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

[Shortbread]

Nice graph with the included price cuts and the targeted first party and/or key third party releases during specific months. Square2015 at GAF.

LTD:
PS4 10.8m [ten million barrier broken]
XBO 9.7m
WiiU 4.6m

 

[London Geezer]

So what are we betting on for end of year sales? 35M PS4? 20M XB1? I forget what the last count was.

 

[Shortbread]

PS4 35.5-36.5 million
XB1 18.4-19 million

 

[djskribbles]

Yeah I ended up around the same Shortbread. My guess is 36-36.5M PS4 and 19.5-20M XB1.

 

[ZhugeEX]

Hi All,

I wrote this out on a different forum but thought it maybe an interesting topic to discuss here as a number of people already seem to be discussing something similar.

As we are all aware, the PlayStation 4 is now more than half way through its second holiday season (excluding launch) and is on track to have a very successful year. We’ve just learnt that US sales for the month of November exceeded 1.5 million* whilst in Japan the console sold around 110,000 units**. Together these numbers are significantly up over last year and so I’d like to pose a question. Can PS4 sales this holiday match or exceed any of the PS2's first three holiday sales periods.

The second holiday for PlayStation 2 (Nov & Dec 2002) achieved record breaking sales for hardware and software sell through worldwide. In North America the PlayStation 2 sold through more than 4 million units to consumers during November and December, In Europe and PAL territories the console sold through more than 3.4 million and in Japan the console sold through 0.94m. Combined with the rest of the world, this led to a total of 8.5 million PlayStation 2’s sold through during the holiday period, a 24% increase over the same period of the previous year.

These record breaking sales along with holiday sales for 2001 and 2003 are written below.

PlayStation 2 holiday sales (Nov & Dec worldwide sell through)***
2001: 6.9m
2002: 8.5m
2003: 7.8m

The PS4's first holiday season was in 2014, Sony sold through 4.1 million units*** to end users between November 23rd 2014 and January 4th 2015. The console had been released in over 123 countries and regions at this time.

Now lets compare that to the PlayStation 2 which sold through more than 5.3 million units worldwide between November 26th 2001 and January 6th 2002. Of that number more than 1.1 million were from Japan and 2.5 million were from North America with the remaining 1.7 million coming from Europe & PAL territories. Of course including the whole of November then worldwide sell through totalled 6.9m as mentioned above.

I think it is fairly clear at this point, when looking at Holiday 2015, that North America will account for at least 3 million unit sales this holiday and Europe / PAL territories should be able to easily match and exceed that number. For Japan though I don't think it will be able to perform well enough and this may be one of the main reasons why holiday sales fall short of the records listed above.

So my question is do you think that PlayStation 4 sell through during November and December will be able to match or even exceed any of the 3 holiday periods listed above for PlayStation 2?

*Sell through figures according to The NPD Group
**Sell through figures according to Media Create
***Sell through figures of PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 2 are estimated by SCEI

 

[djskribbles]

My guess puts the PS4 between 8.4-8.5M, so I'm gonna say yes that the PS4 has a shot at matching the PS2's record holiday season.

 

[Globalisateur]

Do tell us @ZhugeEX. What do you think?

 

[ZhugeEX]

Do tell us @ZhugeEX. What do you think?

The holidays have always been very strong for Sony, and all platform holders really. It's always when we see a huge boost in sales and traditionally December used to take the overwhelming bulk of sales but in the past decade or so we've seen November and Black Friday become more and more important, even going as far as to take sales away from December. So with that said I still believe that December will be a bigger month in the U.S. than November but I'm not sure if we're going to see a huge increase like we used to during the PS2 era. So including Canada, I believe that sales in North America over November and December could reach 3.5 million units which would be remarkable. This would be up on PS2's 2001 sales of 2.8m during Nov & Dec 2001, but down on the 4m units sold during Nov & Dec 2002.

Europe & PAL regions have really increased their share this generation, and Asia is seeing huge growth in hardware sales compared to the PS3 and PS2 era. During Holiday 2001 the PS2 sold 2.7 million units in these regions and during Holiday 2002 the PS2 sold over 3.4 million. Both times the sales in Europe & PAL regions were less than North America. However I believe that the importance of these regions has grown in recent years and whilst PS4 holiday sales in these regions may not exceed North American sales, I would expect sales to be similar at the very least.

Japan was huge for the PS2 accounting for just under 1.2 million units during Nov & Dec 2001 and over 0.9m units in Nov & Dec 2002. Sales in 2014 weren't even close and were just over 200k iirc. I don't expect Japan to play any significant role in this years holiday sales and I don't much expect sales to be over that 200k by much.

Therefore I would say that it is very possible that Holiday sales for PlayStation 4 this year could exceed the 6.9m units that the PS2 sold in Holiday 2001. However I believe that the decline of the Japanese console market will be one of the reasons why the PS4 will not beat the Holiday 2002 record.

Then again I'm the same guy who said PS4 + XB1 wouldn't sell more than 2.2m in the US this holiday (they sold 2.8m) so I may be horrendously wrong again (haha)

 

[Globalisateur]

The holidays have always been very strong for Sony, and all platform holders really. It's always when we see a huge boost in sales and traditionally December used to take the overwhelming bulk of sales but in the past decade or so we've seen November and Black Friday become more and more important, even going as far as to take sales away from December. So with that said I still believe that December will be a bigger month in the U.S. than November but I'm not sure if we're going to see a huge increase like we used to during the PS2 era. So including Canada, I believe that sales in North America over November and December could reach 3.5 million units which would be remarkable. This would be up on PS2's 2001 sales of 2.8m during Nov & Dec 2001, but down on the 4m units sold during Nov & Dec 2002.

Europe & PAL regions have really increased their share this generation, and Asia is seeing huge growth in hardware sales compared to the PS3 and PS2 era. During Holiday 2001 the PS2 sold 2.7 million units in these regions and during Holiday 2002 the PS2 sold over 3.4 million. Both times the sales in Europe & PAL regions were less than North America. However I believe that the importance of these regions has grown in recent years and whilst PS4 holiday sales in these regions may not exceed North American sales, I would expect sales to be similar at the very least.

Japan was huge for the PS2 accounting for just under 1.2 million units during Nov & Dec 2001 and over 0.9m units in Nov & Dec 2002. Sales in 2014 weren't even close and were just over 200k iirc. I don't expect Japan to play any significant role in this years holiday sales and I don't much expect sales to be over that 200k by much.

Therefore I would say that it is very possible that Holiday sales for PlayStation 4 this year could exceed the 6.9m units that the PS2 sold in Holiday 2001. However I believe that the decline of the Japanese console market will be one of the reasons why the PS4 will not beat the Holiday 2002 record.

Then again I'm the same guy who said PS4 + XB1 wouldn't sell more than 2.2m in the US this holiday (they sold 2.8m) so I may be horrendously wrong again (haha)

Reaching 6.9m this year seems reasonable indeed, mainly thanks to PAL and Asia regions.

And about next year and reaching (or not) the 8.5m record, have you taken into account the promising PSVR? Maybe it could be just what the PS4 needs to match or beat the 2002 PS2 holiday figures.

 

[London Geezer]

Didn't Sony expect to sell 2.5M headsets next year? Did I dream that number it completely?

If so, PSVR won't be a huge sales accelerator. Sure, 2.5M more than this year is nice but that would mean one new PS4 for each new PSVR, which we all know is not what will happen.

It follows that the PSVR won't be able to increase PS4 sales by a great margin.

Or was it 10M? My brain is fried.

 

[ZhugeEX]

Didn't Sony expect to sell 2.5M headsets next year? Did I dream that number it completely?

If so, PSVR won't be a huge sales accelerator. Sure, 2.5M more than this year is nice but that would mean one new PS4 for each new PSVR, which we all know is not what will happen.

It follows that the PSVR won't be able to increase PS4 sales by a great margin.

Or was it 10M? My brain is fried.

Hi London Boy,

This number comes from IHS Technology who are market research firm. Their Virtual Reality and Entertainment report dated October 26th 2015 forecasts that PlayStation 4 will have an install base of around 37 million units by the time PlayStation VR launches and they predict them to hold 21% of the VR market by the end of 2016.



VR is still a new technology and can be very hard to predict whether it will be a success for Sony or not, another research firm 'Superdata' believe that the install base for PS VR could actually be much higher at around 3 million accounting for 28% market share.

Reaching 6.9m this year seems reasonable indeed, mainly thanks to PAL and Asia regions.

And about next year and reaching (or not) the 8.5m record, have you taken into account the promising PSVR? Maybe it could be just what the PS4 needs to match or beat the 2002 PS2 holiday figures.

It's hard to talk about next year at this point as there are too many unknown variables. Should PlayStation VR take off and the brand maintain its selling power then 2016 could be the peak year for PlayStation 4.

 

[ZhugeEX]

Also, just to clarify the above post. It seems the media has taken the report the wrong way.

The IHS report says that they expect sales of PS VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive to total 2.5 million by the end of 2016. Not that PS VR on its own will total 2.5 million.

IHS actually predict that 1.5 million PlayStation VR headsets will be sold next year alongside 560,000 Oculus Rifts and and 440,000 HTC Vive's.

So the Media has got this one completely wrong.

 

[Arwin]

I also don't expect a huge increase in PS4 sales as a result of PS VR. While it is theoretically possible that VR is a hit beyond the traditional gamer install base, the price of entry is then PS4 plus VR, and that will be around 700 at least. That is a figure that will not likely lead to massive sales next year, even if the content to sell it to the masses will be there at launch (which so far I am not seeing).

The PS4 itself is doing well though, and it will be interesting to see what games like Uncharted will do for the platform.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Nice graph with the included price cuts and the targeted first party and/or key third party releases during specific months. Square2015 at GAF.

LTD:
PS4 10.8m [ten million barrier broken]
XBO 9.7m
WiiU 4.6m

I'd like to see something similar for worldwide sales.

 

[Billy Idol]

This is really super bad. Sony dominating again is probably the downfall of console gaming. Without competition from MS, they just don't care and don't improve.

Meh. I hope MS crushes Sony next gen.

PS: PSN login is again down, so no online only Destiny. Boooo Sony, booo. There will be no PSN during holidays...because Sony is the most arrogant and incompetent bunch of monkeys around the planet.

 

[manux]

Even though psvr will likely not sell insane amounts it can be aspirational product that could affect people buying the basic 299 model. Which box should I buy? Is my choice affected by kinect, this game, that game, psvr etc. Next year looks like it will shape up to be the year of sony with all the exclusives + psvr. It might be very difficult for xbox to not fall more behind.

At minimum psvr will get ridiculous amount of free mainstream press that will affect the public impression of ps4. Depending on quality of psvr and vr titles this could be amazing or rather horrible for sony.

 

[DieH@rd]

The headset quality is non-issue, PSVR has been demoed very well this year. As for the quality of VR titles, that's another story. Base tech-wise, Sony cert will ensure that there are no framerate issues at least, and ESRB/PEGI will work on new definitions of ratings.

 

[mrcorbo]

Do we ever get attach rate info anymore? I'd be curious to see how game purchasing behavior compares this gen vs. last gen.

 

[ZhugeEX]

Do we ever get attach rate info anymore? I'd be curious to see how game purchasing behavior compares this gen vs. last gen.

This is the only comparison I have right now. But this is from last year so not very up to date.

Packaged software sales for PlayStation consoles (PS4 includes digital sales)
PS4 (14 months) - 81.8 million software sales*
PS3 (14 months) - 51.4 million software sales**
PS2 (15 months) - 49.8 million software sales***
PS1 (28 months) - 98.0 million software sales****

*PS4 cumulative hardware sell through was 18.5 million
**PS3 cumulative hardware shipments were 10.5 million
***PS2 first 7 months were Japan only, total cumulative production shipments were 14.95 million (Japan = 40%)
****PS1 software sales not available for under first 28 months, total cumulative production shipments were 13.5 million after 28 months.

Please note that packaged software for PS1 and PS2 is counted as a sale when the software disc is produced in factory and sold to Sony distributors, for PS3 the sale is counted when the software disc is sold to retailers by Sony, for PS4 the sale is counted when the software disc is sold through to the end user.

 

[Shortbread]

This is really super bad. Sony dominating again is probably the downfall of console gaming. Without competition from MS, they just don't care and don't improve.

Meh. I hope MS crushes Sony next gen.

PS: PSN login is again down, so no online only Destiny. Boooo Sony, booo. There will be no PSN during holidays...because Sony is the most arrogant and incompetent bunch of monkeys around the planet.