All purpose sales and sales rumors/anecdotes thread next gen+

[Shifty Geezer]

In the PS2/GC/XB/DC generation, after 8 years those consoles had sold around 185 million units. In the same amount of time, 360 and PS3 sold about 160 million units. If we throw the Wii into the equation, then there was an obvious growth the gaming industry. The general consensus on these boards is that the majority of those Wii gamers have moved onto mobile and tablet, and are no longer part of the console market, and most likely only account for 20 million core gamers.

I expect a good 20+ million former console gamers now game on PC. Steam has 75 million or so users, and PC now gets the majority of console titles, while console have offered no upgrade path for very long. Good luck getting software sales when more and more, including those PC gamers, buy download titles.

Were we seeing much higher tie ratios the prior gen? If so, then perhaps that's because there were so few gamers having their software collection ratio going 15 games to 1 piece of hardware instead of 15 games to 2 pieces of hardware.

Or it could be because modern games offer more replayability, and cost more to buy.

 

[Rangers]

What's an Ordometer.

What does Halo MCC being #2 mean?

It means it's really popular? Especially for an exclusive. That beats every other game except Destiny, with the handicap of being an exclusive. For the less popular platform no less.

I'm surprised it has such draw. For me my hype meter is only maybe 7/10. It's hard for me to get excited about old games that I've already played, again.

 

[Rangers]

Random Amazon spot check #boredom

#5 Mario Kart 8 Wii U
#8 PS4 Console
#11 Destiny PS4
#12 COD Ghosts XB1
#17 Destiny XB1
#18 Last of Us Remastered PS4
#36 AC IV XB1
#37 Watch Dogs PS4
#42 Fifa 14 PS4
#43 Witcher 3 Collecters edition PS4
#47 Super Mario 3D World Wii U
#49 XB1 console+Titanfall+Kinect
#50 Battlefield 4 XB1
#54 Battlefield 4 PS4
#57 Xbox One Console
#58 Halo Master Chielf Collection XB1
#64 PS4 Destiny Bundle
#80 COD Ghosts PS4
#84 Wii U Mario And Luigi Bundle
#85 Wolfenstein The New Order XB1
#91 AC IV PS4
#93 Sniper Elite 3 PS4

 

[Rangers]

Updated 360 vs One

360
Nov 2005 326k
Dec 281k
Jan 249k
Feb 161k
March 192k
April 295k
May 221k

Total after 7 months: 1725k

X1 (YoY)
Nov 13 909k (+583)
Dec 13 908k (+627)
Jan 14 141k (-108)
Feb 14 258k (+97)
March 14 311k (+119)
April 14 115k (-180)
May 14 76k (-145)

Total after 7 months: 2718k

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Fun with numbers! Here's another opportunity for random 'facts' - Consoles in a household can have more than one gamer. I surmise an average of 2.1 gamers per console. Ergo, the real install base for core gamers is (160M - 15M defects - 20M upgrades + 20 million Wii core gamers) * 90% due to cross platform ownership * 2.1 gamers per unit = 274.05 million core gamers.

Ah, but you are forgetting some important things. While there may be that many core gamers, the actual buying gamers must factor in that 85% of households only buy 1 copy of a game (Say, GTA 5 for example) per household versus 1 copy of a game (Again GTA 5 for example) per console despite potentially having more than 1 console in the household and potentially more than one vendor's console. That must further take into account that 35% of gamers borrow games from friends rather than buying them. And if we're talking about new games you must futher factor in that 40% of the remaining gamers buy used rather than new, thus reducing the core "buying base" (35% + 40% = 75% less!). Although there is a slight mitigating factor in that after borrowing a game from a friend, 15.25% of gamers who borrowed the game go on to buy a new or used copy of the game.

I'm too tired to work up a "Fun with numbers!" equation for this. I'll leave up to someone else to have that fun!.

Spoiler

We need a tongue-in-cheek smiley.

Regards,
SB

 

[Entropy]

The core gaming userbase is likely larger than 160 million consoles, not only because the PS360 were not the only game console on the market able to play AAA console games. The Wii had its fair share, and likely held a cross-section of young gamers who had recieved their console as gift, but are now old enough to choose for themselves what console platform they intend to game on.

I think "the core gaming user base" is a dodgy concept. Here you use all PS360 consoles sold as your base number, and then add an unknown number of Wii customers.

If the concept makes any sense at all, it would be the initial burst of consoles sold. But overall I don't think the "core" customer is sufficiently well defined to be very useful in discussions.

 

[DieH@rd]

WSJ report about Sony/MS investements into TV advertising in US
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/06/26...ndustrys-biggest-tv-spender-so-far-this-year/

 

[Wynix]

Wow, Sony spent $59 million for just the first 5 months? It's easy to see them spending ~$150 mil by the end of the year.
MS will likely finish around $100 mil.

 

[DieH@rd]

I still think that MS will throw incredible amount of money on US commercials during holiday season.

 

[betan]

WSJ report about Sony/MS investements into TV advertising in US

I'd like to see the ad numbers for 2013 holiday.

 

[sir doris]

WSJ report about Sony/MS investements into TV advertising in US
http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/06/26...ndustrys-biggest-tv-spender-so-far-this-year/

Interesting stats but terrible presentation.

 

[SlimJim]

Today I realised that PS4 is in stock at the biggest local retailer; either sales have dried up, or Sony is channel stuffing the retailers..
So much for my anecdotes

 

[BRiT]

Today I realised that PS4 is in stock at the biggest local retailer; either sales have dried up, or Sony is channel stuffing the retailers..
So much for my anecdotes

Why can it not be both?

 

[SlimJim]

Why can it not be both?

It's possible, but I think that in my country (Holland) shops decide when they re-order consoles, so come to think of it: the channel stuffing-part is rather unlikely.

 

[AlphaWolf]

It's possible, but I think that in my country (Holland) shops decide when they re-order consoles, so come to think of it: the channel stuffing-part is rather unlikely.

Unless Sony said: "If you don't order 1000 units NOW you won't qualify for holiday bundles."

So how many do you order? You know you're going to sell that many eventually anyway, so you might well help a manufacturer stuff a channel. They don't just package up an extra million or so consoles and ship them out, they entice the retail chains to help them meet shipping goals.

 

[SlimJim]

Unless Sony said: "If you don't order 1000 units NOW you won't qualify for holiday bundles."

So how many do you order? You know you're going to sell that many eventually anyway, so you might well help a manufacturer stuff a channel. They don't just package up an extra million or so consoles and ship them out, they entice the retail chains to help them meet shipping goals.

But the retail channels have to pay for them right? If Sony drops the price and the retailers have thousands of units, I don't think the retailers will be very happy, to say the least

edit: thanks for elaborating. I hope channel stuffing is something of the past, as people want to know sold to customers-numbers anyway. channel stuffing only obscures the real sales data IMO, because it allows companies to be vague about the success of a product

 

[AlphaWolf]

There are certainly risks, but the I expect the chances of a pre holiday price drop are close to nil. And manufacturers will often rebate if there's a unexpected price drop. They don't want to anger wal-mart or gamestop.

 

[Jwm]

Today I realised that PS4 is in stock at the biggest local retailer; either sales have dried up, or Sony is channel stuffing the retailers..
So much for my anecdotes

Costco had a huge tower here, if they need stock for other parts of the country they can save $10 over msrp. ;p

 

[Rangers]

Final Amazon June rankings

PS4 #8
Xbox #49
Xbox+Kinect+Titanfall #50

Interestingly the Titanfall bundle looks to essentially be sold out for good and is out of top 100 hourly.

May rankings: PS4 #6, Titanfall bundle #39

Last month Amazon actually worked well as an NPD predictor. So, trying it again, with no sophistication, I basically categorize it as, May:June

PS4 down a little
Xbox One: Now two SKU's, each down a bit from the single SKU in May.

PS4 May 194k
X1 May 76k

PS4 June: 180k?
X1 June: 65kX2=130k?

Adjusted for 5 weeks:

PS4 June: 225k
X1 June: 162.5k

I think this is an interesting idea of June sales, and actually seems completely reasonable. It for example, would tell us not to expect X1 to beat PS4 because of the $399 SKU in June. But OTOH, X1 would see a healthy sales increase, if these numbers hold any water.

It might be interesting to apply a little more mathematical rigor here, but I'm not really sure how to go about it. Saying PS4 dropped 2 spots from 6, you'd have to say PS4 dropped 33%. That doesn't seem intuitive to how much I'd expect PS4 sales to decline. I'd expect less decline. Alternatively, you could count every ranking spot as equal, and worth 1%. Thus PS4 dropped 2 spots or 2%, and the X1 SKU's ~10 spots or 10%. This doesn't work satisfactorily either, although it probably comes closer to what I think. What you'd probably need is some combination of the two methods. Dropping spots when highly ranked should count more, but not strictly in terms of percentage of the previous ranking. Not sure how to accomplish that, need to think about it.

 

[DieH@rd]

If I'm not mistaken, we are exactly one week away from NPD report. This one will be fun.

Can you post June ranking for WiiU?