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

[Shifty Geezer]

All countries are not equal. Microsoft have launched in the countries that are more likely to buy their machine and not in those that are less likely to.

Country A ≠ Country B

I don't think anyone was suggesting they were. However, there's no doubt that selling in more countries is going to yield more sales than selling to fewer countries.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

That I agree with, but the suggestion that sales are going to jump anything more than by a moderate amount is false.

 

[Shortbread]

Interesting blurp....

http://www.loadthegame.com/2014/08/20/xbox-one-sold-least-5-million-units-hints-microsoft/

The post originally stated that “To date, 5 million Xbox One gamers have created more than 500 million clips, and there are more than one million active Upload creators every month using Upload Studio and Kinect to edit clips and share their voice and personality with friends and the Upload community.” That news is pretty interesting by itself, but what caught my attention was the first part: “5 million Xbox One gamers”. As mentioned, the April announcement stated that 5 million units have been shipped to retailers with no mention on how many of them were bought by consumers. According to this post, it seems that there are definitely at lest 5 million Xbox One gamers now who already used Studio Upload, assuming that Microsoft counted them as individual users of course.

Interestingly enough, the post was later modified to read: “To date, millions of Xbox One gamers have created more than 500 million clips….” It wouldn’t be too surprising if Microsoft sold 5 million consoles by now would it?

What's interesting isn't the 5 million figure mentioned... but that MS changed the wording to some generic "millions sold" tag line. Makes you wonder how many XB1s really have sold worldwide (customers of course). The last figure I heard was 4.7 million, that was two weeks ago.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That'd round up to 5 million. It does point to 5 million total. I'm sure Rangers will present some NPD argument and extrapolated Euro ratio to investigate this further.

If true. 2:1 PS4:XB1 ration and growing...

Also, shipping 5 million to China is pretty damned optimistic. Do MS just have a lot of boxes sat in warehouses and think they may as well try them in China? Or is China going to be as big as the whole of the rest of the world combined for XB1?

Probably really needs some corroboration of the sell-through before it's worth debating.

 

[3dilettante]

The story said that permission was granted for 5 million units. It might be that's a lifetime ceiling for what can be sold before having to request permission from the government to sell more.

 

[djskribbles]

I realize China has a way bigger population than Japan, but what's the gaming market like in China vs Japan? X360 only sold ~1.65M in Japan lifetime... doesn't 5M seem very optimistic?

 

[Rangers]

We've had Sony say as much.

We don' t need Destiny trends to guess that! 17% swing. Loss from outselling 1.6:1 Sony to being outsold 1.2:1, or whatever the stats were. And that's just US. It's very apparent MS have lost considerable market/mind share.

Have they if you consider all three competitors?

To answer my own question...

Last time around 100/84/84...31% share

This time so far...10/5/6??? (worldwide sales guesstimates)...23% share

So yes, they have. But the Wii U number there is kind of artificially high due to a year headstart.

Beating 31% over the long term if we basically assume Wii U sales trend to zero would require only being outsold 2-1 by PS4. It's likely greater than that right now, in slow months, but Xbox historically does relatively well in holidays. 31% seems eminently attainable, at least, not to say they will do it.

Interesting MS seems locked in 2nd place over 3 gens now (given overcoming Wii U is foregone). at least if you consider 360 to have nudged out PS3 for 2nd last gen, which I do. Then again there's a big difference between 2nd at 25 mil and 2nd at 84 mil, even if the latter gen was effectively twice as long.

Some of this is natural and predictable regression to the mean. The fact PS3 launched at 599 and a year later were astronomical hurdles. Just removing those two alone meant Playstation would likely fare much better, closer to the PS2/PS1 baseline.

 

[temesgen]

I realize China has a way bigger population than Japan, but what's the gaming market like in China vs Japan? X360 only sold ~1.65M in Japan lifetime... doesn't 5M seem very optimistic?

Its completely unrealistic which in part why its inline with much of what has been said since E3 over a year ago.... Someone might want to consider that all these distractions don't change anything materially, at best it's a temporary talking point.

 

[Dave Baumann]

The gaming market in China is frankly massive. What is a complete unknown is how they will respond to a much more closed platform with significant DRM restrictions.

 

[djskribbles]

I have no doubt it's massive just from population alone. But is it really different from the Japanese market? Don't they have similar purchasing habits? Judging by the poll posted by Shifty above, it doesn't look like it's going to set the country on fire. I doubt they'll sell anywhere near 5M lifetime. I think they'd be lucky to sell half of that.

 

[temesgen]

The gaming market in China is frankly massive. What is a complete unknown is how they will respond to a much more closed platform with significant DRM restrictions.

India has a huge middle class but is relatively poor market for all platform holders given its size I don't see any reason why China would be any different. Or perhaps the best question would be why is China suddenly worth discussing; it didn't garner much attention last generation or even at the launch of the XB1.

If the market truly had the potential to digest 5M consoles why did MS wait a year to address that pent up demand? If China had that potential it should have been the second market behind the US that MS localized Kinect for as it singularly exceeds the aggregate demand in Europe with less languages to regulations to comply with.

China is being discussed for one reason and we all know what that is even if some don't like it.

 

[Sonic]

India has a huge middle class but is relatively poor market for all platform holders given its size I don't see any reason why China would be any different. Or perhaps the best question would be why is China suddenly worth discussing; it didn't garner much attention last generation or even at the launch of the XB1.

If the market truly had the potential to digest 5M consoles why did MS wait a year to address that pent up demand? If China had that potential it should have been the second market behind the US that MS localized Kinect for as it singularly exceeds the aggregate demand in Europe with less languages to regulations to comply with.

China is being discussed for one reason and we all know what that is even if some don't like it.

China has the potential to be big for both XB1 and PS4. And the reasons why MS has to wait are likely to do with a shit ton of regulatory hurdles in getting their product there. If they are limited to 5 million consoles in the country until given permission to sell more this seems to indicate a regulatory clusterfuck. Not sure if Sony has the same or worse hurdles.

The potential is there because China is the most populated country on the planet with a growing middle class that has the disposable income to buy luxury items. There's money to made there. Sony and MS just need to find a way to tap into the market.

 

[temesgen]

China has the potential to be big for both XB1 and PS4. And the reasons why MS has to wait are likely to do with a shit ton of regulatory hurdles in getting their product there. If they are limited to 5 million consoles in the country until given permission to sell more this seems to indicate a regulatory clusterfuck. Not sure if Sony has the same or worse hurdles.

The potential is there because China is the most populated country on the planet with a growing middle class that has the disposable income to buy luxury items. There's money to made there. Sony and MS just need to find a way to tap into the market.

I'll go on record and say I am extremely confident that neither MS or Sony will be pointing to China for millions of console sales and winning this generation. At best they will sell more than they did last generation which isn't saying much. Its far more likely that the Chinese make their own machines which run pirated software or simply introduce their own machines to run older versions of games that are essentially roms. I don't mean any disrespect to China but they aren't go to buy millions of 60 dollar games anymore then they buy millions of DVDs or CDs, they'll pirate it.

To your point, mobile game developers have a potential market to tap into there bc everyone has a cell phone. I doubt we'll see very many billionaires from it but there could be some good money made porting titles that appeal to that market much like WD used to do localizations for the Japanese games for the western markets.

 

[Sonic]

I'll go on record and say I am extremely confident that neither MS or Sony will be pointing to China for millions of console sales and winning this generation. At best they will sell more than they did last generation which isn't saying much. Its far more likely that the Chinese make their own machines which run pirated software or simply introduce their own machines to run older versions of games that are essentially roms. I don't mean any disrespect to China but they aren't go to buy millions of 60 dollar games anymore then they buy millions of DVDs or CDs, they'll pirate it.

To your point, mobile game developers have a potential market to tap into there bc everyone has a cell phone. I doubt we'll see very many billionaires from it but there could be some good money made porting titles that appeal to that market much like WD used to do localizations for the Japanese games for the western markets.

I'm not sure anyone was arguing a point that Sony or MS were looking to China to determine the winner of this generation. It was simply being pointed out that there's potential there due to the disposable income that many tens of millions of people have in the country. I agree with you that piracy is also a main factor that Sony and MS need to consider. They will need to find ways to combat the piracy and I would think their online networks would be a good way to do so. But in the end their attempts could prove futile and nothing they do helps console sales there. Still, that doesn't negate that there is potential there.

 

[Dave Baumann]

India has a huge middle class but is relatively poor market for all platform holders given its size I don't see any reason why China would be any different. Or perhaps the best question would be why is China suddenly worth discussing; it didn't garner much attention last generation or even at the launch of the XB1.

I have some appreciation for the size of the gaming market in China by virtue of my day job and I can say that India doesn't factor in terms of size relative to the potential of China. There's sheer weight in numbers, but also cultural/social differences as well.

Like I say, it remains to be seen how significantly DRM restricted machines of any sort will be taken there - I would estimate that both vendors will only be able to penetrate the more affluent areas of Teir-1 cities for quite some time. iCafe's get a wider populace exposed to gaming but the console paradigm seems a difficult fit there - it will be interesting to see if either vendors create some scheme to enable these.

If the market truly had the potential to digest 5M consoles why did MS wait a year to address that pent up demand? If China had that potential it should have been the second market behind the US that MS localized Kinect for as it singularly exceeds the aggregate demand in Europe with less languages to regulations to comply with.

It is being discussed now because the China government had banned consoles many years ago and for the past few cycles they have only been available as grey imports, and obviously with no localisation. That restriction was released very recently, with some stipulations one manufacturing the units sold in China being built in the free trade region of China, hence some production lines need to be set up. This is the first time consoles have been officially allowed.

China is being discussed for one reason and we all know what that is even if some don't like it.

If I were you I'd educate myself before making comments like these.

 

[(((interference)))]

http://kotaku.com/survey-says-chinese-gamers-more-interested-in-ps4-1604560549

Given the oriental connection, I'm not surprised the Japanese console seems to be like it will be more popular.

Ah, but I thought the Chinese intensely dislike the Japanese? (WWII etc)

Have they if you consider all three competitors?

But that's not relevant to the argument, we're just looking at marketshare of Sony vs MS consoles.

Anyway, for all intents and purposes, Nintendo consoles have a somewhat different audience than XB/PS who seem to share the core gamer market.

 

[Dave Baumann]

Ah, but I thought the Chinese intensely dislike the Japanese? (WWII etc)

There is likely an element of "Snowden effect" for recent polls like these.

 

[(((interference)))]

There is likely an element of "Snowden effect" for recent polls like these.

I was actually commenting on Shifty's hypothesis that the Chinese will favour Japanese consoles as they are both East Asian rather than on the results of the poll.

But, very true, the younger generation interested in game consoles probably aren't as interested in past grieviances and more aware of the national outrage at the activities of the NSA.

 

[Bagel seed]

Nobody is holding grudges to that degree for consumer products, except maybe some old fogies here and there.

 

[(((interference)))]

See, that's exactly where I was previously not as convinced. The numbers may point to that - but we can't say for any certainty that this higher selling rate comes from former loyal X360 users switching platform. At this point, it could just as well be that there are more PS3 users upgrading to PS4 (than X360 -> X1), or more new consumers purchasing a PS4. Or more consumers that previously owned both a X360 and a PS3 and may get both next gen consoles, but bought a PS4 first - or a combination of all of the above.

I disagree:

It's hard to see a reason why 360 owners on a huge scale are holding off updating compared to their PS3 owning counterparts, this seems like pure conjecture to me - in the first year of a console's life sales are mostly to hardcore gamers and the platform faithful - the impatient ones who want the next big thing now; the 'wait and see how' buyers or the 'waiting for great games' buyers will come into play later.

From their respective last gen performances, you would expect XB1 to be clearly ahead of the PS4 at this point in time (what with the US being Xbox heartland and early sales being dominated by the hardcore/fanboys) and yet the situation, at just 9 months from launch is that the PS4 is not only level with the XB1 but substantially ahead.

I mean for your theory to be correct, this limited upgrading by the 360 owners has to be incredibly widespread among the early adopters. So much so, that it would suggest dramatic disaffection with MS among its fanbase - and in such a situation, to me at least, the more plausible response from said disaffected 360 owners looking to buy a next gen console would be to jump ship to Sony rather than to sit on their hands and see what MS does (I mean it's not like the console is going to get more powerful as the gen goes on).

It's not like Sony has better games either at this point in time (thereby incentivising PS3 owners to upgrade) - in fact MS seems to be better serving its fanbase with two2 Forza titles and a Halo title coming out in the XB1's first year.

And as for sales to non-gamers I hardly think that'll be a large proportion of the volume, unlike last gen where a significant amount of the PS3's initial sales were to people looking for a low cost Bluray player the PS4 has no similar selling point (in fact the XB1 makes for a better media box with its TV capabilities - especially in the US) as other media boxes - Roku, Apple TV or the PS3/360 are cheaper and more fully featured.

The alternative hypothesis that 360 owners are switching to PS4 is also borne out by a plethora of anecdotal evidence, online sentiment, various gaming polls etc. Not to mention Sony's statements that a lot of PS4 owners never owned a PS3 last gen. And as you mention, the Destiny preorders also provide some circumstantial evidence of a 360 fanbase shifting across to PS4.

So I definitely think it is the most plausible explanation we have for the swing in the US.