nhlducks35
Member
Alright, so MS assumes that around 1 billion consoles will be sold this generation.
So:
PS4 500 million
X1 450 million
Wii U 50 million
So:
PS4 500 million
X1 450 million
Wii U 50 million
-
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What do we expect of lifetime sales from PS4/Xbone/Wii U?
- Thread starter Phediuk
- Start date
Barry Burton
Member
PS4: 90-100M
XB1: 50-60M
WiiU: <=15M
I think the market will be down significantly overall. Sony will take away a little bit of the Microsoft marketshare, and end up with a decisive lead (although both the PS4 and XB1 will be considered successful by doing at least 50M each worldwide).
I think 15 million is the max for the Wii U, and that might be generous. If it manages to outdo that, it'll only be if Nintendo isn't in any hurry to bring out a successor.
XB1: 50-60M
WiiU: <=15M
I think the market will be down significantly overall. Sony will take away a little bit of the Microsoft marketshare, and end up with a decisive lead (although both the PS4 and XB1 will be considered successful by doing at least 50M each worldwide).
I think 15 million is the max for the Wii U, and that might be generous. If it manages to outdo that, it'll only be if Nintendo isn't in any hurry to bring out a successor.
Red Blaster
Member
ps4: 200 million
bone: 10 million
wiiu: 2
it is written
bone: 10 million
wiiu: 2
it is written
Wickerbasket
Member
Come on, lets not exaggerate.
There's no way Wii U is getting near 50 million units.
Poor Nintendo
Sandy Nipples
Banned
PS4 : 80m
Xb: 45m
WiiU: 9m
Xb: 45m
WiiU: 9m
serversurfer
Member
No, it isn't. That's the LTD number, and I think that's fucking up everyone's estimates, thanks to the inflated launches.
The PS4 is currently selling three to four times faster than XBone. Since the start of the year, Sony has sold an average of 200K per week. XBone's weekly sales have likely been down around 50-70K/week, based on their shipments, and this is in the quarter where they didn't merely give away their biggest game, but actually paid people $50 (or more in the UK) to take it off them.
People are just taking the current LTD ratios and multiplying them by five years or whatever, but that's not how it works. Neither company gets five years worth of launch sales; they get their launch sales, plus five years of "regular sales." At the current sales rates, five years of regular sales for XBone isn't going to add up to very much at all, especially if the UK or US give up on it and switch to PS4 with everyone else.
Honestly, they way things are going now, they may have a hard time maintaining developer support, with only a 20% market share, especially given the substantial power difference and difficulties developing for the platform. Let's say you've got a game you think will sell 1000K on PS4. Are you better off delaying it a few months to port it to XBone for another 100-150K sales, or should you release now, collect the PS4 monies immediately, and then spend the man-hours you would've spent porting to instead make DLC for your million PS4 customers, or just get started on the sequel? Tough call.
Also, I'm not understanding the reasoning behind thinking price cuts, Halo, and Gears will save XBone. First of all, Gears won't even be out this year, and probably won't be out next year either. They're still "planning" it, FFS. More to the point, they just finished gifting their biggest game to new users, and kicked in another $50 to boot, and their weekly sales went down in their strongest market.
The demand just isn't there. They literally need to buy market share at this point, and I don't know if their investors will allow it, and if they do, for how long.
Jimmyfenix
Member
PS4 - 83m
Wii U - 12m
X1 - 60 m
Wii U - 12m
X1 - 60 m
akachan ningen
Member
What are you trying to measure?
hydragonwarrior
Member
Wii U - 8 M
XBone - 45 M
PS4 - 70 M
3DS - 70 M
Vita - 8 M
XBone - 45 M
PS4 - 70 M
3DS - 70 M
Vita - 8 M
Tidus_Great
Banned
ps4 - 90 million
xbone - 60 million
wii u - 16 million
a price cut will assure xbone has a decent showing this gen., the fact that it's more expensive and weaker is what made them lose first place this gen
xbone - 60 million
wii u - 16 million
a price cut will assure xbone has a decent showing this gen., the fact that it's more expensive and weaker is what made them lose first place this gen
History proves that price cuts alone won't do anything. It may give Xbox One a little boost in sales for a while, but when all that's said & done, they'll go right back to being regular numbers again.
I enjoy these threads, this one is very good because the outcome could be 10 years from now.. LOL doubtful but certainly possible given last gens lengthy run.
I think it may shape out more like
XB1: 85m
PS4:80m
Wii U: 12m
3DS: 65m
Vita: 10m
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
I'm very happy that you posted this in depth look at sales and trends, which leads you to a prediction very close to my own. Some of this thinking went into my prediction, but it's really refreshing seeing it laid out so clearly like this.
Black Republican
Member
Worldwide?
Wii U - 18milli
XB1 - 48mili
PS4 - 65mili
Wii U - 18milli
XB1 - 48mili
PS4 - 65mili
Rich Uncle Skeleton
Member
I think a lot of people here are saying "gap" when they really mean "ratio." But honestly I don't see why either of those would shrink. The farther we get from launch (where sales were basically 1:1 because pent up demand was able to meet supply early on) the greater the ratio will get, unless current trends somehow change. And honestly all the changes I see on the horizon are in Sony's favor, not MS's. So I'm really befuddled by some of the optimistic XBO predictions in here.
SwiftDeath
Member
Yes poor wording on my part. I was using the conservative approach with LTD instead of recent sales trends as of 2014
But it only reiterates the ridiculousness that is any post clamoring a gap larger than 20M between the two as ridiculous. At this point unless the console market as a whole falls off a cliff, it is far more likely the PS4 outsells the XB1 by greater than 20M than not unless something truly major changes
Suzushiiro
Banned
I think by the end of the generation PS4 lands in the 90-100M range while XBone sells around 50-60M- basically, the sales ratio goes from 1:1 to 3-4:2. MS' lead in the US is gone and they're only going to get more behind everywhere else, but they'll still do respectably well compared to anyone except Sony.
The major variables here are:
-When and what MS does to try and catch up. If they bite the bullet and give us a $399 SKU this summer, that's going to make a 3:2 score more likely than if they drag their heels on it.
-How big a deal Morpheus winds up being. It might just wind up being a silly gimmick, but I can see it being the most mainstream-attention-grabbing piece of hardware since the original Wii, and even if it's pretty expensive it'll still pull in a bunch of extra sales from that factor.
The major variables here are:
-When and what MS does to try and catch up. If they bite the bullet and give us a $399 SKU this summer, that's going to make a 3:2 score more likely than if they drag their heels on it.
-How big a deal Morpheus winds up being. It might just wind up being a silly gimmick, but I can see it being the most mainstream-attention-grabbing piece of hardware since the original Wii, and even if it's pretty expensive it'll still pull in a bunch of extra sales from that factor.
serversurfer
Member
For every XBone sold this year, 3-4 PS4s were sold.
Yet instead of 1:3 or 1:4 ratios, a lot of people are predicting 2:3 or 3:4 ratios. Can anyone explain what would cause such a massive turnaround in sales? That's completely unprecedented, AFAIK. Please be more specific than, "Price cut and Halo," or something similar, since obviously the PS4 will be getting price cuts and awesome games as well.
Current sales rates indicate that when PS4 is hitting 100M, XBone will be around 30M. What causes an additional 30-40M XBone sales? It seems more likely that developers and/or consumers will lose interest in it entirely and it'll sell 25M or less.
Yet instead of 1:3 or 1:4 ratios, a lot of people are predicting 2:3 or 3:4 ratios. Can anyone explain what would cause such a massive turnaround in sales? That's completely unprecedented, AFAIK. Please be more specific than, "Price cut and Halo," or something similar, since obviously the PS4 will be getting price cuts and awesome games as well.
Current sales rates indicate that when PS4 is hitting 100M, XBone will be around 30M. What causes an additional 30-40M XBone sales? It seems more likely that developers and/or consumers will lose interest in it entirely and it'll sell 25M or less.
Japan doesn't really matter. They were less than 10% of the HD market last gen.
IAmRandom31
Banned
PS4 - 90-120 million. Depending on what occurs the next 12 months
Wii U - 15-18m
Xbox One - 40-50 million
Wii U - 15-18m
Xbox One - 40-50 million
I guess Europe would be responsible for a lot of the gap then. In better times, you could count on Japan to add 20 million units to worldwide totals. MS goofed bad if the sales disparity grows that large just because of western markets.
serversurfer
Member
Right, but like I said, sales from Q1 are more telling than sales from the launch quarter. Wii U showed us that. MS tell us it's still selling better than the 360, but much like "Fastest selling console in November," it's actually a bit of #TechnicallyCorrect designed to distract us from the fact that the opposite is true.
XBone's post-launch shipments were around 950K for Q1. That's lower than the 360, and even lower than the PS3. Also, the fact they announced 1.1M YTD shipments would seem to indicate their YTD sales were 1M or less, or they'd have announced those instead. That's not good demand for a new console, any way you cut it.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
heh, I love this little callback to the GPU flops difference, intentional or not.
Auto-Reply
Member
Ps4 = 90
WiiU = 60
Xbone = 90
3ds = 69
WiiU = 60
Xbone = 90
3ds = 69
Even the Wii failed to crack 13M in Japan this generation. PS3 will finish somewhere between 10 and 11M.
PS4 is selling like shit in Japan, but even if it only manages half of the PS3's number (which will easily happen since it is the default Japanese choice for some big franchises), that's only a 5M console loss. It's been awhile since I looked at LTD sales, but I think Microsoft enjoyed a 15M console lead on the PS3 in the US. That lead has vanished (with sales tipping in Sony's favour) and it seems like EU isn't even close.
SwiftDeath
Member
What I find interesting is that at absolute best I can see the XB1 splitting the US market with the PS4 50/50 [currently PS4 has a 15% lead], with a very slim chance XB1 takes the lead personally.
If MS and Sony split the US market and assuming the same number of PS and XB consoles are sold then MS stands to lose 8M to its WW sales, Sony gains 8M to its WW sales and a 16M gap between the two develop this gen just in the US compared to last gen
What's perhaps more interesting is that a little under half of the 360's WW LTD was sold in the Rest of the World [Not the US] and that's around 39M or so units
The XB1 seems to have well and truly floundered in most European countries sans perhaps the UK where it is starting to do better with a literal 80 GBP pricecut. There's a deal currently to get one for 310 GBP which is 120 GBP off of its initial MSRP of 429 GBP. That's effectively 200 USD off its intial price tag. That's massive
Even the more official 349 GBP price is for the Titanfall Bundle so it's like getting the console for 320 GBP. MS has shown to be fairly desperate in the UK so I wonder where it's marketshare in Europe will end up as they really don't see very interested in the device
360 US LTD is about 41.2M, PS3 US LTD is about 25.7M LTD
360 had a 60% relative lead, a 15.5M absolute lead and stand to lose both this go around
Even if the XB1 and PS4 simply split the US market, the PS4 would gain ~7.75M
If sales continue in the US as they are currently with PS4's LTD advantage of 15%, then PS4 would sell 35.8M in the US, XB1 would sell 31.1M and PS4 would gain ~10M from the US region alone
If I use current sales trends from 2014 it gets even worse for the XB1
prag16
Banned
Ha. Ha.
mm == million, but mostly used in a financial context, so doesn't necessarily fit here. Sue me.
lmao. What are you expecting, Japan and Europe to suddenly fall in love with Halo? Where is that 85 million even going to come from when the PS4 is already leading in MS' strongest markets?
It's human nature to have biases, but Jesus Christ, use your brain.
These low numbers make me sad.
I expect a shorter console cycle, and the sales to be very front-loaded, where the console enthusiasts like me have been the early adopters while the consoles will struggle to attract the mainstream attention. Serious gamers will also be playing more on Steam/Riot's League of Legends, (and playing Hearthstone 
).
PS4: 90 m -there is room for one successful HD console in the market, and PS4 will be it. 3rd parities will pile in on it, creating further sales. The irony is that Sony itself is in life support, so we are not seeing them funding as many games directly as their market position would suggest
Xbox1: 40 m -With Stephen Elop as the top dog of the devices division, there is no way MS will settle for 2nd place or a loss leader. XB1 will be spun off if it is not in the lead at the end of this year. Without Microsoft's hats o' money, the sales will slow down significantly.
WiiU: 18 m -Mario Kart and Brawl will help a bit, but that's it. Nintendo will focus on Quality of Life health products and whatever their next main platform will be.
Vita: 15m -Japan will give Vita a lifeline, but that's all there is to it. It simply cannot answer the challenge of mobile.
3DS: 70 M -clearly on decline. Nintendo will release alternative models, cut price, and release great games as this is their main breadwinner now. Beyond that, handheld future is clouded.
).PS4: 90 m -there is room for one successful HD console in the market, and PS4 will be it. 3rd parities will pile in on it, creating further sales. The irony is that Sony itself is in life support, so we are not seeing them funding as many games directly as their market position would suggest
Xbox1: 40 m -With Stephen Elop as the top dog of the devices division, there is no way MS will settle for 2nd place or a loss leader. XB1 will be spun off if it is not in the lead at the end of this year. Without Microsoft's hats o' money, the sales will slow down significantly.
WiiU: 18 m -Mario Kart and Brawl will help a bit, but that's it. Nintendo will focus on Quality of Life health products and whatever their next main platform will be.
Vita: 15m -Japan will give Vita a lifeline, but that's all there is to it. It simply cannot answer the challenge of mobile.
3DS: 70 M -clearly on decline. Nintendo will release alternative models, cut price, and release great games as this is their main breadwinner now. Beyond that, handheld future is clouded.
DigitalDevilSummoner
zero cognitive reasoning abilities
I suppose lot's of us predicting 40+ m think MS dropping Kinect is a given.
VanCityGamer
Member
Very nice post; thanks for putting in the effort to base your predictions on real numbers from the prior generation.
That said, I'll offer some thoughts on why I feel the numbers will turn out quite a bit different than what you have presented. I've bolded the part about America that I personally don't think will lead to the numbers you predict. First of all, I think the Xbox One will reach price parity with the PS4 before long - I'll predict complete price parity by Black Friday 2014 (if not much earlier). So that would eliminate the price effect.
Better multiplatforms will hold true for the duration of the generation, though I don't think that will be a significant factor. I also don't think Project Morpheus will have much of an impact on sales; I just don't see enough people being interested to sell a substantial number of consoles. I think lots of people interested in the technology will opt for the Oculus Rift. Not to mention that Microsoft is also rumored to have VR and/or AR technologies of its own in development for Xbox One.
Finally, I don't think variety of exclusives is relevant in the United States; far more important is the genre and quality of exclusives. The U.S. eats up exclusives like Halo and Gears of War, and I think sequels in those series will outperform any PS4 exclusives (and will be stronger system sellers). The fact that Uncharted 4 very well might not arrive until 2016 is very concerning for Sony. I expect Halo to release in Fall 2015 and to be a huge system seller.
In the end, I think Xbox One will actually outsell the PS4 in America. I'd distribute the theoretical 80 million PS4/Xbox One console buyers in America like this:
PS4: 38 million
Xbox One: 42 million
I also think the 'Others' category will be closer than you've predicted, thanks to the Xbox One taking off in the UK after official price cuts and big exclusive launches (similar to the U.S.).
Using your total PS4/Xbox One Global market share of 175 million, I see it breaking down closer to this:
PS4: 95 million
Xbox One: 80 million
SpinningBirdKick
Banned
PS4 - 90m
XBone - 40m
Wii U - 15m
I'm expecting the gap between the PS4 and the Xbone to increase, not narrow.
Reason being that the second wave of titles should underline the PS4's increased horsepower and Microsoft's first party offerings will be lacking.
The uphill struggle that Microsoft faces will get worse, not better if they don't turn things around quickly. Due to the longer development periods required, development decisions made now by Microsoft won't bear fruit until 24-36 months time.
Too little, too late.
XBone - 40m
Wii U - 15m
I'm expecting the gap between the PS4 and the Xbone to increase, not narrow.
Reason being that the second wave of titles should underline the PS4's increased horsepower and Microsoft's first party offerings will be lacking.
The uphill struggle that Microsoft faces will get worse, not better if they don't turn things around quickly. Due to the longer development periods required, development decisions made now by Microsoft won't bear fruit until 24-36 months time.
Too little, too late.
joecanada
Member
So your reasons are halo, gears, pricecut?
Ps4 is actually cheaper to make by most accounts and also more powerful. How exactly will ms counter this? There is no way they can win by playing this game.
You are right that halo will sell consoles but when will halo drop? 2015? And if xbox is behind 2 or 3 :1 by then everyone and their friends will rush to buy a new console for one or two games?
It's more likely sony would just counter with battlefield or cod mappacks dlc exclusive or something simple.
Like it or not cod, bf, madden, fifa and others like skyrim will determine the winner here, not halo and not uncharted. Maybe even a titanfall2 or destiny
In addition sony has never relied on one exclusive to sell but nevertheless they will sell millions of copies of gran turismo, uncharted, tlou, god of war, kz, the order, to make up any difference
VanCityGamer
Member
MS can counter the price issue further into the future by removing Kinect from the console bundle. I don't see the PS4's price being lowered anytime soon, and I think the Xbox One's price will be reduced to $400 to match the PS4 in time for Black Friday. Price is a major factor in the U.S, so that will make a major difference.
And yes, I do think games such as Halo and Gears will be major factors. I don't think the average consumer will care much about the resolution differences in multiplatform games. The majority of the gaming press doesn't even care.
I also HIGHLY doubt PS4 will be outselling Xbox One by a margin of 2 or 3 to 1 by 2015, as you have suggested.
And to address the additional point you made in your edit: as mentioned, Uncharted and TLOU 2 are likely a long ways off. It's also hard to say when the next God of War will be ready (and I don't think it will be a huge system seller anyway). As for this fall, I actually think MS' lineup of exclusives is stronger than PS4 with Sunset Overdrive, Forza, and Quantum Break (though there's some doubt about QB making it out this year).
serversurfer
Member
That's the thing people seem to be missing, possibly because of the focus on NPD. If we assume MS have sold 1M or less YTD, that averages out to 875K sold in Q1, tops. 712K were sold in the US, leaving 163K merely 18.6% coming from outside the US. (Anyone know how much of that was UK?) And that's with a fairly generous estimate of total sales. It's entirely possible the sales are even more heavily focused in the US.
But using those ratios and your generous assumption of splitting the US at 32M each, that would put XBone's non-US sales at around 7M. So ~39M WW. However, I think devs will start dropping support before that.
Okay, and then what? Kinect supposedly costs less than $100 to build, but let's say they take the losses and drop Kinect and $100.
We'll ignore all of the NuAd/market-research revenue they'll also lose in the process.
Yes, they can drop the price to $350, or even $300 and try to compete with the Wii U, but they're already taking a loss at $400 sans Kinect, and lower price points will just make those losses worse. That's what I mean by buying market share. MS are effectively paying people to take their console, while Sony have people lined up to buy theirs at cost. And Sony are outselling MS ~3.5:1 right now. I don't think MS investors will let them buy enough market share to make a noticeable change in that sales ratio, especially if XBone versions of games continue to mysteriously disappear.
The Reptilian Frag
Banned
PS4: 85 million
XO: 40 million
WiiU: 35 million
I really think the Wii U needs more Mario Kart and Smash Bros (hopefully 2 of each one this gen) to reach this number. Also, I just bought one lol
XO: 40 million
WiiU: 35 million
I really think the Wii U needs more Mario Kart and Smash Bros (hopefully 2 of each one this gen) to reach this number. Also, I just bought one lol
Dragonborn
Member
Pretty much what you said OP.
PS4 - 90-100 million (I think it may even have a shot at matching the PS1).
X1 - 35-40 million (25 million NA, 5 million UK, 5-10 million elsewhere)
Wii U 15-20 million
All In all, I think it'll look rather similar to the sixth gen (PS1, N64, Saturn).
It's baffling how some people can't, or refuse to understand why the X1 is going to loose out big time. One look at the 360's install base distribution will show that it's in for one massive shrinkage.
PS4 - 90-100 million (I think it may even have a shot at matching the PS1).
X1 - 35-40 million (25 million NA, 5 million UK, 5-10 million elsewhere)
Wii U 15-20 million
All In all, I think it'll look rather similar to the sixth gen (PS1, N64, Saturn).
It's baffling how some people can't, or refuse to understand why the X1 is going to loose out big time. One look at the 360's install base distribution will show that it's in for one massive shrinkage.
Majmun
Member
Ps4
110120 mln
Ps3 managed to sell more than 80 mln consoles after tough competition and major fuck ups in the beginning. The Ps4 has had a great debut and the competition isn't really strong this this gen, resulting in a much better performance this time around.
Xbox One
4050 mln
It will do great in the US, decent in the UK. But it will remain irrelevant in the other regions. It will sell less than the X360 because MS doesn't have any advantages this time around. Like lower pricing and better multiplatforms
Wii U
1520
Dead in the water. I will eat my whole collection of shoes if it ends up selling more than 20mln. The console is just very unappealing.
110120 mln
Ps3 managed to sell more than 80 mln consoles after tough competition and major fuck ups in the beginning. The Ps4 has had a great debut and the competition isn't really strong this this gen, resulting in a much better performance this time around.
Xbox One
4050 mln
It will do great in the US, decent in the UK. But it will remain irrelevant in the other regions. It will sell less than the X360 because MS doesn't have any advantages this time around. Like lower pricing and better multiplatforms
Wii U
1520
Dead in the water. I will eat my whole collection of shoes if it ends up selling more than 20mln. The console is just very unappealing.
joecanada
Member
I don't see sony cutting the price either because they don't need to. This in no way gives ms any advantage it just ensures they will lose more profit by going into a price war. And they could remove Kinect but a same priced system still won't sell better than sony.
ms should have a much better strategy than wait for 2015 halo. This ignores the fact that sony has games coming out all year and this summer. I don't see halo doing perfectly what titanfall couldn't do. It may help but they are already being consistently outsold 2:1, just not in America luckily.
I'm not predicting a2:1 overall LTD gap, but it's going to be an uphill battle
Honestly they would do better to price match and take their licks rather than play price war
I can't see a 7th Halo game or a 5th Gears game attracting new consumers to
the current Xbox fanbase in any great quantity.
Due to the pervasiveness of social media, the power gap between the two consoles
with respect to multiplats will be continue to grow in awareness among the masses.
Gaming press will continue to put out clickbait articles concerning the power gap
as evidenced by the IGN article about Lords of the Fallen. These will happen with
increasing frequency once other big titles like Watch_Dogs, The Phantom Pain
and FFXV come out.
So, the 3DS is done after about 7.5M? lol
