Final confirmed Jan NPD's

djskribbles said:
unless i'm reading your post wrong, you think they only shipped 100,000 units since launch, to Canada? i'm aware that the US is a larger market than Canada, simply because of population, but i highly doubt the difference in units shipped to each country is that large. i'm guessing, at most, the US got 1.2m and the rest of N/A (Canada and Mexico) got at least 300,000 since launch.
Click to expand...

NPD Canads sales #'s are out for Jan, it's actually far below the usual 10% ratio:
Wii 34,000
PS2 27,000
360 14,400
PS3 6,800

Only 7000 PS3, I guess that $699 pricepoint is just way to much to handle.

Could be a supply issue though, not a single futureshop in town has one in stock.
 
djskribbles said:
unless i'm reading your post wrong, you think they only shipped 100,000 units since launch, to Canada? i'm aware that the US is a larger market than Canada, simply because of population, but i highly doubt the difference in units shipped to each country is that large. i'm guessing, at most, the US got 1.2m and the rest of N/A (Canada and Mexico) got at least 300,000 since launch. i really doubt theres ~400k PS3's sitting on shelves across the US...
Click to expand...

Have you seen Canadian sales? I was being generous when I said 10%. :)

And Canada is a far larger marketplace than Mexico. Mexico might as well be a period to Canada's sentence to the US's novel.
 
TheChefO said:
sigh - Patsu, I agreed with you from a profit perspective (which you introduced) GC was a success compared to Xbox. However from a gamer perspective, which I originally brought up, xbox was considered more successful.



As I'm sure you know (but for some reason seem to be ignoring), userbase ties into an important aspect from the gamers perspective: games selection. Do me a favor before you laugh at me again and let me know which had a larger library of games between xb1 and gc.:???:

Off the top of my head I count GTA series for starters...
wiki states 993xb vs >700gc fyi
Click to expand...

You're hot on the business track projecting sales numbers and reasoning about economics, pretending to be a business man. Suddenly you want to run away and be a gamer again when it comes to profitability ?

Ever wonder where the word "bottomline" come from ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottomline. The bottomline says GC wins (Both Xbox and GC are end of life'd now).
 
patsu said:
You're hot on the business track projecting sales numbers and reasoning about economics, pretending to be a business man. Suddenly you want to run away and be a gamer again when it comes to profitability ?

Ever wonder where the word "bottomline" come from ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottomline
Click to expand...

For me the success of a platform from a business perpective is incomplete unless you include the entire ecosystem. MS was about the only company involved with XBOX that didn't make good money on the platform. That's why, even with the much smaller userbase, XBOX still saw decent publisher support. On my way out ATM so I can't look up the numbers, but I would guess in these terms XBOX was much more of a success than GC, which pretty much only made significant money for Nintendo.
 
patsu said:
You're hot on the business track projecting sales numbers and reasoning about economics, pretending to be a business man. Suddenly you want to run away and be a gamer again when it comes to profitability ?

Ever wonder where the word "bottomline" come from ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottomline. The bottomline says GC wins (Both Xbox and GC are end of life'd now).
Click to expand...

Why are you guys arguing about this?? Both positions are correct, both sales and profibility measure success in different ways. it simply depends what angle you're coming at.

From a gamers standpoint sales ensure games, which ensure a great userbase, which ensures a larger marketshare overall. From the perspective of an owner of that consoles, sales IS the one measure of success, profitability be damned.

From a business standpoint, you need both sales and profitability to truly be succesful. Profitability means nothing if you are only capturing 1% of the market, you could hardly call that succesful when you're leaving so much money on the table. So profitability is the most important, but sales is an also important metric when evaluating success from a business POV.
 
patsu said:
You're hot on the business track projecting sales numbers and reasoning about economics, pretending to be a business man. Suddenly you want to run away and be a gamer again when it comes to profitability ?

Ever wonder where the word "bottomline" come from ? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottomline. The bottomline says GC wins (Both Xbox and GC are end of life'd now).
Click to expand...

I'm sorry if I offended you somehow Patsu but I was not attempting to "pretend to be a business man". If it's not too much to ask, I'd appreciate you showing me the same respect I show you. :smile:

The entire point of userbase (or sales or marketshare) is how this affects the marketplace. Given the contracts in place for all manufacturers (with a distinct Nintendo advantage) the more they sell the more likely they will turn a profit. Manufacturing costs go down, libraries get bigger, and in this gen, paid downloads increase, with growth of the userbase. All of this helps the bottom line for these corporations.

As a gamer, one can expect increased variety in games selection and likely increased quality/key exclusives with a larger userbase.
 
As publicly held companies, MS, Sony and Nintendo measure success by growth. It isn't enough just to be profitable because the shares of investors don't increase in value unless the company itself grows in value.

We as gamers, our perception of success is irrelevant in terms of sales or profitability because most gamers don't buy consoles based on profit performance. We judge a console based on its ability to provide entertainment in the form of games. What does it matter that the GC made a nice profit if it spent most of its time collecting dust and you deemed unworthy of your investment in hindsight? What does it matter that the Xbox1 burned a hole in MS pocket, if you actually name your xbox and you slept with it in your arms everynight so you could play it in your dreams?
 
To scooby_dooby and mrcorbo... your points are valid. But the claim was "Sales is the measure of success or failure for a console." which is inaccurate. For instance, a few point difference in sales will not matter much. None of the vendors are there for charity. They are in it for the money ultimately. Also the anomaly case of sales being just %1 but profit still outweighs the opponent is unlikely, so we can rule that out. At the end of the day, profitability is a valid measurement of success.

I also owned an Xbox and GC, and I have similar number of games between them.

The question was "Which was more successful, GC or Xbox?".
I answered it using the universal, objective and measureable indicator: profitability.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Crossbar said:
Well, hardcore gamers are hardcore gamers, no disagreeing from my pow there, probably not from Scooby either.
Click to expand...

I would just say that his anecdotal evidence is in complete contrast to mine, where 4 of the 5 people I know who bought a Wii are girls over 25, certainly not hardcore gamers. The one guy I know who has one, bought it in addition to his 360.
 
patsu said:
To scooby_dooby and mrcorbo... your points are valid. But the claim was "Sales is the measure of success or failure for a console." which is inaccurate. For instance, a few point difference in sales will not matter much. None of the vendors are there for charity. They are in it for the money ultimately. Also the anomaly case of sales being just %1 but profit still outweighs the opponent is unlikely, so we can rule that out. At the end of the day, profitability is a valid measure of success.

I also owned an Xbox and GC, and I have the similar number of games between them.

The question was "Which was more successful, GC or Xbox?".
I answered it using the universal, objective and measureable indicator: profitability.
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't 3DO's business model one of license the HW tech and license the software? Hence royalties from both software and hardware from day one.

Was 3DO a success?
 
scooby_dooby said:
NPD Canads sales #'s are out for Jan, it's actually far below the usual 10% ratio:
Wii 34,000
PS2 27,000
360 14,400
PS3 6,800

Only 7000 PS3, I guess that $699 pricepoint is just way to much to handle.

Could be a supply issue though, not a single futureshop in town has one in stock.
Click to expand...

I could be wrong but IIRC then didn't the PS3 get a price increase recently in Canada?
 
TheChefO said:
Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't 3DO's business model one of license the HW tech and license the software? Hence royalties from both software and hardware from day one.

Was 3DO a success?
Click to expand...

Was 3DO profitable at the end of the day ? Do they earn more and more money (become more and more profitable) along the way ?

EDIT:
I'm sorry if I offended you somehow Patsu but I was not attempting to "pretend to be a business man". If it's not too much to ask, I'd appreciate you showing me the same respect I show you.

The entire point of userbase (or sales or marketshare) is how this affects the marketplace. Given the contracts in place for all manufacturers (with a distinct Nintendo advantage) the more they sell the more likely they will turn a profit. Manufacturing costs go down, libraries get bigger, and in this gen, paid downloads increase, with growth of the userbase. All of this helps the bottom line for these corporations.

As a gamer, one can expect increased variety in games selection and likely increased quality/key exclusives with a larger userbase.
Click to expand...

There are more than one ways to become (more) profitable. I'm not here to say what is best for the vendors, and what timeline they should work on. The companies have to determine what work best for them and still keep their customers happy.

While you may think that I'm rude towards you, I'm posting calmly over here (I don't remember the poster's name when I write). I just find it strange that you'd set up your own expectation based on your own rules, then turn around and fault Sony for missing your expectations. They have their own targets to manage (... and give me back my Batarang !).

They have undoubtedly made some mistakes (mostly on the marketing front... execution can be adjusted if they get the marketing right first). But I have great respect for the good people in the industry. I *know* it's not easy, and not everyone has $$$ to fling like MS. It just ticks me off when people who have a simplified/partial view of the world, generalize and mock others who have worked their *ss off to try to earn our (fair) dollars... but that's just me. :)

I should really refrain from posting in this thread. But I want to emphasize that I don't garner any hard feelings towards you. I'll probably forget about it before dinner. But please please accept that the folks in all 3 companies are working very hard. They may not be as bad as they appear in the media.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
patsu said:
The question was "Which was more successful, GC or Xbox?".
I answered it using the universal, objective and measureable indicator: profitability.
Click to expand...

And ask any consumer and most will tell you Xbox.

Like I said, depends what angle you want to approach it from. Most succesful for the person who purchased the console? Or most succesful for the company producing the console? Two completely different points of view.

From a consumer POV, it's extremely hard to argue that GC was more succesful than Xbox imo. Xbox got many more cross platform ports which were on PS2, while GC owners were left out in the cold for many of those titles.
 
Crossbar said:
I believe you forgot the PS2.
Click to expand...

I don't consider it in the conversation as I believe it has roughly one year left of significant software/hardware sales.

What is the ratio between the 360 core/premium models world wide? 1 : 10 maybe? In my neighbourhood you hardly find the core version at all. Do you think that will change dramatically in the future?
Click to expand...

I have no idea what the ratio is. I know you can get either one you want though at retail.

Ayway you´ll find 40 GB disks for less than $50 in retail already today, what do you think Sony and MS pay for a stripped down 20 GB drive? The 20 GB disk will eventually be replaced by some flash memory within a few years from now, bringing the price down to a few dollars.

Do you have any details about Sonys deal with Rambus? I think they got a pretty good deal being the first major manufacturer to exploit XDR and FlexIO in a component such as the Cell.

Your other PS3 hardware points can probably be matched if you scrutinise the 360 design with the same eye, such as the EDRAM requiring a more esotheric and expensive process.
Click to expand...

I think overall there will always be a BOM cost difference. Perhaps not as high as $50 (Maybe as low as $30, who knows) but by the time the BOM difference is anywhere close to this realm it will be a moot point as XBOX3, PS4, & WIIHD will be knocking at the door.

I disagree with your "$50 premium" forever theory, but besides that, do you think Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft agree with your view that "most 'well known' games will be multiplat" ?
Click to expand...

I am sure their marketing forces will be working very much against that also, but that doesn't change the fact that a close to even market will dictate ports to both (all) platforms unless money-hats are involved.

Sorry I missed your post. :smile:
 
patsu said:
Was 3DO profitable at the end of the day ? Do they earn more and more money (become more and more profitable) along the way ?
Click to expand...

They were profitable from day one. Sold 6 million units.

Most gamers would call that a failure.

Regardless, As Scooby said I don't get what you're arguing. I agree profitability is important from a business perspective but from a gamer perspective do I care that MS lost $4billion on xb1? No.

I would be concerned however if the gaming divisions losses were throwing the company in financial jeopordy as this puts my potential games library at risk. ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top