| Smeags said: Well said Squill, and it's always nice to see a clear head make use of prior numbers and sales trends here on the Chartz. This sort of reminds me of Sqrl's Holiday H.Y.P.E. thread last Holiday season, which definitely points in your direction. Going about these "brand concious" consumers, do you think their influence is dwindling now (pointing towards YoY decrease for PS3 and YoY increase for 360), or is it a tougher economy making price point king? Or maybe a little bit of both (I may have answered my own question |
). I'm just curious to see what ol' Squill has to say about these current sales trends. 
I think the previous data we have on which SKUs sell the most in which regions are important.
In Europe we've seen that the Xbox 360 Arcade is the most popular SKU, meaning that the Xbox 360 is more popular there amongst the more price concious sectors of the market. However due to how a distance has not grown between the Xbox 360 and PS3 in this region I would say the Xbox 360 is failing to capture a lot of the core market which prefers the PS3 over the Xbox 360 seemingly in spite of the massive price delta. As the Xbox 360 gains traction, perhaps we will see the Xbox 360 gaining in the core markets, but in general the PS3 is the desired console for core gamers and sales of games inspite of the higher Xbox 360 sales reflect the differences here in the userbase.
In America the average price of the SKUs as stated by Pachter is $290 for the Xbox 360. This indicates that most people are still choosing the Pro/Elite SKUs balanced out with a slightly higher purchase rate of the Arcade vs the Elite. In America the real price difference is roughly $100 between the Xbox 360 and PS3. I would say that the assumption that the American market is more price concious than the European market is false, the difference is due to that the Xbox 360 is prefered to the PS3 for core gamers as the actual price delta when factoring in an Xbox Live Gold subscription cost of $50 is only an average of $50 for the typical Pro SKU purchase without wireless or a Blu Ray player! The major difference here is that the PS3 doesn't have a value offering, so the price concious part of the market only has one way to go.
I don't think the differences are entirely due to brand conciousness. The PS3 for example is being crushed all the same by the Wii in Europe and Nintendo has never had as strong a presence there as in other markets. I would say a lot of the differences are due to how the consoles themselves cater to the core userbase who purchase systems throughout the year, rather than the more price concious/casual userbase that is a greater factor in the holiday quarter. However brand is an important factor when both are considered as good, say the American 360 vs PS3 scenario during the year and in the Europe where there are many people who would not buy an Xbox 360 at any price.
Does that make sense? Sorry for the late reply, I been distracted.
Tease.
