NPD Nov. You know you want it!

[Zassk]

Cool ! The "launch first" strategy and great marketing have certainly enabled Microsoft to gather and sustain good momentum. BTW, Is it possible to include million unit Wii titles too (if it's not too difficult) ? ^_^

Ok, here is the same chart with Wii million-sellers and likely-million-sellers added. (Wii Sports is omitted.)

My observations:

1) You can clearly see the phenomenon of first party Nintendo titles. The 360 has the most million-sellers, but the Wii titles have steeper curves.

2) PS3's million sellers are not only less common, but also underachieve compared to the competition's releases in similar months. Compare the two Maddens for a stark example.

 

[Nesh]

Whoah! Third party million sellers on Wii are almost non existent! Especially when you take into consideration the huge userbase

 

[wco81]

What percentage of hardcore PS2 gamers have moved to either X360 or PS3? For Sony's sake it better be a small percentage and that there are a lot of PS2 gamers who haven't upgraded.

Maybe that's what the high sales of PS2 and PSP indicate.

Sony couldn't launch any of these new IPs with any success. I guess the safe strategy is to go with sequels.

Among the PS2 games which should help PS3 eventually, SOCOM and God of War should be considered. They may not be blockbusters necessarily but they should add incremental PS3 sales.

 

[PARANOiA]

What percentage of hardcore PS2 gamers have moved to either X360 or PS3? For Sony's sake it better be a small percentage and that there are a lot of PS2 gamers who haven't upgraded.

Maybe that's what the high sales of PS2 and PSP indicate.

I think you answered your own question. More people are buying PS2s than PS3s right now in the US, so there are clearly a lot of gamers who are not ready to buy in just yet.

As a side note, when can we expect the PS2 to begin to disappear? It's in, what, year 7 now, and still selling at amazing levels. The PS1 didn't have a tail that was anything like this IIRC.

 

[Arwin]

Nope, the PS1 didn't. But then the PS2 reached 100.000.000 units sold in 6 years, vs 10 years for the PS1. As for the million sellers, I think it is interesting to see that the million sellers look to be correlating with price. I'm not saying that there absolutely is a 100% cause-effect there, obviously not, but there is some effect. Just don't know what percentage.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

2) PS3's million sellers are not only less common, but also underachieve compared to the competition's releases in similar months. Compare the two Maddens for a stark example.

The PS3 has half the install base of XB360, so the curve isn't going to be as steep. From that (messy) graph though, it appears to have 'gradient parity' with the XB360 version for the install base. PS3 sold about 400k in the first month, and XB360 about 800k. Factoring in the difference in install base, the curves match up.

 

[Diamond.G]

Wow, I didn't mean for my comment to start all this OT discussion. So now that it seems the trends have been set, how can Sony improve attach rate?

 

[Acert93]

The PS3 has half the install base of XB360, so the curve isn't going to be as steep. From that (messy) graph though, it appears to have 'gradient parity' with the XB360 version for the install base. PS3 sold about 400k in the first month, and XB360 about 800k. Factoring in the difference in install base, the curves match up.

Those are US numbers, and the launch aligned (which his data is) the PS3 had more than half the install base (~2.4M to 3.4M as of November numbers launch aligned). I am not sure where you get the 400k/800k numbers for NA but my link has all the monthly/aggrigate sales data through September (bad server migration, no time to update the last couple months).

But I agree with Zassk, it isn't only that they "underachieve" (flatter/lower archs), but that there are fewer titles in the same similar window.

Not that it matters to publishers as a couple developers already voiced here: Launched aligned is nice in theory, but doesn't tell anyone where the industry is today. They are looking at total potential now, not how things would have faired if they both launched together.

On another topic at hand (your are dismissed Mr. Shifty, this doesn't relate to you ), the last 4-5 months have put a kabosh on the suggestion that the PS3 was trending in the US like the 360 did in its first year (i.e. launch aligned). Unit sales lag 41% in relatively similar windows (launch aligned first year) in NA and is behind 325% in total current market share. The PS3 produced fewer million sellers in its first year compared to the 360 in its first year and the 360 has significantly outpaced the PS3 in 2007 software sales. So whether we compare NA 1st-year-360-to-1st-year-PS3 software/hardware data or look at a snapshot of the current market conditions, I think it is fair to say: the PS3 is lagging behind the 360, both relatively and absolutely, in NA. Ok, I had to get that out of my system... I had to wait a couple months for the firm data to confirm it, but hopefully we can file the, "The PS3 is doing just as well in its first year as the 360 did its first year" next to the "the 360 is the next Dreamcast"... and as for me eating some crow, I need to adjust my, "the Xbox 360 is trending 10% better than the Xbox" to "the Xbox 360 is trending nearly 18% better than the Xbox". 118% of 24M is... That wouldn't put them on course to even break 45M in 5 years. Of course how generational sales tend to arch, 10% in the first year could mean significantly more down the road (think of it as a trajectory) so I will probably have to abandon my Xbox angle. Oh well, I only suggested it to demonstrate that 360 (hardware) wasn't the smashing hardware sales success some have made it out to be. Software on the other hand...

 

[AlNom]

[strike]Closed for a bit of maintenance. Stay tuned for a spin-off thread.[/strike]

Please continue discussion of the "media hub/HTPC/etc" in the spin-off thread.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I am not sure where you get the 400k/800k numbers for NA

From the graph, although I see now they're launched aligned figures for two different titles, so yes, the curves for the install base are much steeper for XB360.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's pretty clear that the PS3 will never overtake the X360 in NA this generation. MS has too much momentum. As much as Sony is using Microsoft's last-gen motto: "It's a marathon, not a race" the results will be much the same but in reverse. It IS a race. Last-gen proved that it was a race.

Leading 3:1 in NA at the beginning -> more dev support -> more games -> more gamers -> more dev support, etc.... The cycle reinforces itself. It won't be long now before even companies like Square-Enix have to consider porting their big guns to X360, even on multiple discs. MGS4 is almost assured IMO.

I'll also go against the grain a little and state that I think MS has made the right pricing choices. The more someone pays for a console, the more likely they are to spend money on games for it, as long as the console has games they want to buy. Dropping below cost just to grab consumers that won't buy that many games would not be prudent IMO.

 

[liolio]

I agree I think it's done for US may be even could have a hard time catching up with the 360 in US if MS is agressive and cut another 50$ in early 2008 (say during the first semester).

I'm pretty sure MS is already discussing sompe third party exclusive for the 360 they have the software and hardware sales to do so.

 

[Dr. Nick]

Another bad thing for Sony this gen was lauching along side of Nintendo. The same thing happened to Microsoft last gen but no where near as bad as launching around Nintendo's launch this generation. Nintendo managed to steal the thunder from both of them this time around.

 

[pipo]

VGChartz Reports US sales for the Week ending Dec 15...

DS: 704,805
360: 330,501
PS2: 253,824
PSP: 251,689
PS3: 192,730
Wii: 173,798

It looks like that Nintendo rain check was much needed...

 

[iceberg187]

VGChartz Reports US sales for the Week ending Dec 15...



It looks like that Nintendo rain check was much needed...

If that is remotely true, with there being 5 weeks in this upcoming December, there is going to be a ton of consoles sold.

 

[Arwin]

For me it's still to early to say 'never'. If anything, the Wii has shown that if you've got a game that everyone wants (I'm thinking Wii Sports is such a title on the Wii), you can sell a few million more than your competitors on that alone. So in that regard things can change very rapidly. Both ways, I might add - the 360 might combine a low price with a must-have title and just shoot off into the distance a few million, and two years later the reverse could happen. You can't tell, really. It sure is nice to speculate though!

Personally I'm thinking Sony still has a very strong software backing and it's up to them to make sure that they get that special bit of software out there that everyone wants. This may not have the desired effect before the PS3 hits a sub 300$ price point, of course.

Right now I think it's still very interesting to see how the race is progressing in the different continents. I have no idea if they'll affect each other at all.

Right now I'm sticking to my prediction that all three will sell well ... They're all strong competitors.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

Well imo ps3 is done more or less. The only real thing that sony has for ps3 exclusive is FF. MGS still is but as said above given how the x360 and its software sell (and given how ps3 software and hardware sells in the US and Japan) it would be stupid not the release it on x360 sooner or later and that might as well me the case with FF given how more traditional games seem to sell less and less in Japan (that blog joshua posted is interresting to read). I really dont see any reason to think the ps3 will do a turn around by next year unless they suddenly manage to get a dozen AAA games that x360 wont have a competitor for and get the better multiplatform games.

 

[valioso]

If that is remotely true, with there being 5 weeks in this upcoming December, there is going to be a ton of consoles sold.

I went to a few different places yesterday with a friend fetching gifts, ebgames, circuit city, fye and toys r us were sold out of ds, psp and wii, we just got the last psp at a best buy.

 

[Zassk]

If that is remotely true, with there being 5 weeks in this upcoming December, there is going to be a ton of consoles sold.

Remember, though, Christmas comes "earlier" in this NPD December than last year. This might reduce December's overall performance.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Remember, though, Christmas comes "earlier" in this NPD December than last year. This might reduce December's overall performance.

The days after Christmas are not really slow in NA. Boxing day is a huge sales day, I don't know how that translates for gaming but a lot of people get cash and gift certificates for xmas. If someone didn't get the console they wanted they might go pick it up for themselves.