| Sansui said: The Xbox 360 has been out for a little over two and a half years and is at 19 mil. In the same timeframe, the PS2 sold 30 million systems, while also having the advantage of being the reigning champion of the previous generation. The 360 will never hit ps2 numbers, but I think 50-60million is a reasonable estimate even without the support of Japan. MS have shown themselves to be much more aggressive this generation, and have promised to support the 360 for an extended life, unlike the first xbox |
I assume when you say "in the same timeframe" for the PS2, you are talking about 2.5 years. If that's the case, then that's not a completely fair comparison, since the PS2 was only out in Japan during 8 of thouse 30 months. Since the Americas and Others account for roughly 85% of the total market, and the PS2 was not on sale for nearly 25% of the timeframe, it's actually amazing that the PS2 still managed to beat the Xbox360 by 10 million.
Now, looking at this America graph, this Others graph, and this Japan graph, you can see that the 360 isn't do so much better than the Xbox that you can say that it will double the sales of the Xbox. The PS2, through 3 years on the market (or 156 weeks with 52 weeks in a year), sold about 50 million, while the Xbox managed about 18 million. Now, if the 360 manages to get to 25 million by the 156 week (which should occur mid November or so), the 360 will have about 50% of sales that the PS2 had at the same point in its life. Now we could easily assume that using this ratio, the 360 will hit 50% of the PS2 lifetime totals, or about 65 million or so. But I highly doubt this will be the case, for a few reasons.
Reason number one: Not the market leader. Market leaders usually have higher sales, and thus better sales curves. If you're peak year is only 9 million units, the downfall is going to be worse than the console with a peak year of 20 million.
Take for example, the Xbox. Peak year: 2004 with 6.98 million units. 2005 sold 3.62 million, a drop of almost 50%. 2006? A million units or so (though Microsoft killed the Xbox in 2006). Take the GameCube as well. Peak year: 2003 with 6.05 million units sold. 2004 saw 4.44 million sold, a 25% drop, and then in 2005 40% drop to 2.74 million units, and then another million in 2006. On the other hand, the PS2's peak year was 2002 with 21 million. Then in 2003 with 18 million units, a 12% drop. 2004 saw 16 million more units, a mere 14% drop. 2005 saw a slight increase to 17.5 million units. Then it started dropping, 30% in 2006 to 12 million units, and 9 million in 2007, a 23% drop.
Now, since the 360 is not going to do as "bad" as the Xbox did, but isn't going to do as well as the PS2, it's percentage growth and decline should fall somewhere in the middle (in theory). This is how I based my predictions for sales trends over the next 4 years (ending 2012). And I got 26 million units in America, 900k in Japan, and 12 million in Others, which is a good increase for each territory (the Xbox had 15 million in Americas, 500k in Japan, and 7.7 million in Others.
Now looking at the graphs above, and what I have pointed out (and my sales predictions), can you really say that the 360 is going to do so much better than the Xbox? Ignoring Japan (or not ignoring, but it's such a minor detail), the 360 isn't doubling the Xbox's sales, so even with a few more years on the market (though remember the longer you go, without being completely dominate), you're sales start to fall, and it becomes harder and harder to get good sales.
Reason number two: Just because Microsoft "promises" to support the 360 longer doesn't mean they will, and doesn't mean the 360 will have amazing sales going into 2011 either. I bet Nintendo was heavily supporting the GameCube, and it sold a measly 2.74 million in 2005 and a million in 2006 (even with the release of the Wii being at the end of the year, and a new Zelda game).
Reason number three: eliasg (whether being sarcastic or not) brings it up perfectly: another FPS isn't going to bring in new crowds. If you haven't decided to get a 360 because of Halo 3, Bioshock, Mass Effect, COD4, Gears of War, GTA4 (to a point I guess), then another FPS isn't going to turn you over. Also, we all saw the amazingly boring boost that GTA4 gave the two consoles? Or what about Halo 3? These boost are neither all that impressive or lasting. Price cuts have similar problems, they don't boost the sales enough, nor they do elevate it for very long.
