All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2021 Edition]

[eastmen]

The series s is selling extremely well and as christmas / boxing day or whatever draws down on it , it will only sell better. Parents will buy what's available and little jimmy who has an xbox one or a ps4 and wants a new system to play the new games well the best system is the one available. So to little jimmy is it better to buy a ps4 (if you can still buy them) or a series s ?

I already know people who have bought an s that are big sony fans and have simply told me they will buy the ps5 slim or ps5 pro when they become avalible. They gave up trying to find it and were able to get an s at walmart on the all access or whatever plan and are paying $25 a month for 2 years with game pass ultimate.

There is also the future. While we look at what traditionally happens with consoles we will see price drops and slim designs. The series s will always be less expensive than the digital ps5. The APU is much smaller , ram is slower and there is less ram. Power supply is smaller , the box itself is smaller , heatsink is less complex . When microsoft moves to 5nm the series s can get even smaller. The smaller and cheaper it gets the more it can pull from other crowds. Imagine if they cut the size in half with a fresh and were able to price it at $200 ?

The future is bright for the series s and if I had to bet it will stick around longer than the series x. I've said it before but I dont' see a refresh like last generation. I think because of the RT performance of RDNA 2 that both microsoft and sony will go with rdna3/4 and a new generation zen processor instead . Imagine a zen 5/ rdna 5 apu with 256 megs of infinty cache coupled with 24 gigs of gddr 7 in 2024/25. I could see MS releasing two systems. A high end at the $500/$600 range and lower end at $300. But hey get that original series s down to 3nm and perhaps it would be as small as the fire tv or fire cube and perhaps $100 by that point in time. It can play some games locally and some games streamed but also give you all tv apps you'd want. That's even before we get to portable systems. 3/5nm and MS should be able to introduce a portable console at the same performance level as series s currently stands.

 

[zed]

Eventually, developers will stop making games with the Switch and move on to its successor

Mate you are aware for a long time that a lot of the big crossplatform games dont come out on the Switch right?, eg the new COD or battlefield games are not coming out on the switch, They would love to release the games on the switch (extra money with that 80+ millions of users) but I assume they figure its just too hard to get the engine to scale to such limited hardware without severely compromising the game, you would have to tailormake the engine for the switch (and even then it will be crap)

The fact that the Series S is doing 50% is already surprising to me.

I did write it perhaps you missed, the Series S is readily available, I could walk down the road and pick up 10 in 5 minutes if I want, I can't do that with the series X, the series S selling better than expected is cause thats what you can get, imagine what happens when the series X becomes widespread available (perhaps middle next year)

 

[Johnny Awesome]

MS is betting everything on GamePass. These systems (and PC) are just delivery mechanisms for GP. The cheaper the entry point for people getting DX12U GP on their TVs/Monitors, the better, even for Sony PS4/PS5 owners if MS manages to make GP attractive enough.

My anecdotal evidence is that last gen hurt MS a lot, mainly because that was the generation that locked everyone into their respective ecosystems. No one wants to lose their existing friends/service/digital content etc...

Almost everyone I know is buying or trying to buy the new version of whatever console they already have. This is a huge advantage for Sony right now. Sure, there's some turnover and new kids coming into the market all the time, but MS almost has to have a cheap way of delivering GP to non-Xbox ecosystem people to try to break Sony's stranglehold. That's why everything is coming out on PC and that's why they're trying to get $150 boxes (XSS eventually) into the marketplace to try to deliver GP to non-current Xbox owners.

XSS isn't going to hold back the XSX any more than old $50 graphics cards are holding back $3000 rigs from running Cyberpunk 2077 in all it's glorious RT. At this point devs are used to targeting many more performance levels than XSS/XSX will ever be.

 

[goonergaz]

Yes, but having Mario and other Nintendo exclusives was not enough to make N64/GC and WiiU industry leaders. From my memory, the GC was competitive hardware when it came out, and the WiiU had the performance crown at least in the short time before the PS4 and Xbox One were released. The fact that the weak hardware was successful at all says a lot. Despite the vibe you get from forums, there are so many people buying a Nintendo Switch, a 720p machine, to play on their TVs that are likely all capable of doing at least 1080p and that says a lot.

?? when I said USP I meant the hardware - Wii was a success largely because of the motion controller - finally grandparents could play games and join in...then you had the Wii fit etc. Switch is selling to both the portable and home market - there's no "DS" so Nintendo are selling to both their markets with one product. If you want the latest Mario games you have no option...if they sold an underpowered box without something that people want it will fail (see N64 and WiiU). GC was reasonable h/w but held back by the decision to have the smaller disk which would make some games hard to produce without multi disks and therefore more costs. The worst thing for GC was the timing though - PS2 was a beast and launching along with Xbox after the N64 failure the writing was on the wall.

Instead some PlayStation exclusive games will be "shackled" by the PS4 due to their cross-generation targets.

Sorry if my post wasn’t clear enough, but obviously XSS is a generational shackle vs the PS4 which can be dropped at any time Sony see fit...hence I said 'seeing how it pans out' meaning when PS5 exclusives are not held back by PS4 but XSX is still held back by XSS.

 

[goonergaz]

I did write it perhaps you missed, the Series S is readily available, I could walk down the road and pick up 10 in 5 minutes if I want, I can't do that with the series X, the series S selling better than expected is cause thats what you can get, imagine what happens when the series X becomes widespread available (perhaps middle next year)

I get that XSS can do ok, I can see it being a great Xmas present for kids...but as you say, it's being reduced as we speak and freely available...hell, when XSX becomes available I recon the market will be awash with 2nd hand XSS...unless people stick them in the bedroom.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I get that XSS can do ok, I can see it being a great Xmas present for kids...but as you say, it's being reduced as we speak and freely available...hell, when XSX becomes available I recon the market will be awash with 2nd hand XSS...unless people stick them in the bedroom.

I would not be surprised if XBS sales settle somewhere between 2:1 XBS-S to XBS-X or 1.5:1 XBS-S to XBS-X as the generation goes on.

The price of the PS5 and XBS-X are unlikely to drop significantly during this generation due to more advanced nodes offering at best minimal cost saving after say 3-5 years, unlike previous generations where cost savings were both larger and arrived sooner. It may be that with the next nodes, there will never be a cost savings compared to older nodes.

This is then compounded by global supply issues for everything from copper (needed in all IC devices) to everything else that is needed in an electronics device which is driving up the cost of components for all electronic devices. It would not surprise me at all if both Sony and MS are currently selling consoles at a loss even if they weren't selling them at a loss when the generation started due to the massive increase in prices for components.

This means that XBS-S will continue to be the only affordable console for families on a budget.

Early adopters of any given console generation are the ones who are typically willing to pay launch prices for a console. As a console generation moves further and further from launch, you have fewer and fewer consumers willing to pay the initial launch price of a console, thus to continue to spur sales you generally need price reductions to maintain a certain level of sales.

Unless Sony and MS are willing to start selling at a bigger loss, I'm skeptical about whether either the PS5 or XBS-X can price reduce lower than say 350-400 USD this generation. It's possible, but I'm skeptical market conditions will normalize enough to allow it. I'm actually expecting global inflation to increase to a point where we end up with a worse global recession than we had in 2008 due to how much money governments are printing in order to try to prop up their economies due to pandemic related lock-downs and the domino effect that we are now suffering because of the lock-downs.

This will potentially end up making the XBS-S more attractive as the generation goes on once demand for the current gen consoles declines.

Just on a side note, I know quite a few lower income people who bought a PS5 or XBS-X for 1000+ USD by using the 1500 USD check that the government was sending out to people in the US last year while claiming unemployment benefits. Bleh.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The price of the PS5 and XBS-X are unlikely to drop significantly during this generation due to more advanced nodes offering at best minimal cost saving after say 3-5 years, unlike previous generations where cost savings were both larger and arrived sooner.

It'll be reductions in the cost of solid state storage and RAM that bring cost savings to this generation of consoles.

 

[iroboto]

I did write it perhaps you missed, the Series S is readily available, I could walk down the road and pick up 10 in 5 minutes if I want, I can't do that with the series X, the series S selling better than expected is cause thats what you can get, imagine what happens when the series X becomes widespread available (perhaps middle next year)

ehh. it may be that series S and PS5 are the 'bread winners', and MS and Sony respectively are waiting for the costs to come down for Series X and PS5 digital to produce more of those. I have a fairly strong feeling that specific supply chain costs make PS5 and Series S more desirable to produce at the moment in this type of environment (most margin) than it is to pump out Series X. I would have figured by now that if Series S stocks well and Series X is always out of stock, you'd ramp up supply to meet demand, that just hasn't been the case. The same with PS5, it's selling so well, they have no reason to really produce much PS5 Digital.

As per DSoup's message above, specific costs around memory and SSD are likely culprits in wanting to make Series S consoles over Series X ones.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It'll be reductions in the cost of solid state storage and RAM that bring cost savings to this generation of consoles.

Sure that may help offset some the increased cost of copper (up 50% since the launch of the current generation) which affects the cost of most components including SSDs, shipping costs (currently at an 11 year high for overseas cargo shipping), current TSMC nodes are having their prices increased (10% for 7-14 nm and 20% for 16+ nm) for wafer starts. Samsung and other semiconductor fabs are set to follow suit with similar price increases across the board. So it isn't just the SOC that will see an increase in manufacturing cost, but DRAM chips and NAND chips as well.

At least for the forseeable future there are no significant price reductions on the horizon that aren't more than wiped out by cost increases in other areas WRT to components, shipping and manufacturing. Basically I'm not currently seeing a way forward for any significant price reductions for the current gen consoles.

At best, IMO, perhaps in late 2023+ we might see costs come back down to 2020 levels.

Keep in mind that other industries are also competing for the limited supply of many of the components going into the current gen consoles whether in the form of wafer starts for SOCs, CPUs, and APUs but also wafer starts for DRAM and NAND chips. And they are also competing heavily for the limited overseas cargo capacities where fears of taxation or fines for petroleum use is also impacting cost of shipping and making many companies hesitant to invest in more shipping.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

I get that XSS can do ok, I can see it being a great Xmas present for kids...but as you say, it's being reduced as we speak and freely available...hell, when XSX becomes available I recon the market will be awash with 2nd hand XSS...unless people stick them in the bedroom.

well theres only currently 6.7 million xbox total, and say series S is 50% (though it did say 50% in some markets, I assume in total its prolly only 25-30% worldwide, prolly higher in japan, less in the US ) theres not gonna be that many.
Like I predicted last gen that kinect will get dropped, I predict this gen the series S will not see it out till the end of the generation.
Hell we've already seen games which run 60fps on series X but only max 30fps on series S, these differences are only going to grow the further the generation goes on when the series X gets pushed more (and no you just can't go "oh just reduce the resolution on the series S" )

 

[Rangers]

The series s is selling extremely well and as christmas / boxing day or whatever draws down on it , it will only sell better. Parents will buy what's available and little jimmy who has an xbox one or a ps4 and wants a new system to play the new games well the best system is the one available. So to little jimmy is it better to buy a ps4 (if you can still buy them) or a series s ?

.

So basically we already know Series S only sells when Series X or PS5 is not available, I'm not really sure how thats spun as a positive but yeah.

So yeah, currently when noone wants it as their first choice and it's the only thing left on the shelf, the series S will sell. But that isn't an accomplishment.

This will potentially end up making the XBS-S more attractive as the generation goes on once demand for the current gen consoles declines.

Just on a side note, I know quite a few lower income people who bought a PS5 or XBS-X for 1000+ USD by using the 1500 USD check that the government was sending out to people in the US last year while claiming unemployment benefits. Bleh.

Regards,
SB

Here's all you need to know: A series X digital for 399 analogue to PS5 DE should exist. If it did, Series S would look like a joke, and garner even fewer sales than now.

Thats it. It's really not even more complicated than that. Xbox has to purposefully nerf it's product line to prop up a bad product. I just cant even understand what they are thinking. It still stands a very good chance at costing them a generation they were in hardware position to win, if it hasnt effectively already done so. By confusing people and confusing the message that they have the most powerful console. The Series naming alone necessitated by the S is just absurdly bad, and is why the PS5 already captured popular zeitgeist. Because PS5 is easy for casual people to understand (it's the next PS4, literally) and also isn't a tongue twister.

well theres only currently 6.7 million xbox total, and say series S is 50% (though it did say 50% in some markets, I assume in total its prolly only 25-30% worldwide, prolly higher in japan, less in the US ) theres not gonna be that many.
Like I predicted last gen that kinect will get dropped, I predict this gen the series S will not see it out till the end of the generation.
Hell we've already seen games which run 60fps on series X but only max 30fps on series S, these differences are only going to grow the further the generation goes on when the series X gets pushed more (and no you just can't go "oh just reduce the resolution on the series S" )

I saw that 6.7 report. I dont trust any out of the blue hardware sales report (from a outfit I never heard of no less) with no cited sources. Meaningless.

They also spun the Series S as a success claiming it outsold x in "key markets". Of all the disingenuous crap.. As lots of comments pointed out, Series X is sold out everywhere, so simply more stock of S was produced anywhere it outsells X. And I dont know the current situation approaching the holidays with higher demand, but in many areas of Europe etc most of the year S never sold out. It's not a badge of honor.

It's going to be fun all gen watching people move the goalposts with the S. It's always going to be said to catch on at some future magical point which never arrives. Before release the excuse was "only hardcore preorder". Well we're now one year in. So I guess also the only hardcore buy in yr1. Next it will be yr 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and then into next gen people probably still wont give it up until the Series consoles stop production.

 

[Rangers]

ehh. it may be that series S and PS5 are the 'bread winners', and MS and Sony respectively are waiting for the costs to come down for Series X and PS5 digital to produce more of those. I have a fairly strong feeling that specific supply chain costs make PS5 and Series S more desirable to produce at the moment in this type of environment (most margin) than it is to pump out Series X. I would have figured by now that if Series S stocks well and Series X is always out of stock, you'd ramp up supply to meet demand, that just hasn't been the case. The same with PS5, it's selling so well, they have no reason to really produce much PS5 Digital.

As per DSoup's message above, specific costs around memory and SSD are likely culprits in wanting to make Series S consoles over Series X ones.

What are you even talking about?

There is not one reliable source showing S outsold X anywhere. If there is, please enlighten me. Every shady but credible numbers I saw, X was being produced in about 2/3 to 1/3 ratio over S. Since X sells out and S does not, X has likely outsold S by at least 2:1.

Next, we already know S does not sell out when X does. Literally everywhere on earth, this has happened over and over and over and over.

 

[zed]

I saw that 6.7 report. I dont trust any out of the blue hardware sales report (from a outfit I never heard of no less) with no cited sources. Meaningless.

Fair enuf, anyone can write anything, its the net afterall. I will say though it is from a company and not say you or I
https://www.ampereanalysis.com/
but who knows perhaps they are just BS'ing

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Sure that may help offset some the increased cost of copper (up 50% since the launch of the current generation) which affects the cost of most components including SSDs, shipping costs (currently at an 11 year high for overseas cargo shipping), current TSMC nodes are having their prices increased (10% for 7-14 nm and 20% for 16+ nm) for wafer starts. Samsung and other semiconductor fabs are set to follow suit with similar price increases across the board. So it isn't just the SOC that will see an increase in manufacturing cost, but DRAM chips and NAND chips as well.

There is no more than 100g of copper in current generation consoles, which is under $1 in value.

If the current model PS5 (at 3.6kg) were made of entirely of copper, it's value would be around $30. The heavier Xbox Series X (at 4.45kg) would have a value of $40 at today's copper prices. Assuming highest grade, 100% pure copper. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't worry about copper.

The way mass industries work is by buying up capacity for X years in advance, so Microsoft and Sony will have bought - probably increasing - capacity of RAM and NAND for the next X years at prices gradually reducing because manufacturing prices generally reduce over time. The current chip shortage will not impact the costs of consoles going forward because those prices would have been negotiated long before that crisis happened. Whilst the ship shortage may impact supply, it will not impact cost for Microsoft and Sony.

 

[goonergaz]

There is no more than 100g of copper in current generation consoles, which is under $1 in value.

If the current model PS5 (at 3.6kg) were made of entirely of copper, it's value would be around $30. The heavier Xbox Series X (at 4.45kg) would have a value of $40 at today's copper prices. Assuming highest grade, 100% pure copper. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Don't worry about copper.

The way mass industries work is by buying up capacity for X years in advance, so Microsoft and Sony will have bought - probably increasing - capacity of RAM and NAND for the next X years at prices gradually reducing because manufacturing prices generally reduce over time. The current chip shortage will not impact the costs of consoles going forward because those prices would have been negotiated long before that crisis happened. Whilst the ship shortage may impact supply, it will not impact cost for Microsoft and Sony.

Didn't Sony just remove a load of copper as well from the latest revision?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Didn't Sony just remove a load of copper as well from the latest revision?

I think the new model is about 300 grams lighter? The type of copper used in heatsinks is generally an alloy rather than 100% copper.

Copper is a fairly cheap metal so prices fluctuating really aren't a big deal.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Copper is a fairly cheap metal so prices fluctuating really aren't a big deal.

Where aluminum is 1/4th the price of copper by weight and even more than that by volume, but yes the value of consoles is not seriously impacted by the value of the base materials .

 

[iroboto]

What are you even talking about?

There is not one reliable source showing S outsold X anywhere. If there is, please enlighten me. Every shady but credible numbers I saw, X was being produced in about 2/3 to 1/3 ratio over S. Since X sells out and S does not, X has likely outsold S by at least 2:1.

Next, we already know S does not sell out when X does. Literally everywhere on earth, this has happened over and over and over and over.

I’m Referring to the supply levels. Bread winners means they don’t take a loss on it. It’s not about demand, it’s about demand at a price point. Sony clearly takes a larger loss on PS5 DE; and it’s possible MS take a larger loss on Series X. So they ratio the hardware release in accordance to whatever will result in less loss while they wait for the margins of the other devices to improve because they know during this period everything made is sold; so why not push out the ones that don’t hit your bottom line as much.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Where aluminum is 1/4th the price of copper by weight and even more than that by volume, but yes the value of consoles is not seriously impacted by the value of the base materials .

Yup, and copper-aluminium is a common material combination for heatsinks. Often the exterior is copper, or just copper-plated, and the core being aluminium. They blend well as an alloy too.

 

[eastmen]

So basically we already know Series S only sells when Series X or PS5 is not available, I'm not really sure how thats spun as a positive but yeah.

So yeah, currently when noone wants it as their first choice and it's the only thing left on the shelf, the series S will sell. But that isn't an accomplishment.



Here's all you need to know: A series X digital for 399 analogue to PS5 DE should exist. If it did, Series S would look like a joke, and garner even fewer sales than now.

Thats it. It's really not even more complicated than that. Xbox has to purposefully nerf it's product line to prop up a bad product. I just cant even understand what they are thinking. It still stands a very good chance at costing them a generation they were in hardware position to win, if it hasnt effectively already done so. By confusing people and confusing the message that they have the most powerful console. The Series naming alone necessitated by the S is just absurdly bad, and is why the PS5 already captured popular zeitgeist. Because PS5 is easy for casual people to understand (it's the next PS4, literally) and also isn't a tongue twister.



I saw that 6.7 report. I dont trust any out of the blue hardware sales report (from a outfit I never heard of no less) with no cited sources. Meaningless.

They also spun the Series S as a success claiming it outsold x in "key markets". Of all the disingenuous crap.. As lots of comments pointed out, Series X is sold out everywhere, so simply more stock of S was produced anywhere it outsells X. And I dont know the current situation approaching the holidays with higher demand, but in many areas of Europe etc most of the year S never sold out. It's not a badge of honor.

It's going to be fun all gen watching people move the goalposts with the S. It's always going to be said to catch on at some future magical point which never arrives. Before release the excuse was "only hardcore preorder". Well we're now one year in. So I guess also the only hardcore buy in yr1. Next it will be yr 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and then into next gen people probably still wont give it up until the Series consoles stop production.

1) the series s sells well on its own. There are a lot of people that have bought it because it makes sense in its price range. To some $100 isn't a big deal or $200 isn't a big deal , for others that can make or break a holiday or birthday or just your general budget.

My brother in law went with a series x in the living room and a series s in my nephews room. My nephew also has a ps5 digital at his mothers. My brother in law didn't settle for the s , i could have gotten him either console . He just didn't think it was needed. It replaced my nephews xbox one original

That's its purpose it allows MS to create more consoles for the fans at different price points. For $25 a month over two years you can get an xbox series s and game pass ultimate. Its an amazing gift and fits into a lot of budgets. Think about it, its only $10 more than just game pass ultimate and you get the series s. If your a parent and your kid wants to play on line your going to be paying for gold or ultimate anyway. Your going to have to buy them games. With that bundle you get access to all of microsofts titles and the console to play them plus streaming to your kids phone or laptop or what have you.

2) A digital X wont drop the cost of the console by $100 . So MS has to take a loss on the console. It may be possible later on with a micron drop or when yields get better but it wasn't at the time. I don't see anyone confused about the product line outside of the one and series branding. Last generation for half of it there was the xbox one s which was a lower end console and the xbox one x which was the higher end. Sony also has the ps4 and ps4 pro. I don't see that confusing people.

3) your complaining that series x is sold out and so selling a lot of series s's is simply down to stock. Well no shit that is one of the key benefits of the series s. The series s has the smallest soc , the least amount of ram and even its heatsinks are using less expensive metal and are smaller/ less complex. It's actually the perfect console for the chip shortage we are living through. All companies think it will go through 2022. So microsoft being able to make 2 or 3 series s consoles per series x is a big deal .

I am not sure what goal posts you want moved with the series s. Its always going to be the cheapest console. Its the cheapest to make. I expect when Sony gets to the $300 price point with the digital ps5 MS will already be at the $200 mark with the series s. The apu is much smaller than the ps5 , it uses less ram that is also slower I believe.

We are going to have to see what happens this holiday and next. I see on amazon the series s is sold out and third party sellers are selling at $370 and up.