Why isn't XB360 outselling PS3 in Europe? *spawn

[DuckThor Evil]

I guess you just showed just how good the 360 is doing in Europe

Yeah I pretty much said the exact same thing few posts back. Even though fearsomepirate seems to think that brand recognition has very little effect on sales and that it's always a clean slate when a new gen appears (That'd be great for all the non Apple mp3-player manufacturers lol). I'm thinking the relative success of the 360 in Europe has been just as good as its success in NA.

Playstation had such a strong presence over here that you don't just come in and take it away, especially offering a product that is within the same ballpark. If you bring something disruptive and/or game changing product that is so far above the competition that changing your buying habits is basically a no brainer, then you can take down the champ quickly. Wii's motion stuff was something along those lines, but even that is running out of steam and it didn't work everywhere. In Finland for example the Wii is in third place and could be the same for other Scandinavian countries as well. Playstation is still very strong here.

I quess what I'm saying is that being just as good isn't going to get you to number 1 very fast.

360s Main advantages were that it was earlier in the market and its cheaper price. Strong performance in 3rd party games has been important too. The better online structure is somewhat evened out with its cost imo. The games and the gaming experiences are rather similar in the big picture and with some clear advantages the PS3 has such as Blu-ray and free online play means that a long time Playstation only customer is not just going to abandon ship, when everything is still working just fine.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PS1 sold very well in the EU as well as the US (and everywhere).
US totals near 40m, roughly the same as the EU.

PS2 expanded that success to 56m in the US and an astonishing 65m in the EU.

That'll be the Singstar and Eyetoy effect, when Sony pioneered mainstream casual/social gaming, and then forgot all about it when building PS3 and let Nintendo convince everyone Wii was something new. No wonder Harrison was pissed!

Interesting as most don't think of the EU as a larger market than the US.

Numbers for revenue have shown Japan, NA and EU much of a muchness. Which does make chasing the EU a less efficient choice if the same amount of money can be tapped from the homogenous NA or Japan markets and you don't have to deal with a whole load of different national beaurocracies to get published. Perhaps that's a reasoning behind MS courting Japan more heavily?

 

[hoho]

Talking about localization, it's basically against the EULA to use XB live here in Estonia as we can't set our country as it since MS simply has absolutely no official support for it. Technically for them we are all illegally lying ourselves to be living in UK/Finland/wherever
From what I remember there were no such problems with PS3 and it's online platform.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Talking about localization, it's basically against the EULA to use XB live here in Estonia as we can't set our country as it since MS simply has absolutely no official support for it. Technically for them we are all illegally lying ourselves to be living in UK/Finland/wherever

I'm still a Swede in Live also (eternal shame), because it launched there earlier than here and you can't change it afterwards. I'll get a new gamertag next gen. Haven't been a gold member for two or so years now though as these days I pretty much only play single player story driven games.

 

[Kameradschaft]

Right, but that's where Sony's investment in diversity pays off IMO. Those who want to play Gears also want to play Halo, so MS aren't attracting any new shoppers there. Those who want to play forza quite probably already ahve an affiliation with GT on PS2, so Forza is unlikely to draw away a section of gamers from PS. Kinect definitely works to attract buyers with something unique that Sony can't offer. However, Singstar sells PS3s to a different demographic that KZ3, which sells to a different demographic to LBP, which sells to a different demographic to Eyepet. There's more variety, especially with the little regional variety, that adds value to PS3 for a broader spectrum than XB360. So I reckon the exclusives are pretty substantial. In fact I dare say one can point to the NA market for proof of that - what are the reasons for people still buying PS3's over there when XB360 offers a 'cheaper, better experience'?

Not in isolation. But I'd say that'd be a big contributing factor to the overall decision making processes. Someone buying a PS3 to play LBP is another user showing PS3 to their friends and family and enoucraging them to buy PS3 for FIFA or COD or Singstar.

Well here in Greece (which sure is a much smaller market when compared to France or the UK but at the same time it's one of the biggest for Sony along with Spain and Portugal in terms of percentage of systems on the market) videogames simply means Playstation and anyone who plans to buy a console doesn't even consider, know or even want to know about the other potential choices (it's pretty common that people here refer to videogames in general as Playstation)...seeing someone with a PS3 playing exclusively Black Ops & PES online not even knowing games like Uncharted, Motorstorm or Resistance (Gran Turismo & God Of War are the most popular franchises here by far) with their collections being like 2-3 games a year or seeing people not believing or being surprised that DMC4 & GTAIV for example are also on the 360 is the norm here.

Most people buy PS3's to play Need For Speed, Resident Evil, Pro Evolution Soccer, GTA and Call of Duty plain and simple..I simply don't think that the majority of the PS3 owners (who are also casual gamers as are the majority of 360 owners of course) know or even care about Sony's first party line-up. Maybe in the rest of Europe things are a lot different & Resistance or LBP is a system seller but here this is not the case.

 

[Crossbar]

I agree with much in Dr Evils analysis, the situation is pretty similar in Sweden.

The one year + 4 months head start let MS grab much of the hardcore crowd, remember that MS had the HD console market for them self for two holiday seasons here in Europe. That fact makes the PS3s overtake in Europe even more remarkable. I would be very surprised if Sony will give MS a head start for the next generation console cycle, because I think it would be very hard to repeat that feat from the current situations.

I think there may be some difference in consumer behaviour between the US and Europe in general. I´ve lived in the US in periods and spent my vacantion there several times. One difference I noted is that it seems that people in Europe is more willing paying a cost up front instead fo amortizing it over time. The fact that you can hardly buy an i-phone without a carrier contract is just one indication. That may be one reason some europeans prefer the free online gaming of the PS3 compared to XBox subscription model even though the PS3 at launch was substantially more expensive than the 360.

Also some of the great success of the 360 in the US can probably be attributed to a preference to domestic products, i.e. it´s more patriotic to buy American products. Yeah I know all Americans are not like that, but the American patriotism is much more present than in most countries. Hey, you can hardly go to a football or hockey game without having to salute some troops somewhere, I even had to stand up for some Veterans at a fucking show at Sea World. Some people may recall when Toyota moved production to the US and started advertising Toyota as an American car.
There is no console designed in Europe, so no console has this distinct advantage, but Sony may have a larger developer presence in Europe, which may help somewhat in this regard, that may also help designing PS3 exclusive games more geared toward the European taste.

The great success of Kinect in the US compared to Europe may also depend on that the EyeToy was market much more in Europe. So control less gaming was not such a big novelty here.

 

[Arwin]

Numbers for revenue have shown Japan, NA and EU much of a muchness. Which does make chasing the EU a less efficient choice if the same amount of money can be tapped from the homogenous NA or Japan markets and you don't have to deal with a whole load of different national beaurocracies to get published. Perhaps that's a reasoning behind MS courting Japan more heavily?

The strategic reason for courting Japan was to make sure that unique games developed there would at least also make it onto the 360, or even become exclusives. This was necessary because the Japanese game developers produced games that were also important in other regions, and some of these titles not appearing on the Xbox in the Playstation 2 days was one of the many factors that Microsoft's push of the Xbox struggled with (more so in Europe than in the US, but still). Of course, sales were also significant and Microsoft wouldn't mind the extra sales in Japan, but I think the software development aspect was probably even more important to Microsoft.

With Japanese sales declining overall, especially for regular consoles (versus handhelds), despite not gaining significant ground in the Japanese market sales wise, Microsoft instead got their target partly through direct courting of publishers, but partly also because the Japanese market become to small for big budget titles and publishers actively sought to expand their market outside of Japan, and onto the 360.

 

[Dominik D]

With Japanese sales declining overall, especially for regular consoles (versus handhelds)

I know there's "especially" there, but Japanese market seems saturated with handhelds at this point. Sales decline pretty drastically and there's little interest in new handhelds: around 10% of potential customers are interested with Vita and it's pretty much the same for the next big regular console, Wii U (which IMO means market is shrinking rapidly for both regular and mobile consoles).

 

[TheChefO]

So you want more diversity but you want everything to be on home consoles and sell for $60 at a retailer?

More diversity in game types. Experimental, rich experiences.
They won't be found on a app store for $2.

I'm not saying this gen has had non of that.

LA Noir was very unique, new, and fresh.
Heavy Rain was also very unique, new, and fresh.

But these are few and far between.


My point is, with system prices coming down, the amount of people that have the systems will grow out into non-traditional gaming circles who aren't especially fond of most popular gaming genres (otherwise they'd have bought one a while ago).

This new market along with the existing market is a huge pool of diverse tastes to tap into.

So we have a huge pool of consumers to tap into with diverse and growing tastes, but the problem is how can a studio tap into something fresh and new and invest into the concept properly without running the risk of going broke/bankruptcy/studio-shutdown?

I think the best use of downloadable games would be to use as a proof of concept for new gaming experiences. If they are well received, expand the concept into a full-fledged retail game. If not, back to the drawing board with a fraction of the investment needed for the full thing.

Bottom line though is better tools are needed to help developers get new product out quicker. This rise of good studios being shutdown this gen even on the backs of decent sales is unsustainable.

Forget branching out, gaming is now clinging more and more to "tried and true" with a close eye on sales trends of similar games to ensure games in development will continue to be worth the investment by the time it hits the shelf.

Revolutionary new ways of approaching development are needed to curb costs and allow this experimentation to take place without risking failure of the whole studio.

 

[TheChefO]

Yeah I pretty much said the exact same thing few posts back.

Indeed you did, but the context of exactly how much MORE entrenched Sony was in Europe compared to everywhere else (even Japan!) was what really caught me by surprise.

I had no idea it was that tough a mountain to climb!
65m units with the nearest competitor selling 1/8th what Sony was at the time!

As some others have said, lack of awareness (of competition) seems to be a part of the issue along with the localization/marketing issues.

It will certainly take a good bit of investment for MS to win the EU, but as Sony showed with the ps2, the (huge) market is there and waiting!

 

[TheChefO]

Also some of the great success of the 360 in the US can probably be attributed to a preference to domestic products, i.e. it´s more patriotic to buy American products. Yeah I know all Americans are not like that, but the American patriotism is much more present than in most countries.

If Americans were more aware of buying American and shunning others (all things being equal) our manufacturing base wouldn't have left the country years ago which is partly why China is growing like mad, and our economy is in the toilet.

The patriotism you see is more about not forgetting the troops and their sacrifice. Although I will say that lately some Americans are waking up to the fact that our jobs aren't coming back because we shipped them overseas ... the dots are starting to connect for a few.

None of which is relevant for x360 sales though. It's simple. Cheaper upfront cost, better online, roughly the same gaming experience. Slight edge for exclusives that FPS fans like.

This combined with the peer effect is what drove and continues to drive x360 sales in the states.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I had no idea it was that tough a mountain to climb!
65m units with the nearest competitor selling 1/8th what Sony was at the time!

As some others have said, lack of awareness (of competition) seems to be a part of the issue along with the localization/marketing issues.

And, the real take-home point, the fact that Sony did such a damned good job in everything from PS1 through PS2 to become so entrenched. They deserved that place of success for expanding gaming to new markets. Having put in the hard work, they are reaping the benefits. Sadly they forgot that a market leader needs to deserve leadership to stay on top, and attitudes like "people love PS so much they'll buy it without any games" coupled with a lack of significant progress as we saw with PS2 have undermined their unassailable position (sidestepped by Nintendo, I think) and now they have some holes to plug, while MS can go for an all-out attack with some chance of success but they'd need a damned good strategy or they could just throw away a lot of money same as they have in Japan. MS need to understand the Euro market and I don't think that's any easier than understanding Japan. In fact it's possibly harder because American culture can be exported to Europe quite comfortably, and yet other Americanisms (US cars for example) just can't get anywhere, it's hard to identify what's wrong and how to address that across a load of different nations.

 

[AmFreak]

It tells us there's an uncertain influence from possible anti-american sentiment but no-one really knows and someone needs to properly research it! The biggest statistical value it can offer if perhaps 20% of people would boycott XB360 even if it was the better product on account of it being American, and that was in 2005, and that percentage seemed applicable to other markets XB360 was selling to as well, like Australia and Canada - negative reaction to Iraq War II wasn't just localised to Europe...

So what does the paper tell us? - There is NO WAY 20% of the population of a country like France or Germany would boycott US products cause of the Iraq war. As i said the "less likely to buy" could mean anything. It could basically mean all other things equal they won't buy the us product. But there are virtually never ever all other things equal. You could also ask this question in your country "are you more likely to buy a product from <insert your country here>"? The majority of people would probably answer yes, before going into the next supermarket and buying a product from a company from another country cause it's cheaper, tastes better, etc ...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

So what does the paper tell us? - There is NO WAY 20% of the population of a country like France or Germany would boycott US products cause of the Iraq war...

But the paper says that. It's laying out the differing opinions given the limited facts available; it certainly wasn't saying that the Iraq War cost the US 20% of its exports!

 

[AmFreak]

But the paper says that. It's laying out the differing opinions given the limited facts available; it certainly wasn't saying that the Iraq War cost the US 20% of its exports!

Right it says that, but we can't extract any information from it telling us how many people stopped buying US products cause of the Iraq war.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Right it says that, but we can't extract any information from it telling us how many people stopped buying US products cause of the Iraq war.

Yes, and the paper says that too! The paper says "we can't extract any information from it telling us how many people stopped buying US products cause of the Iraq war." I made reference to the 20% figure as an actual statistic we can refer to as opposed to everyone's gut feelings, but it's utterly inconclusive and the worst case impact of that could never be proven just by that singular poll result (which the paper also acknowledged, as it was a call for more research).

 

[TheChefO]

And, the real take-home point, the fact that Sony did such a damned good job in everything from PS1 through PS2 to become so entrenched. They deserved that place of success for expanding gaming to new markets.

Agreed!

That's why you saw such a fuss out of me at the outset of this gen with the mistakes they were making in forming ps3!

I'm just glad the market has clearly informed Sony HQ that such attitudes of abuse will not be tolerated, and they will have to continue to work hard to earn sales.

This gen has opened the door for a very interesting showdown nextgen.

In all, I hope to see good competition, as the end result of competition is better games and gaming experiences!

 

[Crossbar]

If Americans were more aware of buying American and shunning others (all things being equal) our manufacturing base wouldn't have left the country years ago which is partly why China is growing like mad, and our economy is in the toilet.

The patriotism you see is more about not forgetting the troops and their sacrifice. Although I will say that lately some Americans are waking up to the fact that our jobs aren't coming back because we shipped them overseas ... the dots are starting to connect for a few.

Uhm, I saw stuff like this in the states 20 years ago.

I´d say if you have two roughly equal products there will be a certain number of Americans that will prefer the American brand just because it is American. I am really surprised that you don´t think so, even the current presidential candidates are making a big hoopla about Made in America, just watch this.

Please note I am not saying your other arguments are void, we are comparing the US and Europe market and this is one advantage that neither the 360 or PS3 has in Europe.

 

[-tkf-]

If Americans were more aware of buying American and shunning others (all things being equal) our manufacturing base wouldn't have left the country years ago which is partly why China is growing like mad, and our economy is in the toilet.

I think there is more to it than that, the real issue is pure capitalism, you want the cheapest and the best. The number one argument for the 360 when the PS3 launched was price! It did not matter that pretty much everyone that got a 360 ended up buying lots of addons that lvl´d the price difference to a much smaller margin.

And that hunger for cheap and best goes all the way, American, European, every western country is getting goods produced in cheap labor countries that gives great value for money. It´s getting very hard to buy "American" I guess the 360 isn´t manufacturered in the US and i think the same goes for the PS3 so it´s a bit of cheating isn´t it

 

[TheChefO]

I´d say if you have two roughly equal products there will be a certain number of Americans that will prefer the American brand just because it is American.

There has been a few voices stating as much over the past few decades. In fact, Ross Perot (former presidential candidate from the early 90's) predicted exactly what would happen to the US economy if we kept up with these free trade agreements with Countries that didn't equally value human rights. Our jobs would be shipped overseas and our economy would be in the tank as a result.

Don't forget, Microsoft has been very reluctant to mingle their brand with Xbox. Look at the front of the xbox and you can't even see a hint of Microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised if many people weren't even aware that Microsoft makes it!

Granted, there may be a few that buy xbox simply because it's "American", but with how well foreign electronics sell here (including Sony Playstation prior to this gen) I'm not convinced it is worth factoring in the nums. Take a look at US branded TV sales vs others in this market. Many old US brands are that in name only these days. They brand a China/Taiwan/Korean/Japanese TV with an American Brand like "RCA" or "Westinghouse", or any number of other classic American brand names and their sales are no greater than others (in fact, worse).

The only way they compete is on price.

And that is the same game MS was playing with Xbox up to this point. Better/Equivalent experience for less money.

I will say that as the generation has crawled on, lately Ms is more able to rely on the peer factor that is driving further sales even without a substantial price advantage. They have leveraged the brand awareness, features and exclusives and can now enjoy a premium even above the more expensive BOM of ps3.

Take the recent ps3 pricecut for example:
Even last month when it was $50 cheaper than the equivalent xb360, the sales still favored xb360 as it has crossed the threshold of friends/neighbors/acquaintances owning and acclaiming the xb360 gaming experience. And for those that want to get in as cheap as possible, the 4gb model still undercut ps3.

A chunk of this is also the Kinect effect too.

With the Black Friday Sales ads rolling in, MS is back to their price advantage (in a big way ... $150 for a 4gb xb360 and Kinect!) I expect a further sales advantage in the states.

I'm not sure what the sales situation is there in the EU for Holiday bundles, but that one ^ takes the cake vs ps3 for $200 in the US.

How does the Holiday Bundle situation look in EU?