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Shadow1980 said:
DonFerrari said:
Shadow1980 said:

It's definitely going to be the most interesting NPD we've had in a while. Halo vs. price cut.


But will be stomped by November and BF on NPD... because pricecut always give a bigger boost than game release, and since PS4 was ahead before pricecut there is no reason for inversion this month... next month depends on BF discounts MS decides to do.

Oh, most definitely. Software almost never gives a boost longer than one month (the only exceptions I can think of are Smash and Mario Kart for the Wii back in 2008; FFVII for the PS1 back in 1997 probably counts, too). But like I said earlier, price cuts can and often do boost sales for months on end. The PS2's first price cut boosted sales by at least 40% for about a year. The PS3's first price cut gave an even bigger boost percentage-wise (though granted it was at a higher price point and it had really bad sales prior to that first $400 SKU). This is the first time a PlayStation system got only a $50 drop for its first price cut so the effects might not be as dramatic, but is should provide a solid boost to sales at least until next October, and by that point Sony may be ready to drop the PS4 to $300, which would be consistent with historical norms. The PS1, PS2, Xbox, GC, and 360 (and maybe also the SNES and Genesis, though I lack exact dates for their price cuts) all had their second price cuts about a year after the first; the Wii only had one price cut in its prime while the PS3 had a 22-month gap between the drop to $400 and the drop to $300 (which was when the Slim was introduced) and the N64 had a 17-month gap between its first and second price cuts.

While the XBO will probably have a very good October showing, I still think we're a ways off from seeing it really hit its stride. Both the original Xbox and the 360 has a noticeable growth problem, taking multiple price cuts to get any decent growth to annual sales, and the XBO looks like it might follow suit. Even after a reduction from $500 to $350 after Kinect being unbundled and the core system getting a $50 price cut, it's still lagging behing the PS4. Even with Halo it's looking to be a close month. But I have a feeling that we'll see a $300 XBO Slim released in summer or fall next year, and if so the following year or so will probably be the XBO's best months sales-wise. By that point it'll probably have no hope of catching up to the PS4 in the U.S., but it should amass pretty good sales in its best market.

I think the effects of a $50 price cut has been undervalued. PS3 had a $100 price cut and then went from 52k a week to almost 100k a week.  Halo ODST helped 360 from 53k a week to 70k, a mainline Halo should make that 80k-90k imo. The Wii had a $50 price cut at the very end of September, going from 70k to 92k to 125k. It is definitely hard to predict with the PS4 though.

2009 Wii, 360, PS3, PS2, DS, PSP

August 277,400 215,400 210,000 105,900 552,900 140,300
September 462,800 352,600 491,800 146,000 524,200 190,400
October 506,900 249,700 320,600 117,800 457,600 174,600
November 1,260,000 819,500 710,400 203,100 1,700,000 293,900
December 3,810,000 1,310,000 1,360,000 333,200 3,310,000

654,700