European Console Sales (2009 Edition)
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woundingchaney
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I don't doubt that but, neither now nor in the past has it ever been much of a factor.
Yeah, but in the future I don't know. I think next xbox will suffer due to the history of 360 - a lot of people will be carefull, waiting perhaps a full year before buying the new system.
I'm not sure. Microsoft has smartly sold the 360 as a service (Xbox Live) rather than a product in itself. Now people are tied to their 360 by that gamertag. Will they move to a new console and "start from scratch" building a new friends list and losing that precious gamerscore?
woundingchaney
Regular
I doubt it. There has been production quality issues with various other consoles in the past (although not at the extent of the 360 of course) and this hasnt been traditionally seen as a reason for future poor sales. I dont doubt that the unreliability of the 360 will have an effect on some consumers the next generation but I simply do not see it being a big concern in 3-5 years from now. If the successor to the 360 has a quality line up of games and provides a full featured service (Live) I dont see any adoption rate issues with it due to the troublesome reliability of the 360 itself.
How do you know that?
NathansFortune
Regular
I think the it is both, but mostly down to Sony f'ing up this generation so badly, 360 is only equal because Sony gave them a look in. If the PS3 had launched without Cell or Blu-ray (which would have brought the cost down to reasonable levels) at £299/€399 in November like they promised does anyone really think another console would have got a look in, at least in Europe...
NathansFortune
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PS2 sold 140m despite the terrible record it had early on in its life for reliability. We gamers are apparently a forgiving lot...
woundingchaney
Regular
Primarily because hardware issues havent seemed to stop consumer adoption of the next platform in the past. Consoles such as the PS1, PS2, NES, etc all had hardware concerns of some form of another (none which are comparable to the 360 of course), yet these hardware concerns didnt stop consumer adoption of the next platform. Im sure there where consumers that had poor experiences with a console and didnt choose to purchase the next one but I see nothing to suggest that this overly hampered the consoles purchases to any large extent.
I am only asking because we really don´t know if the adaption rate would have been even higher if there hadn´t been flawed hardware in the first place in the examples you mention.
I know a friend who replaced his broken 360 with a PS3 and has been very vocal about it, I´ll find it hard to see him as an early adopter of the next generation Xbox. Given the magnitude of the 360 problems I bet there are quite a few that will hesitate before buying a launch unit of Xbox 720, but I agree people in general have short memory.
Consumer behaviour may also be a cultural thing that look different in different parts of the world. Going from the mass consumptions "shop til you drop" mentality to more planned purchases.
woundingchaney
Regular
I agree that you scenario may reflect the future, though nothing in the past has led me to believe that this scenario is likely. There has been to some extent comparable issues in the past that showed no impact on console successor adoption. I dont doubt that your friend is vocal about his console preference, but so is the 8+ million additional 360 owners. I simply dont see events happening potentially 3+ years from now to directly relate to consumer opinion today. If anything I dont think that typical console consumers has a memory with this much shelf life nor are they likely to hold a grudge in matters of hardware failure.
Do you really know this for sure, or is this just your impression?
My point in the previous post was not that all people will grind to a halt buying a particular brand or item, but that adaption/pruchase rate will affected in a negative way because of the bad will.
For example: can you be sure that Microsoft would not have sold 500 000 more 360s worldwide up until today if they didn´t have the RROD problem?
woundingchaney
Regular
I cant know anymore for sure than you can claim your perception to be true. Im not claiming my statements are absolute fact though I didnt feel the need to post "imo" in the entries either.
Can you show me where adoption rate has slowed in the past from one console to the next due to initial hardware issues with the previous console??
No I don´t have a study of console purchases handy, but I´ve been around so long so I have seen what impact flawed items can do to a brand.
You say that the console life cycles are so long that people will forget, you may be right.
Microsoft may also have done an excellent job to mitigate the impact by giving swift service to people who got RROD. The extended warranty was probably well invested money.
Yes but there are many happy 360 owners. If MS releases a problem free system or at least one that is on par with problems as the other two systems they can easily recapture any fanbase that might have moved away from the console. Esp if they can get a head start again on the comp.
Seems that Microsoft reduced the price, only for 3 months for starters(?) but 40-50 euro!
http://www.computerbase.de/news/consumer_electronics/konsolen/microsoft/2009/maerz/xbox_360_preis/
http://www.computerbase.de/news/consumer_electronics/konsolen/microsoft/2009/maerz/xbox_360_preis/
But a funny/interesting anecdote might be that new multi-platform games could be selling better on the PS3 than the X360. If we just look at these charts and SFIV and the Sega Collection as evidence
What is interesting now, is which platform gets highest sales numbers for those titles. Especially since both sides claim they got the PAL lead in sold/shipped consoles.
Maybe a disadvantage for the X360 is that XBL probably got more games that compete with the Sega Collection, so that PS3 gets its lead from that.
And SFIV is multi-platform from way back right?
All of this is pure speculation and probably highly incorrect
And if we now look at it with some hindsight
Week 1 SFIV Debuted #1 for PS3 and #2 for XBox360
Week 2 PS3 = #6 & XBox360 = #4
Week 3 PS3 = #10 & XBox360 = #11
Week 4 PS3 = #24 & XBox = #18
Week 5 PS3 = #12 & XBox360 = #18
So without the actual figures, I guess the difference doesn't mean much to Capcom..... maybe....
Did KZ2 affect this some how and what other things do we actually see.
For Sega Megadrive then?
Week 1 PS3 = #10 & XBox360 = #11
Week 2 PS3 = #9 & XBox360 = #11
Week 3 PS3 = #16 & XBox360 = #17
Week 4 PS3 = #39 & XBox360 = #27
Week 5 PS3 = <40 & XBox360 = #39
Longer tail of the XBox 360 that is showing, especially in the more casual segment?!?!?
The 360's problems were protracted and huge, a sytemic problem with the console. Earlier problems with other consoles were relatively quickly nipped in the bud and media noise overestimated the problems. The media should of made a volcano of publicity about this. Really should of been a major news story.
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