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Forums - Sales Discussion - Global Hardware 17 November 2018

colafitte said:
CGI-Quality said:

Xbox isn't Nintendo or PlayStation. When you lower expectations, the picture gets a lot less grim. For a device that doesn't see big #s in JP/EU, 7m in its 5th year isn't too bad.

But why should we accept this? The original XBOX sold better than GameCube and X360 sold very good outside of US/UK and ended selling more than Wii in USA. You don't sell 80M+ if you're not globally succesful. Xbox should not be considered lower than the other two, because then it's unfair to the other two because it diminishes their efforts and success.

If XB is at the level of Nintendo and Playstation "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", If XB is not at the level of those two "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", but when Nintendo dropped the ball with WiiU and Sony did the same the first year of the PS3, nobody gave them excuses, even if they existed. They did "bad", period. If your competition is doing close to 20M sold per year and you're not even reaching 10M per year, you're way behind, and you're way behind because your product is not as popular as the others. And if you make the comparison with yourself, XBO in its 5th year is way behind X360 in its 5th year too.

You can say Xbox is doing fine financially at the moment, but if XBO were doing like X360 numbers in sales they would probably doing way better financially than PS4. So, in my opinion, if you're not reaching your potential, you're not doing good, in any case, you are just not doing bad, but is that enough?

In sport terms, if Lebron James was averaging 10 points per game less than normal this year, he still would be doing good numbers for a NBA player, but he would be critized for not reaching his potential. XB is doing All Star numbers, when it should be aspiring to do MVP numbers. 

And I'm pretty sure Microsoft right now must be doing everything they can for the next gen to be ready to get back to the position they were with X360....

I kinda agree with some of your points but disagree with the others:

First of all, WiiU is not really a valid comparison as it sold way worse than Xbox One currently is. Xbox One will end up outselling WiiU 4:1 or even 5:1. So, it is definitely not the kind of disaster WiiU was for Nintendo.

Second - actually it already happened and there is nothing MS can do actually. There is no way for them to sell as much as their competition sells. My original post was dedicated to their decline that we see here. XB1 seems to end this year even worse than the last. And the last year was already pretty bad. That's the real problem here. Not that they can't reach PS/Switch numbers as it is already impossible at this point in the gen.

I do agree with you though that it is not something that should be considered as a norm in general. They lost the gen because of their own huge mistakes in 2013.So, this is what they get for it. Better luck next gen maybe.



 

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Its not bad that Xbox One sold 7 million. But unless they have a new system up their sleeve next year it’s sales will be worse. And they are in last place for 2018 not just globally but even strictly in the USA.



CGI-Quality said:
colafitte said:

But why should we accept this? The original XBOX sold better than GameCube and X360 sold very good outside of US/UK and ended selling more than Wii in USA. You don't sell 80M+ if you're not globally succesful. Xbox should not be considered lower than the other two, because then it's unfair to the other two because it diminishes their efforts and success.

If XB is at the level of Nintendo and Playstation "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", If XB is not at the level of those two "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", but when Nintendo dropped the ball with WiiU and Sony did the same the first year of the PS3, nobody gave them excuses, even if they existed. They did "bad", period. If your competition is doing close to 20M sold per year and you're not even reaching 10M per year, you're way behind, and you're way behind because your product is not as popular as the others. And if you make the comparison with yourself, XBO in its 5th year is way behind X360 in its 5th year too.

You can say Xbox is doing fine financially at the moment, but if XBO were doing like X360 numbers in sales they would probably doing way better financially than PS4. So, in my opinion, if you're not reaching your potential, you're not doing good, in any case, you are just not doing bad, but is that enough?

In sport terms, if Lebron James was averaging 10 points per game less than normal this year, he still would be doing good numbers for a NBA player, but he would be critized for not reaching his potential. XB is doing All Star numbers, when it should be aspiring to do MVP numbers. 

And I'm pretty sure Microsoft right now must be doing everything they can for the next gen to be ready to get back to the position they were with X360....

Why should you accept it? Because that's the way it is. It isn't about fairness. As a global brand, Xbox is weaker than its competitors. That's how business works.

What i was trying to say is that Xbox brand per se, shoud not be considered "weaker than its competitors", because we were not discussing specific consoles but brands. Like you said, business works as it works and its verdict was that XBO did not as good as the others. Should have been considered Nintendo was weaker than Playstation back in 2013-2014, when WiiU was doing bad numbers??. Don't tell me you're going to say Nintendo is weaker than Playstation!!...XD. Nintendo is Nintendo, and they knew they could do better and then, they did with Switch.



CGI-Quality said:
colafitte said:

But why should we accept this? The original XBOX sold better than GameCube and X360 sold very good outside of US/UK and ended selling more than Wii in USA. You don't sell 80M+ if you're not globally succesful. Xbox should not be considered lower than the other two, because then it's unfair to the other two because it diminishes their efforts and success.

If XB is at the level of Nintendo and Playstation "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", If XB is not at the level of those two "oh look, Xbox is doing phenomally", but when Nintendo dropped the ball with WiiU and Sony did the same the first year of the PS3, nobody gave them excuses, even if they existed. They did "bad", period. If your competition is doing close to 20M sold per year and you're not even reaching 10M per year, you're way behind, and you're way behind because your product is not as popular as the others. And if you make the comparison with yourself, XBO in its 5th year is way behind X360 in its 5th year too.

You can say Xbox is doing fine financially at the moment, but if XBO were doing like X360 numbers in sales they would probably doing way better financially than PS4. So, in my opinion, if you're not reaching your potential, you're not doing good, in any case, you are just not doing bad, but is that enough?

In sport terms, if Lebron James was averaging 10 points per game less than normal this year, he still would be doing good numbers for a NBA player, but he would be critized for not reaching his potential. XB is doing All Star numbers, when it should be aspiring to do MVP numbers. 

And I'm pretty sure Microsoft right now must be doing everything they can for the next gen to be ready to get back to the position they were with X360....

Why should you accept it? Because that's the way it is. It isn't about fairness. As a global brand, Xbox is weaker than its competitors. That's how business works.

Now of course, Microsoft can surely do more to improve their situation (and they have started to do that), but 7m in its 5th year only looks 'bad' if you expect the brand to sell like the others. And that's just not how it works.

The problem here is not the brand itself actually. It is one specific console. With which they did some serious mistakes by positioning and marketing it at launch. The excuse of brand being weaker globally is not really that great as it makes you wonder what exactly have they been doing for almost 20 years. They've been in this market for almost the same time as Sony and still haven't managed to expand the way Playstation did? I don't actually think there is a problem with the brand recognition. While 360 sold 80m+ for the most part because of very strong US presence and still lost in EU/JP, in its days, Xbox brand was somewhat recognised worldwide.   



 

Great sales over all, think Switch might be down a bit from actual numbers. Like last year Switch destroyed VGchartz numbers for the holiday season, maybe it's happening with those number as well for it being so major.
But if they are somewhat on point, it's still great.



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derpysquirtle64 said:

I kinda agree with some of your points but disagree with the others:

First of all, WiiU is not really a valid comparison as it sold way worse than Xbox One currently is. Xbox One will end up outselling WiiU 4:1 or even 5:1. So, it is definitely not the kind of disaster WiiU was for Nintendo.

Second - actually it already happened and there is nothing MS can do actually. There is no way for them to sell as much as their competition sells. My original post was dedicated to their decline that we see here. XB1 seems to end this year even worse than the last. And the last year was already pretty bad. That's the real problem here. Not that they can't reach PS/Switch numbers as it is already impossible at this point in the gen.

I do agree with you though that it is not something that should be considered as a norm in general. They lost the gen because of their own huge mistakes in 2013.So, this is what they get for it. Better luck next gen maybe.

Yeah, you're right but there isn't a fair 1:1 comparison with a Nintendo or Playstation console, because Nintendo consoles sells too well or too bad and PS have not bad selling console yet (at least home console).

And with your second, I agree again. Xbox One will never be able to reach 15-20M a year, but when people say, that XBO in 2018, did "phenomally", to me that's a lie, and it's unfair to the others. if XBO this year, thanks to X and Game Pass reached, for example 10M sales, i would be the first to say that XBO in 2018 did "good". It showed progress. But if in 2018 you're only reaching the levels you had before last year that was you worst year ever...., that's not good at all.



drinkandswim said:
Its not bad that Xbox One sold 7 million. But unless they have a new system up their sleeve next year it’s sales will be worse. And they are in last place for 2018 not just globally but even strictly in the USA.

That's what got me thinking as well. Now, they are slowly approaching the danger line. If this year they can't reach 7m, I think we should expect around 5m next year. And we almost definitely know that their next console most likely not coming out until 2020, especially considering the newest leak that it will use Zen 2 and next-gen AMD GPU. So, if they really only manage to sell 5m in 2019, 2020 would be really sad with around 3-4m consoles for the whole year until the next Xbox drops.The right thing to do would be try to make some price cuts. Base console for 150$ and One X for 400$ probably will help. Also would be interesting to see if the recent rumours of cheap disk-less SKU is true. Could really help them in 2019.



 

derpysquirtle64 said:
drinkandswim said:
Its not bad that Xbox One sold 7 million. But unless they have a new system up their sleeve next year it’s sales will be worse. And they are in last place for 2018 not just globally but even strictly in the USA.

That's what got me thinking as well. Now, they are slowly approaching the danger line. If this year they can't reach 7m, I think we should expect around 5m next year. And we almost definitely know that their next console most likely not coming out until 2020, especially considering the newest leak that it will use Zen 2 and next-gen AMD GPU. So, if they really only manage to sell 5m in 2019, 2020 would be really sad with around 3-4m consoles for the whole year until the next Xbox drops.The right thing to do would be try to make some price cuts. Base console for 150$ and One X for 400$ probably will help. Also would be interesting to see if the recent rumours of cheap disk-less SKU is true. Could really help them in 2019.

Price cuts would only work in USA/UK, and i don't think it will make that much of a difference. And in the rest of the world....XBO is almost nonexistant, even if they sell the console at 100€ in countries like Spain or Germany, XBO would probably still be selling way less than the others....



CGI is right. You don't see a single Xbox on the top 5 of best selling console ever. It's only Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft's brand in the console business is not as big as the other two.



Mummelmann said:
Huge bump for Switch, I pity the Xbox though, I think we may see a new one in a year or so. 

 

 

You don’t honestly believe MS will release their next console only two years after the last one?