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Why the PS3's February Sales May Be Misleading
1up's Luke Smith takes a look at February's NPD numbers, and has an observation to make about what they might mean for Sony. Though the company is almost certainly not selling as many PS3s as they'd like, the console still sold more units between November and February than a supply-constrained Xbox 360 did last year ... and despite a $200 more expensive pricetag. Though the console is certainly getting off to a slow start (and really needs great software, fast), it's still keeping pace with Microsoft's console from a year ago. "What does this mean for Sony? Considering the system's higher price point, if the platform can keep pace with the Xbox 360 through the first year (while the software matures), regardless of the installed base, the system has to be considered semi-successful. A concerning statistic between the two platforms' first January and February months is the drop-off in sales for those two months. From January 2006 to February 2006 the Xbox 360 sales trailed off 36% (250K units down to 161k units). At the same point in its lifespan, Sony's PlayStation 3 experienced a drop-off of 48% (244K units down to 127K units). That drop in sales, considering the units are available at retail, is cause for concern. Yet, despite trailing off by 25% more than its supply-constrained predecessor, the system does still cost $200 more."
I want to give my take on the issue. Analysts pull numbers out of their ass, I can do that too. I will say up front that I am heavily biased against the evil ones... er, I mean, Sony.
Sony sold a whisker more units of the PS3 than Microsoft did of the Xbox 360 during the same timeframe. But they arguably should have sold piles more of them. The size of the gaming market is increasing, after all.
I personally believe what happened is that the long wait ate up a lot of Sony customers. While people were waiting for the Playstation 3, the Xbox 360 was eating up some of those people. Less of them will therefore be buying a PS3. I think the price factor might even be less significant than this issue, except in the UK, where the cost of the system is truly ludicrous.
I believe the long wait also ate up Sony exclusives. Developers were seeing that Sony was going to be last to the party and market share was going to decline as a result. Making an exclusive makes sense when you're making it for the most popular platform in the generation. It doesn't when you aren't. The battle for this generation is still very much up in the air, of course, and Sony is simply not a sure thing in this round.
Gamers follow the games. If the Final Fantasy franchise becomes nonexclusive (only niche final fantasy titles are available on other platforms) then Sony might as well bend over and kiss their ass goodbye.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If anything can be shown from past console releases... once a single company has momentum(Atari, NES, SNES, PSX, GBA, PS2, DS) they typically own that generation. I think it was the Sega Genesis that somewhat challenged the SNES, but for the most part... everyone owned a SNES.
With Nintendo on its way to passing the Xbox 360 and with the DS trouncing the PSP... does keeping pace with the XBox360 really mean a success. At the end of the day... they have still lost money. Keeping pace is nothing but par and hoping that the current leader(m$) makes a mistake. And forget about the supposed 10 year life cycle of the PS3. Think about the graphics cards from 5 years ago(just look at the ps2). 10 years is a long time.
Can we stop saying "price point" please? If we were discussing whether to see the PS3 at $500 or $600 we would be talking price points. If we had a graph of actual demand at different prices, we would probably be talking price points.
Comparing the current prices of the xbox and playstation is not economic theory, it is discussing the actual prices (or in some cases suggested prices) of the goods. But they do not represent price points.
Using jargon like "Price point" does not make you sound smarter... having a good argument to back up your claim makes you sound smarter.
Yah, I'm still clueless why everyone wants Sony to loose. I wans Sony, MS and Nintendo to go 3- way tie for 33.3% of the market share. Do you all really want microsoft to get ahold of another electronics/computers division and then churn out the same boring crap for 3 iterations? Having competition like that would make each company push very very hard to get your business.
<Beavis>
heh.... 3-way
</Beavis>
I find it very difficult to believe that the PS3 will match or surpass the PS2's performance.
Simply put, the PS2 had a fantastic first full holiday season in 2001. Sure, it was competing against the Gamecube and the Xbox, but between those they had only two then-available killer apps: Halo and Super Smash Bros. Melee. The PS2 had a great library of titles: Final Fantasy X, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry and (depending on your market) Grand Theft Auto 3 and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 or Gran Turismo 2 and Onimusha. And these were just the ones that sold over a million worldwide by year's end 2001. At the time, all but one of those (THPS3) were exclusive to Sony's machine.
Fast-forward to holiday season 2007. Final Fantasy XIII won't be here or in Europe in time for the holidays (remember, there's an 8-11 month lag after the initial Japanese release). Metal Gear Solid 4 will be here, but not in Europe (assuming standard delays). Devil May Cry isn't exclusive anymore and Grand Theft Auto IV comes out on multiple platforms at once. I'll be amazed if we get Gran Turismo before 2008's holiday season.
Meanwhile, the Wii may continue dominating in the untested non-gamer/casual market demographics, and the 360 will have a strong library of games, not to mention the new Halo title.
This does not mean doom for the PS3. They still have interesting titles. They still have Blu-Ray which with the release of Casino Royale is turning from an unnecessary add-on to something at least worth investigating further. This year, Sony has something they've never had before: real competition. The PS3 won't dominate the way the PS2 did in its second year. There will be a PS4. But they've burned a lot of marketshare as a result of their hubris, and their previous victory won't be repeated to the same extent this time.
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
The small, minor, tiny little problem Sony has is that no matter how well they're doing compared to the Xbox 360 last year, they started a year later. The PS3 has to sell as many units as the Xbox 360 did last year at this time plus as many units as the Xbox 360 is selling now. And if they do that for the rest of the year, then they will be merely tied with the Xbox 360 in November. Both will be far behind the Wii, if current sell-through rates continue.
Unfortunately for Sony, they are only barely meeting last year's extremely supply-constrained Xbox 360 sales. And by failing to meet Xbox 360 sell-through figures, they are losing ground at a ridiculous pace.
Sony doesn't get to hop into a time machine and pretend the last year's Xbox 360 sales didn't happen.
Sony is 4 million units behind Microsoft, and that gap is growing every month.
Hubris. Telling us that we should want to work longer to buy their overpriced console didn't help. Nor did trashing the 360's emulation-mode compatibility and then releasing the European PS3 with emulated PS2 compatibility. Nor did lying about why vibration wasn't in the controller.
Having actually used one for several hours, I can say The PS3 is a pretty damned nice console. It's decently quiet (though not as quiet as many say,it's still quieter than the 360), has a cool UI with some nice features (decent browser, keyboard/mouse support), runs Linux (and Folding@Home), has good graphics, plays Blu-Ray movies, and (in the US/Japan) has virtually 100% PS2 compatibility.
The PS3 could have been a home run for Sony. It's a damn fine console. But $500 is too expensive for a mass-market device. There's nothing in the $500 PS3 that's not in the $400 XBOX - except for a Blu-Ray drive. With the format war and high-priced content, most of us aren't all that interested in Blu-Ray - at least not yet.
The 360 has plenty of awesome titles, HD TV episode downloads (including South Park and Star Trek: TOS, which, to my knowledge, have never been broadcast or released in HD elsewhere), music streaming (Windows Media Connect) - even while you are playing a game, Live Arcade (flow is cool, but so is Lumines, Hexic, Small Arms, and lots of other titles on Live), Media Center Extender (in HD), and a lot more.
The PS3 can't just be "as good as the 360". Linux, a web browser, and keyboard/mouse support are cool features, but they aren't what most people buy a console for. The people who want such features probably ALREADY have a PC hooked up to their TV.
It's not that the PS3 is bad. But it's late, overpriced, and Sony has been pissing everyone off. Slashdot doesn't like hubris.
(FYI - I own none of the three "next-gen" consoles)