Slashdot Mirror
Xbox 360 Wins Through 2009?
simoniker writes "As part of a recent MI6 Conference presentation, IDG's Jason Anderson made predictions on the North American installed base of the next-gen consoles through 2008. He predicts that the Xbox 360 will continue to hold a lead into 2009, with the PS3 just behind and the Wii trailing significantly. In particular: 'In 2008, Anderson suggests 15.5 million units in homes for the Xbox 360, 13.5 million for PS3, and 6.8 million for Wii.' Is the Wii really going to trail by so much, or do the analysts not 'get it'?"
how can they suggest those numbers for the ps3 and wii if they haven't even launched yet?
Look at current console trends. PS2 has XBOX and GC significantly outsold.
360 has a head start and will enjoy price drop advantages over the PS3, which means the PS3 has to close the gap before it can repeat the PS2's sales dominance. If the Wii performs the same as the GC, it's going to be a year behind the 360. At the end of this cycle of consoles the numbers could be identical, it's just that the 360 is here NOW.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Problem is, we'll never be able to say, "Hypothetically, if all three had came out at the same time, PS3 would have carried strong through 2009." Why can't we say that? Because we observe one experiment (what really happens) and we have no control over the variables and the control factors in the experiment. You can't apply the scientific process to much of economics so why is it considered a science? Things like the Phillips Curve hold true for 30 years and then suddenly fall flat on their face so now it's not so much a curve as a movable line that can be placed anywhere automagically.
It's almost painfully obvious that there's very little pertinent data to observe to make this assumption about the XBox, so why make any predictions at all?! Oh, that's right, attention & web traffic.
My work here is dung.
Parents won't be able to afford the $600 next gen units so...
Wii FTW!!!
-------
Bite Me Fanboy!!
currently I'm not a subscriber, yet I get news updates from what, 3 years in the future where 2/3 of the systems aren't even out yet?
seriously. I don't think analysts' predictions are news; especially when they're predicting the sales trend of products that havne't been released, let alone really shown off, yet. And with something as dynamic as a videogame console. I mean, the primary deciding factor (I thought) in the sales of a system are the games that are released. who's to say that the PS3 won't have a dozen games as spectacular and fun as Shadow of the Colossus? What's to say that the Wii isn't going to blow M$ and Sony out of the water?
I really don't get why this was posted.
as an asside; I'm really looking forward to the Wii. the 360 blew all my expectations out of the water (I really expected it to be slightly more entertaining than fecal matter smeared into a faux mustache on an overly inflated blowup doll). I had high hopes for the PS3, but now, I really don't know and perhaps sony has its head so far up its ass, that I wouldn't be surprised if they botch the whole system worse than atari did with the jaguar. worse than sega did with the saturn.
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
I think Game Informer had it right in this month's magazine.
if the more affordable Wii ends up being the second sstem of every PS3 or 360 owner, it's possible that it could make a run at the top spot in terms of installed base
Not that every 360 or PS3 owner will also purchase a Wii, but many probably will. Not to mention the die-hard nintendo fanbase that will buy only the Wii. Also if nintendo's plan for how they intend to market the Wii works out then many non-gamers will be converted by the Wii which adds many additional sales.
But honestly, I don't really care. I'm buying a Wii day one because it's going to kick ass. I probably won't ever buy a 360, but I may buy a PS3 in a few years when the price becomes reasonable.
nil
Only problem is that the Wii isn't the GC. Sure, the proc and graphics may not be a major new innovation, but the hype about the Wii has always been the new controller. Speaking as a marketing student, Nintendo has done a very capable job of marketing the new product, keeping it in the public eye, and giving encouraging price point nods. I predict this analyst prediction will be totally off the wall. Can I get paid too, since I have just as much insight on the yet-to-be-released PS3 and Wii as this writer?
Meh, a real sig would take too long, and I have an MMORPG to play with....
Rigth now the average gamer doesn't want inovation, he just wants flashy graphics and a good FPS that a noob could pick up and win in, Nintendo is trying to sell in their style, but their style will not match up with the average gamer community
And that's why the prediction is likely wrong: it looks like he's predicting numbers based on what the "average gamer" will do. Nintendo's not targeting the "average gamer". Neither is Sony, for that matter: $500 is outside of what the average gamer will pay for a console.
The "non-gamer" community is still much larger than the "average gamer" community. If Nintendo manages to convince a good portion of them to buy a Wii, they'll dominate in terms of market share.
You'd think they'd be related, or something. :(
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
The quantity question is shaking up to look the same, at least initially, for the next generation. The majority of next generation previews I've seen are for 360/PS3, with an absolute dearth of high profile previews for Wii.
If the quantity of game selection were the sole criteria, I'd say the analyst is roughly right in his predictions at least for the near term. PS3 will have a huge advantage over the 360 in the number of Japanese developed games, so I expect to eventually overtake it.
The obvious wildcards are how successful the Wii will be in expanding the market and bringing back lapsed gamers. And how long will the PS3 sell for a premium. If Nintendo can translate E3 success into actually getting devlopers to release games on the Wii, their chance for success will rise dramatically.
Isn't Jason Anderson the director of XBox over Canada? Is this the same person?
In TFA: "IDG also analyzed multiple console ownership, and found that there was a decent amount of crossover [...] with most crossover happening when those households also chose to pick up a Wii."
The above statement in the article contradicts his statement about Wii trailing significantly behind the others. If most of the crossover ownerships of consoles include the Wii, and the amount of crossover is decent, then you would think that the Wii would actually be significantly ahead of the others.
I get tired of weak, bias, and contradicting predictions/statistics just to sell articles. Here is a better prediction: I predict that during that same time Microsoft will spend billions more trying to push their console, Sony will be announcing a new feature for PS3 called the kitchen sink, and Wii gamers will have perma-grin. I don't think that it makes a difference how many consoles are sold of each, success of consoles comes from how well each company penetrates their target marketing area and how successful the unique games are.
imho, ps3 will be too niche-market to compete well. $600 for the base system and $100 per game is getting quite pricey.
it will be xbox360 vs wii. higher quality graphics, online play vs innovative games and play style. the 360 will be out earlier, but the wii will be released cheaper than the 360 could probably ever become. i'm putting the wii on top with this one. i know i'll be buying one (and not a 360/ps3).
In addition, Nintendo's targeting a demographic which is completely outside previous generations,
Where did you get this idea. They said they wanted to make it accesable for all, a statement they make every release. They have yet to change their tactic of garnering faith with the younger demographic.
I have to agree with the grandparent: how can you make predictions about systems as revolutionary as the PS3 (in terms of price) and the Wii (in terms of target audience)? There's just no information about it whatsoever.
For the PS3, you do price point analysis. The product doesn't have to be the same. You analyze consumer response in comparison to price point increases that are on par with Sony's annouced prcing. This will give you a response trend.
For the Wii, that target audience has been disected like a frog. Kid friendly with a dash of innovation. You may think it is completely irrelevant - but the biggest trends to compare this to is candy. WTF?!!! Yep, candy. Candy started taking an "interactive" and "electronic" aspect about a decade ago. It used to be all Bazooka Joes and Pixie Stix, now its candy that beeps and comes in cool packaging that moves or does something utilizing the candy. Yeah, I know we had whistle pops way back in the day - but we also had Space Wars too. You can get fairly accurate trends out of consumer response to drastic new ideas applied to common ubiquitous entities - especially as candy is pretty attractive to the target group Nintendo is going after.
You have to remeber this is trend analysis, its not an exact science. You take a whole bunch of statistics with related aspects, qualify them - and then analyze the results in relation to what you're trying to predict. You can do this without having existing statistics on exact subject matter.
Then you'd be wrong, though, as the DS and the PSP have an equivalent install base in the US, for instance. Where the DS is decimating the PSP is in Japan - where the DS effectively tapped a new demographic.
Uhh, no - he's spot on. Even if the PSP and DS have similar install bases, I'd like to see your references - Nintendo has a long history of handheld dominance. That's established. One neck and neck race between two devices while ignoring the GB Advance SP is a flawed analysis. Add those numbers and you see that Nintendo is still owning handheld. The SP is still selling, making it a competator. I guess you meant PSP vs. DS, not true market.
I'm getting a little tired of analysts telling us how the next generation console war is going to play out over the next few years, especially when what they're suggesting seems to all but ignore the level of interest shown by the general public in each product.
Whilst a good handful of people I know are very happy with their Xbox360s, and a one or two are even looking forward to getting their hands on a PS3, without exception everyone I've spoken to about the Wii is very excited about it, and has every intention of buying one soon after release. There's a genuine enthusiasm for the product, which isn't dampened by a high console price like the PS3.
I mean, even Microsoft and Sony are expecting people to buy a Wii as a second machine. If we're talking basic number of units sold, it's hard to see how Nintendo aren't going to quickly take the lead.
The Gamecube had few real world advantages over the other consoles in the last/current generation of consoles, and without the help of a huge Microsoft or Sony scale marketing campaign, it's not hard to see why it was a relative failure.
This time around, there's the (expected) significantly lower price point, the fact that it truly offers something different in the form of a new controller, a download service with a good solid 20 year back catalogue of games, and of course interraction with the DS. Any one of these could made quite a difference, but together, I think we're looking at a definite reclaiming of ground by Nintendo in this round.
That is exactly right. I think that innovation (touch generation and all that jazz) is going to shake things up. I have friends that have never spent a buck on video games buying DS Lites. They love having _fun_ with the device, playing the games they actually want to play like Sudoku, Brain Age, etc. Fun little diversions from an inexpensive little device.
Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
I think you both underestimate how price-concious the console market is. If the Wii is half the price of the PS3 and a lot less than a XB360, with just as many good games, then it should be easy to see that the Wii could very well have a very strong advantage.
I'm not making a prediction though, I think it's way to early to do that when two of the systems in question aren't even available. I'm just saying that it's a pretty big wild card, all three companies are placing pretty big bets on the future of the industry, and the one that's right stands to get the most users. MS and Sony are both betting on variations on an HD path, and Nintendo is angling to grow by expanding the market to include more people not considered conventional gamers.
Leaving Nintendo aside, as they've at the fringes of TV-console gaming at the moment this battle is basicly between Microsoft and Sony and quite frankly, what do Sony expect? I mean, (speaking as a PSP owner and PS2 owner) when you bring a console to market 18 months late, have a price over double that of the competator and show the sheer bold-faced greed and lack of respect for the customer that Sony has (have you seen the price of PSP games? They're DOUBLE the price of DS and often more expensive that TV-console counterparts).
And down the frontpage I see an article about Sony increasing game prices - then remember the DRM spyware thing - what is this? I think Sony is just bleeding the existing customer base dry because they know that the PS3 is a dud and need all the revenue they can. And don't get me started on the crappyness of the potentially excellent PSP firmware (Disabling Homebrew? Can't play MP3 from browser? SLOW browser? Outdated flash when launched?)
Wake up Sony, you're a failing company - both from an internal and external point of view - your products are late, you over-control your customers and treat them like dirt.
There was a time when Sony was the only brand that i'd but - why? - QUALITY.
Good riddance - i'd love it if they lost this 'war' because they don't deserve to win. If only I didn't loathe M$ so much i'd be buying me a 360.
SONY - wake up and smell the coffee.
Forget Blu-ray, no one will pay that price for a console just for a pseudo-functional movie player (remember how crappy the PS2 DVD player is!!)
Respect your customers.
Get the PS3 to market at a price that will actually sell some units.
You raise a very interesting question.
Just how much space will major retailers give the Wii? I would imagine that it would somehow be related to the past success of Nintendo products in the marketplace.
Could the Wii's potential in the market be affected by small shelf-space allocation due to the limited success of the GC?
This makes me think I've been looking at this the wrong way. I think the Wii is going to offer innovation above and beyond the competition. In a perfect world, this would translate into big sales.
I suppose Nintendo can counter this by a huge advertising blitz. As far as I know, they are already involved in one. Hell, a few weeks (months?) ago I saw a Nintendo ad in Glamour (my gf's copy...obviously).
People need to understand that analysts like this are paid to look at the numbers and make their best guess at what will happen. Will it be dead on? No. Will it be close? Maybe, maybe not. Estimates far enough out in time are generally understood by people who look at these things to be best guesses and little more. Too many unexpected things fly out of no where to be dead on.
That being said, it does give the industry some information so that they can lay initial plans for the next 5 to 10 years. (Yes, a number of companies do plan at least this far in advance despite the speed at which the industry changes.)
PS3 isn't launched. Based on current sales the leading console in 2009 will be the PS2 (which is outselling XBox 360). This may sound like a flip joke, but it's actually a fairly likely scenario. Remember the PSOne? It was only just discontinued.
Let's see, what next-gen platform is PS2 (and PSX) compatible?
Sony is betting the farm on a happy convergence of Blu-ray, compelling PS3 titles, and HDTV critical mass.
Microsoft is betting (but not the farm) on getting in first. Microsoft intends to own your digital hub, and they're prepared to lose a whole pile of money getting there. We've seen them behave similarly with Access (which was used to kill Paradox, et al), Video for Windows / Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, and so on. There's a huge market at stake, and it's worth billions to kill its current owner. The fact that this is technically illegal is a minor annoyance.
Indeed by making the XBox 360 far more technically distinct from a Windows PC than the XBox (which basically was a PC) Microsoft may be trying to avoid potential antitrust action (it could be argued that XBox was an attempt to leverage its desktop monopoly power, whereas XBox 360 is merely an attempt to buy into a new market by using money made with its desktop monopoly). It seems highly unlikely they did it to make developers happy. (Yay, another bizarro platform with a new API to develop for!)
So far, getting in first hasn't worked very well for Atari, Colecovision, Nintendo, and Sega, so good luck to Microsoft there. It's not clear to what extent the PS2's success was driven by it's serving as a (for the time) inexpensive, high quality DVD-player (we've bought and stopped using three or four DVD players since we bought our PS2, and the PS2 still works -- even if it does ask you to override parental controls for almost every DVD; all but one of the other DVD players has eaten it).
In a sense, the success or failure of the Wii is about as relevant to the Sony/Microsoft battle for control of your "digital lifestyle" as the success or failure of the DS (or PSP), which is to say -- not totally irrelevant, but not central. No sane person is going to store the only copy of their family photographs on a PSP. The reason the Wii is so much more exciting (to gamers) than its competitors is that Nintendo is all about games. Wii will never by our digital hub, and we don't care.
Frankly, I wish someone would figure out that a digital hub ought, basically, to be an application-agnostic, really big, reliable mass storage device, and all the other crap should be peripheral.
Tags are for finding related articles, not for your personal opinion. That's what the comments and your journal are for. If that's not enough, make your own website.
It's a very dark ride.