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Forums - Sales Discussion - September 2016 NPD Thread! XBO #1; PS4 Slim flops

jason1637 on 15 October 2016

 

 

Anyway, the PS3 & 360 had a further advantage in that the OXbox was discontinued early for reasons largely outside MS's control. There's no way of knowning how well the Xbox might have sold had it remained in production in 2006 and beyond. And if the Xbox wasn't terminated prematurely, the 360 might not have come out when it did, and if it released at the same time the PS3 & Wii did there's not telling what the last-gen sales trajectory would have looked like. But it does show one thing: that the phrase "fastest-selling console ever" doesn't mean a whole lot. The PS4 had that title for only a few months in the U.S. before ceding it back to the Wii in August 2014. I actually was attempting to make a post on that subject the other day, but the power went out.

As for the current generation, it is definitely looking to be a lot more front-loaded than last generation, but not as front-loaded as PS2+Xbox sales were. The PS4 & XBO have struggled with sales growth outside the holidays, with nearly all their combined YoY growth coming from the holidays. Next year may end up being the point where Q1-Q3 sales finally experience strong growth. As you can see from my lead/deficit charts in my previous post, nearly all of the lead PS4+XBO sales have over PS3+360 sales comes from the holidays, while all of their deficit vs PS2+OXbox sales comes from non-holidays months, especially the period from last May running up to, well, right about now thanks to the PS2's massive boost from its first price cut. The PS4 & XBO had record-setting launch holidays, and they've also had extremely strong holiday period sales in 2014 & 2015, but Q1-Q3 sales have been relatively flat these past three years. The Q1-Q3 period in 2015 was up only 2.6% from 2014, and this year it was down 5% from last year. The Xbox and especially 360 had problems with slow growth early in their lives, and the XBO is following suit, while the PS4 took longer to get a price cut than any prior PlayStation system, and that first price cut was the smallest in both absolute and relative terms for any PS system, and as a result the PS4 got only a modest boost from it that fizzled out by March.

The PS4 & XBO still have a lot of potential for more sales growth with both slim and upgraded 4K/HDR/VR-capable models as well as continued price reductions. I think 2017 will see them reach peak sales, with 2018 remaining strong as well, before we see a clear shift toward their terminal decline phase starting in Q2 2019. But we may also see increased emphasis on holiday promotional sales to generate the bulk of YoY sales growth. Q4 was historically about half the year's sales, but that fraction appears to be growing.

TRhis generation is probably more front-loaded compared to the last generation because of the third party support and online integration. Third parties supported the PS2 years after the PS3 came out so many people probably stayed on those consoles. This gen m,ost third parties starting phasing out their big games in early 2015 with the only third party games coming to last gen were lazy ports(BO3) or sports games. This probably got people to buy the 8th gen systems. As for Online people might have seen their xbox360 or PS3 friends moved on to the xb1 or ps4 so they bought these consoles to continue to play with friends.

I think this year will probably be the PS4s peak. The Pro is doing really well, and I believe were going to see a $250 PS4 Slim. The PS4 also had big games like UC4. Next year for Xbox because of the S effect Scorpio, halo wars 2 and other games. Next year will probably be a huge year for console sales due to the slims, the enhanced consoles, and NX.



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cmay227 on 15 October 2016
GOWTLOZ said:
cmay227 said:

OK, Did i say it didn't? The person i replyed to just stated hardware upscaling  to 4k. Not from 2k to 4k. also The pro will upscale from 720 to 1800p. not all games on pro are going to be native 1440 or 1800. very little in fact.

Pro runs all supported games at native 2k to 1800p and some at native 4K. No game on either PS4 and Pro runs at native 720p, they are not Xbox One.

Clearly you know very little about Pro.

Pro runs all supported games at native 2k to 1800p......SUPPORTED GAMES. NOT ALL GAMES. Clearly you have issues with facts.



scrapking on 15 October 2016

aLkaLiNE said:

Og Xbox is on sata 2, Xb1s has a sata 3 HDD but the interface itself is still sata 2 which means that you still couldn't hit full speed on an internal SSD. That's aside from the fact that the hard drive on the Xbox is not designed to be replaced to begin with and your warranty is voided if you do, and that the xb1s still comes with a 5400RPM HDD. The only viable way to improve your load times with an SSD on Xbox is using an external hard drive through the UsB3.0 port, but unless you can install the xb OS on an external drive and boot from that, it won't affect the speed of the UI itself what so ever. [...]

If you need more space for games you must replace the drive on the PS4.  On the Xbox One, there's no requirement to replace the drive as you can install full games to external drives, something you can't do on the PS4 last I checked.  I personally prefer the Xbox One's approach, but an argument can be made for each.

I believe there can be minor speed improvements to the UI with an external drive added onto an Xbox One.  In situations where there is a lot of drive activity (downloading a game in the background, for example), having that drive activity on an external drive reduces the amount of time the UI is waiting for OS components and apps to load off of the main drive.  Similarly, game loading times can be improved by being put on an external drive even when the external drive isn't any faster than the internal one, just because the game can load off the external drive without competition from OS components being loaded off the internal drive.



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scrapking on 15 October 2016

Shadow1980 said:

[...] Overall this was a fairly lackluster Q3, especially for the PS4. The XBO S helped things a bit, but the PS4 Slim was too late into the quarter to really help, plus PS4 sales are being cannibalized by pre-orders for the Pro. Overall, the spring and summer months showed the PS4 and XBO were both in need of something to stimulate sales. Also, it seems like the holidays are becoming an ever-bigger chunk of the year's sales, but that's a topic for another day. Still, with the PS4 Pro launching next month, and the likelihood of more firesales for Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the last week or two before Christmas, Q4 should be one of the strongest holidays quarters for conventional consoles ever, if not the strongest.

Thanks for sharing your graphs and analysis!  I've followed mid-cycle console refreshes all the way back to the Mattel Intellivision II in the early '80s, which is the first slim relaunch of a console I can think of.  They almost always drop in size, and they sometimes gain (or even lose) a feature or two, but the underlying horsepower rarely if ever changes.  The Xbox One S is different in that it actually gained some horsepower.  Not a lot (one game showed a frame rate boost of as much as 11%).  I think between the frame rate boost, UHD, the smaller profile, the IR blaster, etc., the Xbox One S adds more than a typical slim system adds, and does so without taking much of anything away (also unlike other slim refreshes that often lose features, as the PS4 Slim did when it lost SPDIF as an example).



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Mike_L on 15 October 2016
GribbleGrunger said:
X1Gates said:
Well done to phil spencer and co, when you put out a quality console you will sell it. I think october/november/december is also xbox wins. The pro is not a big difference to the original ps4 and people know this.

Are you taking notes, Mike?

You bet I am



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scrapking on 15 October 2016

Radek said:

You just showed you know nothing about the pro. All games on the Pro must run AT LEAST 1920x1080, as for now the lowest we've seen was 2715x1527 which is above 1440p. The GPU power difference between XB1 S and PS4 Pro is 300%.  2715x1527 has exactly 3 times more pixels than Xbox's most common resolution of 1600x900.

What do you base your assertion on that the Xbox One's most common resolution is 900p?  This chart suggests that 1080p is most common, with 900p the second-most common:  http://ca.ign.com/wikis/xbox-one/PS4_vs._Xbox_One_Native_Resolutions_and_Framerates  By my quick count, 53% of the games in the list are 1080p, and then there are the titles with dynamic resolution that would sometimes (but not always) be 1080p.

And I doubt the person you're responding to knows nothing about the Pro.  They probably know, for example, that's it's a game console.  They may have a notion that it's made by Sony, too.  They may even know that it's called the PS4 Pro.  ;)

All joking aside, I think earlier in the Xbox One's life 900p was most common, and now as we reach the midpoint of its life 1080p now seems to be the most common.  Unless you have information to the contrary that backs up your claim?



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scrapking on 15 October 2016

wedemboyz said:

[...] Forza Horion 3 is basically the second best selling racing game of this gen just behind Mario Kart 8.

And these are just retail numbers. Forza Horizon 3 on PC is digital only. Plus the digital attachrate for console games is getting bigger every year

Wow, that's impressive for Forza Horizon 3.  Good stuff, reviews suggest it deserves it.  I'll snag the digital copy at its first sale, if not sooner.

I'd add that not only is digital distribution getting bigger for console games every year, but that people who normally still buy games on disc might ahve bought it digitally this time to get the complementary Windows copy.  More incentive to go digital for first-party Microsoft games than for other console titles.



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GribbleGrunger on 15 October 2016
Mike_L said:

You bet I am

I wondered if you would spot my comment. Keep doing what I told you to and you'll start seeing it more clearly.



 

The PS5 Exists. 


sabvre42 on 15 October 2016
cmay227 said:
GOWTLOZ said:

Pro runs all supported games at native 2k to 1800p and some at native 4K. No game on either PS4 and Pro runs at native 720p, they are not Xbox One.

Clearly you know very little about Pro.

Pro runs all supported games at native 2k to 1800p......SUPPORTED GAMES. NOT ALL GAMES. Clearly you have issues with facts.

FYI - All games that come out on the PS4 after Sept 30th MUST have a PS4Pro mode. Its not optional... its a requirement to get Playstation certified. So yes- GOWTLOZ is right, you are clueless about the PS4Pro.

This mode/profile requires that the resolution MUST be at LEAST 1920x1080p, and the frame rate MUST match or exceed the regular PS4 version. Now that said, if the original PS4 version already runs at 1080p, then they may have the option to launch a single profile and then "not support" the pro.

All the talk about supported PS4Pro games are ones that have already released and get a patch to unlock better IQ on the PS4Pro.

Examples:
Infamous: Second Son
Infamous: First Light
TLOU:R
Uncharted 4
Elder Scrolls Online
Neverwinter
ETC



globalisateur on 16 October 2016
Shadow1980 said:
jason1637 said:

 

TRhis generation is probably more front-loaded compared to the last generation because of the third party support and online integration. Third parties supported the PS2 years after the PS3 came out so many people probably stayed on those consoles. This gen m,ost third parties starting phasing out their big games in early 2015 with the only third party games coming to last gen were lazy ports(BO3) or sports games. This probably got people to buy the 8th gen systems. As for Online people might have seen their xbox360 or PS3 friends moved on to the xb1 or ps4 so they bought these consoles to continue to play with friends.

I don't know. I think the biggest part for the 360 & PS3 having "meh" sales early in their lives wasn't really the games. I think pricing was the biggest issue. They had plenty of big titles early on. Xbox had yet to build momentum, and that $400 price point didn't help anything, plus there was the notorious RRoD issue. The PS3 could have ridden the PS2's momentum, but the sticker shock of $500 for the 20 GB SKU and $600 for the 60GB was a momentum killer.

I think this year will probably be the PS4s peak. The Pro is doing really well, and I believe were going to see a $250 PS4 Slim. The PS4 also had big games like UC4. Next year for Xbox because of the S effect Scorpio, halo wars 2 and other games. Next year will probably be a huge year for console sales due to the slims, the enhanced consoles, and NX.

If this year is the PS4's peak, then that will be a huge disappointment. Unless this holiday season is massively, staggeringly huge, then there's no way 2017 won't be up YoY. For the Slim & Pro to be a success, PS4 sales for the Q1-Q3 period next need to be up substantially from the same period this year. Considering the PS4 is at about 2188k for the year so far, anything less than 2600k for the Q1-Q3 period of next year would be a disappointment, and for it to be truly strong it should be at least 2800k if not upwards of 3M, considering the PS3 got a 42% YoY boost in the first half of 2010 vs. the first half of 2009, all thanks to the PS3 Slim. Q4 next year may or may not be down YoY from this year's Q4, but if there's a permanent price cut to $250 for the Slim and $350 for the Pro, it could happen.

As for the XBO, next year will almost definitely be the peak. The S model should continue to carry the system at relatively strong levels well into next year, and we should see a permanent reduction to $250 close to when the Scorpio is released, if not before, which when combined with the Scorpio launch (assuming it has a reasonable price) should drive the XBO to a strong Q4 next year, and if the Q1-Q3 period is up sufficiently, I think we could see YoY growth of at least 20% compared to this year. What happens in 2018 will depend on pricing and if Halo 6 is released in the fall, but it should be a strong year. The one-year gap between the S model and the Scorpio may result in a less pronounced peak in its curve than the PS4 does with Slim & Pro being a one-two punch spaced apart by only two months.

I totally disagree with you and your analysis here. I think people won't buy more XB1s next year because of Scorpio. And don't forget that those 3 last NPDs were won by MS thanks to the crazy deals about everywhere. They wanted to clear stocks of old OG and sell the maximum XB1s they could to undermine 4 Pro imminent release. 

That can't be sustained throught the whole 2017 year, even in USA.

And once people will understand that Scorpio will be the real next gen of Microsoft with Scorpio exclusives, they are going to stop buying XB1 like crazy.