Fallout From the November Console Wars

All three 'next generation' consoles are out, and we can finally stop using that term. The NPD numbers for last month have been released, and there's plenty of information there to discuss. Analysts have already made some observations, with brandintel specifically pointing out the Xbox 360's 'surprising' role in last month's fight. For some more well-reasoned thought, Dean Takahashi's take is the place to turn: "At this rate, Microsoft isn't going to hit its goal of 10 million units by year end ... Sony's number is consistent with its warnings, but 197,000 is worse than what many expected ... the fair fight is really going to be what happens in the year 2007, when all three console makers should be able to ship as many consoles as consumers want. To me, this looks like consumers are hit with a case of sticker shock. The mass market is paying for cheap PS2s, DS Lites, and GBAs." Despite the Wii's success last month, it should be noted that Nintendo is no longer bragging of 1 Million units in the U.S. by the end of the year. So, essentially, it looks like all three companies will fail to hit their console goals for the year.

Comments

It's the Sticker Shock

[scombs]

When it comes down to it, I believe I can have the same amount of fun (if not more) with the $130 Nintendo DS than I could with the $300+ current-gen consoles. My fun wouldn't increase five-fold if I bought a PS3, I don't think.

Re:It's the Sticker Shock

[2nd Post!]

After playing Rayman and Sports, however, I do think your fun would increase two-fold if you bought a Wii... which coincidentally is less than twice a DS.

Re:It's the Sticker Shock

[KokorHekkus]

I think you're right when it comes to the long run ("extreme" gamers don't make up the majority of the customers. And from what I've read it would seem like Nintendo has an advantage when it comes to appealing to the non-gamers/occasional gamers with the new controllers... because. as you say, it allows them to have more fun. So I'm guessing the Wii will do allright (not saying it will come up on top but though) Me? No console and don't play much games.

Analysts

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay. Let's assume for a moment that I announce to the press that I'm going to sell 1 million units or Product A by year end. There's much hype and fanfare, then I'm only able to actually produce 500,000 units. The Sales numbers at this point no longer mean anything. You can only have a valid comparison if there is a steady supply of all three models. Come on folks THINK.

-ac

-Parent should have never made slashdot...there nothing to read here move on..

Re:Analysts

[Chris Burke]

There's much hype and fanfare, then I'm only able to actually produce 500,000 units. The Sales numbers at this point no longer mean anything. You can only have a valid comparison if there is a steady supply of all three models. Come on folks THINK.

Actually, they do mean something, just not that much about market acceptance. Since these consoles sold out, we can use the sales numbers as production numbers. And from that standpoint, there are really two interesting pieces of information: Not really a surprise given all the warnings, but Sony was able to make only half of their grossly down-sized forecasts. This means producing the PS3 is even more difficult than was thought, or the blue lasers are in even shorter supply than thought, and may even indicate that the longer term supply will be limited. In some ways more surprising is that Nintendo was unable to reach their manufacturing target for launch. I would naively assume that they should have minimal problems, but that apparently isn't the case. Maybe the remote is a trickier beast than thought? Supplies of extra remotes have been short for those who were able to buy a console.

I realize that these sales figures may not be complete. I doubt that means Sony really sold twice as many consoles.

An interesting catch: All these companies depend on IBM. Apple dropped IBM largely because they didn't seem ready or willing to develop and produce mainstream chips on a schedule that suited Apple. Are they partly responsible for the shortage of PS3 and Wii? I have no data to back that up at all; it's just idle speculation.

Re:Interesting

[Kingrames]

"...Nintendo has the best "Gift" potential... "

Precisely.

XBox a surprise winner?

[Hawthorne01]

No, not when you think about it. Consider the typical big-box electronics store customer:

"Excuse me, do you have any PS3's?"
"No."
"Nintendo Wii's?"
"No."
"Well, what do you have in stock?"
"The xBox 360."
"We'll take it."

Having product on the shelves covers a multitude of sins.

Couldnt be worse for Sony

[LibertineR]

Has another corporation ever had such a single bad year?

Who'd thought that the Wii would suck the life out of the PS3 launch?

The Wii gets all kinds of free press and publicity, if not for Sports, then for idiots destroying their plasma screens and blaming the Wii-mote strap for being too weak.

In the mean time, Microsoft has the best game out in Gears of War for the 360, while the only thing I hear about the PS3 is that it is so hard to program that most games will suck on it for another year.

Oh, and thanks for the root kit, Sony. Karma is a bitch, eh?

Stop the "Artificial restricting supply" nonsense!

[jchenx]

From those numbers it really seems like nintendo has screwed the pooch with this launch or that they are artificially restricting supply to give the illusion that greater demand exists. They should have had many more units available for sale given they are using essentially the same hardware that was found in the gamecube.

When will people realize that this whole "artificially restricting supply" theory is just wrong. First there were claims that MS was doing this with the 360, then next with Sony, and finally with Nintendo. The theory is just absurd.

Do you think those companies want to miss their sales forecasts, and get punished in the stock market for doing so? Of course not. All three companies have run into supply problems because, well, releasing a console worldwide is pretty damn difficult. (Consider that in the past, hardware releases were generally not global either) Should MS, Sony, and Nintendo be chastised for their errors? Certainly.

But this whole "oh, they're just artificially restricting supply to make the illusion of demand" is just nonesense. It's usually spouted off by fanbois who can't imagine that there are actually consumers that want the "other" system.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

If I could find a place selling them where I did not have to wait in line for a couple hours outside the building for the opportunity to maybe buy one, I would go there and buy one right now. This holds for all of my friends who have the remotest interest in gaming that I have talked to. Wii is where it is at for price and actual innovation. Btw, improving graphics is no longer an innovation when I can get better graphics by building a computer myself and still spend less money. I am looking at you Sony. But even the 360 is not that great of a deal.

We are aware of Europeans.

[dfenstrate]

We are aware of you Europeans. But we're not talking about you. Not everything is about you guys, don't you know? Not everything is about the US either, but this article is

Anyway, It always helps to read the FAQ.

Especially the Slashdot version.

I quote:

Slashdot seems to be very U.S.-centric. Do you have any plans to be more international in your scope?

Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.

It is worth noting that there is a Japanese Slashdot run by VA Japan. While we helped them a little in their early days, they essentially run their own content without any real involvement from us... none of us can read Kanji! There are currently no plans to do other language or nation specific Slashdot sites.

Do europeans want a pity mention every time a discussion of the North American market comes up?

Re:We are aware of Europeans.

[Josef Meixner]

You know what is even funny about the parent you answered to? He could have brought up a very good point.

SONY couldn't even manage to produce enough hardware to deliver to Europe. Being a European myself I even can understand it, consoles never were as popular here as in Japan or the US. But after the first delay (remember when the PS3 originally was to ship?) SONY promised to bring the PS3 out in all three markets at the same time, so for us it was actually moved forward, because the original date of shipment was in March 2007. Now they moved it back breaking another promise. They even presold it for December in Summer and now some kids won't get their console for Christmas.

There really must be bad problems to produce this beast. What they now managed is to anger their European customers even more, drove some to buy another box (or can you imagine parents giving their kids a coupon instead of a toy?) and showed just how hard it is for them to produce the hardware.

Does anybody really anticipate it will change fast? I don't and that means they will loose a lot of revenue, because until they can sell in volume (or even start selling here) the price of XBox 360 will have dropped even more making the PS3 look even more expensive or giving SONY even bigger negative cash for each sell.

I don't see those problems for Nintendo, their problem is to get enough good games which only work with the Wiimote. If they don't manage that, they will probably make some money, but will probably stay in third place. I at their position would try to get a license for some Star Wars game, imagine all the people who would love to swing their wiimote as substitute for a laser sword. They could even opt to make a special edition of the controller shaped like a laser sword. Honest, how many people would run out to get it (and the box and the game)?

Re:X360 base price is $299 not $500

[Overly Critical Guy]

It's pretty disingenuous of you to not mention that you're referring to the Core configuration, which has no wireless capability or hard drive.

If you buy a Core system for $300 and actually want to save your game or have XBox 1 compatibility, that's an additional $100 for the hard drive add-on, putting you up to $400 (Microsoft really wants you to get a hard drive). Along with a game, that's $450, and at that high of a price, you may as well just shell out for the Premium configuration at a whopping $400, which is $450 if you include a game.

And after all that, you still have to pay Microsoft money every month just to be able to play online. Microsoft currently has no plans to make Xbox Live free, while Sony and Nintendo will offer it totally free.

Of the three consoles, I actually consider the Xbox 360 the most overpriced. Nintendo can justify their price with the built-in WiFi, 512MB flash storage, and remote control, while Sony can cite Blu-Ray and the Cell in contributing to the cost of the PS3. I really think the 360 will be in trouble in the next two years when Sony sorts out its supply issues and everyone else picks up the Wii as a cheap primary or secondary console.

Blu-Ray Killing PS3

[stwf]

While waiting for the PS3 I was sure I'd buy one. It's a no-brainer, like a free Blu-Ray player. And with PS3 pushing Blu-Ray it had to be the winner.
But that has totally changed now. It seems we'll be stuck with 2 formats forever and like most normal people I'm limited by video inputs on my tv.
So I'm not buying a next gen dvd player until they are dual format, my upscaling dvd player works very well, and they are releasing ridiculous movies in Blu-Ray. Ballad of Ricky Bobby? How about something beautiful, that you'd want in a higher quality format like Life Aquatic?
It's clear to me now that a single format next-gen dvd player is a liability to my entertainment center. I'll wait for the dual format players and play a nice small cheap stable PS2 in the meantime.

Re:X360 base price is $299 not $500

[dontbgay]

close but no cigar. I know you want to drive your anti-Xbox point home, but at least get your facts straight. It's around $50 US for the annual gold membership. I pay that price because it keeps (most of) the cheaters out and my experience that much better.

From a SONY Fan Boy, get a XBOX 360

[toy4two]

I have been waiting 2 years for the PS3. I loved the PS2 but was ready to use the potential of my HDTV because I'm a hard core Gran Turismo player. Well the new PS3 has been a total disappointment for me. My TV only does 1080i HD, no 720p. The PS3 doesn't upconvert its 720p games to 1080i, but instead down converts them to 480p! So much for next generation. Solution? $1500 external scaler, $2000 new HDTV, or go to the XBOX 360. Next up, I love rumble in racing games, guess what, SONY dropped the ball on that one too. XBOX 360 wins again. Now, there won't be any Gran Turismo on the XBOX, but wait, Forza 2 is coming out, and judging by the track list and car list, GT isn't the only game in town. http://forums.forzamotorsport.net/forums/permalink /23209/21658/ShowThread.aspx#21658 Then there is all the claims the PS3 is more powerful, so the graphics should be better. We all know game publishers are multi-platform these days, so they are going to develop for the lowest common denominator, so that may be the XBOX 360, Madden looks identical on both, Need for Speed Carbon is virtually the same. At least I won't have to deal with 480p in my games on the PS3. Then the best part, its $200 cheaper AND it comes with HDTV component cables, unlike the PS3. The only downsides I can see are you have to play for multiplayer XBOX LIVE, but from what I hear its a better experience.

Practice what you preach buddy...

[Vr6dub]

It's pretty disingenuous of you to not mention all that players get for their $50 (only $6/month mind you, cheap bastard). A unified friends list, common UI's for online games, and anti-cheating (one of the biggest advantages) measures. You are correct that Sony will be offering their "online service" for free but can you really call it a service when it doesn't do anything for you? If you and I know each other and we are playing different games, Microsoft's service will allow me to send you an invite or better yet we can start our own chat session across games. What does Sony have? Nothing. No video chat, no voice chat...only text messages but only if you know the person's tag for that particular game because of course every single online game you play with the PS3 is out there by itself. These features may not seem like much but they add a lot to the experience. Is not really fair to make a comparison between a feature rich service like what Live offers and some half-assed implementation that was shipped out the door just so they can say "ME TOO".