Sony's Getting Nervous About Its Excellent PS4 Sales

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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Demagogue said:
If this was XBox with these numbers the article would have been more akin to "Woo! We're #1! Suck it Sony!!"
That already happened. The entire Xbone reveal was Microsoft taunting pretty much everyone, consumers included. They were so delusional, they thought they could get away with anything.
 

008Zulu_v1legacy

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Sep 6, 2009
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Yoshida my man, just keep on doing what you are doing right now; Seeing what Microsoft does, then do the complete opposite.
 

GonzoGamer

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I'm kind of surprised by the sales too.
It sounds like they're having the same problem the Wii had: sold a bunch of consoles but nobody bought games for the thing.
lacktheknack said:
CriticalMiss said:
It wouldn't surprise me if this was some kind of ridiculous Microsoft tactic.

Step 1: Buy all of the PS4s
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Profit
Heh. I'm reminded of the time that the Catholic Church purchased all of William Tyndale's English Bibles and burned them all... giving Tyndale enough money to print even more than there were before.

OT: That's a really interesting question. How DO you figure out what people are doing with your product?

...and if they find out that they're mostly being put in shrines, what does this mean in terms of future features?
Or how about the right wing morons protesting France by buying French wine and pouring it into the gutter.

I'm actually amusing myself by imagining what ??? =s in step 2. Getting their pubic hair streaked? Playing soccer at the bottom of a pool? Getting sat on by an incredibly large bottomed woman? Prank calling EA's CEO and asking them if their servers are running? Circle jerk?
 

Mr.Mattress

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Jul 17, 2009
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Demagogue said:
I thought that last Gen only Nintendo sold at a loss... either way, selling your console at a loss is perfectly okay, really if they are trying to make money off their consoles they are doing it wrong. Like Yoshida said, consoles are a long term investment (well 5-10 years) you don't make your money off them, you make your money off the royalties from games, and subscriptions (XBLive, PSN).
Last Generation, Nintendo was the only one to sell at a Profit out of the Gate (Since the Wii was pretty much 2 Gamecubes with Motion Controls). The PS3 never really sold for a profit, and it (Along with the PSP) helped cause Sony's modern Financial Problems (As well as Sony's general Incompetence in other Areas). The XBox 360 sold at a profit about 2-3 years after release, but it didn't make enough profit to finance the Money Drain that was the XBox, which never made profit in it's life.

OT: Nice Interview, but I too wonder why the PS4 is selling when there is literally nothing (Interesting) for the Console...
 

hermes

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Mar 2, 2009
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Maybe its people that moved away from Nintendo and Microsoft land?

I might be overthinking now, but it seems a lot of people that only had a 360 during last generation are actively staying away from XB1 on this one...
 

Ninmecu

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May 31, 2011
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LazyAza said:
Sony HQ:

CEO: "Guys we're making all this money, how did we do it!?!?!"
Random Shlub: "Uh I think cause we made it like, good? and customer friendly? and nicely priced?"
CEO: "Hmmmm, that sounds like crazy talk to me"

*meanwhile at microsoft*

CEO: "So how's phase 5 coming along? you know the one where we start actively stealing money from people with XboxOnes?"
Random Minion: "Uh We're still finishing up phase 4 sir, operation kick everyone in the nuts, we haven't figured out how to kick girls in the nuts yet but we'll come up with something!"
CEO: "Excellent" *maniacal 80s villain laughter* *lightning strikes and thunder as camera zooms out from evil lair*

And so concludes my explanation.

The bit about a good product and nicely priced isn't true of every country, here in Canada they upped the price tag to 450 per console(with no special editions.) and the games come just shy of 100$ with taxes. That's ludicrous. I refuse to pay that much extra when I literally live on the god damned border. To make matters worse, you don't see Microshill doing the same thing. Know why? Because they're not on top right now, that's the only reason Sony thinks it can get away with this kind of bullshit. I honestly hope they all crash and burn, it's about time they stop thinking they can do as they please and send bullshit declarations from on high and we'll just accept them without pause or reasoning.
 

direkiller

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Dec 4, 2008
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gigastar said:
Is it possible to have an obligatory sales comparison whenever console sales are brought up?

Its no secret that the PS4 is doing better right now, but its always irking me that nobody seems to know by how much.
PS4 has sold about twice as many units as the xbone
http://www.gamespot.com/articles/it-sounds-like-xbox-one-sales-have-reached-at-leas/1100-6421798/


Nintendo tends to holds its sales figures back, so they are the unknown currently.
 

Agayek

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Oct 23, 2008
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Demagogue said:
I thought that last Gen only Nintendo sold at a loss... either way, selling your console at a loss is perfectly okay, really if they are trying to make money off their consoles they are doing it wrong. Like Yoshida said, consoles are a long term investment (well 5-10 years) you don't make your money off them, you make your money off the royalties from games, and subscriptions (XBLive, PSN).
At the time of release, the Xbox 360 and PS3 were both selling at a loss. The Wii's the only one that actually sold at a profit, which is why its sale numbers were such a big deal for Nintendo.

By about 2010 though, the hardware had become cheap enough that all three consoles were selling at a profit.
 

Demagogue

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Mar 26, 2009
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Mr.Mattress said:
Last Generation, Nintendo was the only one to sell at a Profit out of the Gate (Since the Wii was pretty much 2 Gamecubes with Motion Controls). The PS3 never really sold for a profit, and it (Along with the PSP) helped cause Sony's modern Financial Problems (As well as Sony's general Incompetence in other Areas). The XBox 360 sold at a profit about 2-3 years after release, but it didn't make enough profit to finance the Money Drain that was the XBox, which never made profit in it's life.

OT: Nice Interview, but I too wonder why the PS4 is selling when there is literally nothing (Interesting) for the Console...
Agayek said:
At the time of release, the Xbox 360 and PS3 were both selling at a loss. The Wii's the only one that actually sold at a profit, which is why its sale numbers were such a big deal for Nintendo.

By about 2010 though, the hardware had become cheap enough that all three consoles were selling at a profit.
My bad, I remembered there being some big difference between the three last console, apparently I remembered the wrong way. Thanks for clearing that up.
 

Tamayo

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Hairless Mammoth said:
Well, thanks to both the PS4 and Xbone being made with mid-range PC parts, I'd bet the US Military and independent research groups aren't buying them to make cheap supercomputer clusters like what happened with the PS3.
Er, actually, the US Air Force bought PS3s because they were ideal for the task at hand. (And also cheap.) They were intended to be used online so they were easy to fit up into clusters, they had Cell processors for crunching large amounts of spatial data, and they could (at the time) be loaded up with Linux instead of Sony's gaming-oriented OS.

Yes, both the PS4 and XBox One are essentially PCs; but if you wanted modern hardware to do what the USAF did with PS3s, most of your processing wouldn't be in the CPUs of the computers involved but in the graphics cards. I am fairly sure that the price/performance curve of GPUs has already left both the PS4's and XBox One's GPUs behind, and that will only get more apparent.
 

Big_Boss_Mantis

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Yes, it is surprising that the PS4 is doing so good. Even though it is the better product, I don't understand why so many people found the need to get one so early when almost EVERYTHING worth playing on it is available on the last gen as well...
I love my PS3, and I own every system and portable by Sony, from PS2 onwards, and I still see no value in getting a PS4 yet.
There is nothing worthwile. Nothing unique. No system seller.
And I am busy with the huge last gen backlog, and I'm having a lot of fun with my Wii U.

That said, to me it is even MORE surprising (and depressing) that Xbone managed 5 million. Why would someons purchase a system by Microsoft after they have shown their intentions of implementing draconian anti-consumer policies. No, backpedalling isn't good enough. "We failed, so we changed our minds" doesn't make it alright. And it was more expensive!
Xbone should not have had sold ONE SINGLE UNIT. The consumer should have vocally refused it.

I know that there is people with more money than common sense, but please... Vote with your wallet, guys.
 

fix-the-spade

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Feb 25, 2008
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Demagogue said:
It still amazes me that Sony & Nintendo can be so humble at times.
It might be worth remembering that Nintendo were anything but humble five years ago at the height of the Wii's sales, trying to bury everyone in shovelware and essentially abandoning the core market that had propped their home consoles up for a decade. Whilst Sony attempted to dictate to the market in 2006 and charge what it felt like whislt providing developers with an extremely sub standard set of development tool.

Sony might well be humble over their successes now, but that's because they were delivered an massive kick in the teeth in the past, which they appear to have learned from.

If only Microsoft could be similarly contrite after the RRoD, although the Xbone's launch year seems to be convincing them that Sony's approach is more profitable.
 

Ed130 The Vanguard

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Sep 10, 2008
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BigTuk said:
Demagogue said:
It still amazes me that Sony & Nintendo can be so humble at times. What I got out of this: "Oh wow, we're selling a TON of consoles... how do we make sure these people stay customers"

If this was XBox with these numbers the article would have been more akin to "Woo! We're #1! Suck it Sony!!"
There's reason. You have to consider what you call 'a sale'.

See retailers like Walmart, Gamestop, etc buy hundreds of consoles from Sony (per store). These are sales. Now the question is...how many of these sales are translating into consumer purchases? If the retailers are buying but not selling, that's a different picture.
The Sony European CEO made a point to state that the sales numbers were to consumers, not to stores in this article.
http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/12/ps4-worldwide-sales-hit-10-million-xbox-one-on-5-million-4830599/
Your second point is a re-tread as to why Yoshida is worried and why he wants to know exactly is buying PS4's.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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My brother is one of those. The only person I know to have a new/current gen console and he isn't a gamer. He bought it for a blu-ray player which may one day play one or two games, probably FIFA ones. I bought him the only game he has for it (Tomb Raider) and then, only because I got it for £8 and figured he might enjoy it one day.

I'm a core gamer, and I don't own a current gen console. But that just means I'm of no interest to Sony (which is fair enough).
 

Riff Moonraker

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Demagogue said:
It still amazes me that Sony & Nintendo can be so humble at times. What I got out of this: "Oh wow, we're selling a TON of consoles... how do we make sure these people stay customers"

If this was XBox with these numbers the article would have been more akin to "Woo! We're #1! Suck it Sony!!"
No, it wouldnt. Phil has been a helluva lot more humble than Don Mattrick, and I disagree about that. That is the kind of comment that a Sony fanboy would make regarding something negative about the xbox.. which is what you hear all the time on these boards. Aside from them, no, you wouldnt hear that.
 

LazyAza

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Ninmecu said:
LazyAza said:
Sony HQ:

CEO: "Guys we're making all this money, how did we do it!?!?!"
Random Shlub: "Uh I think cause we made it like, good? and customer friendly? and nicely priced?"
CEO: "Hmmmm, that sounds like crazy talk to me"

*meanwhile at microsoft*

CEO: "So how's phase 5 coming along? you know the one where we start actively stealing money from people with XboxOnes?"
Random Minion: "Uh We're still finishing up phase 4 sir, operation kick everyone in the nuts, we haven't figured out how to kick girls in the nuts yet but we'll come up with something!"
CEO: "Excellent" *maniacal 80s villain laughter* *lightning strikes and thunder as camera zooms out from evil lair*

And so concludes my explanation.

The bit about a good product and nicely priced isn't true of every country, here in Canada they upped the price tag to 450 per console(with no special editions.) and the games come just shy of 100$ with taxes. That's ludicrous. I refuse to pay that much extra when I literally live on the god damned border. To make matters worse, you don't see Microshill doing the same thing. Know why? Because they're not on top right now, that's the only reason Sony thinks it can get away with this kind of bullshit. I honestly hope they all crash and burn, it's about time they stop thinking they can do as they please and send bullshit declarations from on high and we'll just accept them without pause or reasoning.
Well I'm in a country where its the best damn well priced machine to ever release here considering what it is and offers and I have zeeeerro reason to ever get a One. So sucks to be you I guess, maybe move to America so you can appreciate the ps4 more? haha
 

Superbeast

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Jan 7, 2009
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Karloff said:
Many of the buyers didn't own a PS3 and are new to the PlayStation network. Others never even owned a console before, whether PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii. "So where did they come from?" asks Yoshida, and it's a question Sony's marketing people are hard at work trying to answer.
I am not sure I understand the second sentence, thanks to the qualifiers. I've never owned a PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii - yet I have certainly owned consoles before - the PS2 and Xbox sitting in my lounge certainly testify to that! I wonder if there are actually quite a few people like me (couldn't afford the last gen in its first few years, and after that felt so bemused by the amount of releases and the cost of the games and hence didn't bother to upgrade if their older stuff was still working) which could explain where extra sales are coming from. There is also general population growth and increasing recreational gaming popularity that will pull in more buyers (though probably accounted for in Sony's calculations prior to release).

Hell, I still can't afford a PS3/360, but in a few months I am hoping I will be able to get a PS4. Slightly off-topic, but the new generation is ideal for me as it happens - I never owned a PS3 so the "lack of difference" is not an issue (the PS4 is a hell of a lot better than a PS2) and the "remastered" games mean I am probably not going to miss out on too much from the last generation that I was really keen on. Might pick up a 360 eventually to feed my Halo habit, based on playing Reach/Halo 4 and a mates house.
 

Ylla

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Ninmecu said:
LazyAza said:
Sony HQ:

CEO: "Guys we're making all this money, how did we do it!?!?!"
Random Shlub: "Uh I think cause we made it like, good? and customer friendly? and nicely priced?"
CEO: "Hmmmm, that sounds like crazy talk to me"

*meanwhile at microsoft*

CEO: "So how's phase 5 coming along? you know the one where we start actively stealing money from people with XboxOnes?"
Random Minion: "Uh We're still finishing up phase 4 sir, operation kick everyone in the nuts, we haven't figured out how to kick girls in the nuts yet but we'll come up with something!"
CEO: "Excellent" *maniacal 80s villain laughter* *lightning strikes and thunder as camera zooms out from evil lair*

And so concludes my explanation.

The bit about a good product and nicely priced isn't true of every country, here in Canada they upped the price tag to 450 per console(with no special editions.) and the games come just shy of 100$ with taxes. That's ludicrous. I refuse to pay that much extra when I literally live on the god damned border. To make matters worse, you don't see Microshill doing the same thing. Know why? Because they're not on top right now, that's the only reason Sony thinks it can get away with this kind of bullshit. I honestly hope they all crash and burn, it's about time they stop thinking they can do as they please and send bullshit declarations from on high and we'll just accept them without pause or reasoning.
YAY, no thats because MS has better international relations than Sony, Although i find two things strange:
-First the PS4 is now cheaper in my country (Mexico) the same goes for most south America (except Brazil), Sony is changing in that aspect.
-Second why dont you cross the border and buy the games? or use the digital market?
 

SeventhSigil

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What he mentioned about being surprised, and pretty much in the dark as to why the PS4 is selling SO well, does make me wonder what their initial expectations were, going into 8th gen, before the whole DRM-fiasco with the Xbox One even began. I mean, I pretty much figured, back before E3 2013, that the most likely outcome would be 'Microsoft kicks Sony's shins in U.S. and U.K., Sony kicks Microsoft's shins in wider Europe and Asia, global figures battle back and forth and it comes down to who kicks whose shins hardest.'

Bottom line, though, figured that whoever came on top, the past ten months would have been a gritty, neck-and-neck, stabbing-in-the-trenches slugfest. Which isn't really Sony's strongest suit at the moment, given they do lack Microsoft's deep, deep pockets and would find themselves therefore pretty easy to outmaneuver in an extremely close contest.

But now, looking at the current situation where Sony has, while not an insurmountable, still a pretty solid lead in the U.S. and U.K. against Microsoft, and is all but laughing in its own 'stronghold' markets, can't help but picture more than a few folks at Sony thinking; 'Phew, THAT was a bullet dodged. >_> '