Sony Posts its numbers

It can't do so on a regular basis nor maintain a presence outside the first week. All I ask is a source that MS depends on just 4 euro countries for 90-95% of its PAL sales. Looking at those Nintendo figures above the PS3 is around 25 million in sales with the 360 at 15 million. At 70% versus 90/95% for the 360 thats leaves 800K-1.6 million 360 software units competing against 10 units million units of PS3 and millions of Wii units spread across 40 other Euro countries over a 9 month period. Averaged out would mean 4500 360 units per country per month for anything outside the big 4 verus like 25K per month per country for the PS3.

You want to compare list of Sony published games in the last 10 months to the what MS published in the last 10 months?

 

How about showing where the 360 can top 10 on a regular basis outside of those 4 countries in the EU? I don't recall seeing charts from such countries on a regular basis at all.

Why not list titles from Jul 2009 to Jun 2010? I was going by this GAF thread based on MS and Sony earnings reports:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=21252338

 

Nintendo mentions that these four countries are assumed to represent 75% to 80% of the total European market.

I have no doubt that Sony has better sales in all of mainland Europe, while Microsoft is strong on islands Nintendo mentions this too.

What is unique about the U.K. is, similar to the U.S., Xbox 360 has a strong presence. Multi-platform titles are selling more on Xbox 360. This situation is very different from Germany, France and Spain.

And provides charts to illustrate this.

 

Ubisoft reports 32% for PS3 and 20% for 360 in their financial report published today, for the past quarter.

http://www.ubisoftgroup.com/gallery_files/site/270/1042/2350.pdf

 

I would but I don't access to Neogaf now. I will later. And if my memory has failed me I will correct my opinion.

 

The 360 still holds the edge over six months because last quarter because 360 sales represented 45% of all Ubisoft software sales last quarter. They tend to jockey back and forth for position. I think its because Ubisoft recognizes the revenue differently for both platforms. I know EA at least used to recognize the 2 platforms differently and maybe still does. Its how they defer revenue over time.

 

Are you looking art GAAP or non GAAP? It's probably best to ignore GAAP income completely and look at non GAAP only, GAAP income has too many oddities and random declarations. For example, PSN income is declared over a longer period than XBL income, but more PSN income is declared up front. Non GAAP rolls it all into one and doesn't bother with it, income is declared when it is earned (and one off charges/gains are deducted/added when they occur rather than some arbitrary method to please the auditors). Non GAAP income is filed to help personal or small scale investors understand the accounts so for the purposes of this discussion we should use non GAAP declarations. Obviously there are caveats, mainly that non-GAAP can be manipulated (Enron style), and since it isn't standardised all companies report differently.

Anyway, I wasn't talking about software sales as a whole, I believe that is still higher in 360 than on PS3. I was talking about PAL specifically and why Nintendo's charts are not a reliable source unless you know how much of the market those four countries make up of the total software ecosystems for each console.

 

I'm sure you do, but you also offer no proof. And your assumption that it does and thus leads to greater WW sales isn't justifed by any of the financial reports I've examined to this point.

Again I'm not stating categorically whether PS3 has a lead over, is even with or selling less than X360. In all cases we're using incomplete data. The numbers Nintendo uses are only accurate with regards to their own software and perhaps 3rd party software on their platform, although that isn't necessarily the case.

For all other software companies they must rely on sales tracking sites which compile their numbers based on reported numbers from select retailers and then extrapolates that to give estimated numbers for the region being tracked.

Financial reports are incomplete as a few Japanese publishers don't report the console splits. But considering US + EU makes up the vast majority of sales, it's unlikely they'll change it much. Especially when the Japanese pub with the larger sales out of Japan doesn't show a large lead for PS3. And actually projects the X360 to have a slight lead when the fiscal year is done.

Yes, it does close the gap slightly, but if you'll notice it still leaves PS3 trailing X360.

1Q 2010/11
PS3 - 17%
X360 - 45%

2Q 2010/11
PS3 - 31%
X360 - 20%

1H 2010/11 (1Q+2Q)
PS3 - 22%
X360 36%

At least they've closed the gap.

I could gives a rats arse which platform is selling more. But available data that isn't based on speculation or extrapolation (sales tracking services) doesn't seem to point to PS3 having a noticeable lead WW.

Regards,
SB

 

How many retailers do you estimate these "tracking sites" use in their samples? Also, if Nintendo can confirm their own numbers, then numbers reported for other manufacturers should also be accurate. It's simple logic IMO

 

Gamestop works with NPD, they have ~6500 locations worldwide.

 

Thought Sony would undergo more shuffling in 2011:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-...as-possible-successor-to-howard-stringer.html

Could be bigger change than expected.

 

why does any of this matter exactly? Am i about to see changes with Sony as a consumer or what?

 

It matters because it's potentially the most important period in Sony's life since its creation, which affects whether there'll be a PS4, what manner the future of Sony content takes, etc. The world is changing, Sony hasn't kept up, they've let the ball slip through their fingers time after time and are playing catch-up. Whether they are able to turn things around, provide a competitive media service that maximises their divisions, integrate it with devices to make a compelling Sony brand that can compete with Apple, Samsung, Google, MS, etc. or not and end up selling up to whoever secures the future, depends a great deal on the management team.

 

Most likely yes.

 

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Sony has been a follower rather than a leader since the late 90's. The PS2 was a bright spot, but due more to entrenched 3rd party support and inclusion of a DVD player to spur DVD adoption in Japan than anything else. And they lost exclusive 3rd party support from many devs with the X360 launch.

They once innovated, and were the leaders in the portable music market but grew content and failed to transition well to a portable digital music market, thus opening it up to Apple.

So many area's where they were once tops and are at best middle of the pack now days. Although I still remain a Sony brand loyalist for some product segments (Camera's and Headphones ).

The cynic in me looks at this news as something I suspected would happen when Stringer first took charge. They wanted someone non-Japanese to take the hit for doing a lot of corporate restructuring that would have proven fatal or at the least highly damaging for a Japanese CEO. The laying off of 30,000 employees is one key example. The restructuring is something Sony needed to do, but no Japanese corporate lifer, would want to take the hit associated with it within Japanese corporate culture.

And now that most of the changes have been implemented, they are moving to install Japanese corporate heads at the top again. It'll be interesting to see how much longer he remains the CEO as they groom his replacement.

Perhaps I'm too cynical.

Regards,
SB

 

The report says the plan was to leave in 2013.

 

The key problem with Sony is not whether they innovated. They did. But they didn't focus as a group. Once they can't pull their weight, their high cost will make them incompetitive.

When they did work together, they could perform well. e.g., We saw Sony and partners beat HD DVD camp despite launching one year late. In Cell, Sony reaped the most benefits among the STI partners when even old hands like Intel couldn't launch Itanium and LRB properly.

It would be interesting to see how Qriocity and 3D platform turn out over the next few years.

Not cynical, but you only see the partial picture. You can't take just any white man and parachute him into Sony to save the conglomerate. Clearly, Stringer has talent. Cutting is only one step in a restructuring exercise. He needs to set up the appropriate structure for growth, and keep/inspire the people organically. If you look at how Activision and MS mangled their studios, you'll see that cutting is the easy -- and sometimes unintentional -- part.

The problem is Stringer is old and may not be able to keep up. He has to fly 4-5 locations to do his jobs. It's not a bad idea at all to start grooming the next lead.

I think the new guys are more in tuned with technologies and consumer needs these days.

 

I think he will stay longer. He will train 3 deputies to run all of the important divisions, and he will oversee group action, and delegate day to day running to his deputies. One of the three will take over as group president and CEO when Sir Howard leaves in 2015/16, probably Kazuo Hirai. A lot of people in Sony see him as the future of the company, and I think Sir Howard does too.

Taking over SCE at such a young age (under 50 for CEO of a major unit is almost unheard of in Japan) was a big challenge, but then he was promoted to president of NPS which encompasses Sony's interconnected devices. He has made a success of that division, against all the odds no less. PS3 has rebounded, Walkman has rebounded in Japan at least, and Vaio is making headway in the top end again. With SCE, they turn a profit even though all of the costs are now associated with them, in the past Ken Kutaragi used to palm off a lot of costs to Sony Electronics to make the SCEI balance sheet look a lot nicer than it should have. It was a massive internal point of disagreement between Sir Howard and Ken. When SCE changed their shipment reporting method they also changed their revenue and cost counting methods to include a lot of costs previously associated with Electronics. SCE lost $5bn and the rest as they say is history.

It bodes well for PlayStation and Sony if Kaz takes over. He is from the new age of everything has to be connected, he can compete with the likes of Apple when Ken could not. I think we have started to see the slow roll out of Qriocity across PAL, and eventually it will encompass all of Sony's devices, third party devices and all types of media (TV, Film, Music, Books, Comics, Newspapers). This is Kaz and Sir Howard's vision. The reason I say Sir Howard will stick around is because he wants to entrench his type of thinking in Sony, see some of the old guard basically die off and replace them with his men.

 

My key question is if they keep moving Kaz Hirai up, who's left to serve us in SCE ? And then what does Playstation mean in the new era ? ^_^

 

4.1M Move controllers sold according to Sony.