Worldwide PS3 numbers pass 360

[DuckThor Evil]

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).

Yes, but many have gotten a new unit, even without the old one getting broken. New units have offered plenty of incentives to upgrade, more reliable, silent and other things like bigger hardware and new warranty.The x360 model without the HDD dropped to 199$ long time ago making the replacement purchase easier. Not that it means much, but I've bought 3 X360s and 2 PS3s. Gamestop for one has offered pretty good deals for turning the old unit in when the Slim models came.

Also the most problematic X360 revisions have been ouf of warranty for a long time and the replacement units at the beginning were not such a great solution for the RROD problem. I think the codename Jasper was the revision that finally cured the problems, Falcon was better already, but they were still breaking.

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?

I'll gross that bridge when I get there. Now such a study doesn't exist, to my knowledge anyway.

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.

Tie rations and such dwell deep in the usage pattern section and that is a different parameter. Logically you have to assume E.g. that PS3s' Blu-ray playback has made some people purchasing it due to that, especially in the beginning etc.

Also your software analysis sounds pretty US centric. The install base in the US is hugely bigger for the X360, something like 25M vs 15M. That is more than 50% more 360s, so the sales are going to reflect that.

The purchase habits and the games people buy in Japan for example are vastly different, and that alone basically makes comparing sales of some western titles between the platforms totally useless (In this context!, obviously it's huge thing, if you'r a western developer).

Some articles I've ran into gave different view than you have on worldwide software sales.
I can't exactly vouch on the accuracy, but if you google around, you can find similar stuff and looking at the financials of the bigger publishers, you'll get the idea that worldwide PS3 software sales compare well. Sony also publishes lots of software on their own.
http://www.psuni.com/ps3-software-sales-outstrip-xbox-360s-ps3-attach-rate-up-to-8-1-3807/#comments

since you mentioned vgcharts, this is some research made by them. (2010 WW software revenue)

http://www.gamepro.com/article/news...o-game-software-sales-top-33-billion-in-2010/

"PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii were top of the pile in terms of revenue, accounting for $7,293 million, $7,242 million and $6,830 million in revenue respectively."

These seem to imply that eventhough a lot of games sell better on the X360, when you put all games together, the software sales are pretty close to each other and could even be more on the PS3.

edit: Still I want to point out that X360 has plenty of momentum going on and things certainly look a lot better for 360 now, than before the slim and Kinect came out.

 

[goonergaz]

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.

This is simple, because <insert you best guess here - I'd say ~10%> of PS3s are being used as BR players.

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.
...
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.

Without wishing to 'argue', your example seems to include games that would naturally fit with an a-typical X360 'hardcore' gamer (if you look at the charts there's 8 shooters in the top 10 vs 5 for the PS3). I could just as easily argue that some of the games could be excluded due to being better ports on X360 - or how about the scew that free online gives for the PS3 version? How about comparing the most popular racers? GT5 >6M vs Forza3 <5M (and it's been selling a lot longer).

The fact is some games will do better on one console vs another for a variety of reasons - for example, RE has a fairly large % PS3 advantage for some reason, maybe a boost provided by Move? Who knows...but the simple thing here is that you can't really use this as a gague.

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.

Well if you think this info 'contradicts' anything, then maybe you should look at the Wii sales figures - this might help how easy it is to gain any information from just one set of figures/stats - the Wii sells ~ the same software p/w as the PS3, yet this report says there are far more Wiis out there working and we know they've sold a lot more Wiis...so why the software 'parity' with PS3?

For me it's down to the mindset of the the console owner, and I don't mind being ripped appart over this, but I think many Wiis are collecting dust and being used for the odd party, I think the PS3 has a very good 'average' use and when you combine all the factors we know you get a similar s/w sales rate ((U)se/(C)onsoles=s/w (P)uchases or something like that). So I believe that altho there are less working X360s out there that the 'typical' X360 gamer is more included to play longer on more hardcore 'shooty' type games and buy more titles...again U/C=P.

In a way this small information is an important part of the overall puzzle as actual sales data is not going to tell you how many consoles are actually being used. The problem is it doesn't tell us how many PS3 (or X360s for that matter) are being used for non gaming.

 

[dobwal]

This is simple, because <insert you best guess here - I'd say ~10%> of PS3s are being used as BR players.

Without wishing to 'argue', your example seems to include games that would naturally fit with an a-typical X360 'hardcore' gamer (if you look at the charts there's 8 shooters in the top 10 vs 5 for the PS3). I could just as easily argue that some of the games could be excluded due to being better ports on X360 - or how about the scew that free online gives for the PS3 version? How about comparing the most popular racers? GT5 >6M vs Forza3 <5M (and it's been selling a lot longer).

The fact is some games will do better on one console vs another for a variety of reasons - for example, RE has a fairly large % PS3 advantage for some reason, maybe a boost provided by Move? Who knows...but the simple thing here is that you can't really use this as a gague.

Well if you think this info 'contradicts' anything, then maybe you should look at the Wii sales figures - this might help how easy it is to gain any information from just one set of figures/stats - the Wii sells ~ the same software p/w as the PS3, yet this report says there are far more Wiis out there working and we know they've sold a lot more Wiis...so why the software 'parity' with PS3?

For me it's down to the mindset of the the console owner, and I don't mind being ripped appart over this, but I think many Wiis are collecting dust and being used for the odd party, I think the PS3 has a very good 'average' use and when you combine all the factors we know you get a similar s/w sales rate ((U)se/(C)onsoles=s/w (P)uchases or something like that). So I believe that altho there are less working X360s out there that the 'typical' X360 gamer is more included to play longer on more hardcore 'shooty' type games and buy more titles...again U/C=P.

In a way this small information is an important part of the overall puzzle as actual sales data is not going to tell you how many consoles are actually being used. The problem is it doesn't tell us how many PS3 (or X360s for that matter) are being used for non gaming.

Nowadays, calling the shooting genre (Halo, COD and others) hardcore is like calling the platformers (SMBs and others) hardcore in the late 80s. Today, shooters are the most prominent and mainstream genre in video games. Any genre thats makes up 50-80% of any console top ten list is hardly going to get there being driven by simply hardcore fans unless the console itself is a niche product.

I don't know if the PS3 leads in active users or not. This report is evidence of that but I don't consider it enough proof to construe this study assertion as an absolute fact. Who really cares? There is enough evidence to show that regardless of who slightly leads what, the HD console race is the most competitive as well as the biggest generator of revenue in video gaming.

 

[goonergaz]

Nowadays, calling the shooting genre (Halo, COD and others) hardcore is like calling the platformers (SMBs and others) hardcore in the late 80s. Today, shooters are the most prominent and mainstream genre in video games. Any genre thats makes up 50-80% of any console top ten list is hardly going to get there being driven by simply hardcore fans unless the console itself is a niche product.

I understand what you're saying, however you only need to look at the best sellers for each console to see the point I'm trying to make...indeed a quick look at the top 50 of each shows that:

X360
64% of sales are for violence centric action games
17% kinect/band/guitar (etc) games (6% due to Kinect)
7% sports
5% racers
5% misc (oblivon/fable)
1% fighting

PS3:
58% 'violent'
16% sport
12% racers
8% misc
4% 'family/party'
2% fighting games

So my point is that using an example like 'CoD/Assassins Creed/GTA sells more on X360 so there must be more X360s out there' just doesn't wash, I could just as easily say FIFA/Final Fantasy/NFS Shift sells more on PS3 so there must be more PS3s!

*edit*

A bit more delving shows that of the 'violent' games there is a significant split in FPS & 3PS. With the X360 around 2/3rds are FPSs whereas with PS3 only around half are. We can take it further, of those 3PS games we have both Gears and Uncharted as exclusives. One is more recognised as a straight shooter and the other a shooter/puzzler (even if it is 80/20% split!). One could be classed more hardcore than the other - certainly one is rated at 18 and the other is not...to me more evidence towards my thoughts on the userbase 'mind thought'

 

[AlphaWolf]

how is a fighting game not violent??!?!

And I have serious issues with the breakdown of your survey.

 

[Nesh]

how is a fighting game not violent??!?!

And I have serious issues with the breakdown of your survey.

Probably because fighting games are a very specific genre

 

[ShadowRunner]

Those stats would only be solid evidence (assuming they are actually fair representation) of the taste of each platforms userbase if the platforms shared exactly the same games and peripherals. For example the racing genre may sell better on PS3 due to better steering wheels beeing available, more well known racing framchise(GT5) etc. doesnt say that PS3 owners actually prefer racing games any more than 360 owners. You also have huge franchise on 360 like Halo, Gears etc that will skew percentages towards shooters, but that doesnt say that the PS3 userbase wouldnt have embraced them equally aswell. Even multiplat games dont tell a clear story, there is a number of reasons for a shooter selling better on one platform than the other like the quality of the port, where a users friends are playing etc.

Saying that i am convinced there is a difference in tastes between the userbases, and certainly regional preferences. The simple fact that PS3s userbase has a higher percentage of japanese gamers skews things away from FPS games for instance. So again im sure there certainly is a difference in userbase, but the stats provided are not solid evidence of that. Not to say its a total waste in looking at them, it can certainly help build a picture of the state of things, but a whole lot more analysis and supporting evidence need to be there to put any sort of reasonable case together. Infact those figures are actually closer than i may have predicted so could just as easily be used as basic evidence on how similar the userbases tastes.

 

[goonergaz]

Indeed, this was just a 'quick screen grab' - I don't have the time to delve much more into it...certainly regionally this needs to be broken down further. But NFS Shift is a good example of a cross platform game with no previous history being better received by PS3 gamers and Homefront conversely on X360...if this is down to control method, that's debatable (as is the fact someone might buy a console because it has the better control method for a particular genre).

AlphaWolf - Fighting games are a recognised genre, but more to the point 'violent centric action games' I agree is probably a bad idea and needs to be broken down further (hence I did a quick FPS vs 3PS example)...but in essence it means 'shooter/action' etc)

 

[Dregun]

Keep up the debate guys!! Love'n each persons break down of the data!

I think this report is facinating for so many reasons and for some things helps reaffirm what many people have been saying/thinking for quite a while.

Many Wii's collect dust
A lot of 360 sales can be contributed to the RROD
Many PS3 sales were to those only looking for a BD player

Also these numbers help us paint a better picture of the group who owns each of these consoles. The Wii, Xbox and PS3 all seem to have found a way to capture individual markets. The 360 on the left with the most vilolent action games and the Wii on the right with the most G rated party games for the whole family. That leaves the PS3 in the middle trying to increase sales by directly competing with BOTH consoles more then the Xbox competes with the Wii.

It really does explain the odd sales between the consoles knowing that the xbox 10m unit lead over PS3 isn't really the factor when counting units sold as is the direct result of the user base it gathered. If I was MS I would love these results, in the end it really does show that they are giving a vast majority of their customers the stuff they want because they seem to be buying software in droves.

Honestly the only console who comes away from this in a bad light is the Wii; no matter how the numbers are spun for the 360 or the PS3 when the dust settles the real story is the insane amount of inactive Wii's that are out there. Are more Kinect and Move sales going to banish more Wii's to the perverbial (and actual) closet?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Many Wii's collect dust
A lot of 360 sales can be contributed to the RROD
Many PS3 sales were to those only looking for a BD player

Actually you can't even take that much information out of this. At least not without having the report at hand to know exactly how they quantify things.

If it truly is just tracking if a console was turned "on" once in the past year, who is to say that the PS3 or X360 or Wii was turned "on" 10 months ago and then promptly died the next day due to YLOD/RROD/whatever, rendering it non-operable.

Pretty much there are absolutely zero conclusions we can make here in this thread with regards to consoles in use/consoles that may have died/consoles collecting dust/whatever without actually reading the report to see their methodology and their dissertation.

Regards,
SB

 

[goonergaz]

Actually you can't even take that much information out of this. At least not without having the report at hand to know exactly how they quantify things.

If it truly is just tracking if a console was turned "on" once in the past year, who is to say that the PS3 or X360 or Wii was turned "on" 10 months ago and then promptly died the next day due to YLOD/RROD/whatever, rendering it non-operable.

Pretty much there are absolutely zero conclusions we can make here in this thread with regards to consoles in use/consoles that may have died/consoles collecting dust/whatever without actually reading the report to see their methodology and their dissertation.

Regards,
SB

Which is true until you factor in the other things we know (sales figures for example), this helps add some weight - for example "why are Wii games selling badly?" - we know (thanks to this report) that most of the Wiis out there are used at least once a year, so I think it's fair to speculate that Wiis are 'collecting dust' (or being used a lot less). Likewise the assumption on 'RRoD' X360s and PS3 being used as a BR player...it's not until you add this data into the mix does the previous 'best guess' become a more educated one. What I'd like to see is this same report published next year so we can measure use against sales within 1 year.

 

[swym]

Also your software analysis sounds pretty US centric. The install base in the US is hugely bigger for the X360, something like 25M vs 15M. That is more than 50% more 360s, so the sales are going to reflect that.

Without wishing to 'argue', your example seems to include games that would naturally fit with an a-typical X360 'hardcore' gamer (if you look at the charts there's 8 shooters in the top 10 vs 5 for the PS3). I could just as easily argue that some of the games could be excluded due to being better ports on X360 - or how about the scew that free online gives for the PS3 version? How about comparing the most popular racers? GT5 >6M vs Forza3 <5M (and it's been selling a lot longer).

One note on this point since I see two people misread me here:
My analysis (which was basically just a few popular games from the top of my head) was an attempt to include only games that we can't rule out based on the other things that I mentioned (and I actually failed in that too when mentioning COD: Black Ops, since the franchise had a following on the Xbox crowd back with COD2 before the PS3 was out).

The reason I picked games like Assassins Creed and Fallout was because they:
1) Didn't have a longer franchise history with one platform brand (something that rules out games like Fifa, NFS, Final Fantasy, Dead Rising, Resisdent Evil etc)
2) Were released globally so we can account for the entire userbase (something that rules out games like Homefront and Bulletstorm)
3) Didn't have a strong preference towards one platform via DLC, exclusive content or better porting (something that rules out games like Batman, GTA IV, Bayonetta etc)
4) Were released simultaneously on both platforms (something that rules out games like Bioshock and Mass Effect)
5) Sold well enough (because there's no point comparing which failing version did better in cases where both versions simply didn't sell - which is too bad because games like Vanquish and Enslaved would have made good candidates)

I didn't pick them because they're US centric (and in case of Assassins Creed I have no idea why someone whould call it "US centric": The game series was developed in Canada and the game settings and plot revolve around ancient Italy/Israel).

If anyone wants to take this further and look into games that follow all these criteria - be my guest. But there's really no point comparing DIFFERENT games like Forza and GT5 and deducing anything from that.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

One note on this point since I see two people misread me here:
My analysis (which was basically just a few popular games from the top of my head) was an attempt to include only games that we can't rule out based on the other things that I mentioned (and I actually failed in that too when mentioning COD: Black Ops, since the franchise had a following on the Xbox crowd back with COD2 before the PS3 was out).

I didn't pick them because they're US centric (and in case of Assassins Creed I have no idea why someone whould call it "US centric": The game series was developed in Canada and the game settings and plot revolve around ancient Italy/Israel).

If anyone wants to take this further and look into games that follow all these criteria - be my guest. But there's really no point comparing DIFFERENT games like Forza and GT5 and deducing anything from that.

No I think you missed the point. Maybe substitute US centric to western or something like that. If you try to compare total software sales between the systems, it's basically useless to pick any single game, because the worldwide distribution (as in where the active units are) of these two consoles is so different. Japanese buy different type of games etc. It's better to just look macro numbes like total software sales or look at the financial sheets of 10 biggest publishers and see how many units/dollars each platform has generated for each publisher.

Comparing individual games and such things can give you very important information, just not so much when you analyse the size of worldwide active user base.

 

[goonergaz]

One note on this point since I see two people misread me here:
My analysis (which was basically just a few popular games from the top of my head) was an attempt to include only games that we can't rule out based on the other things that I mentioned (and I actually failed in that too when mentioning COD: Black Ops, since the franchise had a following on the Xbox crowd back with COD2 before the PS3 was out).

The reason I picked games like Assassins Creed and Fallout was because they:
1) Didn't have a longer franchise history with one platform brand (something that rules out games like Fifa, NFS, Final Fantasy, Dead Rising, Resisdent Evil etc)
2) Were released globally so we can account for the entire userbase (something that rules out games like Homefront and Bulletstorm)
3) Didn't have a strong preference towards one platform via DLC, exclusive content or better porting (something that rules out games like Batman, GTA IV, Bayonetta etc)
4) Were released simultaneously on both platforms (something that rules out games like Bioshock and Mass Effect)
5) Sold well enough (because there's no point comparing which failing version did better in cases where both versions simply didn't sell - which is too bad because games like Vanquish and Enslaved would have made good candidates)

I didn't pick them because they're US centric (and in case of Assassins Creed I have no idea why someone whould call it "US centric": The game series was developed in Canada and the game settings and plot revolve around ancient Italy/Israel).

If anyone wants to take this further and look into games that follow all these criteria - be my guest. But there's really no point comparing DIFFERENT games like Forza and GT5 and deducing anything from that.

As Dr Evil said, but I'd also add that it's nigh on impossible to 'cherry pick' a couple of examples like you did - you'd need to pick a wider range than just violent centric action games (which was my point). You also totally missed out why people might prefer to purchase for one console over another (friends/controller etc) - maybe people say the X360 controller is much better for FPS/3PS style games or maybe they prefer or play online for free or maybe they prefer collecting trophies vs gamerpoints...or...well, I could go on forever but in essence using your 'system' of why one game cannot be chosen over another (i.e. DLC exclusivity etc) then we'd end up with no games to compare!

 

[swym]

No I think you missed the point. Maybe substitute US centric to western or something like that. If you try to compare total software sales between the systems, it's basically useless to pick any single game, because the worldwide distribution (as in where the active units are) of these two consoles is so different. Japanese buy different type of games etc. It's better to just look macro numbers like total software sales or look at the financial sheets of 10 biggest publishers and see how many units/dollars each platform has generated for each publisher.

But that's where you fall into the same pit: trying to compare macro numbers like total software sold is pointless without full and comprehensive exact numbers because it just introduces more fuzziness: combined sales are mostly estimations so you can never get an accurate figure, game prices drop dramatically over time so unit sales do not provide a good estimation of monetary spending, the retail sales do not account for digital distribution (which is a hugh bias considering the fact that one service offers a vast catalog where the other does not), fluctuating currency exchange rates are usually neglected for the sake of making the calculation easier, and there's a whole arguments about how exactly to calculate hardware bundles.

So no, looking at the macro level is not the best idea because you just get more unknowns in your equation, which is the exact same problem I had with the analysis introduced here (But even the VGCHARTZ estimation in the link which you gave shows that the less games sold on the PS3 in 2010 then on the X360 and the Wii, which is something that just sits well with my point).

Comparing individual games and such things can give you very important information, just not so much when you analyse the size of worldwide active user base.

But what is the point of analyzing the size of the user base by itself? I thought that the whole point is to understand how might a specific game fare on each platform. Otherwise it's just an argument for the sake of an argument.
I KNOW that an individual game can't give me a proper analysis, and that's exactly what I stated myself before you even replied to my post ("What makes it even harder is that the console distribution varies between regions...").
You asked for my opinion, right? My whole point was that (apart from the fact that the formula they use seems bogus) from the publicly available information we have so far, I still don't see anything that can support this study. I didn't say that I have some kind of concrete proof that it's entirely 100% wrong.

 

[NavNucST3]

Back in my MWY days I think we determined that there was no statistical difference between a 360 gamer and PS3 gamer insofar as what games each would buy regardless of region. Which is to say that in España a 360 gamer is not inherently different than a PS3 gamer though both of those gamers might have different preferences than a US 360/PS3 gamer with the same being "true" in Japan, UK, etc. and generally speaking there were no significant outliers. I want to say that the previous generation bore that out as well amongst XBOX and PS2 gamer when looking at sales/corporate reports. This was years ago and internal though I'm sure most of the data is public.

 

[-tkf-]

A lot of 360 sales can be contributed to the RROD
Many PS3 sales were to those only looking for a BD player

At least the free replacment for the millions of RROD consoles wasn´t counted, at least not to our knowledge. The impact from those out of warranty can only be a guestimate, i would love to know the numbers since i always found the RROD scandal facinating

The "many" PS3 sales that was only used a BR player is a screwed up topic.
1: When the HiDef war was at it´s highest alot of effort from the HD-DVD camp was aimed at shooting the PS3 BR player numbers down.
2: Those that did end up buying it for a pure BR player will to some extent have contributed to software sales since some are bound to have bought a "few games".
3: The impact of PS3 as a Blu-Ray player can not be underestimated (50 million BR players!), but i think that those that look for a BR player today starts somewhere else. Unless they are looking for a Console and a BR player.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

At least the free replacment for the millions of RROD consoles wasn´t counted, at least not to our knowledge. The impact from those out of warranty can only be a guestimate, i would love to know the numbers since i always found the RROD scandal facinating

What's interesting in that is that due to the 3 year replacement warranty for RROD, it can be argued that Sony's limited 1 year warranty (at least in the US and non-EU countries) potentially results in more PS3's being purchased at retail as replacements for failed consoles than X360's being purchased at retail as replacements for failed consoles.

Regards,
SB

 

[DJ12]

The is a high percentage of users on this very forum that have bought numerous 360s before the warranty was extended for that specific issue. Is it that hard to envisage that maybe 1~5% (being conservative here) of the 360s sales are repeat purchasers replacing broken machines?

 

[NavNucST3]

The is a high percentage of users on this very forum that have bought numerous 360s before the warranty was extended for that specific issue. Is it that hard to envisage that maybe 1~5% (being conservative here) of the 360s sales are repeat purchasers replacing broken machines?

For each one of those purchases are you then suggesting that those of us who have actually done this have also purchased 8+ games with the new device as well?