All purpose Sales and Sales Rumors and Anecdotes [2016 Edition]

[DuckThor Evil]

New products in high demand frequently sell out and it's normal for demand to outstrip supply for a couple of months. I'm not sure what you expect Sony, Microsoft, Samsung or Apple to do about this? Companies can have more stock available only by pushing the release date back but that would have meant Sony missing the holidays.

The problem is that they are shipping quite low volumes. Their production allocation seems to have been way of. It's not about selling out. Sony is doing a very poor job at restocking the markets. Amazon hasn't had the core headset in stock since the end of November. Some places are better some worse. I think it's more about estimating the demand wrong instead of having issues producing enough. I think they played too safe. I could undestand the headset having some production issues, but the availability of the Move controllers has been equally if not more bad and that's very old tech.

Also I like the product very much, but for now it feels like a B-class side project for Sony. Lowish volumes, low marketing, low focus. First party software support has been not great. Can't we expect one or two high class AAA built for VR experiences for this device from Sony?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The problem is that they are shipping quite low volumes.

How many are they shipping each week?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

How many are they shipping each week?

I don't know, but many high volume sales retail and etailers haven't seen stock in weeks or over a month. This situation seems to be the same worldwide. I am assuming the recently estimated 745k or so total sales figure is in the ball park, although I don't really trust the company Superdata behind that figure... while it can be argued, whether that is a low or high number, I personally always thought there'd be potential for way more in the first holiday season. I thougth they'd do an order of magnitude more than the Rift and Vive by basically snapping their fingers. I still think they'll do, but they need make a better effort with this.

 

[chris1515]

And average age of gamer is 31 years old if I remember well. Many gamers buy hardware and software at any moment of a year not only for Christmas.

PSVR and PS4 Pro are for hardcore gamers... PS4 Slim for family and available everywhere...

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I don't know, but many high volume sales retail and etailers haven't seen stock in weeks or over a month. This situation seems to be the same worldwide.

Sony could be manufacturing millions each week and by the time these are being distributed to hundreds of thousands of stores in tens of countries, that is very few to go around. It's a big world.

 

[Rangers]

Evidently UK Chart Track stopped even giving percentages. (For example, COD #1, down 34% from last week and so on).

It's quite depressing the terrible state of publically available sales info. Digital will just make it worse.

We're already pretty much there in a no info zone. I guess public "most played" (like for Xbox Live) and such charts will still give us ideas.

 

[chris1515]

I wanted to buy a PS4 Pro out of stock in Lausanne Switzerland and the guy tell me they wait PS4 Pro since a long time...

 

[iroboto]

Evidently UK Chart Track stopped even giving percentages. (For example, COD #1, down 34% from last week and so on).

It's quite depressing the terrible state of publically available sales info. Digital will just make it worse.

We're already pretty much there in a no info zone. I guess public "most played" (like for Xbox Live) and such charts will still give us ideas.

Any thoughts on why all this information is now being withheld ?

 

[DieH@rd]

Game publisher pressure?

 

[iroboto]

Game publisher pressure?

right makes sense. Shareholders freak out when they don't get the whole picture and publishers are left with damage control.

 

[DieH@rd]

For example, Acti fucked up launch of Titanfall 2 and they don't need the bad press from sales reports. If they can push and nudge [and do... other things] to make noisy reports go away, they will do what they can.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

How can game publishers pressure retail sales reporting? Exactly what pressure can they bring to bear?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

"You stop publicly reporting our numbers or we'll stop making games and give you nothing to track!"

 

[RobertR1]

When do we start getting VR numbers or will it just die a silent death by next E3?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

We'll possibly get PSVR numbers as that's selling okay for now, so we'll here a "One million reached! Fastest selling VR on the planet! PS4 - the only place to play VR!" marketing flash. After that it'll depend whether it sells or not.

 

[upnorthsox]

"You stop publicly reporting our numbers or we'll stop making games and give you nothing to track!"

So, put down your guns or I'll shoot myself......

 

[dobwal]

"You stop publicly reporting our numbers or we'll stop making games and give you nothing to track!"

More like "Please report our sales in a fashion we approve or we will kindly ask our retail partners not to report our numbers to you at all".

 

[Shifty Geezer]

More like "Please report our sales in a fashion we approve or we will kindly ask our retail partners not to report our numbers to you at all".

The retail partners presumably get paid to provide numbers - why would they be willing to give up on that?

 

[iroboto]

The retail partners presumably get paid to provide numbers - why would they be willing to give up on that?

Because publishers could revoke their retail based DLC? Or other things that makes it an incentive to purchase from X or Y store.

Or do not provide the retailer good bundles etc. I suppose lots of ways the publisher can punish their channels

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's still cutting off your nose to spite your face. Anything the publishers do to hurt the retailers will also hurt their own sales.