Slashdot Mirror

The Xbox One has ... been outsold by the Wii U.

No, wrong. The Wii U failed comprehensively and did not outsell the XBox One.

Do you have numbers for Xbox One being outsold by the Wii U? That seemed surprising to me, so I had to look it up. A random source on the internet has it the other way around, but I have no idea how much that can be trusted. They also claim that the only year Wii U outsold Xbox One was 2013; but it looks like XBox One was released November that year, whereas the Wii U shipped a year earlier.

(I'm mainly an old PC games person, and don't care much about any of the consoles.)

VGChartz is a useful site if you're interested in console and game sales.

My guess: less than 20000. Realistically, this was never more than small fraction of an already small fraction of users.

Sony sold about 30 million PS3s in North America. Subtract Canada, and the PS3 slim and super-slim models and you're probably down below 20 million. How many PS3 owners really put Linux on their PS3? 1 in 500?

Facts can also be misleading if presented absent context. For instance, I could claim that most parents are more intelligent than their children...while conveniently leaving out the fact that the sampling was done exclusively from three year-old children and their parents. Facts are facts, but facts require context, and if you want to draw comparisons, you need to correct and control for differences in context so as to achieve an accurate comparison. And, when you do so by aligning the sales based on what they were at various points in the lifecycle of the consoles (i.e. cumulative sales X months after launch), you'll see that the facts are actually more interesting, since it ends up being a tale of two charts.

In the first chart, the line represents the sales lead that the PS4 + XBO have over the PS3 + 360 over the course of the lifecycle. As you can see, they continue to pull ahead, with the PS4 + XBO outselling the PS3 + 360 by over 20M units at the same age. In fact, as it turns out, the PS4 alone is outselling where the PS3 + 360 combined were at in their respective points in their lifecycles. And though I can't cite it, I recall seeing a chart not too long ago that indicated the PS4 was even outselling the PS2 when you aligned their lifecycles.

(Also, it's worth noting that these researchers appear to be using outdated data. The summary mentions 10M sales for the XBO, but the latest numbers are actually closer to 20M. That 10M number was likely taken from the last time Microsoft broke out XBO sales numbers...back in 2014, when they announced 10M cumulative sales.)

But I said there were two charts, and in the second chart, where the Wii U and Wii are being factored in as well, we see a very different story being told. Suddenly, the previous generation is handily beating this generation by a wide margin. And handhelds are way down as well. The gap is getting bigger and bigger in the other direction as the Wii U acts like an anchor tied around the neck of the industry.

So what do we take away from this? What I'd take away from this is that Nintendo's lunch is being eaten, likely by Android and iOS, which comes as absolutely no surprise and would explain the absolutely massive drop in both handhelds and Nintendo consoles, given that they target a demographic that's needs can mostly be filled by Android and iOS. If you were to create a third chart by including Android and iOS device sales, I'm willing to bet that it would show a MASSIVE upwards trajectory.

But, going back to the charts we have, the Wii was a breakout product with stellar sales. The Wii U? Not so much. In fact, it's missed the mark so badly that it's single-handedly dragging the entire generation down. But when you ignore the outliers for each generation (as well as the mobile devices obsolescing them) and focus on the core of the gaming market by itself, the picture we see is that it's not only healthy, it's actually outpacing the growth of the last generation. Things are up. Way up.

Facts can also be misleading if presented absent context. For instance, I could claim that most parents are more intelligent than their children...while conveniently leaving out the fact that the sampling was done exclusively from three year-old children and their parents. Facts are facts, but facts require context, and if you want to draw comparisons, you need to correct and control for differences in context so as to achieve an accurate comparison. And, when you do so by aligning the sales based on what they were at various points in the lifecycle of the consoles (i.e. cumulative sales X months after launch), you'll see that the facts are actually more interesting, since it ends up being a tale of two charts.

In the first chart, the line represents the sales lead that the PS4 + XBO have over the PS3 + 360 over the course of the lifecycle. As you can see, they continue to pull ahead, with the PS4 + XBO outselling the PS3 + 360 by over 20M units at the same age. In fact, as it turns out, the PS4 alone is outselling where the PS3 + 360 combined were at in their respective points in their lifecycles. And though I can't cite it, I recall seeing a chart not too long ago that indicated the PS4 was even outselling the PS2 when you aligned their lifecycles.

(Also, it's worth noting that these researchers appear to be using outdated data. The summary mentions 10M sales for the XBO, but the latest numbers are actually closer to 20M. That 10M number was likely taken from the last time Microsoft broke out XBO sales numbers...back in 2014, when they announced 10M cumulative sales.)

But I said there were two charts, and in the second chart, where the Wii U and Wii are being factored in as well, we see a very different story being told. Suddenly, the previous generation is handily beating this generation by a wide margin. And handhelds are way down as well. The gap is getting bigger and bigger in the other direction as the Wii U acts like an anchor tied around the neck of the industry.

So what do we take away from this? What I'd take away from this is that Nintendo's lunch is being eaten, likely by Android and iOS, which comes as absolutely no surprise and would explain the absolutely massive drop in both handhelds and Nintendo consoles, given that they target a demographic that's needs can mostly be filled by Android and iOS. If you were to create a third chart by including Android and iOS device sales, I'm willing to bet that it would show a MASSIVE upwards trajectory.

But, going back to the charts we have, the Wii was a breakout product with stellar sales. The Wii U? Not so much. In fact, it's missed the mark so badly that it's single-handedly dragging the entire generation down. But when you ignore the outliers for each generation (as well as the mobile devices obsolescing them) and focus on the core of the gaming market by itself, the picture we see is that it's not only healthy, it's actually outpacing the growth of the last generation. Things are up. Way up.

Facts can also be misleading if presented absent context. For instance, I could claim that most parents are more intelligent than their children...while conveniently leaving out the fact that the sampling was done exclusively from three year-old children and their parents. Facts are facts, but facts require context, and if you want to draw comparisons, you need to correct and control for differences in context so as to achieve an accurate comparison. And, when you do so by aligning the sales based on what they were at various points in the lifecycle of the consoles (i.e. cumulative sales X months after launch), you'll see that the facts are actually more interesting, since it ends up being a tale of two charts.

In the first chart, the line represents the sales lead that the PS4 + XBO have over the PS3 + 360 over the course of the lifecycle. As you can see, they continue to pull ahead, with the PS4 + XBO outselling the PS3 + 360 by over 20M units at the same age. In fact, as it turns out, the PS4 alone is outselling where the PS3 + 360 combined were at in their respective points in their lifecycles. And though I can't cite it, I recall seeing a chart not too long ago that indicated the PS4 was even outselling the PS2 when you aligned their lifecycles.

(Also, it's worth noting that these researchers appear to be using outdated data. The summary mentions 10M sales for the XBO, but the latest numbers are actually closer to 20M. That 10M number was likely taken from the last time Microsoft broke out XBO sales numbers...back in 2014, when they announced 10M cumulative sales.)

But I said there were two charts, and in the second chart, where the Wii U and Wii are being factored in as well, we see a very different story being told. Suddenly, the previous generation is handily beating this generation by a wide margin. And handhelds are way down as well. The gap is getting bigger and bigger in the other direction as the Wii U acts like an anchor tied around the neck of the industry.

So what do we take away from this? What I'd take away from this is that Nintendo's lunch is being eaten, likely by Android and iOS, which comes as absolutely no surprise and would explain the absolutely massive drop in both handhelds and Nintendo consoles, given that they target a demographic that's needs can mostly be filled by Android and iOS. If you were to create a third chart by including Android and iOS device sales, I'm willing to bet that it would show a MASSIVE upwards trajectory.

But, going back to the charts we have, the Wii was a breakout product with stellar sales. The Wii U? Not so much. In fact, it's missed the mark so badly that it's single-handedly dragging the entire generation down. But when you ignore the outliers for each generation (as well as the mobile devices obsolescing them) and focus on the core of the gaming market by itself, the picture we see is that it's not only healthy, it's actually outpacing the growth of the last generation. Things are up. Way up.

If you look at "aligned" sales aka, how fast a console is selling both the PS4 and Xbox One are outpacing the Xbox 360 and PS3.

The difference is that there simply isn't a market for ancient consoles anymore. The jump from SD -> 720p -> 1080p and now to 4k TVs has happened in the blink of an eye in technological terms. The PS2 was able to hold on for a long time because bigscreen TV adoption was slow. Now that we've gone from a 32" 720p TV being $300 to a 55" 4k TV being $300 people are upgrading more often.

http://www.vgchartz.com/articl...

It's even worse than that. The PS2 was far and away the most successful console of its generation. It killed of Sega's Dreamcast early on and only later did Nintendo release their own console which did not sell well and Microsoft was only making their first foray into the console market so their sales were also quite low. The PS2 only sold as well as it did because the competition was exceptionally weak.

I'm fairly sure the subsequent generations have had more total combined sales over the lifetime of the machines, but no one company has been in such a dominant position as Sony was with the PS2. If they wanted to make a fair comparison they'd need to combine Xbox 360, PS3, and Nintendo Wii sales together and compare them against total sales from other console generations to establish a trend.

Wikipedia has some quick information available and is probably good enough for the sake of argument:

7th (Xbox 360) generation sales: 270.56 million
6th (PS2) generation sales: 210.13 million
5th (PS1) generation sales: 145.22 million

VGChartz, a website that tracks sales for consoles and video games lists the current (8th) generation sales at: 73.5 million. That's tracking a bit below the previous generation (~230 million total projected based on current sales) for industry-wide sales, which probably is largely due to Nintendo's Wii U cratering hard to the extend that they're abandoning it already, so perhaps there will be an uptick when they release a new system. I think that portables have also grown a lot more as well (and this is excluding smartphones) so that could be eating into the consoles a bit as well.

There are total and weekly console hardware and software sales figures at VGChartz.

This is a good site for tracking console sales: www.vgchartz.com

According to their data, approximately 6000 XBox 360s were sold in one week.

How many PS3 systems were sold in a week? Over 9000!!

But these numbers are a tenth of the sales compared to the newer generation systems.

Other than the Wii, which is considered to be a fluke

If the Wii was successful, then so was the PS3 and the XBox 360. Look at the actual numbers. Wii - 101 million, PS3 - 86.4 million, and the Xbox 360 - 85.4 million.

They only stand to lose sales, not make gains.

The PS4 is well ahead on sales. I don't think cross platform multiplayer support will make a meaningful change to the status quo.

In case anyone's interested, VGChartz has recent sales figures for consoles and games. The PS4 is well ahead of XBox One and Wii U.

> Also, other than Microsoft employees, I have never met someone that has one of those XBox things.

Really? Do you only know boring people ? MS sold about 35 million XBox 1st gen, 85 million XBos 360 and 20 millions XBox One. [1]
That figure includes 12 millions XBox One in the North America. That is about 10% of US Household. So in all likelyhood, there are multiple on your block.

[1] http://www.vgchartz.com/analys...

Native apps from "garage" developers: zero users on Wii U. Web apps from "garage" developers: greater than zero users on Wii U.

You're not genuinely trying to argue that the Wii U is a significant application platform, are you? It's a games platform for children, and the least successful console of the current generation by a mile. You'd be crazy to target it for applications, native or otherwise.

Even HTML5 game support is weak on the Wii. No support for sound? Does it even have WebGL support? Nope, guess not. And look at this weird non-standard stuff. Effortless support it ain't.

You haven't provided evidence for your claim that web development with all its current limitations, with all the vagaries of differences between browsers is more efficient or productive than native cross platform application development. Some me some real, measurable outcomes instead of making vague assertions.

First, there's the overhead of obtaining hardware on which to test the build for each platform. You essentially have to buy a Mac, buy a copy of Parallels, and buy a retail copy of Windows.

Welcome to professional development. And as you said yourself it's the same deal for web development. What, you got your Wii U for free in a box of cereal or something?

That's fine once your company is big enough to afford "the right development environment".

Many cross platform languages, libraries, and development environments are free. You can use GCC or Rust or Python or Free Pascal and their associated libraries, or use none of them and use something else. You want to do GUI applications? Look, here's an option. Here's another. Use what you want, I don't care.

There are more options available now than ever. Small companies can easily find the right development environment for them for native application development for as much or as little money as they want to spend.

That's why the Wii wiped the floor with sales over Sony and Mcrisoft when it came out

It matters more where they ended up than where they started. The Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 were fairly close in sales in the end.

It will be interesting to see if the Wii U and the XBox One can catch up to the PS4 in the long term. It doesn't look likely at the moment.

That's why the Wii wiped the floor with sales over Sony and Mcrisoft when it came out

It matters more where they ended up than where they started. The Wii, PS3, and XBox 360 were fairly close in sales in the end.

It will be interesting to see if the Wii U and the XBox One can catch up to the PS4 in the long term. It doesn't look likely at the moment.

If you care what other people are buying, the PS4 has outsold the XBox One by quite a way.

The Wii U has shipped approximately the same number of units as the Xbox One.

It depends on which part of the world you're in. PlayStation 4 is beating Xbox One and Wii U combined globally, in Europe, and in the rest of the world. In North America, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One have each outsold Wii U by roughly 2 to 1. But in Japan, Wii U is in the lead and Xbox One is a rounding error.

Figures from VGChartz:
PS4: NA 9.60; EU 9.93; JP 1.67; ROW 4.25; total 25.45
XbOne: NA 8.61; EU 3.63; JP 0.06; ROW 1.58; total 13.88
Wii U: NA 4.70; EU 2.40; JP 2.52; ROW 0.65; total 10.27

I'm not sure why everyone is quick to qualify the Wii U as a disaster and the Xbox One a success.

Because you've only talked to Americans.

It's funny to read comments here that seemingly imply the PS3 was a failure, since in the end the PS3 slightly outsold the XBox 360.

It's also worthwhile to remind people, once again, that the Wii outsold both by a healthy margin.

Now if we're using the PS2 as the benchmark... then everything else made by anyone, ever, was a failure. But expecting anyone (including Sony) to somehow replicate that success story is a tad unrealistic.

The PS3 wasn't a failure. Sure, the first couple of years it was considered a joke for being horribly expensive and notoriously hard to program, but it outsold the 360 everywhere but North America with global sales estimated at 85.83 Million to 360's 84.90 Million.

...It will sustain losses year after year to deny revenue to the competition. Once the competition folds it has the market for itself. Look how long it was able to sustain losses to gain dominance with XBox franchise.

It didn't work and Microsoft has little hope of ever recovering its losses.

No, with the Wii they realized they didn't need to keep up with the PS and Xbox.

In that generation. The same idea isn't working out for the Wii U in this generation. The PS4 launched one year later than the Wii U and has already sold more. The Xbox One will also overtake the Wii U soon enough.

This generation of consoles seems like it will be lead by the PS4. The PS4 typically outsells both the XBox One and the Wii U week by week, and Sony's gaming division is seeing increased revenue.

This generation of consoles seems like it will be lead by the PS4. The PS4 typically outsells both the XBox One and the Wii U week by week, and Sony's gaming division is seeing increased revenue.

I don't think at this point that they really have any valid position in the hardware business.

82 million xBox 360 owners can't be wrong right?

And hey, the Xbox360 won last time,

The XBox 360 ended up third behind the Wii and the PS3, even though both the Wii and PS3 launched about a year later. See VGChartz last generation global hardware sales chart (use the selector in the bottom lefthand corner of the chart).

Microsoft is going to hold on to that thing for as long as they can. It's not going away for several different reasons.

The only reason a corporation has for anything is profit. There's no point holding on to it if it's costing Microsoft profit. Look at VGChartz Weekly Hardware Chart for the 15th of February. The PS4 outsold the XBox One by 5.4 times in Europe and by 2.6 times globally. Those aren't winning figures for the Xbox. Microsoft has to change something if they want to maintain sales parity with the PS4.

Xbox 360 10.76, PS3 9.77, Wii 9.06
source: http://www.vgchartz.com/analys...

PC built five years ago? On what budget?

That isn't relevant if spent a lot of money then...

Furthermore, PC gaming hasn't been killing console gaming. What's been killing it has been the flattening of genres. Everything now is some kind of generic 1st or 3rd person shooter. And THAT is thanks to the much lauded PC Gaming Master Race.

Gross.

Also I'd like to see some recipts on that figure about sales. VGchartz shows Bioshock infinite sold 5 times as more on ps3 and 360 combined than on Windows. Not just that but with persistent steam sales devaluing gaming, I just don't see 2k doing better in terms of raw revenue either.

See: http://www.vgchartz.com/game/4...

The News here is that the Xbox is significantly crippled compared to the cheaper, less abusive opposition Sony!? Kinect is not the selling point to justify the Xbox's inflated Price. This is being reflected in the current sales numbers with worldwide sales being (almost) half that of that of the PS4 (or a little higher than the PS3) http://www.vgchartz.com/#This%.... The only other thing of note is software is no longer the significant factor it was in choosing a console. Personally though I have my eye on Android gaming.

Clearly by what metric? The PS3 also outsold the 360 eventually. The Wii kicked both their asses in terms of pushing units. Xbox and PS3 are about the same in terms of games and all the "exclusive" BS.

Don't all Xbox "exclusives" also come out for Windows after a while? It seems kind of redundant to have one IMO. Whereas some of my favourite games ever have been PC or PS3 only..

After more than six years of playing catch up, lifetime PlayStation 3 sales have passed lifetime Xbox 360 sales to become the second bestselling home console for the seventh generation. According to VGChartz latest sales data the PlayStation 3 has sold 77,313,472 units to date, while the Xbox 360 has sold 77,311,669 units.

The PlayStation 3 first launched on November 11, 2006, nearly one year after the Xbox 360, which launched on November 22, 2005.

The gap was just over five million units when the PlayStation 3 launched, but it grew to more than eight million units as the PlayStation 3 struggled to take off when it first launched. However, after the first console redesign, price cuts and major software releases the PlayStation 3 started outselling the Xbox 360 on a weekly basis.

In 2010, the PlayStation 3 managed to catch up by 600,000 units and in 2011 by nearly 900,000 units. In 2012, the PlayStation 3 sold 12.73 million units, while the Xbox 360 managed to sell 11.10 million units. In just the first five months of 2013 the PlayStation 3 has outsold the Xbox 360 by one million units.

The Wii, the bestselling home console for the seventh generation, is 22.35 million units ahead of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. However, the PlayStation 3 has caught up by 2.50 million units in just five months.

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250980/playstation-3-lifetime-sales-overtakes-the-xbox-360/

The Wii only achieved an odd form of success though. While lots of people bought it and Nintendo profited on the sales of the consoles, nowadays they're just sitting on people's shelves unused. Even with that kind of market saturation is it successful if the average Wii owner has, what, less than 5 games? Less than 2? I don't know the answer but if something is purchased but then rarely used it's only a partial success. They have to sell games too.

Actually, unlike Microsoft and Sony, all Nintendo has to do is sell the system and they've already made a profit, even on launch day.

As far as selling games goes, well let's take a look at the top selling games across all consoles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#All_Consoles

If we disregard Wii Sports (since it was included for free) and all previous generation consoles, then we have the following:
Mario Kart Wii
Wii Sports Resort (some of these were included, but some were purchases separately
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
GTA V

That's 5 or 6 top sellers for the Wii (depending on if you count Resort), and only 2 for the competition. Looks like they aren't hurting too bad. But what about just the overall total of all games sold for the console, worldwide?

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/

Wii: 901 million games
360: 826 million games
PS3: 749 million games

Yep, that is indeed an odd form of success. Most hardware sold (with none of it sold at a loss), and most games sold. What a total failure.

Oh, and since you said you didn't know the answer about the tie-ratio:
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/Global/

Wii: 8.99
360: 10.48
PS3: 9.35

So yeah, they are on the bottom of that metric, but still very respectable...only 4% lower than the PS3 and 15% lower than the 360. Not bad at all considering all those system supposedly sitting unused on shelves.

The Wii only achieved an odd form of success though. While lots of people bought it and Nintendo profited on the sales of the consoles, nowadays they're just sitting on people's shelves unused. Even with that kind of market saturation is it successful if the average Wii owner has, what, less than 5 games? Less than 2? I don't know the answer but if something is purchased but then rarely used it's only a partial success. They have to sell games too.

Actually, unlike Microsoft and Sony, all Nintendo has to do is sell the system and they've already made a profit, even on launch day.

As far as selling games goes, well let's take a look at the top selling games across all consoles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games#All_Consoles

If we disregard Wii Sports (since it was included for free) and all previous generation consoles, then we have the following:
Mario Kart Wii
Wii Sports Resort (some of these were included, but some were purchases separately
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros Wii
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
Wii Fit
Wii Fit Plus
GTA V

That's 5 or 6 top sellers for the Wii (depending on if you count Resort), and only 2 for the competition. Looks like they aren't hurting too bad. But what about just the overall total of all games sold for the console, worldwide?

http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Software/Global/

Wii: 901 million games
360: 826 million games
PS3: 749 million games

Yep, that is indeed an odd form of success. Most hardware sold (with none of it sold at a loss), and most games sold. What a total failure.

Oh, and since you said you didn't know the answer about the tie-ratio:
http://www.vgchartz.com/analysis/platform_totals/Tie-Ratio/Global/

Wii: 8.99
360: 10.48
PS3: 9.35

So yeah, they are on the bottom of that metric, but still very respectable...only 4% lower than the PS3 and 15% lower than the 360. Not bad at all considering all those system supposedly sitting unused on shelves.

http://www.vgchartz.com/ Nintendo sold over 4 million copies of Pokemon and 423 thousand 3DS the week of Oct 12. I see no reason to think they are going away any time soon.

I don't think those are current numbers (maybe they're from 2008? According to VG Chartz, they have the Xbox 360 at 3rd place with 10.26, it's behind the original Xbox and the PS2. The PS3 is in 6th place (4 and 5 are Gamecube and Playstation, respectively) with 9.14, I would expect the PS3 numbers to be a bit lower because there were actually quite a few people who bought them to be blue ray players that can also "do other stuff". I am surprised that that the Wii came in as number 7, I thought it would be lower, I had heard the attach rate for it was not-so-good.

Regardless, it's as close to fact as it can be that Microsoft has lost $3 billion so far on their Entertainment division (those numbers are from Microsoft's financial reports). I think someone else pointed out that they are currently making about $300-400 million a year from the division now, so it'll "only" be about 10 years before it becomes net profitable, assuming the numbers hold relatively steady.

The XBOX 1 lost 4 billion dollars. It's now a solid market that Microsoft dominates. Why would they not use that same strategy here?

Dominates? Really?

  Who modded up this bullshit?

http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250982/2013-year-on-year-sales-and-market-share-update-to-may-18th/

Relevant part being lifetime sales:

PS3: 77,313,472
Wii: 99,574,394
Xbox 360: 77,311,669

"Every gamer you know" is not a valid metric. Anecdotal evidence is not useful.

Also this is only the 7th gen. Step back to the previous one and the PS2 is the best selling console of all time, over 200 million sold.

Sorry if it shoots your off-the-cuff rant to shit, but Sony is a force to be reckoned with in the console area. So in Nintendo.

According to this site it sold a combined 1.7M copies between PS3, Xbox 360, and PC. Mind-boggling, I would have guessed a LOT less...

Face it, you can't have great, immersive, polished, professional-quality games for $2.99

Ignoring the fact that you have not looked at Google Play recently :) Lets spend a little time looking at costs.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2010/02/anatomy-of-a-60-dollar-video-game.html

These figures are rough and back in 2010 by Steve Perlman, founder of OnLive That bring the cost of a video game down to $27. For your $2.99 Andoird game the developers pay $25 for registration to distribute on the Google Play Store. Application developers receive 70 percent of the application price...leaving you with $2.09

A quick look at the console market http://www.vgchartz.com/ and consoles average about 80M potential customers at the end of a consoles useful life. Android is Heading towards 1Billion activations, and continue to grow [currently only 12.5x larger than Consoles].

I am making no claims that more money can be made from Android games than tradition console gaming, but comparing on total selling price alone is foolish when Android market is massive and continues to growl; there is no second hand market; risks are smaller; development costs cheaper; Customers buy more games; Alternative revenue streams.

That is ignoring the fact that your favourite engine spits out binaries that will work on a plethora of platforms...Look at Unity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

Yeah, likely they'll end up like Nintendo.

Except Nintendo won the console wars [had the majority market share at least] with its wii...although its struggling with its wii u http://www.vgchartz.com/ as you can see it outsold both Sony and Microsoft. Ironically Apple [when its still did computing] was rumoured to be serious about buying Nintendo, and would have been an incredibly good use of its money [they have $140 Billion now under the couch], unfortunately Jobs was always been against games [maybe sour grapes]...but right now I suspect unless Apple expand their product line [as they are rumoured to be doing...and is a little late], and quit their lock-in games [proprietary software and hardware only cuts it when your on top]. I think they are going to become relevant only in the US soon, and then only until the carriers gang up on Apple [dies a natural death].

It worked with the XBox. Of course the XBox was also helped by Sony's stupidity.

According to data from here, the XBox sold 24,65MM worldwide and the PS2 sold 153,68MM. I don't see how that worked for them. Regarding stupidity (the removal of the OtherOS feature?); according to data from last month the PS3 has just recently got ahead of M$'s Xbox 360 (though only by a million) with total console sales of 77MM but the 360 had a year-long headstart...and if deviating from a "dominant" duopoly, 98.8MM Wiis have been sold .

I'm a game developer who happens to work in Poland and I track CD Projekt (GOG parent) stock close enough. GOG did bring them profit (a bit less than 1 mln USD for 1H2012), Wiedzmin (Witcher) for 360 got them even more (about 5 mln USD) but they are losing money on traditional retail market, their primary source of income up to now (source in Polish). Also, compare those numbers, which may be good for Poland, to 40 mln USD needed to create a modern AAA game.

Also, DRM is essential to delay piracy for the first month of game release. Games only really sell in the first few weeks after launch, if you didn't know - after that, people move on to something else and the "long tail" of sales begins (see just about any game's charts: [1], [2], [3]). So the games need to make up for that large upfront investment in first 4 to 6 weeks, if they don't break even, they are dead. Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 - all those arguably known and high profile titles are commercial failures. Most current triple A games flop or barely make even, but unless explicitly asked, publishers rarely admit it. However, if you work in gamedev you probably saw the closures of Grin, Pandemic, 38 Studios, and in general, it starts to happen too frequently.

So no, it's not just about "having control". There would be no need in control if existing model provided a sustainable way to earn money. Truth is, nowadays interactive entertainment market is a gamble.

I'm a game developer who happens to work in Poland and I track CD Projekt (GOG parent) stock close enough. GOG did bring them profit (a bit less than 1 mln USD for 1H2012), Wiedzmin (Witcher) for 360 got them even more (about 5 mln USD) but they are losing money on traditional retail market, their primary source of income up to now (source in Polish). Also, compare those numbers, which may be good for Poland, to 40 mln USD needed to create a modern AAA game.

Also, DRM is essential to delay piracy for the first month of game release. Games only really sell in the first few weeks after launch, if you didn't know - after that, people move on to something else and the "long tail" of sales begins (see just about any game's charts: [1], [2], [3]). So the games need to make up for that large upfront investment in first 4 to 6 weeks, if they don't break even, they are dead. Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 - all those arguably known and high profile titles are commercial failures. Most current triple A games flop or barely make even, but unless explicitly asked, publishers rarely admit it. However, if you work in gamedev you probably saw the closures of Grin, Pandemic, 38 Studios, and in general, it starts to happen too frequently.

So no, it's not just about "having control". There would be no need in control if existing model provided a sustainable way to earn money. Truth is, nowadays interactive entertainment market is a gamble.

I'm a game developer who happens to work in Poland and I track CD Projekt (GOG parent) stock close enough. GOG did bring them profit (a bit less than 1 mln USD for 1H2012), Wiedzmin (Witcher) for 360 got them even more (about 5 mln USD) but they are losing money on traditional retail market, their primary source of income up to now (source in Polish). Also, compare those numbers, which may be good for Poland, to 40 mln USD needed to create a modern AAA game.

Also, DRM is essential to delay piracy for the first month of game release. Games only really sell in the first few weeks after launch, if you didn't know - after that, people move on to something else and the "long tail" of sales begins (see just about any game's charts: [1], [2], [3]). So the games need to make up for that large upfront investment in first 4 to 6 weeks, if they don't break even, they are dead. Alan Wake, L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 - all those arguably known and high profile titles are commercial failures. Most current triple A games flop or barely make even, but unless explicitly asked, publishers rarely admit it. However, if you work in gamedev you probably saw the closures of Grin, Pandemic, 38 Studios, and in general, it starts to happen too frequently.

So no, it's not just about "having control". There would be no need in control if existing model provided a sustainable way to earn money. Truth is, nowadays interactive entertainment market is a gamble.

They don't need to announce a new generation of consoles.

Nintendo aren't competing with Sony and MS any more - the specs of their new console won't interest "hardcore" gamers, but will be fine for casual gamers and Nintendo franchise fans.

Sony are on the brink - their company is worth a mere $12 Billion, and lost $6.4 Billion last year. They went from having the all-time best selling console (PS2) to the worst selling 7th Gen console (PS3). They can't afford another technological arms race, and must be dreading the next generation console launches.

Microsoft have been booking a healthy profit from the Xbox 360 in the last couple of years, and will continue to do so until the next-gen Sony and MS consoles are launched. They have no reason to launch early, unless they are willing to pay $$$ to kill PlayStation completely - unlikely given MS's past anti-trust woes.

IMO MS and Sony (if they are smart) have privately arranged to launch as late as possible, and at similar times, maximizing profits for both companies.

Its not that I care but don't let the figures get in the way of any facts http://www.vgchartz.com/ pegs Xbox360 at 69.1Million against Sonys PS3 67.4Million That 3% difference may make you happy as a fanboy, but from what I see there is precious little in it.

As for you comparing Sony's Financials vs Microsofts I would love to know how you did that,

Having a look at http://www.microsoft.com/investor/EarningsAndFinancials/Earnings/PressReleaseAndWebcast/FY13/Q1/default.aspx Microsofts Profit for the last three months have been 18 Million note that is Millions with Sony in there financial statements post a loss of 45 Million not that is Million again, not good but not awful.

Like I said is you are trying to make out a massive win for Microsoft over Sony its simply not happening. In fact by measures of financial or market share their is very little in it.

Data pulled from here. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/43311/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-future-soldier/

Sorry, I'm SO not clicking that link. When you have a story about a game manufacturer claiming 95% piracy rates, and say "Data pulled from here:" with a URL, I just assume I'm gonna get goatse'd.

Or maybe Ubisoft just make games people don't want?

According to some random web site Skyrim has sold 2.36 million copies on the PC. So by their 93% number 31.4 million pirates must have "stolen" it - three times the total sales on PS3 and xbox. Even for a purely single player game with a readily available warez copy hat doesn't pass the smell test.

Lets do some math....

The last ghost recon has sold 1.03 million units so far world wide. Which assuming the 95% piracy rate means 20.6 million units would have been sold or 14.7million units at the 93% piracy rate.

The original Bioshock on xbox360 only moved 2.53 million units worldwide, and we can assume a very low piracy rate as it was on Xbox 360 only. That game was a huge hit, the Last Ghost Recon did well not amazing.... So you are saying that between 5-9 time more people played Ghost recon vs Bioshock? Yes the lat Ghost recon has cross platform but even if you take that into account...

Anyone else see the math issue?

Data pulled from here. http://www.vgchartz.com/game/43311/tom-clancys-ghost-recon-future-soldier/