First Quarter Console Sales: Sony Finally Catches Up

vansau

Mortician of Love
May 25, 2010
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First Quarter Console Sales: Sony Finally Catches Up

The PS3's sales have risen enough to give Sony an equal share of the console market, with even better numbers predicted.



Wii [http://www.amazon.com/PlayStation-3-120-GB/dp/B002I0J4VQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1276636339&sr=8-1], but Sony's been gradually closing the gap. A new report from Strategy Analytics, however, has revealed that the first quarter of 2010 saw a pretty even split between the three consoles. The report also predicts that the PS3 will outperform the 360 in terms of full-year sales numbers.

The report, "Games Consoles: Sony's PS3 Increases Global Share In Q1 2010," shows that Sony's share of the console market increased to 31%, though it's predicted that the PS3 will actually surpass 360 sales by the end of the year. A large reason for the PS3's increased presence is that the reduced price tag of the PS3 Slim, which launched last Fall.

According to the report's author, David Mercer, "The PS3 continues to benefit from the price cut last September. This should help the PS3 maintain growth momentum throughout 2010. The introduction of the Natal technology should also help re-energize Microsoft's Xbox 360 platform in the second half of the year."

According to the report, the first quarter of an academic year is traditionally pretty weak for console sales, but it's useful as an indicator for the remaining quarters. The report also predicts the following numbers for the rest of the year: 17.5 million for the Wii, 14 million for the PS3, and 10.5 million for the Xbox 360.

These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt: The report states that there's still a fair amount of uncertainty. This is largely because Strategy Analytics isn't certain about how much Wii sales will decline and how "system enhancements" for the PS3 and 360 will increase purchases.



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Terramax

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Jan 11, 2008
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Well it's certainly nice to see Sony's investment and patience finally paying off.

I just hope they don't release another PR stunt, verbally bashing the 360 because of this.
 

wooty

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Aug 1, 2009
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Someone once mentioned whether the 360 sales are accurate, do they include the people who have had to buy multiple consoles due to RRoD and failures? Technically that's still only one household with one purchased. Just got me thinking that's all
 

ironlordthemad

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Sep 25, 2009
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its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
 

Mister Benoit

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Sep 19, 2008
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ironlordthemad said:
its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
They just started making single digit profit off consoles sold.
 

Delusibeta

Reachin' out...
Mar 7, 2010
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Mister Benoit said:
ironlordthemad said:
its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
They just started making single digit profit off consoles sold.
Compare and contrast with Nintendo, who has been making a profit with every Wii sold from day one. Which was a very good move.
 

Mister Benoit

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Sep 19, 2008
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Delusibeta said:
Mister Benoit said:
ironlordthemad said:
its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
They just started making single digit profit off consoles sold.
Compare and contrast with Nintendo, who has been making a profit with every Wii sold from day one. Which was a very good move.
I remember when the PS3 was launched and had a 799.99$ price tag at a lot of places in Canada.
That's absolutely absurd.

Nintendo got it down pretty well this cycle, money wise anyways.
 

Brotherofwill

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Jan 25, 2009
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wooty said:
Someone once mentioned whether the 360 sales are accurate, do they include the people who have had to buy multiple consoles due to RRoD and failures? Technically that's still only one household with one purchased. Just got me thinking that's all
How could you possibly measure that? I guess a lot of people also didn't even bother sending their console in and just bought an Elite after their box broke down, but you can't really measure those numbers.

Xbox software sales are still doing very well, so there are probably a lot of them out there.

The difference is only about 5 million now, it's reasonable to predict that PS3 catches up withing the next year or 2 unless there is a change in momentum (which could very well happen).

Anyway, who cares?
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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Sep 4, 2009
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Good, even though the company is a dick, the PS3 is the highest quality system of this gen. Bluetooth controls instead of whatever proprietary wireless protocol MS is using is really nice, even though companies making PC ports seem to have a boner for the 360 gamepad. Just if you look at the presentation it looks like a better designed product, and the Slim really is an improvement over the original model.

If they had released the Slim at $300 in 2006 and kept hardware backwards compatibility with PS2 Sony would be far and away the leader of this generation and Blu Ray would have penetrated into as many homes as DVD had at this point in the previous gen.
 

Jared

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Jul 14, 2009
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Well. Only taken forever.

Let's see what they will do with the new found wealth
 

Pendragon9

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Apr 26, 2009
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Good to see them still in the market. We need plenty of competition so the companies will fight for my money.

And as you know, good games come from competition. :D
 

AzrealMaximillion

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Jan 20, 2010
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Delusibeta said:
Mister Benoit said:
ironlordthemad said:
its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
They just started making single digit profit off consoles sold.
Compare and contrast with Nintendo, who has been making a profit with every Wii sold from day one. Which was a very good move.
Yeah, but Nintendo's only making $6 off of every Wii sold. Most console making companies make money off the games. I wonder how much Microsoft has lost over the 360, the last time they boasted about profits was 2008.
 

Kojiro ftt

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Apr 1, 2009
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What what? Reduce the price and increase sales? Who would have thought.

Now imagine if they had done this two years ago.
 

SonOfIkaros

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Oct 6, 2009
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I'm just glad to see that both Microsoft and Sony seems to have caught up with the Wii's huge lead (well, there's still a long way to go, but at least they've almost tied it in terms of quarterly console sales).

I do like the Wii, it's a fun console, but I'm honestly scared about how well it's doing. I think motion controls are a fun little gimmick, but I definitely wouldn't want to see them taking center stage in the gaming world, and for a while I was worried the Wii's huge success would make Sony and Microsoft prioritize motion controls. Give me classic console controls, and motion controls at the side, I say. That way everyone walks away happy.
 

edgeofblade

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Jan 8, 2009
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I like going head to head with analysts.

I'm going to put my money on 360 out-selling PS3 on the back of Natal, based purely on how the general public will see it. That's not to say I think Natal is the better tech for games. I think Natal is damned impressive, as a gadget. But I think the Move will ultimately make for better games. But BUT, I think the public will respond to Natal the way they responded to the Wii, and the Move less so.
 

edgeofblade

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Jan 8, 2009
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rembrandtqeinstein said:
If they had released the Slim at $300 in 2006 and kept hardware backwards compatibility with PS2 Sony would be far and away the leader of this generation and Blu Ray would have penetrated into as many homes as DVD had at this point in the previous gen.
And Sony would not just be "in the hole": there would be a Sony sized hole where they used to be...
 

squid5580

Elite Member
Feb 20, 2008
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Brotherofwill said:
wooty said:
Someone once mentioned whether the 360 sales are accurate, do they include the people who have had to buy multiple consoles due to RRoD and failures? Technically that's still only one household with one purchased. Just got me thinking that's all
How could you possibly measure that? I guess a lot of people also didn't even bother sending their console in and just bought an Elite after their box broke down, but you can't really measure those numbers.

Xbox software sales are still doing very well, so there are probably a lot of them out there.

The difference is only about 5 million now, it's reasonable to predict that PS3 catches up withing the next year or 2 unless there is a change in momentum (which could very well happen).

Anyway, who cares?
Either way you look at it if it was because of RROD or just cause they are still selling the consoles.

I do think MS is going to have the edge when the new stuff comes out. NATAL vs Gem or Arc or whatever it is called is no contest. As long as they have the same sort of shovelware that is.
 

Silver Patriot

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Aug 9, 2008
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AzrealMaximillion said:
Delusibeta said:
Mister Benoit said:
ironlordthemad said:
its only taken them a few years...
besides what they don't mention is the profit margin, doesn't it still cost sony to sell a PS3, what with materials and manufacturing, or are they finally making a profit?
If it still costs them per unit, doesn't it therefor suck to be selling more of them?
They just started making single digit profit off consoles sold.
Compare and contrast with Nintendo, who has been making a profit with every Wii sold from day one. Which was a very good move.
Yeah, but Nintendo's only making $6 off of every Wii sold. Most console making companies make money off the games. I wonder how much Microsoft has lost over the 360, the last time they boasted about profits was 2008.
It was 2010 when Halo: Reach comes out.
 

rembrandtqeinstein

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Sep 4, 2009
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edgeofblade said:
rembrandtqeinstein said:
If they had released the Slim at $300 in 2006 and kept hardware backwards compatibility with PS2 Sony would be far and away the leader of this generation and Blu Ray would have penetrated into as many homes as DVD had at this point in the previous gen.
And Sony would not just be "in the hole": there would be a Sony sized hole where they used to be...
They would need to be in it for the long game.

Once they have the machine widespread enough they say "no, netflix can no longer stream any of the properties of Sony pictures" and start your own streaming movie service. They partner with Skype and come out with a 2.4ghz cordless phone usb plugin and let people make international video calls for 10c a minute or 19.99(+tax) for the monthly plan." They sell computing time on this gigantic worldwide distributed network offering X Sony Points? a month for allowing use of their bandwidth. They add features that let people configure their Sony televisions and Sony receivers from a single unified interface (or remotely) to make it easy for geeks to help norms set everything up. They partner with ISPs to add PSN charges so users only have one unified bill every month. Add a Sony Email address, Sony instant messenger and Sony user homepage with social features and suddenly they are in a position to compete with Facebook.

But none of that is possible unless they have the network penetration to start with.

Oh and with their security features 4 years after launch PS3 is the only system that has 0 piracy. So between their (speculative) lead and that fact where do yo think the AAA developers would focus their efforts?

That kind of ambition doesn't make for good quarterly earnings reports but Japan used to be known for 100 year business plans.