NPD December 2015 Sales Results
- Thread starter DieH@rd
- Start date
-
- Tags
- npd npd 2015 npd december 2015
You're going to want the same system as your friends come Christmas. Added bonus if your friends have PS4 is that you can borrow games off them.*
*According to Phil Spencer, Gamestop mangers are still telling him some customers think you can't share games on the XBone.
I am sure London Boy liked your post because it made him horny
Funny enough, I've had that song in my head for days. I keep humming it. All day. Yes, I am that gay. And this hasn't helped getting rid of it at all!
More interesting stolen from gaffer tables
So there's what PS4 was at over PS3. 83%. Nearly double sales. So Xbox is running a healthy +20% just to try to keep up.
Shows again what a monster Wii was, it's destroying the fast starting PS4.
Of course Wii had no legs at all (hell 360 ended up outselling it eventually), and PS4 likely will.
Edit: same guy (Welfare) now compared to 6th gen.
I think he said the PS2 was undercounted there because it launched in October, so 3 calendar years missed it's third December compared to the others.
About XBO vs X360, it was also posted
For comparison, 360's 2008 (comparable to Ones 2016) it did about 4.7 million. XBO's 2015 was about 4.9 million. XBO's life to date lead is around 2 million.
So basically XBO needs to continue to pad that lead now or still be selling gangbusters in 2018...it would look like otherwise 360 could overtake it in 2011/2019. But so much can happen by then it's hard to speculate. I happen to think there's a good chance MS will cut this gen "short" with a new box after 5-6 years (so, in fall of 2018 or 2019, I suppose the latter more likely) which would in theory kill XBO's chance to keep up with 360.
So there's what PS4 was at over PS3. 83%. Nearly double sales. So Xbox is running a healthy +20% just to try to keep up.
Shows again what a monster Wii was, it's destroying the fast starting PS4.
Of course Wii had no legs at all (hell 360 ended up outselling it eventually), and PS4 likely will.
Edit: same guy (Welfare) now compared to 6th gen.
I think he said the PS2 was undercounted there because it launched in October, so 3 calendar years missed it's third December compared to the others.
About XBO vs X360, it was also posted
For comparison, 360's 2008 (comparable to Ones 2016) it did about 4.7 million. XBO's 2015 was about 4.9 million. XBO's life to date lead is around 2 million.
So basically XBO needs to continue to pad that lead now or still be selling gangbusters in 2018...it would look like otherwise 360 could overtake it in 2011/2019. But so much can happen by then it's hard to speculate. I happen to think there's a good chance MS will cut this gen "short" with a new box after 5-6 years (so, in fall of 2018 or 2019, I suppose the latter more likely) which would in theory kill XBO's chance to keep up with 360.
Last edited:
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
The Wii was good for Nintendo and nobody else. Certainly few third party developers benefited from the Wii hardware sales. If you're looking for the leprechaun gold then you should direct your gaze toward software sales. This is where the margins are for software publishers and also for the platform holder courtesy of licensing fees.
Come on Rangers, you know this. With the exception of Nintendo who ship cheap silicon, the margins have never been in the hardware.
Uhh, yes it did. In 2014 when XBO was 349 and PS4 was 399, XBO outsold PS4 by over 600k in November+December (I'm not sure what the full year figures were, then again XBO wasn't 349 the whole year). That was the only holiday there was a price differential (I guess other than the 1st which we will ignore for reasons) so it's our only evidence. Maybe this wasn't the only reason, but there it is.
The thing is I see some incredibly key hardware decisions that could have gone either way that shape the generation every time. And it's fascinating to me.
With 360, it was the decision to go to 512MB (supposedly prompted by Epic) that imo basically ensured that console to succeed.
But this gen, Sony turned the tables with their late decision to go to 8GB being the defining decision of the generation IMO. They would have still had a stronger GPU, but IMO it's easier to consider a 1.2 TF GPU (in this alternate world, I suspect MS wouldn't have felt pressured to bump it's clocks a little, so 1.2 instead of 1.3)+8GB RAM against a 1.8TF GPU and 4GB RAM a hardware wash imo. Although you can get into interesting discussions there too, perhaps a effectively 3.5GB PS4 would have had games essentially unaffected vs a effectively 5GB XBO by the RAM as devs targeted lower common denominator, while still have a stronger GPU and a lower BOM. But at any rate with 8GB PS4 doesn't have to worry about that hypothetical it has the best of both worlds.
However IMO there's one key decision MS completely blew IMO that I wonder how much could have helped them, and I feel like it may have been huge. The decision, admitted by themselves in the architects interview with DF (and I was also getting PM tips about this on this board before then), to not enable the two redundant CU's on the GPU. That would have taken them to 896 SP's, 1.4TF, 1.5 had they also clock bumped, and IMO again made it much more of a hardware wash situation. It probably would have cost a relative pittance vs benefit as well, especially over time as yields improved. The key IMO (where the rubber hits the road for the general non techie public) was how much it would have helped MS hit 1080Parity on multiplats, and we dont know how much they are shader bottlenecked vs other things, but overall it couldn't have hurt and I suspect it would have helped a great deal, especially over time, especially knowing devs preference to put out similar versions.
But MS blew that decision.
There isn't going to be a "gangbusters" year five for MS in America. The things that lead to the 360 having such a strong second-half were:
- Early momentum (launch date and price)
- Best third party library
- Best versions of multiplats
- Best online by a mile, and friends list gravity (do not underestimate this in people choosing a platform!)
- Strong word of mouth
- A brand that became cooler and more respected year on year
This generation:
- No early launch, higher price
- Worse versions of multiplatforms, with widely ridiculed launch CoD.
- No online advantage, growing friends list disadvantage
- Negative word of mouth (DRM, Kinect, third party game performance)
- Brand stagnation, or perhaps even decline
If anyone has a gangbusters second half it'll be Sony this time.
And this is just considering America (as this is an NPD thread). In the wealthy market of Europeland MS have sacrificed significantly in order to win nothing in America.
- Early momentum (launch date and price)
- Best third party library
- Best versions of multiplats
- Best online by a mile, and friends list gravity (do not underestimate this in people choosing a platform!)
- Strong word of mouth
- A brand that became cooler and more respected year on year
This generation:
- No early launch, higher price
- Worse versions of multiplatforms, with widely ridiculed launch CoD.
- No online advantage, growing friends list disadvantage
- Negative word of mouth (DRM, Kinect, third party game performance)
- Brand stagnation, or perhaps even decline
If anyone has a gangbusters second half it'll be Sony this time.
And this is just considering America (as this is an NPD thread). In the wealthy market of Europeland MS have sacrificed significantly in order to win nothing in America.
The thing is, they probably don't have to. If Xbox One is outselling 360, it's probably doing well financially. They seem to have moved a lot of software. Sure, they're running 2nd place to Usain Bolt right now, but that doesn't mean they're running badly.
Such a box would still be unbalanced, even more than now. Still only 16 ROPs, and still only 32MB of fast ram. And they couldn't have both 2 CUs and the overclocking.
You know that they tested a real configuration with those 2 CUs unlocked and they weren't satisfied with the results. Overclocking their system gave them better performance improvements as it should considering both the 16 ROPs and the 32MB bottlenecks.
No point of going again there IMO. They blew it when they decided to go no matter what with 8GB, when they weren't inspired when they chose DDR3 (when they were much more inspired and risk takers in previous gen when they chose GDDR3 with a unified (and fast!) memory pool, EDRAM is more like a specialized cache for GPU, it's not a second versatile memory pool like ESRAM), which led them to 2 memory pools (1 slow, 1 fast) which led them to restrict the number of cores (and ROPs) because esram takes a lot of APU space and also because too much CUs would be useless (or inefficient) in this hardware configuration.
Sony took risks while being more sensible...retrospectively we could even say they were smarter. They knew they had to aim for easy game development and for 1080p at 30fps for their new standard (and it is the PS4 standard indeed). So they chose a big GPU with plenty of CUs, 32 ROPS, and a unified memory pool with fast memory. They took risks and maybe they were lucky too with the 8GB story. Presumably. They certainly took financial risks. Anyway I still think those 8GB PS4s we have are in fact the devkits they had always planned to produce along with 4GB normal consoles.
Yeah, I think so too. Thing is, even with only 4GB ram so long as Sony had kept at least 3.5 GB for games they'd probably still be in a better position.
I don't think it's the esram that hurt MS, it's the entire platform vision they had - it was fucked, fucked up and basically fuck. Super fast embedded memory still has a place, but when used to accelerate a very slow main memory pool and paired with only 16 ROPS it's only ever going to be seen as a crutch. But don't blame the crutch for the disease.
djskribbles
Legend
XBO was 329 during Black Friday week 2014, and they offered two full games (AC), and 30-50$ giftcards on top of that. The PS4 offered a single game at 399 with no giftcard offers that I remember.
The XB1 had a $50 price advantage for most of 2015 but the XB1 only managed to outsell the PS4 twice. Ironically, one of the months (October) was the month that Sony dropped the price of the PS4, but that was mostly because they lost some sales from Battlefront and BLOPS3 bundle pre-orders.
Last edited:
I agree with you guys about most stuff you said on xbo hardware, but I feel like two more CU's would have gone a long way to saving the "botched" hardware. As the MS guy said, it was a 16.6% flops increase vs the 6.6% clock increase we got. I know the latter is much more broad and didn't just bring up the flops, but it's still a huge difference.
They said they ran existing code on it and the clock bump gave more results, but on it's face that was shortsighted. Of course code designed for 768 shaders is going to get faster with a clock bump than throwing two more CU's at it (when it's not shader limited to start with). It always struck me as a very poor response, unless they didn't mean it as they said it.
So, it seems they took existing 1st party launch games, already designed for 768 SP's by definition, and surprise! Throwing more shaders at them didn't do much...
And the idea that the hardware was just magically balanced where it could not use any more CU's is just silly. Such a cutoff point never exists. At worst you'll get diminishing returns (and in a console box, even that would be dubious, if you give closed box programmers more resources in any area, they'll use them). Hell sebbi on here has given examples of compute that dont use bandwidth.
Nick Baker framed it as a choice, clock bump or two more CU's. Surely enforced by shortsighted bean counters. They should have done both, or even failing that at least just the CU's IMO.
And lets not forget Baker was still throwing around the balance BS, and casting XBO as somehow making up it's specs deficit by being more "balanced". Nonsense.
BTW what have devs said? Well it's been mixed what little they've said, but at least CD Project Red specifically brought up lack of shading as a problem on XBO. This was in response to the DX12 claims. They said, DX12 wont address the real problem, it will let you throw more triangles, but the XBO's problem is shading them.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-Unlikely-Hit-1080p-With-DX12-Says-Witcher-3-Dev-66567.html
Anyways it's off topic I guess, but I dont have much more to say on it than the above I guess, that's my position.
They said they ran existing code on it and the clock bump gave more results, but on it's face that was shortsighted. Of course code designed for 768 shaders is going to get faster with a clock bump than throwing two more CU's at it (when it's not shader limited to start with). It always struck me as a very poor response, unless they didn't mean it as they said it.
So, it seems they took existing 1st party launch games, already designed for 768 SP's by definition, and surprise! Throwing more shaders at them didn't do much...
And the idea that the hardware was just magically balanced where it could not use any more CU's is just silly. Such a cutoff point never exists. At worst you'll get diminishing returns (and in a console box, even that would be dubious, if you give closed box programmers more resources in any area, they'll use them). Hell sebbi on here has given examples of compute that dont use bandwidth.
Nick Baker framed it as a choice, clock bump or two more CU's. Surely enforced by shortsighted bean counters. They should have done both, or even failing that at least just the CU's IMO.
And lets not forget Baker was still throwing around the balance BS, and casting XBO as somehow making up it's specs deficit by being more "balanced". Nonsense.
BTW what have devs said? Well it's been mixed what little they've said, but at least CD Project Red specifically brought up lack of shading as a problem on XBO. This was in response to the DX12 claims. They said, DX12 wont address the real problem, it will let you throw more triangles, but the XBO's problem is shading them.
http://www.cinemablend.com/games/Xbox-One-Unlikely-Hit-1080p-With-DX12-Says-Witcher-3-Dev-66567.html
Anyways it's off topic I guess, but I dont have much more to say on it than the above I guess, that's my position.
It was also the first Kinectless Christmas wasn't it? And I think there were other factors like buyers waiting for the price-drop (IIRC it had been announced a month before it happened) and also MS had HCC in xmas 2014. Unfortunately for MS this year looks kind of dry...I think it will fall behind X360 this year unless there's a surprise up their sleeves.
D
Deleted member 86764
Guest
I agreed with what Rangers is suggesting, I also think MS should have gone with using the deactivated CUs and the clock increase.
Although, I happen to believe that their problems started quite a way before then. I actually wouldn't have had a problem paying the initial price for the Xbox if it actually had powerful hardware in the box, but they instead concentrated on something that should have been a peripheral. The costs of Kinect should have been spent on better processors instead.
That and the TV functionality are why they totally messed up the hardware.
Although, I happen to believe that their problems started quite a way before then. I actually wouldn't have had a problem paying the initial price for the Xbox if it actually had powerful hardware in the box, but they instead concentrated on something that should have been a peripheral. The costs of Kinect should have been spent on better processors instead.
That and the TV functionality are why they totally messed up the hardware.
Rikimaru
Veteran
Also Sony engineers directly involved in chip design. AMD said it was Sony's idea to add bit which bypasses cache. And hardware ATRAC9 decoder.
I remember they specifically said it was easy because devkits were 8Gb.
steveOrino
Regular
Still don't see the issue with the xbox one hardware, system power wasn't the issue. The issue was that they changed the xbox brand with the X1 and consumers didn't care for it. MS couldn't convince consumers that the added non-gaming features were worthy of the price premium. X1 was never designed to be the most powerful console (MS confirmed this themselves) they wanted to make an all around media box because "just gaming" wasn't lucrative enough for MS as a whole.
Overclocking, enabling more CUs, etc wouldn't have added up to a hill of beans in the current install base disparity that people keep pointing out. It still sells well, it just that compared to their competition it has greatly decreased leverage due to that sales disparity. However, I would assume they would have accounted for this when it was decided they were going to make Kinect mandatory and put 499 on the price tag. Guess not?
Nintendo, MS, Sony are all looking for new ways to grow their potential user base they know they can't do this with just software alone. This is why you see them taking the chance on stuff like motion gaming, Dual screens, VR, etc because its important to their future. So far all of them have been ho-hum or just don't work at all. Motion gaming failed because it wasn't better than a traditional controller and imo the jury is still out on VR doing anything long term past the honeymoon phase (hope I am wrong because VR is certainly neat, but I know its cons towards long term adoption).
Overclocking, enabling more CUs, etc wouldn't have added up to a hill of beans in the current install base disparity that people keep pointing out. It still sells well, it just that compared to their competition it has greatly decreased leverage due to that sales disparity. However, I would assume they would have accounted for this when it was decided they were going to make Kinect mandatory and put 499 on the price tag. Guess not?
Nintendo, MS, Sony are all looking for new ways to grow their potential user base they know they can't do this with just software alone. This is why you see them taking the chance on stuff like motion gaming, Dual screens, VR, etc because its important to their future. So far all of them have been ho-hum or just don't work at all. Motion gaming failed because it wasn't better than a traditional controller and imo the jury is still out on VR doing anything long term past the honeymoon phase (hope I am wrong because VR is certainly neat, but I know its cons towards long term adoption).
