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November 2015 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes December 8th

R

Rymuth

Member
So Microsoft finally loosened their wallets. Should be interesting to see who looses December and whose momentum gets loose'ed

CosmicQueso said:
Everyone at MS has this on their reading list
it's actually a really good read

0978039331072_500X500.jpg

.
Click to expand...
I always assumed Larry penned that under a pseudonym. :p
 
M

madstarr12

Member
Lol, December will be interesting indeed. Too bad Amazon rankings aren't a complete representation of all NPD. Wii U is doing pretty well on the monthly Amazon rankings whenever it's available at $249.99. Will be back in stock on the 12th. I don't think Sony needs to respond aggressively to Microsoft's $299 announcement, since they're selling well elsewhere.
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
Maniel said:
Could you please spell this interpretation out for me? I'm unsure what to make of it.
Click to expand...

So first, MS wrote that they had "record breaking sales" and we are assuming by record breaking they are comparing it to last year since the Xbox One has only had 1 black friday period prior to this one that just passed.

The asterisk clarifies that the period is between Nov. 21-27, and generally when you compare things to announce that a new record has been reached, you would need to compare two identical periods. For example if you said "Sales in November were record breaking compared to March" that would make absolutely no sense.

So we can only assume that they are comparing sales between Nov. 21-27, 2014 versus Nov. 21-27, 2015.

The problem with that is Black Friday was on November 28, 2014, but it was on November 27, this year, so the "record" that they broke seemingly didn't include Black Friday which would account for a huge amount of sales, moreso than all of the other 7 days prior combined.



tl;dr version: MS apparently compared a week of sales including Black Friday this year versus a week of sales last year not including Black Friday sales. Of course it would be recording breaking. So while technically they are comparing two identical periods (based on date) it would be misleading. If Black Friday 2015 really beat out Black Friday 2014, they should have just stated that instead of Nov. 21-27.
 
D

Dash_Riprock

Member
Shenmue said:
So first, MS wrote that they had "record breaking sales" and we are assuming by record breaking they are comparing it to last year since the Xbox One has only had 1 black friday period prior to this one that just passed.

The asterisk clarifies that the period is between Nov. 21-27, and generally when you compare things to announce that a new record has been reached, you would need to compare two identical periods. For example if you said "Sales in November were record breaking compared to March" that would make absolutely no sense.

So we can only assume that they are comparing sales between Nov. 21-27, 2014 versus Nov. 21-27, 2015.

The problem with that is Black Friday was on November 28, 2014, but it was on November 27, this year, so the "record" that they broke seemingly didn't include Black Friday which would account for a huge amount of sales, moreso than all of the other 7 days prior combined.



tl;dr version: MS apparently compared a week of sales including Black Friday this year versus a week of sales last year not including Black Friday sales. Of course it would be recording breaking.
Click to expand...

They need to start giving out awards for best spin PR. MS has everyone beat.
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
Shenmue said:
So first, MS wrote that they had "record breaking sales" and we are assuming by record breaking they are comparing it to last year since the Xbox One has only had 1 black friday period prior to this one that just passed.

The asterisk clarifies that the period is between Nov. 21-27, and generally when you compare things to announce that a new record has been reached, you would need to compare two identical periods. For example if you said "Sales in November were record breaking compared to March" that would make absolutely no sense.

So we can only assume that they are comparing sales between Nov. 21-27, 2014 versus Nov. 21-27, 2015.

The problem with that is Black Friday was on November 28, 2014, but it was on November 27, this year, so the "record" that they broke seemingly didn't include Black Friday which would account for a huge amount of sales, moreso than all of the other 7 days prior combined.
Click to expand...

That makes no sense. The period of time is Nov. 21-27 because Black Friday this year was the 27th and they looked at a 7 day period from Saturday to Friday.

Using that, all we would have to do is look at the same 7 day period they are comparing to last year, which would be the Nov. 22-28.

Not everything is a spin, guys.
 
S

sense

Member
noobie said:
Sony may very well loose the December if they dont extend it to 26 because those are some very busy sales days and it will be not very wise on their part to let it happen.
Click to expand...

Please stop saying loose instead of lose, it is starting to bug me lol

i think last week before Christmas, people try to get last minute gifts and usually do not look for deals and price parity if they are fixated on what they want. This is what i think Sony is counting on or maybe they will have some other deals for that week. December should be interesting !!!!
 
mejin

mejin

Member
Welfare said:
That makes no sense. The period of time is Nov. 21-27 because Black Friday this year was the 27th and they looked at a 7 day period from Saturday to Friday.

Using that, all we would have to do is look at the same 7 day period they are comparing to last year, which would be the Nov. 22-28.

Not everything is a spin, guys.
Click to expand...

Are you 100% sure you have the skill to say when it is and when it's not with Microsoft?
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
Welfare said:
That makes no sense. The period of time is Nov. 21-27 because Black Friday this year was the 27th and they looked at a 7 day period from Saturday to Friday.

Using that, all we would have to do is look at the same 7 day period they are comparing to last year, which would be the Nov. 22-28.

Not everything is a spin, guys.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's why I said "apparently" and "seemingly" instead of "definitely". I was mainly trying to explain to the other poster what people's thinking was.

We don't really know what metric they used, but in any case this would highly suggest that Black Friday 2015 did not beat Black Friday 2014, or else there would be no reason to compare an entire week. I think at least that much is clear.
 
3

3rdamention

Member
Shenmue said:
So first, MS wrote that they had "record breaking sales" and we are assuming by record breaking they are comparing it to last year since the Xbox One has only had 1 black friday period prior to this one that just passed.

The asterisk clarifies that the period is between Nov. 21-27, and generally when you compare things to announce that a new record has been reached, you would need to compare two identical periods. For example if you said "Sales in November were record breaking compared to March" that would make absolutely no sense.

So we can only assume that they are comparing sales between Nov. 21-27, 2014 versus Nov. 21-27, 2015.

The problem with that is Black Friday was on November 28, 2014, but it was on November 27, this year, so the "record" that they broke seemingly didn't include Black Friday which would account for a huge amount of sales, moreso than all of the other 7 days prior combined.



tl;dr version: MS apparently compared a week of sales including Black Friday this year versus a week of sales last year not including Black Friday sales. Of course it would be recording breaking. So while technically they are comparing two identical periods (based on date) it would be misleading. If Black Friday 2015 really beat out Black Friday 2014, they should have just stated that instead of Nov. 21-27.
Click to expand...



Ok, if true, Well played MS, Well played....I'm freaking dizzy, cannot wait to see their November NPD PR, it's going to be fantastic...classic...


That 1$ for a month of Live is going to provide a nice increase in Live subs compared to last year..So expect that in the PR..And since it's for one month, they will be able to use that same increase metric, compared to last December, in their December 2015 NPD PR as well....so smart
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
mejin said:
Are you 100% sure you have the skill to say when it is and when it's not with Microsoft?
Click to expand...

Oh hell no, just saying not everything is.

I mean looking back to the September NPD, with some bad info, we assumed that the PR MS gave out was trying to spin negative YOY results, but in reality the Xbox One was up YOY.

Just don't assume the worst. Yet.

Shenmue said:
Yeah that's why I said "apparently" and "seemingly" instead of "definitely".

We don't really know what metric they used, but in any case this would highly suggest that Black Friday 2015 did not beat Black Friday 2014, or else there would be no reason to compare an entire week. I think at least that much is clear.
Click to expand...

They could've compared just Black Friday, but a whole week would give an even bigger number for them to throw around.
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
Welfare said:
Oh hell no, just saying not everything is.

I mean looking back to the September NPD, with some bad info, we assumed that the PR MS gave out was trying to spin negative YOY results, but in reality the Xbox One was up YOY.

Just don't assume the worst. Yet.



They could've compared just Black Friday, but a whole week would give an even bigger number for them to throw around.
Click to expand...
I think the logic here is that if they were comparing two different periods, both including the day of Black Friday as its end, wouldn't the asterisks specify that instead of giving -1- specific period which for one year includes it, and the previous didn't?

Impossible to tell, as you will notice they purposefully omitted to specify the year in the period mentionned, while making a comparison in time for said period.
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
Welfare said:
They could've compared just Black Friday, but a whole week would give an even bigger number for them to throw around.
Click to expand...

But remember they didn't give any numbers. This was a purely comparative metric, "record breaking" with no actual numbers. People know what Black Friday is, the week, be it Nov. 22-28 or 21-27 is not something that is a significant period to people. Nobody sees "the week leading to BF" as a significant period of time, just "Black Friday."

Going by your logic why not just go from Nov. 1 through to Black Friday? That would be an even larger number.
 
panda-zebra

panda-zebra

Member
Shenmue said:
tl;dr version: MS apparently compared a week of sales including Black Friday this year versus a week of sales last year not including Black Friday sales. Of course it would be recording breaking. So while technically they are comparing two identical periods (based on date) it would be misleading. If Black Friday 2015 really beat out Black Friday 2014, they should have just stated that instead of Nov. 21-27.
Click to expand...

If that's how it is, it's masterful. Genius even. It never even crossed my mind.

All praise the justified ancients of Mau Mau.

Welfare said:
Just don't assume the worst. Yet.
Click to expand...

Will continue to err on the side of caution when it comes to recent PR, asterisks and commas.
 
A

allan-bh

Member
If MS were comparing 2015 including BF with 2014 excluding BF, the growth would not be 22% only.

"Same period last year" obviously is not nov 21 - nov 27 2014, but saturday-friday period.
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
Shenmue said:
But remember they didn't give any numbers. This was a purely comparative metric, "record breaking" with no actual numbers. People know what Black Friday is, the week, be it Nov. 22-28 or 21-27 is not something that is a significant period to people. Nobody sees "the week leading to BF" as a significant period of time, just "Black Friday."
Click to expand...

Xbox One sales were up 22% YOY in the US during that period of 7 days.
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
allan-bh said:
If MS were comparing 2015 including BF with 2014 excluding BF, the growth would not be 22% only,
Click to expand...

Yeah I don't personally believe that they didn't include BF, 2014 either, but it's what people were thinking, which is what the controversy was about and what the poster I originally responded to was asking about.

However I am certain BF 2015 did not beat BF 2014 going by the way they did this comparison.

Welfare said:
Xbox One sales were up 22% YOY in the US during that period of 7 days.
Click to expand...

That's still a comparison though. Did they give hard numbers for the period of 7 days in 2014? If they did, then I stand corrected because I do not have that information.
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
Maniel said:
Thank you very much for going through all of that effort. It's crazy how good Microsoft is at stat manipulation.
Click to expand...

Just to note, that's in the extreme. I don't believe they did that level of manipulation, it's just what some posters were thinking.

However, I do believe there's a mild bit of manipulation of the data which is hiding that BF 2015 did not beat BF 2014 (talking about the single Friday).
 
N

Neuromancer

Member
Shenmue said:
tl;dr version: MS apparently compared a week of sales including Black Friday this year versus a week of sales last year not including Black Friday sales. Of course it would be recording breaking. So while technically they are comparing two identical periods (based on date) it would be misleading. If Black Friday 2015 really beat out Black Friday 2014, they should have just stated that instead of Nov. 21-27.
Click to expand...
Holy shit if true. That's awesome. I wish I could get a job at Xbox's PR team but I doubt I'm smart enough to wrangle the math like that.
 
G

gtj1092

Member
I don't know for sure what they are comparing. It just threw me off they gave specific dates instead of saying Black Friday Week or something like that. Just found it interesting. We will find out tomorrow or maybe Friday for some depending on when the NPD fairies arrive what the truth is.

At least MS gave us some PR Sony was radio silent.
 
M

Maniel

Banned
Shenmue said:
Just to note, that's in the extreme. I don't believe they did that level of manipulation, it's just what some posters were thinking.

However, I do believe there's a mild bit of manipulation of the data which is hiding that BF 2015 did not beat BF 2014 (talking about the single Friday).
Click to expand...

Yea i edited my post to reflect that it is uncertain, but I guess I wasn't quick enough
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
allan-bh said:
If MS were comparing 2015 including BF with 2014 excluding BF, the growth would not be 22% only.

"Same period last year" obviously is not nov 21 - nov 27 2014, but saturday-friday period.
Click to expand...
Not necessarily, you forget how insane was last year's November for the XB1, with not only a new ACU bundle but also a $349 price which both started on Nov 2nd.

I don't know that they actually did a sleigh of hand with dates here, but if their BF was just ho hum this year, having "only" a 22% improvement when compared to the crazyness of most of Nov last year is far from impossible I'd say.

If thats what they did ... Masterful PR spin indeed.
 
Plague Doctor

Plague Doctor

Member
Elandyll said:
Not necessarily, you forget how insane was last year's November for the XB1, with not only a new ACU bundle but also a $349 price which both started on Nov 2nd.

I don't know that they actually did a sleigh of hand with dates here, but if their BF was just ho hum this year, having "only" a 22% improvement when compared to the crazyness of most of Nov last year is far from impossible I'd say.

If thats what they did ... Masterful PR spin indeed.
Click to expand...

I see what everyone is saying but why even annotate that specific week at all... it's just weird of them to do that. If BF sales were so so, they could have just focussed on more fluff accolades than leaving what is an obvious breadcrumb trail of matching up a Non-BF week with a BF week.

Some people are calling this masterful but it just reads as unnecessarily obtuse yet easily picked apart.
 
A

anexanhume

Member
DieH@rd said:
UC bundle has now sold more than regular Fallout 4 Xbone retail disc. Wow.
Click to expand...

Yeah. By comparison, AC Xbox bundle was #2 in November last year, #12 on the year 2014. PS4 NDC was #1 in November this year, #9 on the year so far. Seems like the NDC did very well last month on Amazon.
 
S

serversurfer

Member
boredandlazy said:
Just thinking, Black Friday falls on a different date each year doesn't it? So saying 'the same period' could mean a date range rather than the specific days of Black Friday weekend?

Or am I just overthinking it a little?
Click to expand...
serversurfer said:
Probably. Black Friday Week would just refer to the reporting period that includes Black Friday. Reporting periods run Sun-Sat in the US, and Mon-Sun in Asia. I think EU follows US, but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...
You were right and I was wrong. You are smart and I am dumb. =(

Serves me right for trying to give MS some credit. ><


allan-bh said:
If MS were comparing 2015 including BF with 2014 excluding BF, the growth would not be 22% only.

"Same period last year" obviously is not nov 21 - nov 27 2014, but saturday-friday period.
Click to expand...
Problem is, as I explained to B&L, there's no such thing as a "saturday-friday period." In the US, where the claim was based, reporting periods run Sunday through Saturday, and they run Monday through Sunday in Asia. So if MS invented a Sat-Fri Period to measure, they should've said so. Instead, they said they were examining November 21st through the 27th. That's pretty specific, so I don't know what makes a Sat-Fri period so "obvious" to you.


Bitch Pudding said:
What would happen if Sony announces their MAUs?!
Click to expand...
MAUmageddon. I'd guess the MAU on PSN was higher than 39M anyway, actually.

Edit:
DieH@rd said:
UC bundle has now sold more than regular Fallout 4 Xbone retail disc. Wow.
Click to expand...
Gaze upon Rex's tag and despair!!
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
serversurfer said:
Problem is, as I explained to B&L, there's no such thing as a "saturday-friday period." In the US, where the claim was based, reporting periods run Sunday through Saturday, and they run Monday through Sunday in Asia. So if MS invented a Sat-Fri Period to measure, they should've said so. Instead, they said they were examining November 21st through the 27th. That's pretty specific, so I don't know what makes a Sat-Fri period so "obvious" to you.
Click to expand...

Microsoft is going to compare a 7 day period that goes from Friday to Thursday in 2014 to a 7 day period that goes from Saturday to Friday in 2015?

That is not a proper comparison.

I'm sure we'll be able to figure this out tomorrow.
 
D

Darth Smurf X

Member
sense said:
Please stop saying loose instead of lose, it is starting to bug me lol
Click to expand...

I'm glad I'm not the only one annoyed by that. I physically cannot read "loose" as "lose" and than the sentence joust makes know since.

Neuromancer said:
Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria.
Click to expand...

I love that reference.

But... there's no way Microsoft could do such a thing? Purposely confuse the dates? Right? RIGHT?!?!
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
A friend just remembered me about...

November 2013
"Xbox is the fastest selling console *

* On average per day"

PS4 > 1m in ONE day couldn't beat MS spin.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
gtj1092 said:
^^^so they were calculating the increase in sales by date and not period. Black Friday last year was the 28th.
Click to expand...

I swear MS employs statistical sorcerers. The number of ways they cook up to mislead readers is just staggering. It's like a masterclass in importance of grammar and context.
 
K

KillerMan91

Member
If I had known that this doesn't cover last days of November I would have gone with little lower numbers. Well I can only blame myself for not checking the coverage dates.
 
S

Shenmue

Banned
Welfare said:
Microsoft is going to compare a 7 day period that goes from Friday to Thursday in 2014 to a 7 day period that goes from Saturday to Friday in 2015?

That is not a proper comparison.

I'm sure we'll be able to figure this out tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm pretty certain the figures will show that they were comparing the week leading up to BF for both years.

What we won't find out is what they sold on Black Friday 2014 vs Black Friday 2015.

Makes perfect sense they sold less this year on that particular day though. Deals weren't as good compared to PS4 this year versus 2014 where PS4 refused to drop price. MS didn't do the crazy stacking of discounts and bundles they did in 2014. But the overall lower price of $299 (before retailer giftcards and whatnot) for more days than just Black Friday would account for a bigger week total than last year.
 
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