Same as the other thread I made on whether or not the Wii will outsell the PS1. Do you guys think it will? Yes? No?
Using last known shipment data, we got
PS3 - 80M (as of Nov 2nd, 2013)
360 - 82.9M (as of Dec 31st, 2013)
Amount needed to get to 100M:
PS3 - 20M
360 - 17.1M
Things to consider:
· VGC has current sell through at 81.35M for the PS3 and 80.35M for the 360 as of March 1st, 2013. I personally feel both are undertracked at this point, but have no evidence to back it up. For comparison's sake though, VGC has the Wii within 400K of its known shipped data
· For the CY of 2013 (not to be confused with FY), the PS console family has shipped 14.3M units, with 7.8M units in the busiest quarter (Oct-Dec 2013). An educated guess would mean the PS3 shipped close to 10M and 3.6M for the busiest quarter. The 360 has shipped 7M, with 3.5M in the busiest quarter (Oct-Dec 2013)
· Price wise, both consoles are still too expensive and should, if feasible, have at least one more price drop. My memory is kind of fuzzy on when the last, effective price drop for either system was, but I believe the PS3 was in 2012 with the 16GB SSD and the 360 was in 2008. Cheapest, MSRP, prices are $199/€199/Y24,995/£150 for PS3 and $199/€199/Y24,995/£140 for 360. 360 also had a $99 subsidized model with 2 year XBL sub that was terminated last year. I also remember a BF deal for a $149 X360 where MS just killed it. Not sure if it was 2012 or 2013. Both have had plenty of bundles and BF deals to add perceived value, but nothing is ever gonna be as good as a good old price drop and both are way overdue. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on any of these figures as I'm not 100% sure on them.
· PS3 sales in EU/US/JP are relatively okay for a 7 year old platform, but still declining and not meeting expectations according to Sony. 360 sales in JP are nonexistent, weak in EU, and declining in the US. Both still outsold the WiiU in last month's NPD quite comfortably, but that's not something to brag about. Price is a big factor on why the big decline here IMO. 7 and 8 year old consoles should not cost this much.
· PS3 and 360 sales according to VGC by calendar year are
|
PS3 |
YOY Drop |
360 |
YOY Drop |
|
|
2005 |
1.18M |
|||
|
2006 |
1.25M |
6.8M |
||
|
2007 |
7.92M |
7.88M |
||
|
2008 |
10.2M |
10.91M |
||
|
2009 |
13M |
10.16M |
-7% |
|
|
2010 |
13.9M |
13.25M |
||
|
2011 |
14.7M |
13.81M |
||
|
2012 |
12.15M |
-17% |
10.68M |
-23% |
|
2013 |
8.27M |
-32% |
5.81M |
-46% |
|
2014* |
602K | 278K |
· Shipments by year (FY, which is Apr - Mar for Sony, Jul - Jun for MS) are
|
PS3 |
YOY Drop |
360 |
YOY Drop |
|
|
FY2006 |
3.5M |
5M |
||
|
FY2007 |
9.1M |
6.6M |
||
|
FY2008 |
10.1M |
8.7M |
||
|
FY2009 |
13M |
11.2M |
||
|
FY2010 |
14.3M |
10.3M |
||
|
FY2011 |
13.9M |
-3% |
13.7M |
|
|
FY2012** |
13M** |
-6.5% |
13M |
-5% |
|
FY2013*** |
6.6M*** |
9.9M |
-24% |
|
|
FY2014**** |
4.7M**** |
* 2014 is still missing rest of CY data from VGChartz
** Sony aggregates home consoles for FY2012 and FY2013. PS2 stopped shipping in Q4 FY2012. Total PS home console sales for that FY were 16.5M. I assumed a YOY drop of 15% for the PS2 in order to estimate PS3 shipment. That's a generous drop for the PS2 as the drop on the previous FY was 36%.
*** For FY 2013, it is missing one quarter for the PS3 (Jan-March 2014). We also know that the first 2 quarters are just PS3 (3.1M) and the 3rd quarter is PS3+PS4 (7.8M). We also know PS4 sold 4.2M as of Dec 28th and the quarter ends Dec 31st, so my guess is for ~3.6M PS3s shipped that quarter. I will lowball it to 3.5M for a total of 6.6M
*** FY2014 is missing 2 quarters for the 360 (Jan - Jun 2014)
If the 360 ships the exact same amount of units in the last 2 quarters, it will have 7M for the year. If it has the same YOY drop for those 2 quarters, it'll ship ~6.8M. Let's also assume the PS3 ships another 2.5M units for the quarter (Q4 2012 PS2+PS3 was 3.4M), bringing its FY2013 total to 9.1M. Let us assume then 7M for 360 and 9.1M for PS3 to finish filling the table. That gives a YOY drop of ~30% for each.
We do not have much historical data for XBox and MS. MS also killed the OG XBox to focus on the 360, I'm sure the support for the X360 will be greater this time around.
However, we do have some data to support Playstation console transitions.
PS1 -> PS2
PS1 was at 72.92M on March 31st, 2000 (Data from respected GAF user, may not be 100% accurate). Console was 5 years and 4 months at the time. Console was discontinued on March, 2006. It sold for 6 years after the release of the PS2. It sold a total of 29.57M (4.9M per year) after the PS2 was released and a LTD of 102.49M
PS2 -> PS3
PS2 was at 106.5M on September 30, 2006 (Data from respected GAF user, may not be 100% accurate). Console was 6 years and 6 months at the time. Console was discontinued on January, 2013. It sold for 6 years and 4 months after the release of the PS3. We don't know complete shipment data for the PS2 for FY 2012, so it sold a minimum of 48.6M (a little less than 8M per year) after the PS3 was released and a LTD of over 155M. IIRC, the PS2 also sold over 1M units in Japan alone after the PS3 was released
PSP -> PSV
This is different due to being mobile space which got taken over by Google and Apple, but still worth mentioning. PSP was at 73M on September 30, 2011 (http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/111122_e.pdf). Console was 6 years and 8 months at the time. We don't know complete shipment data for the PSP since then. Educated guess tells us that it's over 80M shipped as of Dec 31st, 2013. If we consider that number to be true, then the PSP has sold over 7M since the PSV was released (~3M per year). The PSP also sold over 1.5M units in Japan alone after the PSV was released. It’s also fair to say that Sony won’t discontinue the PSP before this Christmas, so the system will sell for at least 3 years after its successor releases.
PS3 -> PS4
PS3 was at 80M on November 2, 2013 (http://scei.co.jp/corporate/release/pdf/131106_e.pdf). Console was 7 years old at the time.
Other things to consider:
- EA has said it will support the PS3 and 360 for 4 more years, that is until at least 2017 (http://www.computerandvideogames.com/408464/ea-to-support-ps3-and-xbox-360-for-4-more-years/). I think most people expect the support to be your Fifas and Maddens, or maybe a Battlefield or something like that. I wouldn't expect any major, AAA, titles for PS3 and 360 after this year.
- MS has said it will support the 360 until 2016 (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/04/xbox-360-support-to-last-to-2016-includes-100-new-games). They also said to expect over 100 new games on the console (I do not expect any of them to be exclusive, but they are new games that could be experienced on the machine). There are also rumors of an X360 refresh this year. A guy on gaf has posted plenty about evidence of it, whether or not it materializes, remains to be seen. I can post links to his posts, they are informative and you can see the guy does do a lot of research, but it's very technical in nature. Basically the refresh would consist of a discless 360 that could sell for as low as $99. It would be MS trying to trojan horse its way on the over the top tv business and take on Apple TV, chromecast, and Roku, along with differentiating itself by having one of the best ever home console machines inside it. The reason I think this rumor is feasible is because I am of the mindset that believes MS entered the gaming business in order to gain control of the living room and this is kind of their ultimate goal. Whether or not that materializes remains to be seen, but I do hope it is true.
- Sony has said it'll support the PS3 for at least the next couple of years (http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/04/ps3-support-to-continue-for-at-least-next-couple-of-years). More likely though, it will be two, three, four more years. You have to remember that PS1 and PS2 sold for 6 more years after its successor came out. PSP will sell for at least 3 years after its successor came out. It will be VERY surprising if the PS3 doesn't sell for at least 4 more years. As with the 360, there are rumors of a final PS3 refresh this year. Current PS3 super slim is on a 40nm RSX/45nm Cell. There's evidence of 28nm RSX/22nm Cell being worked on. There are also rumors of a "PSThree" refresh coming this year (
).@anandshimpi On a related note, the word is that there's a new super slim hardware revision with a 28nm RSX... 22nm Cell next year.
— Digital Foundry (@digitalfoundry) June 29, 2013
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=535647
I personally find the PS3 refresh more believable and with more evidence to back it up. PSNow uses modified PS3s on its server and presumably the servers are on 22nm Cell/28nm RSX (http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=103321607)( http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=753161). Apparently Sony has been able to fit 8 modified PS3s into this (or into this with half the height, not 100% sure):
PSNow will run on modified PS3s, among other things. They will need a lot of those for their service to run smoothly. It would be silly to have all those PS3 parts being produced on smaller dies only for PSNow when you can have that as a consumer product as well. A wii sized PS3 for $149 would be a tempting offer for many, including x360/wii only owners who want to experience the ps3 exclusive catalog or many hardcore gamers who would double dip and get rid of their old consoles.
A refresh could allow Sony/MS to comfortably drop the price and profit on each console sold at $149 or less. Regardless, if they are not doing a refresh, we have evidence of new SKUs from Sony which may include their cost saving strategy (28nm RSX/22nm Cell) on the super slim casing.
So we have MS supporting the 360 until at least FY 2016. Sony is supporting the PS3 for 2-4 more years, at least. Let's say for the sake of argument that the numbers assumed above are fairly close to the real shipment numbers that we will get by the end of this FY for both companies. That would mean that the PS3 total would be 86M as of March 31st 2014 and the 360 total would be 85.4M as of June 30, 2014. Let's assume both companies support their consoles for 4 more years
PS3
FY2014 - 6.37M
FY2015 - 4.46M
FY2016 - 3.12M
FY2017 - 2.18M
360
FY2015 - 4.9M
FY2016 - 3.43M
FY2017 - 2.4M
FY2018 - 1.7M
That would bring the PS3 total to 102.13M and the 360 to 97.83M. That would get the PS3 above the 100M mark, likely above the Wii, and quite possibly above the PS1. The 360 would get fairly close, but fall just short.
As you can see though, there are a lot of assumptions, some positive and some conservative. I feel the shipment numbers on the table above are close to accurate given what we know, but it's an educated guess, so feel free to disagree. I feel like the sell through number might be off based on shipment numbers that we know from both consoles. That might be due to sales in developing countries and not necessarily the main countries that we are used to seeing and is easier to track. We know X360 is big in Brazil and PS3 is big in lots of developing countries and just recently started producing PS3s in Brazil as well, dropping the price to a more decent level where it can now compete with the 360 there.
I also strongly don't feel that the PS3 and, especially, 360 can sustain just a 30% YOY drop for the next 4 years at the current price.$149/€149/Y19,995/£130 this year is a must. In 2015/2016 have it at $129/€129/Y14,995/£119. The only question is whether or not Sony/MS can, at worst, break even on the product at those prices. It does not make any sense to sell a PS3/360 at a loss at this point. However, it makes sense to sell it at breakeven point in order to capture the audience and get them on PSN/PS+/XBL ecosystem. I believe if a refresh does happen for both consoles, then they will likely go over the 100M mark. If there’s no final refresh, but there’s a consistent price drop, i.e. $149 this year and possibly $129 2 years from now, then I think the PS3 will definitely get there and the 360 has a good chance, but will fall short. If no price drop, then I believe neither will make it.
For reference, PS3 Slim (1st version) was announced at Gamescom in 2009. PS3 Super Slim was announced in September 2012. FCC filings and leaks of the super slim came around July 2012. There was new SKUs that leaked last year that were released later (CECH 4200 - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=599121). So if a refresh is coming and is to be announced at E3 (June 10-12), Gamescom (Aug 13-17), or TGS (Sept 18-21), then expect leaks and FCC filings one or two months prior to the show. The 360S was announced at E3 2010 and the 360E at E3 2013.
The point of this thread is to see what people think. I've presented some evidence as well as made some educated guesses here and I would like to see other folks' opinion on the matter. What was once thought to be impossible to happen is now feasible IMO if there are price drops and refreshes. If a refresh is to happen though, I think it has to happen this year.
