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wholikeswood on 06 July 2009
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Squilliam said:
wholikeswood said:
Couple of things @ Squilliam:

Firstly, I don't think solely using America is particularly great. I understand why you did it, but we know the 360 is the HD console of choice in America and that the PS3 frequently sells lousy numbers over there, so it slightly skews things to run solely off that continent's data.

Secondly, I found it pretty lolworthy when you started talking about rubbering up parts of the 360 to reduce noise in response to the supposedly smaller size of European homes. I mean, you're overanalysing way too far. Noise issues simply aren't even remotely comparable to the real difficulty for the 360 in Europe - skepticism towards Microsoft and the 360's abysmal reliability. It's a trust thing, and it's something that a "rubber insulating the drive" approach isn't going to resolve.

Just using America means that I can use the most accurate data we have, I know the average sale price of the Xbox 360 and I cannot say the same for Others. Also because the price cut is about 3 months after the first period in question and 3 months before the second it lets me weed out the short term boost from the holidays. Note how I also excluded the first two weeks of 2009 as well to make the representation more accurate even though sales were still quite high during those weeks. The PS3 was only there to provide a control and a baseline for comparison, all I was interested in was the percentage the PS3 was down without a price cut to possibly infer how the Xbox 360 could have been doing under the same circumstances.

In Europe a noisy Xbox 360 is by far more noisy than the average Xbox 360 in an American home so that difference is worth a mention. IIRC noise drops quite rapidly as you move further away from the source of the noise and you sit inside a larger room. I don't have the calculation handy im sorry but IIRC its something like 50% less noisy to the average persons perception if you move 4M away from the source of the noise or something like that. Rubber insulation means placing four rubber mats between the drive and the console chassis to insulate the noise it produces. Its quite a simple and cost effective change. The PS2 and the PS1 also had some quite severe reliability problems but that didn't also severely damage the Playstation in that region, probably because the Playstation brand became the default gaming brand there. 

@Darth: Im just playing, I still have lots of love for you.

Like I said, I understood your choice in only using America so there was no need to give me a paragraph re-explaining your OP. I still take slight issue with it, but my main grievance is the part below.

I don't care for elaborations as to how one goes about insulating with rubber; the point is - you're blowing up the noise issue like it's the huge turn-off of the 360 to potential EU consumers, when in reality it's barely a blip on the radar for even the most researching purchaser. It's the reliability of the 360 (or lack thereof) and subsequent image of Microsoft that holds them back in Europe, and all this talk of slipping four rubber mats between drive and chassis is irrelevant nonsense.