Worldwide PS3 numbers pass 360

[ShadowRunner]

I just think the number of complete morons and people with way too much money is statistically insignificant to enter into any kind of sales discussion yet the same people trot out the same dead horse all the time and its annoying.

The is these people are only morons if they are totally aware of the situation, many are not. I have seen it first hand, and while some of those are indeed not the brightest of people they would not have discarded their RROD unit had they known they could get a free replacement.

I think the only area we disagree on is how well the general public are aware of the situation. We see how ill informed people are everyday on b3d itself, even though we talk of comparatively specialist subjects. I have no problem believing that the public at large are not as well informed about the RROD and its warranty situation as we may be.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I didn't hear about RROD warranty increase online, I saw it first on the national news. I think you're confusing not being tech savvy with living in a cave. Also, if your product failed and you called and asked either the store you bought it from, or microsoft tech support you would have been told about it. And we're talking about people that would have bought the console in the first 8 months, early adopters.

<edit> I'm not suggesting that there isn't someone out there, you can probably find an example of someone who bought a console and was killed in a car accident on his way home or something, but to get any kind of statistical significance out of it, you'd need thousands (10s or 100s of thousands probably with the margin of error in this kind of analysis) of examples of these kinds of things happening. And it would have needed to occur in a relatively small window.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I didn't hear about RROD warranty increase online, I saw it first on the national news. I think you're confusing not being tech savvy with living in a cave. Also, if your product failed and you called and asked either the store you bought it from, or microsoft tech support you would have been told about it. And we're talking about people that would have bought the console in the first 8 months, early adopters.

Sure, it was big news when it happened, but that doesn't mean the average owner who had a 360 stop working 2 years later remembered that report on the evening news. They weren't running reminders every night, at least not where I live. So, you have multiple situations: people who don't realize the warranty was extended, people who do know about the warranty but would rather just buy a newer, more reliable model rather than get back a refurb with an old mobo, and people who were literally caught out of warranty, including early adopters, and now people who bought as late as 2008 for whom the warranty has run out now.

That's just counting situations where you have a new sale strait replacing a broken unit. You also have more nebulous cases where someone with a working, old style 360 bought a slim, say, and retired the older unit to a second room in the house or something. But I agree that cases where a working unit was sold or given away doesn't count, since we're only trying to account for cases where a new sale doesn't increase the active user base. That's actually how I bought my 360, on the cheap from someone who upgraded to a slim.

But the upshot is, if we're trying to explain how the 360 can have sold more units than the PS3, but have fewer active consoles, users replacing broken/older models with a new revision seems like a very plausible scenario to me. We know 360 hardware was far more unreliable than PS3 hardware so this would logically happen at a rate far higher for Microsoft's console, especially when you consider the price differences and the ability to buy an Arcade cheaply and move you current hard drive over.

 

[RobertR1]

So according to you experts, what's the real software ratio for the 360? It must be off amazing!

Also, how do we account for YLOD? It an issue that took longer to materialize but it's certainly quite widespread for early models.

 

[-tkf-]

So according to you experts, what's the real software ratio for the 360? It must be off amazing!

Also, how do we account for YLOD? It an issue that took longer to materialize but it's certainly quite widespread for early models.

Yes i think the software ratio for the 360 is higher than what we are told, it´s pretty obvious when you think about it.

In regards to YLOD i think there is several things that influence the numbers when compared to the 360

The first 360´s were mind numbing loud and hot, it was like a small invasion in your home, as seen on this board and many others, they were replaced by many at the first chance.

YLOD creeps up much later in the PS3 life than RROD and the impact is spread over a much long time frame, and considering that the launch sales for the PS3 (early models) weren´t as strong as the current sales the impact is reduced some more.

And like the 360 the first models, when they get older, can get louder. So getting a new one is an option as well and that will add to the sales.

Finally, many just get the YLOD fixed because it is cheaper than losing a expensive investment and buying a new PS3.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

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?

Sure in the first couple years. But the PS3, going by this forum as you've brought that up, has far surpassed X360 in failure replacements the past couple years. And unlike the X360, it has a much shorter warranty replacement window (comparing to the X360's which were prone to RROD) which has meant far more of them have had to be replaced out of warranty.

As you and others will rightly point out however, you can't draw many conclusions from this forum. But the 1 year versus 3 year free replacement warranty is most likely going to skew re-purchases towards the console with the shorter warranty and/or require the user to spend more money repairing their console out of warranty.

Regards,
SB

 

[stofcri]

Sure in the first couple years. But the PS3, going by this forum as you've brought that up, has far surpassed X360 in failure replacements the past couple years. And unlike the X360, it has a much shorter warranty replacement window (comparing to the X360's which were prone to RROD) which has meant far more of them have had to be replaced out of warranty.

As you and others will rightly point out however, you can't draw many conclusions from this forum. But the 1 year versus 3 year free replacement warranty is most likely going to skew re-purchases towards the console with the shorter warranty and/or require the user to spend more money repairing their console out of warranty.

Regards,
SB

If it was the case ,you can be sure that the medias would have ,with no comparisons, jumped on it...

 

[NavNucST3]

I think I specifically stated in my post that I'm not speaking to the frequency of such occurrences, just that it does happen.

I gave the repaired unit away, and it is still in use. Which is beyond my point. Which is just simply that it does happen. That's not a comment on any of the other numerous squabbles going on in this debate, nor should anything more be inferred from my statement.

The bolded is what is germane to the topic of "active" consoles on which this report was attempting to quantify. I took all of AWs posts to suggest that very few have simply thrown the RROD'd unit away. Yes, myself and others have in fact bought new units (I may have done that the most but given my overall console spend I know I'm an outlier) but each of the prior dead (IF they died before I gave them away) units was repaired and simply given away and each* is still active.

*=I know of two occasions where the refurb has RRODd as well but in each of those cases the person got another refurb and those are still active units. Zero dollars spent.

Listening to the reasoning here and it seems as if people are suggesting that the software tie ratio for the 360 is somewhere in the range of 9.4+