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

[zed]

Agreed, the reason Microsoft haven't released in some EU territories is because they've smaller populations and have less of a tendency to buy Xboxes over other machines. They have already released in EU countries with larger populations.

No the chief reason was kinect, i.e. they had to get all languages etc working

Gotta laugh though, in times past its been 'oh these sony dominated territories are worth nothing, hardly anyone there etc' and now theyre seen as a possible saving light for the xbone

Yes. Based on XB1/X360 sales ratio in the US over the last 3 months, I'd say the XB1 shipments were 600-700k worldwide.

I'ld guess 50/50 or even (shock horror less xbones than xb360's)

Destinty will help out xbone the next quarter though, they may even push 1million

edit: they did make a profit though, $18 million. Though I assume that means the xbone aint quite yet profitable (as the xb360 should be quite profitable)

 

[DieH@rd]

Destiny will push a lot of consoles, especially if reviews are strong. But PS4 will benefit much more from it, especially outside of NA.

What I am interested is when will Sony bring the price of PS3 little more down...

 

[Pixel]

China has the potential to supplant the US as the single most important territory to target if you want to be really successful with console games. But a lot of things have to fall into place before that happens.

Regards,
SB

There are probably 10x as many with the disposable income to buy a nextgen $300-400 console in US as compared to China.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

near Impossible, the only way for the gap to close is if it starts outselling the ps4, thus the above germany chart instead of haviing 13 ps4 games and 0 xbone games, has a more on the xbone, not gonna happen, even at $100 discount its doubtful. I expect you mean the rate the gap is growing will decrease eg instead of the ps4 in europe outselling the xbone by 500k per month it only outsells it by 450k

What PR MS have been near silent the last couple of NPDs

Not closing the gap on PS4, but on the WiiU. That reply of mine was continuing a thread of replies that originally started with whether or not the XB1 will close the gap with WiiU and/or surpass it.

I expect the gap to continue to widen with regards to the PS4.

This was to be expected given the over shipment (under selling) from the previous quarter. They still shipped far more than I had expected given the prior stuffing of the channels.

Yup that was stated specifically in the financial summary.

Xbox Platform revenue increased $104 million or 14%, driven primarily by increased console revenue. We sold in 1.1 million consoles in the fourth quarter, as we drew down channel inventory, compared to 1.0 million consoles during the prior year.

So, while Xbox One is struggling relatively speaking, the division itself is doing fairly well. That likely won't last unless Xbox One sales pickup as X360 sales will continue to decline.

I wonder if Sony's consoles are finally up as a group or if overall sales of their consoles are still in decline YoY. PS4 doing quite well but countered by losses in PS3, Vita, and whatever else they are selling in their console division.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Totally expected. Maybe a tiny bit on the low side. I think I expected 1.2.

Dont expect Sony to ship more than about 2.0 million Playstations either by my guesstimates.

Really sucks MS apparently pulled a Sony and combined XBO and 360 shipments. Terrible

Although I had already been wondering if we only got One data in prior quarters because somebody asked on the conference call. If that had been the case, it's possible just noone asked this time.

Oh well they probably didn't want the negative headlines from countless sites blasting how doomed XBO was if they announced it only shipped 7 or 8 hundred thousand.

I guess the good thing is, at least we can compare like for like (in a sense) Sony vs MS (and have been able to this gen). It's just 360+One vs PS4+PS3. But it's still a direct comparison as I have been making. And, over time as the 360 and PS3 decline it becomes more and more just PS4 vs XBO numbers. Already mostly is.

Anyway for the first 6 months through March 2014 it was (worldwide shipments):

One+360=9.4 million
PS4+PS3=11.5 million

After 9 months through June 2014

One+360=10.5 million
PS4+PS3=too be determined in early August, 11.5 million+?

 

[Rangers]

I wonder if Sony's consoles are finally up as a group or if overall sales of their consoles are still in decline YoY.

For just consoles (not including Vita, which is the way Sony break it down) they should be up. Did 1.1 million PS3's in March-Jun 2013 (PS2 was discontinued by then). Should do 2.0 or a little more PS4+PS3 this time.

 

[Strange]

Korea also represents a potential growth point for both consoles if you can get the Koreans to play games on consoles instead of PC. PC games dominated the Korean market last time I checked. http://www.gamesinasia.com/south-korea-gaming-market-size/ shows that the Korean gaming market is estimated to be over double that of the Japanese gaming market. Note that those numbers even include mobile gaming. Significant because of claims that the Japanese market isn't stagnant just that gamers are flocking to mobile instead. While that might be true, it's also true that gaming as a whole in Japan is stagnant compared to many other territories/countries.

In other words, while it's nice to be able to sell consoles and games in Japan, it is increasingly becoming less and less relevant and cannot in any way, shape, or form be taken to represent the Asian gaming market.

China has the potential to supplant the US as the single most important territory to target if you want to be really successful with console games. But a lot of things have to fall into place before that happens.

Regards,
SB

The real point in Asian/Chinese/Korean markets is translation.

English penetration isn't bad but the majority isn't fluent in English nor will they become fluent, so having translated version is a top priority if you want any type of market share.

I live in Taiwan, and Taiwan/HK is a type of litmus test in how the consoles will do in China. If you can't make the consoles work in these two areas, you're not going to make it work in China.

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-14-71-1tn-49-en.html#fc=v:6

Just take a brief overview on play-asia and try to find the Chinese dubbed Asian versions.
For the Xbox One I see 2 games that dub Chinese.

1. FIFA 15
2. Tomb Raider

On the other hand, for the PS4...

http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-14-71-1tf-49-en.html#fc=v:6

1. FIFA 15
2. TLOS remastered
3. Watchdogs
4. Killzone Shadow Fall
5. Musou Orichi
6. Infamous Second Son
7. Tomb Raider

... and the list goes on.

You can see that Sony goes out of their way to make their exclusives dubbed in Chinese from the above list. The same can't be said for Microsoft.

 

[Brad Grenz]

Imports have always been a fairly small proportion of actual sell through.

That may be true of cases where people have had to mail order stuff from Japan or go to weird import shops, but in the case of the tier 2 countries in Europe lots of major chains just seem to have piles of Xbox Ones from Germany (or wherever) sitting in the aisle next to the locally released PS4s. And that's been the case most of the year.

For just consoles (not including Vita, which is the way Sony break it down) they should be up. Did 1.1 million PS3's in March-Jun 2013 (PS2 was discontinued by then). Should do 2.0 or a little more PS4+PS3 this time.

I think it will be quite a bit higher than that. PS4 alone probably sold through close to 2M over that period, and that's at a time when shipments seemingly finally started to outstip demand in Europe. Adding in PS3 could bring them close to 3M combined for the quarter.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Gotta laugh though, in times past its been 'oh these sony dominated territories are worth nothing, hardly anyone there etc' and now theyre seen as a possible saving light for the xbone

These sorts of remarks really bug me and don't belong in a direct discussion with people. Unless the same person saying, "Europe will bring more sales to XB1," also said, "Europe represents a small market for PS4," it doesn't matter what other people said. Rangers was the chief advocate of the view that wider Europe represents a very small slice of the pie, based on actual data so it was a reasonable, debatable view. Now if he says Europe will boost XB1's sales in a big way, you can take it up with him. Or if you can refer to ThePissartist as having held the same view, you can take it up. But you can't correlate opinions across different individuals and generalise hypocrisy of a view.

 

[Rangers]

I think it will be quite a bit higher than that. PS4 alone probably sold through close to 2M over that period, and that's at a time when shipments seemingly finally started to outstip demand in Europe. Adding in PS3 could bring them close to 3M combined for the quarter

Hmm seems I made a rare mistake It does seem like the number PS3+PS4 will probably be more like 2.5.

I have PS4 for 665k NPD over that period. Using last gen's 3.2X multiplier, =2.128. Using this gen so far's 2.8 multiplier, =1.862.

Then add probably 400,000 PS3.

 

[Xbat]

^ Thats sell through though surely Sony would of shipped more.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

^ Thats sell through though surely Sony would of shipped more.

One would assume not. If the channel is full, you won't ship more than you sell as there's nowhere to put it. They'd only ship more if the channel was low on stock as the item was selling out, with the purpose to be sell some units and place others in stock to stabilise the supply.

 

[Prophecy2k]

Is it reasonable to assume though that the global distribution channels are full?

In general though considering the time of the year I think you're probably right Shifty, since there's no reason to build up an accumulation in the channel (i.e. getting stores to hold more stock) when we're in a period of the year where retail sales are pretty steady. On that basis, monthly global shipments will be close to monthly sales.

As an aside though these Xbox numbers look terribad. And depending on the split between XB1 and XB360, it might be even worse for XB1.

I'd be intrigued to see what MS does next. As I can't see how just sitting back and watching things play out will see the XB1 sales performance turn any corners. MS needs to do something drastic, and no moreso than ever, else they risk their console sales and brand dwindling off into obscurity.

 

[Xbat]

One would assume not. If the channel is full, you won't ship more than you sell as there's nowhere to put it. They'd only ship more if the channel was low on stock as the item was selling out, with the purpose to be sell some units and place others in stock to stabilise the supply.

If they only shipped what they had sold surely they would still be having stock issues.

Especially in mainland europe.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If they only shipped what they had sold surely they would still be having stock issues.

Especially in mainland europe.

But we're at a full stock, I thought. I didn't think there was any shortage anywhere. A quick check of 4 stores shows stock in all of them, and even a little price competition knocking £10-20 off the RRP. That is, they were already filling the channel a month or two ago when orders dropped below supply, and now the channel is populated and supply needs only be matched to purchases at the moment, before ramping up with stock ahead of the Holiday.

 

[Rangers]

EA says 10-15% of console triple a sales initially are digital.

Peter Moore - Chief Operating Officer
As Frank mentioned in his remarks, we saw about $71 million in full game downloads, which excludes mobile. And that was split about 50-50 PC versus console. And I had mentioned on the last call that we were seeing somewhere in excess of 10% now for full game downloads on the Xbox Live and Playstation network.

We’re seeing that continue to grow. Now it’s between 10% and 15% of the initial sales that is going digitally full game downloads on those platforms. And if we take UFC as an example, which only shipped with two weeks of the quarter left, we saw at the high range of that 10% to 15% band.

So we’re continuing to see a progressive move toward gamers being able to download, because they can now on the next-gen consoles, full games on day one and week one of the ship. I will also add that the transition, though, is working well with our retail partners. Progressive retailers such as GameStop are preselling well our sports titles that are the ultimate edition SKUs, which give $40 of digital content for only an incremental $10.

So our retail partners are able to play in that digital space as well, so I think we’re balancing out this transformation between physical packaged goods and digital well, and our retailers are able to play in that space.

Slow-ish start as expected but growth seems inevitable.

 

[MrFox]

EA says 10-15% of console triple a sales initially are digital.

Slow-ish start as expected but growth seems inevitable.

I don't know if they expected this to be any higher, but it's unsurprising considering they're still selling both physical and digital version for the same price. The additional convenience isn't worth the loss of value for 85-90% of gamers.

Admittedly I don't have a dog in this fight (I'll never buy a AAA game in digital), but I think if they want more people to move to digital they'll have to offer a rebate to compensate. Amazon is shipping these games to your door for free on the day of release, and you can sell them used very quickly if you didn't like it, or if it doesn't measure up to reviews, or after you finished it and it lacks replay value, or ownership value. Seriously, the same price seems very unfair.

 

[DieH@rd]

I always buy digital via US PSN wallet because local prices here are insane [$80-90].

 

[-tkf-]

I always buy digital via US PSN wallet because local prices here are insane [$80-90].

How exactly does that work?

 

[Cjail]

Only 15%!
No mystery that they prefer to sell DD copies for €69 instead than for €55.