Slashdot Mirror
360 Sales Slow, Chip Blamed For Issues
Gamasutra has a bevy of information about the XBox 360. Sales seem to be slowing, just as supply issues seem to be resolving. Microsoft has a target for its annoyance regarding those issues. An analyst is blaming German chip manufacturer Infineon Technologies for the slow arrival of 360 units to market. Regardless of past problems, the company is going full speed ahead with more launches. Latin America saw launch on February 2nd, and "The system will launch in Korea on February 24, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore on March 16, Australia and New Zealand on March 23, with a global presence in 30 countries by the end of March."
I for one, am doing just that.
...
I have a GameCube, multiple GameBoys (color, etc), an xBox and
I'm going to wait until PS3 and NR are here and I can see what actual games work on them and what they feel like.
I'll probably get a PS3 this time, but maybe I'll get a NR instead. But the xBox360 severely underwhelmed me. Maybe if I had an HDTV right now I might be more into it, but from my perspective it's the Games that matter, not the console itself.
The reason I bought Sims 2 for the xBox was the graphics were better than the GameCube version. I'm still pretty unimpressed with the xBox, and moreso the xBox360.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
There are no real killer titles (and a lot of ports); and
You still can't buy the damn thing. Nowhere that I've seen, anyway. It's 'Out of stock' notices all round where I live...
You must think in Russian.
...or rather, blame the games. Want something to pin slow console sales on? How about the fact that Xbox360 still doesn't have a killer title! Perfect Dark Zero was a decent enough game, but by most accounts it fell short of being the must-have title that would drive sales of the hardware. The Xbox had Halo, the Xbox360 has... nothing even close to that in terms of popularity. No wonder they can't sell the hardware, there's no Xbox360-exclusive game that people really, really want.
I don't suppose the $400 price has anything to do with it....
I am holding out for the Phantom Game Console!
:)(smile)
"Chip"? Is that Ballmer's new nickname? *confused*
The MAIN reason why people don't buy it: it's probably not crackable. Who want a system like that?
It's true that those are contributors to the problem, but glitches are still a significant reason not to buy a console. For me, the main advantage of a console (rather than buying the game on PC) is that everything's standardized, so you don't have bugs, like you would on PC with lots of different possible components. So if you're going to make a console, you had better get that part right! That MS skimped on this tells me they don't "get it".
Rank my idea: http://www.sinceslicedbread.com/node/531
German chip manufacturer Infineon Technologies
Perhaps a wholly or partly owned subsidiary of Infinium Labs!?! You can't expect much from a company so closely named after a deceptive company bent on squandering investors' hard earned cash. Gotta be careful who you deal with. Could come back and bite you in the ass.
Part of the problem here might simpyl be a lack of interest in the next generation platforms. Yes, there's the hard core people who will be out buying the systems early. But I own a PS2 and it plays the games I have just fine and I haven't bought a game for it in a while. Furthermore, because the XBox and the PS2 are still posessing large market shares, publishers are still making games for them.
Right now, what incentive is there to drop $400-500 on a new game system? Are the games that much better? Not really. Yeah the graphics are a bit better but not in the same way that the PS2 graphics were better than the PS1. I saw an XBox 360 at the store the other day and some kid was playing a fighting game. Yeah the graphics were nicer, but it was more or less the same game I would play on my Dreamcast back in the day.
In the end people will move to the new platform because that's where the games will be, but for now there's not a lot of incentive. Most people don't have HDTV's so they don't get much from that. Many people don't even network their game systems from what I've seen. So much of the touted features of the new systems aren't benefitting the majority of people.
Personally I'll probably buy a PS3 shortly after the release of the next GTA title.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Personally, I would rather wait till the NR comes out. By then, the PS3 should be out at its high price, and the Xbox 360 might actually be purchasable (not being able to find it in stores will hinder sales). The holiday season is over, and we just got through the V-Day purchase (for those of you with S.O.'s), so people in general see no reason to spend money on the 360 right now. Let them save up their money, and maybe within that timespan, Microsoft can fix those issues with they 360's before the second wave hits.
Logically, you would expect sales to start hitting a slump, especially right after the holiday season, where people are trying to fill out their income taxes, curbing their spending, and are trying to get back in the motions of everyday mundane life. It also does not help that the current titles release for the 360 are not all that great (Best ones that come to mind are Kameo and DOA4, and even both of those do not justify the price of the console and all the extra junk I would need.) Of course I would not get one now anyways cause the current list of backward compatible games does not inclube any of my currently own Xbox games, so I would need to keep both the Xbox and Xbox 360 hooked up to my TV, and I do not excatly have the space to do that right now.
So, yes, you have a sales slump. Blame the chip manufacters, but do not put all the blame on them. This was a tactic you set out from the start, and now you are reaping what you sowed.
The Galatic Freedom Force marches on! Defend!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playstation_2#Sales_r ecord
PS2 sold 1 million in opening weekend in Japan, and 500,000 on FIRST DAY in USA.
The 360 has been out for almost 3 months and hasn't made a dent in the market. Read the article, the PS2 is outselling 360.
And there are units in stores now, go to a Walmart, Zellers, whatver you have. They have 360s. But guess what, higher res versions of the same games wont get people to spend the big bucks.
We own(ed) a N64, PS2, PSP, GBA, XBOX and others.
:D.
But we have not bought a Xbox 360 yet. The reaons are multiple:
- The Price
The Xbox 360 is significantly more expensive than most other consoles before it. It simply doesn't fall into the "playmoney" category somehow. This makes the barrier of entry too high.
- The Games
I've bought the Xbox almost solely because of multiplayer Halo and because my wife is a big Oddworld fan. No sign of either for the 360. Call of duty looks nice, but nothing to shell out ~$350 for (X360+game).
- The Future
The Nintento Revolution is going to have Bluetooth (non proprietary) controllers, focus on gaming alone and is set to try a "different" angle on gaming. Hopefully it'll have a good Mario game and come thruogh on the hype.
The PS3 will have GT 5 (eventually). That's good enough for me
Either one are worth waiting for to have something to compare the Xbox 360 against.
Just my $.02
Cheers,
Andre
In my opinion, even if there was enough systems, sales would still be fairlys low.
There's a certain base of hardcore gamers out there who just have to have the next best thing. Since the 360 is the only next-gen system out right now, it's selling systems.
Sure, people are preparing for the future, confident that eventually there will be some killer games on the system. But right now, there's really no system seller. People point to the fact that "there's tons of games rated over 8.0 at IGN!" but... an 8.0 game isn't a system seller. It's a game worth playing, but not worth buying a system for. There's plenty of good 8.0 and higher games on the Xbox, PS2 or Gamecube that are comparable at the moment.
That's about where price and availability have been for weeks. There were some high-priced sales before Xmas, but after that, prices went into a dive and levelled off slightly above the retail price. The current price indicates that there is no real Xbox 360 shortage.
(It's easier to compare prices on core systems, so that's why that price is the one to track. Various bundles are available on eBay, but harder to compare. There's a glut of Xbox 360 accessories and games in retail stores, so there's no problem getting add-ons for the base box.)
Well $600-$800 dollar preorders isn't inspiring to buy. They are going ahead with launches in other countries before the US even has a supply that is worthy of buying... Seriously someone if you have bought an Xbox 360 in a physical store since the last 2 weeks please post here becuase obviously a product can't sell if its not possible to find or get within reason.
Yet others have an obvious point that even if you could get one why would you? They didn't even launch with any killer titles. So it defeats the point entirely. I guess some would get it for its media features or to help the homebrew community but thats not the point of a system... An original Xbox is actually still a better purchase in those regards... I sure as hell love my original Xbox and have no plans to upgrade.
It's an interesting design, I'd buy one to experiment with if there was any chance of booting into a free OS. Us geeks may not be the mass market but there's a good chance manufacturers could shift an additional couple thousand units.
The thing costs what, $400 with a HDD? That's with one wireless controller and no video games, right? So you can throw in another wireless controller, and a game, and then shell out for Live Gold. Yadda yadda.
There aren't any games out for the console worth paying like $500 to play with your friends on your TV. That $500 would buy you at least 8 games for any console you have already. Or you could buy a DS and some games. Or you could buy a better video card for your PC and play a plethora of extant PC games. Or you could put that $500 into a conservative investment and wait a year for a game to ship that doesn't suck, or for the PS3 to drive down the cost. Or you could buy some books, or save toward your retirement. Or buy some illicit drugs and peddle them to school children. Whatever. There's far better uses of that cash than buying the 360 at this point. The 360 launch was bungled shamefully.
The only reason to buy a 360 would have been to resell it on ebay for $1000 to the crackheads with poor impulse control that JUST HAVE TO PAY CoD2 FOR THE 360 RIGHT NOW OR ELSE. Unfortunately that market has probably evaporated with the improved availability.
Well, for the console, maybe. I saw an auction, umm, three weeks-a month ago, and a guy sold an XBOX 360 *BOX* (no console, nothing, just the box) for 800 something bucks. Just for cardboard.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
This stories title is very misleading, If you read the article it does not say the reason for the slow sales of Xbox 360 is because of lack of demand but quoting right from the article "Needless to say, the main constricting factor for Xbox 360 sales continues to be the poor supply of the console, rather than a lack of consumers to purchase it.". Supply is still an issue, in my area you can not get one, if you go to ebgames.com you are put on a waiting list. If you know how to get one beside paying an absurd amount on ebay let me know. The article even makes comment that supply is still going to be an issue with the additional manufacturing facilities, quoting from the story, "In fact, Wedbush Morgan's note on the sales indicated that it does not believe U.S. supply will exceed 300,000 units per month in the near future, due to the initial worldwide launch and the forthcoming Asian and Australasian launches.".
Wow. There are four posts at 3 or greater, all of them speculating about reasons for slowing XBox 360 sales. The article says: "Needless to say, the main constricting factor for Xbox 360 sales continues to be the poor supply of the console, rather than a lack of consumers to purchase it."
Interestingly, none of the speculators have given any reason to trust them over Gamasutra, Wedbush Morgan, and Simon Carless. Hey, don't let that get in the way of a pointless flame-fest.
"Needless to say, the main constricting factor for Xbox 360 sales continues to be the poor supply of the console, rather than a lack of consumers to purchase it."
to which I'd say, the main reason, even though MSFT (which I own shares in) throttled production to force a demand crunch, is that there just aren't any games out that make you have to buy an xBox360.
Ports and remakes won't do it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"We own(ed) a N64, PS2, PSP, GBA, XBOX and others. But we have not bought a Xbox 360 yet. The reaons are multiple: - The Price The Xbox 360 is significantly more expensive than most other consoles before it. It simply doesn't fall into the "playmoney" category somehow. This makes the barrier of entry too high. - The Games I've bought the Xbox almost solely because of multiplayer Halo and because my wife is a big Oddworld fan. No sign of either for the 360. Call of duty looks nice, but nothing to shell out ~$350 for (X360+game)."
Price? At $300 it is $50 more than the PSP and exactly the same as the Xbox, PS1, and PS2 at launch date.
Games? See how many other consoles are released with *4* titles grabbing 90+/100 ratings at launch. COD2, PD0, Kameo, and PGR3.
People will find any reason to try to bash this system, even make things up.
Speaking as one who does not own a 360, but has field tested it in HD with a friend, I must say that the unit has quite the graphical and raw horsepower punch. I was never much impressed with the original Xbox, but the 360 is a different animal. It competes with a high end gaming PC rig, playing Quake 4 pretty damn well for a $400 toy. COD II is a damn fun game (even if it has had problems with multiplayer in Xbox live). Didn't much care for PDZ though. Not the point.
I don't think the PS3 will be significantly more powerful, particularly given that Cell SPEs are weighted toward SIMD single precision FP, whereas Xenos has three full integer and VMX (Altivec) cores. The 360 is an amazing deal for $400 - when it works. And that's the problem with the unit. It has an abysmal failure rate, even for a 1st gen product. So I'm holding out for a product update from MS and waiting to see how the PS3 will really perform.
But I'm not so dismissive of MS's latest offering. If fact, on raw power alone, I'm pretty damn impressed.
'm waiting to see which one makes the best cheap server. Last generation, the Xbox won by a mile, but this time, it's not clear, and it's uncertain that any of them will be better than a similarly-priced PC off ebay.
My bet would be the xBox360, after the price drops. MSFT has a habit of selling hardware below production costs, Sony will do it to compete but tends to get close to break-even, and Nintendo always makes money on their consoles and handhelds.
Most MSFT game consoles only break even if you buy at least four game titles new for it - most Sony game consoles break even if you buy a bundle and then one more game - Nintendo is already in profit on the console so it's all gravy and they can drop game prices if needed.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"My bet would be the xBox360"
Yes, a product that has massive heat/stability/media destroying issues is going to be the first choice for home entertainment servers.
Major retailers all over the US have 360s sitting on store shelves.
360s are sitting unbid on eBay.
360 demo kiosks seem to virtually useless due to hardware defects and software crashes from numerous people who manage or work retail.
360 games are a constant source of ridicule on console discussion boards due to their incredibly bad graphics.
360 defect and system/game crash horror stories are non-stop all over the Net.
360 backwards compatibility is now pretty much written off by the entire Xbox community.
360 online games have huge lag problems and low numbers of max players compared to pc versions where you aren't forced to pay to play.
A majority of the big 360 games all have better pc versions coming out making people ask why the hell would they want a 360 for.
360 sales slow? I can't blieve it!