NPD November 2021

Welfare on his new secret sales forum thinks Xbox will be over PS5 for December I think. He was right on November and if he says it it's probably a lock, he seems to essentially track many numbers somehow from different retailers and already has an idea of hardware units sold for many. It seems many PS5 restock twitters know and tweet the "drop" #'s at retailers from their sources that work at these retailers and Welfare probably collates that info. I dont care about Switch.

He expects 600-700k PS5 and 900k >1m Xboxen

This will just be down to supply, mostly Sony has been paying for more wafers than MS but MS has always treasured the holidays, so I guess they cranked up their wafer spend for November and December. The more supply could also be why Series X price has dropped much more than PS5 has on Stock X.

 

PS5 also has either benefit or detriment of having their two consoles be the same, removing only the physical drive. That is really the only decision between the two manufacturers that I find interesting at all this generation. The Series S gambit vs the PS5 Digital gambit. Making two versions for Sony made the console more attractive to buyers in a seller's market. While the XSS might be helping or hurting MS's ability to push out consoles.

I'm interested to see how it all shakes out in the end. If getting those XSS's to market really helped MS's sales and the supply constraints completely wiped away any benefit Sony would have had from the Digital version. It looks that way as an uninformed observer at this point.

 

There's been a lot of posts lately on reddit on being able to find a Series X in the wild now, finally on shelves behind glass. Usually just 1 or 2 units, but they are definitely there and the posts are starting to increase in frequency. I do believe supply is starting to finally catch up with demand on the Series X side of things.

 

I think it is because Target quietly started selling Series X in store some time ago. Before that it was online only at most or all major retailers for both XSX/PS5. PS5 is still online only with Target.

 

Which is something I still don't understand. Sell them in-store, but don't publicize their availability dates. This would remove the bot scalpers from getting all the online orders and eliminate the mad in person rushes that are bad for whatever current day reason as opposed to when they were acceptable previously.

It seems like an easy solution to me. If you want one, just drive around to all the stores and eventually you'll find one. That's how it always worked previously and seemed to work out just fine. Mad holiday rush followed by slow, unforecasted restocking.

 

microsoft shipped could be close to 1.2m in dec. It's also not just wafers , the series s will get you a lot more working dies than the ps5 or series x

Fun fact , some targets sell them in store and some are online only for the store. I have no idea why they do this unless its a lower sell through store in terms of electronics that get the online only ?

But the easiest way to get an xbox is the all acess system purchase at $35 a month

 

MS has done the old marketing trick to have premium and cheap offering simultaneously in the market, trying to sandwich the PS5 looking like a kind of lesser product compared to the most powerful console ever made and more expensive than the affordable Series S.
It didnt pay off I think. I can find Series S consoles easily.
Series X are nowhere to be found. It appears resources were put into the product that has less demand than the sold out Series X. Currently both consoles are sold out with PS5 selling 2:1.
So I wonder why MS isnt increasing production on Series X considering that Sony sells out at double shipping and the Series X is sold out.

 

I think internationally the tally was 1.6:1
in North America it's 1:1

Seems like they are doing as expected, the big loss was UK for Xbox. They are certainly doing significantly better than XBO launch, they've pretty much been matching PS5 1:1 for an entire year, whereas the drop off for XBO was within 3 months.

The idea that Xbox can succeed PS as an international brand are odds most people would not take. MS knows this, hence the pivot to cloud for international. NPD and UK are the 2 markets that MS should be critically looking at when it comes to hardware sales.

Many Series X chips are sent to cloud to build out the infrastructure as well. MS has been decreasing the weight of the importance around the hardware strategy in favour of mobile.

 

I always find the logic that something being available means it's doing badly, or a mistake of some sorts.

Is this how MS would've have planned availability of their consoles. No, and they've said as much saying they expected the XSX to sell more at the start with the XSS selling better as time goes on.

But XSS being easier to produce and get out there is far from a mistake. Not even factoring in that MS wasn't expecting it to be the biggest seller in the short term.

Seems to be selling well enough by all accounts, and people who have it seem to be happy going by anecdotal evidence.

How is that in anyway bad or a mistake?

 

Demand outstripping supply is the only metric that matters if that is the only goal post one uses for evaluation.

If that metric is applied to others, Coca-Cola for instance, the error becomes clear.

If MS wanted Series S to 'sell out', like all products, they'd only need to drop the price sufficiently enough to cause clearance.

 

Or produce less and artificially make it a success by not meeting demand.

 

There is an apparent more demand for X that is not being met because its sold out immediately and S isnt seen as a substitute

 

but it doesn't have to be. Each product has it's own demand and supply curves.
The only reason you're seeing X and PS5 get sold out is because supply can't meet the demand curve at that price point.
No one is disagreeing that people would rather have an X and a PS5, that's not even being debated. But using demand curves as a metric for success is inaccurate way to determine if something is actually successful or not.

 

The curve of the demand curve dictates price sensitivity. We dont know the curve, which in this case it is irrelevant since we arent talking about prices, but we know for a fact that were the demand is and were the supply is, supply doesnt meet demand for X but it leaves room for S. S isnt a commercial failure, but the market is starving more for more X and less S currently.

 

Right. When it comes to meeting the market needs, S is largely satisfied where X is not. Scalping certainly doesn't help that, but as we can see more Series X consoles showing up on shelves, I don't think it will be long you will just see Series X on shelves readily able to buy.

 

Indeed. Most supply chains of almost all goods, you will find that supply will exactly equal demand. Except in the case of some perishables, there is generally a 'buffer of stock' in the chain so that things don't sell out completely except in isolated and unanticipated demand. For example. Apple's supply chain for most products is about six days. That is, they are sold on to customers through the supply chain within six days of manufacture.

 

MS was wiser than they realized with the XSS, given chip shortages. XSS is picking up XSX slack at this point until XSX production can keep up with demand. After that MS will likely lower the XSS to $250 or something equivalent with bundling by next holiday, maybe sooner.

I wonder if the GP All-Access hardware numbers make it to NPD. I know people who did this to get their XSX and these consoles don't show up in the normal retail data.

 

The argument here is silly that xbox series s being available is a bad thing. I have no idea why they are arguing that. Having product to sell is never a bad thing , its why the xbox series s outsold playstation 5 black friday or in nov.

For the consumer its also a good thing. If your coming from a base ps4 or xbox one then the series s will be a huge upgrade for you. It has ray tracing , super fast load times and so on. If it's your first console you get an entry into next gen at a low cost . For people tight on money you get game pass and the system for $25 a month for two years. For people with families that game it can be a good secondary system or a kids system.

For microsoft its a cheaper way to get people into the ecosystem. Perhaps they wanted an xbox series x or ps5 but they now have a series s. If they enjoy game pass or if they buy a bunch of games they are more likely to upgrade to an xbox series x or maybe wait for the console refreshes.


For next holiday MS might already have series s on 5nm. We can see AMD's line up and the large gains its getting for going from 7 to 5nm . The series S die size is only 197mm2 the series x is 360mm2 and ps5 is 308mm2

power consumption is also extremely low

Latest Game Consoles: Environmental Winners or Losers? | NRDC

It's using a 4th of the power of the ps5 or xbox series x .

So with a micron drop this console will sip power and most likely get a redesign to an even smaller console box for next holiday.

 

I think MS would be content with 7nm S. 5nm is more expensive and chip redesign is not free. X on other hand would benefit from 5nm with smaller heatsink and lower power requirements.