PS3 sales

Yep that could be an explanation

 

"Package" does not mean physical appearance or the box it comes in genius.

 

I dont know, going by the slim ebay premiums PS3 fetches, I have to wonder if demand wont catch up with supply very quickly, say, mid-january. Consider that it took until approx April following launch or more to have 360 be freely available. If that happens, it will be because of the high price and that it offers a similar to 360 experience at this point imo.

Then again, you have between the 3, a LOT of consoles being sold right now, so there is much more to satiate overall demand, though not PS3 demand specifically. Also, if the rumors are true, Sony is doing a better job replenishing PS3 supply in Dec than MS did last year (though I'm not really convinced of this, until a new NPD comes out).

 

Some 20GB aren't even making msrp, and the 60GB is doing only a little better. It seems that the bottom has completely fell out of the Ebay PS3 market the last couple of days. That's kinda strange coming this close to Xmas. The conventional wisdom was that buyers would get more desperate as Xmas gets closer... but then that didn't take into account the Wii-factor.

 

CW is wrong. There was no spike in 360 ebay prices near Christmas last year either.

Demand is actually typically highest near launch, and steadily falls from there. The reasons for this are anybodies guess. I tend to think, if there's x number, so many ttens of thousands, of people willing to pay well above retail on ebay for a console, they are run through early on.

I followed PS3 prices very closely since I was selling one, there were precisely two days where they fetched a solid $2500, those days were launch day and one day prior to launch. Prices were good for pre-orders too, but lower than that. After that point (the 2 $2500 days), prices fell linearly and quickly.

Interestingly if you saw those prices and tried to list a three day auction, you missed them. They only lasted two days, by the time your auction would have ended prices would have fallen drastically. Best policy would be to list a 3 day auction timed to end the day before and launch day.

 

Its pretty normal to assume that the biggest fanatics willing to pay anything are the ones that will satisfy those "Ebayers". Since they are few its during launch they will rush to get one no matter what paying the lots at Ebay auctions. After these few crazy people get their PS3's, the rational consumers are the ones left without a console. They arent as crazy to pay twice the price just to put one under a christmass tree. They can wait unlike the "hardcore" guys. Its the shops that are more likely to face increasing demand than Ebay, which is a "less safer" place to buy a PS3 than shops

 

Toys R Us released a list of 360s, PS3s, and Wii numbers available this morning.

Now I don't know what "thousands" of units mean. Keep in mind guys this is just for this week alone.

Link

 

FWIW PlayStation.com Japan starts its own PS3 preorder from Dec 20 for shipping after Dec 22. PS.com didn't sell PS3 for the launch unlike that of the PS2 due to the shortage.
http://www.jp.playstation.com/shopping/hard/ps3.html
The rumor is that a big supply of PS3 will arrive around Dec 21 around the Xmas.

 

LOL. With Sony the "big shipment" is always "right around the corner".

 

Cool ! Keep working on it. The industry will be a lot more quieter and boring without Sony. Where's the BR remote ?

 

Well Sony has shipped more consoles than MS could dream of at this point.

Is there any question that eventually they will be able to ship in quantities? Question is whether they can push prices down quickly enough to stimulate the kind of sales volume they're used to.

See the detractors are ready to declare winners in the console war or at least that Sony is a loser, less than a month after the next-gen console race has been joined by the other two entrants.

 

That's not the issue, that I can see. The issue here is Sony's ever changing story, about how they're always on target, promising big numbers that get smaller and smaller. You then get different theories as to why they do it. Are they changing targets due to unforseen problems, which they don't just come out with honestly? Or were the targets never that high and Sony blatantly lied for market-manipulation reasons? That question is easily answered by personal bias for/against Sony

 

Unforseen issues or Lies... withouth touching that one (!) I think just as relevant (more so IMO) is execution. Sony is where they are as market leader due to excellent execution, both in PR and in delivery. Sure, they, like all companies, have seen some rough spots here and there. But the PS3 has been a rough ride. Would anyone disagree with that? Considering the importance and pressure on the PS3 only magnifies those issues. Throw all of that into a more competitive market -- and a growing market much more mainstream than 10 years ago -- issues becoming increasingly magnified.

PS3 sales are a subset of Sony's general platform offering to consumers (including pricing) which is likewise a subset of the general Sony strategy. It is hard to talk about any of these without invariably being tangled in the larger issues at hand. Which, like you said, will quickly be interjected with perceptions and understandings based on ones bias for or against Sony/the PS3.

It is like a screenshot. What one sees, and doesn't see, relates to expectation, exposure/experience, breadth of knowledge, and sometimes just plain seeing things that are not there and/or willfully ignoring what is present. Same screenshot, but more than one way to look at it--albeit not all assessments will be as objective or worthwhile.

 

For me, Sony's fumblings aren't a huge bother, any more than other companies fumblings. But it must be driving the investors nuts! Every month it seems, they must be thinking 'you were telling me you'd sell so many million of these things, and now you're halving that number.' And developers must be sick and/or furious. They target a launch blindfolded it seems, with no idea what kind of returns they might get because they've no idea what kind of market size there'll be.

It's those in the industry I feel sorry for, for who this sort of inconsistency is actually important. Where they don't care about which console wins or loses by some internet forum criteria of success, but who want to know whether they'll make enough money to stay in business.

 

Media Create Hardware Sales 11-17 Dec

1. Nintendo DS Lite - 319.708
2. Wii - 108.237
3. PlayStation 3 - 70.942
4. PlayStation Portable - 48.962
5. PlayStation 2 - 37.730
6. Xbox 360 - 17.168
7. Game Boy Advance SP - 1.867
8. Game Boy Micro - 1.491
9. GameCube - 1.152
10. Nintendo DS - 158
11. Game Boy Advance - 42
12. Xbox - 3

 

The DS is just a monster

 

Is 300k or even 400k a reachable target for the PS3 in Japan before the end of the year?

 

Well considering the PS3 sales for Japan reached 308,949 according to Media Create as of the 17th of December, with 2 sales weeks left, it'd say so...

 

Should be pretty easy to pass 400k. Since launch, every week has gotten an increasing amount of units (30k, 50k, 70k, etc., iirc). At 300k now, with 2 more weeks it should be possible to hit 450k+ in JP without much trouble.

I'm curious to see December NPD, should have some massive total console sales -- 2 handhelds, 3 new consoles and 1 old... wouldn't surprise me if NA hit around 5 million total consoles this month.

 

DS especially is selling like condoms.