Sony: Press Conference & Tokyo Game Show

[SlimJim]

As noted before it's by the end of the fiscal year (end of March).

Which is very interesting as that's basically the same amount that Microsoft is forecasting for the Xbox One. 6.2 million by the end of their FY, which is the end of June.

So, basically both are forecasting an average of 1 million per month.

I'm wondering if this is hinting at production capacities for each company. Microsoft originally forecast 7 million by the end of their FY, so a downgrade to 6.2 million could hint at production limitations. If so, it is remarkably similar for both.

Regards,
SB

Imagine if Sony did not have as much pre-orders as their competitor, as well as lower initial projected sales. Would they really lower their forecasts realistically? Or wouldn't they, as they hope to change it around/ hope it doesn't lead to even more bad press?

Because in this hypothetical situation, the previous console was outsold by their competitor while being about half the price, not to mention about 12-16 months earlier to market, having a shitton of exclusives, not to mention having all of the press on their side.

So in conclusion the hypothetical previous PlayStation console had the following advantages
-12 to 16 months earlier to market
-a lot of exclusives
-press on their side
-focussed on gaming instead of movies
-competitor was up to 100% more expensive

...and it sold 50-50 in the end. Now take away all these advantages, and you still think this hypothetical PS consoles will sell in the 50-50 region?

 

[liolio]

Imagine if Sony did not have as much pre-orders as their competitor, as well as lower initial projected sales. Would they really lower their forecasts realistically? Or wouldn't they, as they hope to change it around/ hope it doesn't lead to even more bad press?

Because in this hypothetical situation, the previous console was outsold by their competitor while being about half the price, not to mention about 12-16 months earlier to market, having a shitton of exclusives, not to mention having all of the press on their side.

So in conclusion the hypothetical previous PlayStation console had the following advantages
-12 to 16 months earlier to market
-a lot of exclusives
-press on their side
-focussed on gaming instead of movies
-competitor was up to 100% more expensive

...and it sold 50-50 in the end. Now take away all these advantages, and you still think this hypothetical PS consoles will sell in the 50-50 region?

With IF I could put Paris in a bottle. And your point about the press being on MSFT side is quite pushing the bar into flame bait territory.

 

[Rangers]

Imagine if Sony did not have as much pre-orders as their competitor, as well as lower initial projected sales. Would they really lower their forecasts realistically? Or wouldn't they, as they hope to change it around/ hope it doesn't lead to even more bad press?

Because in this hypothetical situation, the previous console was outsold by their competitor while being about half the price, not to mention about 12-16 months earlier to market, having a shitton of exclusives, not to mention having all of the press on their side.

So in conclusion the hypothetical previous PlayStation console had the following advantages
-12 to 16 months earlier to market
-a lot of exclusives
-press on their side
-focussed on gaming instead of movies
-competitor was up to 100% more expensive

...and it sold 50-50 in the end. Now take away all these advantages, and you still think this hypothetical PS consoles will sell in the 50-50 region?

Probably not the thread for it, but it's a different world now. MS and Sony come into fairly even.

Last time MS was the huge underdog in a lot of areas, Sony was coming off the PS2. PS2 had sold 150m and Xbox 25m. Now it's 360 80M PS3 80m.

Hell it wasn't that long ago Sony third party big exclusives were still a thing. That only ceased during the current generation.

Sony looks primed to do well early on mostly by being $100 cheaper, but the long term picture is far more murky imo.

Also, PS3 did not provably outsell 360. I've studied the numbers on a very deep level. If I had to bet my life I'd say 360 is currently ahead of PS3. Basically to say PS3 sold more you'd have to claim it's shipments dropped less than 10% YoY for the period it was combined with PS2, while it's recorded sales in the major markets of Japan, USA, EU were falling more like 25%+ in that same time. OTOH to say 360 is ahead you'd have to say PS2 sales increased YOY, but I think that's an easier sell on the theory Sony was pushing out a last hurrah of PS2's.


The point is once Sony took to combining PS2 and PS3 shipments for many months, we'll never know, we can only make educated guesses. In the last quarter though, which is the first since Sony discontinued PS2, PS3 shipped 1.1m and 360 1.0m. So yeah, almost the same worldwide, and keep in mind PS3 had to gain significant ground on 360 in the "dark area" of combined numbers in order to pull ahead.

 

[SlimJim]

With IF I could put Paris in a bottle. And your point about the press being on MSFT side is quite pushing the bar into flame bait territory.

I didn't mean that the press was paid for, It's just that there were quite a lot of positive 360 articles, while PS3 articles mostly focussed on negativity. Even after launch, there were major website that listed the 2007 realtime killzone2 demonstration as being nothing out of the ordinary, at PS3 launch in Japan we had Kotaku reporters photographing empty streets outside of the shopping districts, claiming there was almost no consumer anticipation.
The same with the korea launch, there were taking pictures from before the event started which showed a lot of empty seats and no people waiting in line: while the actual event was quite crowded.
At the penny arcade expo the creators went on stage and said: "we will not buy a PS3!" and the crowd went on cheering.

there are 100s of examples but in general it is safe to say that the press was generally on the MS side, while Sony received beating after beating. If anything, PS3 was the underdog ;-)


edit @ rangers: if you go from a 10 million advantage while releasing at least a year earlier, to no advantage, then you have been outsold, do the math

 

[Rangers]

First multiplatform comparison???

Fifa 14 TGX XBO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J40K3vTkp50

And PS4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w66nMJ4yrM

Fight! Where are you Digital Foundry? Get out the magnifying glasses and start counting pixels!

(j/k, mods)

The PS4 one looks legit as it's a DS4 (if we ignore the dev kit or not issue, we have to take what we can get here ). The XBO one I cant see any controller, but I did hear that familiar Xbox noise at one point in the vid, suggesting Xbox's near presence.

 

[liolio]

Well whatever makes you feel comfortable, Sony went with quite a couples of disastrous PR, with lots of arrogance,etc.
MSFT did not have the Press on its side it is Sony own making if they received some deserved bashing...
It is pretty much the same with MSFT this time around, gaming press is what it is, web is worse overall.
Then you conveniently forget about the RroD cluster-F. Imo it is useless to compare systems sales when they are a couples millions units away whoever on top.
Proper business analysis of this gen is pretty straight forward, Sony messed up on what could have a pretty easy win, they managed to stay into the game and pretty well at it, though they lost a lot of their advantages and a lot of money.
For MSFT they messed too, in their hurry to make it to the market they shipped dysfunctional system, short term win, it costs them a lot, though they ultimately managed to gain lot of traction, the US market, and make money (xbox 1 loss aside but that is an old story).

If is a powerful world, it is mostly omnipotent, virtually
Doing a rematch is not an option, even with words there are way too many factors, unexpected event could have turned the tide one way or another at anytime, etc. It is useless.

I also think that comparing MSFT position at the beginning of this gen (now) to Sony position in 2006, is not a sane proposal, at the time Sony was on top of the hill and everybody far behind. MSFT is nowhere near that, they are competing toe to toe with Sony, and there efforts are more success of the financial side of things. What does that tell us about the up coming gen? Not much.
It will take time (like a couple of years) to see how things evolve, my take is that Sony should have the upper hand, and by a significant margin. MSFT choices for the design are such that imo they put them-selves in a bad position in Europe, the value of their proposal is for me not there especially at a higher price than competition. US is more complicated as MSFT has neat functionality customer could value.
Pretty much from my pov, MSFT could be under pressure to make significant changes throughout the 2 upcoming years.
From a financial POV I think they both could be fine, actually I would not be surprised if MSFT makes a sane amount of money out of lesser market shares than Sony. I don't expect Sony to lose money, actually the contrary, even at launch, I think they've done a good work, losing 60$ on hardware is reasonable.

 

[djskribbles]

Probably not the thread for it, but it's a different world now. MS and Sony come into fairly even.

Last time MS was the huge underdog in a lot of areas, Sony was coming off the PS2. PS2 had sold 150m and Xbox 25m. Now it's 360 80M PS3 80m.

Sony did a lot of things wrong with the PS3... price, lack of launch games etc., and it launched a year after the 360 but managed to catch up and quite possibly has even surpassed the 360 in sales. It's somewhat of a failure coming off of the success of the PS2, but it's pretty incredible what they've managed considering the slow start. Had the PS3 launched at a more competitive price, in the same year as the 360 and had slightly more compelling launch software, I think things would have been quite a bit different.

And on the topic of PS3 vs 360 sales, I really believe that the PS3 is slightly ahead. We will never know unless some reputable company announces it, but I can't see Sony shipping many PS2s when sales were low and production has stopped a while ago. I know these sources aren't reliable, but both wikipedia and vgchartz has the PS3 ahead (80.4/78.2, 79.1/78.4). Not that it really matters.

Sony looks primed to do well early on mostly by being $100 cheaper, but the long term picture is far more murky imo.

I agree that the long term picture is far more murky. I think if the PS4 has a sizable lead after a year or so (which is what I expect, but nothing crazy), MS will eventually release a kinect-less version for 399 and that will help even things up a bit sales wise. If the price gap remains the same, I think Sony has it in the bag and it's their race to lose. As long as they keep releasing quality titles like they always have, I expect the PS4 to be VERY successful this generation. Probably not PS2 numbers, but Wii/PS1 numbers are very doable.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony did a lot of things wrong with the PS3... price, lack of launch games etc., and it launched a year after the 360 but managed to catch up and quite possibly has even surpassed the 360 in sales. It's somewhat of a failure coming off of the success of the PS2,...

It's very much a failure in terms how little profit Sony actually made from it!

 

[djskribbles]

It's very much a failure in terms how little profit Sony actually made from it!

True... not only was it expensive, they were losing a lot of money on each console. Sony says that they're selling the PS4 at a slight loss, but they expect each console to be profitable at launch from software sales and PS+ memberships, so they've learned from their mistakes. They seem to be a lot less arrogant this time around.

 

[Wynix]

It's very much a failure in terms how little profit Sony actually made from it!

That applies to both Sony and MS, Nintendo has been the only one to make good money off this gen.

Old chart(is there an updated version?).

 

[Bagel seed]

Profit seems to be mostly an exercise in chest thumping for this sector. Nintendo made massive profits last gen but didn't have enough foresight technically or in the big picture to avoid releasing the abomination that is the Wii U. And they've made no real ground in online comparatively, and in 3rd party support.

MS hasn't made big profits for Xbox yet but even if they did start making some ground, it'll always be a drop in the bucket compared to their office and home figures.

Sony lost a ton this gen, but their saving grace was winning the HD format war. Don't know if that was worth it. But at least they had PS1 and 2 profits to soak up the spilt blood.

I say you're only as good as your last console anyways, so whoever's managed to survive in 10 years time, however they've gotten there might not really matter in the grand scheme of things. It's the long game

 

[Scott_Arm]

Profit seems to be mostly an exercise in chest thumping for this sector....

Or it is the reason for running a business. One or the other.

 

[Bagel seed]

Or it is the reason for running a business. One or the other.

Of course. But the story isn't told within a span of a gen is all I'm getting at. To some degree the previous gen is just an investment in the next, like in building up brand loyalty, subscribers, etc. You can make a ton like Nintendo did, but what does it matter if you screw up the next couple gens?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Profit shouldn't be a reason to run a business. Profit should only be a byproduct of a company that does something that matters to people or is a passion of the business starter. Profit first and foremost misses many important notes and is ugly imo, but that's really neither here nor there...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That applies to both Sony and MS, Nintendo has been the only one to make good money off this gen.

Old chart(is there an updated version?).

I don't think that chart factors in the RnD costs. I remember seeing some article way back when that showed PS3 had wiped out all the profit Sony made from PS2, leading to effectively a zero sum return on a decade of work. I might be remembering that wrong though - don't have a source.

 

[Rangers]

That applies to both Sony and MS, Nintendo has been the only one to make good money off this gen.

Old chart(is there an updated version?).

That chart looks a little wonky. Just looking at the MS side that I know best, to say MS was 7 billion behind seems high. My gut is the whole Xbox project is break even or better by now.

Course you can probably add +1B in 2012 and 2013 profits, and I see he included 2000 MS figures which seems crazy (basically counting the whole large division's 2000 losses as Xbox R&D?? painting with WAY too broad a brush there). Not too mention it's hard to separate Xbox from everything else in the division year after year, but my sense is Xbox is generally more profitable.

And on the topic of PS3 vs 360 sales, I really believe that the PS3 is slightly ahead. We will never know unless some reputable company announces it, but I can't see Sony shipping many PS2s when sales were low and production has stopped a while ago. I know these sources aren't reliable, but both wikipedia and vgchartz has the PS3 ahead (80.4/78.2, 79.1/78.4). Not that it really matters.

Well, I did some figuring on it once. Basically you can reduce it to a gray area where PS3 and PS2 shipments were combined. We have all the Xbox numbers and all the PS3 numbers before and after that gray area. The way I figured it was taking a YoY comparison of PS3 sales in Japan, USA, EU, in that period and applying it to the shipping numbers of PS2+PS3. If you do this 360 is ahead pretty easily. HOWEVER, you will then end up having to say PS2 shipments actually increased YoY which is also a bit dubious. But I already explained why I think it's eminently more likely. It's very very hard to say PS3 sales were consistently down ~25% in EU, USA in that period (as for 360, and as you'd expect at the end of a generation), but it's shipments would have had to only be down ~10% in order to get ahead of 360.

There's no source wikipedia could have thats accurate as none exists. People frequently source an IDC repprt saying PS3 pulled ahead that was widely reported some time ago and got tons of web coverage, but I see no reason to accept it on it's face as they dont really source anything. Vgchartz, well we know about them.

If you want too look at the last official milepost, I believe it was in November of 2012 when Sony announced they'd shipped 70M PS3. MS had hit that about a month earlier, at the end of the September 2012 quarter. So Ps3 was only one month behind, but it was October which should have been a big shipping month, they should have been possibly a 2 million behind at that point.

In the end they're exceedingly close, it's fair to say essentially tied. Then you can throw in caveats, PS3 launched a year later, counteracted by 360 competes with the handicap of no presence in the Japan market.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Imagine if Sony did not have as much pre-orders as their competitor, as well as lower initial projected sales. Would they really lower their forecasts realistically? Or wouldn't they, as they hope to change it around/ hope it doesn't lead to even more bad press?

Because in this hypothetical situation, the previous console was outsold by their competitor while being about half the price, not to mention about 12-16 months earlier to market, having a shitton of exclusives, not to mention having all of the press on their side.

So in conclusion the hypothetical previous PlayStation console had the following advantages
-12 to 16 months earlier to market
-a lot of exclusives
-press on their side
-focussed on gaming instead of movies
-competitor was up to 100% more expensive

...and it sold 50-50 in the end. Now take away all these advantages, and you still think this hypothetical PS consoles will sell in the 50-50 region?

What in the world does that have to do with anything I posted?

Official Sony PS4 shipment forecast is 5 million consoles by the end of their fiscal year.

Official Microsoft Xbox One shipment forecast is 6.2 million consoles by the end of their fiscal year.

No, speculation on my part other than it is remarkable that they are both predicting that they'll average 1 million units a month for the remaining months of their fiscal years. Considering the apparent high demand for this upcoming generation compared to past generations, my speculation is that it might be related to console production limitations.

Nothing about which console is going to sell better, or which is more popular, or which is more capable, etc.

This isn't a versus post. Just making note of what Sony and Microsoft are telling their constituencies that they'll sell by the end of their fiscal year.

I don't think that chart factors in the RnD costs. I remember seeing some article way back when that showed PS3 had wiped out all the profit Sony made from PS2, leading to effectively a zero sum return on a decade of work. I might be remembering that wrong though - don't have a source.

It also won't be accurate in any way, shape, or form as Microsoft hasn't separated the Xbox revenues or profit/loss from their EDD division for a long long time now. And considering that division has the dubious honor of hosting Kin, Surface, Zune, etc. it's extremely doubtful you can get any accurate revenue numbers for the Xbox division. As well Sony hasn't separated out PS3 revenue and profit/loss for quite a while as well.

Regards,
SB

 

[Shifty Geezer]

If that chart is just EDD records for MS, it's useless. I doubt it can be trusted for any useful info.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

For kids , I think every x360 owner will go for the XBone and ps3 users for the PS4. I doubt teenagers who fought the other side vigoruosly for the last whole gen can make a switch. So, MS is not at any disadvantage in USA , atleast, with a strong fanbase n their TV services and all. I think most of EU will also go the same way, buying the one rh ey bought previous gen.For the rest of the world, I think the PS 4 is becomnig the default gaming console and the fight will continue there. PS 4 has advantage of cost in those areas as well as launching in more areas before the XBone. And th efact that a lot of games are F2Play on it. Its a big factor here, where kids find it very difficult to get money out of their parents for games, after the hefty console purchase. PS+ has made a LOT of new ps3 owners in our country, cos they just pay for one game after buying the ps3 and get a overwhelming stream of games for one year. Now if games are free to lpay the day u get a console, sure a big factor. Not in the EU and US but definitely a factor outside.

 

[Betanumerical]

For kids , I think every x360 owner will go for the XBone and ps3 users for the PS4. I doubt teenagers who fought the other side vigoruosly for the last whole gen can make a switch. So, MS is not at any disadvantage in USA , atleast, with a strong fanbase n their TV services and all. I think most of EU will also go the same way, buying the one rh ey bought previous gen.For the rest of the world, I think the PS 4 is becomnig the default gaming console and the fight will continue there. PS 4 has advantage of cost in those areas as well as launching in more areas before the XBone. And th efact that a lot of games are F2Play on it. Its a big factor here, where kids find it very difficult to get money out of their parents for games, after the hefty console purchase. PS+ has made a LOT of new ps3 owners in our country, cos they just pay for one game after buying the ps3 and get a overwhelming stream of games for one year. Now if games are free to lpay the day u get a console, sure a big factor. Not in the EU and US but definitely a factor outside.

Current numbers seem to suggest that at least the UK has been swayed back over to the PS side.

PS4 LTD - 6250
Xbox One LTD - 4100

Net additions

PS4 - 3040
Xbox One - 2110