Will XBox 360 reach 50 million?

[Slimebeast]

Stever89 said:

@Slimebeast

I'm sorry to disappoint, but I just cannot see it happening. I'm betting pretty big on this fact too, since I'm shorting a lot of shares of 360 stock over at SimExchange. Over 3 years, with the year starting the day that the 360 launched in NA, and assuming it gets to about 24 million by that point this year (it won't get a holiday boost yet), that would mean it has only averaged 7 million a year, even with one of the best lineups last holiday season. Yet you seem to believe it will increase yearly sales by about 2.5 million this year, even without the big hitters like Halo 3, Mass Effect, Bioshock, I could go on. You even said "The X360 has the BEST game support" which is an opinion in any case, yet it can't even manage sales similar to the PS2 in it's waning years (since the PS2 sold more in 2007 than the 360 did).

Now, every console for which we have solid yearly data, sales normally peak during the 3rd year (which the 360 is currently in), then start to decline. There are, however, slight differences in how the 3 markets work with this trend. My findings show Japan starts to decline first, but are quicker to adopt a console (hence why the PS3 will never win there, it was too late after the first year, but even the Wii's peak year is probably already behind it). The America's market starts at a good pace, increases up to the third year, then declines after that. Others has normally been slower to start the adoption process, but makes up for it in "legs," with the 5th year of the PS2 in Others being its best year, then dropping quickly. Here's a very quick picture to kind of illustrate this (you don't have to view it if you don't want to). It's just a rough drawing, and doesn't represent sales trends 100%, but you'll get the idea (I hope).

So all-in-all, even with price drops, and the great games that the 360 already has (and with more to come), it's unlikely that the 360 will hit much higher than 9 million in 2008, and then over the next 4 years (which would mean a lifespan of 7 years), to hit another 20 million, would have to average 5 million a year (which is about what I'd expect it to do). 7 million in 2009, 5 million in 2010, and then 2 million in 2011 and 2012, which is about 16 million, plus 24 million, equals 40 million. 

Even assuming a little more generous sales decline (though that decline was more generous than the Xbox and GC decline, which is what they were based off of), one could assume 8 million in 2009, 6 million 2010, 5 million 2011, and then 3 million in 2012 (release of X720 lowers sales a bit more), or about 43 million (which I guess is more than my "40 million max" but still).

 

You are a great number cruncher, but there is a huge flaw in your prediction.

You think only in terms of "consoles usually peak in it's X year, then drop off" and really only have data from last gen to base this upon.

I'll go right at the point. The "general feel" of this gen, is that it is only 1.5 years old (since launch of PS3 n Wii).

In June in Xbox's peak year, 2004, which was it's third lifetime year just as 2008 is X360's third lifetime year, the generation was actually perceived as being already 3.5 years old (counting from the US launch of PS2 in Nov 2000).

So obviously the Xbox was gonna have it's peak in 2004 and drop off from there.

So Im saying that u cant just align 2004 of Xbox with 2008 of X360 and draw all conclusions from that! There is a big difference when you are releasing 1 year ahead of the others, compared with being 1 year late!