Slashdot Mirror
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.
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).
250,000 is bigger than 244,000.
161,000 is bigger than 127,000.
PS3 sold LESS units than the "supply-constrained Xbox360", and the PS3 isn't - as Sony so frequently tries to say - "supply-constrained."
It's just a waste of money, and the sales figures are the proof.
Yes, the PS3 was not as supply-contstrained in December, the key selling month, and so it is slightly ahead overall for the first four months.
So what? The first four months of the 360 were disasterous due to supply. Microsoft haters delighted in pointing out that it was wayyy behind the first four Dreamcast months. As it happens, the PS3 is also well behind the first four months of the Dreamcast. (And it should be noted that it's behind in both hardware and software, whereas 360 was only behind on hardware).
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.
Crappiest != least powerful. The PS2 was plagued by laser failures, faulty parts, poor case housing, and many other issues until well into its life as a console. At the time of its release, it was arguably considered less powerful than the Dreamcast (though that debate died quickly with GTA3), and its controller was (and still is) little more than a black, modified DualShock. Mind you, the DualShock was, IMO, one of the better controller designs of the time, but that doesn't make up for the initial issues with units dying, faulty lasers, having to tilt the system up onto its side to read properly, and so on. The PS2 also sold for astronomical amounts, and at a loss, despite faulty, low-quality hardware. Case in point: My father's early-gen PS2 is dying; Laser's gone. My Dreamcast, for example, still plays everything without a hitch, and was purchased in 2001 (with a lot of usage since then, including non-standard, supposedly-destructive homebrew usage (Dreamcast GD-ROM's store data inversely to CD's; Data starts from the outside in. CD-R's, while compatible, are burnt from the inside out, causing the laser head to move more often from its default position, which logically leads to premature burnout)).
Compare with today, the Wii has decent (~X-Box Classic-alike, which aren't bad) graphics, a very slim form factor, high resilience to pain (hello, wii-mote! =D Meet LCD TV), one of the best overall first-parties behind it, an innovative, if a little mundane-looking controller, an installed user base, a broadening user base, and an extremely low price tag.
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
I don't think comparing the two consoles's launch periods is really a good indication regarding how they compare to each other. This is due to the fact the 360 had no competition at the time and the games sucked! well up until GRAW 1 they were terrible.
So now, the PS3 is suffering the same fate, TERRIBLE software. But whats different this time around is the fact the old exclusive titles are coming out on both the PS3 and the 360, so based on cost and other titles available a consumer may lean towards the 360 instead of the ps3.
Its still way to early to predict the success of either console, I personally have both and am hoping the PS3 finds its market and they regain some of their exclusive titles back because so far the PS3 is just a 360 in disguise with respect to gaming.
I can say the same thing as others. I have a first run (second shipment to the store) ps2 and it has worked fine for god, 7 years now. However I can't say that about xbox. Ever try using any of the Xboxes that have the Thompson drive?
Although the xbox may be more powerful I would defiantly say that ps2 was the best console of its generation. Good controllers, good developer support, complete backwards compatibility, number 2 in graphics (over game cube), and it made more then 3 games I really felt like playing (something I can't say about game cube of Xbox)
Honestly I didn't think anyone didn't could still believe that the ps2 didn't win the previous console war. As for the next one, the ps3 has a lot of ground to cover (somewhere around 7 mill to sell) but neither the wii of the xbox360 have the numbers to be considered a true leader yet (neither have sold over 10 mill worldwide as of yet).
I'm no sony fanboy, I just go where the good games are. I haven't purchased any of the next gen consoles yet because so far none of them offer 3 titles I really want to play.
I'm only going to compare the higher-end models, since that is what the article in question focuses on. As the article points out...the PS3 is $200 more. But the question is why? And what do you get for your $200? The answer is, quite a few things. I'm also going to assume that people who are griping about the PS3's price aren't going to upgrade the feature-set of their 360 to match it.
40GB more hard disk, BluRay Disc, built-in WiFi, built-in card-reader, standard USB peripheral interface, free Internet multiplayer gaming, and interesting extras...like the new Folding@Home...or the upcoming PS3 Home.
To purchase Microsoft's WiFi adapter and their HD-DVD drive...that sets you back $300 more...so now your Xbox360 didn't just cost $400. To reach up to what you get with your $600 PS3 purchase...you have to pay at least $700 on the Xbox360. And you haven't added your Xbox Live Gold ongoing subscription costs if you are into multiplayer online or other online content.
There are poor games and brilliant games on both side of the 360 vs. PS3 'war'. Neither console had a lot of games out initially either. So, both of those are not really talking points. But the generalization that the Xbox360 is just flat out cheaper...well...that depends on what you want out of your system. If you don't want HD movies, free online play, built-in WiFi, or any of the other extras or untapped future potential of the PS3...then sure, the Xbox360 has some brilliant games out. But I know there are a lot of players like myself that want the extras that PS3 already provides, and we can pass up "Gears of War".
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)
I must admit (I already have a 360 and a Wii) even a week ago I wouldn't have believed I'd be out on a cold UK night queuing up for one, and I am a total, complete and utter hypocrite (I have been less than enamoured of the PS£ previously on these very pages), but... After realising I could pony up most the cost by trading in a PS2 with 30 well played games (and keeping the good ones for back-compat), I could not resist its shiny allure - and god it is a shiny behemoth of a thing - and I think seriously well futureproofed. Previous posters have commented on the base cost of the 360 and I agree that the out of the box extras the PS3 has do outweigh the extra cost over the 360. Motorstorm is sublime, and having the 60 Gig HD out of the box to download game demos is great. Also, I never played online on the 360 simply because of the fee. Within half an hour I was playing other people on Motorstorm and I know everyone goes on about the XBOX live experience, seriously the PS3 network isn't like it's terrible. In fact I found it quite easy and pleasant to use - apart from the text input but all the systems suffer that. No the launch line up isn't great but I'm really looking forwards to littlebig planet and of course the titles will get better over the next year. There don't seem to be so many exclusives round so far this gen - the result? I seriously think I might can the 360 to recoup some more of my cash (finished Gears, but will miss Crackdown, great game). I'm not a Sony shill, far from it, but I'm trying to add some balance to the argument. As for the Wii? Well, that is in a class of its own. Zelda as usual is great, if only my wife and mother in law would stop kicking my ass at bowling...
Correct, but the same cannot be said in reverse. For example the $400 X-box has twice the system ram of the $500 PS3. It also has a hardware scaler built in.