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Xbox One: 5 million units shipped to retailers

MDSLKTR

Member
PS3 launch was a complete disaster for a gamer. $600 with no games, SO was a mess. It got his first blockbuster only in 2008. It was selling less than GBA, struggling for months to hit 100k on NPD. And Sony did nothing since they were still selling for EU and Japan because the PS2 history.

XB1 is doing ok, had a good launch lineup, received a blockbuster just a few months later. MS already changing things trying to catch up. Its far away from being a bad console like most people on gaf want to convince.
Jesus, what an amazing lesson in revisionism.
 
Halo. Uncharted. Zelda. Sunset Overdrive.

Not saying that the game can't be huge, and if I had an XB1 I'd be anticipating it too since it looks pretty damn creative. But at this juncture, with what we know at the moment, there's no way you can call it a blockbuster.

I'd argue that Quantum Break has the better chance of being a breakout hit (not a blockbuster, but a very strong title/franchise ala Alan Wake).
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just isn't the same...
Not saying SO won't be good, not even saying it won't potentially sell well. But putting it in the same boat as established multimillion selling franchises is taking things a bit far.
 
But it has wall jumping, guns, zip lines AND zombies (?) it should at least trick a couple of titanfall fans that it plays like titanfall making for instant sales by slim association.

Maybe if it releases during a drought or if xbone drops to $350. Outside of that, I just don't see it. The studio's reputation has been tainted due to their lackluster performance and generic games over the last generation. Consumer aren't as easy to fool at this day and age, and I think the console sales have shown that.
 

Shogun1337

Junior Member
Do you think they phrase it as 'sold-in to retailers' in efforts to fool the less observant into thinking these are sold figures?

That's what I still don't get. Why don't they just, y'know, lie? Man this is such a funny grey area. What stops them from just saying "We have sold 5 million units to consumers", and if they got called out, back-pedal as usual?
 

RoKKeR

Member
That's what I still don't get. Why don't they just, y'know, lie? Man this is such a funny grey area. What stops them from just saying "We have sold 5 million units to consumers", and if they got called out, back-pedal as usual?

Edit: I don't know, is that slightly illegal?
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Let's say that Microsoft has a contract in place which nets them 1m new Xbox Ones every single month for the first 12 months. That's comparable to what Sony is producing and I think Microsoft was planning the same level of success. That would mean that there are 2m units unsold to retailers. Yikes!
 

nynt9

Member
Do you think they phrase it as 'sold-in to retailers' in efforts to fool the less observant into thinking these are sold figures?

olOgyfz.jpg
 

Massa

Member
I have been an Insomniac fan forever but they haven't released a good retail product since 09 with A Crack in Time. Into the Nexus was fun but you definitely got the feel they're running on fumes. Everything else from the last 5 has been dumpster fire quality. I literally could never even play Resistance 3 because of install errors and hard freezes. People should probably be pretty fucking skeptical going into SO.

Resistance 3 is one of the best games on PS3. They last 3 games they made in Burbank are Crack in Time, Resistance 3 and FUSE so I'm very excited for Sunset Overdrive. The output from their NC studio has notably improved as well.

Insomniac was so stuck in a rut creatively and sales wise with Sony that they desperately needed to get away from the safety net and push themselves.

If Fuse turned out differently maybe they would have gotten another multiplat deal instead of this weird console company double act they have going on but hey, They got to pay those bills!

No, EA bailed on FUSE and the EA Partners program in general well before FUSE came out. The deal they got from Microsoft is pretty damn good, as they get to own their IP and the support of a publisher that knows how to actually spend money to promote a game.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Christ, fuck off with this shit. Everything gets ridiculed by people on this forum always. Take it from someone who's been on this forum since the Dreamcast days. I'd say that the XB1 has had a better launch window (not just games, but sales, PR, etc) than the PS3 did for sure, but that doesn't suddenly make it immune from criticism.

Sony's pitfalls with the PS3 launch was a toxic mixture of arrogance (coming off a position of pure power which led to the price, coupled with the Cell architecture) and the blu-ray trojan factor (which also contributed to price). And the console faltered and was criticized. It recovered to a degree, but were you even on the forums during the Giant Crab days?

The XB1 is a different version of the same story; coming off a position of power (360 wasn't PS2-levels of dominant in North America, but it'd toppled the sequel to a powerhouse), Microsoft's next console faltered perhaps not due to arrogance, but something close to it. Though the XB1 is overpriced compared to the PS4, and that is a factor, it's PR which has killed any potential momentum for the XB1 early on. The DRM fiasco, the reveal focusing on TV and sports, the lack of focus and dismissal of importance on building powerful hardware, etc.

The Xbox One has suffered more criticism than the PS4 over the past year, but there's a reason for that, and it's not because Sony paid a bunch of astroturfers to inhabit a single forum.

From what I've seen, there's been a very loud and clear voice on this matter and what Microsoft can do to curb the criticism: drop the price, focus hugely on games, and... well that's about it. Stop astroturfing, stop spinning, drop or justify Kinect, inject value into the system. If that happens - and I honestly think it will happen at E3 - then I think you're going to see a shift in perception not just on these forums, but perhaps in the marketplace as well.

Well said bro. This shit is so old already.
 

Amir0x

Banned
It is a correct term, but it is jargon that leads to misunderstandings and I'd not use it with a general audience.

I'd say it's not Polygon's responsibility to educate its audience on the correct word usage of things when you have the limited space of a tweet. The audience gets offended, that's their problem for being ignorant. I was ignorant of it too before this topic, so it's nothing to be ashamed of unless you don't change your perspective when you learn about it.
 

jayu26

Member
Didn't MS expect to sell 5 million by March? I guess they can say they made it. I don't think they are going to care about difference between sold in and sold through.
 

Amir0x

Banned
Didn't MS expect to sell 5 million by March? I guess they can say they made it. I don't think they are going to care about difference between sold in and sold through.

Why wouldn't they care? Reorders of units are going to stop if the system gets backed up in the channel.
 

quetz67

Banned
Didn't MS expect to sell 5 million by March? I guess they can say they made it. I don't think they are going to care about difference between sold in and sold through.

They might care, but at least they can keep shareholders calm a little longer.
 
They might care, but at least they can keep shareholders calm a little longer.

Are shareholders that stupid though? I mean, I get that the general public might buy into the wording of it and think something else, but I'd assume shareholders actually know what they're doing and wouldn't take that kind of BS.
 
So I'll try my hand at estimating XB1 WW LTD based on previously released numbers thus will rely on some terrible assumptions I'm afraid

Xbox One: over 3 million sold to consumers in 2013

XB1 US LTD in 2013 = 909,132 [Nov. NPD] + 908,000 [Dec. NPD] = 1,817,132 units sold

1817/3000 = 0.6057 -> XB1 US sales for 2013 accounted for 60.57% of its WW sales

Thus with the new XB1 US LTD = 2,527,132

2527*(1/.6057) = 4172.26 -> Thus XB1 US LTD suggests XB1 WW LTD of 4,172,260

*Note I strongly feel that the XB1 sold better at launch in the rest of the world than it is currently doing since the last official WW sell-through number was given hence it is likely more than 60.57% of XB1 WW LTD sales are in the US

For instance if that number was now 65% [Less than 4% more than launch ratios], XB1 WW LTD would be 2527*(1/.65) = 3887.69 -> XB1 WW LTD of 3,887,690

I seriously think there's a decent chance XB1 WW LTD could be under 4M right now which is crazy
 

jayu26

Member
Why wouldn't they care? Reorders of units are going to stop if the system gets backed up in the channel.

I will be honest, I was trying to put it as politely as possible and I fucking tried, I did; but what I truly think is that all that price drop business last month was to get this 5 million number. They really needed that 5 million number, may be to satisfy the higher up MS execs. They might have scratched and clawed for that number, and now they can say that they got it. Although it does not say at which date did they reach 5 million sell-in. It might have happen yesterday...

They might care, but at least they can keep shareholders calm a little longer.
This is what I was getting at with my original post, but for some reason I did not want to say shareholders. I don't know why.
 

quetz67

Banned
Are shareholders that stupid though?

I often asked that myself too and I think overall the answer is YES.

They rely on people like Pachter to know what is going on, I think they just don't take the time to investigate moore deeply in what stuff they are invested in.
 

Iacobellis

Junior Member
So I'll try my hand at estimating XB1 WW LTD based on previously released numbers thus will rely on some terrible assumptions I'm afraid

Xbox One: over 3 million sold to consumers in 2013

XB1 US LTD in 2013 = 909,132 [Nov. NPD] + 908,000 [Dec. NPD] = 1,817,132 units sold

1817/3000 = 0.6057 -> XB1 US sales for 2013 accounted for 60.57% of its WW sales

Thus with the new XB1 US LTD = 2,527,132

2527*(1/.6057) = 4172.26 -> Thus XB1 US LTD suggests XB1 WW LTD of 4,172,260

*Note I strongly feel that the XB1 sold better at launch in the rest of the world than it is currently doing since the last official WW sell-through number was given hence it is likely more than 60.57% of XB1 WW LTD sales are in the US

For instance if that number was now 65% [Less than 4% more than launch ratios], XB1 WW LTD would be 2527*(1/.65) = 3887.69 -> XB1 WW LTD of 3,887,690

I seriously think there's a decent chance XB1 WW LTD could be under 4M right now which is crazy

So a 2:1 ratio with the PS4 in the lead isn't far fetched? Holy moly.
 

TyrantII

Member
From what I've seen, there's been a very loud and clear voice on this matter and what Microsoft can do to curb the criticism: drop the price, focus hugely on games, and... well that's about it. Stop astroturfing, stop spinning, drop or justify Kinect, inject value into the system. If that happens - and I honestly think it will happen at E3 - then I think you're going to see a shift in perception not just on these forums, but perhaps in the marketplace as well.

Yup. Cut the bullshit and stop treating potential customers like idiots that will just lap up the marketing/PR.

Offer value. Even if it means throwing all those monitization schemes out the window, just as they had to with DRM.

It's not hard, and it's easily doable. But they need leadership and an ability to execute on a more customer/gamer centric vision.
 

Jaxar

Banned
Do you think they phrase it as 'sold-in to retailers' in efforts to fool the less observant into thinking these are sold figures?

Absolutely. MS will know how many XB1's have been sold through to consumers, but the "sold-in" to retailers number is obviously higher, so they'll try to run with that.
 

Alucrid

Banned
I'd say it's not Polygon's responsibility to educate its audience on the correct word usage of things when you have the limited space of a tweet. The audience gets offended, that's their problem for being ignorant. I was ignorant of it too before this topic, so it's nothing to be ashamed of unless you don't change your perspective when you learn about it.

Alternatively, the word shipped is the same amount of characters as sold-in.
 
Why wouldn't they care? Reorders of units are going to stop if the system gets backed up in the channel.

Exactly, that's the point. If they did really ship 3.9 million Xbox One's in 2013, that would mean that have shipped approx. 1.1 million units to retailers in the last three months, or so far in 2014.

5 million shipped to retailers is fine, but whatever amount is in stock, or in warehouses (we know there is a decent supply sitting with retailers right now or Microsoft wouldn't be using "shipped" numbers instead of "sold."), is going to have to sell through before these stores reorder more supply. That means there could be a stalled period in the very near future of "shipped" units for Microsoft as stores try to clear their current stock.


So that will slow the "shipped" numbers for Microsoft, which is all they are choosing to currently report. So if sales drop off, or don't pick up, in a couple of months from now, the shipped numbers aren't going to make huge gains. Fast Forward 2 or 3 months, and Microsoft's NPD PR Statements may not look that great because they aren't able to continue to ship more consoles to increase their "shipped" numbers.

I guess the way to fix this (outside of more aggressive pricing and pack in promotions) is to release to more territories so you can increase the numbers shipped (which would allow them to stall shipping to their current markets while current supply is sold through) and introduce your product to more markets, thus increasing sales (but probably not a huge increase since these markets wouldn't be historically Microsoft markets).
 
So a 2:1 ratio with the PS4 in the lead isn't far fetched? Holy moly.

Eh assuming at most PS4 is at like 7.1M, for XB1 to be at 3.6M WW would mean that 70.2% of XB1 WW LTD sales are in the US which is highly unlikely imo. That 65% I suggested might even be very unlikely as far as I know
 
First to 10 million wins the generation battle, right Microsoft?

Don Mattrick, the Senior Vice President of the Interactive Entertainment Business, Entertainment and Devices Division, said in a statement that "History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle."

Right. Then I guess you better start packing up, huh?
 
I have been an Insomniac fan forever but they haven't released a good retail product since 09 with A Crack in Time. Into the Nexus was fun but you definitely got the feel they're running on fumes. Everything else from the last 5 has been dumpster fire quality. I literally could never even play Resistance 3 because of install errors and hard freezes. People should probably be pretty fucking skeptical going into SO.

I honestly have no idea where the hype is coming outside of it being an Xbox exclusive made by a former PS dev. All we've even seen is a CGI trailer, I'm very skeptical
 
So I'll try my hand at estimating XB1 WW LTD based on previously released numbers thus will rely on some terrible assumptions I'm afraid

Xbox One: over 3 million sold to consumers in 2013

XB1 US LTD in 2013 = 909,132 [Nov. NPD] + 908,000 [Dec. NPD] = 1,817,132 units sold

1817/3000 = 0.6057 -> XB1 US sales for 2013 accounted for 60.57% of its WW sales

Thus with the new XB1 US LTD = 2,527,132

2527*(1/.6057) = 4172.26 -> Thus XB1 US LTD suggests XB1 WW LTD of 4,172,260

*Note I strongly feel that the XB1 sold better at launch in the rest of the world than it is currently doing since the last official WW sell-through number was given hence it is likely more than 60.57% of XB1 WW LTD sales are in the US

For instance if that number was now 65% [Less than 4% more than launch ratios], XB1 WW LTD would be 2527*(1/.65) = 3887.69 -> XB1 WW LTD of 3,887,690

I seriously think there's a decent chance XB1 WW LTD could be under 4M right now which is crazy

The result of the second calculation is also what you get when you extrapolate the known WW LTD, with the logic being that retail&MS would order/produce a certain quantity based on demand:


S¡mon;108562131 said:
Sold-in, so that's shipped. In comparison, on January 1, 3.9 million were sold-in and 3 million were sold-through (to customers). So, in three months time, an additional 1 million XB1s have been sold to retailers.

31-12-2013: 3 million sold, 3.9 million shipped
18-04-2014: ? million sold, 5 million shipped

3 / 3.9 = 0.769
5 * 0.769 = 3.846 million units

Obviously you sell more units of the whole stock on launch/Christmas, so I would say 3.9 is actually the MAXIMUM they can have sold to customers by now. Only 100-200k units sold in the world minus US within 3.5 months would be quite shocking though.

Should have launched in all countries by now considering they have the units to spare ;)
 
The second calculation is also what you get when you extrapolate the known WW LTD, with the logic being that retail&MS would order/produce a certain quantity based on demand:

3 / 3.9 = 0.769
5 * 0.769 = 3.846 million units

Obviously you sell more units of the whole stock on launch/Christmas , so I would say 3.9 is actually the MAX they can have sold to customers by now. Only 100-200k units sold in the world minus US within 4.5 months would be quite shocking though.

Should have launched in all countries by now considering they have the units to spare ;)

This just became more interesting then, huh

Never thought to compare shipped and sold through numbers like that, good call :)
 

quetz67

Banned
The result of the second calculation is also what you get when you extrapolate the known WW LTD, with the logic being that retail&MS would order/produce a certain quantity based on demand:




3 / 3.9 = 0.769
5 * 0.769 = 3.846 million units

So once you sold 100M units you can have 23.1M at retailers? Percentages obviously make no sense here!
 
So once you sold 100M units you can have 23.1M at retailers? Percentages obviously make no sense here!

The calculation would only hold true if your sold through numbers are less than your sold to retailer numbers which currently in the case of the XB1 is what's happening
 
So once you sold 100M units you can have 23.1M at retailers? Percentages obviously make no sense here!

You're right, of course you reach a threshold in which all retailers are fully stocked, so there can't be more than a few million "leftovers" worldwide.

But in this case I don't think this number was reached yet, they only added 1.1 million WW and we only know of 0.7 that were definitely sold in that time. After Christmas they had 0.9 million of unsold stock, I don't think that stock now being e.g. 1.1 million WW is so unrealistic.

Maybe if they now fully adjusted to the demand and absolutely don't ship more than they sell.
 

Sentenza

Member
Claim what you want but you are always there to defend MS or slight Sony and their fanboys :rolleyes:
.
Yeah... I don't think you have any actual familiarity with my post history, but nice try anyway.

Oh yeah you own a PC so you couldn't possibly have a bias.
Exactly, I don't. If anything simply because I don't give a damn about any of these consoles.
And *if* I had any bias toward one of them, it would probably be favorable to a PS4, so I have genuinely no idea of what the hell are you trying to hint about.
 

quetz67

Banned
The calculation would only hold true if your sold through numbers are less than your sold to retailer numbers which currently in the case of the XB1 is what's happening
That still makes the calculation not more valid. The # of units sitting at retailer always has an absolute maximum. Calculating percentages gives no result that might hold any more truth than just guessing a random number.
 
That still makes the calculation not more valid. The # of units sitting at retailer always has an absolute maximum. Calculating percentages gives no result that might hold any more truth than just guessing a random number.

What? Why?

3 / 3.9 = 0.769 -> XB1 sell-through for November and December is 76.9%

Then assuming the same sell-through for January to March, we have

5 * 0.769 = 3.846 million units

It is a far far better approach than guessing a random number. It is making large sweeping assumptions but not ones that anyone can disprove without more information at present. It is however based on valid logic. Sell-through calculations like this are used often in Media Creates Threads
 

stonesak

Okay, if you really insist
If MS is relying on an Insomniac game to jump start sales then they're even deeper shit than the sold through numbers indicate.
 

Cyborg

Member
Oh dear. Who thought this bit of PR was a good idea?

Indeed, I have no idea why MS is doing this so short after Playstation announced their results.
I should have waited, they could have had a lot of more exposure if they waited a month or so....
 
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just isn't the same...
Not saying SO won't be good, not even saying it won't potentially sell well. But putting it in the same boat as established multimillion selling franchises is taking things a bit far.

Yeah, I don't get the love for SO. We've seen like 3 seconds of what might be gameplay. I really like the Resistance games and Ratchet games are fun, but to be blunt nothing in Insomniac's recent work tells me they can create a blockbuster.

For context, I think R3 is the best FPS for the PS3 and R2 was my favorite coop game. Insomniac is good, but all their games have flaws that prevent them from being blockbusters.
 
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