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NPD Sales Results for November 2014 [Up3: NPD Data Error, AC:U #5]

Comon even you have noted microsoft war chest. The consoles are close enough that neither one will get kicked out of competition. What were probably seeing is Sony imo keeping as much profit in their sales as long as the overall mind share isn't detiorating. Microsoft on the other hand is pushing these great deals to counter that. I don't think microsoft will run out of money and I don't think Sony will decrease their price unless the WW numbers are much closer. In this case it still a huge gap. Coming from a crappy financial situation and decreased mind share from last gen, I would think Sony is happy just where they are at.
There's also a part of me that hasn't quite gotten use to the idea that I have a PS4, so part of my mind is patiently waiting until it gets cheap enough to buy it.

Give me a few months. I'm kind of slow at things.
 

Jacir

Member
Just started reading the thread today and its interesting.

Also I can't find that thread about Sony focusing more on its gaming business than their other devices. Anybody have a link to that cuz I can't find it?
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?

It has the better controller and Microsoft owns Rare are the reasons for me (which would not have sufficed to buy an Xbox One yet, but) for my fiancée it is the system that has Fantasia, which is now her favourite game of all time.

Also, even if you do not see these points as advantages, as long as you deem PS4's advantages weak enough that they don't outweigh the price differential, of course you will choose XB1? There were also a lot of people who bought a PS2 over Xbox without buying any PS2-exclusive games, at the same price even and the difference in tech between PS2 and Xbox was bigger than the one between PS4 and XB1.
 

Jacir

Member
Just started reading the thread today and its interesting.

Also I can't find that thread about Sony focusing more on its gaming business than their other devices. Anybody have a link to that cuz I can't find it?

Anyone have a link to this thread?
 
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?

They struggle in "the rest of the world" but MS and Xbox have a lot of brand power in the US and even at a higher price it was selling relatively well. And at their new price there's a keen interest from buyers.
 
About ps4 numbers: If I remember correctly there were talks about 16M ps4s being sold at the end of the first year, at the beggining of the gen. How did that turn out? Does anyone have any numbers on that? I remember that it was suposed to be shipped numbers and what not, though.

We're just nearing xmas and suddenly I remembered about that. I didn't have an account at the time, but I accompanied it from the sidelines.

My prediction was ~18mil, but looks like it's going to sell more as Europe is having some stock issues: http://www.videogamer.com/news/sony_warns_of_ps4_stock_shortages_ahead_of_christmas.html

Basically the thirst is still real. 20mil+ in the end of December wouldn't surprise me.
 
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?

I had a choice between receiving a PS4 as a Christmas gift or an Xbox, and went with the Xbox. I'm torn saying this, but right now the PS4 exclusives are just dogshit. Xbox and Wii U both have it beat (Xbox less so but still much better imo). Combine that with the pricecuts and better value bundles, it's not hard to see why one would choose it over a lackluster PS4 lineup.

Edit: Seems I've been had.
 
They are practically giving it away, this is unheard-of dude.

"Giving it away" and yet it's still $350, which is more expensive than most successful consoles historically and is only $50 cheaper (or 12.5% cheaper) than the PS4.

Let's not get crazy with the rhetoric.
 

EGM1966

Member
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?
C'mon it's not that bad a console. I'm not interested in XB1 but it's not hard to see that for average shopper the value proposition was get cheaper version of essentially same thing (spend $50 dollars less and get Unity, CoD etc).

MS know that, particularly in US, November and December are very price sensitive months where many shoppers have value for money as their core driver.

Sure PS4 is objectively better hardware for playing games but the XB1 is good enough and has enough US centric features and services to appeal if price is competitive enough to compensate for the known power difference.

Both sold really well but XB1 had more varied and consistent deals that focused on getting more for your money and that simply resonated that bit more with the prevailing shopping trends.
 
We're kind of in new territory here. We've never seen one of the big three this desperate. That's not a knock on MS. They've been smart. They've got the warchest to fight this battle with pure money if they need to, and they needed too.

That's b/c what MS's doing with XBO is not what you normally do with consoles. It defies the traditional model. It defies the traditional model of a healthy system, to bank everything around two months of the year. And the only reason they can do it is b/c of their warchest.

Getting real for a moment, it's essentially a form of temporary price-fixing. But that's not the part of actual controversy (for the moment). What's really at work here, is anti-competitive actions. That's because MS is essentially using their wealth of money to attempt burying other competitors. They can afford to take extreme losses on product their competitor (Sony) can't due only to their deep pockets. That's great from a consumer perspective; you end up with what we're seeing now (and this is probably just a mild example of what they COULD do in the future).

It's bad for corporate competition though b/c it essentially cements the company with the most money out of the gate as the one to win, even if their product is inferior. And even if that product isn't inferior (very few people will genuinely say XBO is subjectively inferior to PS4; objectively it is however, from a power POV), they are still going about competing in a way that technically violates competition laws in the U.S. But the onus isn't on the Supreme Court to call them out on that, and that may only be the case if it's prolonged. Two months isn't prolonged; it's a short sprint.

That's why you see MS stressing the price rising back up in January (which I doubt will happen, but they'll probably remove all the gift card bonuses and most of the free games and free XBL offers certainly); because they know where this can lead them if they stick to it for the long run. They aren't stupid.

So yeah, from your perspective, it's all good because you, as a consumer, are on the direct receiving end of some sweet deals. But from a corporate end, it's murky waters. It's somewhat similar to the things Nintendo pulled during the NES/SNES gens, but not very damaging (if damaging at all) to actual developers and publishers, and not necessarily vindictive on MS's part (especially if it is, again, only temporary).

But it can potentially be seen as anti-competitive in some way.
 
That's b/c what MS's doing with XBO is not what you normally do with consoles. It defies the traditional model. It defies the traditional model of a healthy system, to bank everything around two months of the year. And the only reason they can do it is b/c of their warchest.

Getting real for a moment, it's essentially a form of temporary price-fixing. But that's not the part of actual controversy (for the moment). What's really at work here, is anti-competitive actions. That's because MS is essentially using their wealth of money to attempt burying other competitors. They can afford to take extreme losses on product their competitor (Sony) can't due only to their deep pockets. That's great from a consumer perspective; you end up with what we're seeing now (and this is probably just a mild example of what they COULD do in the future).

It's bad for corporate competition though b/c it essentially cements the company with the most money out of the gate as the one to win, even if their product is inferior. And even if that product isn't inferior (very few people will genuinely say XBO is subjectively inferior to PS4; objectively it is however, from a power POV), they are still going about competing in a way that technically violates competition laws in the U.S. But the onus isn't on the Supreme Court to call them out on that, and that may only be the case if it's prolonged. Two months isn't prolonged; it's a short sprint.

That's why you see MS stressing the price rising back up in January (which I doubt will happen, but they'll probably remove all the gift card bonuses and most of the free games and free XBL offers certainly); because they know where this can lead them if they stick to it for the long run. They aren't stupid.

So yeah, from your perspective, it's all good because you, as a consumer, are on the direct receiving end of some sweet deals. But from a corporate end, it's murky waters. It's somewhat similar to the things Nintendo pulled during the NES/SNES gens, but not very damaging (if damaging at all) to actual developers and publishers, and not necessarily vindictive on MS's part (especially if it is, again, only temporary).

But it can potentially be seen as anti-competitive in some way.

This situation describes exactly what Sony did to both Sega and Nintendo in the Playstation 1 era.
 

CoG

Member
That's b/c what MS's doing with XBO is not what you normally do with consoles. It defies the traditional model. It defies the traditional model of a healthy system, to bank everything around two months of the year. And the only reason they can do it is b/c of their warchest.

Getting real for a moment, it's essentially a form of temporary price-fixing. But that's not the part of actual controversy (for the moment). What's really at work here, is anti-competitive actions. That's because MS is essentially using their wealth of money to attempt burying other competitors. They can afford to take extreme losses on product their competitor (Sony) can't due only to their deep pockets. That's great from a consumer perspective; you end up with what we're seeing now (and this is probably just a mild example of what they COULD do in the future).

It's bad for corporate competition though b/c it essentially cements the company with the most money out of the gate as the one to win, even if their product is inferior. And even if that product isn't inferior (very few people will genuinely say XBO is subjectively inferior to PS4; objectively it is however, from a power POV), they are still going about competing in a way that technically violates competition laws in the U.S. But the onus isn't on the Supreme Court to call them out on that, and that may only be the case if it's prolonged. Two months isn't prolonged; it's a short sprint.

That's why you see MS stressing the price rising back up in January (which I doubt will happen, but they'll probably remove all the gift card bonuses and most of the free games and free XBL offers certainly); because they know where this can lead them if they stick to it for the long run. They aren't stupid.

So yeah, from your perspective, it's all good because you, as a consumer, are on the direct receiving end of some sweet deals. But from a corporate end, it's murky waters. It's somewhat similar to the things Nintendo pulled during the NES/SNES gens, but not very damaging (if damaging at all) to actual developers and publishers, and not necessarily vindictive on MS's part (especially if it is, again, only temporary).

But it can potentially be seen as anti-competitive in some way.

Exactly why I will never buy another Microsoft console. Microsoft would rather burn cash than innovate. They don't know what it is to be hungry.
 

On Demand

Banned
I was. Sparked healthy discussion and good points didnt it ;).


You dont know as much as you think lol.

You clearly wasn't being serious. That was obvious. You just admitted it.

Haha?

You can always tell a members posting style. Some of you make it real obvious. You aren't fooling anyone. Some go so far as to hide their bias towards one console and pretend they're rational.
 

FordGTGuy

Banned
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?

Better exclusives, better apps, better controller and better online service?

Exactly why I will never buy another Microsoft console. Microsoft would rather burn cash than innovate. They don't know what it is to be hungry.

What is exactly innovative about the PS4?
 

donny2112

Member
This thread went way past the crazy line in a hurry!

For reference, Microsoft has been doing the free game holiday bundles since they got into the industry. GameCube dropped its price to $99 in October 2003, and no one claimed it was an anti-competitive practice, and they never even raised the price back up in January! Sales are not illegal. :p

For Microsoft, in particular, as has already been explained in this thread, U.S. is the only territory they can compete in, so in their desperation, they provide a price cut (temporary or not) and incentives for people to buy their console in order to not be left in the dust in their one competitive territory. :p
 
This situation describes exactly what Sony did to both Sega and Nintendo in the Playstation 1 era.
True but not 100% the same.

Sony didn't price-fix the PS1 iirc; if anything Sony did to them what Nintendo did to Sega and NEC in the 8/16-bit gens. Conducting practices that affected the dev community more than it did the consumer side.

I mean, N64 came out late anyhow, by the time it came out people were expecting a price cut for PS1 weren't they? And Sega was taking losses even at $399.

What you're thinking of, I"d say it's closer to what MS did with 360 pricing-wise last gen. I wouldn't call that fixing anything, just pricing smart with production costs scaling down at healthy intervals/milestones. Sony priced themselves out of the field moreso than anything.
 

Elandyll

Banned
Better exclusives, better apps, better controller and better online service?
You do realize that PhatSaqs is a major Xbox Fan and was only using sarcasm, yes?

What is exactly innovative about the PS4?

Specifically about the PS4
- The controller has an embedded speaker, a touchpad that can be used as a mouse, and a light which while sometimes annoying can also be used for various effects and apparently will have a VR - related function.
- Video sharing and screenshot taking straight from the controller, at the push of a button
- The OS can start playing a game while the install goes on, making most new physiscal games install very painless
- The OS can play music in the background without anything showing on screen
- Shareplay allows you to literally share a game online, and even do couch co op, with a game designed for local coop/ vs
- PS Now alows you to rent games that are streamed with 0 install time (pricing is a separate issue)
- The PS4 has been designed as a Virtual DVR/ TV desktop box, which will allow when PS Vue is implemented to have TV received straight via Internet, which will be ideal for cable cutters
- Move support with VR applications for precise spatial controler applications (with buttons)
- Morpheus VR
- ...

Oh, you were speaking rhetorically?
 

joecanada

Member
I had a choice between receiving a PS4 as a Christmas gift or an Xbox, and went with the Xbox. I'm torn saying this, but right now the PS4 exclusives are just dogshit. Xbox and Wii U both have it beat (Xbox less so but still much better imo). Combine that with the pricecuts and better value bundles, it's not hard to see why one would choose it over a lackluster PS4 lineup.

and yet noone is buying MS exclusives either, in fact driveclub is probably the best selling exclusive right now (maybe not but it is pretty high on europe charts)...

so your opinion notwithstanding, the same old same old will prevail

cheap price + cod/asscreed/madden/etc....

as always. the exact reason why I am not buying a second console, none of the exclusives are worth 350.
 

BigDug13

Member
Because its the "Xbone" and pretty much has everything going against it from mindshare to worse hardware. Why would anyone buy it over PS4 even if its cheaper?

More features, faster updates, unlimited cloud storage, EA Access access, exclusives that might fit someone's tastes more. There are plenty of reasons to buy an XBO. I haven't done it personally, but there are plenty of reasons to.
 
That's b/c what MS's doing with XBO is not what you normally do with consoles. It defies the traditional model. It defies the traditional model of a healthy system, to bank everything around two months of the year. And the only reason they can do it is b/c of their warchest.

Getting real for a moment, it's essentially a form of temporary price-fixing. But that's not the part of actual controversy (for the moment). What's really at work here, is anti-competitive actions. That's because MS is essentially using their wealth of money to attempt burying other competitors. They can afford to take extreme losses on product their competitor (Sony) can't due only to their deep pockets. That's great from a consumer perspective; you end up with what we're seeing now (and this is probably just a mild example of what they COULD do in the future).

It's bad for corporate competition though b/c it essentially cements the company with the most money out of the gate as the one to win, even if their product is inferior. And even if that product isn't inferior (very few people will genuinely say XBO is subjectively inferior to PS4; objectively it is however, from a power POV), they are still going about competing in a way that technically violates competition laws in the U.S. But the onus isn't on the Supreme Court to call them out on that, and that may only be the case if it's prolonged. Two months isn't prolonged; it's a short sprint.

That's why you see MS stressing the price rising back up in January (which I doubt will happen, but they'll probably remove all the gift card bonuses and most of the free games and free XBL offers certainly); because they know where this can lead them if they stick to it for the long run. They aren't stupid.

So yeah, from your perspective, it's all good because you, as a consumer, are on the direct receiving end of some sweet deals. But from a corporate end, it's murky waters. It's somewhat similar to the things Nintendo pulled during the NES/SNES gens, but not very damaging (if damaging at all) to actual developers and publishers, and not necessarily vindictive on MS's part (especially if it is, again, only temporary).

But it can potentially be seen as anti-competitive in some way.

I disagree.

Sony did the same thing with the PS3 at the beginning of the Gen, so being aggressive on price, and losing a ton of money on each console to boost user base is nothing new.

I think that what is important to keep in mind is that this should stand as a short term strategy to boost popularity of the product, and never a long term solution, and I think the people at Xbox know this.

I think one thing to keep in mind is that Microsoft is not trying to user their 'warchest' to eliminate all their competition here, they just want to continue to do well enough to keep all the 3rd party support that their platform has enjoyed over the years as that is, and has always been the backbone of their strategy.

I think last gen. they could have easily crippled the PS3 in the US if they would have been more competitive with the price, and used their pockets to effectively eliminate all competition. They did not do that tough, and will not do it in the future because all they care about is having a profitable division, not being a monopoly in the gameing space.
 

Game Guru

Member
Well I was always running on the assumption that they wanted MS out of competition.

I kind of figured that was why they announced the price of $399 such a short time after MS had announced their price. Having the more advanced hardware for cheaper.

The reason why Sony announced PS4 with a $400 price tag is because the biggest fault with the PS3 was its price tag of 599 US Dollars. PS4 was made with a $400 price tag in mind because no one was going to accept a $500-$600 console as last-gen had shown.

Even assuming that Sony wanted to get MS out of competition, they aren't going to kill themselves to do it, especially since Sony doesn't need to win the US to win the generation.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
More features, faster updates, unlimited cloud storage, EA Access access, exclusives that might fit someone's tastes more. There are plenty of reasons to buy an XBO. I haven't done it personally, but there are plenty of reasons to.

think he was being sarcastic and actually defending the xbone :)
 

allan-bh

Member
What updated data?

PM me if it shouldn't said publicly.

MW7D0Gm.jpg
 
and yet noone is buying MS exclusives either, in fact driveclub is probably the best selling exclusive right now (maybe not but it is pretty high on europe charts)...

so your opinion notwithstanding, the same old same old will prevail

cheap price + cod/asscreed/madden/etc....

as always. the exact reason why I am not buying a second console, none of the exclusives are worth 350.

Not even close. Also, it hasn't been doing well in Europe, it's only been doing well in the UK.

And the only reason it's charting so highly there is because of the massive bundling. It's not even like a destiny bundle or even an AC bundle, it's being bundled with 3-4 other popular games like GTA, CoD, Destiny, FC4, etc.

Pretty ridiculous to peg Driveclub as some big seller when it's only sold ~55k in the US and elsewhere is only charting in the UK(due to bundle), Australia and sometimes NZ.
 

Fehyd

Banned
PS4's have sold out at my local Best Buy, and at quite a few of the other stores in the area.

At that store atleast, Xbones are still selling, but they're not walking out the door like they were in November.
 

ZoddGutts

Member
Hope Microsoft sticks with the price drop, it might continue to sell well past December, which will make Sony drop the price of the PS4 early next year.
 

Dargor

Member
My prediction was ~18mil, but looks like it's going to sell more as Europe is having some stock issues: http://www.videogamer.com/news/sony_warns_of_ps4_stock_shortages_ahead_of_christmas.html

Basically the thirst is still real. 20mil+ in the end of December wouldn't surprise me.

Wow, thanks for that.

Gotta say, I was pretty skeptical about those numbers. Really thought Sony would be lucky to ship 16M consoles, but then came launch time and the thing just took off.

But now hearing you say that 20M+ is a possibility, well, I can only congratulate Sony. They really struck a chord here. Even with me, first time I ever bought a console in its first year. But this time I couldn't help myself. Not regretting it at all, really good console.

Lets just hope that such numbers also brings even more great games with them.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
and yet noone is buying MS exclusives either, in fact driveclub is probably the best selling exclusive right now (maybe not but it is pretty high on europe charts)...

so your opinion notwithstanding, the same old same old will prevail

cheap price + cod/asscreed/madden/etc....

as always. the exact reason why I am not buying a second console, none of the exclusives are worth 350.

I have no insight into Europe, but it's selling miserably in the US. Bayo 2 outsold it fairly easily, which should prove my point.
 
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