Average Joe's criteria when buying a console

[hey69]

the explenation about halo is only bought by 22% of the xbox population doesnt hold ver well. I often buy used games and sell them back again. especialy with new expensive games like the xbox360 launchtitels.
you should reconsider the 22% and make that 50% of the xbox population.
(yes maybe 22% bought the game but maybe more then 50% actually also PLAYED the game)
and that goes for a lot of games not only halo off course. So yes if you have 1/4th of your userbase who bought a game, that means that game influenced a lot .

 

[Predaking D78]

It seems that price will always be the factor that carries the most weight, when people are choosing a console. Or, more so, a price per feature based equation.

Honestly, I can't recall any past console with a high MSRP that had major brand recognition or a feature set that made me debate purchasing it over the mainstream console offerings.

But I think that gamers now have a different set of values when choosing a gaming system. Growing up I felt thats good game mechanics defined a game's style. Now a days, it seems the other way around.

 

[Huh?]

IMO, it's marketing, or giving the customer what they want.

Xbox:
MS marketed Xbox to "Hardcore Gamers", and this emmidiately turned parents off. They do not want little bobby turning into a hardcore gamer. The word hardcore is also used a lot when talking about porn and Mommy doesn't want bobby playing with porn. On top of this, MS marketing department is labeling it's customers as "Hardcore" instead of "Smart" or *gasp* "A Valued Customer". The Xbox also had that X-Files/X-Treme look to it that turned people off as well. I have no problem with the size of the thing, very few people did. It was the look of it and the overall shape/design/green X that turned people off. No one cared about Xbox LIVE, especially parents and the average joe. It's free on PC, free on PS2, and was even free on the Dreamcast. Also where were the games? PS1 was the big previous seller, so unless the Xbox gets Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo, and the long long list of games that were on PS1 that would undoubtedly be on PS2 the average gamer didn't care. I don't think the average gamer cared about the Xbox being more powerful either. Other than DOA3 it didn't do much to prove itslef early on. PS2 has MGS2 that more than blew everyone away, it would take more than "she kicks high" to really look a leap beyond Metal Gear and Gran Turismo.
*I could go on, but I won't.

PS2:
PS1 had the games people wanted to play so people "assumed" the PS2 would be the same. It would have all the big name games from PS1. It didn't matter that it was "Sony" it mattered that it was "Playstation". It also served/serves as a decent DVD player. I know enthusiasts want to laugh, but we are talking about the general public that buys High Def TV's and doesn't even know that you actually need to use Component cables to get High Def. Those people, the majority, are simply using the video cable that came packaged with thier PS2, so even if they bought a standalone DVD player they aren't going to see a difference. The controller, again PS1, was also a very good peice of hardware. It had a very functional design. Doesn't matter if Xbox or GC had a better controller or not. The PS1 had the design people enjoyed, and the PS2 was a nice upgrade. Free Online was nice too, the general public don't buy games to play online anyway unless it is an MMORPG. There also wasn't enough BroadBand out there in homes to warrant Sony creating something like Xbox LIVE. When average joe asks about online he hears PS2 = Free, Xbox = Not Free.
*I could go on, but again, I wont.

GC:
Did surprisingly well considering the N64 wasn't a big success. Nintendo has so many mascots that, they sell anything Nintendo makes. Mario, Zelda, etc, etc, etc..
Not much else to say really, RE4 was/is the greatest thing ever, but it didn't sell as well as it should have on the GC.

Next Gen:
PS3

Same thing, PS2 had all the great PS1 franchises and even created some new ones. The PS3 isn't marketing itself to "Hardcore" gamers or "People that play online" it is simply marketing itself to "people who like to play video games", and that is all. I see history repeating itself as long as Sony gets the developer support it needs. The general public doesn't care that it has a HDD as standard or BluRay or whatever. The point is that the PS3 is marketed to the broadest range of people, has a proven lineup of franchised games, and is backwards compatible(yes it matters). I do think it will sell rather slow the first year, ofcourse it will sell out but it won't be as frenzied as PS2, mainly because Sony wants that. If you think about it, why sell the PS3 for $299? You will never make them fast enough, you will lose a ton of money, and you instantly kill the PS2 lifecycle all with one stone. Selling it for $500-$600 will make casuals think twice, (casuals being PS2 owners) cause you to actually make money or atleast loose less money, be closer and meeting demand, and lengthen the PS2 (Money Maker) life a little longer. By the time all the "hardcore" and "early adopters" have bought their share Sony can drop the price a little and let the "casuals" buy them.

whew, i'm done..

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering it's already been shown in this thread that they gave 2 different sets of numbers, and one of those numbers has 2 different dates attributed to it, perhaps you might like to rethink your claim that they are reliable.

I claimed they're reliable when provide with reliable sources! Where you don't have a source that you can verify, you can't take a value as fact other than if there's no other info, it's something to work with.

Let's look at your own figures. Roughly 20 million to 24 million, right? Of course the 24 million is 3 months older than the 20 million figure, so let's do this.

Now, the Gamecube had around 20 million systems sold. 25% of 20 is 5. 5 plus 20 is 25, which puts us about where the Xbox would be.

Mmmm, massaging figures . GC had nearer 21 million, unless you always round down. Now let's look at the MS figure. They only need 1 million more, if that 24 million figure was right, which as you've pointed out is unreliable. So you're comparing a known, official figure of GCs against a random figure from XB sales, adding a bit of speculation, to prove your point.

Let's go back to the beginning shall we. You said XB had a 25% advantage. You presented no evidence at all to support this. I went looking for some info on the matter to see for myself what the case was. A quick Google didn't find me anything on XB worldwide sales other than a Wiki figure, which we know isn't absolute, but it seems the best we have - 24 million for Q2 '06. Now to end this debate, just present official figures that MS has in the region of 26 million XBs out there, 25% more than GCs 20.85 million. That's all you need, and case closed. Until then, the only figures we have suggest a smaller lead, and I'm not willing to believe your unsubstantiated figure of 25% over an unsubstantiated figure of 24 million consoles at the Wiki when I beleive there's more research done there then you bothered with (seemingly you did no research and just picked a 25% figure out of thin air).

And in fact there's a link to MS's financials PPT on this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Current_generation_era

A direct link
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/FY06/MSFTQ2_06.ppt

So that approximate 24 million figure is official as of 26th January 2006. That gives 2 months to sell 2 million units to get to 25%. How well is XB selling? I found this...

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11067
In Feb and March, XB increased by about 160,000 units in the US. GC increased 120,000. How much lead did XB get selling in the rest of the world? A bit more digging...
http://videogamecharts.com/page2.html

Worldwide sales from Launch to 31st March 06
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]PS2      103,690,000
Xbox      24,400,000
GameCube  20,850,000
Xbox 360   3,200,000
PSP       17,030,000
DS        16,730,000[/COLOR][/SIZE]

That's a 17% lead still.

 

[hey69]

wow more PSP then DS .. psp sells great(er) outside of japan then

 

[_xxx_]

Here in Germany, everyone and his mother bought one.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

wow more PSP then DS .. psp sells great(er) outside of japan then

Looks that way. Of coure these are for 31 March, and since DS lite I wouldn't be surprised if DS has snuck ahead. But PSP is doing alright for itself, especially considering it still isn't as strong on the software and functions front as it's supposed to be.

 

[aselto]

Microsoft & Sony - shipped units
Nintendo - sold units
NDS actually sold better then PSP.

 

[hey69]

whats up with those retard comments ..

yeah we now, nintendo is the holy spirit and make consoles and games ffor charity

 

[TheChefO]

PS3

Same thing, ...it is simply marketing itself to "people who like to play video games", and ... [Rich people / people who don't care about their credit score]

Thought I'd fix that for ya

Seriously great post - well thought out. I dissagree with a few points but mostly your last paragraph. This is assuming Sony actually has some control over how much they can sell the ps3 config for. The BOM for current ps3 configurations will not allow Sony to sell ps3 for $300 any time soon. By aggressive estimations I would place ps3 at $300 in May, 2008.

So by your theory they are going to attempt to milk ps2 for a few more years. 'Good luck with that' I say, as I imagine most gamers don't want to play madden 2008 on their ps2 as I suspect they might be running into mechanical issues by then if not desiring a bit of an upgrade. Maybe I'm wrong though. We'll see!

 

[London Geezer]

Nice try but he's not ranting about anything. He's pointing out that 3/4 of XBOX owners don't own Halo, so anyone claiming the 'only' reason XBOX sold 24million units is Halo is full of it.

... wait... So if Halo1/2 sold around 12 million together, how is that 1/4 of the userbase, considering that the userbase is around 24M? Even considering that most of the Halo2 buyers bought Halo before it, that's still a lot more than any other game Nintendo has released in this generation, unless i'm missing something.

Saying that Halo didn't help selling Xbox's is absolutely the most out-of-this-world thing you guys have ever come up with in your quest to try to show how the Xbox actually had a good library of games...

My initial statement was:

The xbox outsold the GC because of that little baby called Halo. And even then, it's not like it outsold it by much.

Meaning that Halo (the franchise) helped the Xbox A LOT. Denying that just to try to prove that the Xbox had a "nice library" compared to the competition is pure ******ism at its best. Even at 1/4, it's still a whole lot! What game ever took 1/4 of a console's userbase?! Probably the Mario's, and the Sonic's, but there aren't that many more... Without Halo, the Xbox would have been another 3DO, whether the aficionados like it or not.

Where did you ever got that "the xbox ONLY sold because of Halo" from my statement??? Halo was the game that made the Xbox noticeable, and helped MS getting other good games, and showed to the masses what the Xbox was capable of.

 

[Refreshment]

First off, only about 20% of Xbox owners have Halo. 22-23% have Halo 2. So 75-80% of Xbox owners weren't influenced by Halo. The real saving grace of the Xbox wasn't Halo, it was Splinter Cell. Splinter Cell was the game that proved a high quality 3rd party game could sell very well on the Xbox, and once 3rd party developers had that proof many more of them were willing to support the Xbox system. That increased support led to a larger and higher quality game library, which resulted in more consumer support.

Please anyone correct me if im wrong, but can you make a claim like this, leaving the piracy factor. I think it has to count for something.

Maybe im crazy but one could think that xbox modding was a significant factor that contributed to xbox saling more than GC.

We know anecdotes of one person having 1 xbox for Live and another for
pirated games and media functions. I mean for a 150, you could get an Xbox and modified to serve a good amount of useful functions. Thats a bargain.

 

[Powderkeg]

I claimed they're reliable when provide with reliable sources! Where you don't have a source that you can verify, you can't take a value as fact other than if there's no other info, it's something to work with.

Well, they don't have a verifiable source.

Mmmm, massaging figures .

No more than you with your 3 month difference in sales.

GC had nearer 21 million, unless you always round down. Now let's look at the MS figure. They only need 1 million more, if that 24 million figure was right, which as you've pointed out is unreliable. So you're comparing a known, official figure of GCs against a random figure from XB sales, adding a bit of speculation, to prove your point.

I notice you added your own bit of speculation by using 360 sales figures from 2005 and GC sales figures from March 2006, and then based your math on that.

Let's go back to the beginning shall we. You said XB had a 25% advantage. You presented no evidence at all to support this. I went looking for some info on the matter to see for myself what the case was. A quick Google didn't find me anything on XB worldwide sales other than a Wiki figure, which we know isn't absolute, but it seems the best we have - 24 million for Q2 '06. Now to end this debate, just present official figures that MS has in the region of 26 million XBs out there, 25% more than GCs 20.85 million. That's all you need, and case closed. Until then, the only figures we have suggest a smaller lead, and I'm not willing to believe your unsubstantiated figure of 25% over an unsubstantiated figure of 24 million consoles at the Wiki when I beleive there's more research done there then you bothered with (seemingly you did no research and just picked a 25% figure out of thin air).

And in fact there's a link to MS's financials PPT on this page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Console_wars#Current_generation_era

A direct link
http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/FY06/MSFTQ2_06.ppt

So that approximate 24 million figure is official as of 26th January 2006.[/quote]

WRONG.

The presentation is dated January 26th, but it clearly states it's a fiscal year Q2 2006 report, and MS's Q2 ended December 31, so not one single system sold in 2006 is included.

And yes, that is an APPROXIMATE figure, unless you think MS timed their production so perfectly that the last system to roll out the door on December 31, 2005 was number 24 million.

That gives 2 months to sell 2 million units to get to 25%. How well is XB selling? I found this...

http://forum.pcvsconsole.com/viewthread.php?tid=11067
In Feb and March, XB increased by about 160,000 units in the US. GC increased 120,000. How much lead did XB get selling in the rest of the world? A bit more digging...
http://videogamecharts.com/page2.html

Worldwide sales from Launch to 31st March 06
[SIZE=2][COLOR=#000000]PS2      103,690,000
Xbox      24,400,000
GameCube  20,850,000
Xbox 360   3,200,000
PSP       17,030,000
DS        16,730,000[/COLOR][/SIZE]

That's a 17% lead still.

And more number massaging by you. Conveniently left out the January sales, didn't you?

And as for the reliability of those numbers, I sure would like to see their source since the PS2 figure is about 7 million lower than what Sony said they shipped by November of 2005.

http://english.people.com.cn/200512/02/eng20051202_225266.html

Somehow I doubt Sony managed to sell any of those 7 million systems in 5 months, especially considering 1 of those months was December where they sold over a million PS2's in the US alone.







Now, let's be a bit more realistic, shall we?

MS hasn't released any official Xbox sales since December 2005. At that time they had at least 24 million systems shipped, and have had a full 6 months worth of sales since. We know it's been averaging about 85k systems sold per month in the US, and is completely dead in Japan. I think it's safe to assume it's European sales are closer to the US than to Japan.

Figure about 25 million systems shipped by now. Yes, it's an estimate, but it's closer to right than anything you've said which completely ignored 2006 sales.

Official numbers from Nintendo show 20.61 million shipped as of December 2005, and 20.85 shipped 3 months later. In otherwords, they only shipped about 240,000 systems in 3 months. Extend that another 3 months and we would get roughly 21.09 million systems shipped. Since this is also an estimate we will call it 21 million for simplicity sake.


End result is about a 20% difference, which ironically is right in the middle of my 25% estimates and your own 15%, making me no more wrong than you. And as far as I'm concerned 20% better sales still doesn't classify as "not outselling your competition by much" which was my original point of contention.

Can you accept those numbers now?

 

[scooby_dooby]

Meaning that Halo (the franchise) helped the Xbox A LOT. Denying that just to try to prove that the Xbox had a "nice library" compared to the competition is pure ******ism at its best. Even at 1/4, it's still a whole lot! What game ever took 1/4 of a console's userbase?! Probably the Mario's, and the Sonic's, but there aren't that many more... Without Halo, the Xbox would have been another 3DO, whether the aficionados like it or not.

What are Grand Turismo sales at right now for PS2? ~25million? Shucks...that's around 1/4. The point is each console has own games that initially make the system, for XBOX in 2001 it has Halo, for PS2 it was MGS2 and GT3 what's your point?

Here's what you need to understand: XBOX does have a good game library. *shock*

Maybe read that one more time, it's something I don't think you realize. That's the reason it was able to sell 1.1million in Dec 2003 with no Halo, it's the reason why it surpassed PS2 in the US for 5 months in 2004. Sure you won't be playing KH2, but not everyone is into japanese games.

Maybe in 2001 your statement would have been valid, but in the years following XBOX amassed tons of great games.

BTW: who's denying anything, maybe you missed my last post:
No one is saying Halo didn't move systems, obviously it did, but this claim they only bought it to play Halo is garbage

 

[London Geezer]

BTW: who's denying anything, maybe you missed my last post:
No one is saying Halo didn't move systems, obviously it did, but this claim they only bought it to play Halo is garbage

I never said they only bought it for Halo, i said:

Halo was the game that made the Xbox noticeable, and helped MS getting other good games, and showed to the masses what the Xbox was capable of.

 

[scooby_dooby]

Like any big launch game. You claimed the sole reason it outsold GC was Halo, as if to say the only good game it had was Halo, if this were true the percentages would be much higher.

I can just agree that Halo was extremely important, and without it the XBOX may never have recieved enough momentum to become the complete game system it eventually did in it's later years. However you have to recognize the fact that the millions of people buying XBOX later in it's life did not necessarily care about Halo at all, it had many other desireable games and it's power was a huge selling point.

 

[TheChefO]

The xbox outsold the GC because of that little baby called Halo(and it's influence on the market)

Fixed then!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No more than you with your 3 month difference in sales.

That was an oversight I've admitted to. I forget to take into acount Q2 06 is different when it's financial year, seeing Q2 06 to mean end of May, something that appears also in later investigation...

WRONG.

The presentation is dated January 26th, but it clearly states it's a fiscal year Q2 2006 report, and MS's Q2 ended December 31, so not one single system sold in 2006 is included.

You're right. My oversight again on the Financial Year malarkins.

And more number massaging by you. Conveniently left out the January sales, didn't you?

Repeat, confusion on FYs.

And as for the reliability of those numbers, I sure would like to see their source since the PS2 figure is about 7 million lower than what Sony said they shipped by November of 2005.

Which is the fundamental problem in trying to talk about figures when they're hard to come by. The site owner explains they're consolidated figures based on research. I think they're as good as anyone's going to get given the way figures are (not) collected. And I'd like to see where your Sony numbers come from (again you're leaving out sources! ). As of Nov 30th, Sony were reporting 100 million PS2's shipped http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=130333

MS hasn't released any official Xbox sales since December 2005. At that time they had at least 24 million systems shipped, and have had a full 6 months worth of sales since. We know it's been averaging about 85k systems sold per month in the US, and is completely dead in Japan.

That site linked to shows US sales of XB dropping dramatically, down to 26k in May versus 33k for GC in the US (these'll be NPD numbers). So it's not safe to think XB has grown a million over the 6 months of this year.

Figure about 25 million systems shipped by now. Yes, it's an estimate, but it's closer to right than anything you've said which completely ignored 2006 sales.

From 24 million at Dec '05, and at best it looks like half a million more by June '06 (that site lists 24.4 million, the guy doing the leg work of adding up available figures for us, so I see it fair to take them as valid).

Official numbers from Nintendo show 20.61 million shipped as of December 2005, and 20.85 shipped 3 months later.

Nintendo's figures are invariably sold, not shipped, which adds more confusion, as Ninty's figures tend to be below everyone else's it seems . But AFAICS that site lists sold units at retail, rather than shipped figures. Sketcher info though.

In otherwords, they only shipped about 240,000 systems in 3 months. Extend that another 3 months and we would get roughly 21.09 million systems shipped. Since this is also an estimate we will call it 21 million for simplicity sake.

From Jan 06 to June 06, in the US XB sold 326,000 and GC sold 267,000. In Japan, GC sold 49,000, XB sold 1,450. Europe's an unknown, but it looks like GC manages about three quarters GC sales to XB sales. The difference will be a couple hundred thousand XBs sold the last 6 months than GCs, going by those numbers. It looks like your estimations are adding an extra half a million XBs to the pool. This is a problem with extrapolating data linearly in systems where such a relationship doesn't occur and why it's best to use measurements instead if you have the chance.

Can you accept those numbers now?

I can accept your argument, which is all I wanted - some justification for your numbers. I'm not happy with spurious metrics spouted on forums as part of someone's POV. If a POV is based on numbers, there ought to be some justification for those numbers as valid. Myself, I see http://videogamecharts.com/ has been taking all the available numbers and compiling sales figures as a reference point. Sure, it's likely not perfect, but that's as much info as any of us have, and from that, as of March this year XB was ahead by 17%, with sales relative to GC seemingly dropping so GC has made up ground the last 3 months. But none of this is really that important, especially when the original POV was subjective around the term 'much'. Just so long as people stick to explanations and sources so we can consider the in's and out's of their reasonings, I'm happy.

 

[London Geezer]

You claimed the sole reason it outsold GC was Halo, as if to say the only good game it had was Halo,

No i didn't, you keep missing that point.

if this were true the percentages would be much higher.

Would they?? You just said that GT (all the games on PS2!) sold to 1/4 of the PS2 userbase. How is it not a big deal that a launch game sold as much as bloody GT on PS2, with just 2 instalments!

I think i'm missing the point you're trying to make, even though i keep repeating mine and you keep missing it.

I can just agree that Halo was extremely important, and without it the XBOX may never have recieved enough momentum to become the complete game system it eventually did in it's later years.

Yes, so why keep arguing??

However you have to recognize the fact that the millions of people buying XBOX later in it's life did not necessarily care about Halo at all, it had many other desireable games and it's power was a huge selling point.

A huge selling point to people who cared about that, which as we are discussing, is obviously not such a huge number of people.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Two things with this nice little argument that should have been over semantics (the definition of much) rather than methodology...

First, what was the original point again? It seems clear that whatever figures are used, the Xbox outsold the Gamecube by somewhere in the ballpark of 15%-25%.

Just throwing in my opinion, when you are talking about a number in the millons, let alone in the tens of millons, 15% certainly qualifies by any reasonable standard as 'much (more)'.

Second.. when did MS stop manufacturing the Xbox? For the past six months, the Xbox has been just a rarity.. if not moreso.. than the 360 in my area.