DriftingSpirit
Member
Appealing to new customers can be a (small) byproduct but I don't think it is the primary goal.
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hydrophilic attack
Member
Game Pass is a good service
When they get the slim down to around $199 it will probably help move boxes
When they get the slim down to around $199 it will probably help move boxes
Considering that EA Access isn't even available on PS4 I'd hope that revenue would at least be neck and neck. Pick a company that isn't so obviously lopsided towards Xbox when doing future comparisons.
MatPiscatella
Member
You can consider EA's split to be directionally representative of the market.
You're right, I was talking about overall $ spend. High five!
Content drives hardware. PS4 had some incredible content in Q1, so of course they moved boxes. As more games get released outside of Q4, the more HW sales will be spread out. But keep in mind, there are always outliers in any data set. And no one outlier disproves a finding from a larger sample.
ethomaz
Banned
Probably something like...
PS4 18.9m
XB1 16.6m
I used numbers from my mind so they could be 100-200k off.
Welfare
Member
gundamkyoukai
Member
This a NPD thread so i expect the split to be rather close software wise for big AAA games.
If we talking WW then things will be different but the question is by how much .
Then there also that some games sell better in certain regions than others .
If we talking WW then things will be different but the question is by how much .
Then there also that some games sell better in certain regions than others .
michaelius
Banned
American market I assume ?
That's closer in sales then I thought. Damn, Sony sells a shit load in other markets!
DriftingSpirit
Member
I think it is ~33/66 for Sony. MS is >50%, IIRC.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Yep .
We all know that USA is a very important market .
Still Sony get a lot of sales from both hardware and software from other markets .
Welfare
Member
MS is like ~58% sales in the US this gen. PS4 is ~33%.
SnowFlakeCake
Member
Sony still aren't very strong in NA, don't think they ever will be. Games like Uncharted 4 and Horizon raced along sales wise and they did well in NA, but were not making up 50% of the numbers or anything like that. I think only God of War has a pretty large split favouring NA, besides that EU does some very heavy lifting.
It's hard not to forget that GT, Sony's most importance franchise hardly moves the needle in NA but does ridiculously well in EU.
What was the split last generation. I'm assuming the same?
And the complete opposite for Xbox. Interesting stuff.
Welfare
Member
Xbox 360 was ~50%, PS3 ~30%. PS US splits go down as the gen goes on so end of lifetime sales for PS4 will be closer to ~30% as well.
Xbox One has the disadvantage of not being in a large amount of countries and not growing gen over gen in most countries outside of the US.
gundamkyoukai
Member
That is wrong in some ways .
Even in the PS2 days USA\ NA made up a 30% to 36% PS2 sales.
Sony sell good to great every where which is why they sell so many consoles in the first place.
Microsoft is an incredible US-focused brand. Consumers across the world have been told for years that Microsoft doesn't care about other markets, as seen in the games they greenlight (sports, guns, cars), their advertising and partnerships, and their heavy reliance on exclusively US TV subscription models.
I totally got that and it isn't surprising.
Eh. I bet it's largely the same across the board.
Bundles far more imo.
Every single pack-in EA title is a sale for EA.
Madden (1 per year), Titanfall, Battlefield 1, FIfa (1 per year)...
I do wonder what their strategy for Scorpio and other consoles going forward will be.
Will they continue to primarily focus on the US(and to a lesser degree UK) market or will they try and go for a more global reach?
It's going to be released in China. That was discussed at the Surface event in China.
Primethius
Banned
US/UK is a safe bet. If they wanted a more global reach, I don't know why they'd wait for so long rather than get the gears turning now. That stuff doesn't happen overnight​.
DriftingSpirit
Member
The former.
We had heard some stuff about this but that's pretty telling... Do the numbers also back up that Xbox users skew older with more disposable income?
Well its NPD thread after all.
All credit for compiling the numbers here goes to Square2015 keeping track of all the reliable NPD estimates must be some work - thanks again,
So I decided to look at the NPD sales numbers to try and understand what the overall trends are - the following is my take I have my biases but I try to stay away from console warring.
So starting with the most basic stuff - cummulative sales over the lifetime of the consoles and the lead the PS4 has at present which stands at about 2.2m consoles. Few things to call out on the graph - especially the cumulative sales gap one
The single best thing MS has done is whatever they did in Oct14 - whoever came up with that deserves a medal.
Moving on next easy one market share - this ones quite boring but important nonetheless - market share is very stable between the 2 companies.
Sony have been steady growing their lead in numbers but market share has not changed by up to a percentage point since Nov15. MS are still very much in the running here 53% to 47% is not that big of a deal.
The second thing that is not obvious from the graph is that sure Sony is ahead by 2.2m consoles but for a full year on average each console manufacturer has sold 4.9m consoles - Sony has less than half a years sales lead. One bad Christmas and that can disappear - more on this later
On to the next graph - this one takes the XBO monthly sales as a 100% baseline and factors the PS4 sales on top of it ( for instance if XBO sold 100k and PS4 sold 130k the XBO would show at 100% and PS4 at 130% it gives you an idea of the proportional sales in the month. An important take away from this IMO is MS screwed themselves in 2014 - even with their extremely strong finish in 2014 the PS4 on average was 147% of the XBO sales volume - it was 115% in 2015 and 117% in 2016. The second thing that is not so obvious is Sony had a very strong Q12017 and it shows in sales obviously they had a lot of games come out - I wonder if that momentum will continue
On to the last 2 graphs I promise!
What these graphs tell us is that Christmas is hugely important - 52% of all console sales in the year occur in Nov/Dec. Forget the rest of the year Q4 is what matters.
In terms of ranking the months I would say Nov/Dec are the most important months, then oddly enough Sep/Oct and Jan - Mar are priority 2 and the rest of the year is straight filler material.
Few other things to call out i think Sonys 2014 Nov/Dec was actually hurt by whatever MS did in Oct14 if you compare YoY performance with 2015 and 2016 you can clearly see that period does not match the other 2
Both companies had a weak Nov16 but things picked up in December
Sony again had a very strong Q1 2017 (best on record and April as well - this is the most consoles they have sold in the first 4 months of the year - helped especially by March numbers - dat Horizon Zero Dawn effect I guess)
The End.
NG+ Data
YoY Performance
NG+2 Data
Cumulative YoY Performance
Platinum Trophy
Shows Nov/Dec sales as a percentage of full year
So I decided to look at the NPD sales numbers to try and understand what the overall trends are - the following is my take I have my biases but I try to stay away from console warring.
So starting with the most basic stuff - cummulative sales over the lifetime of the consoles and the lead the PS4 has at present which stands at about 2.2m consoles. Few things to call out on the graph - especially the cumulative sales gap one
- Whatever MS did in Oct14 helped - A LOT
- Halo 5 (Sep15 I think, correct me if im wrong) barely moved the needle in MS' favour
- XBOS' introduction is clearly felt on the sales gap graph
The single best thing MS has done is whatever they did in Oct14 - whoever came up with that deserves a medal.
Moving on next easy one market share - this ones quite boring but important nonetheless - market share is very stable between the 2 companies.
Sony have been steady growing their lead in numbers but market share has not changed by up to a percentage point since Nov15. MS are still very much in the running here 53% to 47% is not that big of a deal.
The second thing that is not obvious from the graph is that sure Sony is ahead by 2.2m consoles but for a full year on average each console manufacturer has sold 4.9m consoles - Sony has less than half a years sales lead. One bad Christmas and that can disappear - more on this later
On to the next graph - this one takes the XBO monthly sales as a 100% baseline and factors the PS4 sales on top of it ( for instance if XBO sold 100k and PS4 sold 130k the XBO would show at 100% and PS4 at 130% it gives you an idea of the proportional sales in the month. An important take away from this IMO is MS screwed themselves in 2014 - even with their extremely strong finish in 2014 the PS4 on average was 147% of the XBO sales volume - it was 115% in 2015 and 117% in 2016. The second thing that is not so obvious is Sony had a very strong Q12017 and it shows in sales obviously they had a lot of games come out - I wonder if that momentum will continue
On to the last 2 graphs I promise!
What these graphs tell us is that Christmas is hugely important - 52% of all console sales in the year occur in Nov/Dec. Forget the rest of the year Q4 is what matters.
In terms of ranking the months I would say Nov/Dec are the most important months, then oddly enough Sep/Oct and Jan - Mar are priority 2 and the rest of the year is straight filler material.
Few other things to call out i think Sonys 2014 Nov/Dec was actually hurt by whatever MS did in Oct14 if you compare YoY performance with 2015 and 2016 you can clearly see that period does not match the other 2
Both companies had a weak Nov16 but things picked up in December
Sony again had a very strong Q1 2017 (best on record and April as well - this is the most consoles they have sold in the first 4 months of the year - helped especially by March numbers - dat Horizon Zero Dawn effect I guess)
The End.
NG+ Data
YoY Performance
NG+2 Data
Cumulative YoY Performance
Platinum Trophy
Shows Nov/Dec sales as a percentage of full year
Primethius
Banned
November/December 2014 was the price cut to XB1 that made it cheaper than PS4 those holidays.
Hence why people say that price beats power, especially in the minds of the holiday consumer.
Hence why people say that price beats power, especially in the minds of the holiday consumer.
All else aside, who the hell does this in a graph? Uses light blue, slightly lighter blue and normal blue altogether so you can't tell the difference between any of the lines? I can tell which is which in the first graph, but it took me a bit for the second.
Grumplestiltskin
Member
Except the EA figure also counts EA Access subscriptions so it's a bit misleading as it's not a direct comparison. Ok general though you're right XB1 users in the US tend to buy into games as a service style games more than the competing platform on part because that's what all of the first party games getting released for the system have been so user have been more conditioned to embrace such services.
Edit: Just read Matt's comments on the matter. I'm assuming he meant in the US as he's NPD and that makes sense since the two platforms are still relatively close there but the EA chart was WW was it not? I expect that chart was not representative of the normal WW spending splits across the industry at all.
hanspampel
Banned
pretty common and the right thing to do in this case.
when Ps4 is blue and Xbox is green, you use different shades of that color for comparisons within the same product
very much appreciated. thanks
p.s Halo 5 launched in October 2015, not September
I'm sorry, what does "directionally representative of the market" mean exactly? The US market, or the WW market? Does the NPD count revenue from EA Access?
OnionPowder
Member
This is an NPD thread. NPD is US only. The person you replied to works for the NPD so they probably don't have data for WW.
hanspampel
Banned
ww market for the global operating big (westen) publisher
they basically all share and supply the same customer in a nutshell
the revenue percentages shared by EA were global sales not US only.
so whatever pattern you'll find at EA, you'll also find at ATVI, TTWO, Ubisoft and Warner at some degree
and "find the same pattern" does not equal to the same exact figures.
yes, but the conversation was not about NPD or US sales data
DriftingSpirit
Member
WW data is irrelevant in a NPD thread.
/s
Yes I know that, but the original post I was replying to was referring to a WW split in revenue, not just the US market. Unless I'm mistaken and EA financial reports only cover the US for some reason.
cyber_ninja
Member
Without new Xbox exclusive games Scorpio won't make any difference.
They just did firesales with all those AC bundles, probably at a loss.
hanspampel
Banned
btw here are the Ubisoft splits:
please note, they do cover digital AND retail not only digital
so revenue generated on Ps4 is only ~150% of Xbox One
gundamkyoukai
Member
That is still a good amount even more so when you break down the revenue number.
DriftingSpirit
Member
"only"
btw here are the Ubisoft splits:
please note, they do cover digital AND retail not only digital
so revenue generated on Ps4 is only ~150% of Xbox One
I wouldn't really call revenue of only ~150% of Xbox One a neck and neck split, but hey I'm not the analyst..
hanspampel
Banned
Ps4 revenue is only 1.5 times of Xbox One, while the installbase is 2.0 times as big.
I thought that was the whole point wapplew made and the argument was about
but yeah. a neck on neck split is something else.
i wouldn't call it that either.
you see the same pattern here, just different numbers
wapplew used one (very western) company's splits to literally say that revenues for third parties on Xbox and Sony is neck and neck.
One data point...
Then you yourself proved, with those Ubisoft spilt, that that not the case.
Furthermore, this phenomenon is neither new nor exclusive to Xbox One. Consoles with lower sales base has always shown higher attach rate. Reasons for has been covered multiple times across many threads.
This conversion also ignores the fact the a lot of the PS4 owners are not interested in EA sports games and Ubisoft's open world co-op games. They are there for the Niohs, Personas, Niers. That is at least part of the reason for PS4's growth this year. How about we find out the percentage splits between PlayStation and Xbox for companies like Namco, Square Enix, Sega/Altas, Tecmo? (This is a retorical question, which was asked to make a point. I know that we are beholden to these companies to provide these splits).
What the two of you, by looking at only western companies, are doing is another version of "Japanese games don't matter".