jarrod said:
Wrong. GBA usually sells about 3-5 times as much as iPod month to month. GBA actually outsells PS2 month to month currently, it's an unparalled success for handheld electronics...
The iPod sold over 2 million this past quarter. (July-August-September) According to the NPD I could find(
Here and
here, which is the usual "people stating NPD numbers of message boards." Do you know of a better site that compiles these figures?), the GBA sold 195k/158k/527k--so 880k--and Europe and Japan undoubtedly did worse (Japan has only had just above 2 million sales in all of 2004 to date, and according to last year's financials from Nintendo, "The Americas" did almost twice as good as all "Other Regions"), so even if it's selling better it's not by much. (I admit I made my previous comment erroneously, as I wasn't looking at all the global figures when I said "well above") In Q2 2004, the GBA sold 2.3 million worldwide (according to Nintendo's financial statements--unfortunately they're slow with that), and while they got a recent boost due to dropping their price and the usual Pokemon-game infusion, they also have the next generation available almost immediately, so I'm not sure how current sales will measure.
I'm only talking in the "now" as the iPod is just hitting its stride, and the GBA has been fairly level this year and is going to start winding down. (Yes the DS is almost twice as much, but $70 isn't too cumbersome, and they get access to ALL DS and GBA gaming with it, so I think it will really dig in to GBA sales from here on in unless the GBA drops even more--to $50 or so.) Regardless, we have an established and "unparalleled success" that's been $80-100 for a while now selling right next to an MP3 player that has never been less than $250. That is my point about what the portable market is telling us
now.
I'm not going to get into a debate about your other comments (outselling all Pocket PCs, discmans, pdas or portable mp3 players in the market) because I'm not sure whether you're talking about overall lifespans or month-to-month sales, and it would give me a migraine to uselessly track down all these numbers. But even just with quick searching I can find counter-examples. (
PDA's sold better in April-June: 2.75 million to GBA's 2.3,
"portable mp3 players" seem forecast to sell more than than GBA did in 2003 let alone 2004, which will invariably be less...) I can't vouch for the infallability of any of those numbers, but nor can you really make statements like you did without being specific and/or supplying statistics.
Regardless, "3-5 times as much month to month" is now just entirely incorrect and I expect to to be even more incorrect next quarter. (iPod projections are between 3.5-4 million in Q4, and in my personal opinion GBA's will probably only hold their Q3 sales--perhaps even lose some--in what would usually be a much stronger quarter due to DS interference.)
Where the PSP will fall is anybody's guess, but this is why I'm saying that we can't go simply by price
at all anymore. There are too many other factors--including just plain "dumb luck"--that can make a huge difference. We might be able to make some better-guessing statements regarding "those who have bought portable consoles up until now" but that's the point--we're not just looking at them anymore.
