• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

VG247: "If Xbox can't beat PS5 this holiday, I'm not sure it ever will"

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Who the hell cares about HW sales when you make exactly 0 dollars off of console sales? In the past manufacturers even lost money on every console sold.

The goal is to push as much software as possible. That's why MS and Sony put their games on PC - and why Gaf members don't run multi billion corporations.

Xbox Series S proves they care about hardware sales.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
This is going to be a really rough generation for some folks.
Doubt it - on the one hand you'll have Sony giving software numbers, hardware numbers and annual profits and revenue, and on the other you'll have Microsoft giving the number of users, GamePass subs, and revenue figures.

Comparisons will be all but impossible. But context will provide the reasoning for the differing approaches.
 
Last edited:

Three

Member
so how do you play a game that isn't out except for ultimate edition, not even disc based games out at that point
I already mentioned it in the post you quoted. It's right there how player count can differ.

Somebody brought up a good example, GT Sport.
How do you play GTSport other than buying? Same thing siblings/family members, game sharing/showing. Back in 2018 its player count was 5.5M but its sales were at ~3.3M two months prior to the player count figure. It certainly didn't sell 2M copies in 2 months especially past its launch peak so clearly sales don't match player count.

For other games this is even greater and it breaks it down here:
 
Last edited:
The winner of holiday sales will be the manufacturer who can get the most consoles in the stores.

MS or Sony could both have no new games releasing for six months...if they can get units on shelves, they will sell.
sure if you’re measure of winning exists in a world where gamepass doesn’t exist…or day and date releases on PC.
 
Last edited:

kingfey

Banned
I already mentioned it in the post you quoted. It's right there how player count can differ.

Somebody brought up a good example, GT Sport.
How do you play GTSport other than buying? Same thing siblings/family members, game sharing/showing. Back in 2019 its player count was 5.5M but its sales were at ~3.3M two months prior to the player count figure. It certainly didn't sell 2M copies in 2 months especially past its launch peak so clearly sales don't match player count.

For other games this is even greater and it breaks it down here:
Brother, its impossible for 3m players to have siblings that play those games. You are stretching your points at this point.

There is something called late adopters. These players usually wait for discount, or whether the game is good or not.

The website you listed forgot that the game was on psnow, which increases the player count.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
on psnow

God of War
We know it sold 20m copies.

Horizon Zero Dawn
Game was on discount.


This website leaves the ps+ discount, and sales the game had. It also skips the physical game sales. These also pumps up the player base.
 

Three

Member
Brother, its impossible for 3m players to have siblings that play those games. You are stretching your points at this point.

There is something called late adopters. These players usually wait for discount, or whether the game is good or not.

The website you listed forgot that the game was on psnow, which increases the player count.

Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End
on psnow

God of War
We know it sold 20m copies.

Horizon Zero Dawn
Game was on discount.

This website leaves the ps+ discount, and sales the game had. It also skips the physical game sales. These also pumps up the player base.
It's impossible for 3M players to have siblings? What does this even mean?
What even are you trying to say?
Discounts on sold copies mean that player counts don't match sales? What have PS+ discounts got to do with this?
Gt sport isn't on PS now. Has never been as far as I know but certainly not in 2018 where the figures are from anyway. Here and here.

Why is it so difficult for you to just accept player count is historically above actual sales and doesn’t match it? Why do you go to such silly lengths arguing with stupid irrelevant points?
 
Last edited:

kingfey

Banned
It's impossible for 3M players to have siblings? What does this even mean?
What even are you trying to say?
Discounts on sold copies mean that player counts don't match sales? What have PS+ discounts got to do with this?
Gt sport isn't on PS now. Has never been as far as I know but certainly not in 2018 where the figures are from anyway. Here and here.

Why is it so difficult for you to just accept player count is historically above actual sales and doesn’t match it? Why do you go to such silly lengths arguing with stupid irrelevant points?
I am saying, your reach of those 3m players having other people playing their games is impossible to be even close to 1m.

There is 2 ways to play the game. 1 buying the game, whether its on discount, full price, ps+, gamepass, psnow, or xbox live. People pay money for these stuff.

2nd option is sharing. That is where your point is. You are claiming player count doesnt match the sales. You are using the sharing games as your key point. But what you are missing is that the people who share their games are minority. At most its 100k users.

Another thing that is throwing your points is, unreported sales. This usually comes from late sales. After 1 year from launch, you dont see that much report.

God of War
  • Estimated Sales Figure: 12 million (official figure: >10 million in May 2019)
  • Estimated Player Base: 15.9 million
This is from the article you posted. As of now, we know the game sold 20m. Not counting those people who played it on psnow, or Ps+. Sales in may 2019 was around 10m. in 2 years, the game sold 10m. That should closely match That player base count. The sale report usually happens around the quarter profit. Unless the numbers are big, you wont see the numbers for a while.

The discount part helps sell the game faster. I got god of war for 10$, and spiderman full dlc, for 20$. Before sales, both were at 20$, and 40$.


That is new player count for GT.
 
Last edited:

Lognor

Banned
Your still that stupid one around here thats compares GTS with Horizon.

So you admit that Motorsport failed? In 2019, GTS sold 8 million copies, and were now in 2021 and sold already way more then that.

The new narrative since Horizon is "how many players". I can't wait when the player counts drops and you guys start hyping about sales again. The fact suddenly "player count" is so important for you guys says enough about the low sales are for these games.
Gts failed. Motorsport probably did too. They're both niche games. Very few ppl actually care about sim racers. They're not blockbuster successes like forza horizon.

Gts has not sold 8m copies. Lol. Don't make shit up. They had 9m PLAYERS. Sony never released official sales numbers after it got to 3m. It likely didn't hit their expectations and all of a sudden it was about players. Gts bombed. It could be found for $30 or less a month after release. That tells you everything you need to know.

And player count must be important to Sony too since they were claiming 9m players for Gts. Lol!
 

Lognor

Banned
Doubt it - on the one hand you'll have Sony giving software numbers, hardware numbers and annual profits and revenue, and on the other you'll have Microsoft giving the number of users, GamePass subs, and revenue figures.

Comparisons will be all but impossible. But context will provide the reasoning for the differing approaches.
Sony gave number of players for gts and drive club. So I guess they bombed? Or why didn't Sony give sales numbers?
 

GametimeUK

Member
I've won this year as an end user.

I've got to play games like Deathloop and Guardians of the Galaxy on PC with DLSS. Neither of my consoles come close to the experience I get with these games on PC.

On the other hand I get gamepass on PC and Xbox. The convenience of firing up the Xbox and playing games like Psychonauts 2 or Forza Horizon 5 is great. Heck, because of DRS I'd argue FH5 is better played on Xbox than my PC. I also get games like San Andreas which I wouldn't have paid full price for withough gamepass.

Earlier on this year I got Hitman 3 on PS5 which included a VR mode, Ratchet and Clank, and also playing some games with my friends who don't have Xbox.

I have yet to play Metroid Dread on my Switch either. Nintendo came with what looks like an amazing game in one of my favourite series.

I don't care which company "beats" the other. I've had a great year across all platforms this year. I do think Microsoft have done the most to win me over, but it doesn't matter. I just go where the games and experiences are and to be honest it could just as easily be Sony's turn for me next year.

I'm not expecting Xbox to beat Playstation this holiday, but that's not my concern or worry. I'm just hoping Halo is a fantastic way to send off the year.
 

Three

Member
God of War
  • Estimated Sales Figure: 12 million (official figure: >10 million in May 2019)
  • Estimated Player Base: 15.9 million
This is from the article you posted. As of now, we know the game sold 20m. Not counting those people who played it on psnow, or Ps+. Sales in may 2019 was around 10m. in 2 years, the game sold 10m. That should closely match That player base count. The sale report usually happens around the quarter profit. Unless the numbers are big, you wont see the numbers for a while.

The discount part helps sell the game faster. I got god of war for 10$, and spiderman full dlc, for 20$. Before sales, both were at 20$, and 40$.

Again you're not making sense. The time of the estimated figures are aligned. Therefore if you are using the 20M sold as of now you would need player count figures for now which would be higher than the 16M players count reported in 2019.

3M people don't need siblings and not every household has 2 people. I'm showing you with actual numbers how playerbase doesn't match sales figures but is historically higher than it. Does this mean you think GT sport sold 2M copies in 2 months in 2018, in summer no less too? I just want to know if you think player counts match sales figures still.
 
Its kind of nuts that people (myself included) spend so much time trying to crunch numbers to figure out what gaming device is selling what. It’s really like kind of lame to anyone on the outside looking in
 

Topher

Gold Member
The US-forum crowning their king is funny. Still having a hard time l see. hilarious

Tfd108 Idk GIF by Tacoma FD
 
Its kind of nuts that people (myself included) spend so much time trying to crunch numbers to figure out what gaming device is selling what. It’s really like kind of lame to anyone on the outside looking in

It's the same for anything your passionate about. Every person likes to talk about the things that interests them. What's interesting to one person is completely meaningless to another. That's just standard human behaviour.
 
Last edited:

Hezekiah

Banned
Sony gave number of players for gts and drive club. So I guess they bombed? Or why didn't Sony give sales numbers?
Still following me around, kinda pathetic really. Still talking about GT Sport and DriveClub in an Xbox thread because you're upset because you weren't aware of some the 'extras' being sold in FH5 which I suggested were a waste of time?

DriveClub sales were announced here in 2015.

Xbox doesn't give out hardware and sales numbers now, we get given other metrics, no sales or profit figures. I don't get why you're getting so triggered about this fact.
 

kingfey

Banned
Again you're not making sense. The time of the estimated figures are aligned. Therefore if you are using the 20M sold as of now you would need player count figures for now which would be higher than the 16M players count reported in 2019.

3M people don't need siblings and not every household has 2 people. I'm showing you with actual numbers how playerbase doesn't match sales figures but is historically higher than it. Does this mean you think GT sport sold 2M copies in 2 months in 2018, in summer no less too? I just want to know if you think player counts match sales figures still.
I give up. There is no point in convincing you anything. Keep believing what you want. I am out of this convo.
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
I already mentioned it in the post you quoted. It's right there how player count can differ.

Somebody brought up a good example, GT Sport.
How do you play GTSport other than buying? Same thing siblings/family members, game sharing/showing. Back in 2018 its player count was 5.5M but its sales were at ~3.3M two months prior to the player count figure. It certainly didn't sell 2M copies in 2 months especially past its launch peak so clearly sales don't match player count.

For other games this is even greater and it breaks it down here:

your talking about a game that had been out months even over a year so yes people will lend copy’s of the game. Pass the discs to friends

this is a game that had been out barely 2 days and had 1.5 million players but according to you it prob less than half of that. Then we had the head of Xbox saying it was the biggest ever launch of an Xbox game but we still have you saying that the player count is fake.

you have provided no eveidence to back up your claims at all. Just posted about games that have been out years and that are on PlayStations subscription service. To try and show sales and player counts
 

Aenima

Member
Gts failed. Motorsport probably did too. They're both niche games. Very few ppl actually care about sim racers. They're not blockbuster successes like forza horizon.

Gts has not sold 8m copies. Lol. Don't make shit up. They had 9m PLAYERS. Sony never released official sales numbers after it got to 3m. It likely didn't hit their expectations and all of a sudden it was about players. Gts bombed. It could be found for $30 or less a month after release. That tells you everything you need to know.

And player count must be important to Sony too since they were claiming 9m players for Gts. Lol!
D9Q8oT6XkAENWZn

By the time Sony released this, GTS already had sold 8 million. The fact that you call "niche" to a series that sold a total of +80 million copies just shows how detached from reality you are. Gran Turismo has always been a very strong seller.

GTseptembersales.png
 
D9Q8oT6XkAENWZn

By the time Sony released this, GTS already had sold 8 million. The fact that you call "niche" to a series that sold a total of +80 million copies just shows how detached from reality you are. Gran Turismo has always been a very strong seller.
Not sure if you're aware, but that slide is not from Sony. It also says "Source: VGChartz", which made me chuckle a bit tbh.
 

MOTM

Banned
Then they care about hardware sales.
Yeah they care so much that they are giving the option to Xbox One users to play every next gen game through the cloud so that they never need to buy another console again.

Once again shows what really counts for them —> Gamepass subs.

They even said their real competition is Google & Amazon. Please send me a link to Amazon or Google’s console please.

But hey, please educate me on how MS have the wrong understanding of their own strategy. I’m all ears.
 
Last edited:

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Yeah they care so much that they are giving the option to Xbox One users to play every next gen game through the cloud so that they never need to buy another console again.

Once again shows what really counts for them —> Gamepass subs.

They even said their real competition is Google & Amazon. Please send me a link to Amazon or Google’s console please.

But hey, please educate me on how MS have the wrong understanding of their own strategy. I’m all ears.

You're making zero sense. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

How do you increase Game Pass subscriptions?


Put it on as many platforms as possible, including your own.

How do you make it easier for people to subscribe to your service? Making the entry as cheap as possible aka xcloud and Xbox Series S. This doesn't mean they're wrong for their understanding, it's the lack of yours.
 

MOTM

Banned
You're making zero sense. :messenger_tears_of_joy:

How do you increase Game Pass subscriptions?


Put it on as many platforms as possible, including your own.

How do you make it easier for people to subscribe to your service? Making the entry as cheap as possible aka xcloud and Xbox Series S. This doesn't mean they're wrong for their understanding, it's the lack of yours.
Thank you, you’ve proved my point.
 
Yeah they care so much that they are giving the option to Xbox One users to play every next gen game through the cloud so that they never need to buy another console again.

Once again shows what really counts for them —> Gamepass subs.

They even said their real competition is Google & Amazon. Please send me a link to Amazon or Google’s console please.

But hey, please educate me on how MS have the wrong understanding of their own strategy. I’m all ears.

There isn't a single company out there that doesn't care about how much of their product they can sell and get into consumers hands. Why do you think the series s exists? Why is there a cheaper budget option? The xbox console is still the main and primary way most will enter the xbox ecosystem. The more consoles they sell, the more potential gamepass subscribers they have. I'm baffled that people think otherwise.
 
Last edited:

Aenima

Member
Microsoft. The first ever company that doesn't want to sell its own product. Whether they sell 1 unit or 100m units. What's the difference?
The diference is more 3rd party studios will want to make games for a sucessfull console. Thers a reason Switch has a very strong 3rd party support from japanese studios in japan.
 

DForce

NaughtyDog Defense Force
Microsoft. The first ever company that doesn't want to sell its own product. Whether they sell 1 unit or 100m units. What's the difference?
An Xbox Series S console where games are forced to buy games digitally, where Microsoft makes money from every single third-party game sold and Xbox Live subscriptions.

Billions of dollars are made every single year.

The other guy is right. They don't care about any of this.
 

MOTM

Banned
Microsoft. The first ever company that doesn't want to sell its own product. Whether they sell 1 unit or 100m units. What's the difference?
Their main focus today is Gamepass.

Wether they have a 100 million subscribers through the cloud, PC, smartphones or through consoles doesn’t matter.
 
Keep fighting your imaginary war for your favourite multi billion dollar company, I guess. Your parents are surely very proud of you.

Are you talking to me or yourself? Oh and my parents ain't here anymore so I'm not too fussed on what they think, if they even think at all.
 
Top Bottom