Worldwide PS3 numbers pass 360
- Thread starter Vic
- Start date
That's no revelation from this rport though. We've known that PS3 has been closing the gap for years given what sales measurements we have. I suppose this could have had an amazing revelation if, say, one console had ten+ million more active units than the other despite similar sales. But it didn't.
Yes I've seen that, but what I haven't seen is a rationalization behind it.
There's wonders that you can do with given data: if we single out the first year of Xbox 360 sales (5.9 million units shipped) and assume that in the next four years the average "console age" is the same for the PS3 and Xbox 360, this means that the report estimates that about 50% of the people who bought an Xbox 360 in the first year are not playing their console now.
So 50% RROD failure rate? Perhaps. But how about the replacement units? Does the report take into account the fact that MS gave a 3 year warranty for the console? Do you take that into account in your 100% "known things"? Did I fail to see where you mentioned that a billion times already?
And that was my point: many people decide what their opinion is first, and then accumulate data that matches their opinion - that's just a common example of cognitive bias. I'm not saying that you personally are doing it here, but you are after all using vague terms like "other things" and "made sense" so it's hard for me to understand what you're referring to (or more importantly - what you might be ignoring).
So no need to make a bet here, but what do you personally consider as PROBABLE? 90%? 95%? or just 51% is enough for you? What is your confidence interval?
I have no problem working with only partial information, but I reserve the right for judgment on how exactly the partial information was acquired and what methodology was involved. Accepting any information you receive without even questioning the validity of this information is naive (and wrong) in my opinion.
But that's what it's all about: how you estimate broken units and how you calculate that "little bit of extra" is what it's all about.
And of course that you need all that crap that I mentioned! Without a proper sample of the population you can't even begin to pretend that something is accurate!
Search wikipedia for "Selection bias" to see what I mean.
I'm not disproving anything - It's their report so they're the ones who need to convince us to approve it in the first place (assuming that they want the intended customer to buy their report).
And so far they I haven't seen anything about their methodology that will convince me about the validity of their claim - there's not even a white paper from their research as far as I'm aware.
Oh, and I don't really care if a report is conducted by a "long lived multinational analysts company". Maybe fancy titles make an impression on you, but I have read into far too many analytical reports to consider a "long lived multi-nantional company" to actually be a valid argument that adds to the credibility of the current claim.
It's eventually actual people, not companies, who conduct and run the actual research (not to mention that in some big multi-national companies it's usually the underpaid, overworked and inexperienced interns who do the dirty job of collecting the information...)
DuckThor Evil
Legend
They actually shipped more than 5.9M units during the first year. First year is not from launch to end of september 2006. I did say this "One year longer on the market + RROD despite the longer warranty vs PS3 could cause that." Keyword could. Even if that 5.9 was right, It doesn't estimate that 50 % of the people aren't playing, but that those boxes aren't in operation. many of those people could have updated their unit and keep playing.
Hard to put a number out there, but I'd say more than 50 % anyway. Look I came in here saying that the conclusion doesn't sound unreasonable. Does it sound unreasonable to you, or can you think that far, given the limited information?
I think I've used words like "could", "estimate" and "probable" plenty of times that it's clear I don't consider their estimations as facts. Nor have I tried to deny that my opinion is largely based on my gut. I don't want or feel it's necessary or worth my time to disclose each and every thing that contributes to that over some small issue like this.
I know what selection bias means. I just think that in this context you can build a mathematical model with reasonable accuracy, without having to have the amount of background information some other studies might need. Anyways I think it was quite simple study and it probably has a lot bigger error margin than some better studies, still until I see some convincing evidence that points to some other direction I'm going to feel that their conclusion aligns well with my frigging gut :smile:
I think you'r slightly too hung up on the definitions to look at the underlying topic. I think you've said enough on the faults of the study, at this point I'd much rather hear your opinion on the matter.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
I'm surprised it's taken Sony six years to do it.
Given the situation in Japan, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Given the situation in Japan, it was bound to happen sooner or later.
Except PS3 hasn't overtaken sales, unless people assumed PS3 user would be more active and more 360's would break or be ignored, such that within four years more PS3 would be active than 360's despite there being fewer PS3's than 360s.
Maybe I should change the title for those who don't read the thread?
Maybe I should change the title for those who don't read the thread?
why read the thread? People just come here, read the title, assume it's sales and go on the intergoogles to tell everyone it's twue, it's twue!
Well what this estimation the lead in Europe is way lower than what a lot of internet people expected. From reading the "interweb" you could believe that the 360 has been completely out done in EU and since a while.
BoardBOno, I don't own a PS3 but I can clearly see from where you're coming. I've haven't been playing much lately so my 360 had few "up" time. I've been thinking for a while now that the 360 has been lacking a browser. It doesn't make sense from MS pov who's pushing subscription for everything (free music, etC.)but I clearly lack the feature. Basically I've to fix my desktop (minor issue), I'm currently using an old laptop for my uses (web, music, emails), clearly the 360 is up to the job.
Next time they better be cheaper again because I won't bear multiple devices (pc/laptop/console) for the non demanding usage I do for the formers.
BoardBOno, I don't own a PS3 but I can clearly see from where you're coming. I've haven't been playing much lately so my 360 had few "up" time. I've been thinking for a while now that the 360 has been lacking a browser. It doesn't make sense from MS pov who's pushing subscription for everything (free music, etC.)but I clearly lack the feature. Basically I've to fix my desktop (minor issue), I'm currently using an old laptop for my uses (web, music, emails), clearly the 360 is up to the job.
Next time they better be cheaper again because I won't bear multiple devices (pc/laptop/console) for the non demanding usage I do for the formers.
I'm still a bit bitter against Sony to not have made the NGP more tablet like, if we consider modern usage of computer it could have more of threat to computer than the playstations never been especially if their next system were to be designed as a match.
dragonelite
Veteran
why read the thread? People just come here, read the title, assume it's sales and go on the intergoogles to tell everyone it's twue, it's twue!
To be fair i have already seen a lot of website post this report on their site.
Only thing you can do is grabs some pop corn and watch some meltdowns in the comment section. Have to do something in some of the more boring classes at school.
Still as a investor/publisher i would probably be more interested in software attachment rates and console sales rate then in active consoles numbers.
I don't see any confusion here, this shows us how many consoles are actually in use...I think it would be safe to ass-u-me that all this is saying is that said console is 'used' and therefore if it's not 'used' it is (probably) dead.
To me this does what it says on the tin - it tells us how many working consoles are out there - nothing more.
I would say it's fairly clear from other data that PS3s are being used as BR players (software sales and tie ratio). What would be nice is if there was research into how many PS3s are used for BR only - and then how much gaming time each console (i.e. PS3, X360 & Wii) gets.
So, to me, this tells us there are more PS3s out there (in use) but I'd say other evidence shows there are more X360s being used as a gaming device - so as a 'gaming console' I think it's fair to conclude that altho there is more PS3 hardware there are more X360 gamers.
To me this does what it says on the tin - it tells us how many working consoles are out there - nothing more.
I would say it's fairly clear from other data that PS3s are being used as BR players (software sales and tie ratio). What would be nice is if there was research into how many PS3s are used for BR only - and then how much gaming time each console (i.e. PS3, X360 & Wii) gets.
So, to me, this tells us there are more PS3s out there (in use) but I'd say other evidence shows there are more X360s being used as a gaming device - so as a 'gaming console' I think it's fair to conclude that altho there is more PS3 hardware there are more X360 gamers.
ShadowRunner
Veteran
What is the difference in software sales worldwide?
Intiially because there was zero clarification. Now we know what the data actual represents.
But it doesn't really. The report counts 'switched on once a year' as active which is pretty misleading. It's the same as looking at three people: Person A who has never exercised; Person B who once went for a long walk a year ago; and Person C who exercises 3 times a week at the gym - and then concluding and Persons B and C should be grouped together as 'active' and Person A as inactive. We would all naturally place the distinction as A and B being inactive, and Person C being active, as the conceptual division is huge between B and C. We also have no way of knowing if a lot of those machines switched on 9+ months ago will ever be switched on again, so it could be 10 million PS3 are inactive, but the sampling frequency isn't identifying that. This time next year we could see PS3 dropping well below 360 in terms of active users, going by their measurements. They'd really want a graph showing active users measured in the past week, month, etc. to get a useful, representative average.
Duck Dodgers
Newcomer
I think we get the point. What I don't understand is why you're responding with dubious analogy laden rhetoric over an apparently "useless" headline and article. Why don't you just close the thread because you personally find it of little value.
It's not exactly a PS3 wiki leak.
eh? If it get's switched on (for whatever reason) it's in use (that's all I'm saying).
I fully understand your point WRT how much use, but I think you are confusing 'more PS3s are in use' with 'PS3s get used more'. Clearly there are more Wiis out there but I'd place a bet that both PS3 & X360 are probably used more.
Because this is an open discussion board and moderators shouldn't be abusing their position to control information. The thread is civilised and sensible and isn't turning into a trollfest or such, so there's no need to close it.
I'll give you that, I was looking at it as "console use" as I don't see any point in the other value, so didn't expect someone creating a report on it! (Although as linked above, the full report is something more substantial)
You may not see a point but we could be looking at clarity on how many 'working' machines and therefore potential customers - for example, (and this is numbers plucked out of thin air) MS may have sold 45M X360s but only 40M are 'still working' - as such their sales potential is 10% less than they might have thought...this information might be useful in confirming the attach rate for Kinect to fully understand it's 'value'. I don't know, I make this stuff up as I go
Now all we need is someone with money to burn to buy the report and spill the beans!
But what about these updated units? As far as I am aware of, when MS gives you a replacement unit for your RROD it doesn't really count in the "shipped" numbers they give to their investors because they didn't really sell them to retail channels.
The only consoles that should be take out of the equations are the ones that haven't been replaced with a console that is being used (or have been replaced, but only outside the MS warranty).
All I know is that the Xbox 360 shipped about 4 million more units so far, so having 0.5 million more active PS3 units sounds to me just as reasonable as having 4.5 million more active Xbox 360 units.
If some other research was to claim that there are 42.9M active Xbox 360 units but only 40M PS3 users, would it sound reasonable to you? Because it's about as far off from the only reliable figure that we have: official shipped numbers.
I assume that this is were we don't agree: I don't think that a mathematical model is accurate enough when bias is involved, especially not when the numbers are so close and within a possible error margin.
My opinion? This study does not correlate to what I see from shipped numbers, does not correlate to tie rations, and does not correlate to actual sell figures of new games.
For example: We know that the tie ratio for Xbox 360 games is a bit higher from periodic gamasutra articles. And this ratio is calculated by number of games sold / consoles sold.
Does it make sense that Xbox owners purchased more games by average than PS3 owners? Perhaps, but that requires some explanation because common sense tells you that they should be about equal.
But if we consider the fact that there are even less active Xbox consoles, the ratio difference between Xbox and Ps3 becomes even bigger!
Why is that then? It would actually make more sense to me that there are in fact less active PS3 consoles - because this will explain why we see a tie ration difference.
And then we have sale figures: If there are now more active PS3 consoles, I expect to see new games to sell better on the PS3.
It's obviously hard to find the right game for testing this hypothesis: we can't choose games that are obviously ported from one console to the other (Bioshock, Mass Effect 2), we can't choose games that offers exclusive content for one version (Batman, GTA), and we can't choose a games that already have a fan following on one of the consoles (Dead Rising, Final Fantasy).
What makes it even harder is that the console distribution varies between regions: The Xbox has a bigger user base in the US while the PS3 has a bigger user base in Japan. Therefore, games that appeal mostly to the US crowd (Madden NFL) and games that appeal more to the Japanese crowd (Dynasty Warriors) are also not very good candidates. The same thing rules out games that were not released in all of the regions.
Regardless of that, lets take a look at the big sellers in the last holiday season: Considering the theoretical bigger active user base on the PS3, one should expect most if not all of these games to sell better on the PS3. But if we look at VGChartz numbers we see that the big games from the last holiday season sold better on the X360: Black Ops, Fallout, Assassins creed.
This kinda contradicts the conclusion from this research, so adding this to the fact that there's some unknown fuzzy logic behind the research it's hard for me to really accept. So if I were to develop a game now and because of budget constraints I can only afford to develop for one console, I will probably have to dismiss this research as anything conclusive or meaningful for me.
dragonelite
Veteran
So does the report also fragments the stats in hours/days active. And in Lorenz curve graph would be cool to know like 20% of the active users base are playing 80% of the all the hours clocked.
That would be a better report if you ask me.
Just like Shifty example with the active persons.
All reports can be shaped to help your vision of the world. I did it all the time on high school to get my point and view across.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics....
That would be a better report if you ask me.
Just like Shifty example with the active persons.
All reports can be shaped to help your vision of the world. I did it all the time on high school to get my point and view across.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics....
