could Gamecube end up 2nd place for last-gen ?

[Powderkeg]

qroach, read again what i wrote. it's certain trends in certain boards members' input that matters here, not whether the cube came 4th last gen, in whatever metric you like.

ps: i'm not in for the arguing, i just want to see more thought put in people's postings on these boards and less fanboism.

Ironic statement for you to make since you've twice tried to make May + June to be something other than 2 months in order to support Nintendo.

 

[darkblu]

Ironic statement for you to make since you've twice tried to make May + June to be something other than 2 months in order to support Nintendo.

allow me. the irony is that of all the numbers published in this thread you stuck to the 'may to july is 2 not 3!' (which period, btw, is a matter of convention/interpreatation, and i threw that one point in just out of pure sarcasm) whereas you remain dumb and blind to the june sales and how they affect your little 'analysis'. the crux of the issue is that you generally don't seem to have the slightest scruples with going 'let's pull random numbers proving zilch and throw them at b3d's console boards in support of supperiority!', which, though not unseen on these boards, is not desired here. at all.

consider this post a post scriptum. over and out.

 

[Powderkeg]

allow me. the irony is that of all the numbers published in this thread you stuck to the 'may to july is 2 not 3!' (which period, btw, is a matter of convention/interpreatation, and i threw that one point in just out of pure sarcasm) whereas you remain dumb and blind to the june sales and how they affect your little 'analysis'. the crux of the issue is that you generally don't seem to have the slightest scruples with going 'let's pull random numbers proving zilch and throw them at b3d's console boards in support of supperiority!', which, though not unseen on these boards, is not desired here. at all.

consider this post a post scriptum. over and out.

Now that is funny. Talk about totally falsifying the facts.


Fact is, this is the post I gave about numbers:

The Gamecube finally outsold the Xbox starting in May for the first time since early 2003.

So far in the US they've managed to outsell the Xbox by a whopping 33,687 units. At that rate it would take them nearly 20 years to surpass the Xbox.

Now, we don't have July NPD numbers, so obviously if we take the numbers we do have, starting with May, that would only be 2 months.

NOT 1, like you claimed.

Next, I specifically said in the US, and I gave an exact number of systems. Neither of those are random, and in fact both are totally provable, and verified by other forum members in this thread.

33,687 units in 2 months.



Now, you couldn't stand me saying something bad about your rpecious little Nintendo, so the first thing you did was forget how to count to 2, and tried to make May + June into a single month.

When that didn't work you tried to make May + June into 3 months.

When that didn't work you tried to go on about Japanese sales, which had nothing to do with what I said.


But most important, you totally avoided my entire point, which was the fact that it would take years to catch up to MS, and couldn't be done in just 3 months or so. You got so wrapped up in your defense of your precious Nintendo that you failed to notice that you actually supported my claim with your own numbers. You proved I am right.

Now, you were saying something about the lack of scruples dragging this board down and people needing to put more thought into their posts.....

 

[fearsomepirate]

Let's say that two men run 10k meters.

Let's say 3 men run 10K Meters. Runner A finishes in 31 minutes. 18 hours later, we see Runner B crawling toward the finish line with a gaping, infected flesh wound on his leg, with runner C tagging behind him by about 100 meters with a broken ankle.

Arguing about how much faster runner C has to limp in order to beat runner B to earn "I didn't get quite as mercilessly slaughtered as you" bragging rights is kind of stupid.

 

[Teasy]

Even if it did it would be a hollow victory, seeing as it would have taken so much longer.
It's irrelevant now.

The real hollow victory here is losing gigantic sums of money for only a slightly larger userbase. With the money MS has spent on the console they could almost have given away 20 million XBox's.

 

[Teasy]

If the current difference is about 4 million in Xbox's favor, I don't see how getting another million will help them in the now-irrelevant race to second place - they'll still be behind by a couple of million.

Which is why I said "Not enough to make GC undisputed second place, but enough for both consoles to be more or less joint second, for what its worth."

Let's say that two men run 10k meters.

Runner A reaches finish line, but stops one meter shy from the line and waits one minute for the Runner B to arrive, let's Runner B cross the linr first and then walks the last meter. I would still know that the runner A was faster eventhough he gave up, and eventhough runner A was taking performance enhancing drugs( as in MS taking huge losses). It doesn't change the fact that A was faster.

BTW is Gamecube even outselling Xbox today?

More like runner A stopped one meter shy of the line because his performance enhancing drugs ran out MS haven't stopped production as a favour to Nintendo after all, they've done it to end the losses. You can bet that if XBox was profitable the console would still be in production.

By the way, see my first post for the answer to your last question.

 

[Ty]

Which is why I said "Not enough to make GC undisputed second place, but enough for both consoles to be more or less joint second, for what its worth."

Well if the figures are accurate, then there will still be a 3 million gap between the two, which imo, is hardly enough to call it "more or less a joint second".

Now if there were within 100K or so, then maybe. But 3 million off when that constitutes more than 10% of their entire #s seems to stretch the boundries.

In other words, it will still be undisputed as being in 3rd place for console sales.

 

[Teasy]

Yes our right Ty, XBox will still be second. I didn't mean that people will look at the two numbers and say "So which one sold the most?". I just mean that nobody is going to care about 2 million in 23-25 million. If someone looks back at the numbers in a years time and see's god knows how many PS2's vs around 25 million XBox's and 23 million GC's they'll say that PS2 was the run away leader and that XBox and GC sold more or less the same..

 

[Teasy]

The Gamecube finally outsold the Xbox starting in May for the first time since early 2003.

So far in the US they've managed to outsell the Xbox by a whopping 33,687 units. At that rate it would take them nearly 20 years to surpass the Xbox.

FYI GC has outsold XBox a few times between 2003 and now actually.

Also lets remember that GC has always outsold XBox in Japan and continues to do so. I'd be suprised if GC isn't also outselling XBox in Europe (considering the US was always by far XBox's strongest region). GC won't overtake XBox worldwide, since GC doesn't have any game support anymore, but I can see GC selling maybe 1 million more then XBox in the remainder of this year.

 

[ninzel]

The real hollow victory here is losing gigantic sums of money for only a slightly larger userbase. With the money MS has spent on the console they could almost have given away 20 million XBox's.

Well that could be true,but as I've said about Nintendo..who are we to say how they measure long term success. So I have to extend that same idea to MS.

 

[fearsomepirate]

More like runner A stopped one meter shy of the line because his performance enhancing drugs ran out

Um, Microsoft wasn't Runner A. Reread it again and take a good look on how the actual marketshare worked out this generation.

You know what Sony calls 3 million consoles? "Rounding error."

 

[Fred]

Well as far as im concerned Xbox was the solid 2nd place. Gamecube dissappointed me, b/c it seems to me they were never in competition really with xbox, but rather Sony for market supremacy. Sony wiped them out, hence its a dissappointment.

A new console in the market has to fight for marketshare, its so completely nontrivial in something that has been historically dominated by Sony, Nintendo and Sega. Microsoft proved they can compete in this arena with xbox1 and indeed taht they even got close, let alone surpassed Nintendo was completely unexpected (at least I never would have guessed it 5 years ago).

This next gen seems it might be a repeat of last gen, which would then be a severe dissappointment for M$. Their goal now is much loftier than before, as they face the Sony monopoly. Anything less than 1/3rd marketshare will be a horrendous blow and perhaps signal the demise (one generation thereafter) of MS's foray into consoles.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

In other words, it will still be undisputed as being in 3rd place for console sales.

By one metric. I think a problem here with the race analogy is that the consoles were running different races. Didn't GC win the profitability race? And XB run the 'new contender race' having the greatest standing start performance? Plus is it not a relay race? Certainly that's how Sony have been running, handing the baton from one runner to the next, which means they get a head start.

If every company's objectives were the same, 2nds might be measurable. As it is, all the companies really care about is 'was this product good for us in terms of making us money and/or pushing forward growth with the potential to earn even more money in future?' Selling the most consoles gives you public bragging rights in the same way winnig the game attachment race doesn't, so I can see it's appeal. But it's not the be all and end all of performance evaluation. I'm sure if Sony drop market share from 70% to 40%, behind XB360, and yet increase profitability 3x, they'll regard that as an improvement over PS1 and PS2.

 

[Magnum PI]

Gamecube dissappointed me, b/c it seems to me they were never in competition really with xbox, but rather Sony for market supremacy.

i would have said almost exactly the same thing.
except i would had inverted gamecube and xbox.

 

[Magnum PI]

ps: i'm not in for the arguing, i just want to see more thought put in people's postings on these boards and less fanboism.

i have my theory about the people who are the first to use the word fanboism or any of its derivate in a thread.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Their goal now is much loftier than before, as they face the Sony monopoly.

Their original goal was to lose $4 bn and gain only 16% of the total marketshare? Almost everything about Xbox 360 says "We did it wrong last time; time to correct our mistakes," not "we did exactly what we wanted; time to continue our master plan!"

 

[Qroach]

not a useful thread

Didn't GC win the profitability race?

This doesn't matter the the end consumer, does it? Anyway we all know MS went in to Xbox 1 knowing it was going to be a loss into the billions, but that was the price they had to pay to compete without any established brands/franchises. "sigh* you know what, there's no need for me to repy to that statement...

Arguing/discussing this, at this point in time, is a serious waste of time. Anyone can make up a metric by which these two consoles raced over, and anyone can throw out a counter argument. IMO this thread is just going to fuel the arguments of old, and we really don't need to discuss who is second place, who is selling more consoles... It simply doesn't matter anymore. last gen is finished.

All i see here is one group saying it could pass another console in sales while the other group comes in to slap them down. What purpose does that serve?

 

[fearsomepirate]

Anyway we all know MS went in to Xbox 1 knowing it was going to be a loss into the billions,

I hear people say this all the time, that MS planned to lose billions fighting for Sony's table scraps with Nintendo. Yet, I have yet to hear anyone cite a single source. In fact, if I recall correctly, prior to the launch of the Xbox, MS was talking about how the Xbox would be the big dog in the console world because if its massive power. I remember articles with titles like "Xbox: Microsoft's Secret Weapon" or how Live or this or that was going to be the key to the Xbox really taking the console crown. I remember analystis predicting profitability within 1 or 2 years. I remember the talk about how stripping down a PC architecture to the bare minimum was the future of game consoles and would allow massive power compared to creative memory setups and custom-designed chips.

I don't remember any articles saying "MS is planning to lose 4 billion and take a tiny piece of the pie with their new Xbox console, but that's because they're just setting up for the sequel. And this inefficient, overly expensive PC architecture is going to be scrapped for a more traiditional console with custom chips, a creative memory solution, and optional writeable storage devices."

So please, cite me a reliable source saying that MS planned to lose billions on the Xbox, to throw away the architectural paradigm, to not even gain 20% of the market, and to have a library consisting mostly of games using the PS2 as the lead platform.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I agree wth Fearsome here. I think MS were willing to spend a lot to get a foot in the door, but I don't think losing billions was actually the gameplan. Prior to the console's release, there was varied talk of possible level of success, including at least one analyst thinking MS were going to go neck-and-neck with Sony. The fact MS lost so much was due to some unfortunate deals to get hardware quick. A better handling of the IP would have shown far less loses, maybe even more than one profitable month. And I don't think anyone 5 years ago was looking at the paperwork and thinking 'MS are set to lose billions on this project but it's all part of their long-term investment strategy.' If they were, I'd expect analyst reports from the time to be quite vociferous, explaining to investors the losses and long-terms gains of such a strategy.

 

[Ty]

By one metric. I think a problem here with the race analogy is that the consoles were running different races. Didn't GC win the profitability race? And XB run the 'new contender race' having the greatest standing start performance? Plus is it not a relay race? Certainly that's how Sony have been running, handing the baton from one runner to the next, which means they get a head start.

That's why I earlier said:

I brought this up before whenever the topic of "winning" is brought up - and that is, just who defines what the metric is? Fans bicker back and forth each using their own standards, be it units sold, profit, more AAA titles, etc.

But the OP is about sales, and by that metric everyone's position (Sony, then MS, and then Nintendo) is undisputed.