NPD November 2010

[Silent_Buddha]

When you look at the analysts who aren't also self-proclaimed hard-core gamers it was easy for them to see the Wii phenomenon and its continuation when "we" were thinking "FAD"; I also have yet to see them respond in a negative consensus regarding Kinect. I would add they (the infamous they) don't have anything negative to say regarding Move but it is typically mentioned as if it were an afterthought.

They may not be outright negative about it, but they are certainly down on it noting its relatively disappointing ability to move either hardware (console) or software.

Please differentiate between what NPD tracks and what they RELEASE to the PUBLIC. Of course, those items are tracked...!

I did differentiate. They do not track it or report it as part of software sales, like I said. I never said they don't track it period as they most certainly do track it.

Although I can see where my seperating that into two seperate sentences may have been confusing.

Regards,
SB

 

[goonergaz]

Pachter may have wasted his time scripting/tallying the numbers.

this is the same guy that one day said Move had sold around 400k:

http://www.destructoid.com/pachter-move-sold-well-below-expectations--187923.phtml

then a couple of weeks later said it was 2.5M:

http://spong.com/article/23199/Pachter-Sonys-Move-Numbers-Actually-Closer-to-2-5m

lol

 

[goonergaz]

Realism is rarely fun in games,

Sorry to quote you Npl, but it's seems perfect for my point which is; Why do games have to be fun?

Surely the PS3 is an entertainment system, I want to be entertained. I can play fun games, I can play thrilling games and I can play serious games with Move...but most importantly I am being entertained, not frustrated by lag or inaccuracies.

I do tend to think Sony missed a trick with the lack of augmented games tho, they are so frustrating to watch...it's like watching over a child play bingo and you can see they need a number 5 for a line and 5 comes up...but you can't shout for them...it's like one of those dream/nightmares where you try but you can't, then the next number comes up and Ninty/MS get the number they were waiting on! lol - sorry about the bad example, it was all I could think of!

 

[RobertR1]

this is the same guy that one day said Move had sold around 400k:

http://www.destructoid.com/pachter-move-sold-well-below-expectations--187923.phtml

He is talking about move controllers. 200k is for Move games, total, in Nov

http://spong.com/article/23199/Pachter-Sonys-Move-Numbers-Actually-Closer-to-2-5m

lol[/QUOTE]

Again he's talking about Move controllers on a world wide level for the entire lenght of release. We're discussing 200k in Nov in US.

I don't get how you didn't make the connections in the link?

infact, looking at the 2nd link and the 200k software figures, he could likely be overly optimistic with his sell through projection before the 200k was known......

 

[eastmen]

The funny thing about all of these motion control discussions is that Microsoft now actually has a pretty good justification for a more powerful console to replace the Xbox 360, camera performance! It is funny I realised I had given up hope that a more powerful console would be needed for gameplay reasons aside from the usual prettiness of early next generation titles with little else changed.

Whats the current camera resolution? I think its 320/240 right based off a 640/480 stream, just digitally zoomed to the relevant part of the scene.

320*240 = 76,000 pixels

1280*720 = 921,000 pixels

However the latter would also preferrably have lower processing time than the former!

Maybe thats one very good reason why we're talking about a longer generation? We probably won't get 28nm until 2012, 22nm until at least 2013 probably? Perhaps a next generation camera system would be such a hobble on performance that they would have to wait until the 22nm node before the release their next generation consoles. If the consoles themselves are devoting so much of their behind the scenes processing power to either background tasks or camera interfaces, how much will be left to actually run the games?!

What are we talking cpu wise ? Wouldn't the current waternoose be fast enough for a higher res camera if it was devoted to that sole task ? 32nm and the waternoose would be really small. Could most likely bundle it with the nb and at some point mabye 28nm merg that into the new cpu as a single chip

 

[mrcorbo]

this is the same guy that one day said Move had sold around 400k:

http://www.destructoid.com/pachter-move-sold-well-below-expectations--187923.phtml

then a couple of weeks later said it was 2.5M:

http://spong.com/article/23199/Pachter-Sonys-Move-Numbers-Actually-Closer-to-2-5m

lol

You really should have gone to the original story instead of just going by Destructoid's summary. Then you wouldn't have taken the quote out of context the way you did...

"We estimate that Move has sold through approximately 400,000 units in the US in its first six weeks on the market,"

The 2.5 Million was a worldwide number. Whether the additional time between the 1st and 2nd quotes and the addition of Japan and EU sales can resolve the discrepancy is up for debate, but at least it would be in the proper context.

 

[Squilliam]

What are we talking cpu wise ? Wouldn't the current waternoose be fast enough for a higher res camera if it was devoted to that sole task ? 32nm and the waternoose would be really small. Could most likely bundle it with the nb and at some point mabye 28nm merg that into the new cpu as a single chip

300M transistors is still a lot of functional die space even on the 32nm node. You wouldn't make the north bridge with the highest level process node anyway, so 'sticking' it there wouldn't make sense from cost, heat, and royalty reasons. What you would do is probably devote some additional cores from the main CPU for that task if it is up to it or alternatively a proportion of the GPU time if latency isn't a factor there.

 

[goonergaz]

You really should have gone to the original story instead of just going by Destructoid's summary. Then you wouldn't have taken the quote out of context the way you did...

The 2.5 Million was a worldwide number. Whether the additional time between the 1st and 2nd quotes and the addition of Japan and EU sales can resolve the discrepancy is up for debate, but at least it would be in the proper context.

I remember reading a quote when he stated Sony hadn't sold anywhere near the 2.5m quoted by Sony then a couple of days later (maybe longer got a bad memory! - after I read it) Sony said 4.1m and he said it was nearer 2.5m, just made me chuckle at the time...shame I can't find it now!

ah, here it is:

http://www.incgamers.com/News/26136/move-and-kinect-shortages-are-manufactured-says-analyst

 

[mrcorbo]

I remember reading a quote when he stated Sony hadn't sold anywhere near the 2.5m quoted by Sony then a couple of days later (maybe longer got a bad memory! - after I read it) Sony said 4.1m and he said it was nearer 2.5m, just made me chuckle at the time...shame I can't find it now!

ah, here it is:

http://www.incgamers.com/News/26136/move-and-kinect-shortages-are-manufactured-says-analyst

Better, though the 2.5M mentioned there is US & EU - omitting Japan. Still not directly comparable.

 

[Nesh]

Better, though the 2.5M mentioned there is US & EU - omitting Japan. Still not directly comparable.

And Australia and other parts of the East

 

[Brad Grenz]

A revised HD DVD protocol means existing hardware is useless. Hackers would have to obtain blank media and burners (from where?) to make copies of the discs. They can crack it all day but eventually you need to transfer the data. If they don't have something to transfer TO, then it doesn't matter that disc protection is broken.

The ability to replicate the original media isn't really how console piracy works anymore. On the PSP, the Wii, the PS3, etc, no one is burning discs. If you can compromise the host system you can write applications that will let you rip images from whatever proprietary optical format over USB or a network to a PC. And if you compromised the platform, you can write an iso loading driver and play from images stored on a memory stick or hard drive. No one burns UMDs, but piracy is an enormous problem for the PSP. Some imaginary HD-DVD derivative won't solve anything.

 

[goonergaz]

Better, though the 2.5M mentioned there is US & EU - omitting Japan. Still not directly comparable.

lol, why would he not have included Japan? I guess even if he did purposefully ignore the Japanese figures it's still only ~20% of the PS3 market so it can't have been 'nowhere near 2.5m' within a few days of being 'nearer 2.5m' (unless you class ~2m nowhere near 2.5m of course! )

 

[RobertR1]

All this means nothing. You're comparing his estimates (which can be all over the place) vs actual figures provided to him from NPD.

 

[Rangers]

The 2.5 Million was a worldwide number. Whether the additional time between the 1st and 2nd quotes and the addition of Japan and EU sales can resolve the discrepancy is up for debate, but at least it would be in the proper context.

more important, it was a shipped number. meaning sales could be practically anything.

 

[goonergaz]

All this means nothing. You're comparing his estimates (which can be all over the place) vs actual figures provided to him from NPD.

My point is simply you cannot believe everything he says as clearly he can be wrong.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My point is simply you cannot believe everything he says as clearly he can be wrong.

His estimates on Move hardware sales could be wrong, sure.

His hard numbers provided by NPD aren't very likely to be that far off as those are numbers used by the industry.

Thus trying to imply his 200k Move software titles sales numbers (from NPD) is wrong because his personal estimates on Move sales was wrong is nonsensical.

Regards,
SB

 

[NavNucST3]

His estimates on Move hardware sales could be wrong, sure.

His hard numbers provided by NPD aren't very likely to be that far off as those are numbers used by the industry.

Thus trying to imply his 200k Move software titles sales numbers (from NPD) is wrong because his personal estimates on Move sales was wrong is nonsensical.

Regards,
SB

It should also be noted that Michael subscribes to Hardware/Software but not Accessories.

 

[bkilian]

A revised HD DVD protocol means existing hardware is useless. Hackers would have to obtain blank media and burners (from where?) to make copies of the discs. They can crack it all day but eventually you need to transfer the data. If they don't have something to transfer TO, then it doesn't matter that disc protection is broken.

Exactly. Change it to 17GB per layer, and no current drive will be able to read it or write it. Make the drive an HD DVD only drive (give up the essentially useless DVD movie playback), and you have a system which is secure even if you compromise the drive firmware, which is basically the only part of the 360 which has been compromised (except for one quickly fixed hypervisor bug, introduced, amusingly enough, on the HD DVD addon update disc)

Or MS should have spent the extra buck per DVD unit and made its firmware better encrypted, and more importantly, updatable via system updates. Also another 25 cents to put some pads so the discs wouldn't get scratched would help too...

No need to go through a proprietary disc format, if you make sure the drive is unhackable, and updatable just in case.

There's no such thing as "unhackable". If there's a way for the factory to update the firmware, there's probably a way for users to do it too. The 360 has weathered very well on all components except the drive firmware, but one of the design decisions was "No system is unhackable, we just want to make it financially unfeasable on a large scale"

The ability to replicate the original media isn't really how console piracy works anymore. On the PSP, the Wii, the PS3, etc, no one is burning discs. If you can compromise the host system you can write applications that will let you rip images from whatever proprietary optical format over USB or a network to a PC. And if you compromised the platform, you can write an iso loading driver and play from images stored on a memory stick or hard drive. No one burns UMDs, but piracy is an enormous problem for the PSP. Some imaginary HD-DVD derivative won't solve anything.

On the 360, people _are_ burning discs. The Console security is still undamaged, so you have to burn an unmodified game to a disc, and then play it on a drive where the firmware has been hacked to break the "chain of trust". We implicitly trust the drive to tell us if the disc is valid, we do not trust the drive to tell us if the _data_ is valid. The only thing that's been broken is the disc trust, which is very useful for pirates, and completely useless for homebrewers. Moving to a disc type that cannot be burned and can only be replicated would eliminate this issue. I'm pretty sure the next console will take pains to plug this gap in some way.

 

[NathansFortune]

I think the realistic option for Microsoft is Blu-ray. Nothing else really makes sense. 3D will be pretty big by next gen, and the next Xbox should have capability built in. It's not like BD drives cost a lot now anyway, from what I have seen they are less than 3000 JPY for a cheap 2x one and around 4000 JPY for an acoustically silenced 8x one.

I think the problem you guys have is that the drive is outsourced for obvious reasons, and that means the chance of the drive firmware leaking is much higher than if it was made in house like the PS3 Blu-ray drives. As it turned out, the only way the PS3 got hacked was when there was a massive leak from SCE, and I think the DVD drive firmware leaks on 360 have been equally damaging. Hopefully a better solution will be found so DVD-R based piracy can be stamped out.

 

[corduroygt]

There's no such thing as "unhackable". If there's a way for the factory to update the firmware, there's probably a way for users to do it too. The 360 has weathered very well on all components except the drive firmware, but one of the design decisions was "No system is unhackable, we just want to make it financially unfeasable on a large scale"

PS3 blu-ray firmware hasn't been hacked, and the power of internet connected updates should not be underestimated. I know you're emotional on HD-DVD because you worked on it, but it's not coming back. Blu-ray playback is a nice valueadd and it won't cost more than HD DVD by next gen. If the DVD drive firmware was treated as a part of the overall system firmware and not its own thing, the 360 would still be unhacked by now.

PS3 security is actually worse than 360 security in a few places, there are no efuses and such, but at least everything is updated, so even when it was hacked, the fix was released, and piracy cannot happen in new release games, which are the big sellers. There is no way to play a pirate Need for Speed or GT5 on the PS3, while the newest 360 game can still be burned and played.