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

[Shortbread]

The biggest winner AMD...

 

[Rurouni]

So they just do another promotional round on the US for X1 starting at Jan 16th and selling the X1 back at $349. Are they not confident enough to sell X1 at $349 without the effect of promotion tags on it? Will be interesting to see how much this latest promotion will affect X1 sales.

 

[AzBat]

They did it for "reasons"...

The decision to start the same sale back up just 13 days after ending it was driven by a desire to capitalize on the marketing power of all of those new Xbox One owners, Nichols said.

"Looking at just how much engagement there was over the holidays with usage of the system and the advocacy from our fans, led us to do a new promotion," he said.

The thought being that new owners of the Xbox One would encourage their friends to go out and buy the system too. And Microsoft wanted to have a sale in place if that was happening.

"It's a temporary reduction and we're not announcing an end date at this point," Nichols said. "We want to see how people react to it."

...

Why not turn the back-to-back sales into a permanent price drop? Nichols didn't really answer that, but did say they're looking at all of the things they can do to "engage customers."

http://www.polygon.com/2015/1/15/75...x-one-is-getting-another-temporary-price-drop

Tommy McClain

 

[Rangers]

I guess Kevin Dent (game industry guy) on twitter posted this for NPD:

https://twitter.com/TheKevinDent/status/555901540146229248

Xbox One 1.29M PS4 1.065M

And they seem to be accepting it on GAF.

That's a significantly smaller margin of victory for X1 than I expected. I expected maybe 400k-600k. Partly I guess based on Amazon. PS4 is strong.

On the good side for X1 though, really surprising how it dominated the December multiplatform game rankings in the top 10 over PS4 versions. I wouldn't have expected recent hot sales to push it over like that.

Taking Dent's numbers, we have USA LTD's of PS4=6.8 million, X1=6.3, going by last months respective 5.7 and 5.0 estimates.

And LOL at MIcrosoft backtracking to $349 already. Who could have seen that coming. What was the point of stopping at all? Unless maybe to pretend the price was going back up to entice more holiday buyers in November and December.

I assume they refund the two people who bought X1's in the last two weeks.

I guess on a more relevant note, should be interesting if $349 (no game? Is evolve bundle coming?) X1 can compete with 399 (game or no? Free TLOU currently right?) PS4 in the slow months upcoming.

 

[Rurouni]

The fairer question would be if $349 X1 with promotion tag on it can compete with $399 PS4. The numbers would be different if MS just do a straight price cut.
Edit: I imagine if the sales aren't picking up as high as they were expecting (or slowing down a lot after the initial rush), they will announce the end date for the promotion, thus would spurs some sales and then rinse repeat.

 

[Shortbread]

Pretty much...
XB1: 1.26 million
PS4: 1.07 million
Wii U: 580k

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Seems to be positive news and a sign MS is willing to price aggressively.

It's a sign that Microsoft feel they have too price it aggressively.

That's a significantly smaller margin of victory for X1 than I expected. I expected maybe 400k-600k. Partly I guess based on Amazon. PS4 is strong.

If true, something of a pyrrhic victory.

 

[Shortbread]

Most-Sold Games of 2014 Include GTA V, Call of Duty, and Super Smash Bros.

The top ten games sold for last year is listed below. Note that the figures only represent physical retail, and do not account for digital or pre-owned game sales, nor does it account for games that were sold in a bundle with hardware.

Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (360, XBO, PS4, PS3, PC)
Madden NFL 15 (360, PS4, XBO, PS3)
Destiny (XBO, PS4, 360, PS3)
Grand Theft Auto V (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3)
Minecraft (360, PS3, XBO, PS4)
Super Smash Bros. (3DS, NWU)
NBA 2K15 (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3, PC)
Watch Dogs (PS4, XBO, 360, PS3, PC, NWU)
FIFA 15 (360, PS4, XBO, PS3, Wii, 3DS, PSV)
Call Of Duty: Ghosts (360, PS3, XBO, PS4, NWU, PC)

 

[-tkf-]

Someone here claimed that Microsoft was gaining momentum and that Sony would have to counter or Microsoft would just keep that momentum going and slowly but surely catch up.
I will gladly repeat myself, Microsoft is obviously gaining momentum, they have done whatever they could to re-gain the heavy deficit in graphics power with more CPU power, they have cut down on the original vision to free more power to the games, and besides that, they have also worked hard on the shortcomings that the PS4 has in terms of media center capacity. Doing a great job of enhancing the weakness of the PS4 by being better on those important aspects. On top of this they can simply buy love with a low price for a very equal product. Sony has to act.

 

[Rurouni]

They probably going to announce a price drop in the near future and probably take a stab at MS endless promotional event.

 

[JPT]

They probably going to announce a price drop in the near future and probably take a stab at MS endless promotional event.

But if Sony is supplied constrained, which they seem to be in EU (what about US?) will it matter?

 

[Rurouni]

It will matter... to people outside the US who wants to buy a X1 because now MS will be forced to make the drop permanent and those would certainly affects the pricing for other region
Edit: basically I just want to see the end of this endless promotion. Will it happen before or after PS4 inevitably announce a price drop in the future?
Edit 2: basically right now X1 promo is just like a steam sale... It's just around the corner.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I suppose there could be something to gain by crushing the competition if they can. IF a price drop for PS4 could massively reduce interest in XB1 and steal much of MS's share of the US, that'd help make PS4 the de facto console and help push PS services and brand to more consumers. VGChartz says totals are 6.7 and 7.4 million XB1/PS4 (I trust these to be aggregated NPD numbers). Sales of PS3w and XB360 are about 30 and 50 million. So let's say the US is good for 80 million consoles. If the sales ratio in US remains, that's about 40 million apiece. If Sony could get that to a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio, and end with 53 or 60 million, that's a stronger base.

Point being, it might only need a bit of a push now to start a snowballing of PS growth in the US. Or, it may fail and Sony lose money on cheaper hardware they didn't need to lose.

Although of course, production seems to be an issue. With not enough units for EU, increasing demand in US won't help. But surely Sony can ramp this up?

 

[goonergaz]

Someone here claimed that Microsoft was gaining momentum and that Sony would have to counter or Microsoft would just keep that momentum going and slowly but surely catch up.
I will gladly repeat myself, Microsoft is obviously gaining momentum, they have done whatever they could to re-gain the heavy deficit in graphics power with more CPU power, they have cut down on the original vision to free more power to the games, and besides that, they have also worked hard on the shortcomings that the PS4 has in terms of media center capacity. Doing a great job of enhancing the weakness of the PS4 by being better on those important aspects. On top of this they can simply buy love with a low price for a very equal product. Sony has to act.

Let's see how January goes - I don't think Sony has to do anything...they have exclusives coming out for the next couple months and that will be enough IMHO.

 

[Shortbread]

Someone here claimed that Microsoft was gaining momentum and that Sony would have to counter or Microsoft would just keep that momentum going and slowly but surely catch up.
I will gladly repeat myself, Microsoft is obviously gaining momentum, they have done whatever they could to re-gain the heavy deficit in graphics power with more CPU power, they have cut down on the original vision to free more power to the games, and besides that, they have also worked hard on the shortcomings that the PS4 has in terms of media center capacity. Doing a great job of enhancing the weakness of the PS4 by being better on those important aspects. On top of this they can simply buy love with a low price for a very equal product. Sony has to act.

I'm guessing this is a joke post?! In case it's not... why would Sony need to do anything?

Seriously, Sony (PS4 sales) is leading globally in every country, especially in the UK. MS has done a great job in the U.S., and gained some much needed traction towards reducing "the gap" stateside... but that's about it.

 

[London Geezer]

Sales of PS3 and XB360 are about 30 and 50 million. So let's say the US is good for 80 million consoles. If the sales ratio in US remains, that's about 40 million apiece. If Sony could get that to a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio, and end with 53 or 60 million, that's a stronger base.

On a side note, I often wonder how we really quantify how big the market is. 30+50=80 (as an example) can't be right. I still have my PS3, and now a PS4. So I'm counted twice, and I'm sure a lot of other people are too, which inflates the size of the market. Then there's the ones who might have gone through more than one PS3/360. Then there's the Wii population.

How big is this market, really?

 

[DJ12]

Ask me again when the ps5 and Xbox 1212 testing testing is released

 

[Shifty Geezer]

On a side note, I often wonder how we really quantify how big the market is. 30+50=80 (as an example) can't be right. I still have my PS3, and now a PS4. So I'm counted twice, and I'm sure a lot of other people are too, which inflates the size of the market. Then there's the ones who might have gone through more than one PS3/360. Then there's the Wii population.

How big is this market, really?

Normally we go by dollars. Whether you spend money on your PS3 or PS4, you'll be spending x amount of spondulicks. Assuming a reasonable similarity in purchasing behaviour of gamers on similar boxes, a rough break down should place comparative install base as comparative control. Obviously if a console with a small portion of gamers generated a totally disproportionate amount of sales (let's say Console X released by Sega at $1000 with 5 TF graphics awesomeness sells to 10 million core gamers and spikey, blue fanatics, and sells so many games at such an inflated price that it accounts for 50% of all dollars), this doesn't work, and devs/pubs would treat it like it owned a bigger share. For XB and PS, I think it's safe to say install ratio == market ratio and relevance. Where people own more than one console, they are still spending their dollars across the two machines. You'd need a significant amount of dual-owners favouring one machine to a large degree and leaving the other gathering dust to deviate from this extrapolation.

 

[iroboto]

In my mind Sony has been reacting (TLOU bundle, previous bundles after Black Friday) to the positive Xbox momentum, they have not been overreacting however which is the right move. They are not in a position to make drastic moves nor should they being the market leader.

As for the drop for Xbox One again it's obviously very profitable for them to do this. This may not be about seeing a massive drop in sales since the price increase but rather an opportunity to claim additional revenue while it's laid out there.

MS has said it clearly them self that they are riding the success of the holidays. If COD and Destiny and EA Access are highly correlated
to purchases of Xbox Live Gold and a console purchase over the holidays lead to the purchase of these online titles than the potential revenue loss of not grabbing these individuals today is greater than grabbing them next year.

What they are doing makes sense especially if these individuals want their friends to play with them.

They have solid information about previous Xbox live users switching from Xbox 360 to Xbox one over the holidays and they want that persons friends list to also switch over.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In my mind Sony has been reacting (TLOU bundle, previous bundles after Black Friday) to the positive Xbox momentum.

You think Sony wouldn't have bundles if not for MS? It's a year into its life. Bundles are a given. I don't see anything outside normal operations. MS's momentum is largely irrelevant - Sony are outselling them. Only if MS start outselling Sony (longer than a two month spike) and clearly start eating into Sony's potential customers would Sony need to react. I'm not sure there's reason to think that many of the recent buyers aren't XBox fans just waiting for the right price. That is, before the consoles went on sale there was x million who were only going to buy XB and p million who were only going to buy PS. Whether that's three million or ten million is important. Given a market size of something like 80 million consoles in the US, which had 20 million XBox owners and 40 million XB360 owners, my expectation is a good ten million ish XB fans could be relied on to buy the new machine when it hit the right price and there's nothing Sony could do to win them over.

If I'm wrong and the XB loyalists only number a few million, than the rest of the sales are lost to Sony and they could do with competing better. But personally I don't think that's the case.