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[gioGAF]

I would not mind if Sony became the dominant force in this industry once again. The PS1 and PS2 eras were amazing as far as I'm concerned. While some aspects of having "competition" have been positive, there have been many undesirable consequences.

I wish it had been Nintendo who had stepped it up as the capable competition for Sony, MS is and has always been brutally ANTI-CONSUMER!

 

[Drek]

They stole the high-end/home console experience sector that the PSP used to satisfy. Look at they types of games that the 3DS has in it's library and compare them to the types of games that droves PSP sales. Obviously it's a very Japanese-centric catalog compared to what the PSP had early on but it's very close.

Not really. Where are the shooters, the 3D action games, etc.? It misses what most of the PSP audience would define as the "console experience". It's strong in core Nintendo games, but just because it picked up Monster Hunter doesn't mean it picked up the whole PSP audience or software offerings.

Only if you believe Sony's marketing campaigns. The PSP was purchased mostly by dedicated gamers who wanted console experiences on the go. Those people did not replace that desire with smartphones.

So you think Sony found about 70 million people who where all dedicated gamers looking for a console experience on the go? We're not talking Sony's numbers here, we're talking about how Sony re-positioned the device for the second half of it's life, when it became more viable as a platform. They focused heavily on the 15-29 groups who had interest in portable media as a whole and then it started to work for them. Up to that point when sold entirely as a portable console experience it floundered.

They lost an entire sector of the market, mostly the pick up and play time-killing software that made the DS king. All you have to do is take a close look at the 3DS software library to see where I'm coming from with line of reasoning.

Sure, but that doesn't mean they picked up the PSP's audience. That audience had a pretty similar focus as the group you mentioned Nintendo losing from the DS.

The reality is that the number of dedicated gamers who even consider handhelds had to this point been only a very small share of the total market. We are an incredibly small minority and the number of people who classify themselves as such is shrinking all the time with the wide variety of media options presented on phones.

The "dedicated handheld gamer" is a dinosaur. The casual handheld gamer is already extinct. The <13 and the niche fan of specific franchises are that that will truly remain within the next few years.

 

[jkanownik]

So, while we're here

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

US - < 85,000 in 5 days

PS4 - < 56,667
One - < 28,334

UK - ~ 27,400 in 2 days

PS4 - ~ 18,900
One - ~ 8,500

I know it's just a game, but does this mean that next gen is doing relatively better in UK than in US?

Tomb Raider sells much better in the UK than the US for some reason. It was number 1 last year in the UK in March:

http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/12/tomb-raider-and-bioshock-infinite-help-uk-boxed-sales-jump-in-march/

#2 in the US:

http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/20/npd-march-bioshock-infinite-tops-us-retail-charts/

 

[Curufinwe]

Morning-after autopsy:

PS4 had an expected fall-off in US numbers. The 300k is probably a little lower than some people were hoping for, but not particularly surprising when you consider the factors influencing their supply situation. I'd expect their worldwide numbers this month to be somewhere to the tune of 500-600k due to air-freight at the end of December and stock banked for the Japanese launch; next month with the Japanese launch counted they should be back up to around 900k-1.1m worldwide, barring an unexpected fall-off in demand.

So would you expect the worldwide split at the end of February to be somewhere around PS4 - 6m, Xbone 4m?

 

[Imperfected]

Tomb Raider sells much better in the UK than the US for some reason. It was number 1 last year in the UK in March:

http://www.vg247.com/2013/04/12/tomb-raider-and-bioshock-infinite-help-uk-boxed-sales-jump-in-march/

Obviously because Lara is British. (Or, as Nirolak said just a case of Eidos being a more storied developer in the UK, probably in no small part due to their long history with PC as a platform.)

Edit: Yeah, Curufinwe, I'd say that's about right, give or take a few hundred thousand to either side. I'm not writing off the X-Box from hitting 5m for the fiscal year yet, but I do think it's going to be relying more on Titanfall sales push to get there than Microsoft would've liked. They might also improve worldwide sales somewhat by diverting supplies away from the (extremely glutted) NA market to markets that have at least somewhat higher demand.

The PS4 number I'm more confident of; even if Japan is as depressed a console market as the doom-and-gloomers are saying, just based on pre-orders alone they should have no problem moving a few hundred thousand there during their launch month, which will make it pretty easy for them to hit sell-out numbers in February even if the North American market remains sluggish.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Yeah, it's a crazy amount. I don't know how it applies to profits, a seperate entity maybe but Microsoft don't hold back. The numbers must match up somewhere or some twisted tax break.

The cheque book must be on fire right now or about to be taken away.

NFL alone is about $200 per US Xbox One sold right now. It's a long term agreement and it won't stay that high, but still...
They were meant to put 20 million Euros into the Spanish Launch, that's currently over 600 Euros per xbox sold in Spain and will take a long time to reduce. Unless they get a resurgence in mainland Europe they may have already spent more money there than they'll get back.

 

[avaya]

I wonder what the European software sales situation is like. Bloodbath for MS there.

Sony is literally the only company in this industry that is competitive worldwide, the others are total joke status. That said, Sony in itself is not even in a strong position due to financial hardship - impending Japanese govt. bailout of the company would reverse this but that's a bit of a 50:50. Heard similar stories at work like Zomg was hinting it.

I'm not too bothered about Nintendo failing on handhelds, bit harsh to say that. They don't really impact 3rd party's since first party is what sold on Nintendo hardware, so the collapse of their ecosystem is not really detrimental to the industry, it's an isolated event affecting Nintendo. The failure of Sony and to a lesser extent MS is more of an issue for the industry as a whole.

PS4 is ahead, Sony could could convert this to PS2 status if they had the financial flexibility, which they don't have. It's just selling on price, latent hype, strong messaging and brand affiliation. Structurally the trends are set-in stone. Price, BOM, distribution, messaging and brand all in their favour. Sony may need to take a more progressive approach this generation and price cut the hardware generously to help their third party partners and expand the userbase faster than what may be the optimal.

The industry needs a period of consolidation and the PlayStation platform is the only one that could achieve this in the medium term.

 

[johnny956]

fitu < 20K




Too mach for all of them.

I tried looking it up but what is "fitu"?

 

[Graphics Horse]

I tried looking it up but what is "fitu"?

wii fitu

 

[Drek]

PSVita could only be repurposed as a gaming Android machine. It has the specs to be a midrange Android tablet, so they need to do something before it falls even further behind.

I'd argue that Sony is handling the Vita quite well at this point. They sunk the R&D and early fabrication costs into a stillborn product with no market out there for it. They've spun that into something that at least at this point isn't a complete loss. New hardware revisions that don't reduce fabrication costs aren't viable at all. New hardware needs to come by way of leveraging the chipset into other devices to expand the software audience without risking additional loss. VitaTV is a good move in that direction.

From a software standpoint they're also doing the right thing by pulling away from the retail market outside of Japan-centric software and instead focusing on a steady stream of indies to fuel digital sales in other regions.

Getting the Vita to be a big seller is never going to happen. At this point the goal is to squeeze every last bit of profit out of the device before shelving it, which will probably be a several year long project. Enjoy the high tie ratio and almost 50/50 digital/retail split and ride off into the sunset with far less money lost than what was expected a few years before.

 

[Imperfected]

I tried looking it up but what is "fitu"?

Wii Fit U.

Which really no one should have expected anything from. I mean, seriously:

If you own Wii Fit, enjoy it, and it works... you don't need a new exercise assistant.

If you own Wii Fit, don't enjoy it, and it didn't work... why would you buy another one?

If you don't own Wii Fit, then just going by statistics the odds you both own a Wii U and are possibly in the market for a fitness product are microscopic.

You didn't even have to do market research to see the thing was going to go Tsar Bomba, you just had to use a little common sense - too bad Iwata doesn't have any.

 

[johnny956]

wii fitu

Thanks

Just noticed creamsuger didn't post too much in this thread. Was hoping for some software sales for the month. Unless I missed some posts.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Not really. Where are the shooters, the 3D action games, etc.? It misses what most of the PSP audience would define as the "console experience". It's strong in core Nintendo games, but just because it picked up Monster Hunter doesn't mean it picked up the whole PSP audience or software offerings.

So you think Sony found about 70 million people who where all dedicated gamers looking for a console experience on the go? We're not talking Sony's numbers here, we're talking about how Sony re-positioned the device for the second half of it's life, when it became more viable as a platform. They focused heavily on the 15-29 groups who had interest in portable media as a whole and then it started to work for them. Up to that point when sold entirely as a portable console experience it floundered.

Sure, but that doesn't mean they picked up the PSP's audience. That audience had a pretty similar focus as the group you mentioned Nintendo losing from the DS.

The reality is that the number of dedicated gamers who even consider handhelds had to this point been only a very small share of the total market. We are an incredibly small minority and the number of people who classify themselves as such is shrinking all the time with the wide variety of media options presented on phones.

The "dedicated handheld gamer" is a dinosaur. The casual handheld gamer is already extinct. The <13 and the niche fan of specific franchises are that that will truly remain within the next few years.

Which shooters and 3D action games did well on PSP? The GTA games did really well early on but those are the only examples I can think of and aren't really representative of the PSPs library.

More to the point I really disagree with the idea that the PSP was ever a serious dedicated media device in any market. It was certainly used by a lot of people that way but it primarily a gaming device. Obviously there are a lot of factors that damaged its ability to sell software in the US long before the 3DS was ever released but I still don't believe that any significant number of people who were purchasing games for their PSPs migrated to smart devices. I say a far larger portion of the DS market went in that direction instead.

The PSP's viability in the second half of its life was based almost entirely on its resurgence in the Japanese market and its western software releases trended heavily towards Japanese localizations and sports games. Since western devs have pretty much dropped out of handheld development entirely now it's left the 3DS as the PSP's software successor.

I'm not saying that handheld market contraction isn't also a factor but I believe that Nintendo's positioning of the 3DS into a higher and more console-like bracket than its previous handhelds simply left the Vita with no room to breathe .

 

[jcm]

Just asking.

I've just read the thread about the Gamestop Layaway programme for Xbox One. Now, what I want to ask is: could it be that Gamestop needs only to see the first deposit from who participates to the programme in order to count an Xbox One as sold? Is it even possible?

No, that's probably not how it works. Companies can't recognize the revenue for layaway sales until the product has been delivered to the consumer. It would be surprising if they reported it as a sale to NPD when they can't report it as a sale on the financials.

 

[Aquamarine]

Thanks

Just noticed creamsuger didn't post too much in this thread. Was hoping for some software sales for the month. Unless I missed some posts.

This:

1) Call of Duty Ghosts: ~0.33 million

2) NBA 2K14

3) Battlefield 4: (somewhere less than 0.22 milllion)

4) Assassin's Creed IV: (somewhere less than 0.22 million)

5) Grand Theft Auto V: ~0.17 million

6) Madden NFL 25: ~0.15 million

7) Minecraft

8) FIFA 14

9) LEGO Marvel Super Heroes

10) Tomb Raider 2013
Definitive Edition: <0.085 million (Creamsugar)

XX) Wii Fit U: <0.020 million (Creamsugar)

 

[ZSaberLink]

If anyone can provide the current LTD of Sonic Lost World on both Wii U and 3DS it'd be much appreciated.

I really doubt they sold that much more in January, but cream had posted the LTD in December's NPD.

Sonic: Lost World - 82K
Sonic Lost Worlds 3DS - 97k

 

[Guevara]

I'd argue that Sony is handling the Vita quite well at this point. They sunk the R&D and early fabrication costs into a stillborn product with no market out there for it. They've spun that into something that at least at this point isn't a complete loss. New hardware revisions that don't reduce fabrication costs aren't viable at all. New hardware needs to come by way of leveraging the chipset into other devices to expand the software audience without risking additional loss. VitaTV is a good move in that direction.

From a software standpoint they're also doing the right thing by pulling away from the retail market outside of Japan-centric software and instead focusing on a steady stream of indies to fuel digital sales in other regions.

Getting the Vita to be a big seller is never going to happen. At this point the goal is to squeeze every last bit of profit out of the device before shelving it, which will probably be a several year long project. Enjoy the high tie ratio and almost 50/50 digital/retail split and ride off into the sunset with far less money lost than what was expected a few years before.

It's really hard to read the Vita. On the one hand hardware sales are terrible and software sales at retail are too low to show up.

On the other, indies are busily porting away and seem to be happy with sales. I guess it works as long as devs are happy with <100k in sales.

 

[michaelius]

I don't think anything can save bone. It's a complete disaster compared to last gen marketshare.

It's not a total disaster when anylised in vacuum but existence of superior competitor will haunt it for whole generation.

 

[Biker19]

I tried to tell them.
But honestly, Xbox 360 dropping like that is a real shock. I guess the primary shooterbox market is migrating fast.

Honestly, it was only a matter of time until the Xbox 360 would stop selling so big & people finally waking up to realizing that there are more games & genres outside of shooters (& PS3 has them much more so than Xbox 360, especially with Japanese 3rd party games like Dragon's Crown).

 

[ZSaberLink]

My son actually called me downstairs to tell me "look dad, I'm playing lego undercover again!" to show me the WiiU was turned on (lasted 15 mins, went back to Lego Marvel on the PS4)

Everything about the WiiU is a trainwreck to me, I'm just waiting on a enevitable trade in console promo at EB Games where I will trade in the WiiU and PS3 to put towards a XB1

Um why exactly did your son do that ? Also it's not like Lego Marvel (and now Lego Movie) isn't on the Wii U as well, so that doesn't seem to be the best example lol....

Wow, impressed that 3D World managed 665,000 just in the US. Must be well over a million worldwide then given its decent sales in Japan.

Yeh easily. They shipped 1.94 million. They had to have sold a good portion over a million otherwise half their stock would be sitting on shelves and retailers wouldn't have ordered that much to begin with.

@Aqua: Out of curiosity, was the Wii over or under Vita?

 

[ZSaberLink]

Whoops, double post.

 

[johnny956]

This:

Going to be looking at your post history in the future. Thanks!

 

[Aquamarine]

Um why exactly did your son do that ? Also it's not like Lego Marvel (and now Lego Movie) isn't on the Wii U as well, so that doesn't seem to be the best example lol....




Yeh easily. They shipped 1.94 million. They had to have sold a good portion over a million otherwise half their stock would be sitting on shelves and retailers wouldn't have ordered that much to begin with.

@Aqua: Out of curiosity, was the Wii over or under Vita?

Creamsugar said it was <25K, and I'm going to say it's <20K.

Does that mean it's lower than Vita? It's up to you to decide how low the Wii can go.

 

[Iacobellis]

Sony just went back to their PS1/PS2 days. Microsoft were the ones who got lucky last generation.

This. Imagine if the PS3 launched at $400 and didn't need three to four years to get to price parity with the 360.

Microsoft did everything they did with the original Xbox, just cranked up a bit. Sony just fell on their faces out of the gate.

 

[theprodigy]

Creamsugar said it was <25K, and I'm going to say it's <20K.

Does that mean it's lower than Vita? It's up for you to decide how low the Wii can go.

didn't say <15k
more than Vita confirmed /s

 

[Biker19]

Sony just went back to their PS1/PS2 days. Microsoft were the ones who got lucky last generation.

That's what people seem to be forgetting. Sony was much bigger everywhere (including the U.S.) with PS1 & PS2 way before Microsoft winded up being popular with Xbox 360 (mostly due to Sony's mishaps with the PS3).

 

[ZSaberLink]

didn't say <15k
more than Vita confirmed /s

It doesn't really matter too much, so I'm going to say above Vita for kicks since that gives me a closer range. I guess it's not unexpected, since the Wii had a massive amount of appeal for several years and now is just old as opposed to the Vita which unfortunately didn't have much appeal in the US in the first place...

 

[Aquamarine]

It doesn't really matter too much, so I'm going to say above Vita for kicks since that gives me a closer range. I guess it's not unexpected, since the Wii had a massive amount of appeal for several years and now is just old as opposed to the Vita which unfortunately didn't have much appeal in the US in the first place...

Last January the Wii sold 100K (80K adjusted for 4 weeks).

To have Wii <20K this month just symbolizes how much retailers have retreated from stocking the product.

2014 will be the year that Wii sales completely flatline.

 

[Dunlop]

Um why exactly did your son do that ? Also it's not like Lego Marvel (and now Lego Movie) isn't on the Wii U as well

It was just in regards to the fact I will trade in first chance.I purchased Skylanders on the WiiU for the sole reason justifying existence my home lol.Not going to do that for every game

Lego City was great though

 

[Lynn616]

Just as an aside, I had an interesting rumour on my desk today. Sony's new TV subsidiary is going to be loaded up with 400-500bn yen worth of debt and it would also have around a third of Sony's future pension liabilities. It really sounds like they are going to sell it to the Japanese government at a nominal price and reduce their indebtedness. If they do it as I think they are, then selling the division will reduce their indebtedness by a third and wipe around 100bn yen off the company's pension deficit, but they would take a 200-250bn yen loss on the book value of the division, by my reckoning at least.

If this does happen as I think it will, then I think Sony would suddenly be in a very strong position going forwards. Massive income from financial services, strong growth in their gaming division, strong growth in semi-conductors, strong growth in imaging, strongish growth in smartphones and a huge content ownership arm. I would put their target price up to 3700 yen (from our current target of 1900 iirc) if the rumour is true. Not sure about it though because the same person completely missed the sale of the Vaio division if they are in a position to know this then they should have been in a position to know about that as well.

A random bit of off topic that didn't fit anywhere else...

Are they having strong growth in their gaming division? I thought they were down slightly against 2012 and way down against 2011.

Gaming divsion
2011 Q1-Q3 40.9 Billion Yen
2012 Q1-Q3 3.4 Billion Yen
2013 Q1-Q3 2.4 Billion Yen

 

[ZSaberLink]

Last January the Wii sold 100K (80K adjusted for 4 weeks).

To have Wii <20K this month just symbolizes how much retailers have retreated from stocking the product.

2014 will be the year that Wii sales completely flatline.

Sorry it doesn't matter "to me" though =). I realize it's bad, but looking at the 360 & PS3 this past month I can't say I'm surprised. The Wii definitely collapsed in 2013 since I think 2013 Jan Wii > 2013 Dec Wii if I'm not mistaken.

 

[anexanhume]

Last January the Wii sold 100K (80K adjusted for 4 weeks).

To have Wii <20K this month just symbolizes how much retailers have retreated from stocking the product.

2014 will be the year that Wii sales completely flatline.

Well, with the loss of GC back compat and Wii U having Wii support, only reason to buy Wii is you can't afford Wii U, no? Or is the VC on Wii a reason too?

 

[ZSaberLink]

Well, with the loss of GC back compat and Wii U having Wii support, only reason to buy Wii is you can't afford Wii U, no? Or is the VC on Wii a reason too?

You can play Wii VC on the Wii U in Wii mode. That's not even a huge issue. Most Wiis being sold had lost GC support anyways, and the Wii Minis couldn't even connect online.

 

[Tagg9]

Well, with the loss of GC back compat and Wii U having Wii support, only reason to buy Wii is you can't afford Wii U, no? Or is the VC on Wii a reason too?

Who do you think is buying the Wii now? Customers who can't afford an HD console at $199. So obviously they aren't going to spring for the Wii U at $299.

 

[ZSaberLink]

Also random side-note I guess, but based on what I've been observing on Amazon the past week, I think it's very possible that Bravely Default will outsell Lightning Returns on both PS3 & 360. It's at least managed to stay the best-selling game for a whole week (today there are some $5 cheap PC compilations above it, but I don't really count those...), over Titanfall so far. Actually Bravely Default might do pretty well in general if this continues. We'll see I guess, but it seems to have had a good week so far.

 

[Albo]

Yeah, it's a crazy amount. I don't know how it applies to profits, a seperate entity maybe but Microsoft don't hold back. The numbers must match up somewhere or some twisted tax break.

The cheque book must be on fire right now or about to be taken away.

Double agent sabotage

Subtlety burn their cash reserves, hope plan doesn't backfire

 

[anexanhume]

Who do you think is buying the Wii now? Customers who can't afford an HD console at $199. So obviously they aren't going to spring for the Wii U at $299.

I assume they're selecting the Wii because it's a Nintendo console and not because 360 or PS3 are still too pricey.

 

[SwiftDeath]

I can't say I'm really surprised. These numbers match the trends I've been speaking to from the numbers here in Best Buy sales/inventory. We have had the demand for the X1 seemingly plummet, and we can't keep the ps4 in stock. The anecdotal evidence some claim that it's easy to find a ps4 are effectively outliers. Even stores in Maine, with low population density and higher impact from weather, are selling out within the course of two days maximum, and stores near the mass border sell out within hours.

I'm wondering if Microsoft is in some kind of negotiations with our people to offer a deal like with Wal-Mart one. Lord knows those boxes aren't small, and when the local DC still is sitting on over 5500 of them... I can't imagine management is all that thrilled with the overstock situation. And even if we do start a sale like that, people haven't been on the fence about it, I don't think a single game free is going to suddenly reverse the public perception we're seeing in stores.

We'll see what happens, I guess!

Thanks for the input. Always good to hear how BB is doing with stock.

The fact that GS is doing the odd layaway program and Walmart's offering a free game would suggest that retailers are heavily loaded with XB1's that aren't moving at the pace the retailers expected them to. Curious if BB might make their own offer for XB1's too if sales continue to fall below expectations

So, while we're here

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition

US - < 85,000 in 5 days

PS4 - < 56,667
One - < 28,334

UK - ~ 27,400 in 2 days

PS4 - ~ 18,900
One - ~ 8,500

I know it's just a game, but does this mean that next gen is doing relatively better in UK than in US?

Don't you know? It was way to damn cold to go to any pokemon centers in the US in Jan.

February will be better

Although oddly enough consumer spending does indeed appear down on the whole in January

http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...f363e2-94b6-11e3-9e13-770265cf4962_story.html

Cold weather across much of the nation contributed to a drop in retail sales in January. Americans spent less on autos and clothes and at restaurants &#8212; a decline that suggests that momentum from consumer spending at the end of 2013 has tailed off.

Still wouldn't explain the downturn we see with the consoles though

 

[Petrae]

I assume they're selecting the Wii because it's a Nintendo console and not because 360 or PS3 are still too pricey.

Wii software is also coming disk in price, so those who are either late to or returning to the platform have a low-expense gaming platform that is still more family-friendly than either of its HD Gen7 competitors.

Of course, there are also a ton of Wii consoles on the resale market, so paying MSRP isn't the best way to go... and many used Wii units are older with Gamecube compatibility and online options still active. I've been thinking about getting a Wii, myself.

 

[zero shift]

I know people don't want to hear it but I really do believe that this is the beginning of the decline of the traditional console. It isn't practical spending $500 or $200 on something that can only play video games. I feel that the PS4 and 3DS will be the only systems in their segment of the industry that will still sell reasonably well (thought 3DS is looking like it's starting to dip) while every other system gets doomed to obscurity. Once set top boxes become the norm consoles are done.

 

[SwiftDeath]

I know people don't want to hear it but I really do believe that this is the beginning of the decline of the traditional console. It isn't practical spending $500 or $200 on something that can only play video games. I feel that the PS4 and 3DS will be the only systems in their segment of the industry that will still sell reasonably well (thought 3DS is looking like it's starting to dip) while every other system gets doomed to obscurity. Once set top boxes become the norm consoles are done.

While I actually have to admit I truly believed consoles would be fine and am now starting to really doubt my earlier position, a couple of things

• In the US at least, a set top box is already the norm and has been for maybe 5 years? They are on the decline too I would say as live tv falls to irrelevancy in the next 20 years to IPTV and such
• Modern consoles do not only play video games. PS3 is still one of the greatest media devices you can buy at retail and hook up to your tv. New consoles do suck in that regard though. Will improve I'm sure
• The 3DS is indeed truly worrying. I fear for Nintendo. Not because they will go out of business quickly but because I don't see them having the right vision to transition their business into a relevant one post-mobiles
• PS4 is doing well. I will hold off on what I think it's future holds relative to previous generations after Feb and March numbers though
• All the other consoles do seem irrelevant at this point to be honest with XB1 having the best chance going forward

Didn't expect this in the US, or at least not this soon.

But I'm sure Xbone is doing fine in the rest of the world.

lol joke right?

 

[frizby]

Didn't expect this in the US, or at least not this soon.

But I'm sure Xbone is doing fine in the rest of the world.

 

[Majmun]

Didn't expect this in the US, or at least not this soon.

But I'm sure Xbone is doing fine in the rest of the world.

lol

 

[Hero of Legend]

I really doubt they sold that much more in January, but cream had posted the LTD in December's NPD.

Sonic: Lost World - 82K
Sonic Lost Worlds 3DS - 97k

I know, I just want like a monthly report on it.

 

[Imperfected]

Don't you know? It was way to damn cold to go to any pokemon centers in the US in Jan.

February will be better

Although oddly enough consumer spending does indeed appear down on the whole in January

There's sort of a difference between a hypothetical heat wave that may or may not have made consumers not want to go out and road closures that physically prevent consumers from being able to go out, and potentially even prevent distribution centers from being able to stock retailers in a timely fashion.

Large portions of America still have power outages and interruption of basic services during winter storms, especially in the South, where they generally don't have blizzards large enough to require snow plows on an annual basis. It's not going to be the sole basis for sales on the month, but it is a non-trivial consideration.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

I know people don't want to hear it but I really do believe that this is the beginning of the decline of the traditional console. It isn't practical spending $500 or $200 on something that can only play video games. I feel that the PS4 and 3DS will be the only systems in their segment of the industry that will still sell reasonably well (thought 3DS is looking like it's starting to dip) while every other system gets doomed to obscurity. Once set top boxes become the norm consoles are done.

I think there is still a market for a fixed platform for development. I just imagine the days of selling A.) Over-priced shitty hardware or B.) Over-priced inaccessible hardware period are long gone. I highly doubt that iPhones sell like wild fire because they're $650. They sell well because people constantly upgrade and pay $200, taking the cost over time, (most not even knowing that's what they pay for in their plans, to them, it's just a $200 phone).

The PS4 shows that there is a market for maximized tech to cost ratio as long as that cost isn't too high. The PS4 is the perfect storm regarding price/performance/developer accessibility. You can bet Sony is going to drive the cost of that machine down as rapidly as they can, and try to get as many subscribers as possible.

I still think software sales are going to be a bitch of a hurdle, game's simply cost too much these days, and I think it's a huge reason the indie scene is taking off so heavily right now.

 

[SwiftDeath]

There's sort of a difference between a hypothetical heat wave that may or may not have made consumers not want to go out and road closures that physically prevent consumers from being able to go out, and potentially even prevent distribution centers from being able to stock retailers in a timely fashion.

Large portions of America still have power outages and interruption of basic services during winter storms, especially in the South, where they generally don't have blizzards large enough to require snow plows on an annual basis. It's not going to be the sole basis for sales on the month, but it is a non-trivial consideration.

I actually agree. I was perhaps making light of it but I found it odd it hadn't really been discussed much aside from a handful of posts.

Almost certainly the weather would've had some negative impact on sales all around if even not that substantial. I can't imagine sales were that good in the south during the Snowpocalypse after all

 

[N.Domixis]

Didn't expect this in the US, or at least not this soon.

But I'm sure Xbone is doing fine in the rest of the world.

Sony will probably sell more at JP launch, then the LTD for xbo outside the us and uk lol

 

[Zatoichi's Cane]

If Titanfall doesn't come through, I'm going to lose my bet to my cousin about Xbone outselling PS4 in 2014 USA 60/40.... although I think I have already lost. LOL

Not in my wildest imaginations could I have foreseen a 2:1 ratio in favor of PS4. This is immensely pleasing as I think Sony will get rewarded for putting gaming and gamers first.

 

[Imperfected]

I actually agree. I was perhaps making light of it but I found it odd it hadn't really been discussed much aside from a handful of posts.

Almost certainly the weather would've had some negative impact on sales all around if even not that substantial. I can't imagine sales were that good in the south during the Snowpocalypse after all

Possibly, it's hard to say. I think you'd mostly be looking at depressed sales in the South, since anywhere North of the Mason-Dixon a January blizzard isn't particularly surprising. They go nuts in Georgia, though; they keep schools open during hurricanes but if you go out into the street and shout "SNOW!" on a bright summer day people just start slamming their cars into telephone poles for some reason.