All purpose Sales and Sales Rumors and Anecdotes [2018 Edition]

[Silent_Buddha]

Earlier this month GTA V became the biggest grossing entertainment title ever , beating any song, album, book or movie.

More than star wars? (adjusted for true inflation) when you include all the star wars merchandise

It's a highly massaged number as they aren't taking into account subscription fees or product licensing revenue. If they did, GTA V wouldn't be even remotely close to World of Warcraft. At the height of its popularity it was making over 1.5 billion USD a year just on subscriptions. That's not counting the sales of any expansion for that year. Even now, they are making over 750 million USD a year just from subscriptions despite declining subscriptions (they still average 4-5 million players in between expansions with that number jumping drastically for a couple months each time an expansion comes out). And that isn't even going into all the licensed products available for WOW.

LoL generates more revenue per year now than WOW, but it's been on the market for a much shorter period of time, so WOW is still probably a fair bit ahead WRT to lifetime gross revenue. It's probably also well ahead of GTA V though.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Sony shipments https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_supplement.pdf

So they actually shipped a little less this year 20.0>19.0, and project another drop next year to 16.0. Maybe a little fuel to PS5 fire (though I think it's 2020 EARLIEST). Going by this PS4 has peaked.

Overall Playstation still booming and making a lot of money.

Also this

I dunno if they ever let out PS Plus subs before? But anyway that's something less than half of PS4's (I'm sure it's very similar for Xbox).

That just shows the core of active gamers is much smaller than any install base as I point out. Pretty much nobody offline in this day and age is a serious gamer.

Dividing it by Sony's last announced sales (73.6 on Dec 31 2017) would give ~46% PS Plus sub rate. But the real number will be a little lower since some more PS4's will have sold in the intervening 3 months.

Hmm, we can also compare gaming revenue between Sony and MS!

Sony for the year ending March 2018=$17.7 billion revenue (if my yen conversion is right)
Microsoft for the same period=$9.71 billion gaming revenue

Assuming they report something mostly similar as gaming revenue? They'd have to right?

More edits: Also YoY gaming revenue for the last quarter, Sony+16%, MS+18% (basically the same)

Last quarter gaming revenue Sony~$4.07b, MS ~$2.25b.

The revenue's are fairly similar to the 2:1 bandied about for PS4>Xbox One hardware. About 1.8:1 last year and quarter.

I never really noticed you could directly compare gaming revenue like this. I'll be doing it all the time now!

Wait, MS doesn't include Windows gaming revenue in their gaming revenue do they? If so it could throw these off. Although, maybe not much, what revenue would MS have on PC? Not much software, no licensing fees. But maybe a cut of windows store games sales? But I'd imagine that's gotta be included in another division as...windows store sales.

 

[Rangers]

Microsoft report is out
https://www.resetera.com/threads/mi...-5-yoy-gaming-revenue-2-25bn-up-18-yoy.38806/

Or useless report is useless.

I guess MAU's seeming to continue to go up is...something. But without a definition I don't know what. Since they reference "mobile", does that mean everybody who logs onto Xbox app on Android once in a month counts as a MAU for example?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony shipments https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_supplement.pdf

So they actually shipped a little less this year 20.0>19.0, and project another drop next year to 16.0. Maybe a little fuel to PS5 fire (though I think it's 2020 EARLIEST). Going by this PS4 has peaked.

Suggests no aggressive price reduction to me.

 

[chris1515]

Sony shipments https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_supplement.pdf

So they actually shipped a little less this year 20.0>19.0, and project another drop next year to 16.0. Maybe a little fuel to PS5 fire (though I think it's 2020 EARLIEST). Going by this PS4 has peaked.

Overall Playstation still booming and making a lot of money.

Also this

I dunno if they ever let out PS Plus subs before? But anyway that's something less than half of PS4's (I'm sure it's very similar for Xbox).

That just shows the core of active gamers is much smaller than any install base as I point out. Pretty much nobody offline in this day and age is a serious gamer.

Dividing it by Sony's last announced sales (73.6 on Dec 31 2017) would give ~46% PS Plus sub rate. But the real number will be a little lower since some more PS4's will have sold in the intervening 3 months.

Hmm, we can also compare gaming revenue between Sony and MS!

Sony for the year ending March 2018=$17.7 billion revenue (if my yen conversion is right)
Microsoft for the same period=$9.71 billion gaming revenue

Assuming they report something mostly similar as gaming revenue? They'd have to right?

More edits: Also YoY gaming revenue for the last quarter, Sony+16%, MS+18% (basically the same)

Last quarter gaming revenue Sony~$4.07b, MS ~$2.25b.

The revenue's are fairly similar to the 2:1 bandied about for PS4>Xbox One hardware. About 1.8:1 last year and quarter.

I never really noticed you could directly compare gaming revenue like this. I'll be doing it all the time now!

Wait, MS doesn't include Windows gaming revenue in their gaming revenue do they? If so it could throw these off. Although, maybe not much, what revenue would MS have on PC? Not much software, no licensing fees. But maybe a cut of windows store games sales? But I'd imagine that's gotta be included in another division as...windows store sales.

Interesting the ratio of digital games

 

[DieH@rd]

19M in a 4th year, really great result. And even more impressive, during those 12 months we got entire launch period of Switch, which has not impacted PS4.

As for 16M forecast, yes permanent pricecut is not likely, but I think they are playing it safe. After they see the performance of Spiderman and RDR2, we may get another upward adjustment of forecast just like last year. Also, they probably know that TLOU2 and DeathStranding will not land in calendar Q1 2019.

In any case, this time next year they will be at ~95M LTD shipped, which is well beyond PS3 and in a spitting distance of surpassing PS1.

Pretty much nobody offline in this day and age is a serious gamer.

It is important to note that all F2P games can be freely played online on PS4, and party chat functions are also not part of PS+. [Fortnite requires Gold sub on Xbox]

 

[chris1515]

19M in a 4th year, really great result. And even more impressive, during those 12 months we got entire launch period of Switch, which has not impacted PS4.

As for 16M forecast, yes permanent pricecut is not likely, but I think they are playing it safe. After they see the performance of Spiderman and RDR2, we may get another upward adjustment of forecast just like last year. Also, they probably know that TLOU2 and DeathStranding will not land in calendar Q1 2019.

In any case, this time next year they will be at ~95M LTD shipped, which is well beyond PS3 and in a spitting distance of surpassing PS1.


It is important to note that all F2P games can be freely played online on PS4, and party chat functions are also not part of PS+. [Fortnite requires Gold sub on Xbox]

This is crazy they will beat PS1 and Wii next yeat probably september 2019 and PS3 and 360 before the end of 2018....

 

[Shortbread]

Suggests no aggressive price reduction to me.

That. Or some foreseeable changes (i.e., slowing world economies, GDP consumption/growth issues, etc.) Sony sees, that could affect their bottom-line sales. Probably airing on the side of caution, if this is the case.

It would be somewhat weird if Sony doesn't have any price-cuts [at all] during the Christmas season months, especially on Black Friday.

 

[DrJay24]

Sony shipments https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/er/17q4_supplement.pdf

I dunno if they ever let out PS Plus subs before? But anyway that's something less than half of PS4's (I'm sure it's very similar for Xbox).

That just shows the core of active gamers is much smaller than any install base as I point out. Pretty much nobody offline in this day and age is a serious gamer.

You can be a gamer and not play games online. The PS4 can still stream apps, play all SP and offline parts of hybrid games (Madden, COD, etc.) and all F2P games. You would be surprised how many people hate competing with others online or participate in co-op stuff.

 

[MrFox]

Hard to tell whether it peaked, at this point in time PS3 stabilized and kept going with price drops. Mid-gen launch is messing this up, there was a temporary boost because of upgraders, and official price drop are not hapening at the usual pace.

This gen will have a smaller price drop possible throughout it's life span. The BOM should hit a floor somewhere between 200 and 250, from a launch estimated at 381. The PS3 on the other hand went from 700-800 BOM down to 200. PS2 also had pretty good cost reductions too.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That. Or some foreseeable changes (i.e., slowing world economies, GDP consumption/growth issues, etc.) Sony sees, that could affect their bottom-line sales.

That'd be a significant economic downturn forecast then. Selling 20 million then 19 million at $299. It ought to sell plenty at $199, at least the same, so dropping it to about that and then expecting only 16 million would mean people plain aren't shopping, equivalent to a $299 PS4 dropping from 19 million to ~10 million sales due to a downturn.

 

[DrJay24]

That'd be a significant economic downturn forecast then. Selling 20 million then 19 million at $299. It ought to sell plenty at $199, at least the same, so dropping it to about that and then expecting only 16 million would mean people plain aren't shopping, equivalent to a $299 PS4 dropping from 19 million to ~10 million sales due to a downturn.

Did they announce a $199 price? A $299 price this late in the gen could mean 16m.

 

[MrFox]

Memory prices are predicted to stay inflated for the rest of 2018.

 

[Shortbread]

That'd be a significant economic downturn forecast then. Selling 20 million then 19 million at $299. It ought to sell plenty at $199, at least the same, so dropping it to about that and then expecting only 16 million would mean people plain aren't shopping, equivalent to a $299 PS4 dropping from 19 million to ~10 million sales due to a downturn.

In this hypothetical scenario, I was more so factoring out any price-cuts if BOM cost is still a factor (i.e., costly), while maintaining some reasonable revenue margins on units sold. Thus, 16 million figure given by Sony would still stand.

But if this isn't the case (economic downturn), then Sony's 16M figure could be signs of other troubles like units sales slowing down drastically over time (i.e., Switch eating into sales), and not being able to react with price-cuts because BOM is still to costly on doing so. Or demand for PS4/Pro has peaked, and starting to pan/fall within the coming months.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Did they announce a $199 price?

No

A $299 price this late in the gen could mean 16m.

That's what I was saying. Expecting a drop like that suggests to me they want to keep their profit margins and/or a new process PS4 isn't ready.

Or demand for PS4/Pro has peaked, and starting to pan/fall within the coming months.

At this price level, which is why you get a lower priced model to reinvigorate sales. If Sony aren't looking to reinvigorate sales, and hence they're going to decrease, there can't be an aggressive price-drop on the horizon. Or maybe they expect sales to plummet for the next umpteen months before a cheaper model becomes available which catches up sales significantly.

 

[DrJay24]

I think they will let SW releases and momentum keep sales healthy at $299 and $399 until forced to do anything drastic. If you want to play God of War, Spider-man, Detroit, etc. then the cost of entry is $299.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I think they will let SW releases and momentum keep sales healthy at $299 and $399 until forced to do anything drastic. If you want to play God of War, Spider-man, Detroit, etc. then the cost of entry is $299.

Price drops aren't 'drastic.' The same requirement to own PS to play PS exclusives existed with PS2, and Sony still dropped the price aggressively over its life leading to the best selling console of all time.

PS2 price drops

date       price

Oct 00     $299
May 02     $199
May 03     $179
May 04     $149
Apr 06     $129
Apr 09     $99

PS4 price drops

date       price

Nov 13     $399
Oct 15     $349
Sep 16     $299

16 million forecast this year means the sales are dropping off notably which doesn't look great. If not accompanied by a price drop, Sony could instead potentially get record breaking sales. So it's an interesting choice to let PS4 peak 2018 instead of getting maximum sales a year later and extending its life.

 

[Pixel]

While they lump all of their gaming revenue together it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Microsoft likely has a somewhat larger % of that derived from non console sources (eg PC/Mobile (eg Minecraft on non-console devices)) than Sony.
Even by just looking at fiscal reports at face value and you can easily see this difference in revenue generated by their respective consoles has getting larger and larger by comparing fiscal reports for the last ~2.5 years. This is likely one part of why you are seeing more big budget games and 3rd party exclusives from Sony and likely why you see a tapering off in 1st party games and 3rd party exclusive deals from MS, and why you see more marketing deal and more spectacular marketing, more exclusive games in recent years from Sony.

Sony's generated $14.7 billion revenue from gaming in fiscal 2017
resulting in the division generating $1.2 billion in profit for fiscal 2017

Kind of puts Microsoft's recently announced billion dollar gaming initiative into perspective. That amount of money is not as earthshattering as it sounds.

 

[DrJay24]

16 million forecast this year means the sales are dropping off notably which doesn't look great. If not accompanied by a price drop, Sony could instead potentially get record breaking sales. So it's an interesting choice to let PS4 peak 2018 instead of getting maximum sales a year later and extending its life.

I don't understand what you are trying to say. 16m is bad and they should do a price drop to reach 20m? Sony is not in the business to break sales records, they are trying to make money. So if 16m at $299 is better than 20m at $199 (including SW and services) then why bother?

There was no race the bottom last gen, I don't see one this gen. Average console prices are going up ($399 Pro, $499 X, $299 Switch) and it doesn't seem to be hurting the market.

 

[Pixel]

Interestingly in their latest annual report they mentioned they further reduced the cost of the PS4. And consider that PS4 Slim already existed during the previous annual report. I wonder how much reductions SoC fab costs played into that.