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

[zupallinere]

They lost the Hearts and Minds with their absurd drm demands, before they even launched, they completely missed the train on the TV TV TV hdmi in thingy.
And they have not and imho will not convince the gamers that kinect 2 adds value worth paying for. Which leaves them with a out powered expensive console that only can compete on price.

And they are behind on the included services as well.. E3 will really have to be mind blowing in order to regain ground, and Sony will have screw up badly on their E3 as well.

MS was certainly looking to doing 4 or 5 things at once with the "ONE" and they all seemed "synergistically" support each other. On paper the strategy was bold ... reminds me of "A Bridge Too Far" ;-) ... and based on what, say Apple does when it comes to their products, it also seemed quite doable. Now for such a masterstroke to be effective a certain level of dissociation from reality is sometimes needed to get over the "It Can't be DONE" mentality that get's in the way of getting things done.

Unfortunately they incubated in this "Can DO" bubble for a bit too long. They were crafty in leveraging technology and trying to create a sum greater than the parts but they ended up too ahead of the curve in some respects and a little too late to the party in others. This tension along with the price is making getting traction this generation more difficult than they were expecting IMHO. Based on the price and the money spent on exclusives early on in the process they were expecting to be ahead of the Sony by a bit by and were not expecting to look back at them again ... ever. Now that that strategy hasn't born out ( like a few other strategies already mentioned ) they only have one or 2 more moves left besides sticking it out and playing the long long game.

Price cuts stops the slide but hurts the bottom line. Doubling down on the Kinect/New Tech/TEH CLOUD may not stop the slide and will hit the bottom line anyways AND won't be a factor for quite some time assuming that they don't already have something waiting in the wings at E3. Otherwise it is steady as she goes ( Halo X and other exclusives to keep the faithful ever such ) until a cost reduced version ( diskless with some reworked architecture ) becomes feasible. Now a cost reduced diskless Kinectless version at $329 or maybe $299 could be crazy popular ( I'd get that one without another thought ) but if such a creature were to rise it would be with say Gears of War timeframe. I think Halo 5 will still be the final line in the sand for the full featured machine.

I don't envy them but I do enjoy watching them stretch themselves and hopefully come up with something interesting.

 

[dobwal]

First month launch sales aren't a good barometer. You'll have fans buying a system then regardless of long-term value. If the machine is considered none-too-hot by consumers in the coming year, it could see a very weak Holiday, just like Wii U which sold something like half as much on its second Holiday quarter. XB1 could sell anything from far more to far less this upcoming Q3.

Launch sales are usually something to call home about either. The XBO isn't tracking like the Wii U and it was able to sell 2 million console during q4 2013.

It took the 360 until 2009 and PS3 until 2010 to produce a better March NPD number, which means they were far off their launch price points and it wasn't a matter of supply.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

MS was certainly looking to doing 4 or 5 things at once with the "ONE" and they all seemed "synergistically" support each other.

It reminds me of the PlayStation 3 which became a confluence of ideas of technologies from other parts of Sony. The Cell chip (Sony's earlier interest was a single chip for their broadcast equipment and high end TVs) was taken over by SCE and Blu-ray was shoehorned in to help increase the user base of the format over HD-DVD.

In theory there was synergy, in practice it was more expensive than the competition and had features many gamers didn't want. Sound familiar? ;-)

 

[BoardBonobo]

“Congrats to Sony,” said Major Nelson in a thread on reddit, “As I’ve mentioned before, this is a marathon not a sprint and we know what we need to do.”

I don't want to get into anything specifically, but I do want to say, as we've said multiple times, it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Looks like everything's reversed this time around.

As for Kinnect. I'm not sure that anything they do with it now will change the perceived value of it. In order for it to be a must have gadget it had to come out fighting and that simply hasn't happened. People look at it and it's just as disappointing as the original was. The weaker hardware doesn't get justified by a fancy camera with the XB1.

Also it has to face the upcoming VR battle, if Morpheus arrives with compelling software and FB pour money into Occulus then there is going to be a lot of developer support for something that is, finally, at a place where it could work. Kinnect would face becoming irrelevant in the face of that when a fairly simple camera system like the PS4 has will cover the physical interactions, especially if coupled to something slightly more sophisticated like the Move.

Both vendors are going to bring compelling games to the table so that's not going to be a saviour. MS need to drop the price of the XB1 to below the PS4 and have a long rethink about the viability of kinnect when a much cheaper solution would be just as good.

 

[Shortbread]

If This Keeps Up, Xbox One Has A Big PS4 Problem

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsky/2014/04/18/if-this-keeps-up-microsoft-has-a-sony-problem/

As Paul Tassi wrote here in Forbes, Sony announced the sale of the 7 millionth PS4, which it turns out occurred two weeks ago. That led Microsoft to respond with a report of its own claiming 5 million Xbox Ones shipped to retailers. The careful observer has already caught the difference between sales and shipments, suggesting Microsoft’s number is soft.

But worse for the Redmond, Wash. software giant is the trend: Each month this year, Sony has sold nearly a million PS4s while Microsoft has barely shipped 400,000 Xbox Ones to retail. If we assume, perhaps generously, that Microsoft’s installed base is up to 4.5 million at this point and that the channel isn’t getting stuffed with unsold consoles (a trip to my local Costco suggests those Xboxes are literally piling up), Microsoft could have barely 8 million Xbox Ones in homes by year end.

While Xbox is a hugely popular product, it’s not an especially important profit center for Microsoft. Some have even speculated the gaming division has lost billions over the past decade. It’s easy to say, “Well, Microsoft should just trim $100 off the Xbox One and eat a billion in losses on the next 10 million consoles” but it’s not readily apparent new CEO Satya Nadella would see that as a good use of corporate cash (even though Microsoft has plenty).

Still, momentum has a way of snowballing. And right now, PS4 is not only outselling Xbox One, it seems to be outselling it by more and more as time passes. Microsoft will have to decide soon whether to do something about that or risk also-ran status.

In a nutshell, pretty much...

 

[-tkf-]

MS was certainly looking to doing 4 or 5 things at once with the "ONE" and they all seemed "synergistically" support each other. On paper the strategy was bold ... reminds me of "A Bridge Too Far" ;-) ... and based on what, say Apple does when it comes to their products, it also seemed quite doable. Now for such a masterstroke to be effective a certain level of dissociation from reality is sometimes needed to get over the "It Can't be DONE" mentality that get's in the way of getting things done.

Unfortunately they incubated in this "Can DO" bubble for a bit too long. They were crafty in leveraging technology and trying to create a sum greater than the parts but they ended up too ahead of the curve in some respects and a little too late to the party in others. This tension along with the price is making getting traction this generation more difficult than they were expecting IMHO. Based on the price and the money spent on exclusives early on in the process they were expecting to be ahead of the Sony by a bit by and were not expecting to look back at them again ... ever. Now that that strategy hasn't born out ( like a few other strategies already mentioned ) they only have one or 2 more moves left besides sticking it out and playing the long long game.

Price cuts stops the slide but hurts the bottom line. Doubling down on the Kinect/New Tech/TEH CLOUD may not stop the slide and will hit the bottom line anyways AND won't be a factor for quite some time assuming that they don't already have something waiting in the wings at E3. Otherwise it is steady as she goes ( Halo X and other exclusives to keep the faithful ever such ) until a cost reduced version ( diskless with some reworked architecture ) becomes feasible. Now a cost reduced diskless Kinectless version at $329 or maybe $299 could be crazy popular ( I'd get that one without another thought ) but if such a creature were to rise it would be with say Gears of War timeframe. I think Halo 5 will still be the final line in the sand for the full featured machine.

I don't envy them but I do enjoy watching them stretch themselves and hopefully come up with something interesting.

I think their vision was clouded (pun pun) by a focus on "cool stuff" that middle aged CEO's would think would be cool. TV and speaking to your TV.. WHAT!

Lets say that Microsoft actually tries to counter, for every counter they can think up Sony can more or less match it, save for burning billions. Diskless Console.. not a problem..they would still have the best hardware. Microsoft on the other hand would hurt themselves if they drop Kinect 2, it would be a bloody mess of PR burning down the original vision making the console seem as loser case instead of the second most popular console.

I find it hard to imagine they win this round, and in some way i think it's great for us, that will force them to release a new console earlier

 

[zupallinere]

It reminds me of the PlayStation 3 which became a confluence of ideas of technologies from other parts of Sony. The Cell chip (Sony's earlier interest was a single chip for their broadcast equipment and high end TVs) was taken over by SCE and Blu-ray was shoehorned in to help increase the user base of the format over HD-DVD.

In theory there was synergy, in practice it was more expensive than the competition and had features many gamers didn't want. Sound familiar? ;-)

Familiar ... try uncanny

History certainly seems to at least rhyme ;-)

 

[dobwal]

Microsoft on the other hand would hurt themselves if they drop Kinect 2, it would be a bloody mess of PR burning down the original vision making the console seem as loser case instead of the second most popular console.

MS would have no PR problem with removing Kinect. While Kinect is featured prominently in terms of advertising imagery. There is literally little to none at all when it comes to advertising the actual functionality of Kinect.

The XBO doesn't stop becoming an all in one device if you drop Kinect it just makes navigating a little less streamlined. Removing the HDMI-in would have a more drastic effect in terms of disrupting their advertising campaign for XBO.

Our discussions are very dominate market share centric. However, it doesn't seem MS decisions aren't heavily dictated by a simple desire to be the market leader.

They launched at a higher price.
They throw more things behind their paywall.
They've staggered releases with almost a year gap between tier one and tier two countries.

All things that have had a negative consequence on market share. All things that MS could have easily back tracked to improve marketshare potential, yet are still in place. Stripping out the always online and online dependency of the hardware was probably a far more arduous task than potentially dealing with anything described above.

MS's goals seems to be more profit oriented than market leader oriented. And unless the XBO starts tracking negatively to the 360 in terms of unit sales, I doubt MS is going to change its tune.

 

[zupallinere]

I think their vision was clouded (pun pun) by a focus on "cool stuff" that middle aged CEO's would think would be cool. TV and speaking to your TV.. WHAT!

Lets say that Microsoft actually tries to counter, for every counter they can think up Sony can more or less match it, save for burning billions. Diskless Console.. not a problem..they would still have the best hardware. Microsoft on the other hand would hurt themselves if they drop Kinect 2, it would be a bloody mess of PR burning down the original vision making the console seem as loser case instead of the second most popular console.

I find it hard to imagine they win this round, and in some way i think it's great for us, that will force them to release a new console earlier

I think of kinectless as just being optional but I understand there are many who think they are equivalent and have arguments to back it up. Just make the kinect part of Windows 9 and really push the issue

A new console earlier would be grand and of course force Sony to do something :smile: 3 years from now the specs will be in place for the next next gen depending on how the memory subsystem and compute are used. They will be up against well performing Steam Boxes or at the very least Windows 9-ish machines and I hope to see some interesting design choices based on how things pan out as far as game development is concerned. I mean I kind of expect a doubling or so of everything and stacked ram but who knows ??

 

[thatdude90210]

Wonder if "first to 10 million wins" still applies at MS.

Trouble with the Xbone is that without a subscription, it's essentially a single function - single player gaming box. The media functions are all locked behind a pay wall, even simple media functions like youtube that are readily available in $35 steaming sticks. At a higher cost than the PS4, the Xbone has to give at least equal media functions (without a subscriptions) to a PS4. Not give you less.

MS could easily keep multiplayer behind the pay wall, people are willing to pay for that. Make Gold more like PS plus by offering good free games. Make people want to buy a Gold account by offering more, not by cutting out simple functions.

But for the rest, the pay wall for everything business model might have worked in 2005. In 2014, where every company seemingly make a tv media box, that model is asinine.

 

[dobwal]

Wonder if "first to 10 million wins" still applies at MS.

Trouble with the Xbone is that without a subscription, it's essentially a single function - single player gaming box. The media functions are all locked behind a pay wall, even simple media functions like youtube that are readily available in $35 steaming sticks. At a higher cost than the PS4, the Xbone has to give at least equal media functions (without a subscriptions) to a PS4. Not give you less.

MS could easily keep multiplayer behind the pay wall, people are willing to pay for that. Make Gold more like PS plus by offering good free games. Make people want to buy a Gold account by offering more, not by cutting out simple functions.

But for the rest, the pay wall for everything business model might have worked in 2005. In 2014, where every company seemingly make a tv media box, that model is asinine.

Nope. We all know who is going to hit that mythical number of importance (more like irelevant). I think the PS4 is destined to be market leader.

MS strategy seems to built around serving the most lucrative gaming customers. If you online game, a bunch of other ancillary services sitting behind Gold is hardly going to upset you.

I don't know if MS has numbers that show that the majority of non Gold members don't contribute a lot to the ecosystem. But obviously if you are not a Gold member, you not going to get the opportunity to buy a $500 Netflix box without compensating MS in some form or fashion.

 

[Wynix]

@Shortbread; For a second there i thought you linked to that garbage Time "article".

Microsoft should cut to $450 with a bonus game and then focus on reducing costs and becoming profitable.
Attaining 30-50Mil LTD sales while making profits on every console.

 

[-tkf-]

It reminds me of the PlayStation 3 which became a confluence of ideas of technologies from other parts of Sony. The Cell chip (Sony's earlier interest was a single chip for their broadcast equipment and high end TVs) was taken over by SCE and Blu-ray was shoehorned in to help increase the user base of the format over HD-DVD.

In theory there was synergy, in practice it was more expensive than the competition and had features many gamers didn't want. Sound familiar? ;-)

The ps3 launch failed on so many levels that it's a miracle it ended up where it is now. The reasons you list are the least of them.

If it had launched side by side with the 360 it would have been different even at its higher price.

The xb1 doesn't have half the problems the ps3 had. It's just a different market and its features are simply not interesting for the current console generation.

Microsoft drop the ball, but they have every chance to pick it up, don't know how but I am not counting them out... yet

 

[function]

MS need to sell more consoles, and sell more consoles soon. It's that simple.

Games, price, image. They fucked up on all three, by design. They can fix all three if they're committed enough. Number of FLOPs isn't one of the big issues facing Xbone.

An enthusiast priced, suitcase sized (with briefcase sized PSU) "TV peripheral". Sigh.

Should probably stop there as this is moving away from sales and onto business strategy.

 

[DieH@rd]

MS has possibly "lost this year" and will most surely remain behind PS4 for entire generation... but their console wont be a failure. It will sell well enough.

 

[McHuj]

I really thought Titanfall would have made a bigger impact on sales. I think what's scary for MS is that there are no major releases coming up in the next several months.

I think at least in the US, if they can stay above a 50k weekly average from now until E3 that should be considered a very good success. Price drop at E3 and/or kinect castration (although that maybe too early).

 

[Wynix]

MS has possibly "lost this year" and will most surely remain behind PS4 for entire generation... but their console wont be a failure. It will sell well enough.

How well is "well enough"? Because if Sony gets aggressive and does something crazy like cutting the PS4 to $299 in Q4 I cannot imagine them selling enough to consider the console a success.

 

[Sonic]

How well is "well enough"? Because if Sony gets aggressive and does something crazy like cutting the PS4 to $299 in Q4 I cannot imagine them selling enough to consider the console a success.

"Well enough" is achieving a userbase that warrants widespread support from third parties. If they're able to retain a profit on each console and sell enough units where they make decent profit off of Gold subscriptions then they will be fine. If they're unable to gain a sizable userbase (which doesn't appear to be a problem when looking at sales, at least in the US and UK) then they're screwed. But if they can even gain 1/3 of the market then that's still many tens of millions of units over the course of the life of the console and that can be turned into quite a hefty profit.

 

[temesgen]

Hey thats what I think also yet temesgen was calling it a gamble? that the ps4 will sell more than 10 million in a year
OK perhaps it would of been 1st year
wii u 4million
xbone 30 million
ps4 6 million

if kinect somehow took off (killer app and all that) but unlikely, the demand perhaps would of been there but could MS have made 30million units in the years, thus that 40million figure would of had to shop elsewhere

I think there were real concerns about the core gaming market for Sony & MS after watching the decline in demand for Nintendo's next console and slow adoption of VITA. My question was no more than me thinking out loud and wondering if there were additional cost and potential losses if they got the demand wrong for PS4. IMO its entirely reason to think that perhaps Sony didn't want to assume the financial risk necessary to guarantee component supply >1M units a month.

Edit:

many here on B3d, myself included felt that the core design of the XB1 would struggle to gain market adoption at 499 with weaker graphics hardware, that said if I was a corporate buyer for Best Buy I doubt I would have put that hunch on the number of units I purchased from MS last November.... Forecasting demand is not for the faint of heart even if in retrospect it seems like a 'no brainer'....

 

[Rangers]

I really thought Titanfall would have made a bigger impact on sales. I think what's scary for MS is that there are no major releases coming up in the next several months.

I think at least in the US, if they can stay above a 50k weekly average from now until E3 that should be considered a very good success. Price drop at E3 and/or kinect castration (although that maybe too early).

Yeah, there should be, luckily for MS, just one, possibly pretty bad NPD before E3 and whatever megatons happen there. The April NPD that should be due around mid-May, especially if the $449 deals go away (currently I see it at Best Buy, Amazon, and Wal Mart, but not at Target or Gamestop).

People overreact to NPD on a vast scale every single month regardless who won. Hell PS3 took a beating in NPD for eons but still managed to do pretty well worldwide. Currently, it's like every month many rush to declare XOne forever doomed, which is kinda laughable, but, it's the nature of the beast I guess. It's just like sports if Kevin Durant has one great game last night or if one particular team is currently on a hot streak, he is the best player or the team is surely going to win the championship this year. Prisoner of the moment is one term for it. Although I'm sure I'm plenty guilty as well, and nobody likes disecting NPD's more than I do.

I guess I can see both sides, there's a lot worrisome for X1, but OTOH 311k, and the 2nd best selling console/handheld out of 7 or 8 (PS4/X1/360/PS3/Wii/Vita/3DS/WiiU), isn't horrible, either.