NPD Software sales from a Nintendo presentation

[dlm]

Simplistic as it may seem, from all the way up there, the general overview does look that way. I do not understand why you can view "less new last gen software being pushed' as a separate issue. It's one very important driver for next-gen acceptance. Next-gen gets the latest releases AND it looks better. You need those two factors to overcome the status quo of being happy with your current console of choice.

The reason is because the people who are *not buying* XBox software are not necessarily the same people who *are buying* 360 software.

There are four distinct groups when looking at Xbox+360 ownership:
- XBox owners who still buy XBox games
- Xbox owners who primarily buy 360 games
- Xbox owners who have largely stopped buying games on any MS platform
- Non-XBox owners who now own a 360

There are plenty of viable reasons for #3. For example, many people may be entirely happy with the games that they have and are entirely okay with just playing Madden and Halo 2 for awhile. They may have also picked up a PS2 and they're now catching up on PS2 backlog instead. They may have grown up some and no longer have time or motivation to play games at all.

The issue most people are taking is that your point is that the vast majority of the Xbox base (across the generations) fits neatly into category 2. You have, however, provided no evidence to support this. Meanwhile, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that groups 1 and 3 are also major players simply by looking at hardware sales at price points (particularly that market penetration increases enormously at price points that the 360 is currently still a reasonable distance from hitting). Group 4 is kind of an outlier, but given the huge attach rate, there are obviously lot of early adopters (larger than the late bloom market for the XBox), which indicates that it is also substantial.

 

[Arwin]

No, but in terms of the software sales market, Microsofts market share is stable. I'm saying there's a correlation, and others say there isn't. I'm thinking that 360 owners, while there are much less of them than Xbox owners, are much more active buyers (we've seen a very high attach rate). And I certainly wouldn't say that there is no potential for growth left for the 360 even from the original Xbox. In short, I concur that everything is much more complicated than 'it's all A, or it's all B'.

But taking that as a given, it's still striking how stable the software market for the various platforms really is across the two generations. And there NOT being a massive run about of PS2 owners suddenly massively buying 360s and vice versa (not to mention Nintendo) to me still seems the most likely explanation, and I'm maintaining that Nintendo's analysts would agree with my basic analysis.

 

[PARANOiA]

Here's a question.. is the information available to build this chart for the last, say, ten years? I'd love to see the transition from 3D gen 1 to 3D gen 2.

 

[dlm]

But taking that as a given, it's still striking how stable the software market for the various platforms really is across the two generations. And there NOT being a massive run about of PS2 owners suddenly massively buying 360s and vice versa (not to mention Nintendo) to me still seems the most likely explanation, and I'm maintaining that Nintendo's analysts would agree with my basic analysis.

Nobody has argued whether or not there was a correlation, as there obviously is. The argument is that there is no evidence for *causation*. Also, I'd say from the chart it's clear that there isn't a massive run of PS2 owners to *anything*. The reason is simple, price.

The argument against there being a huge direct migration from XBox to 360 is fairly simple economics. For the 360 user-base to be a majority of former XBox owners, it would have to mean that XBox owners have been migrating to next-gen consoles at a vastly, vastly higher rate than PS2 and GC owners. Given the price point that most XBox's sold at (far, far below even a core 360), this simply seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, a mere 5% of PS2 owners hopping on the 360 bandwagon neatly accounts for a solid 50% chunk of 360 sales. This would require only around a 20% move from XBox owners to fill out the pie. Seems a bit more reasonable to me.

 

[dlm]

Here's a question.. is the information available to build this chart for the last, say, ten years? I'd love to see the transition from 3D gen 1 to 3D gen 2.

Me too, actually. Though the chart would be pretty whacky due to the introduction of the Xbox and the early exit of the Dreamcast.

 

[scooby_dooby]

I do not understand why you can view "less new last gen software being pushed' as a separate issue.

Umm.. when a console has been completely killed off, that's probably the main issue which would cause plummeting software sales.

You don't get any more common sense then that.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Didn't an MS rep not too long ago say that ~45% of X360 owners had not previously owned an Xbox?

 

[Zassk]

I'm unable to find the quote on Google, but it was Moore himself, in one of his final interviews before moving to EA, who said that 45% of X360 owners did not own an XBox.