I borrowed the idea from TheSource in this thread, but thought it deserved a better name.
http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=2878
| TheSource said: Year 360 Wii PS3 2005 100% 2006 (100%, 67%) (22%,0%) (11%, 0%) 2007 (67%,36%) (46%, 22%) (18%, 11%) (42 million ltd) 2008 (36%,29%) (51%, 46%) (20%,18%) 2009 (29%, 22%) (51%, 50%) (27%, 20%) (110 million ltd) 2010 (26%, 22%) (50%, 48%) (27%, 26%) (140 million ltd) 2011 (26%, 25%) (48%, 45%) (30%, 26%) (170 million ltd) 2012 (28%, 25%) (45%, 40%) (32%, 30%) (200 million ltd) Final 28% - 56 million 40% - 80 million 32% - 64 million |
So, I love a thread like this and TheSource, you're good at this stuff.
I have a suggestion though, that we play around with millions of units and not just percentages (%).
First a quick look at last gen. My numbers aren't exact, but roughly:
Year PS2 Xbox GC total market/cumul.
2000 20 mill 20 mill /20m
2001 21m /41m 6.5 m 7 m 34.5m /54.5m
2002 21m /62m 5.5m /12m 4m /11m 30.5m /85 m
2003 22m /74m 6m /18m 5m /16m 33m /108m
2004 21m /95m 5m /23m 4m /20m 30m /138m
2005 15m /110m 1m /24m - /20m 16m /154m
Note: 2001 actually means total sales from oct '00 - oct '01 and so forth, I put it this way to better illustrate the one year head start (world wide market) that the PS2 got over the other 2 consoles.
So for comparisons sake, let's assume the length of this gen is 5 years + the 1 year head start of X360, which would give us a life-span of oct 2005 to dec 2011. So let's skip 2012 (and BTW, many believe there is at least a new Xbox and Nintendo by then).
You see from my table that the totals for last gen is 154 million, since I don't want to count the PS2 sales that came after the PS3 was released. This gives us roughly totals of 110m for PS2, and as we all know 24m XBOX and 20m for GC.
Also, you can see that for the most part of last gen, the total sales were on average 32 million consoles/year, from which PS2 took about 21 mill/yyear leaving 11 million for Xbox and GC to split.
Now, I'm not ready to predict the totals for this gen yet, but I want to argue about it and also see others here make excellent predictions. So I'd like to put forward a few factors to be aware of when predicting the current gen:
- TheSource had total market sales accumulated through 2011 at 170 mill consoles. That suggests a yearly figure of 32mill units just like last gen, but I think that is too conservative. We may not see it yet because no one has cut the price yet, but I believe this gen will be bigger, for 2 reasons. First, most people believe that all 3 consoles will "survive" until the end this gen, cuz all 3 consoles has a unique "niche", so that means we won't see a struggling Gamecube this time. Second, what really makes the total market bigger is that a lot more casual players are brought in this time. You all know the Guitar Heroes & SingStars and see what Wii is doing, and for example EA and Ubisoft have recently said they're going to focus heavily on casual titles, not only for the Wii. MS talks about broader demographics all the time. There'll also be similar stuff to the "training games" we see for DS, Ubisoft will release a game that will be huge called "My life coach". That's only the beginning. So I'd say at least 35 mill/year, perhaps even 40 mill yearly 2008-2010, which would give a total of 195-210 mill by 2011.
- Related to the above you have "the conquest of the living room". I just wanted to remind you of that and it's impact on sales and competition. The internet-connectivity is (or will be) a big thing this gen, which will not only broaden the total market, but is a factor you have to specifically look at when judging the competition between the 3 consoles. I believe the X360 has a huge advantage here with XBOX Live, which is already extablished and has a good word-of-mouth factor going on.
Don't stare yourself blind at last gen. Yes, everyone knows that the PS3 won't dominate this gen, but what I think people hasn't realized yet is how incredibly huge the difference to last gen is:
- Even Sonys own approach this time was different. They used the PS3 strategically, to push Blu-ray and win the HD-movie format war by including the pricey blue diode in the PS3. Basically this decision benefits Blu-ray but so far has been a huge disadvantage to the PS3 (and probably always will be, cuz soon the PS3 won't even be the cheapest blu-ray player around, so movie freaks will buy stand-alone players instead).
- Last gen PS2 had a whole year head start, but this time it's the other way around - so that's essentially a difference of 2 years between Sony vs MS.
- Exclusive games. Last time Xbox only had Halo and Fable while PS2 had tons of them. Again, it's the other way around: you all know X360 got GTA 4 & DMC4, and how the FFXIII-exclusivity is being watered down by Square making the whole FF-franchise so widespread that it practically don't matter very much if the core game FFXIII will only be on PS3 (smart move by Square btw). What's left? MGS4.. perhaps (I doubt it). Then look at X360, what it will have in the coming ½-1 year, which will be a very critical time (I picked a few examples here):
X360 only:
Forza Motorsport 2
Mass effect
Halo 3
Lost Oddysey
Blue Dragon
Fable 2
On X360 & PC:
Age of Conan
World in conflict
Alan Wake
Bioshock
Elveon
Huxley
Warhammer online
- All the bad press the PS3 has got is a huge thing. People don't associate the PS3 with the "hip" Playstation brand, they think of an expensive good quality console that Sony made into a disaster. People know the machine has potential, it's just that no one wants to buy it today. People don't want to take that risk, and as the experts say, a $100 price cut won't make a difference, while a $200 price cut by Sony is unlikely.
- MS will hit the PS3 with a near-lethal blow pretty soon. The talks from MS-officials about a "sweet spot at $199" is no accident. A X360 price drop will come soon, and my personal prediction is that it will happen just when we're about to go into the fall season august/sept, when the X360 can get a huge momentum all the way through the holidays with the flood of big titles coming out for X360. I believe MS will boost that with a cut of the Premium to $299. It's logical and very smart. PS3 don't have any big exclusives this fall, so whats their incentive to cut price? Can they counter with anything? Yeah, perhaps something that will look like a desperation-cut.
- Of course you all know of the Wii-factor, how it changed everything this gen, so Im not going to argue about the greatness of Wii, nunchucks & casual games, Wiimotes & bowling games etc - everyone is very aware of it.
