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

[Rangers]

So BTW, Sony reported PS4 shipments this time right? But they didn't last time? I seem to remember they didn't last quarter, just wanted to confirm...

Kinda oddball if so to just randomly skip a quarter, a single quarter.

Edit: They did at least back-fill in the missing quarter this time. So we dont have any data gap.

 

[chris1515]

So BTW, Sony reported PS4 shipments this time right? But they didn't last time? I seem to remember they didn't last quarter, just wanted to confirm...

Kinda oddball if so to just randomly skip a quarter, a single quarter.

Edit: They did at least back-fill in the missing quarter this time. So we dont have any data gap.

No last quarter they give shipped number too. We know it is 37,7 millions now. I think it was 29,3 millions last time.

They give sold through from time to time but sold in every quarter...

 

[steveOrino]

Been through this before, but I think if every single decision had been the same, and X1 simply had 2X the GPU it currently does, it would be cleaning up.

System power dick wagging is for the internet warriors. Its far more often than not that the system power means little (plenty of install base history to back that up). Branding, Price and software availability seem to be the only factors the majority consumer cares about.

 

[ZhugeEX]

So BTW, Sony reported PS4 shipments this time right? But they didn't last time? I seem to remember they didn't last quarter, just wanted to confirm...

Kinda oddball if so to just randomly skip a quarter, a single quarter.

Edit: They did at least back-fill in the missing quarter this time. So we dont have any data gap.

Sony have consistently given sell in numbers for the PlayStation home console division since 1996.

When the PlayStation 4 launched they reported combined PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 sell in figures. This changed in Q2 FY2014 when they started to separate PlayStation 4 figures from PlayStation 3. Since then Sony have reported PlayStation 4 console shipments for each quarter.

 

[Shortbread]

Been through this before, but I think if every single decision had been the same, and X1 simply had 2X the GPU it currently does, it would be cleaning up.

This is such a lame excuse. XB360 had a better GPU, yet Sony (PS3) was able to catch up, and surpass XB360 in worldwide sales later on its lifetime. Oh yeah, Wii mopped up the floor with the both of them, and had very subpar specs.

Point being, give gamers what they want (good 1st party library, consumer friendly policies, a device that's attractive and user friendly across all territories, no double speak on sharing/trading games, etc...) and not a corporate vision (always online DRM scheme, very Americanized product, a mostly unwanted peripheral, overpriced, TVTVTVTVTVTVTVTV and more TV) of what they should want.

 

[MrFox]

Price point versus value proposition is also a big deal. PS3 absorbed an insane $200 loss per console in the first year, to reach an accessible price point and it was considered a good value proposition with it's nice list of media features, and built-in ethernet, internal PS, etc... It was a better bluray player than the $1000 crappy players available, because it was sold at a severe loss.

I am wondering maybe XB1 would have tied the PS4 market share by taking a $100 loss per console, which is still nowhere near the loss sony had to take on the ps3. Imagine if they had announced at 299 without kinect at E3, and the press conf schedules reversed?

 

[Rangers]

I disagree that PS3 surpassed 360. In my opinion 360 finished ahead. Either way, they basically tied.

Also, it completely bears my point, 360 was arguably as powerful or a little more than PS3 (lets say, at least most multiplats were better on 360), and beat/tied it worldwide and did great. From that we have changed to the current gen where things are reversed. I never said there were not other factors, obviously there are. Just imo they are not as large. Especially as time goes one, and PS and Xbox are both established brands as opposed to Xbox being new and having to work just to gain a foothold.

When the PlayStation 4 launched they reported combined PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 sell in figures. This changed in Q2 FY2014 when they started to separate PlayStation 4 figures from PlayStation 3. Since then Sony have reported PlayStation 4 console shipments for each quarter.

I dont believe they reported PS4 last quarter, I remember lamenting about it.

This quarter however at the least they backfilled that number anyway as well as returning to reporting.

 

[bunge]

I disagree that PS3 surpassed 360. In my opinion 360 finished ahead. Either way, they basically tied.

This might be true before counting RROD replacements.

 

[djskribbles]

PS3 surpassed X360 shipments in 2013. Since we don't have any actual sales numbers, that's all we have. But as Rangers said, it was basically a tie.

System power dick wagging is for the internet warriors. Its far more often than not that the system power means little (plenty of install base history to back that up). Branding, Price and software availability seem to be the only factors the majority consumer cares about.

Yup, in that exact order too. I wouldn't say hardware is a complete non-factor though... those internet warriors make up for a chunk of the market too.

Microsoft lacks brand popularity outside of the US/UK, and to a lesser extent France/Germany. They had a price advantage, a great software lineup, the majority of multiplats were better on X360, and they had a year head start, but they still couldn't outsell the PS3. The X360 definitely made inroads; and who knows, they could have built off of that success. But they definitely f*cked up with the XB1.

MS are at a severe disadvantage because they need to sell their brand to the world. Sony and Nintendo have already established their name in the console space. I think that It's going to be difficult for MS to ever take majority share in the console market.

 

[Metal_Spirit]

Talking about the Portuguese reality, Microsoft sucks here. Its console, peripherals and games are available on all great surfaces, but minor stores and even local departments of big stores seem to opt out of selling XBox.
Popularity of the console is very small.
And why? Sony treat us as Kings. They even call us their best market. They use pub on TV and billboards for the console and games (Microsoft does nothing), and they use Portuguese actors to make localized voice for games.
Microsoft doesnt do such a thing and at best we get Brazilian voices (Brazilians talk Portuguese, but accent and used expressions are quite different.
I happen to have two friends with computer games stores and both have chosen not to sell XBox. Demand is small and according to them, Microsoft doesnt make the process of ordering and selling their products simple, so they opted out.
I happen to own both consoles (I like them both), and this makes me sad. PS4 is more powerful, but XBox One is also an amazing console, and this market stuff makes XBox sell less than it deserves.
It just is not enough to build a console and place it on the market. You have to promove it and please the potencial market to whom you are going to sell. Microsoft has a lot to learn from Sony in this regard because on our eyes, for them only the US market seems to count.
PS: Sony makes a lot of promotions here, and even allows paying the console on several 20 euros month instalments (quite good for some). Microsoft... They are quite rare, and has no such payment method.
If it weren't for MediaMarkt stores promotions, getting a cheaper Xbox One would be quite hard here.

 

[ZhugeEX]

I disagree that PS3 surpassed 360. In my opinion 360 finished ahead. Either way, they basically tied.

I dont believe they reported PS4 last quarter, I remember lamenting about it.

This quarter however at the least they backfilled that number anyway as well as returning to reporting.

I have a prediction model for Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 which puts both consoles at ~88m by the end of 2015.

But that's an estimated number, nothing official and should not be quoted as such. There is too much missing data to to draw any definitive conclusion on current sell in numbers.


And you're wrong regarding last quarter. Sony reported 4 million for last quarter. You can check their earnings report for Q2. It's all there.

PS3 surpassed X360 shipments in 2013. Since we don't have any actual sales numbers, that's all we have. But as Rangers said, it was basically a tie.

No it didn't. At least not officially. Perhaps you are thinking of a forecast that IDC put out?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I definitely wouldn't agree with this.

Speculation on the internet amongst gamers was of a systematic flaw causing RRoD was within months of release. A cottage industry selling "X-clamp fixes" (the clamps weren't actually the cause, but changing them could band aid the problem) was already in rude health by the end of 2006. MS caved in and extended the guarantee to three years in July 2007 - some 20 - ish months after launch but this was after months of pressure and questioning by the gaming press.

I said "Wider speculation about a systematic design flaw really only began to gain traction in 2007" which you're confirming here. Disappointed people will often voice this disappointment when they have a problem with their console and we had idle speculation about failures even with PS4 and Xbox One, neither of which turned out to be a widespread systematic issue.

It was with 360 but not it was not widely perceived to be a problem until 2007 when everything came to a head. Then Microsoft announced their swap programme for 360s and everybody continued merrily. Sales figures of the time do not show any impact to sales, if anything the guarantee gave gamers re-assurance.

 

[Entropy]

PS3 surpassed X360 shipments in 2013. Since we don't have any actual sales numbers, that's all we have. But as Rangers said, it was basically a tie.


Yup, in that exact order too. I wouldn't say hardware is a complete non-factor though... those internet warriors make up for a chunk of the market too.

Microsoft lacks brand popularity outside of the US/UK, and to a lesser extent France/Germany. They had a price advantage, a great software lineup, the majority of multiplats were better on X360, and they had a year head start, but they still couldn't outsell the PS3. The X360 definitely made inroads; and who knows, they could have built off of that success. But they definitely f*cked up with the XB1.

MS are at a severe disadvantage because they need to sell their brand to the world. Sony and Nintendo have already established their name in the console space. I think that It's going to be difficult for MS to ever take majority share in the console market.

There is a deep cognitive chasm between those who observe the console space from the US/UK, and those who do it from anywhere else.

And as you point out, Microsoft has actually regressed in most of the world. It's not that they need to catch up in the race, they are backsliding.

I belong to those who can't see why Microsoft should keep investing in dedicated games machines - from a corporate point of view it would seem to make one hell of s lot more sense to beef up the entertainment value of their roughly 300 million per annum monopoly PC business, vs actually pulling away customers from that by promoting their 10 million per annum dedicated games machines, where there is entrenched competition. Also, the console market is not a growth market - they should target markets that have potential for substantial growth. Microsoft tried to do that by positioning the xbox as a TV-portal. It didn't work out. So...?

 

[liolio]

I belong to those who can't see why Microsoft should keep investing in dedicated games machines - from a corporate point of view it would seem to make one hell of s lot more sense to beef up the entertainment value of their roughly 300 million per annum monopoly PC business, vs actually pulling away customers from that by promoting their 10 million per annum dedicated games machines, where there is entrenched competition.

I completely agree to that, they are failing completely on the Appstore front, windows phones sales are collapsing to the point that I expect them to shunt that business sooner than latter, they have a lot more to gain, or to save by helping services as Steam instead of fighting them. They missmanaged "xbox' as they mismanaged some others quite important businesses...

Also, the console market is not a growth market - they should target markets that have potential for substantial growth. Microsoft tried to do that by positioning the xbox as a TV-portal. It didn't work out. So...?

I still believe that growth is possible for a gaming/media thing connected to the tv, though it has to be done right, to extend the market outside of core gamers imho price is everything, then there is the matter of services, and for examples Amazon is doing a lot more things right than MSFT for example. Now nobody has found yet the magic formula.

The concept behind the XBOx One was failed, pretty much do what the tv already does in the process adding a quite expensive device to do what a remote (or lots of phones too nowadays) already does. In the same time I see no selling point in MSFT media offering. Then there are the technological choices for the system both hardware and software. It shows in sales and I wish we could a serious breakdown of division XBox is attached too because I suspect it costs a beefy amount of money to MSFT to reach 1 for 2 ratio.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I said "Wider speculation about a systematic design flaw really only began to gain traction in 2007"

I think both views are valid where the domain isn't specified. A wide part of the gaming populace (which covers the major share of early adopters) thought XB360 had a serious issue very early on. A smaller part of that populace believed PS3 had an issue. The wider world outside of gaming, reaching the more general consumer, didn't start reporting on the RROD problem until 2007 as you say. Just a matter of what 'wider' means here.

 

[function]

I said "Wider speculation about a systematic design flaw really only began to gain traction in 2007" which you're confirming here. Disappointed people will often voice this disappointment when they have a problem with their console and we had idle speculation about failures even with PS4 and Xbox One, neither of which turned out to be a widespread systematic issue.

It was with 360 but not it was not widely perceived to be a problem until 2007 when everything came to a head. Then Microsoft announced their swap programme for 360s and everybody continued merrily. Sales figures of the time do not show any impact to sales, if anything the guarantee gave gamers re-assurance.

I see, you were talking about when it became an issue with the wider potential customer base (impacting sales) rather than when it became apparent to those who were interested (gaming nerds and gaming journalists) that there was a significant issue.

I agree that the 3 year guarantee helped with the issue, but I'd suspect some people were still turned away (particularly parents!).

 

[mrcorbo]

I belong to those who can't see why Microsoft should keep investing in dedicated games machines - from a corporate point of view it would seem to make one hell of s lot more sense to beef up the entertainment value of their roughly 300 million per annum monopoly PC business, vs actually pulling away customers from that by promoting their 10 million per annum dedicated games machines, where there is entrenched competition. Also, the console market is not a growth market - they should target markets that have potential for substantial growth. Microsoft tried to do that by positioning the xbox as a TV-portal. It didn't work out. So...?

MS does *not* have a monopoly on selling content on the PC. They do have a monopoly on selling content on the XBox. If you separate out business sales (and maybe even if you don't), I don't think there is any way MS makes as much money from each individual PC user as they do from each XBox owner over time. And since the PC is an open platform I don't see any way that they ever can.

I completely agree to that, they are failing completely on the Appstore front, windows phones sales are collapsing to the point that I expect them to shunt that business sooner than latter, they have a lot more to gain, or to save by helping services as Steam instead of fighting them.

See above. I couldn't disagree more. XBox is their only successful digital sales platform. Building on that success and leveraging it to encourage developers to develop universal apps that can also be sold on the Windows Store is a good strategy. It may not work, but I don't see any other path forward that could possibly lead to Windows Store gaining any real traction. And, as Apple have clearly shown, that's where the *real* money is.

 

[mrcorbo]

Been through this before, but I think if every single decision had been the same, and X1 simply had 2X the GPU it currently does, it would be cleaning up.

If you go to buy a console and they're the same price (or even close, really), most are just going to buy the one with more perceived power, that's it. Because mostly people play the exact same third party games on these boxes, not exclusives. Exclusives tend to be very overhyped on forums, but they cant hold a candle to big third party franchises in sales (especially now with Halo and Gran Turismo apparently falling off).

That's just it. It was decisions on which consumers they wanted to attract and which functions were most important that directly lead to a design that ended up being less powerful and more expensive.

And the DRM thing was toxic and showed an obvious disconnect between the people making the decisions and their customers. If they were competent they would have seen the backlash coming and had a proper answer for it and if there was no proper answer they shouldn't have tried to do it.

 

[liolio]

MS does *not* have a monopoly on selling content on the PC. They do have a monopoly on selling content on the XBox. If you separate out business sales (and maybe even if you don't), I don't think there is any way MS makes as much money from each individual PC user as they do from each XBox owner over time. And since the PC is an open platform I don't see any way that they ever can.

THe question is more of risks/reward thing, they spent a lot on the xbox and they are not that clear about the return on investment. PC as a huge user base and they did nothing to leverage the software that is sold on the platform they focused on xbox and let Steam and others get theirs shares. They also set a store to sell Apps that were mostly not used on the system. They did many wrongs, it does not amount to a good.

See above. I couldn't disagree more. XBox is their only successful digital sales platform. Building on that success and leveraging it to encourage developers to develop universal apps that can also be sold on the Windows Store is a good strategy. It may not work, but I don't see any other path forward that could possibly lead to Windows Store gaining any real traction. And, as Apple have clearly shown, that's where the *real* money is.

The live was foremost on paying multiplayer platform. Now they do not failed everything but the point is that they have just failed enough things to get to the point where a big shifts in strategies are in order.

 

[mrcorbo]

THe question is more of risks/reward thing, they spent a lot on the xbox and they are not that clear about the return on investment.

The data they had going in to this gen made them think they had a shot at competing with Apple when they designed the XBOne. They were wrong, but you'd expect if they were that optimistic their numbers must have been pretty good.

PC as a huge user base and they did nothing to leverage the software that is sold on the platform

They did try with GFWL and the market rejected it. That's the problem (for MS anyway) with the PC being an open platform.

they focused on xbox and let Steam and others get theirs shares.

They didn't let them do anything. Steam, just by existing, made their service redundant. The only thing GFWL had going for it was it's integration with XBL. If that integration had been better the service might still be around. That integration appears to be happening now.

They also set a store to sell Apps that were mostly not used on the system. They did many wrongs, it does not amount to a good.

So you iterate. Early versions of Android sucked. Google stuck with it and over time it got better.

The live was foremost on paying multiplayer platform.

This hasn't been true for a very long time now. The XBL service is foremost an incentive for consumers to buy and use the XBox platform so MS can sell you content through their digital store.

Now they do not failed everything but the point is that they have just failed enough things to get to the point where a big shifts in strategies are in order.

They *just* did have a big shift in strategy. Maybe let's wait until they actually fully realize their unified platform strategy and we see how the market reacts to it before advocating for even more change.