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Forums - Sales Discussion - Why x1 will not win US even at 329$ CROW THREAD

This is all done according to the infoscout report of black friday sales.

A lot of people think that MS can continue to win US with the same price, but I will show you that they cannot. It is simply not possible.
To start, here are the year to date sales for 2014 not including black friday.

XB1: 2.5m
PS4: 3.3m

This translates to a per week of 53k and 70k with Sony taking 57% market share, and xb1; 43%

Now, Black friday sales were as follows
x1: 729k
PS4: 554k

Infoscout asked the purchasers if they were buying for a child. The response was YES...
x1: 66%
PS4: 45%

So, 66% of parents bought an xb1 for a child and 45% of ps4 purchasers as well.
If we assume that normally, these purchases wouldn't exist except for birthdays, we can figure that on average, people will buy
x1: 248k
ps4: 305k

This number is inflated due to holiday increase. People simply buy more consoles during the holiday, even for themselves. Generally, this would be affected by price and value. The important thing to notice is that the market share between the two is 45% to 55% in ps4's favor.

What we can conclude therefore, is that even at a lower price, 329-349$ for an xb1, ps4 will still be outselling it in the US by about 15k per week on average during the regular year. (currently 17k per week)

On top of which, these sales have now set precedent for xb1 to have better prices and value during the holiday, which will likely consolidate sales to those periods, lowering per week sales even more.

Basically, the reasoning you have here is that because ps4 purchasers are on average an older demographic, they are more able to afford the purchase during the year, where as younger audiences have to wait until it is bought as a gift, or after saving up for a while.
Last gen, Nielsen did a report which concluded that users of the systems as per nielsen scan survery was this:
Main demographic:
Wii:
Males 6-11
Females 25-34
X360:
Males 12-17
Females 25-34
PS4:
Males and females: 18-24

This is supported by holiday sales.

The PS3 sold consistently less during the final 10 weeks (where holiday purchases kick in) than during the year, while the 360 and wii sold the same and sometimes more during holidays. OTOH, ps3 also outsold both during the regular year.

We can apply the same method to these consoles using the infoscout numbers:

  2010 2011 2012 2010 2011 2012
ps3 7.58 7.73 6.4 54.14% 55.17% 56.14%
x360 6.42 6.28 5 45.85% 44.82% 43.85%
  Holidays
ps3 5.84 5.67 5.37 47.82% 45% 48.68%
x360 6.37 6.93 5.66 52.17% 55% 51.31%
Minus presents
ps3 3.212 3.1185 2.9535 59.72% 56.96% 60.54%
x360 2.1658 2.3562 1.9244 40.27% 43.03% 39.45%

This nicely follows the curve for purchasing during the year, as based on the current gen percentages.
(Important note, that the last gen numbers here are WW, not US. x360 was winning every month in NPD US sales, where the converse is now true)



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Two factors that might change this....

1.) With more children getting the Xbox One this holiday, they will talk about it with their friends more. This could build it more with the younger generation. PS4 seems to skew older as it is..

2.) The PS4 sold SOOO well in its first year.. that sales might slow down heavily going into next year.. The Xbox One will likely stay at $349.. that price point might continue to help boost sales now.. where people were waiting to buy before..



XBLive: cpg716     PSN ID: cpg716  Steam: Luv4Tech77

Predictions on 12/01/15 - Generation 8 Totals:

PS4: 85-95m
X1: 55-65m
WiiU: 20-30m

Great analysis. But it's based on that InfoScout report, which was trash. So, I have take this with a grain of salt.

The analysis is valid, but not sound



@bmaker
why was the infoscout report trash?



One thing to note is that you are using infoscout's percentages for if people are buying their console for a child with vgchartz black friday sales. You shouldn't mix and match sources when they use different methods for collecting data.

In this case, Infoscout's survey was specifically based on reciepts from Walmart and Target and not the entire US video game market so its gift percentages are only valid for sales from Walmart and Target.

Xbox one held a 53% marketshare in those stores. PS4 held a 31% marketshare.
66% of xbox ones were sold as presents for kids. 45% of ps4 consoles were sold as presents for kids.
That means the marketshare in walmart and target look like this.
35% of consoles sold were xbox ones for kids
18% of consoles sold were xbox ones for adults
17% of consoles sold were ps4s for adults
14% of consoles sold were ps4s for kids.
16% of consoles sold were all other consoles for both adults and kids.

And this is just for Target and Walmart. We have no information on the rates from any other stores. Though I suspect both Target and Walmart both skew much more heavily to gift purchases for children than say gamestop.



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I think that the only data you can conclude is that the average PS4 gamer is older than the average XBO. Which is better is up for debate.



well if microsoft decides to keep the price cut we will realize if this is true next year



enrageorange said:

One thing to note is that you are using infoscout's percentages for if people are buying their console for a child with vgchartz black friday sales. You shouldn't mix and match sources when they use different methods for collecting data.

In this case, Infoscout's survey was specifically based on reciepts from Walmart and Target and not the entire US video game market so its gift percentages are only valid for sales from Walmart and Target.

Xbox one held a 53% marketshare in those stores. PS4 held a 31% marketshare.
66% of xbox ones were sold as presents for kids. 45% of ps4 consoles were sold as presents for kids.
That means the marketshare in target looks like this.
35% of consoles sold were xbox ones for kids
18% of consoles sold were xbox ones for not kids
17% of consoles sold were ps4s for not kids
14% of consoles sold were ps4s for kids.
16% of consoles sold were all other consoles for both adults and kids.

And this is just for Target and Walmart. We have no information on the rates from any other stores. Though I suspect both Target and Walmart sell far more consoles in general as gifts than a typical  gamestop or bestbuy.

walmart and target were also the two stores offering the best deals on xb1. Our data has the x1 at 40%, which could mean that 13% of the market was affected by the walmart and target discounts. Ps4 had no price drop in walmart and target any better than normal year bundles (slightly better with gta5 and tlou), and their market percentage matched our 31% data.

So, MCC + Unity and black flag @329$ can theoretically lift the xb1 above ps4 sales, if we take your analysis that 18% of xb1 were not for kids vs 17%. It's still extremely close.

On top of which, the numbers correspond for userbase age demographic over 4 years time, and with the numbers we've had in the US the full year.
Additionally, 53% and 31% reflect a marketshare between the "twins" as 58.5% to 41.5% favoring xb1, which aligns favorably with the past gen numbers of holiday vs yearly sales data.

I think it's pretty conclusive. Unless MS can keep a 329$ bundle with 3 games during the year, they will lose 2015 Q1-Q3



cpg716 said:
Two factors that might change this....

1.) With more children getting the Xbox One this holiday, they will talk about it with their friends more. This could build it more with the younger generation. PS4 seems to skew older as it is..

2.) The PS4 sold SOOO well in its first year.. that sales might slow down heavily going into next year.. The Xbox One will likely stay at $349.. that price point might continue to help boost sales now.. where people were waiting to buy before..

1) In my opinion, the opinion of children lost almost all importance since the PS1/2 days because the teens that played on SNES or Genesis are now adults that play. The dad will buy probably only one home console and it will be the one he wants, not his kid. Cattering younger games isn't necessarily good, since it is exactly what lead Nintendo to the disasters of N64, GC and Wii U.

2) I think it's almost impossible to slow down next year. Even the Wii, that was frontloaded, peaked only after 3 years. For PS4: 2016 > 2015 > 2014, at least. 2017 could even beat 2016.



cpg716 said:
Two factors that might change this....

1.) With more children getting the Xbox One this holiday, they will talk about it with their friends more. This could build it more with the younger generation. PS4 seems to skew older as it is..

2.) The PS4 sold SOOO well in its first year.. that sales might slow down heavily going into next year.. The Xbox One will likely stay at $349.. that price point might continue to help boost sales now.. where people were waiting to buy before..


1) I mean the same goes for every PS4 purchase as well.  People talk at every age bracket.

2) I disagree.  The PS4 sold very well before any of its "Biggest Hitters" came out, and so you would think now that it is going to get all of its big game sales will increase instead of decrease.  We are far from the point of saturation.