Blu-ray will cease to be a factor in the console war in two years. The PS2's DVD playback was a temporary advantage that evaporated after two years, and the same will be true of Blu-ray (assuming the format doesn't tank). Regardless of what price cuts occur to the PS3, standalone players will be available for half its price 2 years from now. The PS3's Blu-ray advantage is now, not later.
Feb NPD! The 2nd best thing to crack.
- Thread starter RobertR1
- Start date
Blu-ray will cease to be a factor in the console war in two years. The PS2's DVD playback was a temporary advantage that evaporated after two years, and the same will be true of Blu-ray (assuming the format doesn't tank). Regardless of what price cuts occur to the PS3, standalone players will be available for half its price 2 years from now. The PS3's Blu-ray advantage is now, not later.
The only concrete data we have worldwide is that last half of 07, Sony shipped about 100-200K more PS3s than MS shipped 360s.
Which really means nothing. Those units could be sitting on shelves.
Wow, there is? I didn't realise there was formal tracking for the entire PAL market. If you could link to it it would save us all a lot of time. Thanks.
And as for sales ratios and whatnot... do you honestly believe game publishers look at the tie-ratio as more significant than the number sold? You use COD4 as an example. COD4 on 360 has been number one for four months in a row! Do you really think IW are looking at this,then saying "oh, but the tie ratio is bigger on PS3, so that's where we should focus our future efforts!"
Not to mention the only games that seem to be selling reasonably well, based on NPD data on PS3 are those that are on 360 already. It's good that those multi-platform games are selling well, but there still is a huge lack of incentive for any exclusive to be launched on PS3, when releasing on 360 will quite simply be more profitable.
djskribbles
Legend
thats a pretty moot point, don't you think? all that matters is the price and the PS3 started out a lot higher than the 360 did. not many people are willing to pay $600 for a console, Sony realized this, and thats why they dropped the price.
Obviously, but if those numbers mean nothing to you then no concrete numbers do exist as there is no way to generate a reliable worldwide POS figure for any console.
Any one data point when it comes to retailer shipments aren't going to give you an accurate measure of POS data but looking at the trend over time will, so we have to wait to April or May to see whether Sony or MS are actually seperating themselves in terms of sales.
This quarter numbers will show any over stuffing of the channel.
Well, you can assume they each sold a high percentage of those units, but you can't predict which of the two is the sales leader when there's only a difference of 100-200K units in an entire year where they sold millions.
Its not a moot point as pricing will continue to drop and there is no evidence that MS can't create a bigger price difference than the one that currently exists. If next quarter we have a $300 Pro and $400 40Gb then US sales may revert to previous levels and thats bad news for Sony.
No one knows who has more flexibility in terms of pricing cutting. Given the past, the advantage should lie with the 360, but the warranty issues may a negative role in that flexibility. Come spring with the current level of sales, MS should feel forced to do something in the US but that depends, if MS's goal of overall profitability becomes the dominant strategy. MS might not be against being third overall if it means more profit than being second.
Also game sales. The 360 is already an attractive system for games. The PS3 is just taking steps at becoming a more attractive system. The GT and FF series should help Sony over the course. Japan will most likely be getting large boost from those titles. So I do see Sony Japan further distanting themselves they have from MS Japan to say the least.
I'm surprise MS doesn't see an interest in getting a BR for their 360. Some people are buying a PS3 just for a BR player. If a system can sell on more than one demension it's a good thing.
When you can't predict a winner, then the term "stalemate" applies.
djskribbles
Legend
i agree with you there, but i don't think thats what valioso was talking about...
That's what I would say. There are too many variables to take a guess at who's selling more based on number of units shipped. I mean, you could actually sell more units than you shipped if you had units remaining on shelves from the previous year. You could massively overship in the Christmas time period at the end of the year and sell a lower percentage of total shipped for those months. So, if you said with all things equal, which they aren't, if both consoles ship roughly the same number of units, they're going to sell roughly the same number of units, and that means you have a tie.
The point is that past price drops indicate the potential of future price drops.
i.e. with the effective transition from 60GB to 40GB models, the PS3 price has effectively dropped by 33% so far. Let's assume Sony has continued cutting costs and can afford to drop by another $100 this year. That's a 50% price drop since release.
Consider what will happen if MS is able to cut their price to the same percentage - a reasonable assumption IMO since they've had an extra year to cut costs and pay down losses compared to Sony - warranty writedown notwithstanding.
What kind of sales would you expect from a $200 Pro and $160 Arcade? Surely you would expect at least a moderate change in the sales trends?
This is why the price cuts are relevant.
I guess console long term momentum changes are like recessions, you won't know if there is one until you in one for 6 months.
I think this is going to be a salient point later on this year. Since HD-DVD caved the price of standalone Blu-Ray players has risen, apart from one, which is already the cheapest fully featured player out there. MS believe consoles are all about games (then why make such a fuss over digital distribution?) and at the moment that's all they have out of the box. It's going to be many years before the quality of downloadable films etc meets on disc (think extras, uncompressed audio, 1080p). Meanwhile Sony are sitting on a box that does it all, is getting cheaper all the time and is also about to get a major overhaul to its online presence. As far as I can see, the only way is up for Sony. MS need to start moving sideways to cover their bases.
As bkillian already stated in another thread. It's a time to market issue. It took them over 1 year of development to be able to bring the HD-DVD to market. If MS could plop down a BR addon for sale next month thats one thing. But Q4 2009 do no good.
Alas, I fear I have broken the Brotherhood of Laggardness..............
...
well deserved.... congrats!
Digital distribution actually produces profit and revenue for the xbox platform. BluRay disc sales probably have a limited impact on the profits or revenue generated by Sony's game division if at all.
Bluray is a double edge sword for Sony. BluRay can promote sales of your console which can be seen as good but can negatively affect your profits.
Sony subsidizes hardware through software sales but BluRay and the PS3 cheap price encourages sales to consumers to whom gaming is a secondary feature or worse a non feature. When you have a PS3 user who doesn't actually game on the PS3 but use it soley as a BluRay player or a light gamer who buys just a few games, then Sony must depend on others PS3 consumers to subidize the cost that PS3. You don't have that problem with digital distribution over Live.
Yet, downloadable media with less quality than a DVD is growing as a market and is much bigger than HD market is currently. The PS3 price cutting is not going to be able to compete with standalone players longterm, which means BluRay becomes a less and less important feature over time. Even on the PS3, digital distribution will be a far more important factor on the Sony's game division bottom line.
I wouldn't expect that a BluRay addon to take as long as HD DVD addon in terms time of development. The software and hardware model is already there just changes needed to accomodate a BluRay drive instead of a HD-DVD drive.
Interesting pic stolen shamelessly from GAF, though the PAL numbers are obviously based on estimates:
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f64/donny2112/Sales Numbers/WWConsoles-7.png
Definitely shows the 360 slowing, further highlighting the stupidity of MS's pricing. Also, you can see the jump the HD war ending has given the PS3. No need to mention the Wii
http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f64/donny2112/Sales Numbers/WWConsoles-7.png
Definitely shows the 360 slowing, further highlighting the stupidity of MS's pricing. Also, you can see the jump the HD war ending has given the PS3. No need to mention the Wii