Slashdot Mirror
Price Cut Leads To PS3, PSP Sales Boost
Klaidas writes "The BBC reports that sales of Sony's PlayStation 3 console in the US rose by 21% in June, though the machine still trails the Wii and Xbox 360. NPD numbers show 98,500 PS3s were sold, compared to 198,400 Xbox 360s (up 28%) and 381,800 Wiis (up 13%). Sony said that the $100 price cut to the 60GB PS3 led to a 135% sales rise over the last two weeks, though independent confirmation of that jump is not yet available. 'Nintendo's DS handheld sold 561,900 units , while Sony's PSP, which has been boosted by an April price cut, sold 230,100 units, NPD reported. Software sales in the US are 31% higher than the same time last year, the market research showed, buoyed by new consoles from all three firms.'"
Since the price cut occurred two weeks ago (for the PS3), these numbers don't reflect any bump from said price cut. The numbers that we'll be looking for are July, August, and September to see if the price cut leads to a sustained increase in sales.
The Xbox360 came out a full year earlier, and it is still selling 100k more units per month?
Well, the PS2 came out almost 7 years ago, and, at least as of May, was still outselling the PS3 and XBox360 put together each month. As the PS3 price comes down, it will be interesting to see if Sony can convert a substantial portion of the PS2 buyers into PS3 owners down the road. And while it's true that the PS3 has little exclusive content yet, I can't wait for the first virtual world-style game (Maybe a GTA?) that uses the Blu-Ray capacity to offer an order of magnitude richer world than you can get on anything else.
In other words, the game isn't over-- it's hardly begun.
Although I could have gone any of the 3 ways (the Wii seems fun but lacking in features, the 360 seems like it has a good online feature but lackluster specs, and the PS3 is expensive but featureful), I don't regret the PS3. Blu-Ray movies look awesome, the machine has horsepower out the wazoo, the LAN features just work-- it has everything I need for a long time. And it plays my PS2 games so I don't have to go out and buy hundreds of dollars in new games to have a little fun.
E pluribus unum
NPD counts sales on a per week basis, not monthly. But the tallies are reported monthly. With NPD, not all months are 4 weeks. If every month was 4 weeks, they would only end up counting 12 * 4 = 48 weeks in a year. There are 52 weeks in a year, so they need 4 months out of the year to be a 5 week period.
June is one of those 5 week periods.
If you take this into account, weekly PS3 sales were actually DOWN for June vs May, not up! This is the only valid way to measure sales for months that have a different number of weeks in them.
So in May, they sold 82,000/4 = 20500 PS3s per week.
In June, they sold 98,500/5 = 19,700 PS3s per week.
Sales didn't increase by 21% in June, they decreased by 4%!
What is the facination with the Wii? Why is it doing so well? Price has something to do with it obviously, but after playing the Wii several times, I can't say I was that impressed with it. The lineup is fairly light, and it isn't long before the remote loses it's cool factor and frankly, in some games, can be down right annoying.
I found the whole experience fairly boring after just a couple of hours of total use. Yet, I know people who are obsessed with the thing.
So what am I missing about the Wii phenom? Is it primarily because it is easy for little kids to pickup? Or is it some party aspect that I've not had the priviledge of partaking in that has this console being some must have device?
Of course, I've not been terribly impressed with Nintendo consoles for years. I owned a 64 and think it was the biggest waste of money I've ever had. I currently own a DS almost strictly for FF and Puzzle Quest, and if I could get them in a different medium, I probably would (Puzzle Quest on a small screen is its own little version of torture, but the game is too damn fun not to play).
(For perspective I own a DS and a 360 currently for "consoles").