Sony Q3 (Calendar Q4) Results - NPS profits...

[NathansFortune]

Probably, but I think the quarter after will be markedly lower because the only way to meet that is by overselling.

Either way Sony are going to sell more than last year, probably around 1-2m units more which is amazing since the 13m target was faced with plenty of ridicule.

I bet next time we get an estimate it will be for 17-18m and the Wii will have a similar estimate. I think Sony will have a price cut for E3 and a super slim for TGS. The early price cut will allow Sony to clear out old units and then the super slim will be awesome and sell a crap load.

 

[Rangers]

I was surprised Sony didn't come out with a much bigger PS3 ship number, lets just say

Even still, it seems high to me, based on USA+Japan sales compared to last year.

But now theyre going to have a real hard time making their 15m FY PS3 projection. Seems impossible frankly. They're at 12.2 with a quarter to go, Jan-March 10 they shipped 2.2, given the YoY comparison they should ship a little less than that in 011, say 2.0 for 14.2 total.

But the fact theyre not downgrading the projection makes me suspicious theyre just going to pull out whatever number they need (2.8)

The profit in the game division is quite strong, for both MS and Sony. I wonder if they will ride these for a while or cut prices? I almost feel like Microsoft wont unless Sony goes first. Or vice versa. Been so long since a price cut it feels almost impossible. Then again inflation itself is a slow constant price cut.

 

[Rangers]

I'll go out on a limb here and predict that Sony will ship exactly 2.8 million consoles this quarter, which at a 27% YOY increase, with no price drop, is pretty impressive.

If they do it'll be yeah, suspicious. But I'm kind of wondering that too.

They only shipped 2.2 in Jan-March 10, there's nothing major to spike sales (ok they have Killzone, last year they had God of War), PS3 sales are slower wherever we have them, the YoY comparison for Oct-Dec shipments was down, etc.

But if they did come out after March with a number that misses their forecast it would restore a lot of my credibility in their numbers.

 

[Rotmm]

I'll go out on a limb here and predict that Sony will ship exactly 2.8 million consoles this quarter, which at a 27% YOY increase, with no price drop, is pretty impressive.

True. If there's one thing that Sony excell at, it's PS3 sales forecasts. 2008/9 they forecasted 10m and came in at 10.1m (actually, just under 10.06m). 2009/10 and it was a forecast of 13m made at the start of the financial year, with Sony coming in bang-on. So it would be a fool to bet against Sony hitting the 15m mark by the end of March this year.

 

[corduroygt]

They have a slate full of exclusives unlike last year, where there was nothing after GOW3 (GT5 was only announced at E3), and also piracy to help hardware sales this time around. I'm sure shops in Eastern Europe, Latin America, Middle East, and Asia that have PS3's with 100 preloaded games for sale already.

 

[Rangers]

True. If there's one thing that Sony excell at, it's PS3 sales forecasts. 2008/9 they forecasted 10m and came in at 10.1m (actually, just under 10.06m). 2009/10 and it was a forecast of 13m made at the start of the financial year, with Sony coming in bang-on. So it would be a fool to bet against Sony hitting the 15m mark by the end of March this year.

Is it excelling at forecasts or do they mold the numbers to hit the forecast?

There's no rationalization for them hitting 2.8 Jan-March 011. I just went through that. None of the numbers back that up. Why would they sell significantly more in in (calender) Q1 11 than they they did in Q1 010? It isn't like there's a price drop. They just finished shipping slightly less YoY in Q4 10 than Q4 9. PS3 sales are so far down slightly year over year the first few weeks in Japan, Etc.

Unless they come out with some really strong NPD sales or something, then there will be a case.

Oh and the year they (barely) hit 10m it was proved they shifted backdated shipments around from the prior year...the 07/08 years figures went down slightly in order to move some shipments into 08/09 year to hit 10m. The total LTD matched up but each year changed. I dont have any link for that but trust me, it happened. Vgchartz was the one who discovered it but I couldn't find their writeup and it's been so long now. But still to this day you will often see slight differences in different people's PS3 ship numbers for those years/quarters and thats why.

Edit well actually found the link, which says they changed the definition of their fiscal year by one week. :http://www.vgchartz.com/article/3614/big-3-shipment-update-through-32009-sneak-peak-at-fy-32010/ You have to scroll down to where it talks about this part.

An argument can be made that Sony missed its PS3 shipments as well because the company changed the definition of its fiscal year by one week (likely the final week of the quarters) to meet its fiscal year target of 10m PS3 in March 2009 after missing its PS3 target forecasts the previous years

 

[NathansFortune]

If they do it'll be yeah, suspicious. But I'm kind of wondering that too.

They only shipped 2.2 in Jan-March 10, there's nothing major to spike sales (ok they have Killzone, last year they had God of War), PS3 sales are slower wherever we have them, the YoY comparison for Oct-Dec shipments was down, etc.

But if they did come out after March with a number that misses their forecast it would restore a lot of my credibility in their numbers.

Last year there were confirmed shortages; this year there aren't, that alone is probably worth some kind of YoY growth.

I think it's safe to talk about it now, but the original slim was a loss making unit, not a big loss, but a loss nonetheless. Sony had shortages this time last year because TSMC were too slow with 40nm RSX production, it was due to go into PS3s before the end of 2009 but TSMC missed the ship date and it was delayed until Feb. The first 40nm RSX chips actually reached the assembly line in mid in Feb and the first complete units were flown to the FCC a few days later. The first PS3 revision to be profitable WW was the CECH-210x, and Sony didn't want to overproduce the loss making 200x revision when the 210x was so close to completion. That's why the YoY profit growth has seen a marked increase in NPS/SCE, both hardware and software are contributing to the bottom line. This year there is no reason to wait as no internal revision is scheduled until the middle of this year.

My feeling is that the next revision will be a super slim with an externalised power brick and enough flash storage to install a few games so people don't complain but no more than a cheap HDD which the user can add like the 4GB 360S. The power consumption will be down to that of a smallish laptop (40-50W) and there is no need to have such a massive internalised expensive power brick for it then. The brick takes up around 1/3 of internal space in the slim and is the reason it is more squareish than rectangular.

Anyway, just a bit of background as to why last year's figure was artificially lower and can be beat so we don't get people screaming bloody murder if they show some kind of YoY growth.

 

[corduroygt]

My feeling is that the next revision will be a super slim with an externalised power brick and enough flash storage to install a few games so people don't complain but no more than a cheap HDD which the user can add like the 4GB 360S. The power consumption will be down to that of a smallish laptop (40-50W) and there is no need to have such a massive internalised expensive power brick for it then. The brick takes up around 1/3 of internal space in the slim and is the reason it is more squareish than rectangular.

I figured they'd at least do one hardware revision so it cannot be flashed with CFW using a modchip before too long.

 

[Rangers]

Last year there were confirmed shortages; this year there aren't, that alone is probably worth some kind of YoY growth.

Shortages to me almost suggest they will ship more as they try to "catch back up", since shipments lag sales somewhat. Whereas in a normal period you would expect shipments to more closely mach sales.

 

[NathansFortune]

Well no, the PS3 shortages existed because Sony were unwilling to produce the loss making CECH-200x revision when they knew in April they could start shipping CECH-210x which was a profit making revision. The shortages existed not because sales in Q3 were above expected but because production in Q4 was below expected due to 40nm RSX non-delivery/shortages. If TSMC had delivered on time there would not have been any Q4 shortages. As you know Sony weren't the only company having issues with 40nm procurement, we all heard about AMD's trouble with it and Nvidia had their problems as well...

 

[Deleted member 7537]

This really shows how well the PS3 is selling, despite being the most expensive console. It's unbelievable how close they are to 360,even when they launch almost a year later.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I quess literally they didn't lose ground, because it was a tie...but performing worse than in the past compared to the competion can be seen as losing ground and that is what I was saying.

That's not really losing ground though. If you think of it as a war, with the two fronts aligned, when one side pushes forwards the other retreat - that retreating is losing ground. But if the front holds, even if one side expands out the rear, if the other side stands firm, it isn't conceeding any ground. Hence regardless PS3 sales, they havent lost anything; XB360 hasn't taken away from PS3's position. 360 has expanded it's own, but not at the direct cost to PS3, although of course a sale to 360 now suggests one less potential sale for PS3. However, the key point was Sony haven't lost mindshare, and PS3 as a brand and product as doing as well as it ever has despite increasing competition.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That's not really losing ground though. If you think of it as a war, with the two fronts aligned, when one side pushes forwards the other retreat - that retreating is losing ground. But if the front holds, even if one side expands out the rear, if the other side stands firm, it isn't conceeding any ground. Hence regardless PS3 sales, they havent lost anything; XB360 hasn't taken away from PS3's position. 360 has expanded it's own, but not at the direct cost to PS3, although of course a sale to 360 now suggests one less potential sale for PS3. However, the key point was Sony haven't lost mindshare, and PS3 as a brand and product as doing as well as it ever has despite increasing competition.

Heh I wasn't actually stating anything at first, I was questioning (as in asked a question) the definition of "losing ground", but after it was twice implied that I didn't understood what was said, I lost it a little bit and was just putting on some background for the original questioning.

The fact that "losing ground" is already so heavily taken out of context in this situation made me wan't to know what exactly was meant by those words. I shouldn't argue about english terms or words against native speakers, but imo losing ground can be attached to a whole lot of situations. If you isolate MS and Sony and take Nintendo away from the equation and use a pie chart to show markeshare % in a quarter between the two companies, then in that quarter Sony % in that pie chart would be smaller than previously. That's losing ground. It just depends how you look at it and how you interpret the words. I'm sure I could come up with lot of other examples that would make it look like losing ground like obviously you could too.

I didn't actually want to put this much attention into this, even if I often like to nit pick and split hairs etc.

 

[NavNucST3]

I'll go out on a limb here and predict that Sony will ship exactly 2.8 million consoles this quarter, which at a 27% YOY increase, with no price drop, is pretty impressive.

At least they forecast unlike some other software behemoth we are familiar with...

I don't think there should be any doubt that SNE will hit the 15M or else they would have revised their forecast.

 

[NathansFortune]

Heh I wasn't actually stating anything at first, I was questioning (as in asked a question) the definition of "losing ground", but after it was twice implied that I didn't understood what was said, I lost it a little bit and was just putting on some background for the original questioning.

The fact that "losing ground" is already so heavily taken out of context in this situation made me wan't to know what exactly was meant by those words. I shouldn't argue about english terms or words against native speakers, but imo losing ground can be attached to a whole lot of situations. If you isolate MS and Sony and take Nintendo away from the equation and use a pie chart to show markeshare % in a quarter between the two companies, then in that quarter Sony % in that pie chart would be smaller than previously. That's losing ground. It just depends how you look at it and how you interpret the words. I'm sure I could come up with lot of other examples that would make it look like losing ground like obviously you could too.

I didn't actually want to put this much attention into this, even if I often like to nit pick and split hairs etc.

Err, no?

Previously sales were 44.5m 360 and 41.6m PS3 which equates to market share of 51.7% 360 and 48.3% PS3, now with sales of 50.8m 360 and 47.9 PS3 it gives market share of 51.5% 360 and 48.5% PS3.

If anything under your definition 360 has lost ground and PS3 has gained ground...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Err, no?

Previously sales were 44.5m 360 and 41.6m PS3 which equates to market share of 51.7% 360 and 48.3% PS3, now with sales of 50.8m 360 and 47.9 PS3 it gives market share of 51.5% 360 and 48.5% PS3.

If anything under your definition 360 has lost ground and PS3 has gained ground...

I meant within the quarter. Last quarter the percentages were 50/50, before that it was in order. (again just sales within the quarter)

(Sony/MS)
(55,5/44,5)
(61,5/38,5)
(59,5/40,5)
(55,5/44,5)
(53,3/46,7)

Someone can continue further if needed.

 

[NathansFortune]

Yes but in an absolute measure PS3 has gained market share during the last quarter...

 

[zed]

PS3 sales are so far down slightly year over year the first few weeks in Japan, Etc.

Actually so far this year (2011) they're about 20% higher than the same time in 2010 in japan, even though theres been no new (big) software for the ps3

Noone commented on the ps2 having the same shipment numbers as they did last year!
The funny thing is the ps2 this year will prolly ship more than the gamecube or xbox1 did in their peak years

 

[djskribbles]

Actually so far this year (2011) they're about 20% higher than the same time in 2010 in japan, even though theres been no new (big) software for the ps3

Noone commented on the ps2 having the same shipment numbers as they did last year!
The funny thing is the ps2 this year will prolly ship more than the gamecube or xbox1 did in their peak years

That's just incredible.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Yes but in an absolute measure PS3 has gained market share during the last quarter...

Heh I don't need to be told that the one having a bigger marketshare has to sell more units to maintain its percentage In absolute measure PS3 has quite probably gained marketshare in each and every quarter it has been on the market. In the beginning it was really easy, of course as they draw closer, gaining further percentages will be harder.