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Forums - Sales Discussion - November 2016 NPD Thread! Hardware estimates in the OP!

SWORDF1SH on 19 December 2016
3sexty said:
SWORDF1SH said:

You are entitled to your opinion and I'm entitled to laugh at it if I think it's stupid. You opinion that the console market is dying from one NPD that covers only the US is hilariously stupid. I really think it is and that's my opinion. Hense the LMAO.

I don't know how many times I have to tell you, the PS4 is trending on par or more than last year worlwide. That almost an entire years worth of data for the whole market against the data you used (1 month and 1 market). But you want to completely ignore this and then use the "it's a NPD thread" excuse to avoid talking about it. If you want to talk about an issue that is a worldwide thing, guess what? You have to talk about worldwide figures.

As for the console market dying, no it's not going to dies anytime soon. Shrink maybe but with Switch around the corner and Scorpio at the end of the year, I can't see that happening in the next few years.

Now about MS being prepared more that Sony, maybe, but I only see MS moving from consoles hardware to PC hardware. Do you think it's only gaming consoles that are going to die or all gaming hardware like gaming PCs, gaming PCs in a box (Steam box possible Scorpio) and consoles (handheld and home)? What do you think to Sony having PS Now, a service that can stream games? As far as I'm aware MS do not have anything like that (despite your claims that they do). PS Now is something that doesn't really on consoles and can be ran on any cheap laptop and smart TV. Isn't that not more prepared than anything that MS for a future without gaming hardware?

Ok that's heaps better. My opinion based theories were contingent on ifs and buts, and beginning signs of a gradual decline rather than a fall of a cliff so to speak - yeh so not quite as dramatic.  Then it appears that neither of us can explain the November NPD anomaly - falling short of any far fetched or stupid theories as you would like to put them. Maybe that was just a freak month for unknown reasons? Who knows and Dec may see a reverse trend? Regarding PS Now I did make a comment about that previously - up a couple of posts.

 

Your theory isn't stupid but basing it on one month of NPD is what I find silly.

As for why the month is down, it could be a number of reasons but as mentioned in a previous reply to you, last year was insanely good for both Playstation and Xbox so being down from last year isn't necessarily bad when last year was so good. 

The reasons it could be down are lack of bundles for PlayStation, Cyber Monday and December could pick up some of the slack, CoD losing popularity, Halo is better at selling Xboxs than Gears or this year's software line up is less compelling than last year.



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SWORDF1SH on 19 December 2016
Welfare said:
JRPGfan said:

Supposedly the PSVR numbers (from the neogaf thread):

PSVR October - 155,000
PSVR November - >70,000

So more than 225k americans own a PSVR headset.

Windows Central also said PSVR was 68,000 and John Harker said around 225K, so October was probably 155K - 160K.

Yeah that's pretty good. It should be easily over 500k worldwide now.



Lawlight on 19 December 2016
Soundwave said:
That's a "win" for the XBox then in my books. They had no business even being close with Sony having a new PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro models for the month.

It's not considering how cheap X1s were going for.



Zekkyou on 19 December 2016

If the 1m and 1.1m numbers are true, then that's pretty depressing for everyone involved. The PS4 significantly down YOY despite the Pro's release, and X1 significantly down YOY in a region that represents 60%+ of its sales.



Soundwave on 19 December 2016
Lawlight said:
Soundwave said:
That's a "win" for the XBox then in my books. They had no business even being close with Sony having a new PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro models for the month.

It's not considering how cheap X1s were going for.

There were discounts on PS4s at places too, so that's not a one way street. 

XBox should not have been even close to Sony this month, the whole line of reasoning we've heard the last 5-6 months is PS4 sales have been held down by people waiting for the PS4 Pro, but that doesn't look like the case to me. 



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Plerpy_ on 19 December 2016
Insidb said:
3sexty said:

Ur LAMO Buddy...or is that LMAO Buddy/Pal thingy !  I'm terrible with all that lingo stuff :)

I know it's really dumb, but I can't recall what movie it's from: "I'm not your 'buddy,' pal!"

It's from South Park.

I'm not your friend, buddy.

He's not your buddy, guy.

I'm not your guy, friend.



GProgrammer on 19 December 2016

Bad numbers for both the Machines, Will December be equally as bad? I think not due to the pricecuts



3sexty on 19 December 2016
Insidb said:
3sexty said:

Ur LAMO Buddy...or is that LMAO Buddy/Pal thingy !  I'm terrible with all that lingo stuff :)

I know it's really dumb, but I can't recall what movie it's from: "I'm not your 'buddy,' pal!"

Who u calling pal? buddy!....haha now I get it....



Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Gamertag:  GamertagOz70

3sexty on 19 December 2016
SWORDF1SH said:
3sexty said:

Ok that's heaps better. My opinion based theories were contingent on ifs and buts, and beginning signs of a gradual decline rather than a fall of a cliff so to speak - yeh so not quite as dramatic.  Then it appears that neither of us can explain the November NPD anomaly - falling short of any far fetched or stupid theories as you would like to put them. Maybe that was just a freak month for unknown reasons? Who knows and Dec may see a reverse trend? Regarding PS Now I did make a comment about that previously - up a couple of posts.

 

Your theory isn't stupid but basing it on one month of NPD is what I find silly.

As for why the month is down, it could be a number of reasons but as mentioned in a previous reply to you, last year was insanely good for both Playstation and Xbox so being down from last year isn't necessarily bad when last year was so good. 

The reasons it could be down are lack of bundles for PlayStation, Cyber Monday and December could pick up some of the slack, CoD losing popularity, Halo is better at selling Xboxs than Gears or this year's software line up is less compelling than last year.

Ok the COD bundle factor is a really good point.  That sold like crazy last year.  Insanely popular.  



Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Gamertag:  GamertagOz70

Aura7541 on 19 December 2016
Soundwave said:
Lawlight said:

It's not considering how cheap X1s were going for.

There were discounts on PS4s at places too, so that's not a one way street. 

XBox should not have been even close to Sony this month, the whole line of reasoning we've heard the last 5-6 months is PS4 sales have been held down by people waiting for the PS4 Pro, but that doesn't look like the case to me. 

It's not a one way street, but was obvious which company was the more aggressive of the two. It wasn't just discounts, but also the availability of different XBO bundles while there was only one bundle for the PS4. The Pro stayed at $399 and when holiday season sales are dictated by price, it wasn't going to sell a whole lot. It did get discounted to $340 because of Target's 15% off everything deal and Amazon's subsequent pricematching, but that happened on Sunday which is the after the last day of the November NPD period.

Plus, Microsoft released another new SKU at the beginning of November: the blue XBO Gears 4 bundle. It was competitively priced and was sold at Gamestop, the biggest video game retailer in the US, so it definitely played a role in preventing the gap from getting bigger than 100K. Other factors such as Battlefield 1 being a really good game while Infinite Warfare greatly underwhelming the audience were out of Sony's (and Microsoft's) control. On top of that, Sony did not release an Infinite Warfare LE bundle this time whereas it did for Black Ops 3 last November.

Overall, it really isn't that surprising how small the gap was. SIEA seemed to be more focused on maximizing revenue (keeping the Pro at full price through BF and selling only one bundle in which the bundled game is 1st party). Microsoft was clearly the more aggressive company because of the plethora of deals and bundles for consumers to choose from.