On top of overwhelming mind shares Sony has in most part of EUrope, I would back SteveOrino about the impact of the RroD on top of an already adverse perception. I would also point to the live gold fees. Among Europeans the living standards vary and it's usually lower than in US by a healthy margin (US is super iniquitous and average wage are higher than most EU countries => mid classes have way higher buying power). Add to this lesser content than in US and a lot of people are reluctant to pay for online gaming.
Why isn't XB360 outselling PS3 in Europe? *spawn
- Thread starter TheChefO
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Dominik D
Regular
They're trying.
But I personally believe that space requirement is hugely exaggerated. I've tried it in 3 flats so far: every single one was big enough for a singleplayer gameplay and 2/3 were OK for couples playing Kinect. And we're talking flats as small as 18m^2 (total for bathroom, kitchen, and the actual room)
DuckThor Evil
Legend
Xbox1 didn't get much attention in Europe and therefore 360 was almost a newcomer over here. To expect it to just trounce a very solid and well established competitor in its strong market is dumb. 360 has done very well in Europe considering where it came from. It has sold about the same amount of units here in Europe than the Xbox1 did in the world and is much closer to the PS3 than vice versa in the US. In US 360 had much stronger legs to build upon.
360 has been a massive sales improvement over it's predecessor whereas at Sony, the PS2 had five full fiscal years at a higher shipment figures than the best year for PS3 so far.
Also the success the 360 has had in Europe has come with a "low effort level" basically with the product alone imo. Sony has far stronger presence over here in terms of the amount of people working on the product, localisations are on a other level etc. Whereas MS efforts have been very US centric, with the exception of early focus in Japan.
Going into the next gen, the Xbox has pretty strong legs in Europe to build upon as well. It's going to be interesting.
360 has been a massive sales improvement over it's predecessor whereas at Sony, the PS2 had five full fiscal years at a higher shipment figures than the best year for PS3 so far.
Also the success the 360 has had in Europe has come with a "low effort level" basically with the product alone imo. Sony has far stronger presence over here in terms of the amount of people working on the product, localisations are on a other level etc. Whereas MS efforts have been very US centric, with the exception of early focus in Japan.
Going into the next gen, the Xbox has pretty strong legs in Europe to build upon as well. It's going to be interesting.
I think one of the big reasons is that PC gamers in Europe have largely stayed PC gamers. In North America MS was very successful at converting the hardcore FPS crowd who had previously played on PCs primarily, into 360 owners. In Europe more gamers have remained loyal to their PCs.
It has that: this crap was engineered by an American company all over it, from branding to marketing, it's a distinctly American made product, made for the Us market and everything else is thrown into a "Singularity" for export. It has US business, consumerist culture all over it. And like bad fashion, everyone likes to hate on Americanism whether they admit it or not. Hell, even Americans hate Americans but everybody likes the Japanese with rapelay and everything. Microsoft is never going to be able to change that image, it defines their character; who they are and therefore by extension, they are always going to be behind Sony and Nintendo. It's an image problem: imagined subconsciously or not that neither of the Japanese companies have.
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Maybe that analysis is a bit to extreme. American design is in general just plain ugly because the classic idea is "POWER" "SIZE" and "FUCK YOU" attitude. I think the original and incredible piss poor looking XBOX was more like that than the current XBOX. The XBOX of today is way more modern but imho it does not match the playstation designs or Nintendo designs.
The American hate, i don´t follow that but on the other hand, there isn´t a preference for buy "american" like there must be in the USA where i think the Sony hate is stronger than , well anywhere else.
If anything XBOX helped and still helps Microsofts image, they are still evil but now they have mindless defenders that will back them up like true Console fans.
Just ask the EU: the force of Microsoft hate is pretty strong there but Sony doesn't have a real problem in selling Playstations here. The growth of Ps3 here vastly outstrips the growth of 360s in Europe. On top of that SECA, has secured the best developer talent out of all its internal branches. The quality of developers there makes Microsoft look weaksauce.
In my country ps1 and ps2 were sold directly modded, of course not by everyone but still...
the result was that they became so popular that almost the totality of the people don't even know that there were other consoles in the market, and one discriminating point for the first xbox was that "don't even run ps2 games..."
believe me, microsoft in this generation has done miracles in europe
the result was that they became so popular that almost the totality of the people don't even know that there were other consoles in the market, and one discriminating point for the first xbox was that "don't even run ps2 games..."
believe me, microsoft in this generation has done miracles in europe
Dominik D
Regular
I think causation is the other way around. People know it's American so they try really hard to perceive it as a piece of crap (assuming they have anti-American bias). There's very little in Xbox design that screams "American!". Initial PS3 design was bulkier than 360's, company's approach was arrogant - these are all things people would most likely attribute to American product, not Japanese one. Yet it doesn't stop you (and others) from calling out things the other way around.
Nationalism is a "funny" thing, you know? People tend to hate something because it's foreign, conjure features that are not there to convince themselves that they are right. At the same time they completely ignore foreign roots of other stuff. There was a huge fap-a-thon in Polish console press over early Sony commercials, ones that are too artsy to convey any meaningful message. It was as foreign as it gets, pretty convoluted and heavy-handed. Yet people loved it. Oh well...
I can't speak for the rest of Europe, and maybe there are corners that are stupidly nationalistic, but looking at the mass of products sold here from all over the world, I'd really like to know where these people who feel XB360 is shunned because it's American are getting their ideas from. Where something is made/designed practically never gets a mention. A good TV is a good TV wherever its built. A good computer is a good computer. A good mobile is a good mobile. Some nations have reputations, such as UK built stuff falls to pieces and US cars are gas-guzzling monsters, built up from years of fitting those stereotypes, and new products will have to fight to overcome them (a Euro focussed Chevvy mini car will have an uphill struggle to be taken seriously). Similarly stereotypes like German engineering in cars being good can fall from grace with enough experience to the contrary. But flat-out refusal to buy a product, or recognise it for what it is, just because of what country it originates, I don't see happening from day-to-day.
If nationalism comes into it, it's due to regionalised design philosophies like Kinect not working with smaller homes, or having bigger controllers (which is never gonna sway anyone if we're honest). But it'll be the actual features and design of the product that wins over the shoppers or not. The notion that XB360 could be better and cheaper and yet overlooked by Europeans because it's American is ludicrous when you see American companies like Apple doing as well as anyone else. the real explanation is just boring-old every day commerce.
If nationalism comes into it, it's due to regionalised design philosophies like Kinect not working with smaller homes, or having bigger controllers (which is never gonna sway anyone if we're honest). But it'll be the actual features and design of the product that wins over the shoppers or not. The notion that XB360 could be better and cheaper and yet overlooked by Europeans because it's American is ludicrous when you see American companies like Apple doing as well as anyone else. the real explanation is just boring-old every day commerce.
Yes, I can somewhat agree with that. MS's OS position hasn't won it many friends over the past 20 years, so a degree of mistrust could be prevalent among many computer illiterate Windows users who blame a lot on MS. As far as Joe Public is concerned, MS is Windows and Office, one of which they have perhaps valued over the past and one they've cursed at a great deal. To go from that to a games console isn't going to automatically lead to positive expectations. As such, the progress MS have made is very good. Had they invested more effort (marketing, local content, etc.), they'd have no doubt gone further.
The way people go on about this, you'd think that the PS1 was an also-ran console during the 1990s, the Genesis/Megadrive couldn't get traction because no one cared about the SMS, and the Atari 7800 was the most popular video game machine of the 1980s. Maintaining one's market position from a previous product is actually the exception rather than the rule. MS had a golden opportunity when they launched a year before Sony did, and got the c-c-c-combo x2 x3 x4 x5 FINISHING MOVE bonus of the PS3 launching for the same price as a corporate jet. They had every bit the opportunity Sega did in 1989, and almost as much as Sony did in 1994. They simply didn't capitalize on it by offering a product that all that many people wanted to exchange their money for.
Just change "Box" to "TREME" and you've got a winning name for a best-selling brand of corn chips targeted straight at the US suburban teenager. "XTREME 360 CHIPS! THE TANGY CHEESE-LIKE TASTE OF ADRENALINE-FUELED EXCITEMENT YOUR TASTEBUDS CRAVE!!!"Dominic D said:
DuckThor Evil
Legend
It's not either black or white... You have to either screw up to lose the position or the competition has to bring it's game to a new level. PS1 was something spectacular back then. Megadrive launched in a favourable timeframe, it still didn't outsold SNES worldwide by any means.
Answer me this. PS3 and 360 reversed (can't really apply it for Blu-ray, but let's forget that...)
So Sony launches a console in 2005, which is 80-100% as powerful and much cheaper than the MS console coming in 1-1.5 years later to the market. Are we looking at neck and neck WW sales 6 years later in that scenario?
MS did capitalize on it. They came from 8:1 underdog to something like 20-30% behind in Europe so far.
Sure they could have done better, but the notion that past don't matter or that there is no brand loyalty at all, even when the customers have been served with a good/great products in the prior ten or so years, is absurd.
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well, americans want american cars in their garage, american guns in their bedroom and american consoles in their living room. simple as that.
the rest of the world sees the xbox more objectively
I think Npl is on to something here.
IMO the question should've been: "Why isn't PS3 outselling 360 in the US?"
I've owned both, btw.
The 360 reached market penetration first, is cheaper out of the box and by adding Kincet over the year has gained significant mind share over Sony's platform and there's virtually no turning back now.
You can see the series of logical events that would place the 360 over the Ps3.
Assuming that a) Sony charges for its online service while MS announces Live Silver is getting an upgrade to include all the features PSN currently has, b) the PS3 gains a reputation for setting itself on fire, c) MS establishes itself as the dominant 1st-party publisher within a year and a half of the Xbox 360's launch, d) the treatment of indie developers is reversed, and e) Sony crams money down Activision's craw to get the DLC for Modern Warfare games first, then I'd say there's a good chance we'd see a similar situation today.
Rolls-Royce NA uses all Windows, all the time for their desktop systems.Ghostz said:
I agree with this and I think this actually started with the original XBOX. And I have a theory as to why: XBOX Live's ubiquitous voice chat. I have spent enough time trying to troubleshoot my own and many others' "microphone issues" when playing on PC to see how appealing it is to have a plug and play system that works in every game with no configuration necessary. And this is great....if you speak and understand English well. I could see how the inability to, as one may be able to on the PC, select a server to play that may be dedicated to one's own native language could create a poor play experience.
Also, I think MS is still learning how to advertise and market directly to consumers even in the US, so I can see them having an even steeper learning curve in other countries. Historically, I wouldn't think that Windows and Office (until recently anyway) were products for which they had to do a lot of consumer-focused marketing.
True story--the Xbox 360's convective system is a scary story that engineers tell each other around the campfire.
While I certainly get where you are coming from, I was very surprised about how well the 360 sold initially despite of all the RROD problems it had.