PS3, Xbox Having Disappointing Christmas Season

Both the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 appear to be having a bit of a rough Christmas. For the PS3, it's all about launch jitters. The worst of these jitters is probably the dubious nomination from TIME magazine, who has cited the console as a 'bust'. The 360, likewise, is having problems meeting expectations, especially those of Michael Pachter. He's the gent that expected big sales this Christmas for the console, and he's now trying to figure out why the 360 fell short. What is, perhaps, a larger problem - lack of penetration for the Xbox Live service - is being discussed by Reuters. While the still laudable number of 4 million subscribers sounds impressive, the article points out that the runaway success of the Wii and the overall ratio of possible to actual subscribers should give Microsoft pause. In short, Sony and Microsoft are having good, but not great holiday seasons. Next year, when there's enough stock to go around and big games on the way, we'll see who really 'has the stuff'.

Comments

Re:More Gnashing of Teeth

[SetupWeasel]

I will say this to you: take a gander at ebay. PS3s are selling at only a $50 premium. Compare that to the 360 last year and the far more abundant Wii (selling at a $200-250 premium), and you can see that the demand for the PS3 is worryingly low. The media simply isn't talking about it anymore.

Re:More Gnashing of Teeth

[AKAImBatman]

Stores have been getting regular shipments of PS3s every couple of days all of december and online stores have been getting huge batches of PS3s. Stores are not getting any significant new supplies of Wiis like they are with PS3s. That is why you can't buy a Wii right now.

You're only half right. The PS3 supply problem has been mostly sorted out, but both consoles are being regularly resupplied. The difference is that the Wiis are disappearing the moment the store opens, while the PS3s just... aren't. (Remember, the Wii has several times as many consoles out as the PS3.)

Scary as it may sound, most people know the exact dates that the Wii will arrive, and thus show up to acquire them. I few dates I was aware of:

November 24th (Black Friday supply)
December 2nd (First occurance of consoles being held until Sunday in order to list it in the flyers)
December 6th (Walmart held theirs until this date because their flyers are on a different schedule)
December 9th (Most stores cancelled this release to stockpile for the 17th)
December 17th (huge dump of stockpiled consoles)
December 22nd (last shipment before Christmas)

Each of these dates represented a significant number of units for nearly every major retailer. The fewest I've heard of was 9 for a given store. EB Games appear to get their shipments in a more ad-hoc fashion, so reports on specific dates have been sketchy for those.

In comparison, the PS3s are usually Fex-Exed to the stores in bundles of 3 to 5 units. Delivery is ad-hoc and unpredictable. Surprisingly, the consoles don't appear to immediately sell out. I know several people (one personally) who were there at the time of a PS3 restock. There simply wasn't much interest from the shoppers.