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Forums - Sales - Who is really in the lead?

Xyrax on 26 July 2007
your mother said:
Sqrl said:
misterd said:
Not Sony, of course (jab, jab) but with the new announcements of 360 and Wii sales, the Wii is just a little under 2,000,000 behind the 360.

But that doesn't count failure rates, does it? Would that be enough to put the Wii over the top?

What do you think?

If you are going by shipped numbers the Wii is 2 million behind, but I don't see the point in going by shipped number. See the only argument to going by shipped numbers is that "its the number that matters for the company" but in reality that number doesn't matter for the company nearly as much as the resulting profits so why not go by that number instead?

Ultimately the number that matters most to 3rd party developers and probably most gamers is the actual install base as it represents actual interest in the consol. And by those numbers the wii is only behind by about 600k.


Not really. As a developer I would be equally interested in attach rates.

A console with an actual install base of, say, 10m but with an attach rate of 1 would be much less attractive than a console with half that user base but with an attach rate of 4.

Edit: As a developer I could also care less about financials because as long as the install base and the attach rate makes my development costs add up, then all is well and merry for the developer!


This is wrong on so many levels. A devs isnt going to care about the attach rates. Thats twisting things in your favor. The devs really care about how THEIR games sells. A console with an attach rate of 1million doesnt matter if that dev releases their game and it sells poorly. 360 has the best attach rate in Japan. Do you think thats going to make devs place DQ10 on it? They dont care about attach they care about overall sales numbers. if console A has an attach rate of 0.5 but sells 500k of MY game while console B has a attach rate of 10 and sells 100k of my game while costing 2x as much to dev, I can assure you, I would go with console A every time.

 

The attach rates are really good in some situations, but you guys are getting out of hand with it. 



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misterd on 26 July 2007
Dolla Dolla said:
ioi said:
The numbers on the front page are "sold" - in the hands of customers. Microsoft's report numbers are shipped - "manufactured" so include items in transit, warehouses and shelves.

QFT

misterd, to make things a bit clearer if they aren't yet, I will paint the picture for you.

At the end of 2006, Microsoft said they "sold" 10.4 million consoles. Six months later they have "sold" 11.6 million consoles. That means that they would've only sold 1.2 million for 6 months, which is 200,000 a month.

Impossible.

In June, for NA alone, they sold 198k. Does that mean they only sold 2k for the whole of Japan and EU? Maybe Japan (joke!), but certainly not EU lol

VGC's numbers on the homepage count sold through numbers. They have a separate page for shipped here: http://vgchartz.com/worldcons.php

 

I do understand all that. I'm just saying, since all we have to go on are estimates of sales/shipped, but seem to have no reliable estimates of the number of "replacement" 360s, isn't it feasible that Nintendo actually has the larger user base right now? I mean, if the failure rate for 360s is anywhere near 10%, that means there's practically a tie, but if it's 20% the Wii would clearly be in the lead, no?

 



Dolla Dolla on 26 July 2007

I think it depends. Just because the failure right is high doesn't mean that those failed consoles weren't repaired and returned. If my console fails, and I send it in, and they send it back, I still have the console. They don't chuck machines, they revamp them, and recently they've been adding new heatsinks to the refurbs. So, I wouldn't take away from the 360s total due to failures, unless there was a massive study to see who gave up after a failed console as opposed to having it replaced.



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The Movie Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=6880
The Crow Eating Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=0&id=3886
The Betting Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?start=0&id=7104
Custom GIFs Thread: http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=18963
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your mother on 26 July 2007
Xyrax said:
your mother said:
Sqrl said:
misterd said:
Not Sony, of course (jab, jab) but with the new announcements of 360 and Wii sales, the Wii is just a little under 2,000,000 behind the 360.

But that doesn't count failure rates, does it? Would that be enough to put the Wii over the top?

What do you think?

If you are going by shipped numbers the Wii is 2 million behind, but I don't see the point in going by shipped number. See the only argument to going by shipped numbers is that "its the number that matters for the company" but in reality that number doesn't matter for the company nearly as much as the resulting profits so why not go by that number instead?

Ultimately the number that matters most to 3rd party developers and probably most gamers is the actual install base as it represents actual interest in the consol. And by those numbers the wii is only behind by about 600k.


Not really. As a developer I would be equally interested in attach rates.

A console with an actual install base of, say, 10m but with an attach rate of 1 would be much less attractive than a console with half that user base but with an attach rate of 4.

Edit: As a developer I could also care less about financials because as long as the install base and the attach rate makes my development costs add up, then all is well and merry for the developer!


This is wrong on so many levels. A devs isnt going to care about the attach rates. Thats twisting things in your favor. The devs really care about how THEIR games sells. A console with an attach rate of 1million doesnt matter if that dev releases their game and it sells poorly. 360 has the best attach rate in Japan. Do you think thats going to make devs place DQ10 on it? They dont care about attach they care about overall sales numbers. if console A has an attach rate of 0.5 but sells 500k of MY game while console B has a attach rate of 10 and sells 100k of my game while costing 2x as much to dev, I can assure you, I would go with console A every time.

 

The attach rates are really good in some situations, but you guys are getting out of hand with it.


Um... read the follow-ups to what you've quoted?

Actually, we don't disagree. There are many factors to consider - I neglected to mention them, and said so myself. I'm not intentionally twisting things in anyone's favor.

But how do you derive sales potential anyhow? Certainly attach rates and install base, not to mention what Sqrl stated about cost to manufacture all play their roles in calculating a title's sales potential, right? 



Sqrl on 26 July 2007

@xyrax,

 

Yeah you missed a lot of stuff I think.  I won't speak for others but what I am saying is that attach rate is a factor not just a number they look at but probably a multiplier actually.

 

For example the analysis might look something like this....

(Install Base) x (Avg Market Penetration for Genre) = (Sellthrough Amount) 

(Est. Cost to Produce) +  (Est. Cost to Market) + (Est. Cost to Publish) = (Total Costs)

((Sellthrough Amount) * (Standard Game Price) )  - (All "Middleman" profits) = (Our Revenue)

(Our Revenue) - (Total Costs) = (Total Profit)

 

They do this type of analysis on all consoles they feel would be apropriate for the game and select which one(s) would be worth developing for.  In the final stage they would determine the risks  and benefits of the development of this new game and determine if they want to go ahead.

The problem is that it is hard to break out this formula every time someone brings this up, so for my part at least I was speaking in general since the conversation didn't appear to warrant in depth details on the methodologies used.   
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