Predict: top selling console of 2011

Shipment figures. I hope Rangers doesn't have a problem with that...

 

it will be ps3 1+ million lead is to big a gap to surmount

 

After the last few months of sales data, I guess the Kinect boost has almost fully worn off even in its best markets. Wii peaked in 2009. Skyward Sword alone won't propel it to the top.

So that leaves the PS3. It's the statistically safe choice, too. Last three months similar to previous nine months and all that.

Two sides of the same coin.

We're probably not getting sales for the final quarter for Europe and such. Nintendo is awesome about revealing worldwide Jan-Sep data, they've done it multiple times now, but I'd be surprised if they go into any detail about CQ4.

 

I dissent from this view.

 

How do you think we have 2010 numbers...Nintendo slides. Also, for a console that peaked in 2009 outselling the competition by almost 3M units should put things in perspective.

 

Shipment figures from the financial reports cover the entire world, any other option does not or is partly based on estimations. Shipment figures are also self-correcting. Overshipping in one quarter will show in the next quarter as reduced shipments. In normal situations the variance for the amount of units in the channel should be small enough for it to matter for our purposes.

 

I agree but don't we only get reports each quarter? Meaning if a quarter includes Nov-Jan for example, how do we know which consoles sold in Nov/Dec and which sold in January?

Never thought about this being revealed in a console call, nice.

I too thought the lead was very big (2+ million) but Shifty corrected me that the lead is only 800k, so it really can go either way.

 

The quarters are Jan-Mar, Apr-Jun, Jul-Sep and Oct-Dec. So they match just fine. Sony's Fiscal year starts in April, so fiscal year is not aligned with calendar year, but that doesn't matter for us as we can use fiscal Q4,Q1,Q2 and Q3 figures to get a full calendar year shipment figures.

Some years there might be some oddities, if a company wants to hit some fiscal year goal and overships in Q4 for example, the same can happen for calendar year of course, but like I said the shipment figures are self-correcting.

edit: MS's Fiscal starts in July for comparison.

 

Ok cool, sorry I didn't know this, I don't really follow sales all that closely. I'm just happy that all 3 have done well this gen, shows how much this industry has grown.

 

It all depends on which system can unlock the power of their fans. More RPMs = more sales.

 

I'm actually the guy who pixel-counted those slides. If we get sell-through again, sure, we'll look at that. All I'm saying is, we may not. Nintendo is not obliged to release them. If it doesn't show them in a great light, they may not want to do it again. In that case, shipments aren't ŧhat terrible to use.

 

I went with X360 by a narrow margin purely on speculation that MS will have another big Kinect + Marketing push. If they also have a price cut that would help tremendously. If there is a price cut, I'm not expecting it to hit before Black Friday.

That said I'm not really expecting a price cut as they are in a strong position with regards to the brand. If you look at the World Wide sales minus Japan, then the X360 is ahead of PS3 and at this point I believe MS are just not including Japan in their strategic planning for the rest of the X360 life cycle. In other words, any price cuts will rely on sales data from World Wide sales minus Japan.

Basically a price cut in Japan isn't going to make it sell any better. And when you factor Japan out of the picture, even with the recent Sony pricecut on the PS3, X360 is outselling them worldwide.

The other part of why I went with my prediction comes in when you factor in the impact of Kinect after launch.

Q4 2009 compared to Q4 2010 worldwide sales.

X360 went from 5.2 million to 6.3 million. A 1.1 million gain.
PS3 went from 6.5 million to 6.3 million. A 0.2 million loss.

Depending on the games released and the amount of push Microsoft has there is the potential for another large gain, IMO. Sony's pricecut should in theory also reverse the down trend from 2009 to 2010 however.

The big fly in the ointment for both companies is that consumer spending confidence is even lower this year than it was last year. Sony has certainly felt it while MS has done better relative to last year.

As well I'm not sure the numbers are adding up. If we take just X360's numbers for example. Nintendo has their sales pegged at 5.5 million for the first 3 Quarters, yet MS has reported 7.1 million in sales.

It'll be interesting for sure to see what Sony reports for their July - Sept. sales.

Just out of curiousity for Sony to "really" be ahead by 1 million.

From Jan. - June MS sold 4.6 million X360s while Sony sold 3.9 million PS3s. From July - Sept. MS sold another 2.7 million X360s. for Sony to "really" be ahead by 1 million at the end of Sept. they would need to have sold 4.2 million PS3s.

To put that another way. Sony would need to have moved 0.7 million more PS3's than they have ever sold in that quarter. Or another way to look at it is that they have to sell more 1.5 million more PS3s than X360s when they have sold 1 million more PS3s only once in this entire console cycle for Q3. When they released the Slim which was not only a price reduction but also a new form factor. And this year being an even worse economy than last year.

So I'm personally questioning whether MS even needs to sell 1 million more X360s than Sony sells PS3s.

But again as I predicted in the other thread. I'm expecting the X360 to sell better world wide (even including Japan) but wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't and the PS3 ends up taking the crown (due to Japan). The consoles are truly "that" close to each other now. Minus Japan, I have no doubts that X360 will sell better world wide.

Even if PS3 wins it certainly won't be by over 2 million like last year. And doubtful it'll even end up 1 million more.

Regards,
SB

 

Your Q4 2009 to 2010 comparison is a poor one. For PS3 you should be looking at Q4 2008 to 2009 increase because that was the difference between a price cut. In fact in your comparison the deck is stacked because Microsoft had the introduction of the 360 S and Kinect with a $500m advertising push. None of those is new this time. I expect 360 sales to be down YoY and PS3 sales to be up YoY for Q4.

 

Only 9 from 40 voting for the 360.

"The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more."

 

Not really I already noted that. But even considering that here are a few facts.

Through 2 quarters this year, X360 is doing significantly better than PS3 to the tune of 4.6 million versus 3.9 million. X360 has done 2.7 million in Q3.

That means that for PS3 to actually have a 1 million unit sell in lead at this point Sony has to have shipped 4.2 million units in Q3 or 1.5 million more than X360.

Lets compare that to 2009.

Through 2 quarters that year X360 and PS3 were almost even at 2.9 million versus 2.7 million. PS3 was already riding a wave of popularity that kept it close to the X360 before the price cut. So when both a price cut AND a new form factor came out they managed to sell 1.1 million more units than MS or 3.2 million total. Q3 this year they only have a price cut and no new form factor (to get people to trade in their current PS3 for a new one).

That already puts into doubt, IMO, that Sony actually are 1 million ahead at this point. We'll find out for sure once Sony releases their fianancial report for the last quarter. So MS, may not even have a 1 million unit deficit to overcome. I'd say there's a good chance they shipped more than MS, but I find 1.5 million more shipped to be doubtful.

For Q4...

True, MS certainly rode the 360s + Kinect wagon last year. Hence they were the only console company to actually have a YoY gain when the entire console industry was down. Considering how well they have been doing this year relative to last years sales suggests that 360 + Kinect is still moving significant units during non-holiday quarters.

Now, we're about to enter the Holiday quarter again. A season that tends to hugely favor anything casual (as evidenced by the Wii outperforming even the X360 last year in Q4 despite underperforming for the first 3 quarters).

So other than the Wii, who else is going to have a large casual push this Holiday season? To think Kinect isn't going to be relevant this Holiday season is a bit naive I think.

The question is how effective will MS be at advertising it to the casual market. Last year Sony had the Move to try to steal some of the thunder. I don't think this year they'll put as much of a push behind it.

As well, you'll note that I wouldn't at all be surprised if PS3 managed to do better for the entire year. It all depends on how well MS executes in the Holiday season and what, if anything Sony can do to attract some of the casuals.

And at the end of the day, I really don't give a rats arse who comes out shipping more units for 2011. I have no stock in either company and like and buy products from both companies. I just find financial performance of companies in and of itself very interesting.

Regards,
SB

 

The difference in sold through numbers in the other thread is 800k not one million. I did notice you used the right difference in your calculations, but still keep talking about a million! The data there also goes past September, three weeks in Japan and two weeks in Europe, which might cause a slight distortion.

Also while I said that the variance in the amount of units in the channel shouldn't really matter for us, it does matter to a degree that you can't just align shipped and sold through figures within 100k accuracy and pinpoint a exact figure, which they must have shipped, especially if you are looking at a short time frame.

Someone should pick the Wii and gloat till the end of time, if it happens

edit: Sony shipped 3.7 Million units in their Q2

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/11q2_sonypre.pdf

 

3.7m PS3s shipped for the quarter, catching shipments up with actual sales for the year so far. If you take into account 500k worth of overhang from Q42010 because of overshipping I would say Sony are about 1m ahead in sales this year.

 

So after September the shipped figures are 7.6M for PS3 and 7.1M for 360.

If Sony ships 6.5M and MS 6.0M in the last quarter, my quess would be spot on.

 

based off of the current data out, I think the X360 will be the year's best seller. I voted as much.

 

360 is on 6.7m, not 7.1m the figures are 2.7m, 1.7m, 2.3m.

Sony will ship around 6.8m next quarter, MS around 6m, barring any last minute price cuts of course.