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Microsoft Earnings: 1.2 million Xbox One's shipped in Jan-Mar, 5.1M total (3.9+1.2)
- Thread starter bob page
- Start date
MS already released that they sold 3mill through to customers in 2013. http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-one-sold-3-million-units-in-2013-microsoft-says/1100-6416955/
Every console increased, some even more than the XB1. Its called tax season.
Yes, but I wasn't expecting an increase by so much. $500 system without a major game release during the month.
RealityPales
Member
2015 my friend. 2015.
1000 Branches
Banned
Do we know when the other two will post their earnings results?
Nightengale
Member
It had PvZ : Garden Warfare.
It was no TF and was relatively low-key a launch, but I'd say that's quite major.
RealityPales
Member
Why all the effort? Because you asked. lol
I expected TF related console sales to manifest earlier than March, so it made sense to me that Xbone saw a pretty decent increase in February over the previous month.
PvZ:GW, and also pre-buying for Titanfall since it was a mid-march release.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Your surprise is strange. All consoles jump up due to tax returns, even the Vita, it has nothing to do with game releases. Did every console out have a big game release? You are surprised MS's new flagship console also jumps up in its strongest region? Ya, I'm sure it was a huge shock. A rising tide lifts all boats.
If the PS4 was in stock it would have done ~500k and body slammed the XB1, but lucky for MS it wasn't.
MisterXDTV
Member
PS4 is outselling XboxOne 3:1 according to people working in retail. 7m PS4 sold to consumers so far.
You can believe whatever you want, fact is XboxOne is slowly going down the road of WiiU. Maybe they'll manage to pull some numbers in 2015/16 when Halo and Gears come out. Maybe...
Yeah, I honestly didn't know how big PvZ was... well, I knew it was a big iOS game but I didn't think it would transfer over well to console (a la "Angry Birds").
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
He's wrong, Sony has a lot of big sellers, Uncharted series, last of us, God of war (Uc 2and 3, tlou are all over 6) all are 5 + million sellers, Uncharted and last of us are as big or bigger then gears. GT is as big as halo...Sony has more of the mid-tier sellers like killzone, infamous that sell respectable 2-3 million. Thsi Sony exclusives don't sell narrative needs to die.
Little big planet sold over 5 million for gods sakes.
I know that consoles jump during the period. I (again) wasn't expecting an increase of that size for the Xbox One NPD for the month. That's all.
IIRC, the Xbox One sold more than 3 times as much as the Wii U when it comes to both of their first Q1 periods. On top of that, games on the system are actually selling well. It's not going down the Wii U's path.
I would say that both of you guys are right in some areas. He's right in the sense that a big reason why the PS4 is currently doing so well is because it's the cheapest console to play multiplatform games.
However, exclusives are important and many people bought PS4s expecting sequels to those franchises you mentioned. Hopefully they will come out in a reasonable amount of time. PS3 suffered from a decent number of the popular PS2 franchises not having new next-gen entries until late in its gen (as well as some going multiplatform like Tekken).
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I don't. Not anymore.
Not only that, but all the R&D money they spent on Kinect would now be a waste if there is no actual product using the technology on the market to sell. Yeah, they could reuse it in a similar-but-different-enough standalone product, something that would go for even the cost or slightly over (say a cheap media center box to compete with Fire TV), but that's still at least a year of a product off the market and a year of lost profits, and more money being funneled into a Kinect replacement/repackaging.
They just have to stomach it for the gen and make it work.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
It's true though, Sony as a whole doesn't make system sellers, their strength is in the depth available.
Which is smart on sony's part. it allowed for those franchises to blossom on PS3. If sony took the MS approach we wouldn't have gotten Uncharted or TLoU or even Infamous. Bringing out new franchises at the start of a gen allows then to be the focus.
I think thats why its going to be hard for MS with the One TF was good for them, but its not first party so its going to be on ps4 when TF2 comes out. MS consoles have the stigma, whether good or bad, as the halo/forza box. Sony consoles dont have such a stigma.
Good point but I would prefer for there to be a mix too. You don't need to release all of the big name games from established franchises at the same time but at least release maybe two per year during the first half of a gen. More variety and (solid) games to play IMO.
Outside of gaf, people aren't buying the PS4 for these games.
But that is where the problem for MS stands now. people bought the 360, not for halo or forza, because it played multiplats better and that's what their friends had already. neither of those are looking to be there this gen. sony could still sell systems last gen due to the variety of not just first party exclusives but also third party exclusives. MS isn't going to draw a lot more than just the hard core shooter guys that love halo and gears. even their big exclusive this year TF was for that same crowd. Halo won't be near as big now due to PS4 getting better versions of BF and COD every year along with more people having ps4. the fps crowd moves to those games more than Halo.
I can say with 100% accuracy that this statement is false.
I don't think Killzone is a heavy hitter, but the other games listed (God of War, Last of Us, Uncharted) are certainly big enough franchises to draw in the non-core crowd.
Imperfected
Member
To be honest, I think the value of exclusives (for all) systems has been dramatically overstated.
The killer app for the prior generation was not exclusives, but online play. That's why the 360 lead so handily for most of the generation: it got out to an early lead, and people wanting to play with their friends continued migrating toward the system as a sort of critical mass. You bought a 360 to play online with friends; your friends bought a 360 to play online with friends.
Yes, the PS3 eventually clawed its way back in largely as a second system on the back of exclusives, but I think it's important to note that: as a second system. There was no harm - well, not as much harm, anyway, being the secondary choice for multiplats still hurts pretty bad in royalty revenue - in being the silver medal last generation. The problem is that's no longer true.
Sony, by making PS+ necessary for online play, has created a dilemma for users where the second system is now likely (almost certainly) going to be a vastly diminished value prospect for the company selling it. Why? They aren't going to be able to sell their online subscription for it, which means they aren't going to be able to sell any online multiplatform games for it, either. The big games now (and for the foreseeable future) are all online multiplatform titles, not single-player platform exclusives. Being the platform that everyone buys the yearly AAA sequels on is the actual determining factor of what wins this generation, financially.
People are going to buy a PS4 and subscribe to PS+ because more of their friends are on it than are on XBL Gold. They will then end up buying all their multiplatform games for PS4, because that's the system they have an online subscription for. They might buy an XB1 later down the line for platform exclusives, but if they aren't buying a significant number of multiplatform games for it or subscribing to XBL Gold, it honestly doesn't matter. (At least, to Microsoft.)
The exclusives are nice ways to drive early sales to reach that critical mass, but it's the critical mass itself that is important: beyond a certain point, people will buy your system over the competitor simply because people they know bought your system over the competitor. This has become more true this generation than any previous to it due to the changes in online policies and the proliferation of online play, and it's ultimately going to be what decides the fate of these consoles, not Halo 5 or Uncharted 4 or Zelda Wii-U.
The killer app for the prior generation was not exclusives, but online play. That's why the 360 lead so handily for most of the generation: it got out to an early lead, and people wanting to play with their friends continued migrating toward the system as a sort of critical mass. You bought a 360 to play online with friends; your friends bought a 360 to play online with friends.
Yes, the PS3 eventually clawed its way back in largely as a second system on the back of exclusives, but I think it's important to note that: as a second system. There was no harm - well, not as much harm, anyway, being the secondary choice for multiplats still hurts pretty bad in royalty revenue - in being the silver medal last generation. The problem is that's no longer true.
Sony, by making PS+ necessary for online play, has created a dilemma for users where the second system is now likely (almost certainly) going to be a vastly diminished value prospect for the company selling it. Why? They aren't going to be able to sell their online subscription for it, which means they aren't going to be able to sell any online multiplatform games for it, either. The big games now (and for the foreseeable future) are all online multiplatform titles, not single-player platform exclusives. Being the platform that everyone buys the yearly AAA sequels on is the actual determining factor of what wins this generation, financially.
People are going to buy a PS4 and subscribe to PS+ because more of their friends are on it than are on XBL Gold. They will then end up buying all their multiplatform games for PS4, because that's the system they have an online subscription for. They might buy an XB1 later down the line for platform exclusives, but if they aren't buying a significant number of multiplatform games for it or subscribing to XBL Gold, it honestly doesn't matter. (At least, to Microsoft.)
The exclusives are nice ways to drive early sales to reach that critical mass, but it's the critical mass itself that is important: beyond a certain point, people will buy your system over the competitor simply because people they know bought your system over the competitor. This has become more true this generation than any previous to it due to the changes in online policies and the proliferation of online play, and it's ultimately going to be what decides the fate of these consoles, not Halo 5 or Uncharted 4 or Zelda Wii-U.
I think you are wrong on the bolded, unless you mean just in the UK and US. THe real reason PS3 "clawed back" was sales outside the NA market. xbox brand wasn't strong outside the UK and NA really. PS3 might have been the second system in those markets it was by far the first outside them.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Yeah it's a ridiculous statement if I've ever seen one.
People don't buy PlayStation's for Gran Turismo?
Imperfected
Member
I'm going to say it straight: I don't think the PS3 actually "won" last generation.
People are going to argue this to death, and they will never reach satisfaction on the issue. I'm really not going to hash it out any further than this, so I'll just say my piece on the issue and let it rest. My logic is this:
The total number of systems sold over the generation is not the important thing. The important thing is how much money was actually made. Microsoft consistently made more money per customer due to higher sales ratios for AAA multiplatform games on the 360 compared to PS3. Microsoft consistently made more money per customer due to the dramatically higher adoption rate of X-Box Live Gold compared to PS+. I don't think you can make a case where Sony's revenue was anywhere near as high as Microsoft's unless you go "PS Family" on it and throw in the PSP and Vita.
The division's profit was abysmal, of course, almost entirely due to the RROD fiasco. That's an external factor, though; that's something for the "lessons learned" folder, not a reflection of the actual month-to-month revenue being generated by the platform. Thus, in spite of their poor posted profits, their revenue was actually consistently higher, which I do think proves the point of both online play and higher attach rate of AAA multiplats as being the most important factor for "winning" the generation.
The problem is, they've lost both those advantages. They no longer have de facto "port superiority" for multiplats; quite the opposite, in fact. The walled garden of XBL Gold, which was a driver of sales and service adoption last generation, has become a virtual prison; rather than a place users want to get into to play with their friends, it's a place users want to get out of because most of their friends aren't there.
They can mitigate these problems, somewhat. They can tear down the walled garden - permit and encourage cross-play between platforms, at the very least XB1 -> PC - before it becomes too big of a liability. They can add value to XBL Gold to try and maintain subscriber count in spite of having a reduced pool of potential subscribers. They can push for more exclusive games to try to make up for the fact that they're losing out on multiplatform sales by not being the system of choice for multi-system owners.
It's all mitigation, though. The "winner" of this generation really is the box that achieves critical mass first. There's no actual coming back from it, just doing whatever you can to soften the blow.
Lol that's such horse shit. Those games are a major reason why PS3 sales turned around (along with price). Why do you think Sony puts so much effort into their first party studios?
Infamous Second Son was second only to Titanfall in most regions but "LOLZ nobody outside of teh Gaf bought it!!" eh?
As mentioned by others prior like serversurfer, the PS3, launched align as consistently outsold the 360 apart from the one Kinect fad driven year. PS3, was a failure in comparison to the GOAT PS2 but it only suffered from a delayed start.
Add to this that both 343i & Epic have ruined a lot of goodwill of both Halo & Gears of War with Halo 4 & Gears of War: Judgement, & Microsoft doesn't stand a chance.
MS made more money but I don't buy your claim that they had a higher ratio of software sales and am almost certain that the Ps3 is now the gen leader in software sales. MS touted there software sales a whole lot at the beginning of the generation then mysteriously went quiet on that front and looking at 3rd quarterly results always showed the Ps3 and 360 virtually equal in revenue for the major publishers.
Let me quickly check that out:
We currently only know the following numbers (PAL, AUS, NZ and CA 2014 figures are unknown)
Code:
[u]2013 WW total:[/u] 3 000 000 [I](only 2,8 - 2,9M according to he-who-must-not-be-named)[/I]
[I](included: 909,132 November 2013 NPD)
(and 908,000 December 2013 NPD)[/I]
[U]January NPD:[/U] 145 000
[U]February NPD:[/U] 258 000
[U]March NPD:[/U] 311 000
[B][U]Total WW minimum:[/U][/B] 3 714 000
[I](or - ≤ 200 000 = 3 514 000 if you want to believe him)[/I]So the bare minimum of current LTD WW sales is 3,5M (if you want to believe so) or just taking the official figures 3,7M.
If we want to speculate about their real current LTD WW sales, we can only take the combined 2013 NPD data 1 817 132 and divide it by 3 000 000 to see that the USA made up 60,57% of the worldwide sales during 2013.
So if we take the combined 2014 NPD data 714 000, we can divide it by 1,6057 to get an image of what the LTD WW sales would look like if that ratio was still the same (highly unlikely, but for this train of thought we get another 444,663 to add to the 3 714 000): 4 158 663
If you want to believe the former insider information we can subtract ≤ 200 000, which draws us a more likely picture (because the split is likely to shift even more towards the USA) of less than <4M sold-through Xbox One units (3 958 663).
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
I just posted proof they in fact do.....MS doesn;'t have anything bigger, Sony can easily match them for big sellers, and yes the strength is the diverse lineup, but thats doesn't mean they don;t have system sellers.
It was their first party that turned ps3 around.
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
They were the same price in march, and ps3 was more expensive then 360 yet still outsold it despite 16 months less on the market, 12 in the US...Price is never the only factor,m if it were wii-u would be selling well, and android tablets would easily outsell ipads. It's a gross exaggeration and a narrative xbox fans cling too.
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
?????? Are you serious??? So 6 million who bought TLOU are all GAF users? 5 million LBP were all GAF? GT 5 sold 12 million all GAF??? Gow of war 3 sold 5.5 million all GAF??? Your comment makes zero sense when looking at the sales figures these are big sellers with big appeal.
My that token I can play this game too.....Only gaf buys GEars fo war as that sold the same as uncharted, TLOU, God of war......
Simply foolish statement.
Nintendo is May 7, Sony is May 14.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
No, you posted numbers that show some Sony games can sell upwards of five million. Out of 80 million console owners, five million buy a game. Now look how many copies of Assassin's Creed, GTA V, Fifa have been sold - they're the games that sell systems.
It's an accumulation of good games that does it for Sony, The Last of Us probably sold a few, but I'll wager much of it was PSN+ and people joining at the end of the generation to scoop up missed a decent back catalogue of exclusives and bargains. They don't really have that one killer game like Halo. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I much prefer it this way.
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
??? Comparing an exclusive to multiplats??? Very few exclusives sell more then 5 -6 million, in fact, on ps and xbox only 1.....halo and gran turismo........ They sell systems that is obvious. These exclusives where the main reason ps3 turned it around.
1000 Branches
Banned
rokkerkory
Member
March (one month) =/= the 3 million lead the PS4 has. The PS4 being the cheapest console for (new) current-gen multiplats has helped it greatly. There are numerous people who only play multiplats.
You mean overall at the end of the gen? Yeah, it did so after making changes to price and branding.
Price isn't the only factor but it's definitely playing a role... Especially now since the majority of big name games on both consoles are the same (or are of similar genres).
SkylineRKR
Member
The reason I always choose Sony is because they've got the most genres covered, and due to its origin had strong support from Japanese developers. The latter is getting less relevant, but still there is DW and FFXIV right now.
Their exclusive games do sell, but Sony had a bit too much for their own good lately. They could've done without poor products such as Resistance 2, Twisted Metal, the Ratchet games past ACiT and more out there. I also thought GT5 was a piece of shit, even though I was a huge fan of GT1 to 4. But GT sells, even though it needs to be pushed more via bundles, re-releases etc than in the past. What people generally mean is that Sony doesn't have an IP that sells complete gangbusters once its out of the gate, like Halo and Mario do. Which is true.
But for every shitty game, they brought Uncharted series, TLoU, God of War 3, Infamous.
Their exclusive games do sell, but Sony had a bit too much for their own good lately. They could've done without poor products such as Resistance 2, Twisted Metal, the Ratchet games past ACiT and more out there. I also thought GT5 was a piece of shit, even though I was a huge fan of GT1 to 4. But GT sells, even though it needs to be pushed more via bundles, re-releases etc than in the past. What people generally mean is that Sony doesn't have an IP that sells complete gangbusters once its out of the gate, like Halo and Mario do. Which is true.
But for every shitty game, they brought Uncharted series, TLoU, God of War 3, Infamous.
BigSpleenRupture
Banned
do you research before posting?? The PS3 outsold 360 EVERY year if you align the launches, meaning ps3 first year > 360 first year setc..... Price is never the only reason period. Sayi8ng price is all that matters throws out everything else like marketing , brand power, etc.... Playstation is a bigger brand then xbox.
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
Well you could go back and match up sales of consoles with the releases of those exclusives, and the week's either side to prove your point, or not. But please don't do it on my behalf. You appear a little irate with all those question marks and ultimate ellipses, and I can't really be arsed getting into this with you.
Glorified G
Member
Online play as a killer app for 360 is not even close to being true. By 2010 only 50% of Xbox Live users (people who bother to connect their console online) payed for gold. That is a total of 12.5 million users in 2010. If online was so important the planned DRM would have been a roaring success.
The reason 360 was successful in NA was simply offering an affordable next gen console that played the most popular games. For $299-$399 you had access to AssCreed, CoD MW, Madden, GTA IV, etc. Why pay more to buy a PS3? Unless you're really into their exclusives and/or want Blu-ray. It's the same logic with the Xbox One. Unless you're into the fraction of the overall library, and/or kinect, there is not much of a point.
On your second point of PS3 being a second system is wrong too. Most people would not buy both consoles to begin with much less use one as a secondary system for exclusives. Again exclusives make up a small portion of the overall library. Both systems share the most of the same games and same apps, they're as redundant as it gets. PS3 crawled back due to brand loyalty and worldwide presence, specifically in Europe and Japan. They weren't using PS3 as a secondary system because most of them didn't care about the 360 at all.
I think you're projecting why you personally bought both systems onto the broader market.
Imperfected
Member
Do you actually have any idea how much extra profit that adds on average, per box, for Microsoft? Having "only" a 50% adoption rate for a monthly subscription service that has very modest maintenance costs is spectacular. Even if they only had two million subscribers, that's a huge increase in the amount of income they're generating from the sale of those units. That's a ridiculously good revenue stream, and the promise of expanding that source of revenue is the main reason Microsoft has even continued to tolerate the X-Box division's pratfalls.
At any rate, I'm not going to continue any further discussion of this particular point here. It's a fairly absurd argument that's gone back and forth for years now, and only tangentially related to the actual point I was making to begin with, which is:
Exclusives are no longer the primary drivers of console sales. If they were, the Wii-U would be doing just fine. People buy consoles primarily for AAA multiplatform games. The things that are going to move units this generation are, in no particular order:
1. Which system they can get more cheaply to play multiplatform games on.
2. Which system has superior ports of multiplatform games.
3. Which system more of their friends are playing online multiplayer games on.
These things are all massively more important than either console's library of exclusives. The argument of which console has or will have better exclusives is just for bragging rights; the difference it will make in the end is almost completely trivial.