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Sony Q3: Game Operating Income $53M (PS3/PS2 15.6M in 2012)

those numbers are not wrong but the numbers from April to Dec are so small that PS2 was discontinued in Jan 2013

What was the PS3 LTD at the beginning of the year that you are basing this concept on?

they sold a combined 15.6m ps3s+ps2s from Jan -dec 2012

so even if we take a generous 10% of that to be ps2 like 1.5m ..ps3 is still over 76m

I'm honestly just curious about numbers.. I have no emotional attachment to the 360 being in the lead.. it merely seems illogical to assume they aren't considering how vague Sony is being.
 

Road

Member
Although it's still losing some money, the near doubling of sales in the Mobile division should give a hint to Sony about what to do with the Vita.

What is that hint? To buy Nintendo? =P

Sales increased 94.4% year-on-year (a 92% increase on a constant currency basis) to 318.8 billion yen (3,665million U.S. dollars). This increase was primarily due to the consolidation of Sony Mobile from February 2012, partially offset by significantly lower sales of PCs resulting from a decline in unit sales. On a pro forma basis, had Sony Mobile been fully consolidated in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, segment sales would have increased approximately 10%. This was due to an increase in sales of mobile phones primarily resulting from higher average selling prices, reflecting a product portfolio shift to smartphones from feature phones, and higher unit sales of smartphones, being partially offset by significantly lower sales of PCs
 

coldfoot

Banned
What is that hint? To buy Nintendo? =P
Mobile phone sales + average selling price is increasing, while PC sales are declining and handheld sales are LOL.
Sony needs to make a VitaPhone and a VitaTablet, both running Android on top of VitaOS. Android would get its own Bubble in the Vita OS, and would always be resident in memory, since you'd put 2GB RAM in those devices and Vita would only use 256 for the system.
 

friz898

Member
I've read all of page 1, 2, 4, and 5.

So unless I missed it on page 3.



Anyway...

I see all the talk about 75-77mil for ps3...

But has anybody made best guesses for PSP and Vita yet? I'd like to have something that's more current than the 2.2mil in June (When we know Japan now has something like 1.2 or whatever MC thread had).
 
What was the PS3 LTD at the beginning of the year that you are basing this concept on?

To answer my own question, Sony was at 62 million LTD:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=461642

So if they sold 15.6 combined for the year.

So if this is true:

PS3 LTD as of March 31st: 63.9m
PS3+PS2 sales from April to December: 13.1m

That means Sony sold 2.5 million PS3s and PS2s between Jan-March.

And 1.9 million were PS3s, with 600k being PS2s.

So for the first 3 months of the year, the PS2 represented 24% of the total Playstation Home Console shipments.

So again..

They'd have to go from 24% PS2's in Q1 of the year, to < 7.5% for Q2,Q3,Q4 to have topped 76 million in sales.

Right?
 
This thread is going in nothin but circles. For all we know, ps3 could have passed 360 by today and Somy could be waiting to announce at its splash on the 20th.

Until then this goin in circles claiming your theory is right is pretty pointless.
 

noobie

Banned
XZjVB6N.jpg


here we go mobile numbers in a nice way from xperiablog.net

they are pretty so so number. i was expecting a lot more.. like 10m+
 

Basch

Member
OK.. so Sony claimed specifically November 4th for some reason, and then said 70 million.. but weren't being remotely accurate?

Either way.. again.. you guys are using the entire year instead of just going by the known March LTD number + known April-December shipments..

Which would require only 7.5% of their shipment numbers to be PS2's to surpass 76 million.

If any more than 7.5% of their April-December shipments were PS2's, they are under 76 million.

Considering you guys think it's "generous" that they did 10% for the entire year.. despite the fact that it contradicts what happened between Jan-March...

And I'm the one that deserves a condescending remark huh?

Are these numbers wrong?

You should quit subtracting hypothetical October PS3 sales from the 70.2 million figure. 63.9 was the last reported fiscal year's total shipped. Add in 2.8 and 3.5 from the first two quarters. And now 6.8. You should get 77 million. The same as adding Q3's shipped number to the 70.2 figure: 70.2 + 6.8 = 77 million. You still arrive at the same number. Granted there is a difference in context. The latter is used assuming the sales of the PS2 during the first two quarters has already been deducted and arrived to the same number at the same time, which didn't happen. But still, so long as you subtract three quarters of PS2 sales from the 77 mil figure, you should be fine.

Speaking of which, Jan-March was 0.6 mil units sold. The quarter before that was 0.9. And that was the holidays. So you're saying the PS2 sold 1.9+ mil over three quarters, right? On a downward trend? I'm thinking at most 1.5-1.6 million PS2's were sold over 3 quarters. which would put the figure around 75.4-75.5 mil. I'm thinking around 1.2-1.3 mil is more likely given the trend, which would put it at 75.7-75.8. So depending on how much the PS2 sold we're looking at anywhere from 75.4-75.8.

So for the first 3 months of the year, the PS2 represented 24% of the total Playstation Home Console shipments.

So again..

They'd have to go from 24% PS2's in Q1 of the year, to < 7.5% for Q2,Q3,Q4 to have topped 76 million in sales.

Right?

Correct, but look at the figures. 0.9 for Q3 2011. 0.6 for Q4 2011. It's been going down for a long time. You shouldn't go by the percentages. Q4 was up compared to Q3 for Sony in terms of the PS2's home console share: 12% to 24%. That doesn't mean anything though. Sales went down from 0.9 to 0.6, and before that 1.2 to 0.9. That's 0.3 per quarter. Granted, I don't believe sales fell to or below 0.3 each quarter which would put the PS3 at 76 mil, but I think figures between 0.4-0.6 are very reasonable.
 
Nah, you have to be here, it it a relative success, the expansion isn't as fast as it should be, but it's not bad.

I don't think there's anyway to spin it though, very few games, no PSN integration, expensive compared to iOS/google play, no big indie developers on it, no non game apps. No matter how you see it, it's bad.
 
You should quit subtracting hypothetical October PS3 sales from the 70.2 million figure.

I'm not subtracting from any 70.2 million figure.

Where are YOU getting that figure?

I tried pointing it out to you that you keep saying there is an LTD number from Q2.. there isn't.. there is the 70 million report as of November 4th 2012.

Gladly corrected on that... but no-one else but you seems to be repeating this 70.2 Q2 number.

Correct, but look at the figures. 0.9 for Q3 2011. 0.6 for Q4 2011. It's been going down for a long time.

Holiday quarter vs. post holiday quarter.

I'm sure the PS2 and the PS3 have both done the same thing every year as well.. had bigger Q3's than the following Q1.

I'm not denying that PS2 sales are slowing.. not at all.. but we seem to be arriving at the same conclusion (now) anyways.. as opposed to what you said just a page ago.. that the PS3 was above 76 million.

But thanks to all for definitely pointing out it's probably much closer than some of what I theorized.

Either way.. pretty crazy to be so far into a generation and see the 2 biggest "core" competitors so damn close.
 

Shayan

Banned
What was the PS3 LTD at the beginning of the year that you are basing this concept on?

I'm honestly just curious about numbers.. I have no emotional attachment to the 360 being in the lead.. it merely seems illogical to assume they aren't considering how vague Sony is being.

Your posts are implying that you might be having something emotional man. So what if the ps3 has surpassed x36?? It is actually x360 that is the winner this gen since they gave SONY a run for life . ranting and quoting randomly to everyone who is refuting you wont change facts.It is common sense man that a product was phased out since no one wanted it
Holiday quarter vs. post holiday quarter.
slowing demand for an obscure and saturated product that would have sold far less than 0.9m(the numbers it did in fall '11)

So take chill pill dude . These are consoles made of plastic and these big corps dont care about consumers. I work as an IR for the biggest bank in Canada so i know how they feel about consumers

This gen is over and lets just wish all consoles well for next gen . I mean when you have competition , thats when companies bolster their efforts to come up with good products

All 3 consoles are winners this gen . No need to feel bad :)
 

Mr Swine

Banned
5.7 million vitas worldwide is not bad but its not good. Will it sell as much this year as last year or even worse?
 
Your posts are implying that you might be having something emotional man.

Where? Why do you say that?

Ranting?

I'm posting math.. other people are posting math.. you got insulting with me when I wasn't insulting at all.. but I'm the one ranting?

I need to take a chill pill?

All I've done is post Math and ask you to not be condescending about it.
 

Loudninja

Member
The earnings call transcript is up. Not much about gaming, BASICALLY just this:

Thirdly, gaming. Now one thing clear for us that in terms of profitability, we have to do a better job in promoting the PlayStation Vita mobile product. How do we do that? Well, gaming business software is the name of the game. So as a fundamental measure, we are putting all -- a lot of resources, not just first party, but also asking third parties to put out more attractive software. That's the basics. The other thing, well, marketing, pricing of the product, et cetera, I cannot talk about pricing of this platform, but those are the things that we are looking into to improve our profitability in the mobile handheld gaming business. Now PS3, in its sixth year, I think it still has a long life. And here, we're not in the stage where we are losing money in the hardware anymore. So again, there are discussions about the next platform, I cannot dwell on that at all at the moment. But in any case, we have a lot of business in PS3. Now to give you an indication of how, well, stable this business is, although we have reduced forecast on many of our product lines from television, digital still cameras and, et cetera, but mobile phones and home game devices, we have not changed the forecast on these for this fiscal year. So that I hope will give an indication of our confidence in this platform going forward.
I am glad they atleast acknowledged the problem.
 

leroidys

Member
Given that the result likely includes PS4 related costs, it's not so bad. That alone will have wiped off a fair chunk of the operating margin. Ken used to hide those costs in other divisions, but Stringer changed it so all R&D expenditure is allocated properly.

Ah, ok. Thanks for always bringing the in depth analysis on Sony stuff. [Not sarcasm]


Even counting R&D though, 1.7% pretax seems pretty awfully low...
 
God... and people were bagging on Nintendo for only making 160 million.

Hope Sony can get those numbers up, but with the generational switch incoming, it's much more likely tomorrow.
 
I don't think there's anyway to spin it though, very few games, no PSN integration, expensive compared to iOS/google play, no big indie developers on it, no non game apps. No matter how you see it, it's bad.

The big problem is that PS-Mobile is a Sony Ericsson holdover that never really got fully integrated into SCE. Now SCEE has fallen into line and are giving it support and are working on bringing more developers into the project, I think that will begin to show over the next few months. However, SCEA and SCEI are not pulling their weight, maybe it's a proximity thing, the development of PS-Mobile was done in London and Lund, so both of the non-European arms are not on board and never really have been. It could also be that in the US Xperia isn't really a big brand and SCEA see it as a waste of time/resources to support something that so few people have access to in their region. I couldn't really say.

It's really up to Kaz to whip these guys into shape though, PS-Mobile is potentially a "system seller" for Xperia phones and it also puts Sony front and centre in Android gaming rather than taking a back seat, which they shouldn't do. I suppose it all went to hell when they released the Xperia Play, which was a complete piece of shit, poorly thought out and they wasted their one shot to make an impact by not having all the components ready. If Sony Ericsson had waited until PS-Mobile was ready and SCEA had been forced into supporting the platform, Sony would have had a potential hit phone on their hands, as it was the phone was half baked and a commercial failure.

As ever with Sony, the ideas are fine, the execution is just amateur hour. Kaz seems to be working his way through all of the problems, and it's no mean feat getting the TV division under control so fast and getting Xperia phones doing as well as they are. However, he needs to take the gaming division by the scruff of the neck and force the necessary changes on them to bring back competitiveness and profitability. If that means sacking the whole of SCEA management and getting new people in from SCEE to stamp the new culture in then so be it. He needs to do something, as does Andrew House, they both need to pull their finger out.

Our advice to Sony would be to separate home console and portable development, create a whole new division for portable software development, dedicated to Vita and PS-M. Keep all of the current studios in the home console division and acquire new ones specifically to support portable software. Right now SCE has a conflict of interest, they want to ensure that PS4 doesn't have the same problems as PS3 had, which is a great goal, but all of their resources are being spent on it, from third party relations to first party development. It leaves very little time and money for Vita/PS-M. Having a separate subsidiary of SCEI specifically for portables would allow cultivation of new third party alliances, new studios dedicated to portable software and most importantly, a dedicated marketing budget. Until Sony stop treating Vita/PS-M like the red-headed step child portable gaming will always take a back seat to home consoles. Which is a mistake they can't afford to make. While Android still has a piracy problem, Sony should be in a position to provide a safe haven for developers but still reach almost 50m Android users without worrying about piracy.
 

Basch

Member
I'm not subtracting from any 70.2 million figure.

Where are YOU getting that figure?

I tried pointing it out to you that you keep saying there is an LTD number from Q2.. there isn't.. there is the 70 million report as of November 4th 2012.

Gladly corrected on that... but no-one else but you seems to be repeating this 70.2 Q2 number.



Holiday quarter vs. post holiday quarter.

I'm sure the PS2 and the PS3 have both done the same thing every year as well.. had bigger Q3's than the following Q1.

I'm not denying that PS2 sales are slowing.. not at all.. but we seem to be arriving at the same conclusion (now) anyways.. as opposed to what you said just a page ago.. that the PS3 was above 76 million.

But thanks to all for definitely pointing out it's probably much closer than some of what I theorized.

Either way.. pretty crazy to be so far into a generation and see the 2 biggest "core" competitors so damn close.

It's not a Q2 number. I was mistaken by a site that listed it as such reporting it was current as of September 30th, 2012--which wasn't true. They copied it off the wiki and assumed it to be true. That's when I mentioned it as a Q2 number. I should have checked their sources first. Sorry for the confusion.

After that, I recalculated the figures and arrived to the numbers I found in my last two posts. My very first original guess was 76.2 mil, but I rounded down because I had a feeling I was missing a thing or two. I stick to the 75.4-75.8 range, but it is possible for it to be at or above 76 million. It would mean that the PS2 would have to sell at or below 0.3 per quarter, which is extremely hard to believe.

When I was referring to the hypothetical PS3 sales, I was referring to this:

Sony announced 70 million after October.

So Sony would be at 76.8 million adding the 2 together.. subtracting out October.

You'd have to believe that Sony for some odd reason, out of those 6.8 million shipped, less than 800k were shipped in October.. the month leading into the big holiday rush.

I was extremely confused and didn't know you were referring to my first post. So I thought you were subtracting hypothetical PS3 sales from October. I now realize you meant PS2.

5.7 million vitas worldwide is not bad but its not good. Will it sell as much this year as last year or even worse?

I can guarantee you that's not 5.7 mil. That includes the PSP, which probably accounts for at the very least a third of those units. I'd be surprised to see it above 4 mil honestly.
 

Sothpaw

Member
They just keep bleeding money. Annual losses from 2008 through 2012. Investors aren't happy at all. Shares down 4.4% in the US today on rumors of a $430 PS4. There is so much on the line with the PS4.
 
I was extremely confused and didn't know you were referring to my first post. So I thought you were subtracting hypothetical PS3 sales from October. I now realize you meant PS2.

Well I was subtracting hypothetical PS3 sales from that number, because 70 million number is from November, and 6.8 million number includes October.

But the 70 million number was vaguely reported, and not entirely accurate.

So I went back to basing everything on the March 31st LTD vs. the known combined sales since.

Which if they are at least 8% for PS2, puts Sony under 76 million LTD.

In looking back at PS2 sales.. they definitely saw a pretty dramatic drop.. in particular holiday 2011 was a big drop for them, that bucks the nomal console trend of having better holiday sales than pre-holiday sales.

Was an over 50% drop YOY from 2010. And then their next quarter saw a 50% drop YoY.. Before that the drops were only 20% or so.. fairly dramatic.

Code:
FY 2010/11        1.6      1.5      2.1      1.2      6.4      50.1

FY 2011/12        1.4      1.2      0.9       0.6       5.1      54.2

Small drop, small drop, huge drop, not quite as huge drop.

That combined with Sonys rather vague reporting makes it really hard to predict PS2 sales for Q1, Q2, and Q3.

It's entirely possible they were less than 1 million.. but it would require a drop from 3.5 million during the same quarters the previous year.

I personally think that's doubtful. But it just depends on how much the bottom really fell out for PS2 sales.

But right off the bat it's doubtful considering Sony didn't announce an LTD number for PS3. I really think it's a stretch to think that Sony wouldn't have announced during their financial call that PS3 had surpassed 360 LTD.

In the end.. it's only a number that's interesting out of curiosity.. it's rather arbitrary so long into a generation to barely be ahead, or barely pass a competitor. So it's not some big win for MS to be slightly ahead if they are, or a big win if they aren't.

Which is why I got annoyed that Shayan was condescending and then accusing me of being emotionally attached.. obnoxious to say the least considering the post he quoted was one where I'd proven someone (you) were posting something factually incorrect.

None of this matters much, but I'm curious enough about it to want to be accurate as possible.
 

Basch

Member
Well I was subtracting hypothetical PS3 sales from that number, because 70 million number is from November, and 6.8 million number includes October.

But the 70 million number was vaguely reported, and not entirely accurate.

So I went back to basing everything on the March 31st LTD vs. the known combined sales since.

Which if they are at least 8% for PS2, puts Sony under 76 million LTD.

In looking back at PS2 sales.. they definitely saw a pretty dramatic drop.. in particular holiday 2011 was a big drop for them, that bucks the nomal console trend of having better holiday sales than pre-holiday sales.

Was an over 50% drop YOY from 2010. And then their next quarter saw a 50% drop YoY.. Before that the drops were only 20% or so.. fairly dramatic.

Code:
FY 2010/11        1.6      1.5      2.1      1.2      6.4      50.1

FY 2011/12        1.4      1.2      0.9       0.6       5.1      54.2

Small drop, small drop, huge drop, not quite as huge drop.

That combined with Sonys rather vague reporting makes it really hard to predict PS2 sales for Q1, Q2, and Q3.

It's entirely possible they were less than 1 million.. but it would require a drop from 3.5 million during the same quarters the previous year.

I personally think that's doubtful. But it just depends on how much the bottom really fell out for PS2 sales.

But right off the bat it's doubtful considering Sony didn't announce an LTD number for PS3. I really think it's a stretch to think that Sony wouldn't have announced during their financial call that PS3 had surpassed 360 LTD.

In the end.. it's only a number that's interesting out of curiosity.. it's rather arbitrary so long into a generation to barely be ahead, or barely pass a competitor. So it's not some big win for MS to be slightly ahead if they are, or a big win if they aren't.

Which is why I got annoyed that Shayan was condescending and then accusing me of being emotionally attached.. obnoxious to say the least considering the post he quoted was one where I'd proven someone (you) were posting something factually incorrect.

None of this matters much, but I'm curious enough about it to want to be accurate as possible.

Completely agreed, and understandable. I'd be annoyed to if I were you. I'd just ignore him.

Also, it's possible PS2 numbers last quarter were above 0.6 mil as won't this be the last time retailers can stock up on it since manufacturing has been shut down? One last push in a way. Could even be above a million if that were the case, but I doubt it.

It is very interesting though. I love the tension between the two: Sony and Microsoft. I think it's great to see numbers over talk for once, knowing that this really could go either way. It's as close as it's ever been.

Sorry for being lazy ass punk, but do we have Vita ww LTD?

I don't think so, but I can try to look into the stats and see if I can mine any info out of it. Let me see...
 
Also, it's possible PS2 numbers last quarter were above 0.6 mil as won't this be the last time retailers can stock up on it since manufacturing has been shut down? One last push in a way. Could even be above a million if that were the case, but I doubt it.

Yeah.. really hard to tell.

Especially since the last 2 known PS2 numbers were all over the map YoY compared to previous years/trends.
 
Our advice to Sony would be to separate home console and portable development, create a whole new division for portable software development, dedicated to Vita and PS-M. Keep all of the current studios in the home console division and acquire new ones specifically to support portable software. Right now SCE has a conflict of interest, they want to ensure that PS4 doesn't have the same problems as PS3 had, which is a great goal, but all of their resources are being spent on it, from third party relations to first party development. It leaves very little time and money for Vita/PS-M. Having a separate subsidiary of SCEI specifically for portables would allow cultivation of new third party alliances, new studios dedicated to portable software and most importantly, a dedicated marketing budget. Until Sony stop treating Vita/PS-M like the red-headed step child portable gaming will always take a back seat to home consoles. Which is a mistake they can't afford to make. While Android still has a piracy problem, Sony should be in a position to provide a safe haven for developers but still reach almost 50m Android users without worrying about piracy.

This is good advice, except that it's something that Sony should have done in 2008/2009, when Vita was in its earliest R&D phases. Any significant move in that direction at this point wouldn't bear fruit until mid-2014 at the earliest.
 

Shayan

Banned
Mobile phone sales + average selling price is increasing, while PC sales are declining and handheld sales are LOL.
Sony needs to make a VitaPhone and a VitaTablet, both running Android on top of VitaOS. Android would get its own Bubble in the Vita OS, and would always be resident in memory, since you'd put 2GB RAM in those devices and Vita would only use 256 for the system.

excellent idea

like you were saying, if they can just tweak Vita to a 7' tablet , it will do wonders in sales. I heard SONY execs/devs usually listen to the demands of the Gaffers

They can infact borrow ideas from Gaffers like you. It is just they need a little tweaking to induce life in products which have been made useless by advancement of tech and changing preferences
 
I have a theory about something Sony will announce on the 20th:

Gaikai is going to get PS3 games, and will get PS4 games in the future.

Renamed to something like "Playstation Cloud."

All Sony TVs will come with a gaikai client, and support PS3 bluetooth controllers.. and in the future, PS4 controllers.

Will allow you to purchase PS3/PS4 games "online" and play them on any device with a Gaikai/PS Cloud client.

If you then decide to buy a PS3/PS4 any games you bought will be downloadable.. and everything is syncable to the cloud.. saves, etc.

Vita, Sony tablets, etc. will all have Gaikai clients.

So basically just about any Sony product could theoretically be used to play PS3/PS4 games, leveraging Gaikai.

The PS4 might also function as it's own local Gaikai server.. so if you own a PS4, and any PS4 game.. you could also get better quality/performance if you choose to use your "local" PS4 as opposed to Sony's servers. Again, still all synced with cloud saves, and all continuable on any Sony device (TV/Vita/etc.)

I'm usually very negative about cloud gaming, and it's potential.. but if you throw the weight of Sony's exclusives behind it, it might have a chance.. and it could help ALL of Sony's divisions if access to Gaikai can become a real selling point.
 

Basch

Member
Sorry for being lazy ass punk, but do we have Vita ww LTD?

Sony combined the sales of their consoles into one section (PS2 and PS3) and portable (PSP and Vita) in another. So it's hard to differentiate the sales. Likely, we won't hear anything definite until Sony themselves come out and say something. And that likely won't happen until they reach a milestone unfortunately... or conference I suppose knowing how much they love pleasing share holders.

That 5.7 mil figure combines PSP and Vita. The previous fiscal year, the PSP fell quite a bit from the average. That could have happened again since the Vita has been out for a while being that it is the PSP's successor, but I believe the PSP is still selling better in a lot of territories (especially in Japan). So I definitely don't see it above 4 million.

The 2.2 mil figure was announced at the end of June, which rose from a 1.8 figure in early May. That's two months for 400K. Now Q1, was reportedly at 1.4 mil for both PSP and Vita. Q1 goes from April to June. So the 1.8 figure would be a good start. The 1.8 figure covers a span of two months since the 1.2 figure was released at the end of February. That means x number of Vitas below 600K were sold in April. Combine that with the 400K from the figure achieved after and you get x + 400K where x is less than 600K. This number would give us Q1 sales for Vita, hypothetically.

Let's pretend the Vita sold 250K in April (less than the first two months of launch for the Vita... reasonable?). That would mean Q1 would be 650K.

Now, the PSP and Vita sold a combined 1.4 million units. If we subtract 650K from this, we get 750K for the PSP. This gives us an idea of the percentages between the two for shares in the portable market for Sony. Vita roughly achieved 46% of the total portable sales for Q1 for Sony. Now let's pretend these percentages held steady for the remaining quarters thus far for simplicity's sake (this could lead to anywhere from a small to large differentiation depending on market trends).

So if Q2 was 1.6 mil, applying the same percentage, the Vita would have sold 736K. Now, doing the same for Q3 we arrive at roughly 1.3 mil or 1,242K to be more exact.

Let's pretend the last reported figure of 2.2 million was current as of the end of Q1 just to make life easy again. Now, add what we found for Q2 and 3 and we get: 2,200K + 736K + 1,242K = 4,178K or 4.2 million.

That would be our largely ridiculous hypothetical LTD for Vita (based off too many assumptions, including start and end dates of the figures reported by Sony).

Needless to say, if you just wanted an idea, I'd say 4 million would be a reasonable assumption.

Sorry for taking so long, and by the way if I come across as a dick and/or rude, that wasn't my intention. I was trying to walk myself through it as much as teach you how I acquired the numbers simply.

tl;dr version: 4 million, reasonable guess (but don't take my word for it).
 
I have a theory about something Sony will announce on the 20th:

Gaikai is going to get PS3 games, and will get PS4 games in the future.

Renamed to something like "Playstation Cloud."

All Sony TVs will come with a gaikai client, and support PS3 bluetooth controllers.. and in the future, PS4 controllers.

Will allow you to purchase PS3/PS4 games "online" and play them on any device with a Gaikai/PS Cloud client.

If you then decide to buy a PS3/PS4 any games you bought will be downloadable.. and everything is syncable to the cloud.. saves, etc.

Vita, Sony tablets, etc. will all have Gaikai clients.

So basically just about any Sony product could theoretically be used to play PS3/PS4 games, leveraging Gaikai.

The PS4 might also function as it's own local Gaikai server.. so if you own a PS4, and any PS4 game.. you could also get better quality/performance if you choose to use your "local" PS4 as opposed to Sony's servers. Again, still all synced with cloud saves, and all continuable on any Sony device (TV/Vita/etc.)

I'm usually very negative about cloud gaming, and it's potential.. but if you throw the weight of Sony's exclusives behind it, it might have a chance.. and it could help ALL of Sony's divisions if access to Gaikai can become a real selling point.

I'm certainly no expert in cloud gaming but as I understand it you need to have a CELL on the other end of every user to stream a PS3 game. Again, no expert, just going by what I've read here and other places.

I always thought that Sony should leverage their TV's and consoles together though, just build a PS3 super slim into a TV, put the disc in and go. Of course with the super slim TV's today the added bulk would be an eyesore but a few years ago? Sure. They definitely could have done it with the PS2
 
I'm certainly no expert in cloud gaming but as I understand it you need to have a CELL on the other end of every user to stream a PS3 game. Again, no expert, just going by what I've read here and other places.

They might be porting PS3 games over to x86 to do it, not all of them.. just the major exclusives... and then moving forward, the rumor is that PS4 is basically an x86 machine.

But yeah, without code modifications Sony would need to retrofit PS3's into the Gaikai server architecture.

I think they are porting games.

It makes sense.. they don't want to abandon all of the engine code they've written for Infamous/Killzone/Uncharted/etc. going into next gen.. and next gen will be x86.

So they'd already be hard at work porting over APIs and tools.. and the first "projects" relating to that might be to get x86 versions of PS3 games running on Gaikai servers.

PS4 games would likely take little modification to get working on Gaikai servers.

I always thought that Sony should leverage their TV's and consoles together though, just build a PS3 super slim into a TV, put the disc in and go. Of course with the super slim TV's today the added bulk would be an eyesore but a few years ago? Sure. They definitely could have done it with the PS2

But that adds cost to their TVs and ties them to a specific hardware platform.

With Gaikai, the added cost to the TV is basically nothing.. would require a BT tranciever to support controllers, and that's it.

The rest of the cost is server based.. and while I find cloud gaming questionable from a profitability standpoint because of general de-valuation of streaming/online content.. if anyone can get away with selling access to streaming games for $60 / pop.. it's Sony with their powerful exclusive lineup.

Making everything cloud based totally removes the need to have an actual hardware platform to code for outside of general x86 coding.. the games would then function on any device with the right control scheme.

It also allows them to start with PS3 games.. and move onto PS4 games. Get TV buyers, Vita owners, and even PC owners in on the Playstation fold.

The PC client would also work with these PS3 games as well. And again, more importantly, with future PS4 games.

Imagine the reach PS4 games would have.. anyone with a PC, a Sony TV, or a PS4 could buy and play the games. If Sony decides not to make it an exclusive feature of Sony TVs.. they could even allow other TV manufacturers to offer Gaikai clients.

Considering Samsung already has Gaikai on their smart TVs.. which happened even despite the Sony purchase.. it's possible. But "Playstation" games might be exclusive to Sony TVs as a selling point for their struggling TV division.

But imagine if Sony got most TV manufacturers to install Gaikai/PS Cloud clients..

Suddenly PS4 games would have a sales reach of 100's of millions even right at system launch.
 
Mobile phone sales + average selling price is increasing, while PC sales are declining and handheld sales are LOL.
Sony needs to make a VitaPhone and a VitaTablet, both running Android on top of VitaOS. Android would get its own Bubble in the Vita OS, and would always be resident in memory, since you'd put 2GB RAM in those devices and Vita would only use 256 for the system.

vita tablet would be interesting, there's been plenty of gaming tablets lately, as soon as one comes out at a decent price I'll probably get it and get rid of my vita.

XZjVB6N.jpg


here we go mobile numbers in a nice way from xperiablog.net

Get on Sprint, ATT, TMobile, Verizon and those numbers will increase by at least 50%.

The big problem is that PS-Mobile is a Sony Ericsson holdover that never really got fully integrated into SCE. Now SCEE has fallen into line and are giving it support and are working on bringing more developers into the project, I think that will begin to show over the next few months. However, SCEA and SCEI are not pulling their weight, maybe it's a proximity thing, the development of PS-Mobile was done in London and Lund, so both of the non-European arms are not on board and never really have been. It could also be that in the US Xperia isn't really a big brand and SCEA see it as a waste of time/resources to support something that so few people have access to in their region. I couldn't really say.

It's really up to Kaz to whip these guys into shape though, PS-Mobile is potentially a "system seller" for Xperia phones and it also puts Sony front and centre in Android gaming rather than taking a back seat, which they shouldn't do. I suppose it all went to hell when they released the Xperia Play, which was a complete piece of shit, poorly thought out and they wasted their one shot to make an impact by not having all the components ready. If Sony Ericsson had waited until PS-Mobile was ready and SCEA had been forced into supporting the platform, Sony would have had a potential hit phone on their hands, as it was the phone was half baked and a commercial failure.

As ever with Sony, the ideas are fine, the execution is just amateur hour. Kaz seems to be working his way through all of the problems, and it's no mean feat getting the TV division under control so fast and getting Xperia phones doing as well as they are. However, he needs to take the gaming division by the scruff of the neck and force the necessary changes on them to bring back competitiveness and profitability. If that means sacking the whole of SCEA management and getting new people in from SCEE to stamp the new culture in then so be it. He needs to do something, as does Andrew House, they both need to pull their finger out.

SCEI has a lot of problems besides non support of PSM. It took a manager from Sony Santa Monica to bring out Puppeteer and Rain. It also took them too long to have their own MH clone (should have been done during the PSP era) while they still don't have a proper in house RPG developer whereas Nintendo already has plenty.

Our advice to Sony would be to separate home console and portable development, create a whole new division for portable software development, dedicated to Vita and PS-M. Keep all of the current studios in the home console division and acquire new ones specifically to support portable software. Right now SCE has a conflict of interest, they want to ensure that PS4 doesn't have the same problems as PS3 had, which is a great goal, but all of their resources are being spent on it, from third party relations to first party development. It leaves very little time and money for Vita/PS-M. Having a separate subsidiary of SCEI specifically for portables would allow cultivation of new third party alliances, new studios dedicated to portable software and most importantly, a dedicated marketing budget. Until Sony stop treating Vita/PS-M like the red-headed step child portable gaming will always take a back seat to home consoles. Which is a mistake they can't afford to make. While Android still has a piracy problem, Sony should be in a position to provide a safe haven for developers but still reach almost 50m Android users without worrying about piracy.

Not a bad advice. RaD, for example, would be a good acquisition to develop mobile/vita games as well as have dedicated mobile teams within their big studios. I still don't know why the old mobile GOW, Ratchet games haven't been ported to PSM.
 

Basch

Member
I'm certainly no expert in cloud gaming but as I understand it you need to have a CELL on the other end of every user to stream a PS3 game. Again, no expert, just going by what I've read here and other places.

I always thought that Sony should leverage their TV's and consoles together though, just build a PS3 super slim into a TV, put the disc in and go. Of course with the super slim TV's today the added bulk would be an eyesore but a few years ago? Sure. They definitely could have done it with the PS2

Couldn't you just emulate the cell chip in programming if that were the case? By the way, the Gakai/PS3/PS4 Cloud Gaming idea/speculation-thing sounds awesome. I wish it were true. On top of the PS4 announcement. ^_^
 

RamzaIsCool

The Amiga Brotherhood
PS3 numbers are gaining fast on the Wii. The gap between the two consoles is 24M hardware and 149M software units. Down from a year ago, when the gap was 34M hardware and 237M software units. So it will be intresting to see if the PS3 can overtake the Wii in both total hardware and software sales. It has also got a shot at overtaking total DS software sales, which are now standing at 930M software units. The PS3 stands currently at 715M software units, but sold like 100M more then the DS last years.

Does anybody got any indication of software sales on the Xbox360. I couldnt find it.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
I don't think that's accurate. The game division did poorly, but Sony Pictures did great due to Starfall and a few big rental/disc releases in the quarter.

I hope they announce something great that ties the Vita to the PS4 during their announcement, otherwise they're just sitting back waiting for Vita to completely die.
SkyFall is currently at 1billion, I don't think Sony is complaining
 
Get on Sprint, ATT, TMobile, Verizon and those numbers will increase by at least 50%.

They say it's coming, but then they have said that for a while now and no real action.

SCEI has a lot of problems besides non support of PSM. It took a manager from Sony Santa Monica to bring out Puppeteer and Rain. It also took them too long to have their own MH clone (should have been done during the PSP era) while they still don't have a proper in house RPG developer whereas Nintendo already has plenty.

I think SCE held off on a MH clone because they thought it was always going to be a PS franchise. They didn't learn anything from the MS payola problems they had early in PS3's life when MS came in and paid all of the publishers to release their games on 360 exclusively and PS3 owners had to wait for a year to get them. The difference this time is that 360 was never going to amount to anything in Japan, while 3DS has taken the market by storm since the salvo of the price cut and MH3G, MK7, SML3D plus NSMB2 and 3DSXL. Sony assumed they would get third party support after their success with PSP, but it never materialised and now it's too late. The only way to fix it is to pay big bucks to Capcom and Square to put out MHP3rdG/4th and FF-Type1 on Vita exclusively, no 3DS or PSP, have them release within a month of each other and couple MonHun with a price cut to 18,990.

Sony have no relevant first party franchises in Japan. After GT failed on PS3 because of all the delays and lost relevance, there is nothing they can put on Vita from their own line up that would come close to what MonHun and a FF game could do for it. I think a mainline Tales of game would work as well, but again it would need Sony to pump in 20-30bn Yen in addition to a price cut to make it happen. I'm not convinced about the prospects tbh.

Not a bad advice. RaD, for example, would be a good acquisition to develop mobile/vita games as well as have dedicated mobile teams within their big studios. I still don't know why the old mobile GOW, Ratchet games haven't been ported to PSM.

RaD wouldn't agree to be bought by a portable publisher. Sony have to look at iOS startups and buy a bunch of them in the US, Japan and Europe and build them up to be world class portable game developers. Literally the same model as they had for SCE.
 
Couldn't you just emulate the cell chip in programming if that were the case? By the way, the Gakai/PS3/PS4 Cloud Gaming idea/speculation-thing sounds awesome. I wish it were true. On top of the PS4 announcement. ^_^

Emulation would probably be more difficult than just porting.. as I mentioned, porting KZ/Infamous/Uncharted over to x86 is something they'll need to do going into next gen anyways with the engines behind the games.

Unless they've started from scratch on PS4 with x86 code, they've already done a lot of porting of base code engines.

The rumor today (that I hadn't read yet, and I can prove it, I posted my same theory a week ago) is that Gaikai is how Sony will handle backwards compatability on the PS4.

Which fits my theory..

I just think the rumor mill/other people are missing the true goal.. not to bring Gaikai to the PS4, but to bring Playstation games both this gen and next gen to Gaikai, thus bringing them to all Sony TV's / Portables / etc.

I mean shit.. I'm looking at buying a 20" Sony Windows 8 tablet.

It has bluetooth.

All Sony needs to do is create a PS3 controller driver for Windows 8 and suddenly I'll have a reason to buy PS3 exclusives for my Sony Windows 8 tablet.

Hell I can get rid of my PS3 in my entertainment center and use that same driver on my HTPC I have connected to my TV.. and this years PS3 exclusives I'll just buy digitally instead of retail like I usually do.
 

Taurus

Member
...

tl;dr version: 4 million, reasonable guess (but don't take my word for it).
Thanks a ton for your hard work, really appreciate it. :)

Assumed number of 4 million ltd is kinda devastating, eh? I'm counting 13 full months since launch in Japan 17th December 2011.

For comparison:

PS3 was at 10.53 million ltd at 31st December 2007, which is about 13 months since launch.

X360 was at 7.6 million ltd at 31st December 2006, which is about 13 months since launch.

Wii was at 20.14 million.

PSP at over 15 million (missing one quarter of sales that should be added. Assume this quarter was about 1.5 million which makes it 16.5 million)

DS at 14.43 million.

Gamecube about at 8 million (estimate).

I assume these are accurate numbers since they are taken from quarter and fiscal year results: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_Game_Sales_Wiki
 
I have a theory about something Sony will announce on the 20th:

Gaikai is going to get PS3 games, and will get PS4 games in the future.

Renamed to something like "Playstation Cloud."

All Sony TVs will come with a gaikai client, and support PS3 bluetooth controllers.. and in the future, PS4 controllers.

Will allow you to purchase PS3/PS4 games "online" and play them on any device with a Gaikai/PS Cloud client.

If you then decide to buy a PS3/PS4 any games you bought will be downloadable.. and everything is syncable to the cloud.. saves, etc.

Vita, Sony tablets, etc. will all have Gaikai clients.

So basically just about any Sony product could theoretically be used to play PS3/PS4 games, leveraging Gaikai.

The PS4 might also function as it's own local Gaikai server.. so if you own a PS4, and any PS4 game.. you could also get better quality/performance if you choose to use your "local" PS4 as opposed to Sony's servers. Again, still all synced with cloud saves, and all continuable on any Sony device (TV/Vita/etc.)

I'm usually very negative about cloud gaming, and it's potential.. but if you throw the weight of Sony's exclusives behind it, it might have a chance.. and it could help ALL of Sony's divisions if access to Gaikai can become a real selling point.

Sony is rumored to be prepping a video streaming service a la netflix, I believe they would use gaikai tech to try to achieve that, but I don't think they're announcing that on the 20th.

I think SCE held off on a MH clone because they thought it was always going to be a PS franchise. They didn't learn anything from the MS payola problems they had early in PS3's life when MS came in and paid all of the publishers to release their games on 360 exclusively and PS3 owners had to wait for a year to get them. The difference this time is that 360 was never going to amount to anything in Japan, while 3DS has taken the market by storm since the salvo of the price cut and MH3G, MK7, SML3D plus NSMB2 and 3DSXL. Sony assumed they would get third party support after their success with PSP, but it never materialised and now it's too late. The only way to fix it is to pay big bucks to Capcom and Square to put out MHP3rdG/4th and FF-Type1 on Vita exclusively, no 3DS or PSP, have them release within a month of each other and couple MonHun with a price cut to 18,990.

Sony have no relevant first party franchises in Japan. After GT failed on PS3 because of all the delays and lost relevance, there is nothing they can put on Vita from their own line up that would come close to what MonHun and a FF game could do for it. I think a mainline Tales of game would work as well, but again it would need Sony to pump in 20-30bn Yen in addition to a price cut to make it happen. I'm not convinced about the prospects tbh.

SCEJ didn't learn, SCEE and SCEA definitely did and that's why their studios are putting AAA games for PS3 and possibly PS4. SCEJ only got the hint, we won't see anything from them for quite awhile.

I agree, they have nothing, 1st party wise, of relevance in Japan that's why the talk about the hypothetical purchase of SE was of great interest to them, more so than Nintendo or MS IMO. And for 20-30B Yen they are better off building an in house RPG/JP centric game developer and buying smaller JP companies like From, GameArts instead of paying for a mainline Tales game.

RaD wouldn't agree to be bought by a portable publisher. Sony have to look at iOS startups and buy a bunch of them in the US, Japan and Europe and build them up to be world class portable game developers. Literally the same model as they had for SCE.

I'm not sure RaD could do great in console development, so if they wouldn't want to be bought as a portable purchase then SCE would need to pass. Not sure about iOS developers though, there are some great indie developers there for sure, but they would have to try and find a needle in a haystack.
 

Basch

Member
Emulation would probably be more difficult than just porting.. as I mentioned, porting KZ/Infamous/Uncharted over to x86 is something they'll need to do going into next gen anyways with the engines behind the games.

Unless they've started from scratch on PS4 with x86 code, they've already done a lot of porting of base code engines.

The rumor today (that I hadn't read yet, and I can prove it, I posted my same theory a week ago) is that Gaikai is how Sony will handle backwards compatability on the PS4.

Which fits my theory..

I just think the rumor mill/other people are missing the true goal.. not to bring Gaikai to the PS4, but to bring Playstation games both this gen and next gen to Gaikai, thus bringing them to all Sony TV's / Portables / etc.

I mean shit.. I'm looking at buying a 20" Sony Windows 8 tablet.

It has bluetooth.

All Sony needs to do is create a PS3 controller driver for Windows 8 and suddenly I'll have a reason to buy PS3 exclusives for my Sony Windows 8 tablet.

Hell I can get rid of my PS3 in my entertainment center and use that same driver on my HTPC I have connected to my TV.. and this years PS3 exclusives I'll just buy digitally instead of retail like I usually do.

I'm going to love this next-gen if that's what the future of gaming is like. It'd be nice to run games off servers and just update the server technology every once and a while for better looking games. With a universal coding standard or at least similar architecture, I could see all consoles being killed off and Sony and Microsoft instead focus on publishing games and distributing them through apps.

Of course, the next step would be to add games to an Ultraviolet-like system so people don't have to purchase games multiple times from different apps. They can start by giving me UV codes for everything I purchased off XBL, PSN, and Steam. :p

Is that too far ahead? lol

Thanks a ton for your hard work, really appreciate it. :)

Assumed number of 4 million ltd is kinda devastating, eh? I'm counting 13 full months since launch in Japan 17th December 2011.

For comparison:

PS3 was at 10.53 million ltd at 31st December 2007, which is about 13 months since launch.

X360 was at 7.6 million ltd at 31st December 2006, which is about 13 months since launch.

Wii was at 20.14 million.

PSP at over 15 million.

DS at 14.43 million.

Gamecube about at 8 million (estimate).

I assume these are accurate numbers since they are taken from quarter and fiscal year results: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Video_Game_Sales_Wiki

No problem. It is quite sad. All the more reason for Sony to remedy the situation. They're trying, but they're up against a mountain. If the situation doesn't improve any over the next year, sadly, I don't see a promising future ahead for the Vita (coming from a mostly content Vita owner).

I don't know about those numbers, but it doesn't seem the site keeps updated even so. Someone else would have to verify, but if it's pulled from quarter and fiscal year reports then it should be good.
 
SCEJ didn't learn, SCEE and SCEA definitely did and that's why their studios are putting AAA games for PS3 and possibly PS4. SCEJ only got the hint, we won't see anything from them for quite awhile.

I agree, they have nothing, 1st party wise, of relevance in Japan that's why the talk about the hypothetical purchase of SE was of great interest to them, more so than Nintendo or MS IMO. And for 20-30B Yen they are better off building an in house RPG/JP centric game developer and buying smaller JP companies like From, GameArts instead of paying for a mainline Tales game.

If they want to fix the Vita situation, ground up new IPs are not going to the trick. They need to pay off major third parties for top quality games. That means MonHun, FF and Tales. Those three are the trinity of third party games for Sony. If they want to buy From and other studios later on then that's up to them, but to fix Vita, they would need to pay now, get the word out that MonHun/FF/Tales is coming to Vita exclusively and then hope that interest holds out until the games are released or that the uptick from the announcement is enough to boost game sales for other third parties and more publishers get on board automatically.

I'm not sure RaD could do great in console development, so if they wouldn't want to be bought as a portable purchase then SCE would need to pass. Not sure about iOS developers though, there are some great indie developers there for sure, but they would have to try and find a needle in a haystack.

Sony would use their tried and tested philosophy, technically great, artistically and creatively poor. Get the technical skills in and then teach them the rest. The former is hard to replicate, the latter isn't.
 

Elios83

Member
Yeah, I rechecked the sources and the listing was off on the site. They cited the sales as September 30th, probably because that's what Wiki had. My bad. Still though, I don't see it as low as 74.9 mil. If you add the numbers based on their reports up to last year it comes out to 63.9 million. Add in the PS2/PS3 combined numbers and you get 77 million. Subtract the 1.5 million on the high-end for PS2 shipped over three quarters and you get 75.5 million which is above your high end. I'd think that would be more reasonable, yes? I'd still think that's rather conservative though. My guess, anywhere between 75.4-75.9 mil.

Unfortunately certain things have to be guessed.
Assuming 1.5m PS2 shipped in the first three quarters, out of 13.1m total shipments seems pretty resonable and as you said it would lead us to 75.5m LTD PS3 sales.
I don't think that PS3 has passed 360 yet, but it's clear that it outshipped the 360 during the October-December quarter and that at this point the gap is really small, less than a million. PS3 sales could surpass the 360 by the end of March or June (also considering the impact of exclusive software like TLOU). Things could be greatly accelerated if Sony decided to cut the price on the new Slim and introduce a cheap flash based model in the US market.
 

spwolf

Member
Sony is rumored to be prepping a video streaming service a la netflix, I believe they would use gaikai tech to try to achieve that, but I don't think they're announcing that on the 20th.


What in the world does Gaikai have to do with video rentals?

And why would the split game development? They need to unify more, not split.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
Mobile phone sales + average selling price is increasing, while PC sales are declining and handheld sales are LOL.
Sony needs to make a VitaPhone and a VitaTablet, both running Android on top of VitaOS. Android would get its own Bubble in the Vita OS, and would always be resident in memory, since you'd put 2GB RAM in those devices and Vita would only use 256 for the system.

The phone yes the tablet no. Only apple has decent margins on tablets. Android tablets are on a race to the bottom. No use sinking money into something that won't make money. Better off using the money to double down on phones which could be a huge money maker if done right. Thanks to insane margins.
 
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