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Gloomy Outlook For Console Sales
Thanks to CNET News for their article indicating sales of consoles are predicted to slump until a new crop of machines is introduced. The article references a new survey from iSuppli which "expects [console] sales to be flat for the year and down as much as 10 percent in 2005", and points out that pressure will start to build to introduce next-gen hardware, quoting an analyst as saying "I don't think (that), when the companies developed this generation of consoles, they were prepared for it to be so short."
In Japan, Nintendo for the first time sold more consoles last week than Sony. Yes, it was only by 300, and yes it was because of Namcos Tales of Phantasia game, but it shows that the GC will sell if decent 3rd party games are created for it.
BTW, you are correct in your assumption about profit. The GC makes Nintendo cash on each sale, not like MS which loses money.
There's no way Microsoft is project 20-24 million for the year. The Xbox has been out for 2 years already and it's sold maybe half that. Do you really expect the remaining 4 months of the year to equal the sales of the past 2 years? I'm sure Microsoft isn't expecting anywhere near that.
Nintendo only shipped 80,000 units this past quarter because they shipped a huge number right before Zelda came out the quarter before. They expected Zelda to make a huge jump in system sales, unfortunately, it resulted in a barely noticable jump, hence an oversupply of GameCubes.
Oh, take a look at the Japanese sales charts for the past few weeks. PS2 sales have been going down and GameCube sales have been going up. GameCube sales were higher than PS2 sales last week. Oh, and as tends to happen occasionally, the PS1 outsold the Xbox in Japan last week. Although the Xbox did beat the Wonderswan Crystal last week, it still couldn't beat the Wonderswan Crystal + Color models combined.
I'd like to point out that according a recent UBS Warburg investment report, Nintendo is expected to slash GameCube prices to $99 as of October 1, and Microsoft is expected to came with a new two-game bundle with its X-Box for $179 by mid-September. Sony is not expected to lower the prices for PS 2, and UBS is sceptical whether they'll make their year-end sales numbers.
Reuters originally reported that 80,000 figure in early August. They left off a zero. They really sold 800,000.
To quote this article: "Amusingly though, it wasn't quite as bad for Cube owners as Reuters (and subsequently most of the Western world including the surely journalistically watertight BBC) reported - with 800,000, rather than the reported figure of 80,000, Cubes shifted in the last quarter."
It amazes me how uninformed people are about the sales of the Nintendo Gamecube. I sware I think they just want to see the worst happen. Almost every article I read that says the Gamecube is in third place is referring to U.S. sales. World wide, Nintendo is selling slightly more than the XBox. But you never read about the demise of XBox.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
You need to read up on what happened between Nintendo/Square/Sony during the transition period after the SNES.
Basically, Nintendo set them up with a bunch of SGI workstations for N64 development, and Square then screwed Nintendo by jumping ship and taking as many developers as they could (Enix included) with them.
If *anyone* deserves scorn, it's Square for backstabbing the company that published their (could-have-been) last shot at a successful game: Final Fantasy.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
In Japan, a lot of used bookstores stock used copies of old games. Lately, used games are also spreading to video rental chains, such as GEO (the company that took over all of the bankrupt YES stores.)
You can find a lot of real gems for under 2,000 yen (about US$15). Then there are the few rare Super Famicon / SNES games that are still going for 6,000 yen (about US$40). (Most of those were published back when games used to cost over 10,000 yen.)
The real finds, though, are for "dead" systems like the DC and Saturn. PowerStone for $2, Shenmue for $3, Panzer Dragoon Saga for $5, heaps of Bomberman goodness at various prices around there. Some of these are even new, unsold copies.
The Japanese game industry even tried, unsuccessfully, to shut down used game sales.
Oddly, what you cannot do in Japan is rent games. It seems the only choice is to buy them and then sell them back to the used bookstores.