Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I've been wanting to post this for awhile, but haven't had the time. These aren't fully fleshed out arguments, but here goes:
This is mainly about non phone-only gamers.
I see a typical gamer starting on a Switch when they are about 6 years old, then eventually transitioning to a console at 12 years old or something, then later either getting their next console and/or switching to PC.
Getting this idea right is crucial to understanding what's happening in the market and it's complicated. Very complicated.
So for example, what happened to the Xbox 360 gamer over time? Let's not worry about how Joe360 became that to begin with for now.
My basic theory is that 80 Joe360s became 50 JoeX1s, 25 JoePS4s and 5 JoePCs. Now there was maybe 7 new Joe360s that came of age, so to speak for a total of 57 JoeX1s, but MS pretty much permanently lost the rest to Sony/PC during the X1 era.
Sony on the other hand went from 80 JoePS3s to picking up 25 JoeX360s and adding another 12 million new entrants. They got more new entrants than MS because of their dominant position at the time.
This basically means that due to digital ecosystem lockdowns MS starts the gen with 57 million fans and Sony starts 117 million fans. Sony probably had some bleed to PC, but probably less than MS.
3.5 years in MS is sitting at 25 million and Sony at 50 million. The question in an other thread that's being debated is whether or not MS is bleeding to Sony right now like they did in the X1 era?
I don't really think so. MS is more or less on track to hit 50 million by 2028 if the gen lasts that long and Sony is slowing down as well and is likely on track for more like 110 million or something. They're both pretty much on track to keep 90% of their fans.
My current theory is that there are less new entrants than previous as many are going straight from Switch to PC and that PC bleed is increasing a little.
That's why I don't judge Phil as harshly as some of you do. I don't think a lot of it is under his control. I really believe the absolute best case scenario for Xbox Series was a 70/100 split with Sony. Not enough new entrants, larger PC bleed, and digital ecosystem lockdowns were all mountains to overcome for MS.
I think that even if Halo Infinite were a 9/10 instead of an 8.3 and Starfield were a 9/10 instead of 8.3 and the Series S had more RAM and Redfall fiasco hadn't happened (all things Phil had control of) that MS would be lucky to be at 35 million units to Sony's 45 million. Really lucky.
Discuss. How do you see the typical gamer evolving over time? Are as many new gamers being created over time? Are other competing things like social/streaming media causing less new entrants to be created? etc...
This is mainly about non phone-only gamers.
I see a typical gamer starting on a Switch when they are about 6 years old, then eventually transitioning to a console at 12 years old or something, then later either getting their next console and/or switching to PC.
Getting this idea right is crucial to understanding what's happening in the market and it's complicated. Very complicated.
So for example, what happened to the Xbox 360 gamer over time? Let's not worry about how Joe360 became that to begin with for now.
My basic theory is that 80 Joe360s became 50 JoeX1s, 25 JoePS4s and 5 JoePCs. Now there was maybe 7 new Joe360s that came of age, so to speak for a total of 57 JoeX1s, but MS pretty much permanently lost the rest to Sony/PC during the X1 era.
Sony on the other hand went from 80 JoePS3s to picking up 25 JoeX360s and adding another 12 million new entrants. They got more new entrants than MS because of their dominant position at the time.
This basically means that due to digital ecosystem lockdowns MS starts the gen with 57 million fans and Sony starts 117 million fans. Sony probably had some bleed to PC, but probably less than MS.
3.5 years in MS is sitting at 25 million and Sony at 50 million. The question in an other thread that's being debated is whether or not MS is bleeding to Sony right now like they did in the X1 era?
I don't really think so. MS is more or less on track to hit 50 million by 2028 if the gen lasts that long and Sony is slowing down as well and is likely on track for more like 110 million or something. They're both pretty much on track to keep 90% of their fans.
My current theory is that there are less new entrants than previous as many are going straight from Switch to PC and that PC bleed is increasing a little.
That's why I don't judge Phil as harshly as some of you do. I don't think a lot of it is under his control. I really believe the absolute best case scenario for Xbox Series was a 70/100 split with Sony. Not enough new entrants, larger PC bleed, and digital ecosystem lockdowns were all mountains to overcome for MS.
I think that even if Halo Infinite were a 9/10 instead of an 8.3 and Starfield were a 9/10 instead of 8.3 and the Series S had more RAM and Redfall fiasco hadn't happened (all things Phil had control of) that MS would be lucky to be at 35 million units to Sony's 45 million. Really lucky.
Discuss. How do you see the typical gamer evolving over time? Are as many new gamers being created over time? Are other competing things like social/streaming media causing less new entrants to be created? etc...
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