NPD February 2005

[Kolgar]

Well, let's see... What's the Xbox release schedule look like for the rest of this year? I was under the impression that besides the Conker game, the well's about dry.

If this is true, it would suggest Microsoft is going whole-hog with Xbox 2 and abandoning the current platform. Otherwise, there may still be life in the old black monolith yet.

 

[Carl B]

I totally agree, but you can't be suggesting that Microsoft is going to continue selling the Xbox1 in its current form at $150 till its death? Or are you suggesting that MS will stop selling Xbox1 altogether?

Tommy McClain

Well, I don't disagree with you. I don't really know what they will do... I mean of course, no one does.

It's a tough bind for them, either way. Take an even greater hit on XBox? Or begin a controlled phase-out? And if they ARE choosing the later, is XBox 2 going to be backwards compabile? If not - man. People aren't going to be happy with that convergence of events. Still, Allard seemed to imply XBox would continue being supported in his speech so who knows.

It's a pretty weird situation. But I can't see how they could come out with a new, slimmer XBox or anything to cut costs - not without NVidia's help, and not seeing how poisoned the relationship is between those two.

 

[AzBat]

Well, let's see... What's the Xbox release schedule look like for the rest of this year? I was under the impression that besides the Conker game, the well's about dry.

If this is true, it would suggest Microsoft is going whole-hog with Xbox 2 and abandoning the current platform. Otherwise, there may still be life in the old black monolith yet.

If MS is completely abandoning the Xbox1 and no more games are planned, then what does that say about the importance of backward compatibility for Xbox2? It's not needed as anybody who currently has an Xbox1 can keep it and still play the games they have.

I agree that MS own upcoming schedule for Xbox1 games is a bit dry, but I believe there are still quite a few games coming from third party devs. Whether or not there's enough to warrant a lower price or smaller model I'm not sure.

Tommy McClain

 

[AzBat]

I totally agree, but you can't be suggesting that Microsoft is going to continue selling the Xbox1 in its current form at $150 till its death? Or are you suggesting that MS will stop selling Xbox1 altogether?

Tommy McClain

Well, I don't disagree with you. I don't really know what they will do... I mean of course, no one does.

Thus the reason for Crazy Idea #1 and #2.

It's a tough bind for them, either way. Take an even greater hit on XBox? Or begin a controlled phase-out? And if they ARE choosing the later, is XBox 2 going to be backwards compabile? If not - man. People aren't going to be happy with that convergence of events. Still, Allard seemed to imply XBox would continue being supported in his speech so who knows.

Yeah, that's exactly why I started wondering what the future holds for Xbox1. They must have some kind of exit strategy. And one that doesn't make them look worse going into the next gen.

It's a pretty weird situation. But I can't see how they could come out with a new, slimmer XBox or anything to cut costs - not without NVidia's help, and not seeing how poisoned the relationship is between those two.

Microsoft is a pretty smart cookie. I'm sure they got a plan to do it without NVIDIA's help. Whether or not it's viable, who knows. If not, they've also shown they're pretty persuasive too. Maybe they persuaded NVIDIA that they will loose too much money in sales by not helping them.

Anybody know what NVIDIA is forecasting for sales from Xbox1? Could tell us if Microsoft is still buying components or dropping them completely.

Tommy McClain

 

[cthellis42]

Microsoft is a pretty smart cookie. I'm sure they got a plan to do it without NVIDIA's help. Whether or not it's viable, who knows. If not, they've also shown they're pretty persuasive too. Maybe they persuaded NVIDIA that they will loose too much money in sales by not helping them.

Size-wise, I'm not too sure. To my knowledge they're straight-contracted, so would any change require a contract renegotiation? Or heck, would nVidia be able to make changes and take the manufacturing savings themselves because they'd still be able to charge Microsoft the same price? They might be amenable to THAT, since they'd get more profit (so long as the redesign doesn't take too much to R&D), but that's not as appealing to MS as they'd only be saving on things like the case.

Offhand, I think they'll try their usual tactic (software development) to keep the Xbox appealing, but since we really have no idea what their contracts look like for the Xbox, there's no way to tell if they could pull off a cheaper/smaller unit with financial gain. (What if they wanted to go with another HDD? What does their contract look like that way? Would they still have to buy their old HDD's even if they wouldn't use them?)

I'm sure they could spend more money to renegotiate and pull it off, but would it actually bring them overall savings, or do they expect to sell enough units in the rest of the Xbox's lifespan to make it worthwhile? Would it cause them MORE loss? I can more likely see them concentrating all their effort on Xbox 2, as that's where they have more chance to make more headway, and it's where they have the direct control they want. If they'd take as much of a bath on redesigning the Xbox anyway (or not improve the situation much), I think they'd more likely just want to take the loss directly through more price-lowering, and keep their people--and the public--focused on the future.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If MS is completely abandoning the Xbox1 and no more games are planned, then what does that say about the importance of backward compatibility for Xbox2? It's not needed as anybody who currently has an Xbox1 can keep it and still play the games they have.

MS have said backwards compatibility is not a priority.

I agree that MS own upcoming schedule for Xbox1 games is a bit dry, but I believe there are still quite a few games coming from third party devs. Whether or not there's enough to warrant a lower price or smaller model I'm not sure.

Okay, no-one's gone into details here abouta cheaper model, but it comes down to nVidia being the lone supplier of mobo and chipsets. If they don't want to rework these they're stuck at their current size. Chances of MS getting nVidia to resize using their persuasiveness (large wallet ) is negligable given no financial incentive. Why would MS want to pay more money for a XB shrink, to continue to sell a platform that loses them money (XB hardware will porbably never be profitable no matter how you shrink it). There's nothing but loss in it fo MS. Short of expanding user base there's no point. Now expanding a user base of XB seems a waste of resources when you want to max take-up of a new system.

Sooner or later MS are going to stop XB production. It will be phased out. Question is, when? Seems to me the sooner the better. It's not like PS1/PS2. Sony can continue selling PS1 as long as it turns a profit and when PS2 was released they could still sell PS1's as entry-level with gamers knowing they could take their PS1 game collection with them onto PS2 and even get improved graphics from it. PS1 was a good thing for Sony even when PS2 was launched.

XB1 on the other hand has no benefit for MS. What reason would you suggest for MS to keep it alive for any length of time? MS must have an exit strategy, but they haven't any experience of handling hardware like this. It's a difficult situation for them. If I were in their shoes I'd porbably earmark XB production to cease within a year of Xenon, giving time to identify if Xenon will provide a large enough user base.

 

[cthellis42]

XB1 on the other hand has no benefit for MS. What reason would you suggest for MS to keep it alive for any length of time?

Mainly as a cheap device to get people hooked onto Xbox Live, and as an easier transition device to Xbox 2 over the other competitors. As such, I can see them wanting to loss-lead with it for a while still, as dropping out loses that foothold and "loses face" for them as well, since the PS2 and Gamecube will invariably still be around. (And publishers won't be dropping this gen as fast or as hard as earlier generations, I don't think.)

What I can't see is much of a redesign, as it would seem they're stuck in a poor situation contract-wise, and the way outs may cost as much anyway. There's no way to be sure, but that's what it seems like to me.

 

[jvd]

Mainly as a cheap device to get people hooked onto Xbox Live, and as an easier transition device to Xbox 2 over the other competitors.

except its not cheap . From what i understand it still costs over a 100$ to produce .

 

[cthellis42]

Mainly as a cheap device to get people hooked onto Xbox Live, and as an easier transition device to Xbox 2 over the other competitors.

except its not cheap . From what i understand it still costs over a 100$ to produce .

If they continue with it, they'll have to lower it to keep up with the PSTwo. Hence "cheap for the consumer." We know that it hasn't been "cheap for MS" for its entire lifespan, but they don't seem to have much choice in the matter. As stated, I think it would probably cost them as much to renegotiate as they would get in savings, so I figure they'll just let the Xbox hurt until there's no reason to keep it around any longer. (And they can certainly absorb the loss--they already have been.) Since it doesn't seem to be in the interest of the companies they've contracted to give MS a break--and MS doesn't seem to have deals with them regarding Xbox 2 to hold over their head--there's not much reason for them to act any differently.

But I think MS will still want the Xbox around as a presence--especially if Xbox 2 doesn't intrinsically have backward compatibility--so they'll let it exist at the PSTwo's price point for as long as people still have any real interest in picking it up.

 

[Teasy]

I´m sticking to my prediction, I think the drop will be even more pronounced in March (if it reaches 50k, it´ll surprise me), non-Nintendo GCN titles just don´t have legs.

March NPD:-

Resident Evil 4 - 52,717

Not trying to rub anything in, just FYI.

 

[DigitalSoul]

I belive it was estimated GTA:SA would sell between 12-16M copies and I believe the last time I heard it was well on that path. So my guess is GTA:SA has sold more copies. The 12-16M was a projection, I am not sure if that is on the PS2 alone, or if that includes the Xbox and PC.

OT: But I do not think comparing GTA:SA and Halo2 is really going to tell us too much. GTA:SA should sell more because it is on more platforms and has a larger install base to sell to.

Ummm.....but GTA:SA is only available on PS2 right now. The Xbox and PC version won't be coming out till this summer I believe.......

 

[Teasy]

RE4 has sold over 200,000 in its first 2 weeks in Europe (I've heard its 210,000 to be more specific):

Nintendo of Europe has spilled the beans on the success of Resident Evil 4 in Europe.

Today the news reached our office that Resident Evil 4 has sold over 200.000 copies across Europe in the first month after its release. During the same period Nintendo also saw its GameCube sales being doubled.

The game has also been selling well in the US and in Japan. Unofficial reports are floating the internet claiming total sales numbers of the latest Resident Evil installation have passed the million mark.

Source

Good sales IMO, but now for the rant.

Nintendo really screwed up the distrobution of this game in Europe. Well ok I only have experience of the UK, but I'm not sure it will be any better in the rest of Europe with the same people handling distrobution in those area's as well. In its first week RE4 became the highest selling GC game since Mario Kart in the UK. But then it just went out of stock everywhere. A quick look at 10 of the top UK online stores at the time (including GAME) showed that it was sold out in 9 of them. When I went out to my local shopping center it was sold out in all the stores, even places that weren't game stores like WH Smiths. Its been pretty much the same since, with stores occasionally getting stock in and going right back out of stock again. Amazon have now put the game to "usually ships in 4-6 weeks"! So I get the impression that they either don't know when they will ever get enough stock in or have so many pre-orders and so few stock coming in that any new order will take at least 4-6 weeks to fulfill. Come on Nintendo, 210,000 is good yes, but if you seriously can't supply a lot more then that to Europe then something is seriously wrong!! Honestly Nintendo are the worst distrobutor of games in Europe for keeping stores stocked. I've been told before, on more then one occasion, by a friend who manages a games store that he either couldn't get stock of a Nintendo game or sold out and couldn't find anymore stock. But this really is absolutely crazy, RE4 is GC's biggest game of the year until Zelda, they've been hyping it and talking about it in every interview and game show for over a year. Not to mention that GC is in need of a massive game in the UK more then any of their other major territories. Yet they completely screwed up its release here.. Sometimes I think that while Nintendo have some great men controlling parts of their orginisation they leave other important tasks to a bunch of trained chimps...

Anyway:

US - 476,000 in 3 months
Japan - 195,000 in 2 months
Europe - 210,000 in 2 weeks

Total so far = 881,000

Not bad. I'm guessing the "over 1 million worldwide" number from that article must be shipped? Unless RE4 has sold 120,000 in other regions, but that doesn't seem likely.

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Europe isn't united in terms of distribution, Nintendo is no exception really.

 

[Teasy]

Hopefully stock isn't a big problem outside of the UK then. Still the UK is the biggest single market in Europe and also the one place in Europe where GC really is doing very badly ATM. Nintendo could have used RE4 to give GC a big boost in the UK, its their only chance to do so before Zelda (which will probably end up being a 2006 release in the UK by which time GC will likely be utterly dead here). Lots of advertising and plenty of stock is all it would have taken. So naturally Nintendo did the opposite..

 

[OVERLORD]

Sometimes I think that while Nintendo have some great men controlling parts of their orginisation they leave other important tasks to a bunch of trained chimps...


Total so far = 881,000

Not bad. I'm guessing the "over 1 million worldwide" number from that article must be shipped? Unless RE4 has sold 120,000 in other regions, but that doesn't seem likely.

The chimps can't be that good otherwise Nintendo would have made a game based on them!

I agree with you totally. I don't know how marketing people @ Nintendo Europe justify their pay or position. But this latest faux par speaks volumes. As much as the games designers innovate it still takes someone with equal skill to to keep up same momentum when selling ideas. USA have Reggie. Who have Europe got? For that matterI'm not sure how committed the retailers are to GC even with stock so even shortages on Nintendo's part is not an excuse for them to obtain RE4 several weeks after release! All concerned have been poor in promoting this generations greatest title!

Now if Nintendo were to make Revolution element a means to download latest games and burn to disc this would truly revolutionise gaming. It would rid us of this lack of support for a start!