Phonomezer
Banned
PS3 under 1 million?! O_O
That's awful.
That's awful.
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NPD December 2011 Sales Results [Up5: Star Wars: The Old Republic Sales]
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Again: They're killing off the Wii to avoid brand confusion with Wii U. There's no other excuse for not supporting the Wii.
As per the NPD gaming spend is barely above where it was in 2007, pre-crash and pre-iPhone. Which indicates in real-terms there's been a contraction. Secondly, this year NPD has stated non-traditional gaming spend has surpassed retail. So how exactly is doubling down on the gamebox model going to do anything?
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
They don't have the teams to support the 3DS, WiiU, DS, and Wii at the same time.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
OK--I'd buy that explanation for console sales...IF software sales were steady/increasing. They're not.
Pretty much, they don't want another DS to 3DS transition problem.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Exactly--they're switching focus to 3ds/Wii U, which, in effect, kills off the Wii.
bigtroyjon
Member
We are talking about the entire gen, not this specific year. This gen has had growth in both dollar and unit terms compared to the previous one.
Billions of dollars of non traditional spending is getting spent on these gamebox, it's not either/or
I think phones are contracting the handheld industry, I don't think there is much proof that the home console space has been impacted with any severity at the moment.
bgassassin
Member
Yep, it's time. Vita's three weeks into a new launch in one market that's being owned by 3DS and it's predecessor, and the other consoles are long in the tooth. And if MS tries to ride Kinect too long they put themselves in a similar position as Nintendo when it comes to the casual market.
Nobody, except maybe the console makers (due to R&D spend) give a flying fuck about "generations". This generation started in 2005, there has been the world's worst economic catastrophe since the Great Depression and the emergence of smartphones and tablets in the last seven years. The world has changed, so while in 2007 we could project gaming spend to be over $30 billion it's still languishes under $20 billion.
Whatever intent or belief that the games industry had about the model of its growth died in 2008 due to the emergence of the smartphone and the Great Recession.
Kind of this. There's still room for 5 game platforms, it's just that two are going to be iOS and Facebook/Social/etc. Look at all the EA vets jumping ship to Zynga.
I don't know which will fail, but only three of the following (Wii U, Xbox720, Ps4, Vita, 3DS) have room to succeed. It looks like the 3DS will be one of them for sure.
bigtroyjon
Member
People aren't going to keep buying the same console. Generations clearly matter when talking about the 21% decline in hardware revenue.
Doesn't even factor in the huge growth in the hd console digital revenue. The home console industry isn't in some massive decline, it's just running out of people who haven't bought hardware already.
The headlines on this are a bit misleading.
Both X360 and PS3 sales are up substantially over 2011 for the holiday season as a whole (Nov + Dec). They just went overboard with the sales rebates in November, and basically pulled a bunch of December sales into November.
Software sales are also up significantly over 2011.
So really it's just Wii sales that have tanked, as expected. The console business is alive and well.
Both X360 and PS3 sales are up substantially over 2011 for the holiday season as a whole (Nov + Dec). They just went overboard with the sales rebates in November, and basically pulled a bunch of December sales into November.
Software sales are also up significantly over 2011.
So really it's just Wii sales that have tanked, as expected. The console business is alive and well.
So where I have trouble understanding is, hardware revenue is declining but software revenue is doing okay. Conclusion: We need new hardware!
Total Units
Fouth Generation HW: 100M~ now
Fifth Generation HW: 144.5M now
Sixth generation HW: 195M~ when "next gen" started (about 30M higher now)
Seventh Generation HW: 207.5M now
The market hasn't seemed to be keeping up with the growth rate expected of it, even giving the seventh generation the most favorable comparison possible.
What consoles are you using for the 6th and 7th gens?
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
I would guess PS2 (140m), Xbox (24m), GameCube (21m), and Dreamcast (10m) for the 6th gen and Wii, 360, and PS3 for the 7th gen.
06nbarnhill
Member
I would say the reliability of consoles now does factor in. I owned 3 ps2's (phat which I replaced with slim that eventually broke and was replaced again) and 2 Xboxs. This gen I am still on my first of each console.
Anecdotal I know....but I do think it has a rather large effect. My guess would be 10%.
I blame hardware prices.
FieryBalrog
Member
People predicting the doom/stagnation of gaming are ignoring the MASSIVE amount of dollars going into iOS/Android, facebook/social, digital sales and virtual goods (not just games, but DLC and microtransactions; I spent like $250 on League of Legends this year).
The traditional console and retail business, while still currently huge, will be an increasingly shrinking portion of the pie from now on. These sectors are relatively stagnant or growing only modestly, the big growth is elsewhere.
The traditional console and retail business, while still currently huge, will be an increasingly shrinking portion of the pie from now on. These sectors are relatively stagnant or growing only modestly, the big growth is elsewhere.
Gen 6 at 226m? I thought it was 10m or so less than that. Where are we getting these numbers? And considering a 7 year runoff of this gen, Im not seeing how the trending is supposed to be so negative even looking at those numbers. If the next gen starts next Christmas with the WiiU, and 7 years from that point this gen does another 15+million and adding in all of 2012 hardware numbers, we will still see growth easily.
But my main thing is 226m for Gen 6, where are we getting that from? Because if we use the numbers I last heard for Gen6, then it drops dramatically. By like 10-15 million, and that all of a sudden shoots a shitload of holes in the 'consoles arent growing' theory, because the growth from 6 to 7 will be quite similar and very healthy.
Can't figure out how you got that total for the 6th gen then. At least the 30m more part anyhow.
This gen will be about 10m or so more once Nintendo and Sony release new shipment data.
A good assumption. My point is the dedicated game box is a beast that is going to go away. If we lasted another two to three years it may no longer be inconceivable to have cloud services from MS or Sony deliver a new generation off games through existing devices. Unlikely to happen this gen, too much invested, but I feel whatever comes out next is the last gamebox ever.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Should Nintendo release a camera add-on that's similar to Kinect, but more functional with the WiiU if Microsoft lags in releasing the Xbox 3? That seems like a move that could really kill Microsoft's casual business.
I'm an expert
Formerly worldrevolution. The only reason I am nice to anyone else is to avoid being banned.
When everyone says stuff is "awful", you simply mean in sales-age terms, right? Because any time a console sells 1 million units I'm very happy as an owner of that console knowing there's a potential 1 million new players to play with. Heck, even a game selling a few hundred thousand is great for the consumers. So I don't get why everyone gets so doom and gloom if the PS3 sold 90k less than Wii. Because Sony might drop out of the hardware race? Fair point, but as an owner of their systems I have absolutely zero issue with them being 3rd place as long as they keep putting out quality stuff - which they do. I mean, one million of ANYTHING is a lot. That's just me being Joe Consumer though.
Forget shipment numbers
NPD Dec 2004 said:
The last holiday season of last gen before 360 launched. Console sales are well under this December's results, despite the Xbox having received Halo 2 that November, and the consoles being 3-4 years old instead of 5-6 years old.
The following year:
NPD December 2005 said:
Oblivionmancer
Member
My first reaction to that statement is that it's pretty radical, and my second reaction is that I have no idea what it means. What minimal threshold of features/specifications does a device have to meet to be a 'gamebox' to you? The fact that the thing we plug into our tvs to play our games will probably be able to do more and more things in addition to games means the extinction of the 'gamebox' exactly when? It must be after xbox 360, since we still have the last gamebox ever to go, but beyond that I'm completely lost.
I mean that probably we have one more hardware cycle before the idea of a dedicated game computer under your screen that needs to be refreshed to keep up with technology is unlikely. Streaming services and cloud computing will deliver content to a receiver box under your TV. It won't be expensive, it might even be completely free, but the services on it will be the products.
bgassassin
Member
The camera in the controller supposedly already has some level of Kinect functionality.
The Praiseworthy
Member
bigtroyjon
Member
I expect Sony to create a new term and go 4th party. They will make a bunch of awesome games, just won't release them on any hardware so that people can play them.
but Sony had its best November ever. all hope is not lost!
can't help but agreeing on this.
PS2 was in severe shortage at the time. This December was still higher just looking at those three, but the PS2 shortage is worth mentioning, since it makes the difference not as big.
This in particular is unfortunate for Microsoft not because 1.7m is a bad number, but because Y2Y increase (mostly) and beating the expectations every month since slim lunch might have given them a false sense of security that might come back to haunt them.
There was some shooting in the foot with the crazy deals in November. They basically did psuedo price cuts with the crazy giftcard deals etc.
That setup for a weak December when things went back to normal. Sure price drops will be nice but its not going to have the dramatic effect people might expect.
This Gen is aged beyond its usefulness and its going to just continuing going downhill from here
That setup for a weak December when things went back to normal. Sure price drops will be nice but its not going to have the dramatic effect people might expect.
This Gen is aged beyond its usefulness and its going to just continuing going downhill from here
Hardware numbers are just shockingly low all around. Judging by the numbers in the predictions thread, nearly everyone expected substantially higher sales.
Oh, well. Maybe Microsoft will finally get around to doing a price cut. I was convinced they'd do one last year, but I never expected them to maintain their sales momentum so long. (Been waiting on a price cut before picking up a slim.)
Oh, well. Maybe Microsoft will finally get around to doing a price cut. I was convinced they'd do one last year, but I never expected them to maintain their sales momentum so long. (Been waiting on a price cut before picking up a slim.)
Part of the problem is November was so good, so people expected a normal December increase and big predictions resulted.
However, it now seems that November was good at the expense of December.
Wii decline is terrible either way though, but had to happen sometime.
Maximilian E.
AKA MS-Evangelist
I think MS is fine with this, they still have great possibilities this year to go all out with different price points/bundles etc. They should lower the price before announcing a new hardware though..