NPD December 2009

I agree, what I meant is we can't be sure what effect it would have had overall for the whole year had it never been supply constrained. Like I said though the second comment about selling around 30% better had it not been supply constrained is probably somewhere close to the truth. I wouldn't have had much of an issue with that had he said it originally.

 

The PS3 is on course to overhaul the Xbox360's 12 month/17 months headstart in Q2/Q3 this year as things stand on a worldwide basis. Surprised the PS3 did so well in NPD because it had some major supply issues at the backend of December which have continued into January.

 

I thought 360 had a world wide lead in the range of 10 million?

 

Can you share with us the math you used to form that opinion please?

 

It has never been 10 million; MS reported shipping 10 million consoles until the end of 2006, but evidently most of that was channel stuffing. The real difference has been around 7-8 million units and the gap has stayed relatively constant. What Sony gains in Japan and the EU is almost completely offset by MS in the US and UK, or at least have been last year (MS has actually increased the US gap even further in 2009, by 200-300k according to NPD).

Then again the slim version and the price cut has given some extra momentum in Europe.
But of course it's complete nonsense that Sony could sell 1 million more consoles every single month to close the worldwide gap by the end of the summer.

 

Shipped as of end Sep
360: 33.5
PS3 27.0

MS already gave a shipped figure cumulative recently of 39 m. So that means they shipped 5.5m in the last three months of 2010. It's likely Sony shipped at least 7m during that time frame (PS3's much greater Japan sales alone will mean so, we know they've sold about the same in the USA, and if anything Sony usually has an edge in Europe). Microsoft reports financial's at the end of Jan and Sony soon after to get the accurate numbers.

So the 360 lead WW up to Dec 31 is probably between 4-5 million units.

I kind of doubt Sony will make that up in the next 2-3 Q's though, this is the slow times of year and therefore ground will be harder to make up. At current trends it's possible (not necessarily a sure thing) PS3 could take the lead in Q4 2010. In the long term if MS wants to keep it's lead price cuts or Natal will have to give them a boost past PS3 at some point in 2010.

 

Yeah, it's an obvious tactic; on the other hand MS hasn't always been good enough at following such tactics. The X360 price cut for example should have arrived earlier, it could have had a much bigger effect; but I suspect MS did not want to take the extra financial losses.

So as clear as it seems to us, they still might not cut the price for Reach nor Natal...

 

I still don't think we'll see the price drop below $200. I don't think there's anything in the world that will push the 360 above the Wii and I think MS knows that, and that's the only reason I can see for them agreeing on losing profitability. If anything, I expect them to be holding their losses back for next-gen, when they go up against Nintendo for real.

 

Only way the 360 gets a price cut is if they really start getting absolutely hammered in the sales, or if they make cost reductions to the BOM.

 

People really think 360 WONT get a cut in 2010 after not having one since August 08??

Come on, it's a given. The only POSSIBLE reason it might not happen is the cost of packing Natal in, but I think odds are high both will happen.

 

Why is it a given? Microsoft decides after two years 'we've made enough money', time to go up? If sales start to drop year over year, yeah, we'd see a price drop.

 

Agreed. MS cares most about profitabity, not winning a "consoles sold" war. You guys seriously can't expect them to lose money forever.

 

Aren't they making money now (ignore R&D + warranty write off - software)? That's an honest question btw.

 

According to MS they are making money from the X360 platform (Hardware + Software + DLC + Video rentals, etc). It's hard to tell how much however since the financials only show the division that X360 is in, which includes among other things Zune.

I think it's doubtful they've recouped Xbox 1 losses (including R&D) + X360 R&D though. It's possible if you removed all Xbox 1 related losses, they might be breaking even or close to breaking even.

Regards,
SB

 

They've been making money for a couple years+ now. http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/20346/Xbox-Division-Records-Second-Profitable-Year-in-a-Row/

Guaranteed the 360 hardware is quite profitable right now.

When you consider how much they must rake in off the sale of $100 wireless N adapters that probably cost $3, Xbox Live subscriptions, overpriced hard drives, controllers etc it's kind of stunning. A price drop is long overdue already. In Fall 2010, well.

 

They're not losing money.

Secondly, part of profitability includes ensuring there are as many 360's in homes as possible to push the other revenue lines - Live, Marketplace, and software. It makes no financial sense for Microsoft to keep the price as high as it was in 2008 and keeping potential buyers out of their price range. They'll saturate what they believe is the limit of the current price, and then drop.

This is not Microsoft specific - all console releases have done this. For comparison's sake, why would Sony have ever dropped the price on the PS2? For the exact same reasons I've outlined above, of course.

 

Agree - with my above post, I think MS will probably wait too long to reduce price -or worse, sell at the same price with Natal bundled, assuming people who were on the fence will see it as a "value prop".

 

The question here is they'll want to announce Natal's name, release date & pricing at E3. How do they announce a SKU price for Holiday 2010 without cannibalizing their sales in the months leading up to that? Plus, the channel clearing they're doing for Elite right now shows that they've got plans to probably value add a 250gb drive to the Elite SKU. Will that be between now and E3? I don't think it's a given that Microsoft will follow previous price drop time-frames(ex Sept.). I could see them announcing a price drop at E3 for current SKUs. Then announce a higher priced SKU for Natal in Holiday 2010. Yes, I don't think Arcade will come with Natal. I only expect it with Elite or a totally different SKU.

Tommy McClain

 

On each piece of hardware sold? Don't forget, according to most data we get, the $299 SKU seems to sell more than the $199 SKU, which may in fact still be a loss leader. MS may not actually want to suck a loss on every single console sold, even if they can make it up with profit from Live! and game sales. It's not like 360 sales are bad, and they'll probably be neck and neck with the PS3 for most of the year. Would a price drop even mean a sustained increase in sales, if the 360's sales aren't even flagging?

No, you can't guarantee that.