NPD March 2008

Suggesting live isn't added value is as ridiculous as claiming blu-ray isn't added value. Not everyone cares about those features, but many do.

 

Yea, and everybody typically produces an annual budget with a fixed figure on how much they can spend on games for the year. The average person isn't going to see Live as inhibitor to one extra game purchase a year.

 

This argument doesn't logically connect. Whether or not you think PS3 makes a better media center than the 360 (which is absolutely a debatable point for many reasons that are beyond the scope of this post) has absolutely no impact on who can shift more media on their service.

MS has certainly shifted FAR more content on the 360 than Sony has shifted on the PS3. Last I checked, Sony doesn't offer any non-game media content for sale at all, while MS is raking in cash from Video Marketplace.

 

Sony has performed well under the original expectations of pretty much everyone, including the most optimistic Xbox fans. People have adjusted to the actual reality, but let's not forget that the PS3 had several sub-100K months in the US and has yet to break 1 million units in a single month.

I agree that its current situation is a lot better and it'll catch up to the 360 in the end, but considering the huge investments of Sony, and the almost certain third place in the US market, I'd say that they just can't call themselves a winner...

 

Exactly

 

The current performance of the PS3 in no way reflect the original expectations of the PS3 even after the price announcement. No one was predicting 80k months in the US before the PS3 launched.

I think when people saw those 80k months they predicted doom and gloom and never took into the possibility of Sony employing a very aggressive strategy in terms of price cutting to bolster sales.

Given the first 8-10 months of the PS3 on the market, the PS3 is in wonderful shape now, but its far from the original expectation for the PS3.

Whats the definition of "winner" for Sony?

If its market leader, then no Sony has not "won".

However, a company goals for its product are not rigidly defined and Sony's definition of the success for the PS3 now may be way different than their definition was a year and half ago. Sony may have changed the definition of "winning" to a console that establishes BluRay as the standard HD format, while producing a viable gaming platform for this generation. This is a goal that is very much in reach.

 

Winning means winning the "war", of course - the one that even Sony has been taling about quite a lot.

Now wether that's market share or profit or income might be debated, but I'd stick to market share. So Nintendo's winning, MS is making a large step forward, and Sony's making an even larger step backwards.

 

Good one!

 

The notion that the PS3 has more momentum then the 360 when they are selling at nearly the same rate for the last 3 months is a rather strange one. If you want to use the the textbook definition of momentum then by selling at the same rate they are actually carrying the same momentum. If you want to stretch the definition to actually mean a larger positive change in momentum you can't even say that right now with the sales actually down. I said back in January that this sales level was likely to be a new baseline for the PS3 and I was right about that much, at least. My initial expectation that sales were going to start to take off from there was overly optimistic, though. What I thought might become a surge actually turned out to be a bump and a new plateau. That is all the PS3 got so far from the combined effect of a major price drop and BR having increased relevance as the undisputed HD Disc format. A bit underwhelming, really, when you look at it that way.

@ShaidarHaran

Regarding Live!: I could spend $45 on a game or I could spend $45 for 13 months (Live! card that I bought from Amazon) of a service that is going to provide a significant value-add in almost every game I buy. Easy choice. Until a free service provides the same or even a comparable amount of added value to its games and the platform that runs them that Xbox Live! provides then I will continue to say you get what you pay for.

And people have been saying, "wait until game XXX comes out, then the PS3 sales will start to take off" for well over a year now. The game keeps changing, but the result (actually non-result) stays the same. IMO, both PS3 and 360 are just too expensive for people to be making purchasing decisions based on a single title, no matter how good that title may be. In contrast, at its much lower price point you have people buying PS2s just to play GHIII.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm not saying single titles can/will have no effect. Just that they don't seem to have a sustained effect. They are just good for a spike here and there.

 

Or you could turn it around and consider that the PS3 seemed to be dead in the water a year ago vs it´s now a true contender at a higher price and with a software selection that isn´t making giant waves.

The PS3 momentum will keep on rising with every major release and the format war will have it´s say in the long run.

 

Can B3D attend the May 6th SCEE event and report back ?

 

Huh? I said that TV/movie rentals is more attractive to the mainstream consumer than Home. Do you care to actually address this in your next reply?

It was your thesis that Live is a liability rather than a selling point. I suggest that, even if you don't pay the subscription fee, Live has more mainstream appeal than the PSN does. I mentioned a specific feature to back this up. Do you care to elaborate on why you think Home is a bigger selling point?

Which is the better media center is a separate debate (and yes, there is a debate to be had there, regardless of your sweeping statements).

 

People want Live. Look at the subscriber figures. It's a positive that the Xbox 360 can support a great network service, whereas the PS3 service is pretty barebones.

 

sorry for the RE thread-jack back to topic...

on topic


wow! at Wii numbers ...

X360 redeemed itself nicely after the shortages and I imagine they will see quite a boost with GTA4....

PS3 held its own just fine for another month (although slightly declined)

 

I think the high games attach ratio to the XBox 360 might indicate that hardcore gamers have plumed for the Xbox 360, while Wii and PS3 may have a large proportion of hardcore non-gamers - in the case of the Wii people who have been attracted by the novelty of the controller, and in the case of the PS3 people who have bought it for the BD player.

If this is the case, then in addition to hardcore games, Sony needs to look at adding a lot more Wii/DS style cheap to develop but popular games to appeal to the non-hardcore gamer, a more extensive live movie service to appeal to movie buffs, and other Internet services like music and pop video download, advertising etc. in order to get a good return on the console.

 

Looking at the software sales, I'd say the PS3 may have a large proportion of non-gamers period. I hope Sony is selling a lot of Blu-Ray movies to make up for it.

 

The PS3 isn't doing bad for software sales (compared to past consoles when considering time on market, number of titles, install base), its just that the 360 is setting an unprecedented pace.

 

Console Attach Rates

I'm not sure of the pedigree of this news report, but Google News happened to show me for following:

http://www.dbtechno.com/gaming/2008/04/21/xbox-360-and-ps3-owners-buy-more-games-than-wii-owners/

I think that the widely reported 7-point-something attach rate for Xbox 360 is a lifetime attach rate. By a games-per-year metric, PS3 may be doing just fine.

 

The bluray player is the only reason I purchased my 40GB PS3 in March. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered. From what I can tell, the 360 has the better HD gaming library while the Wii has more games I'm interested in. So if I were going HD gaming, I'd have purchased the 360.

Can't beat the PS3 as a bluray player though.

 

Patcher doesn't have a great record, nor do we know what period those figures are supposed to cover. However if[/i] they were true and if they were repeated on a world wide scale then game sales per year for the three consoles would look like this:

Wii - 89 Million
360 - 87 Million
PS3 - 55 Million