to appeal to Canadians which will be used on the space shuttle with the Canadian robotic arm to encourage Canadians in Canadian schools to join the Canadian space program". Yeah I did see more Americans cars in Austin, but in Seattle it seemed like every second car was a Subaru, whereas here in LA you'd think the only cars sold were Bmw's, Mercedez and Bentley Continental GT's. I don't know if Europe is any different than USA for nationalism really either, at least not shown by our family/relatives.

In any case there was a post made earlier showing the Xbox/360's progress in Europe compared to PS2/PS3 which to me all but seemed to show that even if there is some anti american bias it's probably negligible when it comes to buying video game consoles, and that the 360 actually did pretty darned good in Europe. If you factor in that the console self distructed then I'd say it did amazingly well!

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Sorry, did you mean me?

If so: I didn't say that - you must have meant someone else. Brand can be really powerful, especially in the absence of other (real*) distinguishing factors or in the presence of customer ignorance.

*philosophical / metaphysical arguments notwithstanding

I'm sorry. I was referring to my talk with fearsomepirate. but you both start with an f!

 

[BoardBonobo]

Considering this is the second generation MS product in the marketplace you can't really knock it for just how well it has done.

The Sony brand and Playstation in particular were synonymous with gaming. Sony were there right at the beginning of the console 3D revolution when it was all about games. And they ruled the roost absolutely.

The internet had barely even started when the PS1 was around, now we are immersed everyday from our TVs to our mobile phones. And the whole thing isn't just about gaming any more. It's about media delivery and advertising content and who controls the chain.

The next generation might be completely different. The Xbox brand is known, it's had better PR than the PS3 and is slightly ahead in the content framework. Sony have a fight and they might just pull it off but I don't think we will see the same sales patterns again.

 

[Miksu]

Here in Finland people are using the word "pleikkari" (a slang word for Playstation) as a synonym for "console". It's hard to fight against that

From my point of view the couple largest issues with XBox are:
-Lack of localization. This affects other Microsoft products too, like Windows Phone and Bing. We don't have Zune Pass or anything like that. Also, it's hard to find XBox games translated in Finnish. Sony (and even Google) are better at this, offering localized services for Finnish users.

-Lack of interesting bundles. Microsoft had a killer bundle couple years back which included Kungfu Panda and Lego Indiana Jones. I'm sure that package sold really well at Christmas time. Apart from that bundle, the others have been lacking.

 

[Phil]

Don't know if it's negligible, but it doesn't seem any different than any other country. In fact I'd argue that Canadians are more nationalist than Americans from what I've seen.

That may be true, but I think compared to Europe, Americans are a lot more nationalist in that sense. The reason I think is kind of logical: The US is a big country and has a big production - everything from software to cars and consoles. We Europeans are not used to this, except maybe for Germany, France, England where cars are concerned. Pretty much everything else is either from the US or Japan (electronics), so it's hard to be nationalistic towards these products. I think it's also because Europe is split in many countries, so idealogies differ a bit.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Europe had production of CE devices from the 40s onwards, but from the 80s/90s onwards they prefered to buy Japanese (presumably because Japanese made stuff was better). We had a GEC VCR as our first. I don't think GEC exist any more. All the European CE manufacturing has pretty much died AFAIK (are their still Eastern European cold-war leftovers?). We make white goods, but nothing electronic like personal computers or TVs. So there can be zero nationalism when it comes to buying products that Europe doesn't make! And we won't buy poop either - hence the death of our own CE industries because imports were better. British manufacturing became a joke. I guess to cut costs manufacturing was compromised. You don't have that problem with Chinese imports as costs and ammortised by cheap human labour.

 

[aselto]

^
Phillips is Dutch.

 

[Weaste]

I don't think his point was that ALL European companies have retreated from home CE devices, just that the vast majority of them have. My Grandmother used to have a GEC TV, my friend's family used to have a Baird (yep, you guessed it), and it goes on. Where are Siemens in the CE space? Where are Amstrad, Alba, Bush, Matsui - some still operating but with very limited market share? My parents used to have a fantastic EMI record player, where did that go?

His point was that 30 years ago there were a lot of European CE manufacturers, but now there are barely any at all. In the mid 80s, everyone in the UK at least started to buy Sony, Mitsubishi, Sanyo, Toshiba, Hitachi, Pioneer, Akai, etc.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yep. CE jsut fizzled out here. It seemed Europe was content to import all that. Hence there's no possibility of nationalism really affecting the console market. (Actually, one caveat, I think some people from Portugal bought Under Siege as the only game from the only Portugese developer! It can give a little boost to smaller companies, but isn't going to sway to the whole landscape to any degree.)

 

[TheChefO]

Yep. CE jsut fizzled out here. It seemed Europe was content to import all that. Hence there's no possibility of nationalism really affecting the console market. (Actually, one caveat, I think some people from Portugal bought Under Siege as the only game from the only Portugese developer! It can give a little boost to smaller companies, but isn't going to sway to the whole landscape to any degree.)

While this is true in Europe, the same can be said of the USA (no wonder both our economies are in the toilet ).

There are no CE electronics made here.

None.

There are a few leftover American Brands (RCA, Westinghouse, Zenith) but they are manufactured in China (etc), but the Product is American in name only. And, as I said, their sales are dismal in comparison to Sony/Samsung/Toshiba/Panasonic etc.

Those American branded TV's sell in limited numbers and are sold at a discount in comparison to their import branded counterparts (ironic considering the majority of them are manufactured in the same facilities with the same components) as it is the only way for them to make sales.

Claims of Xbox sales due to being "American" are misplaced.

 

[TheChefO]

So bringing this back around to the topic at hand with an eye on future sales:

How do the holiday bundles look in EU for ps3 and xb360 in your area?

Here in the states, the best deals coming up are:

$150* xb360 4gb w/kinect + kinect adventures + 1mo live or xb360 4gb w/ gears3 + 3mo live

$200 ps3 160gb + LBP2 + RC all4one + 1mo PPlus

*($200-$50 giftcard)


Both of these deals should bring great sales, but the xb360 + Kinect bundle for $150 should make a killing in Christmas gift sales.

 

[function]

4GB Kinect for £175 and 250GB Kinect for £250 in local supermarket (quite a bit cheaper than Amazon atm).

So ... not really feeling the big Kinect push in the UK. Yet.

... it's not coming, is it?

 

[Phil]

Claims of Xbox sales due to being "American" are misplaced.

Due is the wrong word. help, is IMO more fitting. I wouldn't be suprised if Xbox being a native console is more of an advantage in its local market than it is a disadvantage here in Europe. There's a lot of anti Microsoft, sometimes even Americanism (due to political reasons) overhere.

There are no CE electronics made here.

None.

There may be not many, but one of todays biggest and most powerful (CE) brand is from the US: Apple with the iPod, iPad and of course the iPhone. Its success may not be due to its heritage, but having a such successful (native) brand may help to build a nationalistic buying behaviour over time. The car industry is somewhat related too and probably helps this too.

Adding to that, I think the Xbox is quite clearly more an american console by design (e.g. case design, xmb, etc) than its competitors. Europeans in general may not mind as much as the Japanese though, even if the content on the console is the more important factor.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Claims of Xbox sales due to being "American" are misplaced.

Although it's quite possible that no-one is particularly buying XB because it is American, I think the American cultural impact was important, especially for XB1. It was a stereotypically American product - big and fast and brash - and that goes down well over there, so XB inherited a culture that made it do well in its own territory. That's to be expected; the Japanese build products that fit their culture (smaller, including smaller controllers) which adds appeal in their native territories. Where Europe is different is we are importing from two different cultures, so the one that can reach out to us gets the sales. And in that respect we have more affinity for the Eastern style than the American style I think. Big and brash doesn't normally do well here. Classy does (although the UK can be more accomodating of brash, especially Yoof Culture with significant American influences!). Hence MS adjusted XB360 considerably to make more rounded.

 

[TheChefO]

...It was a stereotypically American product - big and fast and brash - and that goes down well over there ... Big and brash doesn't normally do well here...

With that being the case, can you explain the current situation?

This description worked well to define the original xbox, but this is sounding a lot more like the ps3 than xb360.

As I said at the outset of this gen, MS learned a lot from Sony last gen and implemented those findings in xb360.

Hence xb360 being less bulky than ps3, has the image of being less "fast", and I'm not sure Sony could be any more brash than they were this gen!


xb360's image has been considerably more understated in nearly every aspect. They went for a white exterior with Japanese influenced curve minimalist design (as I recall they brought in Japanese consultants to assist the design), the controllers are considerably less bulky/brash than the original ham hock (job very well done!), the marketing "tone" has been softened along with the dashboard interface. The only carry-over from xb is live and Halo.



Your comments on a cultural connection may be true. Though I can't say I've seen or heard of people feeling some kind of connection with anything MS has done with xb360 marketing up to this point. They've mostly just tried to neutralize their tone from the prior aggressive/geeky/edgy tone that they had with the original xbox.

The only Improvement I've seen in them trying to identify with the consumer has been when they brought Kinect to market with them doing a very good job in replicating and building on much of what the marvelous team at Nintendo has been doing in the adverts and marketing.

MS seems to (lately) be taking that approach and building on it to good effect.

There's nothing really "American" about it though.

Also nothing really "American" about a Cyborg Space Marine ... (geeky for sure though!)

The only "Americanism" (as defined by your words above) that I could draw on what has been a hallmark of xb360 this gen is 1 franchise: Gears of War.

I'd hardly constitute that one franchise as enough to develop that image portrayed for the entire platform, but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe one franchise is enough in this day and age to define a consoles image...