Hi,
One of the main themes about console sales has always been that with a price cut, more numbers of consoles are sold. I wanted to look at the numbers and see how true that is. While I do agree that a cheaper console would mean that more people would want to buy it, but I always thought that it only attracts new people. I personally thought the number of units sold per month would stay the same. To better explain my view, I thought that even if there were a price cut, the number of units sold would not necassarily change. For instance, if there was a price cut for the xbox360, it would still be selling around 275k a month as it is doing now.
My point being, the only thing that really matters are the games, not price cuts. I have looked at the numbers for Playstation2, PS1, Xbox and Gamecube. I still have not finished my work with the numbers, but I will put up PS2 numbers here. Wait for future numbers. (I'll try to squeeze them in my free time)
Here I will put up a chart containing sales and price cuts.
| Console | Amount of units sold | Months with the same price | Price (Yen) | Unit sales per month | Price decrease | Unit sales increase |
| Ps2 | 4.75 | 16 | 39800 | 296 | ||
| Ps2 | 2.1 | 5 | 35000 | 420 | 12.0% | 124 |
| Ps2 | 5.85 | 18 | 29800 | 325 | 14.8% | -95 |
| Ps2 | 0.9 | 3 | 25000 | 300 | 16.1% | -25 |
| Ps2 | 3.48 | 9 | 19800 | 387 | 20.8% | 87 |
| Ps2 | 6.57 | 15 | 17800 | 438 | 10.1% | 51 |
| Console | Amount of units sold | Months with the same price | Price (US Dollar) | Unit sales per month | Price decrease | Unit sales increase |
| Ps2 | 10.59 | 18 | 299 | 589 | ||
| Ps2 | 11.62 | 12 | 199 | 960 | 33.4% | 371 |
| Ps2 | 7.32 | 12 | 179 | 610 | 10.0% | -350 |
| Ps2 | 12.29 | 24 | 149 | 512 | 16.7% | -98 |
| Console | Amount of units sold | Months with the same price | Price (Euros) | Unit sales per month | Price decrease | Unit sales increase |
| Ps2 | 8.44 | 22 | 500 | 298 | ||
| Ps2 | 7.85 | 12 | 260 | 654 | 48% | 356 |
| Ps2 | 8.5 | 12 | 199 | 708 | 23.4% | 54 |
| Ps2 | 13.81 | 23 | 149 | 600 | 25.1% | -108 |
source: http://www.scei.co.jp/corporate/data/index_e.html
While price cuts do generally increase the number of units sold per month, it doesn't have the effect that some people here think it might. Some price cuts didn't work either and units sold per month actually decreased.
In my opinion it is all about the games. Price cuts wont necassarily work.
Wait for future analysis.
