It's the typical volume for the 360 the past months but it's still better than last year. We have no clue about the 360 sales crumbling, what was the 2008 sales for september?
NPD August 2009
- Thread starter RobertR1
- Start date
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I have a hard time seeing a really large drop in X360 sales YoY. It will drop, IMO, I just don't know how much.
But if consider ODST has absolutely ZERO impact on sales and X360 holds steady at 200-225k as it has the past few months that's still far less than a 50% drop.
If ODST moves even an additional 50k units that reduces the drop even further. I don't think it's out of the question that ODST might help to move an additional 50-100k units which might get the X360 up to 300k units or so.
Then again, considering the mixed positive and negative hype ODST has gotten it may not move many. Sept is going to be almost impossible to call with regards to X360.
I think it's fair to say PS3 should have a fantastic Sept. however.
Regards,
SB
But if consider ODST has absolutely ZERO impact on sales and X360 holds steady at 200-225k as it has the past few months that's still far less than a 50% drop.
If ODST moves even an additional 50k units that reduces the drop even further. I don't think it's out of the question that ODST might help to move an additional 50-100k units which might get the X360 up to 300k units or so.
Then again, considering the mixed positive and negative hype ODST has gotten it may not move many. Sept is going to be almost impossible to call with regards to X360.
I think it's fair to say PS3 should have a fantastic Sept. however.
Regards,
SB
You do understand we are comparing to last year for the YoY numbers, right?
By the way, how do you know about the sales? My guess is elite sales are up substantially, but Arade and Pro are down. The only thing I have to go buy in Amazon rankings and the elite was #37 and only spent a few days in the top 20 after the drop, that doesn't look substantial IMO. Of course maybe 360 buyers don't know how to work the Internets, but that idea has little support considering how well the games and accessories are doing on the rankings.
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My guess is that MS is waiting for Nintendo to make a price cut. They don't want their flagship SKU to be the same price (or less!) than the Wii. It's just bad optics for a console that claims to contain more value. If the Wii drops (e.g.) to $199, I expect MS will drop both of their SKUs by another $30-50 immediately.
If I recall back to 2007, I think the new Arcade hadn't even been revealed yet at this point in September. So it is possible that MS is still waiting for the right timing to make another move, such as what I suggested above.
If I recall back to 2007, I think the new Arcade hadn't even been revealed yet at this point in September. So it is possible that MS is still waiting for the right timing to make another move, such as what I suggested above.
350K. I don't think sales will crumble, I just doubt sales will see the type of sales spike given by the price cut last year. More like steady sailing versus sinking or taking off with a gust of wind.
I imagine that MS will likely sit back and wait to time their price cut for this spring unless the PS3 takes off and greatly affect 360 sales in the months leading up to the holiday. The 360 has been selling a pretty good clip, no use in cutting prices unless the sales change dramatically.
The Amazon top sales list is a bad predictor of overall US console sales. The list has been off many times. You don't see many people here trying to use it (and we tried plenty of times back in 2006/2007) to guage anything substantial because its use has never really mirrored the reality given by NPD.
One example is the first real price drop of the PS3 to $400. By Amazon, you might of thought the PS3 would of out sold the 360 by a pretty substantial number. It didn't happen.
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Thanks, I could not find the last year NPD september thread (may it was when they decide to no longer disclose their numbers... or my bad use of the search function...).
Well if they did 350K last year I pretty much agree with you a YoY loss for september is possible/likely.
Ouch... FWIW, Wolfenstein sold 59k on 360... Those XBLA sales are certainly starting to make me wonder..
I really do wish they'd limit the results to the three home consoles rather than including the portable ones.
It will be somewhat higher just because September is a 5 week NPD.
Then throw in the Elite price cut (which I agree isn't as substantive as a true cut, but nevertheless will stimulate sales) and ODST. Plus people beginning to get in the holiday shopping mood.
Just at August rates extended to 5 weeks, you'd be looking at 270k or something.
360 should be easily over 300k in September. And 350k is easily attainable.
People are underestimating ODST..it's been #1 on Amazon quite a lot lately..rare for 360 related products.
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19 of the top 20 are Nintendo (9) EA (7) and Square Enix (3).
I dont see why people keep thinking MS cares about the price perception versus Wii, they dont. Wii isn't even directly their competitor, PS3 is.
The best example of this is the numerous people in early 2008 who claimed MS couldn't drop the Arcade below the Wii, because then somehow people would..whatever dire effect they assign to pricing lower than the Wii. Then MS summarily cut the Arcade to 199, and everybody survived just fine.
Anyways, I dont expect MS to cut. The Elite cut is what they're going with I suspect. Probably trying to pull a Sony circa the last 12 months, and focus on hardware profitability at the expense of some sales. Except I'd suspect they'll fare better than Sony did with it, in that I think they can sell parity with PS3 after the slim hubbub dies down.
I would expect something like a $20 cut from MS, if their sales appear to be in free fall versus PS3 over the next couple months. Again, theyre not worried about the Wii.
The thing that throws a lot of wrenches into MS's whole strategy is Natal..I kind of suspect it's disrupting the normal flow of 360 price cuts. What I think may be happening is MS is planning to pack Natal in in fall 010, but they dont want to hike prices to do it. So, theyre keeping prices at a somewhat high level. By fall 010, still at 299/199 360 base hardware should be quite profitable, so they can pack Natal in without having to raise the price. But in the meanwhile, they're forgoing the normal cuts they might be making right now.
I also think 199 is a very attractive price for Arcade. What they need to do is get games that look great like Forza 3, ODST, and (hopefully) Reach out there, and it will sell. It's more about software right now, and I'm a guy who rarely assigns much importance to software
360 roughly twice PS3 which was roughly twice PC. The game was made for the consoles from day one but still, seeing these numbers for such a venerable PC franchise makes me cringe.
djskribbles
Legend
Is it really rare for a Halo game to be #1 on Amazon?
And do you think people are underestimating the sales of ODST, or the impact it will have on hardware sales?
Looks like the Wii may get an October price cut:
http://kotaku.com/5357766/wii-price-drop-looks-to-hit-first-week-of-october
http://kotaku.com/5357766/wii-price-drop-looks-to-hit-first-week-of-october
Why would Pro sales be down if they're $50 cheaper? If they're down it's cause supplies are dwindling. Why would the $199 console see slower sales in this economic climate?
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/xbox-360-sales-climb-43-percent-in-uk
This is the only numbers I've seen so far. 360 sales up 43% in the UK after the cut.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
4 out of the 20 (20%!) were just 1 game. Madden NFL 10.
Talk about a multiplatform cash cow.Regards,
SB
Very, very scarce info. Also I was under the impression that, in the context of Walmart, a rollback is a often a temporary and small price drop to clear out inventory. Since I'm over this side of the pond I could very well be mistaken. How plausible is this?
Over here I thought Rollbacks were mainly permanent, but after further investigation it looks like they're for 60-90 days which seem permanent for those like myself who make regular trips ever week. However, you hardly ever see Rollbacks on big ticket electronics unless the price is permanent or the item is being discontinued.
Tommy McClain
I guess both.
I think once again people here are going by the message board mentality, which tends to be skewed towards the PS3 exclusives. But real world sales often dont reflect that. Look at Killzone 2 for just one example.
If you look at the message boards then yeah, ODST isn't getting great hype, and it's getting a lot of knocks as a glorified expansion pack etc, but I dont think that necessarily reflects most gamers. Anyways, imo on Neogaf ODST is even getting solid hype for a 360 game. It's had a thread on the front page for a while now.
I also think the September release date ends up working out just brilliant..there's so much pent up demand, the big first game of the holiday season has a great position. I think it worked great for Bioshock launching in August a couple years ago for example. It keeps ODST away from MW2, AC2, Uncharted 2, etc. It gives it almost two full months before MW2.
I'm starting to think ODST will outsell Halo 3. Am I crazy? Given it has a bigger install base too. It's not as big an event as a proper Halo game, no question, and wont push as much hardware, but I bet it will push some. It also simply has positions without a lot of competition. It's one of only two MS first party holiday exclusives, and it's an FPS, instantly giving it a much larger appeal than Forza. It's really even the only major first party FPS, since MAG got delayed. It's real competition is MW2.
