MS Xbox is gaining momentum...unstoppable...

ig·no·rant (gnr-nt)
adj.

-Lacking education or knowledge.
-Showing or arising from a lack of education or knowledge: an ignorant mistake.
-Unaware or uninformed


Hmm... Care to point out what was lacking education or knowledge? All I did is use Ben's established rules, I guess then indirectly, you called him ignorant.

 

As in - ignorant of proper social behavior. I suppose I'll add arrogant to the list, since you seem to think that your opinion of the market is unquestionable. Of course, all you do is quote Sony press releases and the standard industry line.

Try putting some independent thinking into something for a change. I think we've all seen those GDC slides about 500 times. Why is it so puzzling that many people around here think you're just blowing Sony smoke most of the time?

Why don't we just agree to disagree and leave it at that? I won't take any more shots at you if you don't take any more at me. I don't want to poison the forums with our antics.

 

Vince-

Why is it outrageous? Check out Sony's shipped numbers for North America this year from January to the most recent release. It has gone up 6-7Million units. Obviously not all of those have sold, but the PS2 also hasn't put up those kind of NPD numbers every month either not to mention that there was already on hand stock at the beginning of the year.

Think of it this way. We know the PS2 sells the best in the US along with all of the other consoles. If the PS2 sold 450,000 a months in each territory every single month it would take them almost thirty months to hit forty million units. Think about that. Nearly two and a half years if it sold 450K units every single month in each territory. Change that to 750K and it works out to about eighteen months. Which do you think is closer to the truth?

This in regard to PS2s failing. Let me ask you Vince, is your PS2 still working? Would you expect anyone's PS2 to be dead by this point? I would say the same thing about any XBox or Cube too. The only difference I see between all three of them is that Nintendo gives you a year warranty instead of ninety days.

For the launch era PSX? Having one die inside of two years is the norm, not the exception. The CD drives in them crapped out early and frequently. This has been covered by pretty much every major gaming publication along with being the norm for end users.

Johnny-

MS was actually using NPD numbers for their press releases for a while in terms of game sales as they were for console sales through Q1 of this year(were you taking part in the conversation we had at the time about that?). That gave them a chance to change up to actual sales or shipped numbers at the drop of a hat and help cover any slow periods over the course of the year.

The easiest way to do it is to compare say Nintendo's(or EA's or Activisions- whoever) NA software sales in dollars versus NPDs year end results for them based on their figures. It works out to roughly 60%. It will be higher or lower then that in pretty much any given circumstance, titles that are particularly popular with the younger demogrpahic will be particularly smaller using NPDs figures as they don't track WM. Take a title like that Britney dancing game and NPD likely reported less then half its total sales as it only would appeal to much younger gamers and likely sold at WM considerably better then at dedicated gaming stores on a comparitive basis.

How many games have you guys purchased at Wal-Mart this generation just as anecdotal evidence? I don't have a dedicated gaming store within a half hour drive of where I live, thirteen out of the fifteen Cube games I have came from WM(eleven) or KMart(two) with two out of three of my Box games coming from WM(one from EB- my local WM never got Morrowind in for XB).

 

But how can you say something like this? It's not like sales are nearly as constant. Sales for christmas period are outrageously higher than the rest of the year.

What I don't understand is why NPD can't make their numbers correct just by increasing them as you suggest? Are their mathematicians so incompetent they can't just increase their numbers by 40% and make them perfectly true to life?

If they intentionally don't increase the numbers (although I'm pretty sure they actually say they do) why don't they say the numbers are just for the ~60% of the total market?

 

Because their claim is that they have 85% coverage. They don't want to admit they only have 60% coverage (your arguments make sense Ben).

This would place the PS2 around 17 million in the US, but that's actually believable at this point, with Japan at 11 and Europe at around 8 million, this would put Sony at 36 million, which is pretty reasonable given their press releases. Something like that.

The Xbox would be about 5 million world-wide, and the Gamecube would be closer to 7 million. Sony has 75% of the market right now, but they are slowly settling in to around 65% if present trends continue and will probably drop to a least 60% by the end of 2003. Who knows what 2004 and 2005 will bring, but there's still a lot of room left for MS and Nintendo to surge a little at the end.

 

You are right, and the PS2 sells outmost as well in the US as it does in Europe and Japan combined, there is a lot of leeway in the numbers to allow for seasonal fluctuation.

Johnny-

Sony released a statement about a month ago saying they had hit forty million shipped, figure for units in the pipe and it matches up with NPD covering about ~60% of the market(funny how that works isn't it ).

IBM had a press release about a month ago saying they had recently shipped their ten millionth processor for the Cube. Given the amount of time it takes to move them from VT to Japan, manufacturer them, ship them and sell them I'd say the 7Million figure is about right based on that alone(although it also agrees with my estimation anyway). The Box being at 5Million is where it is almost certainly at right now. There is an extensive amount of evidence that shows NPD covers ~60% of the market and nothing showing they cover 80% except their statement(which oddly enough hasn't changed despite WM being the largest growing retailer in the world.... wonder why that is).

 

Still it's weird, don't you think? They are supposed to be serious analytical company, yet anyone who looks at company's financial reports can debunk them... I can hardly believe they would lie about something that anyone can debunk, but weirder things happen in the business so I don't know

 

Really, just look at Enron or Worldcom

 

what exactly happened with WorldCom? I haven't quite heard the full story.