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

[Prophecy2k]

I have to agree with Rangers. I'm afraid to say I'm one of those shallow types that would have bought whichever machine was more powerful. I expected the new Xbox to be more powerful and was disappointed that it wasn't. I also hated the initial messaging (even if MS have subsequently done a lot to fix it).

Next-gen (assuming there is one), I'll do the same.

The masses don't really know what more power means in real terms, unless they are given some simple, easily understandable metric by which to make a comparison.

During the begining of last gen Sony marketed the PS3 as if it was the most powerful console, and yet on release it was clear that the console struggled against its rival in games. When one console got meaningfully worse games than the other, that was something the masses could understand.

Last gen it was the difference between 720p (X360) and mostly sub-HD (PS3). This gen it's the difference between 1080p (PS4) and mostly sub-"Full HD" (XB1) resolutions.

But price is actually the strongest factor for the most mainstream gamer, especially when 80% of the game libraries for both consoles is shared. And though some markets resonate more with brand strength over price (i.e. europe), the most significant markets (US and UK) still care more about price than any percieved power difference between the two boxes.

 

[Rangers]

Not true or $350 Xbox would be outselling $400 PS4.

Also last gen the difference between PS3 and 360 was arguably slim to none. PS3 had some inferior multiplats, but it made it up with great looking exclusives to arguably forge at least a power "tie" in the public eye. If not PS3 probably perceived by the layman as more powerful. I'd argue it wasn't all the way until Halo 4 that the best looking MS 1st party game equaled Sony's 1st party.

But for me it's still important to understand that it's competitive power was what allowed 360 to sell toe to toe with PS3 throughout the long gen. Of course there are other factors too, such as PS3's slow start brought by the high Blu Ray price. Sort of the reverse of the various negative issues affecting X1 launch period. But also remember Sony started with a position of immense power last gen, and not so much this gen.

For myself I wonder if X1 can start reaching resolution parity on more games going forward as they straighten out there apparently atrocious early SDK's. Evidence remains mixed so far, a lot of remasters seem 1080P but Evolve for example just came out at 900P, so far it seem the ambitious non-remaster titles are not hitting 1080 with regularity. And how the public will react with their purchasing dollars. For me while 1080P is a big factor, it doesn't necessarily change the fact that I know there is only 1.3 teraflops in my Xbox, and there should be more. I always point out the disappointment that I had had a HD 4890 in my PC since 2009, with as many flops as my 2014 purchased xbox one.

Ahh I miss those early glorious days of sussing out the next gen console specs when all was a mystery...lol. That was fun and at least 8GB was very very unexpected positive.

Anyways MS has favorable markets in the US and UK and can likely maintain a good foothold there, which will at least ensure constant 3rd party support which is the only real necessity.

 

[goonergaz]

I think the water is muddied by the fact X360 launched with no competition and PS3 launched alongside the Wii!

 

[goonergaz]

The graph is based on NPD results and shows that whilst X360 sold more (launches aligned) as I said - it had no competition yet PS3 tracks it faily well (consistently a bit lower sales) but was selling at a really high price against a really good priced and mega seller Wii

 

[Rangers]

360 did well against PS3 when the ecosystem involved all 3 for most of the generation though, so I'm not sure how that's particularly material.

And I look at the overall situation as the Sony missteps and $599, simply worked to help negate the massive advantage they had coming in to the gen off of 150 million selling, dominating, PS2. By all rights PS3 should have come in and dominated at least the core market, initial $599 pricing was one big factor preventing that, by the time things settled down Sony had lost much of it's incumbency momemtum advantage.

But again getting back to power being such an underrated factor, people dont remember but there was a time pre-launch when PS3 was this big looming shadow, and the very real possibility it would technically blow away 360 existed. The fact it didn't IMO, was as big a factor as any in sealing it's fate, if not the biggest.

 

[temesgen]

360 did well against PS3 when the ecosystem involved all 3 for most of the generation though, so I'm not sure how that's particularly material.

And I look at the overall situation as the Sony missteps and $599, simply worked to help negate the massive advantage they had coming in to the gen off of 150 million selling, dominating, PS2. By all rights PS3 should have come in and dominated at least the core market, initial $599 pricing was one big factor preventing that, by the time things settled down Sony had lost much of it's incumbency momemtum advantage.

But again getting back to power being such an underrated factor, people dont remember but there was a time pre-launch when PS3 was this big looming shadow, and the very real possibility it would technically blow away 360 existed. The fact it didn't IMO, was as big a factor as any in sealing it's fate, if not the biggest.

No they shouldn't have, the lesson from the previous generation as well as those before it should be that brand is not as important to gamers as the games. Price matters, power matters, games matter and brand not so much, MS thought LIVE was more important than price and power and in the prior generation Sony mistakenly thought brand was more important than it was. Gamers are a pretty fickle bunch, you'll get some who have to have Halo or UC but on balance gamers are more interested in buying third party titles and playing them on the best hardware at the best price.

EDIT:

I'll add for clarity when price and perceived power are close the 1st party exclusives and perceived value swing the ratio in your favor.

 

[goonergaz]

360 did well against PS3 when the ecosystem involved all 3 for most of the generation though, so I'm not sure how that's particularly material.

Well 1 year into the life of a console (when PS3 came out) you have several factors that work in your favour - you are established, so you've sold to a nice section of the market and word of mouth gets around - also there's the peer pressure of getting the same console of your friends.

Then there's the 2nd hand market (which also plays into the price) so you could get the console and a few 2nd hand games ves a brand new console with 1 or 2 games at substantially more.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Not true or $350 Xbox would be outselling $400 PS4.

I think part of the reason is that there are no must have games for Xbox One (or PS4 in my view) and that many consumers know Microsoft are selling less than Sony and are likely to do some more crazy deals down the road. We all know they're coming, it's just a case of when. Without a compulsive reason to buy now and with every reason to believe Microsoft will do some great value sale at some point, I think many people are just happy to wait until a great game converges with a great deal.

 

[Rangers]

Okay, updated my 360 vs One Gen over Gen charts. Made it in notepad and then took a screenshot. Dont know how to format it on the forum. In percentage terms, X1 is launch aligned ~32% ahead of 360 in the USA. You can see it's due mainly to holiday 13 where X1 wasn't supply constrained vs 360 that was, and November 14 where X1 had a huge 700k advantage. Beyond that 360 wins most non holiday months so far. I think MS marketing has grown to focus more on the holidays over time. I also noted from a GAF post, over time the month of November has been growing larger relative to December in NPD, and we see that.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Okay, updated my 360 vs One Gen over Gen charts. Made it in notepad and then took a screenshot. Dont know how to format it on the forum.

Code tags (insert -> code)

Here is some 
          uniformly
          spaced
          code

 

[Rangers]

I've tried that and it never seems to work quite right. It will always mess up something. Will experiment I suppose.

Looking ahead at the 360 vs One battle, One was able to gain a huge edge in holiday 14, however in holiday 07 360 was able to sell just under 3 million in September (528k on the strength of Halo 3)+October (366k)+Nov (770k) +Dec (1260k) 2007. So it seems unlikely One will be able to pull out a large advantage in the holiday months this year. It will more likely be closer to stasis. But then again I had forgot there is Halo 5 this year (but it wont be in September), so who knows. It seems most likely the One advantage will continue to shrink throughout 2015 (and will not be rescued by the holidays this time), but is large enough that it's in no danger of losing the lead for the forseeable future of 1-2 years, after which it's pointless to speculate, much like a weather forecast precision decreases rapidly. In percentage terms the lead should decline in 2015 though. Overall it should be noted the 360's sales strength was really in the late gen years of 2010 and 2011, where it sold incredibly strongly. Again those are so far off it's completely pointless to speculate though. One may even be replaced by then.

Also interesting that One is almost to 7 million in the USA already though. How time flies. After ten years 360 is 40 million+

Oh and as I always mention a similar gen over gen sales chart for PS4 vs PS3 would be an absolute bloodbath. It's a lot of work though so I wont do it.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Well 1 year into the life of a console (when PS3 came out) you have several factors that work in your favour - you are established, so you've sold to a nice section of the market and word of mouth gets around - also there's the peer pressure of getting the same console of your friends.

There's a number of factors involved that make comparisons to last generation rather questionable. First, the 360 had the year launch advantage and when it was released, it was the best gaming system available - except for the most expensive of PC gaming rigs. Second, there was an overall feeling that even when the PS3 released that 1) it would somehow eventually be more powerful than the 360 and 2) that both the 360 and PS3 were still the best gaming systems available except for the highest of PC setups. (That gap in PC power and console power closed significantly during that 1 year window between 360 and PS3 launch, but there was still a gap). Third, MS made a concerted effort to attack the PS2 user base during that year long advantage. They expanded beyond PC FPS players, by going after GTA IV and signing major deals with EA for the next gen Madden. Those moves clearly helped them solidify their NA market, but not so much globally, where PS still has proven to have an advantage.

This generation is different. Nobody is under the impression that either console offers the best gaming experience. At launch, even middle of the road PC's offer better performance. Pretty much anybody can pick up a PC at their local big box brick and mortar store, throw in some memory and a video card and get better performance than the Xb1 or PS4 offers.

There has been no "stealing" of exclusives, or push to sway fan bases from one console to another. And what we've seen is a rebound of the PS brand. It's due to price. It's due to higher performance. It's also due to the fact that a number of people switched from a PS2 to a 360 because of the effort by MS mentioned above, and those people have been more than willing to switch back to the PS brand due to price and performance.

MS has a competitive product, but they weren't able to build enough brand loyalty in the face of a $100 premium and a gaming performance deficit to stop PS2 users who switched over to a 360 from going back to a PS4.

Things would be very different if either the XB1 or the PS4 were also loss leaders like in previous generations.

 

[temesgen]

I think part of the reason is that there are no must have games for Xbox One (or PS4 in my view) and that many consumers know Microsoft are selling less than Sony and are likely to do some more crazy deals down the road. We all know they're coming, it's just a case of when. Without a compulsive reason to buy now and with every reason to believe Microsoft will do some great value sale at some point, I think many people are just happy to wait until a great game converges with a great deal.

if you look E3 (while its early) XB1 has more to talk about though... Sony just delayed UC4 and we're not seeing enough out of them particularly when you dig a bit deeper and look at how formulaic much of what Sony first parties are developing truly are now versus previous generations.

http://www.ign.com/wikis/e3/Games_at_E3_2015

 

[Deleted member 11852]

if you look E3 (while its early) XB1 has more to talk about though...

Why should what Microsoft might announce at E3 in June be a reason to buy an Xbox One now?

 

[temesgen]

Why should what Microsoft might announce at E3 in June be a reason to buy an Xbox One now?

It will help some who are on the fence decide, if both systems get the big third party titles and cost is comparable then what the first parties bring will be a deciding factor. The reason I own a PS4 is bc I like Sony first party offerings, the fact that this time around third parties (in theory) should be equal or better on PS4 is just an added bonus. Similarly there are some who feel the same way about MS and Gears and Halo and so on, rounding out the library makes an incremental difference. I will probably pick up an XB1 at some point but it will be because of titles like Quantum Break, Halo 5 and that Kinect Disney title. In the absence of titles like that I wouldn't have a reason to support the platform.

 

[Rangers]

Will this guy be able to juice X1 sales any?

http://news.xbox.com/2015/03/xbox-one-halo-mcc-bundle

I would think it's pretty possible. For me it would be much more desirable than an AC bundle. But I cant speak for the majority, perhaps plenty would prefer AC in their bundle. Plus they may like the idea of getting two games rather than one (or you could argue MCC is 4 games, I dont know!)

It doesn't seem available on Amazon yet. It is available on Best Buy's website, but all stores are showing 3-5 day wait. Gamestop shows "low stock" of it at all their brick and mortar in my area, almost like it's a bug rather than a real status indicator. I would guess it's just trickling into the wild?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It will help some who are on the fence decide, if both systems get the big third party titles and cost is comparable then what the first parties bring will be a deciding factor.

E3 is months away. Again, why should that fuel sales now?

 

[temesgen]

E3 is months away. Again, why should that fuel sales now?

I think its kinda hard to pin point when the first party exclusives would impact sales, it honestly probably works with price to help drive demand. Again I think many more titles will be announced for E3 hence why I said its early but it can't hurt.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

This generation has been a bit like an aging band releasing a 'best of' album. Lots of re-releases of quality games, just nothing really new.

Not that I don't like compilation albums - they're decent. It's just I like to hear new material from an artist. They spurn sales more than anything.

 

[DrJay24]

Will this guy be able to juice X1 sales any?

http://news.xbox.com/2015/03/xbox-one-halo-mcc-bundle

How many Halo fans are on the fence with the XB1!? I can't imagine that many.