More sales charts... (US)

There were stories like that. Again, I never saw any 360's until early in '06. But I remember hearing people say they saw a bunch and nobody bought them, etc. -- it's exaggerated or fluke incidents... it's irrelevant. Anecdotes are generally ignored for various reasons -- it's not really factually useful and often depends on the bias (either way) and propensity of the poster to actually post whatever they are seeing... Many people are more likely to post negative news (or stuff that out of what is considered norm)... Many people also remember the negative (or things that are out of the norm) more than positives...

It's safe to assume that the anecdotal stories of stacks of PS3s sitting on shelves for days being the vast minority. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually reported almost every time it was experienced, because it would be out of the norm... meanwhile people not seeing PS3s at all or seeing them sell out probably aren't going to bother, because it's standard affair.

These stories have more to do with the psychological aspects of humans than the actual sales of PS3.

 

It's not a fluke... it's just physics, a natural occurence. Someone has to see the subjects on the shelves first before able to buy them. There are of course time slices where no buyer happens to be around. But yeah, they cannot be used to conclude anything just yet.

 

Hey bud, meet nip:

Media Create tracking as of 17th December 2006: 308,000
NPD United States tracking as of 30th November 2006: 197,000

Nexgenwars total as of today: 508,638

So, for the moment, ignoring the Japanese sales from the 17th to the 22nd, just how many units do you think have been sold in the US since the end of November? Does 3,000 units sound like a number that's "much more in tune" with the anecdotal buzz? Really now, REALLY?

This of course doesn't acccount North American PS3 sales outside of the United States (Canada, Mexico etc), or any Eastern market sales outside of Japan. It's merely an example of how preposterous the Nexgenwars site is, and in fact including extrapolations on those numbers would just make things much worse for them.

 

1.5 million 360s if i remember right

 

360's In 05? Well, we had approx. 650K in the U.S., 90K in Japan...how many in the UK, i'm not sure.

 

It is a lot. I'm usually the first in line for these types of things and i am really debating whether or not a PS3 is the best use of $800 right now to basically play resistance, i havent even opened it yet.

Well there were 360s put on shelves last year and someone did see them and some of those people actually bought them...

 

http://ncroal.talk.newsweek.com/default.asp?item=397451

 

whilst i doubt thats possible xb360 shipped 1.5 million worldwide in nov/dec 2005 ( iguess the ps3 will only sell 1million, though who knows perhaps the dec npd figure will be 800k)

it is becoming apparent that the supply of ps3 has increased quite a lot cause

A/ stories on the internet of ps3s being more avaliable in shops
B/ sony have said the supply issues are solved

C/ another blue diode manufacturer has recently come on line (blue diodes were the thing that were stopping production of ps3's)

ok, both A+B have very little weight, its D+E+partly C that do it
D/ ps3 price on ebay has dropped through the floor (why buy on ebay if u can get it at your local shop)
E/ (excluding the launch numbers) in japan there were ~35,000 ps3s sold a week until 2 weeks ago this rose to 50,000 + last week it rose to 70,000.
now im pretty sure they havent been stockpiling ps3s to sell in the last 2 weeks, the obvious conclusion is there are more ps3s avaliable in the shops

 

from wikipedia

and this is the reference given for that entry http://www.microsoft.com/msft/download/FY06/MSFTQ2_06.ppt#14

 

So VGCharts says they've sold another 600,000 PS3s in the US in 3 weeks?? That's as close to the truth as Nexgenwars, IMHO...

 

Well, firstly, if you look at the VGCharts breakdown it says NA sales are 620,000. That would be additional sales of 423,000 from the end of November. Secondly, as I said in my previous post, those sales tracking companies do not cover all of the regions in which the PS3 is sold. There will be at least an additional 10% [of the US units] sold in Canada (given the historic share of stock between the US and Canada), plus further (albeit much smaller) sales in East Asian countries.

I don't know how many units have been sold in December in the US, but that doesn't mean I can't very easily dismiss the Nexgenwars numbers. It'll be an interesting sales month to say the least.

 

Both of those sites have useless numbers, obviously one is an Xbox fan and the other is a PS3 or Wii fan...

 

Where is that number coming from though? I heard that someone posted (at GAF?) that they got a copy of the PS3 without Talledega Nights, which would imply that >500,000 have been shipped/sold. Any other news reports about an additional 400k in sales since NPD?

 

That's probably because Sony is actually replenishing shipments in meaningful numbers, while MS dropped 400k all at once, and I don't think really got another major shipment into stores until the new year.

 

Hehehe.

Actually having a MS in Experimental Psychology, I'm well aware of the phenomenon you are describing and attributing the stories to.

However, my internet habits have not changed over the past year. While you disputed my claim that these stories didn't happen a year ago by saying that you saw similar examples with the 360, the fact remains that even if the stories did occur with the 360, they weren't happening with the same magnitude or frequency. At least not for the same sample of the population, because the sample between the two years hasn't changed.

Your also correct that my sample (based upon my internet habits) may not be representative of the population. But changes in my sample, that I feel are of such a magnitude to be significant, are still rather interesting. Especially when, like I said previously, they aren't considered in a vacuum. They are put next to the fact that bundles are even more available in stores and the internet auction price has dropped incredibly.

 

That's friggin retarded.

He starts off by saying that a price cut won't work because of A,B,C.. .and C is actually the PRICE of the console, so you can't exactly say that an item isn't selling because it's too expensive and a price cut won't help. If price is why it isn't selling, of course lower the price will help!

He then goes on to essentially give that same answer throughout the rest of the interview. That everything right now is too expensive. Well, I agree with that. These consoles are most certainly too expensive.

But if price is the problem right now, which we both appear to believe it to be, then how can you say that a price cut won't help??

 

There were some stories of post-launch camping and lines last year. Not as much as we're hearing about Wii this year though. Don't hear much about ps3 lines except for the launch.

 

Someone posted in this thread or the PS3 Sales thread that MS shipped 900k in the US or North America in 2005. Actually, 900k in NA, 500k in Europe and 100k in Japan.

They would have had to have major shipments after launch to ship those totals last year.

 

They shipped 900k, but how many did they actually sell?

I certainly don't remember any large scale replenishments except 1 day, when everybody lined up again and the major retailers had a decent amount of stock, all around the same day.

It definately wasn't the steady, replenishments we're hearing about from sony, i.e. 30-40 units to a store only a week after launch, that never happened with 360.

 

They had 6 PS3s in stock at the local Best Buy today (my step-kids father saw them). I couldn't believe it, but apparently it's true. They're actually available in some places.