Xbox 360 Software Attach Rate Is 'Alarming'

Did someone ask about attachment rates of other consoles?

Gamestop reports that it's ~3 for Wii and ~1.5 for PS3, so far.

Hong.

 

The problem is that with the transition to HDTV there is also a newness factor that goes with this generation of consoles. Just for the WOW factor, I would wager that a number of people have been less discriminating wrt media purchases just to acquire content that fully utilized their HW.

 

In my case in the span of when xbox launched and my pay vs when the 360 launched and my pay, this is exactly what happened. I have bought more 360 games, retail and downloaded, than I have ever bought for any system over its entire life span. I am currently at 77 games played (soon to be 78 when I buy Small Arms).

The downside to that is as a tech nut, I realized the other day I am content on waiting a year (probably more like 4-6months on the PS3, and not because of lack of money, or dislike of the system)

 

Europe gets a GOW bundle for Christmas; as far as I can see it's a Premium pack with Gears for Euros. Pretty cool price actually.

 

Wow. That's an entire 1.0-1.5 higher than I thought it would be for the PS3, considering all the units going straight to eBay.

 

In reality, isn't it better to have lower console sales with higher attach rates than higher console sales with lower attach rates? Selling more consoles looks good for marketing and bragging rights, but if the so-called mainstream buyers don't buy games for them, the console manufacturers lose money if the assumption is that they are losing hundreds of $ per console sold. It would take 5+ games just to break even. At some point in the future, the companies make actually make a profit per unit sold, but until then, high attach rates are preferable.

 

I agree that high attach rate with no new hardware (console) sales would mean poor future outlook. However, the 360 adoption rate is good...what we are seeing is the affect of MS doing a good job at getting 3rd party to release great/good games.

This November has been a great month for MS, considering what is releasing on the 360...Fear, GeoW, Rainbow 6 and CoD3. And before that we had Deading Raising, Oblivion and GRAW...surely these aren't just another Untold Legend type of game. Basically MS is doing a good job by having development tools that allows developers to release their game without jumping through hoops.

 

Agreed, that's the way I see it.

 

And the hardware losses made can always be offset by profits made on the software. So, the higher the software attach rate the more licensing fees per console is generated, the quicker their cost/profit targets can be met and so console price drops can happen with less pain, potentially faster than the pure hardware cost reduction targets would dictate. Which in turn would lead to more consoles sold.

 

I see what the analysts were getting at, but I don't agree that it means trouble for MS at this point. Is anyone really surprised that the 360 has yet to attract a large number of mainstream gamers vs. hardcore gamers at it's current price points? Revisit this after the 360 gets a price drop and if there hasn't been a noticeable change in these numbers than THAT would be alarming. Right now it appears to me that the 360 market is about where it should be.