Eugene, read this:


The 360 used to sell over 50% of the software when it had over 50% of the userbase. Now it doesn't have over 50% o the userbase so it doesn't sell over 50% of the software.


That's it. The change just happened to occur in November. You can blame Galaxy all you want, but COD4 outsold Galaxy anyway. This will happen again in December. 360 might even win software, but if history has shown us anything, it won't break 50%, and maybe never will again.

Hey tokilamockingbrd, let's start another conversation while they keep going at it.

You had any good ramen recently? Today I made a little bowl of lime chili ramen, but I added lemon pepper, garlic salt, some soba broth, and Sriracha. It was amazing.

@ Bod, I dont even believe that everyone agrees with you, I think they all just want to piss on the Xbox 360 even if they dont understand the arguement. And also, Ive come to the conculsion, that your a pretty intelligent guy as youve managed to argue with me for this length of time, but I find that your methodology is flawed. The conclusion you made is spot on just not how you came about it.

Bodhesatva's points, broken down individually:

The 360 has more software market share than hardware market share by a small amount (3%-5%). The 360 has the most hardware sold in North America. These two things combined mean the 360 is the best software mover in North America at the moment. With me so far?

The PS3 and Wii hardware sales have now given them over 50% of the hardware in North America. This means that combined the Playstation 3 and Wii represent a little over half of the hardware sold in the continent. Before this month though the Wii and Playstation 3 represented both less than 50% of the hardware and less than 50% of the software. Now that they represent more than 50% of the hardware they are also representing more than 50% of the software.

What this implies is that while the 360 has a software weekly attach rate advantage over both the Playstation 3 and Wii, it's not as large an advantage as some seem to believe. This implies that when a platform (the Wii for example) passes the 360 in hardware sales by 10% or more in North America, it will also pass it in software sales in North America.

It's also notable that in worldwide sales, the Wii (without a huge hardware advantage) sells far more software each week than the Xbox 360 for the last 4 weeks.

Now that that's been resolved, your complaint is that Super Mario Galaxy artificially inflates these numbers, but every time a game is released software sales are raised, and since the Xbox 360 got 2 releases (CoD4 and Assassin's Creed) which combined had a much larger individual attach rate than SMG, it's clear that a November software comparison is in no way biased towards the Wii's single major release when the 360 had at least 2, and 3 if you count Mass Effect. One of those titles was even out a week longer!

 

eugene said: @ Bod, I dont even believe that everyone agrees with you, I think they all just want to piss on the Xbox 360 even if they dont understand the arguement. And also, Ive come to the conculsion, that your a pretty intelligent guy as youve managed to argue with me for this length of time, but I find that your methodology is flawed. The conclusion you made is spot on just not how you came about it.

The only one who has trouble understanding this is you eugene. Clearly everyone else understands, as they have taken time out of their busy lives to try and explain it to you.  There have been no attacks made on the 360 in this topic.  All that's happening here is numbers analysis.  That's what we do on a game sales site.  If you don't want to participate in analysis of any numbers that do not favor your system then I highly recommend you find another site to frequent.

had not had ramen for a while on christmas break from college and am pretty sick of ramen...
Had a chicken sandwich. mmm that was good.... Nothen better than Watchen Casino Royale at 3 in the morn eaten a chicken sandwich

RolStoppable said: eugene said: Like I said, I agree 100% that the 360 is not a software behemoth. That is not even something I believe. Im argueing more at how he comes to that conclusion. Software attach rates or marketshare difference from month over month does not prove it. The method is fine and works, but the sampling is too small. It needs to be bigger, like a year over year analysis. In essence, I agree with the entire post except the sampling is way too small and distorted to come to any conclusion. IF GT 5 launches in January and the PS 3 gets 60% of the software marketshare, can we assume that the PS3 is now a software selling behemoth? No, cause its distorted and the sampling one month is too small to come to any conclusion. But how should he make a year over year analysis without any available data? Besides the sample are the two most recent months which had overall software releases of similar size on all consoles, so the sample is good enough for now. It's not that any console had an unfair advantage, every system had its fair share of big games during these two months.  Before you bring up Galaxy again, that game sold 1.1m, while CoD4 for the 360 sold 1.5m.

Total sales of one game in a month have nothing to do with attach rates or average software marketshare difference. CoD4 may have sold more, but it has a higher installed base and its not as much of a diffrenciator as Mario Galaxy on average sales. Official Mario games come once a generation and CoD is an annual multiplatform game. That is why one month analysis is distorted always. It was also wrong to keep nothing alful software sales at all in its first year. Nothing can be conclusive until a bigger sample is given like a full year analysis on software sales.

 

Bodhesatva said: And yet, the 360 only managed 54 percent software market share, compared to 51 percent hardware marketshare. I say only, because shouldn't it have done way better with all those amazing games, if it really were an unmatchable software seller? It's software marketshare was 3 percent higher! One last time: Is that good? Yes. Does it suggest the 360 sells software at a rate the PS3 or Wii simply cannot match? No.

So far neither the PS3 or Wii has matched the 360's hardware to software ratio.

The 360 currently has a 6.59 hardware to software ratio.*

The PS3 currently has a 3.58 hardware to software ratio.*

The Wii currently has a 3.44 hardware to software ratio.*

Of course this is an unfair comparison since the 360 has been out an extra year but at 10 months the 360's hardware to software ratio was 4.6**.  Also the 360 is now at 6.6 which is a record for a console at this stage in it's life cycle***.  Another thing that is mentioned in the Joystiq article is the fact that Wii Play is included in the Wii's hardware to software ratio dispite the fact that it's esentially a $10 extra included with a Wiimote.  Without it the Wii's hardware to software ratio would be around 3.0.

*source: http://www.joystiq.com/2007/10/31/360-leads-hardware-to-software-ratio-wii-and-ps3-trail-with-sim/

**source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=18962

***source: http://palgn.com.au/article.php?id=9821&sid=0413127a7ee27f2da5524e7bfa7c1643&title=Xbox+360+sells+300%2C000+consoles+in+ANZ

I'm living off ramen 'cuz I'm stuck in college for another week. It's only midnight over here, and I'm getting hungry as hell, but I don't want to eat ramen twice in one day, but I don't really have any other options. It's ramen or crappy TV dinners. I forgot to buy eggs again too. I think I'm going to cook my sister's weird vegan sausages. She's out of town anyway, the sucker. I should really learn how to cook something else.

eugene said: RolStoppable said: eugene said: Like I said, I agree 100% that the 360 is not a software behemoth. That is not even something I believe. Im argueing more at how he comes to that conclusion. Software attach rates or marketshare difference from month over month does not prove it. The method is fine and works, but the sampling is too small. It needs to be bigger, like a year over year analysis. In essence, I agree with the entire post except the sampling is way too small and distorted to come to any conclusion. IF GT 5 launches in January and the PS 3 gets 60% of the software marketshare, can we assume that the PS3 is now a software selling behemoth? No, cause its distorted and the sampling one month is too small to come to any conclusion. But how should he make a year over year analysis without any available data? Besides the sample are the two most recent months which had overall software releases of similar size on all consoles, so the sample is good enough for now. It's not that any console had an unfair advantage, every system had its fair share of big games during these two months.  Before you bring up Galaxy again, that game sold 1.1m, while CoD4 for the 360 sold 1.5m.  Total sales of one game in a month have nothing to do with attach rates or average software marketshare difference. CoD4 may have sold more, but it has a higher installed base and its not as much of a diffrenciator as Mario Galaxy on average sales. Official Mario games come once a generation and CoD is an annual multiplatform game. That is why one month analysis is distorted always. It was also wrong to keep nothing alful software sales at all in its first year. Nothing can be conclusive until a bigger sample is given like a full year analysis on software sales.

That was a nice post 666.... congrats