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Tier 2 Xbox One launch: retail stories

We sold about 80 Xbox One’s, even though we priced the consoles a bit higher then the SRP due to import fees and stuff. There is still definitly a market for the Xbox One, it’s just never going to sell like PS4. Same was the case with PS3 and Xbox 360.

So our store is getting about 40 Kinectless Bundles and 30 Kinect Bundles. Thusfar we have 6 pre-orders for each console, so the €399 bundle is not really doing any better then the €499 SKU, which is interesting.

So you've sold 80 xbones and another 12 as preorders.

Do you remember roughly how many ps4 preorders you received?
 

Nokterian

Member
Dutch gamingretailers remain sceptical about the Xbox One launch:

http://entertainmentbusiness.nl/nie...ameretailer-sceptisch-over-xbox-one-lancering

Some interresting quotes:







Sounds messed up, Microsoft should get their act together, this launch is a joke.

And i am not surprised at all. To think when they announced it will not launch during the same year as PS4 last year. People just went to buy a PS4 instead not all of them most of them bought them through germany or other country's to get the xbone. But this is just bad on how microsoft is handling for the netherlands and to think that almost a whole year what i saw at gamemania they where selling imported Xbone games and sometimes a imported Xbone at mediamarkt but it didn't sell at all what i saw in rotterdam.
 

gtj1092

Member
So you've sold 80 xbones and another 12 as preorders.

Do you remember roughly how many ps4 preorders you received?


I think he might mean 80 since the launch last year in tier one since he mentions they are imports and that his current preorders are for the official release.
 

LNBL

Member
I think most of the people that wanted an Xbox one in tier 2 countries have already bought them via import or Amazon, atleast that's what I did.
 
Dutch gamingretailers remain sceptical about the Xbox One launch:

http://entertainmentbusiness.nl/nie...ameretailer-sceptisch-over-xbox-one-lancering

Some interresting quotes:

Niels Thomassen, owner of Nedgame: “We haven't heard anything at all. Inquiries to distributors on available quantities or promotion material let to nothing. I would happily have bought a few hundred launch units But there is no guarantee I will actually receive them. Thats why we closed the pre-orders early, purely because I do not know if I can provide them. Meanwhile we continue to import them, then at least we know we will actually receive them.
" Dragan Blom, owner of Foregames in Breda and Tilburg adds. "It remains eerily quiet surrounding the launch. Microsoft throws us a bit in the deep end. Should there not be promotional material for the stores? Why are there no commercials on TV to create a little demand. I would almost think that they themselves do not really believe in it anymore. "

" Wesley de Jong, owner of Game Shock in Gorinchem says that the demand for Xbox One remains in his shop. "There has never been a real Xbox One-hype. Not even around the original launch date. It's a strange situation, after the announcement of the PS4, I was flooded with pre-orders, but with the Xbox One that was not the case. We also do not really have pre-orders for this official launch, because the console was already in the store anyway. "


Sounds messed up, Microsoft should get their act together, this launch is a joke.

yikes.
 

Aiii

So not worth it
-edit: ^^^article below is the same as the one above.

Dutch newspaper Telegraaf
Gamewinkels sceptisch over lancering Xbox One

Hoewel geïmporteerde exemplaar van de Xbox One al maanden in de schappen liggen, verschijnt Microsoft’s nieuwste console officieel pas op 5 september in Nederland. Dat het erg stil is rond de lancering laten ook enkele gamewinkels weten aan vakblad Entertainment Business.

Zo weten sommige winkeliers niet of en hoeveel exemplaren ze van de Xbox One mogen verwachten morgen. ”Ik zou zo enkele honderden launch-consoles inkopen, ik heb echter geen garantie of ik ze ook daadwerkelijk krijg. Daarom hebben wij de pre-orders voor Xbox One gesloten, puur omdat ik niet weet of ik ze wel kan leveren.

Ondertussen blijven wij vrolijk door importeren, dan weten we tenminste dat we consoles krijgen geleverd,” laat Niels Thomassen, eigenaar van Nedgame, weten aan Entertainment Business.

Dragan Blom, eigenaar van Foregames, vindt het vooral vreemd dat er geen promotie wordt gemaakt. ”Het blijft akelig stil rond de launch. Microsoft gooit ons een beetje in het diepe. Moeten de winkels niet worden aangekleed? Waarom zijn er nog geen reclames op tv om een beetje vraag te creëren? Ik zou bijna denken dat ze er zelf niet echt meer in geloven.”

Ondanks dat veel winkels en gamers de Xbox One importeren, kijkt Microsoft Nederland uit naar de officiële lancering. "We zijn er trots op dat we als Xbox zulke trouwe fans hebben die zoveel enthousiasme hebben voor Xbox dat ze moeite hebben gedaan om de console al eerder te bemachtigen. Het wordt zeer zeker een mooi feestje op 5 september. We zijn erg blij met de vele pre-orders die fans hebben geplaatst,” vertelt Monika Popieluch, communicatiemanager Xbox, aan De Telegraaf.

Roughly translated: Little to no hype, communication from MS about number of consoles is very low. Next to no advertising from MS and lack of promotional material to dress up stores with.

All in all, I see next to no hype at all from anyone, article mentioned most gamers and shops have already imported the Xbox One, which is part of the reason. Other than that MS makes no effort to make the launch anything special. Gaming websites have some features, but it seems to be on their own iniative mostly and far less than other consoles and handhelds had recently.

Don't know why MS is not putting any effort in this, but there you go.

Also remarkable, you can actually order a Xbox One limited "Day One" edition now without pre-order: http://www.bol.com/nl/p/microsoft-x...ition-zwart-xbox-one-bundel/9200000014078657/
 
14959183298_a7620534d3.jpg


14959188327_b836945660.jpg


Xbox one is out here in China on the 23rd of this month and so far this is the only promotion I've seen. One in Sundan and one in Carrefour, just banners. no demo machine or anything else. It's not looking good.
 
Xbone is exclusive to Amazon in India, they had a limited time offer for first 1000 buyers back in August. Then they extended the time limit, and now its completely removed. Just pre-order it and you get offered items.

The PS4 for comparison sold its first shipment of 5k within a month and was out of stock till May-June.
 

Nokterian

Member
-edit: ^^^article below is the same as the one above.

Dutch newspaper Telegraaf


Roughly translated: Little to no hype, communication from MS about number of consoles is very low. Next to no advertising from MS and lack of promotional material to dress up stores with.

All in all, I see next to no hype at all from anyone, article mentioned most gamers and shops have already imported the Xbox One, which is part of the reason. Other than that MS makes no effort to make the launch anything special. Gaming websites have some features, but it seems to be on their own iniative mostly and far less than other consoles and handhelds had recently.

Don't know why MS is not putting any effort in this, but there you go.

Also remarkable, you can actually order a Xbox One limited "Day One" edition now without pre-order: http://www.bol.com/nl/p/microsoft-x...ition-zwart-xbox-one-bundel/9200000014078657/

And add to that i didn't see any commercial on tv in the last few days to even say when it was launching or any advertising anywhere where i live. No effort what so ever.
 

Xando

Member
And add to that i didn't see any commercial on tv in the last few days to even say when it was launching or any advertising anywhere where i live. No effort what so ever.

Didnt they just fire their EU marketing team? maybe that why they have no ads.
 

Dinjooh

Member
It's hard to give you any impressions from Denmark because Xbox One has been readily available here since the launch last year.


Popularity:

On Pricerunner.dk, a price-comparison site, the Xbox one was Nr. 21 on the list of most popular products back in July.

Right now, it's at Nr. 27 on the launch day.

The PS4 has been at the 1. spot pretty much constantly since November.

Local gaming news:

GameReactor.dk has no mention of the launch
EuroGamer.dk only has an indirect mention of the launch (WarFrame is F2P at X1 launch)
Beep.dk has no mention
 

Klart

Member
Xbone is exclusive to Amazon in India, they had a limited time offer for first 1000 buyers back in August. Then they extended the time limit, and now its completely removed. Just pre-order it and you get offered items.

The PS4 for comparison sold its first shipment of 5k within a month and was out of stock till May-June.

Ouch.
 

west

Member
Verkokauppa.com, arguably the largest retailer on electronics in Finland has the last 5 sales of every product listed on their site, complete with dates and times.

So far they have sold 2 Xbox Ones today.

On the sales charts ( No numbers on these ) they have 3 PS4 SKUs ( Standard, Destiny bundle and NHL 15 bundle ) before the first xbox one.
 

MauroNL

Member
We'll see. At the store I work we have about 45 pre-orders, which is nothing compared to the PS4 (judging by the op's story we work at the same chain of stores). There's been a distinct lack of hype from our customers and very few have actually made a down-payment so I'm curious to see how many we'll actually sell. I think it'll so okay in the long-run, but as the op already said: Sony is king in the Netherlands. In the 360/PS3 days, Sony did roughly double the numbers MS did and the gap seems to be growing every month.
Media Markt/Saturn? Welke vestiging? Tilburg hiero
 

despire

Member
Verkokauppa.com, arguably the largest retailer on electronics in Finland has the last 5 sales of every product listed on their site, complete with dates and times.

So far they have sold 2 Xbox Ones today.

On the sales charts ( No numbers on these ) they have 3 PS4 SKUs ( Standard, Destiny bundle and NHL 15 bundle ) before the first xbox one.

They shipped most of their units yesterday via mail. So todays sales are only the pick ups.


Also they've been selling X1's since December like every other big retailer in Europe.
 

Micerider

Member
Mediamarkt Brussels this noon. They have a stack of 30ish new bundles in the store. No-one stopping by.

Funny thing: they are "hiding" their imported stacks from France/Germany under the games display...yes they still had satcks of unsold Tier 1 boxes there... (I'll post pictures this evening)

Pitty, the deal is quite good: kinectless console + FIFA 15 and Forza 5 + voucher for free Destiny at launch goes for 399 Euros. That's virtually selling the console for 260..
 

Doffen

Member
It's hard to give you any impressions from Denmark because Xbox One has been readily available here since the launch last year.


Popularity:

On Pricerunner.dk, a price-comparison site, the Xbox one was Nr. 21 on the list of most popular products back in July.

Right now, it's at Nr. 27 on the launch day.

The PS4 has been at the 1. spot pretty much constantly since November.

Local gaming news:

GameReactor.dk has no mention of the launch
EuroGamer.dk only has an indirect mention of the launch (WarFrame is F2P at X1 launch)
Beep.dk has no mention

Sounds about right. I wonder what PressPlay thinks about it.
 

Erolsky

Banned
Mediamarkt Brussels this noon. They have a stack of 30ish new bundles in the store. No-one stopping by.

Funny thing: they are "hiding" their imported stacks from France/Germany under the game display...yes they still had stcks of unsold Tier 1 boxes there... (I'll post pictures this evening)

Pitty, the deal is quite good: kinectless console + FIFA 15 and Forza 5 + voucher for free Destiny at launch goes for 399 Euros

Any pictures?
 

DeviantBoi

Member
Is there any PR out from Microsoft regarding the launch of the console in the tier 2 countries?

I'd like to see how they spin it.
 

Haunted

Member
RIP

pls make a better console next time

Ouch look at all that crushed black in the X-1 pic.
ok that one got me


Sales numbers won't be pretty. I wonder if they'll even mention them in any press release or just go with vague marketing jargon.
 

p3tran

Banned
so, I just saw a tv ad from a big retail chain here in Greece. very first for xbone I ever saw.
the announcer said "we are going to melt with xbox one!!", celebrating the xbone launch.
now this is a Greek expression for when one puts too much time in something, aka "he melted on ..."

whats the offer? If I saw correctly, its

xbone, destiny, forza, fifa, max and lococycle for 429.
 

The_Monk

Member
Hello my good fellow GAFfers, let me share my small impressions from Portugal.

The Marketing and Communication to announce and promote the hype for the console was really low. I understand they may not have the budget to spend on massive campaigns because we are a small country, however, even on free services in the social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc the Marketing was poor and its management was terrible, unfortunately. Their own interest was lacking and I believe consumers noticed that, which is a shame.

To begin, they started doing a countdown on Facebook, but not even that they did it right. We all know the day it was coming. Microsoft knew, consumers who were interested knew, everyone knew, well aside perhaps of the Marketing department who was running their Facebook page. Let's see:

Hey guys, 5 days remaining to the Official release of Xbox One in Portugal! (they were wrong).

FQSJwJUl.jpg


Four days remaining (guys, can't you count? That's wrong...)

AQ0HyiFl.jpg


Oh wait, they realised they were wrong! Hope people didn't notice, let's Time-travel one day and expect our consumers do not see that we can't even count days properly. Let's skip a day and do the countdown correct! And with that...

Only two days remaining:

2qBMLitl.jpg


And then One:

wa8S7ZUl.jpg


And then it was officially released. Congratulations!

h76aM5al.jpg


You can read "2014 Welcome to Portugal"

Midnight launch and dedicated space inside the stores:

Yesterday there was a midnight launch in some retails stores, FNAC being one of the biggest they promoted the launch of the console with just some signs on the door and via social media in a very light form. From all the stores available, as far as I know, only one had a proper launch which was in your capital. If you went to any other store in any other district you would get there by midnight buy a Xbox One and it was done.

The space dedicated to their console and games selection were the smallest. I took no picture even if I was there yesterday (I'm sorry for no visual proof) but to give you an idea, they had something like two rows of games for the PS4, 3 rows for the PS3, 3-4 rows for both the Wii and Wii-U. In the centre they have Steam cards and a row on PS Vita consoles, games and accessories. Behind this centre row there is one, single row for the Xbox One console, games and accessories. Not only it was the smallest row but it was the less visible point and from a Marketing point-of-view, the less appealing place to have your product (in a corner, at the end of the rows, behind another row in the centre).

For that one event people could be there starting 5PM and could get a chance to be a winner of one (1) Xbox One. Besides to have a chance of getting this console you could try FORZA 5 (as well FIFA15 and Sunset Overdrive) and beat the time of a Portuguese professional racer. See below:

W20IgrVl.jpg


Even if this serves no official numbers, the Facebook event showed quite a low number of people interested. In the picture below you can see 45 people stating that they will attend, 7 maybe and 71 that were invited:

jbXn3Lj.png


Early sells & breaching contracts:

Even if some major stores like FNAC created special events to launch the console at midnight that didn't stop other retailers to breach their contract and start selling the console earlier than expected. Not only this is an illegal move, it's also a "under the carpet" move to try and sell the console earlier to those that want, getting this way a couple more units sold first to those that didn't want to wait for the official midnight launch. The following picture was taken (not by me, not my photo) from another decent size retailer called "Worten". Again, this show lacks of professionalism from the stores where all that matters is making some quick money by selling products earlier. Same happened with many wanted games in the past (FIFA, COD, etc).

WflYeNHl.jpg


The Professional/Business side:

During this last, previous month I had the privilege of working inside a Government institution from our State. As you may expect it's a big facility with lot's of Official Sponsors, partners and so on since, well, like I said it's from the Government so everything is big.

Microsoft is one of their official sponsors for one specific program. A program I was working on a decent-sized project so I sent an e-mail to one of the Marketing members to ask for informations regarding the Xbox One as well other professional questions regarding our partnership and also requesting a meeting to their facilities.

Now, it was not the first time I contacted them and it was not the first I would have been to Microsoft's Headquarters. I was the happy winner of a creative writing contest to which I won the very first place. I got an Xbox 360, a Kinect, some months worth of Live and other things. Months later I attended a meeting with their Xbox Product manager. It was an honour to have such meeting and after getting to know to facility, the staff and after a couple of hours talking about the Xbox brand in Portugal I heard some nice words from this person: "Could you please give us our address? I would like to write a personal recommendation letter for you. We are a big company so I believe such letter could be a big advantage in today's competitive market." I was in shock and said yes. Two weeks later I had this letter and a couple of games as a small gift.

I mentioned all this and more. Got zero replies from them. They not only ignored a potential consumer, they did worst! They did not answered a official member from a partnership from the Government itself! Just in case to make it sure I sent the e-mail more than once from my personal e-mail but also from my professional one (the one that was labelled as the Government company I was in). When they don't even answer "big" companies like these and when they ignore such things I have to wonder why or how this professionals got a job in Microsoft. I was forced to fill a report stating that they did not answered our requests of a meeting to provide information for our project and how negative impact it got due to being an official partner from the State, yet, they gave no signs of life. I tried, I really did but it was out of my reach since I could not get a single answer. It was truly a shame and I did not expect such treatment from a business point-of-view.

I have to question... how they intend to make money with this console with barely Marketing and communication management?

How can they be the professionals we expect to be when they do not answer their official partners who are not just a tiny company but instead a Institute from the Government itself! I would love if such post could arrive for those in charge in Microsoft HQ. I used to be a decent consumer from them, I have a recommendation letter from them, which is a rare opportunity in here, believe me. Regarding the professional/business side... well, silence it's the worst form of keeping your official partner interested. Pure lack of professionalism and love for the job if you ask me. Many opportunities were lost, the project I was working on the previous month was canned because silence was all I got and I had to work on a "Plan B" in a really tight schedule.

Best of luck Microsoft, you sure are going to need it in this territory.
 
They finally launch in other regions - which I still think was reasonably important to their sales, it was obviously never going to be a negative factor and they don't even bother to advertise.

So stupid.
 

KongRudi

Banned
How the heck are they going to sell all those imported ones now that the official bundle comes with 2 games?

They'll probably just drop the price to the something relative to non-bundled units - or wait until the bundle stock runs out on the new ones, I assume. :-/
 

Mael

Member
Wow The_Monk, the 2nd part of your post!
o_O
I don't wish people to lose their jobs but that incompetence is stunning.

They'll probably just drop the price to the something relative to non-bundled units - or wait until the bundle stock runs out on the new ones, I assume. :-/

They'll simply stop ordering new unit until they clear the stock probably.
 

Ratros

Member
XBOXOne_in_China.jpg


That's China for Microsoft. Console was revealed nearly 2 months ago and so far 2149 people has reserved it through the official online channel.
 
Best of luck Microsoft, you sure are going to need it in this territory.

Luck? More like a miracle.. They can't even surpass Nintendo, much less Sony.

They finally launch in other regions - which I still think was reasonably important to their sales, it was obviously never going to be a negative factor and they don't even bother to advertise.

So stupid.

When people say "Xbox is mostly a US focused brand", it's because we've seen this scenario before. Last to market in Japan and most of Europe? Not that it would have mattered much anyway (they don't have the brand power in those regions), but that was a really, really bad decision.
 

Kaversmed

Member
Finally. It's been super awkward being able to buy Xbox One games in stores here in Denmark but not the damn console. Such tease, much wait.
 

Taurus

Member
Verkokauppa.com, arguably the largest retailer on electronics in Finland has the last 5 sales of every product listed on their site, complete with dates and times.

So far they have sold 2 Xbox Ones today.

On the sales charts ( No numbers on these ) they have 3 PS4 SKUs ( Standard, Destiny bundle and NHL 15 bundle ) before the first xbox one.
Why would anyone order their console from verkkokauppa.com? Gigantti, Netanttila, Citymarket and Expert (major Finnish retailers) all have had way better deals than verkkokauppa ever did.

For example:

Verkkokauppa.com Basic edition: Xbox One, no Kinect, no games, 399 euros + shipping about 10 euros
Gigantti Xbox One launch edition: Xbox One, no Kinect, Forza 5, FIFA15, NHL15, 429 euros + shipping 0 euros
Netanttila Xbox One launch edition: Xbox One, no Kinect, Forza 5, FIFA15, 409 euros + shipping 0 euros

Etc.

I'm not saying Xbox One is setting fires on the sales charts, but verkkokauppa.com's sales are probably worse than any other retailer's sales because they overprice them out of competition.
 

Hesemonni

Banned
Why would anyone order their console from verkkokauppa.com? Gigantti, Netanttila, Citymarket and Expert (major Finnish retailers) all have had way better deals than verkkokauppa ever did
Size brings business. And this being anecdotal thread it's one anecdote amongst others. Interesting because of the actual sales data.

Why the hostility?
 

Mr Reasonable

Completely Unreasonable
Verkokauppa.com, arguably the largest retailer on electronics in Finland has the last 5 sales of every product listed on their site, complete with dates and times.

So far they have sold 2 Xbox Ones today.

On the sales charts ( No numbers on these ) they have 3 PS4 SKUs ( Standard, Destiny bundle and NHL 15 bundle ) before the first xbox one.

Looks like they're practically sold out of Titanfall Bundles - none left in the warehouse, one store has two left at the time of writing and they're selling one every 20 minutes or so:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/prod...dejarjestelma-Titanfall-pelik#product-history

The day one edition seems to be selling quite well. It looks sold out to me? None in stores at the time of this edit and Minus 11 in the warehouse:

Recently sold
Today 15:50 1 piece
Today 15:49 1 piece
Today 15:46 1 piece
Today 15:44 1 piece
Today 15:43 1 piece
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/prod...One-peli-ja-viihdejarjestelma-Suomen-launch-j

The Basic Edition is sold out in all stores but there are some in the warehouse:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/prod...One-peli-ja-viihdejarjestelma-Basic-Edition-2

There are other SKU's that aren't selling as well:

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/prod...x-One-peli-ja-viihdejarjestelma-Basic-Edition
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/13754/dgvrd/Microsoft-Xbox-One-peli-ja-viihdejarjestelma

It's pretty interesting to be able to see stock levels in real time. I'm surprised the store does it, I imagine lots of retailers wouldn't like this info to be out there.

The top ten chart looks like this at the moment:
http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/catalog/681b/Pelit-ja-viihde-Pelikonsolit-ja-tarvikkeet
PS4
PS4
X1 Controller
DS4
DS3 (?)
PS4
X1
X1 Day 1
X1 Controller + Charge
DS4

I'm not saying you're trying to present things in a bad light, but it doesn't seem bad to me?

For comparison, the number one selling PS4 is a preorder so there are no real time figures but the number two selling PS4 system sales look like this:

Recently sold
Today 14:58 1 piece
Today 14:43 1 piece
Today 24:14 1 piece
Today 8:14 1 piece
Today 7:59 1 piece

http://www.verkkokauppa.com/fi/product/24461/dkcqt/Sony-PlayStation-4-500-Gt-pelikonsoli-musta

That seems a lot slower than the Xbox One Day One edition which took 7 minutes to sell 5 consoles, versus this PS4 which (conveniently) took just under 7 hours to sell five systems. Obviously the PS4 at the top of the chart is likely selling lots more, but it's hardly an insatiable thirst.

Disclaimer: Google Chrome did all the translating for me automatically, I assume I've not missed something but I may have.
 
Cross posting some "interesting" points from the Norwegian launch.

Here in Norway, they've taken out Kinect voice control (completely, even english if you turn on norwegian text), have no exclusive norwegian apps or features and no localized games. We waited almost a year because of ...who knows?

Talk about lying their asses off:

http://news.xbox.com/2013/08/xbox-one-confirmed-markets
"While we wish we could launch Xbox One simultaneously in these markets, there are many factors that determine the timing of specific market launches. This includes work to localize the Xbox One dash, incorporate additional voice and languages, and build partnerships to bring apps and meaningful local content to each country."
 
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