Silent_Buddha
Legend
Are all those just US numbers? If so, that's a staggering amount of Kinect units in just a little over a year's time.
Regards,
SB
Regards,
SB
Major Nelson tweet 960,000 360's sold over Black Friday
- Thread starter tcrews
- Start date
djskribbles
Legend
pretty sure those are all WW shipment numbers.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
66M shipped would put calendar 2011 Q4 shipments for the 360 at 8.4M consoles, which is 2.1M units more than their previous Q4 record from last year. Total for the calendar year 2011 looks to be 15.1M units, which is 3.0M more than their previous record also from 2010. (assumes 66M is not rounded)
A stunning year.
Sony would have needed to ship 7.5M in Q4 to match that 15.1M for the year. Both of those numbers would be new records for the periods for Sony as well. It's going to be close.
A stunning year.
Sony would have needed to ship 7.5M in Q4 to match that 15.1M for the year. Both of those numbers would be new records for the periods for Sony as well. It's going to be close.
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Those are not full quarter sales (rather, around 5 weeks) and as Patsu said, are what Sony themselves estimate have actually been sold to consumers rather than the shipped figure provided my Microsoft.
I rarely have a problem with company internal estimates, in fact, that is exactly what this thread was originally based on before I veered off.
Couple things, the previous quarter was 57.6 shipped world-wide so this quarter is at least 8.4M the reason I emphasize the "least" is because Ballmer said during CES keynote "over 66M", when he did this last year MSFT did round down in PR.
Yes, last year they stated "over 50M", but sold 50.9M actually. Even if it turns out to be exactly 66M, still 30% growth YOY for the quarter is a huge at this stage in the console's lifecycle and the premium prices they charge for the device (no price cuts since Fall 2008). It took MS 3 years to sell 25M 360s, now they sold 15M in one year. It also seems there isn't a single factor that you can pinpoint for driving this growth.
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Yep my old 0.4M error from the other thread showed it's face again. I fixed my post.
Yeah, 8.4 in the quarter alone. Compared to a previous record last 4Q of 6.3. I mean one of these days they might do 10m not in a year, but in a single quarter.
And they should still have a 50 price cut in the back pocket in the coming year.
As long as 360 sales literally keep rising, I'm hard pressed why they would launch a successor anytime soon. I think we might not see it until 2014.
Kinect has clearly given the 360 a Wii type family boost in the holidays.
I would say Kinect is a significant factor though, considering its numbers and release date. So I would definitely pinpoint that at least as a major factor. The other of course is that a majority of consumers have Live, and their friends have Live. Once you've established a majority with that kind of thing, that definitely helps keep you on top. Many other things are easily interchangeable, but not that.
And the no price cuts since Fall 2008 I don't quite buy. The average selling price of a standalone unit has gone down signfiicantly since then. The price is significantly inflated by Kinect bundles, but that just proves my previous point.
So far, I'd say big success for Kinect though, as without it I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft would have been down yoy.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I don't think they would have been down YoY, but they most certainly would have had to cut the price of the console by 50-100 USD to accomplish that without Kinect around to boost sales.
Basically what Kinect did was mid-late in the life cycle of the console, allowed the average selling price of the console (4 different console units available) to actually go UP while sales also went UP.
That's generally unheard of in this industry. In order to keep sales going strong you generally have to discount the console fairly regularly to continue trying to get customers who haven't already purchased a console due to the price being too high for them.
So as we see with the PS3, you got all the people willing to pay 599 and up in the first few months. Then you got everyone willing to pay 499 and up. Then 399. And now 299.
MS was following that same track as well, lowering the price occasionally to open up a new part of the market. But once Kinect hit, rather than opening up more buyers in a vertical market, it suddenly allowed them to instead broaden their market horizontally.
Basically it allowed them to "reboot" and once again open up customers at a higher price tier. They're pretty much stuck on the vertical market which the traditional X360/PS3 market to. But they've got this whole extra vertical market to tap. Granted that market is heavily concentrated in the holiday season, but it also has some sales during the rest of the year, just not as strong as the "core" console market.
So this last year. PS3 got more attractive to that core market by making the console more attractive to people at the bottom of that vertical market. Where MS instead sidestepped and started working another related market.
It's brilliant but only because it worked. There are so many ways in which it could have failed. But it came at the right time with enough functionality to draw in people and make them willing to spend up to 399 just for the Kinect console bundle. Pretty amazing feat.
Regards,
SB
The halo effect (if I'm using the term correctly) of Kinect and the attractiveness of the 360S seem to have actually raised the price of HDD less, Kinect less 360s in the UK.
Around Christmas of 2009 the (Jasper) 360 Arcade (or whatever) was selling for around £110 and I saw it in Tesco for as little as £99. I haven't seen the 4GB 360S for less than £130 either instore or online. That's pretty good going. The HDD equipped models seem to have crept down by a few bob, but not by as much as the PS3.
Still can't believe how expensive Kinect bundles were in the run up to Christmas, and even the Kinect standalone peripheral has held its price very well.
Around Christmas of 2009 the (Jasper) 360 Arcade (or whatever) was selling for around £110 and I saw it in Tesco for as little as £99. I haven't seen the 4GB 360S for less than £130 either instore or online. That's pretty good going. The HDD equipped models seem to have crept down by a few bob, but not by as much as the PS3.
Still can't believe how expensive Kinect bundles were in the run up to Christmas, and even the Kinect standalone peripheral has held its price very well.
What is there to "buy" exactly there hasn't been a price cut in years...what does the average selling price have to do with that and where are you deriving your average selling price of only the standalone units?
Yes, but they didn't bet on just one horse: you can buy four major configurations, 360 4GB for $199, 360 250GB for $299, or add $100 to either for a version with Kinect included. That produces a range from $199 to $399, which is quite a wide range.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
There's a few factors in play there. The value of the Euro has tumbled in the past year for one thing which means the price of restocking now is probably higher than it was back then.
As well I'd imagine that if someone couldn't get a hold of the Kinect version of the console, then they'd end up buying a base model + Kinect.
I wonder if any other country in Europe saw similar trends with the X360, or if the Kinect effect was mostly isolated to Great Britain.
Aye, that 299 USD and 399 USD Kinect X360 Console package is what's causing the average selling price for the X360 to rise.
Also, it looks like they were much more prepared to meet the holiday demand this year as I didn't see much evidence of price gouging due to insufficient supply as happened last year. At least in the US. From what Function was saying though it appears there was at least some light price gouging going on in Great Britain. Perhaps MS were caught off guard there due to all the negative Kinect press in the gaming sites complaining about how Kinect isn't attractive due to space reasons among other "things" in GB and Europe in general.
Regards,
SB
The price of the standalone Kinect peripherals seemed to creep up in December - rrp is £130 iirc but actual price had been sat at £99.99 for months and during Dec it moved a little up towards its rrp (particularly on Amazon). But I didn't notice any shortages of either Kinect or of 360 bundles, and in the couple of weeks before Xmas piles of Xboxes and PS3 were shifting fast in the local supermarket (PS3 slightly faster than the Xbox).
Interestingly, on Dec 23 Kinect on Amazon was about £108. When I looked again on Christmas day it had dropped to £80 (with £20 bundle game offer). Two days later when I looked again it was back up to its old long term price of £99.99. A mini clearout perhaps, but nothing that looked too drastic.
MS and Sony both seem to have been pretty well prepared for Christmas, at least on Amazon and in my little patch of the UK.
Interestingly, on Dec 23 Kinect on Amazon was about £108. When I looked again on Christmas day it had dropped to £80 (with £20 bundle game offer). Two days later when I looked again it was back up to its old long term price of £99.99. A mini clearout perhaps, but nothing that looked too drastic.
MS and Sony both seem to have been pretty well prepared for Christmas, at least on Amazon and in my little patch of the UK.
Svensk Viking
Regular
The Live number is the combined of Live gold and Live silver I assume?
Amazon's eCommerce system has sophisticated logic to optimize revenue (i.e. increase sales by varying price on-the-fly based on time, location, customer profile, past point of sales data, etc.). It will lower/raise the price if Amazon marketing thinks sales (or rather profit) will increase.
Looking at software sales (mostly in UK, since that's the only relevant for 360 market about which we have detailed data) and XBL activity lists, the traditional games segment is doing much stronger than Kinect (where you'd expect more commercial hits than there are since it's a new device and there aren't that many games for it). It leads me to the conclusion that Kinect is not driving that many hardware sales, even if people do opt for the Kinect bundle once they buy a new 360 console. So I'd expect 360 to perform strongly without the peripheral, as it did in July-October 2010 (after the slim console was released but before Kinect).
The standalone versions have cost $199/$299 since Fall 2008, maybe there's more people choosing HDD-less SKU now, therefore leading to lower average price (but I don't think there's any such data available), but there have been no effective price cuts since then.
10M in a quarter might be a stretch and last quarter's result is probably as high as it'll ever go, nonetheless they should have another stellar year ahead. That said, I disagree about not needing to launch a new console - iPhone 4S is the best selling smartphone in the world, but if Apple wants to stay ahead of competition, they need to launch a new phone this year not to let the competition excite the audience with their new products.
Of course, consoles do not require yearly iterations, but the principle remains the same - don't let the competition catch you off-guard. With WiiU and other devices looming on the horizon, they can't possibly expect 360 to show growth ad infinitum. IMO they should launch the new console as soon as it's possible to have a mass market console with 32nm manufacturing process (WiiU is still going to be 45nm at launch). Releasing the new console does not mean automatic death of 360 - new redesign @32nm (360 super slim
) and lower price points could make it an attractive lower end platform for at least 2-3 years after next-box launches.Similar threads
