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

[Rangers]

I dunno, I think Sony actually DO need to provide some kind of bundles/price reduction if they want to stay ahead in the US; Xbox One really isn't that far behind and it's got one of the largest entertainment franchises coming out in a few months (Halo).

I wouldn't be surprised is Microsoft pull ahead in the US by the end of the year. If that happens you'll be hearing an awful lot of PR coming from them. We generally hear an awful lot more about US sales compared to anything else and in the minds of a lot of people that could mean that Xbox is 'winning'.

Regardless it's all good for competition.

Will probably be pretty tough, I think PS4 is already 770k ahead, with July/Aug/Sep to go before holiday which MS won last time by 640k. So if we assume PS4's lead will grow by November, and we assume XBO will win holiday by the same amount, XBO wont forge ahead. So far July is not looking good on Amazon for XBO either. June sales were pretty healthy but it seems most new XBO bundles are the 1Tb 399 ones. MS is trying to stealthily push the ASP back up that I can see, but it may backfire on them eventually if consumers start to perceive the only good XBO bundles =$400, therefore the defacto price is $400, therefore advantage PS4.

I wonder if MS is trying to keep it's powder dry for a "temporary price reduction" blowout of $329 or even $299 on holidays. I think at least the former is at least plausible. The latter a stretch.

It's just as I predicted, with apparently somewhat underpowered hardware MS is in that unenviable position where the only real way to gain sales is painfully slash prices. "Cheaper" hardware costs way, way, way more. Billions more.

 

[goonergaz]

I dunno, I think Sony actually DO need to provide some kind of bundles/price reduction if they want to stay ahead in the US; Xbox One really isn't that far behind and it's got one of the largest entertainment franchises coming out in a few months (Halo).

I wouldn't be surprised is Microsoft pull ahead in the US by the end of the year. If that happens you'll be hearing an awful lot of PR coming from them. We generally hear an awful lot more about US sales compared to anything else and in the minds of a lot of people that could mean that Xbox is 'winning'.

Regardless it's all good for competition.

I don't totally disagree but;

MS "we are now marginally ahead of PS4 in the US"
Sony "we are now outselling XBO nearly 2:1 worldwide"

Kind of urinates on MS IMHO.

 

[goonergaz]

Will probably be pretty tough, I think PS4 is already 770k ahead, with July/Aug/Sep to go before holiday which MS won last time by 640k. So if we assume PS4's lead will grow by November, and we assume XBO will win holiday by the same amount, XBO wont forge ahead.

MS have their Ace to play this time though...it's possible a lot of folk have been waiting for Halo and the BC feature may just cement those sales this holiday.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

It's just as I predicted, with apparently somewhat underpowered hardware MS is in that unenviable position where the only real way to gain sales is painfully slash prices. "Cheaper" hardware costs way, way, way more. Billions more.

I completely agree.

 

[djskribbles]

My guess is ~15 million on XBO (I see even Zhuge on GAF is now estimating XBO is over 14 million, any sophisticated look at the numbers should conclude roughly the same). But the easiest way is just double LTD NPD which I think is around 7.5 million for XBO. The other method to try to check it is to assume 360 shipments=ps3 shipments for all the quarters MS hasn't reported 360 recently, and that concludes pretty much exactly the same thing, ~15 million.

PS3 did 400k last quarter for what it's worth. Compare that to my estimate 360 may have done as little as 240k this quarter. But I bet PS3 will come in more like 300k this quarter.

PS4 I haven't been keeping super up to date with. But we know it was at 22.3 million...and I forgot Sony actually gives us those numbers LOL. Considering they shipped 2.4 PS4 last quarter, then yeah 24-25 (maybe closer to 25) when they announce soon is a no brainer.

When I said 12.5-13.5, I meant actual sell-through. I estimated that the XB1 is between 13-14M.
Zhuge simply said 'over 14M'. If it were close to 15M, I tihnk he would have said so. But based on his data and estimates, it's simply 'over 14M'. My guess is that it's right around 14M.

I don't see why Sony will 'have' to do anything, WW the PS4 is trumping PS3 - from their PoV all markets are doing significantly better than last gen, US to a lesser extent, but they are close with XBO who are doing everything they can to keep up.

Sony have some good bundles coming up and whilst I fully expect MS to take the holiday Sony will have Uncharted round the corner.

I agree that they don't 'have' to, but I think part of them wants to keep the cumulative lead in the US... it's just good PR for them. I don't think they have to do anything crazy, just some good bundles for the holidays.

 

[liolio]

It's just as I predicted, with apparently somewhat underpowered hardware MS is in that unenviable position where the only real way to gain sales is painfully slash prices. "Cheaper" hardware costs way, way, way more. Billions more.

What do you mean by cheaper? The BOM / Performance ratio may not be that good but MSFT hardly cheapen out with 8GB planned years ahead of launch and a quite big SOC. A posteriori (when final spec for both the ps and the xb1 were known) it is easy to disagree with the decisions made and the direction the XBox team took with the design, now I would not define it as cheap they went through pretty crazy length with Durango, kinect, etc.

 

[DrJay24]

Shipping 14m is a lot different than selling 14m.

 

[Shortbread]

Shipping 14m is a lot different than selling 14m.

Agreed.

Sony, sold through 20.2 million units by the end of February... while shipping around 22.3 million units by the end of March. So, more than likely they had 1.3-1.5 million units floating around in the distribution/vendor/retail channels during that time period.

If I had to guess, given Sony's (PS4) success rate and still having that many systems available in the sales channels... I wouldn't be surprised if XB1 worldwide sales (sold through) is between 11.5-12 million units. With 2-2.5 million units floating around in the distribution/vendor/retail channels.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

PS4 could have done close to a million in February. I see no reason why MS would have more consoles in the channel than Sony, more likely the opposite. With lower sales volume the buffer needed is also smaller. It doesn't make sense or add up for MS to have that many consoles in the channel during this time of the year. They shipped 1.4 million Ones and 360's during the whole last quarter with maybe 2-300k of those being 360s. To have over 2 million units in the channel with that kind of sales volume simply doesn't make sense. A run up to the holiday season is another thing.

 

[djskribbles]

Yeah I agree, I think that 2-2.5M is a lot to have in the channel, especially for this time of the year, even with the introduction of multiple 1TB SKUs (Standalone, Forza LE, Madden, MCC etc.) plus old bundles still being sold. That said, I think there would be an unusually amount of units in the channel for this time of year for the aforementioned reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if XB1 sales were anywhere between 12.5-13.5M as I've said before. Somehow I feel the XB1 is ~13M sold and ~14M shipped.

 

[Shortbread]

PS4 could have done close to a million in February. I see no reason why MS would have more consoles in the channel than Sony, more likely the opposite. With lower sales volume the buffer needed is also smaller. It doesn't make sense or add up for MS to have that many consoles in the channel during this time of the year. They shipped 1.4 million Ones and 360's during the whole last quarter with maybe 2-300k of those being 360s. To have over 2 million units in the channel with that kind of sales volume simply doesn't make sense. A run up to the holiday season is another thing.

I agree it does seem like a lot... however, having a million XB1s in the channel for US/Canada and another million for the rest of the territories isn't that astronomical when you think about it.

Sony (PS4) on the other hand... is more than likely struggling with keeping up with production/demand, and keeping the channels supplied. And I believe on more than one occasion, Sony Executives have mentioned problems with meeting demand even after the holiday seasons.

Sony's monthly PS4 production is roughly 1-1.3 million units. And given that Sony has sold-through 20.2 million units by the end of February (within a 16 month period), Sony is averaging 1,260,000 units a month in worldwide sales (sold-through). And seeing that they shipped 22.3 million units by the end of March... that would put them at 21.2 million sold-through, with roughly 1.1 million floating around within the retail channels (at the end of March). So, PS4 will more than likely will be a little over 25 million units sold through by the end of July.

So, unless MS has seriously cutback XB1 production from one million a month to about 820k a month... then yes, 2 million floating around in the retail channels is too much. But if they didn't, 2 million seems about right...

 

[DieH@rd]

And I believe on more than one occasion, Sony Executives have mentioned problems with meeting demand even after the holiday seasons.

The last time they talked about this was after this last holiday season, although there were no completely empty shelves, only very tight store supplies.

 

[Rangers]

UK first half 2015 software sales!

Source: GFK Chart-Track via MCV magazine.

 

[iroboto]

Will probably be pretty tough, I think PS4 is already 770k ahead, with July/Aug/Sep to go before holiday which MS won last time by 640k. So if we assume PS4's lead will grow by November, and we assume XBO will win holiday by the same amount, XBO wont forge ahead. So far July is not looking good on Amazon for XBO either. June sales were pretty healthy but it seems most new XBO bundles are the 1Tb 399 ones. MS is trying to stealthily push the ASP back up that I can see, but it may backfire on them eventually if consumers start to perceive the only good XBO bundles =$400, therefore the defacto price is $400, therefore advantage PS4.

I wonder if MS is trying to keep it's powder dry for a "temporary price reduction" blowout of $329 or even $299 on holidays. I think at least the former is at least plausible. The latter a stretch.

It's just as I predicted, with apparently somewhat underpowered hardware MS is in that unenviable position where the only real way to gain sales is painfully slash prices. "Cheaper" hardware costs way, way, way more. Billions more.

Nothing to disagree about here, however I want to just make a small note:
Price drops are a result of reaching equilibrium: demand is low therefore the price must follow to match whatever optimal they can extract. Vice versa, if demand for the product increases MS will increase prices to meet that demand as well. Simple economics of course, but it pairs demand with price where you have paired performance for price.
Despite the performance disadvantage there are many actions that MS can take to attempt to generate demand, and if successful the price should go back up; as in if the device is sold out no one is going to wait for the price drop to buy again. People can be patient when the demand is low, but not when demand is high.

 

[DieH@rd]

@tombraider: Rise of the #TombRaider coming to Steam/Windows 10 early 2016, PlayStation 4 Holiday 2016: http://t.co/bLfCIzKdHO


We will have a lots of fun here talking about sales of this game. They stretched out its deployment a lot.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

@tombraider: Rise of the #TombRaider coming to Steam/Windows 10 early 2016, PlayStation 4 Holiday 2016: http://t.co/bLfCIzKdHO

I'm likely going to bag this on PC, not because I can't wait but because the post-Christmas period is usually more quiet and the remainder of this year (starting with Until Dawn and Dishonoured Definitive Edition next month) and jam packed and I don't expect next year to be any different! The Definitive Edition Tomb Raider was a welcome release early last year

 

[Globalisateur]

UK first half 2015 software sales!

2014 (deduced from 77,3% and 59,5% numbers):
PS4: ~1688
XB1: ~1441
1688 / 1441 = ~17%

PS4 sold ~17% more software than XB1 during first half 2014.

2015:
PS4: ~2993 +77,3%
XB1: ~2298 +59,5%
2993 / 2298 = ~30%

PS4 sold ~30% more software than XB1 during first half 2015.

 

[Rangers]

Yup. I calculated all those numbers too.

I wonder what the lineups looked like . Just one exclusive can make a big difference. Bloodborne maybe? I cant remember but it seemed like the only spring exclusive on either side. Although I dont think of it as a huge seller. Lineups in 1H 2014? Sunset Overdrive vs Infamous?

BrunoMB on GAF posted this

1H 2015 - 9,339,305
1H 2014 - 10,697,000
1H 2013 - 11,340,000
1H 2012 - 13,752,016
1H 2011 - 21,925,509 (as of July 16th, 2011)

Dat decline. Although I guess it's been somewhat holding to a slow erosion the last 4 years. I wonder how digital factors in. I think some on GAF say digital is not likely a big deal in UK as prices are relatively much worse on digital compared to retail vs the USA they claim.

Also that could just be down to handheld erosion vs mobile I suppose.

 

[fehu]

Actually I was expetting way worse

 

[liolio]

Actually I was expecting way worse

The sales ain't that bad though I suspect that the downward trend on sales may have a more alarming effect on MSFT execs even though they are unlikely to go public on the matter.