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

[Shifty Geezer]

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?

Exactly. Therefore, my observation, a forecast of 16M next year suggests no price drop.

Your point about the games wasn't reason to think Sony wouldn't drop price, which I disagreed with. Other consoles have received price drops despite having exclusives, ergo the presence of exclusives on PS4 isn't reason not to drop the price. You're correlation was non sequitur.

 

[iroboto]

Wonder if memory pricing is an issue.

 

[Pixel]

Also $/transitor isn't decreasing like it was 8 years ago. Back during PS3/X360 fab costs for chips and memory were steadily decreasing. We aren't seeing that same rates now that reaching these ever shrinking process nodes is getting ever more complex and expensive for the foundries.

 

[DrJay24]

Exactly. Therefore, my observation, a forecast of 16M next year suggests no price drop.

Your point about the games wasn't reason to think Sony wouldn't drop price, which I disagreed with. Other consoles have received price drops despite having exclusives, ergo the presence of exclusives on PS4 isn't reason not to drop the price. You're correlation was non sequitur.

Without those big game releases like GoW or Spider Man they would be down another 2-4m I'm guessing. They are keeping the price high because they can and it give more profit.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

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.

Xbox gaming and services is growing at a faster rate than gaming for Microsoft.

Gaming revenue increased 18% (up 16% CC) driven by Xbox software and services revenue growth of 24% (up 21% CC) mainly from third party title strength

In other words Xbox is becoming a larger and larger chunk of gaming for MS. There is no way to know what the exact split is, but most of it is likely coming from the Xbox side of things. For mobile there isn't much other than Minecraft (the Fable CCG was pretty bad and hasn't done well) and from leaks we've gotten for Gears and Forza, the XBO store sold significantly more than the Windows store. Version is immaterial as the digital version is X-play.

While not an apples to apples comparison, PS4 made ~4.08 billion USD compared to MS gaming making 2.25 billion USD for the same quarter.

That's as it should be considering the ~2:1 WW ratio of PS4:XBO and futher modified by the greater revenue impact of 1st party sales for PS4. In other words, PS4 revenue should be greater than 2:1 WW due in large part to how well Sony 1p exclusives are doing as well as enjoying some critical 3p exclusives, IMO.

If I were to take a wild stab in the dark, I'd say XBO is probably 1.75 - 2.0 billion USD for that time period.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

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.

MS gaming revenue was up 18% Sony gaming revenue was up less (16%) last quarter?

 

[djskribbles]

To be fair, at 299, Sony is reaching their saturation point. They haven't had a price reduction in nearly 2 years. At probably around 78-79M units out there (close to what the X360 and PS3 sold all last gen), it's harder to attract new customers, and therefore it affects sales from HW units, software, subscriptions and accessories. A price reduction would reduce revenue generated from HW on a per unit basis; but I think they'd see an overall revenue increase from new customers and them buying new software, accessories and subscriptions.

XB1, OTOH, is probably sitting at around 36-37M. Plus they had an unofficial price drop and recently introduced an enticing 499 console for core gamers, so it's easy to see how MS is maintaining a higher growth rate.

 

[DrJay24]

Revenue is only part of it, what is the margin on that revenue? Anyone can have a fire sale and drive up revenue.

 

[iroboto]

Revenue is only part of it, what is the margin on that revenue? Anyone can have a fire sale and drive up revenue.

There’s nothing wrong with this statement. But there has to be certain assumptions when one writes a post.
First: Was There was a fire sale ? Fire sale? There are sales but a fire sale? Was there a fire sale that occurred and their competitors did not respond with a counter offer ? We expect fire sales to have much larger returns than 15%

Second: if there was a sale, or a bundle, did Sony not respond in kind? If so we appear to still be competing on equal ground

Lastly: is there a reason to think that margins are better or worse between the two platforms given the assumptions above ?

 

[MrFox]

I wish we had some professional BOM estimates, so we could have a clear idea of the margins on hardware. What happened with IHS? They used to have that at launch of any consoles but they skipped the mid gen.

 

[chris1515]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-one-sales-are-up-15-year-on-year.39986/

Sales are up by 15% and sales are up by 40% in US it means sales are decreasing in the rest of the world and it was decreasing last year from 2016...

https://www.resetera.com/posts/7472333/


https://blog.us.playstation.com/201...3-days-becomes-fastest-selling-ps4-exclusive/

God of War 3,1 millions in three days fastest selling PS4 exclusives better than 2,7 millions in one week of UC4 and 2,6 millions in two weeks of Horizon Zero Dawn...

 

[MrFox]

All 3 skus of Pro are still on the US amazon top 100. With GoW bundle appearing whenever they get stock (it's #10 right now). I think mid-gen will increase a lot this year. Maybe take over the normal sku for 2018?

 

[djskribbles]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/xbox-one-sales-are-up-15-year-on-year.39986/

Sales are up by 15% and sales are up by 40% in US it means sales are decreasing in the rest of the world and it was decreasing last year from 2016...

https://www.resetera.com/posts/7472333/


https://blog.us.playstation.com/201...3-days-becomes-fastest-selling-ps4-exclusive/

God of War 3,1 millions in three days fastest selling PS4 exclusives better than 2,7 millions in one week of UC4 and 2,6 millions in two weeks of Horizon Zero Dawn...

Well deserved. Easily my GOTY and one of the best games I've ever played.

I'm predicting 1.3-1.5M NPD.

GoW's second week of sales in the UK and Japan had impressive holds at just -35% and -36% respectively. Usually second week drops are closer to 70%.

 

[iroboto]

All 3 skus of Pro are still on the US amazon top 100. With GoW bundle appearing whenever they get stock (it's #10 right now). I think mid-gen will increase a lot this year. Maybe take over the normal sku for 2018?

I had originally thought that this should be the case because of the emegence of 4K TVs. I have been counter pointed on several occasions about that being a thing, with strong arguments about price etc. The very first post of this thread actually!

But it would appear that there is starting to be more correlation between the TV set and the consoles selected.

You paid $5K for a 4K UHD TV, give me the 4K games. 60fps@1080p is great but it didn’t require me to buy a set, I’ll be looking to make full use of my set for a long time to offset the cost of ownership over several years. (At least 4)

 

[MrFox]

I had originally thought that this should be the case because of the emegence of 4K TVs. I have been counter pointed on several occasions about that being a thing, with strong arguments about price etc. The very first post of this thread actually!

But it would appear that there is starting to be more correlation between the TV set and the consoles selected.

You paid $5K for a 4K UHD TV, give me the 4K games. 60fps@1080p is great but it didn’t require me to buy a set, I’ll be looking to make full use of my set for a long time to offset the cost of ownership over several years. (At least 4)

I think many factors are pulling this in both directions over time after they launched, and we are seeing some of these factors becoming much more potent.

Factors for increasing mid-gen:
4K TV sales increasing as you said.
New games launched with nice graphics (the massive Pro increase seems timed with GoW)
The early adopters who bought in nov 2013 have upgraditis
Real journalists recently squashed ps5 rumors being any time soon
Price drops over time will reduce the difference between the skus, so mid-gen will become a no-brainer

Factors for normal gen increasing:
Late gen buyers are the ones waiting for price drops, lower income regions, and countries with crap exchange rate and/or heavy import taxes.
The more time passes, the closer we are from next gen, so it's a lot of money for a short life.

 

[iroboto]

I think many factors are pulling this in both directions over time after they launched, and we are seeing some of these factors becoming much more potent.

Factors for increasing mid-gen:
4K TV sales increasing as you said.
New games launched with nice graphics (the massive Pro increase seems timed with GoW)
The early adopters who bought in nov 2013 have upgraditis
Real journalists recently squashed ps5 rumors being any time soon
Price drops over time will reduce the difference between the skus, so mid-gen will become a no-brainer

Factors for normal gen increasing:
Late gen buyers are the ones waiting for price drops, lower income regions, and countries with crap exchange rate and/or heavy import taxes.
The more time passes, the closer we are from next gen, so it's a lot of money for a short life.

Agreed, and that coupled with TIV programs where 50% of price of the mid gen refresh model for a new one, is a marginal cost to upgrade as opposed to eating the full price.

And that beings me to a OT related item.

Thank you. You have inadvertently provided a data point to a question I could not solve until now.

 

[Xbat]

All 3 skus of Pro are still on the US amazon top 100. With GoW bundle appearing whenever they get stock (it's #10 right now). I think mid-gen will increase a lot this year. Maybe take over the normal sku for 2018?

I don't know if Sony feels the same, if all the shortages of Pro's people talk about is true. Looks more like Sony aren't making that many Pro's. Or Sony totally misjudged the demand.

 

[Rikimaru]

Sony is conservative with Pro production. There were shortages for months soon after Pro launch.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

More of the same I guess, but still an update:

Microsoft Explains Why it Isn’t Releasing Xbox One Sales Numbers Anymore

 

[Rangers]

It seems to be the trend. The less hard data you give anybody the happier corporations seem to be.

I wonder how long Nintendo and Sony will keep it up. I do recall for a time Sony was combining PS2 and Ps3 shipments in it's reports or something like that?