RolStoppable said:
Easy explanation, yes. Logical, probably not. Installed base =/= active installed base, that's what happening here and it is normal. Whether you measure it by gaming hours or yearly software sales, neither value is going to keep up with the units that get added to total hardware sales because people stop using their consoles regularly eventually, be it by playing less or not at all. There's no such thing as perpetual growth in gaming hours or yearly software sales for any video game system. Values usually peak/plateau in year 2-4, afterwards its downhill despite total hardware sales still growing. The people who buy in late aren't great enough in numbers to offset the disinterest of people who bought a system earlier in the lifecycle. That's why console generations last 5-6 years, because the dynamics of the market demand it. |
That could be the answer but that doesn't relate to the data we have here. I'm not even sure if MS have given us the data to find out the average gaming hours per user.
Basically, if everybody that bought a console played an average of, for argument's sake let's say 20 hours per month. The rise or fall of YoY hardware percentage increase/decrease wouldn't mirror the YoY gaming hours increase/decrease so we shouldn't really use this data to work out the average gaming hours per user.
Example;
Let's say we are into year 5 and the XB1 sold 1M a month every single month in the 4 years before and each gamer plays exactly 10 hours per month. Year 5 the XB1 is up 10% YoY in hardware for every month and every gamer still plays exactly 10 hours per month. Let's see how the gaming hours YoY percentage increase relates to hardware YoY percentage increase compared to year 4.
Year 4
Jan - 1M sold - 37M LTD - 370M Total gaming hours per month (TGH)
Feb - 1M sold - 38M LTD - 380M TGH
Mar - 1M sold - 39M LTD - 390M TGH
Apr - 1M Sold - 40M LTD - 400M TGH
....
Year 5
Jan - 1.1M sold (Up 10% YoY) - 49.1M LTD - 491 TGH (Up 33% YoY)
Feb - 1.1M sold (Up 10% YoY) - 50.2M LTD - 502M TGH (Up 32% YoY)
Mar - 1.1M sold (Up 10% YoY) - 51.3M LTD - 513M TGH (Up 32% YoY)
Apr - 1.1M sold (Up 10% YoY) - 52.4 LTD - 524 TGH (Up 31% YoY)
Now let's look at same scenario but with a hardware up 50% YoY.
Year 5
Jan - 1.5M sold (Up 50% YoY) - 49.5M LTD - 495 TGH (Up 34% YoY)
Feb - 1.5M sold (Up 50% YoY) - 51M LTD - 510M TGH (Up 34% YoY)
Mar - 1.5M sold (Up 50% YoY) - 52.5M LTD - 525M TGH (Up 35% YoY)
Apr - 1.5M sold (Up 50% YoY) - 54M LTD - 540 TGH (Up 35% YoY)
Even with the second example showing a huge increase in hardware YoY sales percentage over example 1, the TGH between example 1 and 2 show little difference.
