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What Does Sony Have For The Holidays?

So last holiday:

Sony had it's lead cut from ~1000K to ~500K over November/December (US numbers obviously).

This was achieved by its main competitor retailing at anything up to an effective $175 value discount (price cut + store vouchers), whereas Sony didn't drop unit price, they bundled software.

March NPD has - according to a creamy sweet gentleman - seen PS4 outsell the combined total of WiiU and Xbone. The gap at February was up to ~680K, so it could now be up to anything between 700-800K.

In Q1CY, and without a price drop.

TL:DR - in 3 months of what isn't a 'peak sales' period, PS4 has made back up to 60% of the market lead it lost in 2 months over the peak sale holiday period against an aggressively discounting competitor. There are another 6 months of 'preseason' including the release of Batman and MGSV which PS4 is lead platform for co-marketing on.

Yup, no having any pre-E3 announced big exclusives and possible co-marketing/lead platform deal with one of the biggest IPs around is going to lead to a bumpy rest of the year for Sony.

I was going to say. There's still 7 months till the holiday months and the gap is already 700k. The gap will only increase.

In terms of what we know:
MGSV
Persona 5
Ratchet and Clank
Star Wars
 

Huggers

Member
Even if they have little but 3rd party games it won't make much difference sales wise. That aside. What do you think the chances are they would announce something big for this Christmas at e3? Seems unlikely no?
 

Sjefen

Member
Even if they have little but 3rd party games it won't make much difference sales wise. That aside. What do you think the chances are they would announce something big for this Christmas at e3? Seems unlikely no?

they announced GT6 and Little big planet 3 only months before release, so it wouldnt be a long shot
 
Even if they have little but 3rd party games it won't make much difference sales wise. That aside. What do you think the chances are they would announce something big for this Christmas at e3? Seems unlikely no?

In terms of "Big", I'd say there's only two candidates. (one isn't even big)

GT7 and TLG.
 

Donthizz#

Member
I was going to say. There's still 7 months till the holiday months and the gap is already 700k. The gap will only increase.

In terms of what we know:
MGSV
Persona 5
Ratchet and Clank
Star Wars

batman is going to move fair bit of ps4's as well.PS4 bundle sold like hotcakes on Amazon.
 

Wabba

Member
Why is the question always what Sony has for the holiday, why doesn´t anybody talk about Microsoft that don´t release any game the first 10 months of the year. Like it only counts if you release in Q4.

To answer your question, i don´t think that there is going to be any problem for Sony seeing that they most likly is going to drop the price this holiday and have marketing for the new Star Wars game. For the gamers there is alot of games from third party and also some good exclusive games (No Mans Sky, Rime, Ratchet and Clanck, Persona 5, Uncharted Trilogy)
 

driver116

Member
Right. All that matters is who has the cheapest system. This is of course why the WiiU is doing so well.

Doesn't matter how cheap they made the system, If it didn't have the games people wanted, they wouldn't buy it. Holiday last year, Microsoft had the better games and won those two months.

Sony is doing a much better job staggering their releases which is a reason they win all the other months. Microsoft is basically ignoring January through August and they are losing those months.

Nah, I think it's definitely down to price, or more value.
 

Huggers

Member
In terms of "Big", I'd say there's only two candidates. (one isn't even big)

GT7 and TLG.

Haha. Battlefront it is!

It's all good. There is going to be so much to play. And someone made a good point above. Why do people only discuss Christmas releases. Sony have just released 2 new IPs. One of which is stunning
 

SPCTRE

Member
We don't know about any big AAA game Sony has for the holidays.
gdjfjty.gif
 
D

Deleted member 20920

Unconfirmed Member
I almost expect a thread like this to pop out every month leading up to e3. Proceed gentlemen.

After that it'll be threads like "Do you think Sony is doing enough for the holidays?, "Do you think Game X is going to win over Halo?" and "PS4 has no holiday bundles!"
 
It won't make a damn bit of difference. Assassin's Creed Victory, Battleront, Black Ops 3 and MGSV TPP will sell enough PS4's this holiday.

Microsoft's ill-founded logic that they must starve their user base of content for 9 months of the calendar year then stack their holiday line up is ridiculous. Not only does it mean that they have zero momentum for 3/4 of the year, but when they do release all of those games, they have to compete with franchises that dwarf theirs in size and appeal.

Sony will be fine, and I'm sure they have an announcement or two ready for E3. Should be interesting.

Some people really think GT7 can be announced and released in the same year!!!

GT6 was.
 

Circinus

Member
By the way, can someone clarify what exactly is this thread about?


1. Is this talking about a business point of view like "how will Sony sell consoles this Christmas"

2. Or just someone who wants to play new SCE games for the holiday?
 

Jb

Member
It won't make a damn bit of difference. Assassin's Creed Victory, Battleront, Black Ops 3 and MGSV TPP will sell enough PS4's this holiday.

Microsoft's ill-founded logic that they must starve their user base of content for 9 months of the calendar year then stack their holiday line up is ridiculous. Not only does it mean that they have zero momentum for 3/4 of the year, but when they do release all of those games, they have to compete with franchises that dwarf theirs in size and appeal.

Sony will be fine, and I'm sure they have an announcement or two ready for E3. Should be interesting.

As a consumer I really don't care that much that Sony does or doesn't do well in this Christmas' NPD. All I want is for them to properly manage their exclusives' schedule, something that they've been doing pretty poorly this gen.
It reminds me of an interview last E3 with some Sony guy about what they had for Fall 14, and him talking about Destiny as if it was an exclusive because they've got a marketing deal with Acti. It isn't, and it really annoys me that they're thinking (mediocre) exclusive DLC can replace exclusive games.
 

Circinus

Member
As a consumer I really don't care that much that Sony does or doesn't do well in this Christmas' NPD. All I want is for them to properly manage their exclusives' schedule, something that they've been doing pretty poorly this gen.
It reminds me of an interview last E3 with some Sony guy about what they had for Fall 14, and him talking about Destiny as if it was an exclusive because they've got a marketing deal with Acti. It isn't, and it really annoys me that they're thinking (mediocre) exclusive DLC can replace exclusive games.

Yes, it irks me a bit how people are conflating two things in this thread:

1. Business point of view of "what will sell PS4's this christmas, what are SCE's business plans"

2. Consumer point of view looking forward to what SCE WWS has in store in terms of games.
 
They'll have very little in the way of exclusives and it won't matter because first party games have little influence on console sales nowadays
 
As a consumer I really don't care that much that Sony does or doesn't do well in this Christmas' NPD. All I want is for them to properly manage their exclusives' schedule, something that they've been doing pretty poorly this gen.
It reminds me of an interview last E3 with some Sony guy about what they had for Fall 14, and him talking about Destiny as if it was an exclusive because they've got a marketing deal with Acti. It isn't, and it really annoys me that they're thinking (mediocre) exclusive DLC can replace exclusive games.

Disgaea 5, Dragon Quest Heroes, Persona 5....they're all coming this holiday. That's a line up I can get behind personally. Sure, they're not games with mainstream appeal, but like you, in the end I'm not concerned over how well Sony does over the holidays. I just want games that appeal to me. Not seeing the issue.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
No Man's Sky (console exclusive, at least for now, possibly forever). Pls. But I guess that doesn't count since it isn't AAA. I'm ridiculously excited.
 

Shabad

Member
All I want is for them to properly manage their exclusives' schedule, something that they've been doing pretty poorly this gen.

Do they now ?

Q4 2013 : Resogun, Knack and Killzone SF
Q1 2014 : inFamous Second Son
Q2 2014 : MLB '14 and Entwined
Q3 2014 : The Last Of Us Remastered, Hohokum
Q4 2014 : DriveClub and Little Big Planet 3
Q1 2015 : Helldivers, Bloodborne, The Order 1886 and MLB '15

And for the rest of the year, they have Until Dawn, Ratchet&Clank, Tearaway Unfolded, The Tomorrow Children, Rime, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, Alienation, What Remains of Edith Fitch, ...

They are consistently releasing game, how is that poor scheduling ? You could argue that they had some disappointing games in terms of quality, or at least in terms of critical return (Knack, DriveClub, The Order 1886, ... ), but the schedule is fine...
 
If they release Ratchet & Clank in November, it'll get destroyed. If they release it in October, it'll probably get destroyed. That duo just doesn't have the sway to divert attention away from the likes of Halo, let alone the usual annualised fodder shat out by Activision and Ubisoft. They better release that game in September or delay it to early next year, otherwise there will be another LBP3 failure on Sony's hands.
 

I Wanna Be The Guy

U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Microsoft's 2014 holiday lineup was better than Sony's and that didn't really affect much.
Their launch lineup was better as well. And the Vita had the best first year for exclusives than any of the other systems, with Wii U being just behind that. Yeah this generation has proven that games aren't exactly the defining factor in the popularity of gaming platforms.
 

Circinus

Member
We don't know about any big AAA game Sony has for the holidays.

Ratchet & Clank. ^.^

We don't even know of any AAA marketing deals with 3rd party games.

Hopefully none? :p

Honestly, why should a consumer care about an AAA marketing deal with 3rd party game?


Sony has Battlefront marketing

They also have marketing for Metal Gear TPP.


Relevance for consumers? None.

And I'm not sure if that is true.

Why would Battlefront be a MS thing when Hardline was a Sony thing?

How was Hardline "a Sony thing"? It didn't have PlayStation-branded advertisments like Watch Dogs or Destiny.

Microsoft's 2014 holiday lineup was better than Sony's and that didn't really affect much.

Relevance for consumers? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Hopefully that RPG that Guerrilla has been working on.

It probably needs much more time. :)

Why is jt unlikely they'll announce something at E3 for release this Christmas?

Because they already have Ratchet & Clank and most of their internal studios' development cycle don't align for other 2015 holiday games I think.

Lackluster selling copies of Ratchet and Clank and Tearaway that simultaneously make me happy with their whimsy and sad that they don't pull the numbers that cartoony platformers used to...

I agree, but I don't think Ratchet & Clank sells a lackluster amount of copies. 27 million copies sold lifetime to date.

Biggest Sony Computer Entertainment franchise after Gran Turismo.

Definitely a bit of a shame that 3D platforming games don't seem as popular as they were before (PS2 era, PS1 era).

Unless some people really got their shit together which is unlikely, Ratchet and Clank will be the big Sony published game this holiday.


Maybe they will at least have some co marketing deals though. Last year was a bad combo of SCE C tier games + No 3rd party deals. Not a good look for them. They normally dont have that many games for the holidays but 2014 was especially rough.

I think you're taking this a bit too seriously. ^.^

Ratchet & Clank is likely going to be amazing, I definitely recommend that game.

"Maybe they will at least have some co marketing deals though."

Relevance for consumers?

An Uncharted Trilogy is really all I need. I've never finished 2 or even played 3.

Why not finish Uncharted 2 on PS3? ^.^
 

Shabad

Member
If they release Ratchet & Clank in November, it'll get destroyed. If they release it in October, it'll probably get destroyed. That duo just doesn't have the sway to divert attention away from the likes of Halo, let alone the usual annualised fodder shat out by Activision and Ubisoft. They better release that game in September or delay it to early next year, otherwise there will be another LBP3 failure on Sony's hands.

Ratchet & Clank doesn't cater to the same audience as those games though. And how would Halo have anything to do with how Ratchet & Clank ends up charting ?

@ Circinus : What's up with your Relevance to consumer ? This thread clearly is about Sony [being] in for a rough holiday, it's right there in the OP...

Anyway, 1/ Sony doesn't really need anything to outperform the competition, 2/ yet they have plenty of great games planned for this year and 3/ probably even more things to be announced. They are fine...
 
Realistically all Sony need is a Black Friday bundle consisting of a PS4 + Battlefront and a digital code for TLOU at $299 and they'd dominate in sales.

I'm guessing we'll see a $50 price cut though but Sony can offer value by bundling 1st party titles with a PS4 at $350 and still make it an attractive deal over the competition.
 
Oh look another thread about what does Sony have for the holiday but completely ignores all the other months prior. How about a thread on what does Microsoft have in the months leading up to the holidays instead. Seriously just wait to E3 and besides why completely ignore Sony's great Spring-Summer line up.

Besides why do people make such a big deal about the amount of exclusives in the holidays when the top holiday sellers every year is made up of third party games. Battlefront, COD, Fifa, NBA2K, AC, and Fall Out 4 are almost guarantee going to account for majority of the console sales on both the PS4 and XB1 this holiday. The only holiday exclusive I can actually see moving consoles is Halo 5.
 

m@cross

Member
Even if they have little but 3rd party games it won't make much difference sales wise. That aside. What do you think the chances are they would announce something big for this Christmas at e3? Seems unlikely no?

If I was Sony;

1. Winning every month in sales since Dec. and virtually all the months before that.
2. Doing so at a higher price than their nearest competitor.
3. Launching exclusives all year and not just Christmas as well as a large number of smaller games.

Why, if I had an Ace up my sleeve, would I bother using it now? Will they sell a lot more consoles right now for a game announced for November?

I'd save that Ace for E3 and use it to blow the doors off the place along with a $50 price drop.
 
Ask this question after E3. They haven't even announced anything for 2016 past SFV and Uncharted by default because of a delay. They aren't announcing things early like MS with Crackdown, Scalebound etc.

Honestly to me its more concerning the fact that MS hasn't really had anything this year and won't for another 3-4 months.
 
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