Microsoft’s Complete Xbox 360/Live Stat Attack!

[Crossbar]

Splitting hairs. 6.3 attach rate is awesome. The charts every month show X360 software moving a crazy amount of units given the size of the userbase. To suggest otherwise is nonsense.

Are you saying that the attachment rate would not be lower if the 360 would be selling at the same numbers as last year?

In that case what is your rationale for that assumption?

 

[Zaphod]

Those numbers do sound good, but I wonder I it´s not partly due to the fact that Microsoft only shipped 1.6 million consoles in the first 6 months of 2007.

1.2 million, actually, 600K each of the last two quarters, if I read their financial reports correctly.

If Microsoft had continued to sell consoles at similar rates as during the first year of the 360 when they shipped 10 million consoles

Trouble is, they never did. Sales were obviously slowing down towards the end of their fiscal year, but they still sold more more at retail in NA alone that they sold to retail worldwide. The numbers for the last half of calendar 2006 seems more due to deliberate channel stuffing. Probably in part motivated by PR desires, and equally in part by inventory clearing so as to allow a lull in production while examining issues and gearing up for changing lines around with the introduction of the Elite SKU and the new motherboard. I expect a good share of what they shipped in Q4 to be Elites. Given the relatively small overlap between the old and the newer units at retail combined with the slight rebranding already done and possible introduction of the Arcade SKU this seems to have worked out pretty well for them.

But in the marketing world you can always find some way to twist whatever number to your advantage.

Very true.

 

[StefanS]

You have a link for that? Last I heard they were under 3.

Ok, it's not the most up-to-date source out there, but from the fiscal report in March:

GBA DS GCN Wii
Japan 4.34 4.69 6.82 3.06
The Americas 5.08 4.94 10.63 6.11
Other 3.93 4.06 8.89 5.60
Overall 4.61 4.57 9.54 4.94

Wii’s tie ratio in Japan is lagging behind numbers in other markets, probably due to the fact that Wii Sports is bundled with the console in other regions. Still, an attach rate half that of other regions could be evidence of a lack of diversity and compelling software titles at this early stage of the product lifecycle. The DS on the other hand seems to have already reached the levels of the GBA.

You could get more recent data from Nintendo's last quarter report if necessary.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Are you saying that the attachment rate would not be lower if the 360 would be selling at the same numbers as last year?

In that case what is your rationale for that assumption?

It's irrelevant. Attach rates look great in reports, but the only thing publishers are looking at is that the X360 version of Madden outsold the PS2 version. That's all. Nothing more.

What this means is good things to those 3rd party publishers that support X360.

 

[Dave Baumann]

6 games, by the way, is that six discs or do Xbox Live Arcade games count as well?

Previous citations of attach rates do not include LIVE Arcade games (and if looking through my friends lists games selections is anything to go by the attach rate would be considerably higher!!).

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yeah. Live games aren't included.

 

[Crossbar]

It's irrelevant.

Whatever, if the 360 sales had sold 5 million in the first half of 2007 as according to Microsoft and not just about 1.6 million, the attach rate would be more like 5.5 or lower. That was my point.

Edit: 1.2 million in six months would give 5.4

Attach rates look great in reports, but the only thing publishers are looking at is that the X360 version of Madden outsold the PS2 version. That's all. Nothing more.

Really? Maybe there is more to this, perhaps the new Madden for the 360 was a great improvement compared to last year, the PS2 improvements were probably very small, and very likely this was the first Madden for a lot of 360 owners.

Microsoft should be happy with those numbers, but don´t expect game publishers to go crazy about them.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Whatever, if the 360 sales had sold 5 million in the first half of 2007 as according to Microsoft and not just about 1.6 million, the attach rate would be more like 5.5 or lower. That was my point.

Assuming they bought no games?

 

[Crossbar]

Assuming they bought no games?

Assuming they bought games with the same rate over each 6 months period.

 

[pipo]

Previous citations of attach rates do not include LIVE Arcade games (and if looking through my friends lists games selections is anything to go by the attach rate would be considerably higher!!).

Doh. I could have figured that out.

Need more coffee...