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

[djskribbles]

I hadn't noticed the complaints about PS3 being incredibly loud, well outside of @orangpelupa cat sitting on their console [ Favorite Tag https://forum.beyond3d.com/tags/cat-astrophe/ ] , but I've certainly noticed complaints about 4Pro being obnoxiously loud on social media and other forums like ResetEra: https://www.resetera.com/threads/my-ps4-pro-is-incredibly-noisy.2671/

Sorry but you really need to try a little harder. It's not hard to find the same complaints about PS3/360. Even XB1/S has its share of complaints. Fan noise varies on all systems. Judging by reviews and personal experiences, PS4 Pro is no louder than the PS3/X360 were, generally speaking.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Sorry but you really need to try a little harder. It's not hard to find the same complaints about PS3/360. Even XB1/S has its share of complaints. Fan noise varies on all systems. Judging by reviews and personal experiences, PS4 Pro is no louder than the PS3/X360 were, generally speaking.

That's not saying much as both of those were significantly louder than past consoles like the Xbox and PS2. The loudest consoles in console history basically due to the need for a lot of active cooling compared to past consoles. And those obnoxiously loud (to me now, although I didn't mind them as much during the PS3/X360 gen) optical drives.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

That's not saying much as both of those were significantly louder than past consoles like the Xbox and PS2. The loudest consoles in console history basically due to the need for a lot of active cooling compared to past consoles. And those obnoxiously loud (to me now, although I didn't mind them as much during the PS3/X360 gen) optical drives.

Regards,
SB

True, but that sort of comes with the territory. It's difficult to have a quiet cooling solution in a small form factor while maintaining a low price point. You have to find that balance between size, cost and noise.

We've gone through 1.5 generations of consoles with these noise levels. I think the large majority of gen. 7 and 8 consoles are at acceptable levels that most people aren't bothered by it (excluding the odd louder than usual box).

Point is, while noise and size have been factors in a console purchasing decision, it has never been a big factor IMO.

 

[iroboto]

True, but that sort of comes with the territory. It's difficult to have a quiet cooling solution in a small form factor while maintaining a low price point. You have to find that balance between size, cost and noise.

We've gone through 1.5 generations of consoles with these noise levels. I think the large majority of gen. 7 and 8 consoles are at acceptable levels that most people aren't bothered by it (excluding the odd louder than usual box).

Point is, while noise and size have been factors in a console purchasing decision, it has never been a big factor IMO.

There are probably limits to this however. At a certain decibel value, people will not deal with it and return it. I honestly think a deviation or two further from it’s average point and it will be a factor.

That’s being said. If the mean is 360 levels. 2 deviations out is atrocious.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Though of course your sentiments are right and more power doesn't intrinsically mean more sales than the less powerful rivals, this particular example is contentious as it's hard to point to which console was the 'more powerful'.

That's why I didn't mention power in the comparison, only cost. The last four generations of consoles from Microsoft, SEGA and Sony were all designed to deliver the same games as their competitors. I don't know enough about the Saturn to compare it to the original PlayStation technically but PlayStation launched $100 cheaper and I think that helped in a market where SEGA was a known quantity and Sony were not. The 360 objectively had a better GPU and friendlier memory setup and PS3 objectively had more computational power but they were in the same performance envelope, delivering the same games.

It's really only Nintendo who is aiming at a very different performance level, which makes comparisons including those consoles less clear.

PS4 Pro may be louder than X, but Pro is still about the same, if not a bit quieter than previous gen systems.

This is my experience. Of course experience is the watch word, it's what your basis for comparison of noisy is.

I hadn't noticed the complaints about PS3 being incredibly loud, well outside of @orangpelupa cat sitting on their console [ Favorite Tag https://forum.beyond3d.com/tags/cat-astrophe/ ] , but I've certainly noticed complaints about 4Pro being obnoxiously loud on social media and other forums like ResetEra: https://www.resetera.com/threads/my-ps4-pro-is-incredibly-noisy.2671/

For me my launch Euro PS3 was noticably noisier than my PS2 and this aggravated over time to the point where about once a year, usually in the summer where the noise become more profound, I'd disassemble it and give it a good de-dusting. I live in a ground floor apartment and I like fresh air and there's trees and bushes and flowers right outside so there's lots of particulates in my living room environment. When I got my PS4 it was noticeably quieter than my PS3 and although I only had it three years until I got a Pro, it remained quite than my PS3. My PS4 Pro was another drop in noise for me compared to my PS4.

Modern PlayStations do seem to be a bit of a lottery in terms of cooling which suggests application of heating cement between the chip and heatsink is inconsistent. Shifty has posted how his PlayStation gets hot and runs fans when it's doing background activity and neither my original PS4 or Pro did that even at the height of summer. This year we got aircon so stress-testing Sony's gear in the 80-90+ degree heat of a British summer is a thing of the past.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

All the online statements of why some people would not buy MS consoles -- too loud and too large, including external PSU, were always said about X360.

The X360 was fairly loud. Nowhere near launch PS4 levels though. I get why people wouldn't buy a noisy console.

I've never understood why people give much of a hoot about the size of a console though. The XBoxOne was lambasted for its size, but, in person, it's fairly small and virtually silent.

I prefer an integrated PSU but it's definitely not a deal breaker, and I doubt it is for most people. It's just one of those things where, if one console has it and another doesn't, there's a lot of tribal Internet chatter.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I've never understood why people give much of a hoot about the size of a console though. The XBoxOne was lambasted for its size, but, in person, it's fairly small and virtually silent.

Yah, the size didn't bother me as the design just blended in well with my other Home Theater components (black and boxy ). Must better, IMO, than the weird PS3 shape and the overly curvy and stylized X360. What really impressed me with my XBO was just how quiet it was.

When not running a game, it was virtually as silent as old passively cooled consoles, which makes sense as the fan wasn't spinning as far as I could tell. When running a game, I'd have to mute the TV in order to hear a very faint wooshing sound. I don't use optical media, so I have no clue how loud or quiet the optical drive was.

I do know that some people lost the PSU lottery though and had PSU units where the fan noise got worse over time. Mine stayed quiet when I still used it. However, I haven't used it over 2 years now, so I'm not the best one to judge how well the PSU fan holds up over a long period of time. That was basically the only weak point for the console with regard to noise.

All of that makes me that much sadder that it's no longer the machine I bought. I was one of the ones that liked the TV integration and Kinect driven voice and gesture controls. Once those got removed or deprecated, I no longer had a reason to care about consoles in the living room.

Heck I still use my X360 from time to time for the fitness apps that I have for it combined with Kinect V1.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

The X360 was fairly loud. Nowhere near launch PS4 levels though. I get why people wouldn't buy a noisy console.

I've never understood why people give much of a hoot about the size of a console though. The XBoxOne was lambasted for its size, but, in person, it's fairly small and virtually silent.

I prefer an integrated PSU but it's definitely not a deal breaker, and I doubt it is for most people. It's just one of those things where, if one console has it and another doesn't, there's a lot of tribal Internet chatter.

Anecdotal. I'm still using my launch PS4 and it is no louder than my PS3 Slim (not the ultra slim or whatever they call it, the first slim PS3). I would even say it's quieter.

edit: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-hardware-test-playstation-4

They say their unit was easily quieter than the launch PS3, but not quite as quiet as the super slim. That sounds about where my launch PS4 sits.

Again, noise levels vary unit to unit. The PS4 has already sold nearly what the PS3/X360 sold lifetime, so you're bound to get more complaints about noise than the competition. But again I think it's no worse than previous gen consoles.

Regarding size, I don't really care either. But I can see why some people would. Not everyone has the same space, and some people place their consoles in their main living space and don't want a big honking console in there.

 

[DrJay24]

My son has a PS4 launch model (Destiny 1) and it is not at 360 levels. Maybe if the 360 wasn't spinning the disc, but most games had the disc spinning which made things much worse.

 

[bgroovy]

Yeah, I installed all my disc games to the hdd on 360 once that was possible because the drive noise was so bad.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

Anecdotal. I'm still using my launch PS4 and it is no louder than my PS3 Slim (not the ultra slim or whatever they call it, the first slim PS3). I would even say it's quieter.

edit: https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-hardware-test-playstation-4

They say their unit was easily quieter than the launch PS3, but not quite as quiet as the super slim. That sounds about where my launch PS4 sits.

Again, noise levels vary unit to unit. The PS4 has already sold nearly what the PS3/X360 sold lifetime, so you're bound to get more complaints about noise than the competition. But again I think it's no worse than previous gen consoles.

Regarding size, I don't really care either. But I can see why some people would. Not everyone has the same space, and some people place their consoles in their main living space and don't want a big honking console in there.

Of course it's anecdotal, I'm not Ipsos Mori.

But most of my friends had X360's, and all were reasonably loud, especially compared to the gently humming PS3's of myself and various family members.

My launch PS4 got louder over its life, to the point that I was quite nervous about playing anything on it. My friend's PS4, which they got about a year after I got mine, was quieter for longer, but lately it makes a racket even just running Youtube.

My Pro generally stays pretty quiet, and it starts to make an acceptable bit of noise after a while, but the skill tree in Shadow of War makes it howl like nothing else.

 

[goonergaz]

Of course it's anecdotal, I'm not Ipsos Mori.

But most of my friends had X360's, and all were reasonably loud, especially compared to the gently humming PS3's of myself and various family members.

My launch PS4 got louder over its life, to the point that I was quite nervous about playing anything on it. My friend's PS4, which they got about a year after I got mine, was quieter for longer, but lately it makes a racket even just running Youtube.

My Pro generally stays pretty quiet, and it starts to make an acceptable bit of noise after a while, but the skill tree in Shadow of War makes it howl like nothing else.

This is pretty much my experience. In fact I had a JP launch PS3 and it was almost silent...even with a disk in.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony's sold 81.2M PS4's as of 22nd July.

 

[chris1515]

Sony's sold 81.2M PS4's as of 22nd July.

And 525.3 million PlayStation hardware sold through in history press release.

*2 As of July 22, 2018. Cumulative worldwide sell-through of overall PlayStation hardware includes PlayStation®, PS One, PlayStation®2, PSP® (PlayStation®Portable), PSP®go, PlayStation®3, PlayStation®Vita, PlayStation®Vita TV, PlayStation®4 and PlayStation®4 Pro. Number of retail sales to consumers is estimated by SIE.

 

[chris1515]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1027524981494886400

Announcement of a special edition PS4 Pro for the 500 millions Playstation consoles sold in history only 50000 console worldwide

 

[BRiT]

The announcement page is not loading. Is it in typical Sony fashion being down for maintenance?

 

[Rangers]

And 525.3 million PlayStation hardware sold through in history press release.

And of course it's not a competition but...Xbox should be about 150 million at least shipped I guess (~85m 360, ~25m Xbox, ~40m One's)

 

[chris1515]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-is-the-third-most-recognized-brand-in-the-uk

Interesting brand comparison in UK and US

Brand and marketing consultancy Prophetsurveyed 11,500 consumers in the UK about 240 brands across 27 categories to come up with its relevancy rankings. PlayStation's third-place spot puts it as the only gaming-focused company in the top 10, though other companies with video game-related initiatives scored highly, including Apple in the top spot and other companies such as Google (#4), Amazon (#

, and Android (#10).
Nintendo ranked at #11, two spots higher than last year with the continued success of the Nintendo Switch. Xbox, meanwhile, dropped six spots to #17 as PlayStation has continued to pile on new console-exclusive announcements and releases.
The results of brands in the US have also been published, though gaming had a much more muted presence in that list. In a survey of 12,694 customers on 299 brands, Apple still took the #1 spot. However, the first console brand is PlayStation at #13, and Xbox is down at #25. Nintendo is not listed in the US survey result, though Electronic Arts is at #34.

 

[Tkumpathenurple]

Brand and marketing consultancy Prophetsurveyed 11,500 consumers in the UK about 240 brands across 27 categories to come up with its relevancy rankings.

I hate that word! It's up there with "normalcy" for making me grind my teeth.

 

[Shortbread]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...-is-the-third-most-recognized-brand-in-the-uk

Interesting brand comparison in UK and US

I wouldn't put too much stock into this survey (or most surveys in general). This particular survey could simply be skewed by product ownership and/or service usuage. I would think companies like Apple, Sony, Google, etc., would look [be] more impactful or "relevant" based on the user install base or usage. In a way, the survey is stating the obvious. The more a product or service is used, the more it's recognized. Simply put, Sony being #3 in the UK over Nintendo isn't all that shocking given it's install base... or Google over Bing... or Apple over HTC... and so on.