All purpose sales and sales rumors/anecdotes thread next gen+

[zupallinere]

I just can't comprehend how they thought volumes like that would be possible at $499.

Simple hubris ?? I mean from a few perspectives the "ONE" as a way to fight 3 or 4 battles at once was quite elegant. Just enough processing power to go up against anyone in the console space, a tv solution to fight Apple/Google/company X, a tile system that used an input system analogous to touch for windows 8, kinect 1 sold well and the wii sold well so why not grab the casual gamer, a new digital disk distribution system to woo publishers and lock folks into the Live ecosystem. A console that did all kinds of things at a time "just a console" seemed to be on it's way out as a viable business strategy. All done for $499 without selling at a loss. Not too shabby just not the right lessons learned from experience.

The wii WAS the casuals gaming console and that seemed to sate that consumer ( along with tablets and phones ). The kinect sold well but wasn't drawing developers, While the 360 was enough processing power to get the job done and it was a year ahead ( and consumers suffered ) which the ONE wouldn't be. Live had and has a good reputation but only 1/2 the folks with a 360 got the gold treatment. Price price and price. The fact that they seemed to fall into the same pitfalls that Sony did last gen just screams some form of greek tragedy.

 

[Rangers]

I just can't comprehend how they thought volumes like that would be possible at $499.

Probably A) they're on crack and B ) they honestly thought the TV stuff, Kinect, would be a monster. Plus maybe they didn't expect to be at a power deficit to PS4, so expected to start from a 360 popularity baseline plus some.

 

[DJ12]

Only we know they expected ps4 to be more powerful because bkillian told us they discussed that very topic in various meetings.

They back something and it failed. Kudos for trying it, but it was never going to work.

Wii and the wiimote worked and had great games from the start, Kinect 2 didn't and still hasn't

 

[Rangers]

About Kinect, it's weird I met a girl last night who noticed my 360 and brightened up. I asked her if she played 360 and she said something to the effect of "yeah, the Kinect".

We're so trained to see Kinect as a failure we forget there is a niche there. Maybe Kinect can still replicate a decent 360 gen style success, but I think they need to go to 349/449 at the least.

 

[Nesh]

About Kinect, it's weird I met a girl last night who noticed my 360 and brightened up. I asked her if she played 360 and she said something to the effect of "yeah, the Kinect".

We're so trained to see Kinect as a failure we forget there is a niche there. Maybe Kinect can still replicate a decent 360 gen style success, but I think they need to go to 349/449 at the least.

Of course there is a niche. But is it large enough and willing to pay €499 to access it? Its not priced correctly given the possible demographics and its not something the non-niche market particularly likes paying extra for.
In addition she may be aware of Kinect but that doesnt mean she bought one. Some of these people enjoy the kinect experience because some core in the "family" threw the cash

 

[Rangers]

Of course there is a niche. But is it large enough and willing to pay €499 to access it? Its not priced correctly given the possible demographics and its not something the non-niche market particularly likes paying extra for.
In addition she may be aware of Kinect but that doesnt mean she bought one. Some of these people enjoy the kinect experience because some core in the "family" threw the cash

Yup, that's the downfall. Still, it had strong family/female potential, that I kind of forgot about.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I just can't comprehend how they thought volumes like that would be possible at $499.

You took that quote out of context. The 400 million was in regards to ALL current gen consoles at the time he made the quote. And the 1 billioin was in reference to ALL next gen consoles (PS4/XB1/WiiU).

Basically he was just stating that he felt there was a lot of opportunity for the console market to expand in a big way.

However, part of that was expectations for drawing in new demographics that previously had not bought a console because they didn't play games on a console. It was a vision of expanding the consoles place in the family living room from primarily a gaming device to primarily an extended entertainment (social media, music, games, apps, streaming, etc.) device.

The expectation was that Sony was likely to follow a similar strategy as well. So while he was expecting XB1 to greatly expand its user base relative to the XB360, he was also factoring in the PS4 greatly expanding its user base relative to the PS3. But he obviously felt that the XB1 likely had an advantage there with a more robust expanded living room experience. But as it turns out, at 499 USD, you're going to have to rely a lot on core gamers to sustain an initial push, especially if you don't release any compelling content for non-core gamers. Non-gamers might get in on the Holiday hype around the machine a bit but that won't sustain through the rest of the year unless there is something more compelling than what they had to offer.

Limiting the attraction of the consoles to being primarily a gaming device as with the PS3/X360/Wii generation means that it's far more likely we'll see either stagnant or slight growth for the overall console industry. And before you cry foul, at this point I certainly expect the PS4 to greatly expand its user base relative to the PS3 while the XB1 either maintains a similar user base or loses it relative to the XB360. And that the WiiU just plain loses a lot of user base relative to the Wii.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Gamestop claims the $399 XOne has attracted increased interest (about as vague/meaningless a story as it gets, but, hey)

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ga...24/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

It's only been a nine days since Microsoft announced a price cut for the Xbox One, but retailer GameStop is already benefiting from the announcement. During a post-earnings financial call today, GameStop president Tony Bartel said the company is seeing "stronger demand" for the Xbox One since last week.

"I definitely think we're already seeing in our stores with our reservation program as well as dialogue with PowerUp Rewards [members that] there's a stronger demand as a result of the price drop," Bartel said. "The good news for us is... we'll sell a lot more units."

 

[Prophecy2k]

Gamestop claims the $399 XOne has attracted increased interest (about as vague/meaningless a story as it gets, but, hey)

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/ga...24/?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Million dollar question is of course, "how much interest?" and "how much more interest in comparison to the competition?"

 

[Scott_Arm]

Million dollar question is of course, "how much interest?" and "how much more interest in comparison to the competition?"

It sounds positive "The good news for us is... we'll sell a lot more units."

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It sounds positive "The good news for us is... we'll sell a lot more units."

Well if they did say "a lot more" then at least we know they won't sell "less". Furthermore, we know for sure that they will sell more than "the same" and even more than "a few more".

All the information we needed is already there. We don't need any additional metrics.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Well if they did say "a lot more" then at least we know they won't sell "less". Furthermore, we know for sure that they will sell more than "the same" and even more than "a few more".

All the information we needed is already there. We don't need any additional metrics.

Why are you being an idiot? All I said is it sounds positive. I didn't make any claims that their sales would double. People who care about sales figures will definitely want more data. I don't care.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Given the comment was made in a financial results call then you can be assured that they believe the increase is meaningful to their business.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Why are you being an idiot? All I said is it sounds positive. I didn't make any claims that their sales would double. People who care about sales figures will definitely want more data. I don't care.

It's a stupid statement to make without any data to back it up, even more in a financial results call. It's obviously not worthy of a news story or even being commented on IMHO.

I honestly thought you were joking and I just got along with the joke, really. Turns out you were naïve enough to take it seriously and you're even going far enough to insult other people trying to defend it.
So I'm sorry for erm.. overestimating you.

 

[Scott_Arm]

It's a stupid statement to make without any data to back it up, even more in a financial results call. It's obviously not worthy of a news story or even being commented on IMHO.

I honestly thought you were joking and I just got along with the joke, really. Turns out you were naïve enough to take it seriously and you're even going far enough to insult other people trying to defend it.
So I'm sorry for erm.. overestimating you.

Why is it stupid to say that a price cut looks like it will have a positive impact on a product they sell?

 

[liolio]

Only we know they expected ps4 to be more powerful because bkillian told us they discussed that very topic in various meetings.

They back something and it failed. Kudos for trying it, but it was never going to work.

Wii and the wiimote worked and had great games from the start, Kinect 2 didn't and still hasn't

What is interesting here is timeline, they knew the PS4 was going too more powerful, etc.
Since the beginning of the project? Or they figured it out to late to change their design?

They knew Sony was going with AMD too, they assumed quite early (/yukon slides) that its price based on historical evidence was to be ~399$, it may not be too hard for them to guess the specs one could pack using mostly the same IP as they did.
What is weird too me is not that they were ok with having specs but with the price of their system.

 

[zupallinere]

What is interesting here is timeline, they knew the PS4 was going too more powerful, etc.
Since the beginning of the project? Or they figured it out to late to change their design?

They knew Sony was going with AMD too, they assumed quite early (/yukon slides) that its price based on historical evidence was to be ~399$, it may not be too hard for them to guess the specs one could pack using mostly the same IP as they did.
What is weird too me is not that they were ok with having specs but with the price of their system.

Well wasn't the ps4 supposed to have had 4gb of ram and little in the way of room for the OS and such ( 1/2 a gig or something like that reserved for non gaming purposes ) during much of the development time for the XB1. So while the ps4 could be used for a lot of things compared to the ps3 could do there might not have been enough reserved for say a substantial app infrastructure or some other non gaming use cases. Leveraging the 8 gigs vs 4 gigs could have been a good bet as would branching out into non gaming use cases.

In general I agree they would have had a reasonable idea of Sony's plans as did Sony of MS. Both were in a sense conservative designs that were going to be easier to make a profit on over time and cost reduce to one extent or another earlier rather than later in the console cycle. All of these similarities in terms of end games would have made them more attuned to what each other would field hardware wise and to a significantly lesser extent software wise.

Who knows when MS knew about the changes in the memory but by Feb 21 it was absolutely clear. At that point there may not have been much maneuvering room for MS in terms of price or they just didn't think it was going to be a big enough deal to make some of the major changes that might have been needed to sell it for a cheaper price.

 

[eastmen]

I believe if Sony went first then MS would have had a $400 kinectless sku last e3 . But since MS went first they went at $500 and couldn't react after.

Real shame since the Kinect had potential

 

[liolio]

I believe if Sony went first then MS would have had a $400 kinectless sku last e3 . But since MS went first they went at $500 and couldn't react after.

Real shame since the Kinect had potential

Well you make it sound like losing south of 100$ on possibly ten million units (till the BOM matches retail price) is a tiny thing that could be decided the day after the unveiling by your competitor of its new product. Let say I'm not convinced.

 

[BRiT]

Well you make it sound like losing south of 100$ on possibly ten million units (till the BOM matches retail price) is a tiny thing that could be decided the day after the unveiling by your competitor of its new product. Let say I'm not convinced.

Except that wouldn't be the case because it wouldn't have included kinect, allegedly the largest portion of the bom costs. So launching with a $400 kinectles sku last E3 could have been a realistic option for MS. After all, Sony removed the PS4 Eye to cut $60 off their launch unit prices to hit $399.