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[Norse]

Hence the "compared to console" part of my post, and the suggested comparison to other HMDs instead.
I think it's well established VR isn't on top of the "Joe consumer" shopping lists, and even if it were, the hw supply to date has been dramatically too low to make much of a difference.

My local Walmart has had them every time I've gone there. Twice weekly at least. So in my kneck of the woods they're readily available. Until they are an all-in-one unit I don't think they will be a success. That's just my opinion of course.

 

[tareqsalah1]

Constant supply of game announcments
New exclusives being released with awsome 3rd party games with sony exclusive content inbetween
The hype of kojima, shenmu, ff7 etc keeping people on edge will keep the sale momentum going for the next 2-3 years.

And then when more and more games would make use of the ps4 pro power, i see a huge percentage of regular ps4 owners switching to the pro, i am thinking 10 to 20 million.

Sony's handeling of the ps4 should be tought at business schools in the future.

 

[Kill3r7]

PSVR has supply issues since release, no???

At release, probably not, but they have been sold out for the most part since BF. Maybe even earlier depending on where you live.

 

[Aostia]

Any update on the numbers and on 3ds?

 

[allan-bh]

Any update on the numbers and on 3ds?

No.

Nintendo maybe will make a PR this thursday when NPD releases the public ranking

 

[The Mad Draklor]

PSVR has supply issues since release, no???

It's sold out in the UK until 2017, so I won't be surprised if the situation is similar in the US.

 

[QaaQer]

Well that remains to be seen, but you are being close-minded. The portable aspect of the system is going to be presented as the alt configuration, while being in the dock will be the primary. Just showing that once first in marketing does a lot to cement the idea in people's minds.

This is one of those situations where we as enthusiasts think about something so much that it defines our basic thought processes. Most people aren't going to consider the issue of home console vs. portable like we do. The fact that they see it in the dock, and THEN see it portable is enough for them to think about it in that way.

I was going to say the same thing. & it is the non-enthusiasts that are closed minded because it takes effort to change fundamental assumptions abou how the world works. Enthusiasts will put in the effort. Others? maybe not so much.

We know how marketing will position it, and we can accept that. Trying to get everyone else? Not so sure. It reminds me a little of MS' Continuum: Turn You Phone Into a Full Fledged Desktop.

 

[Chocolate & Vanilla]

Not when you consider some 16m ps4's out there at the moment. Imo it's overpriced. It's a peripheral after all. And I just dont see Joe consumer spending big bucks a gaming peripheral.

My local Walmart has had them every time I've gone there. Twice weekly at least. So in my kneck of the woods they're readily available. Until they are an all-in-one unit I don't think they will be a success. That's just my opinion of course.

US eBay has sold listings for as much as $700. That would seem to suggest the supply issues are prevalent around the country. I don't think localised pockets of availability really goes against.

It released in October not November so 67k doesn't tell us how many have been sold overall. It's also mostly marketed by word of mouth rather than with advertising campaigns and is sold at full price in a month where people shop for discounted items.

All of the above would appear to explain November's sales.

Sony have said from the beginning that they are taking a slow burn approach to VR so I'm not sure why anyone would expect multiple millions of sales in the first place and basing the supposed success or failure of PSVR on those November numbers without accounting for the bigger picture seems rather disingenuous. It's a $399 dollar add-on. It's not aimed at Joe Consumer to begin with so it shouldn't be of concern if he doesn't buy it.


As an aside, I can also confirm that here in the UK it's sold out until next year.

 

[donny2112]

PS2 got one it's 5th although that also failed to push it up YOY (flat Nov, way down Dec).

For context, that was the year of total shortages for the system. The transition to PSTwo left a lot of unsatisfied demand that Fall. You can see the effect in extremely high January/February sales for the system as sales got pushed out of Nov/Dec to those months.

 

[Fafalada]

As an aside, I can also confirm that here in the UK it's sold out until next year.

Also in most of mainland Europe, Japan, and Korea. Though that was never the point of my post anyway - I specifically reiterated a comparison between headsets, but "rebuttals" were about everything but.

You can see the effect in extremely high January/February sales for the system as sales got pushed out of Nov/Dec to those months.

That didn't stop internet talking about XBox resurgence that holiday season though (IIRC it won 2 months even).

 

[RexNovis]

A bit late to the party, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in.



I'm of the opinion that both Scorpio and Pro will eventually get games that are not playable with the original model. This will happen when their respective successors are launched.

See, my thinking: we are entering the age of rolling generations. In the future there will always to overlapping generations that share a library.

But, when PS5 (or whatever it's called) is launched, there will be a generational break. From there on, all games are playable with Pro and PS5. PS5 will also be fully compatible with all PS4 games, but PS4 will not be able to run games designed for Pro/PS5 generation.

This will have several advantages.

First, there will not be a start of the generation drought. There's already a huge library to play with, and more are released all the time. Consumers are happy.

Second, publishers will not need to worry about the small install base, because there will be an existing base of tens of millions already. Publishers are happy.

Third, platform holders raise exit barriers: when you are already invested in the ecosystem, you are more likely to purchase your next console from the same family. Sony is happy.

This way we could be getting new generations every three years, but the actual break would only take place every six years. (Unless you are one of those weirdos who always need to upgrade to the newest model. o/ )

If I were working for SIE, this would be my plan. I don't know about Microsoft, though. With Scorpio being a bigger technical leap than that between PS4 and Pro, they might cut XBONE earlier, so they'll be in a limbo of not-quite-big-enough install base to make this model viable.

I mean youa re welcome to think that all you want but it has no basis in fact and the theroies go against literally everything we have heard from both manufacturers in regards to how SW support will work.

Also, I realize I am super late on the draw on this but...

i'll take a $100k bet on that.
how certain are you with your claim?

xbox one will be above 25m at the end of this year. so just 25m more xbox one s, xbox scorpio and xbox scorpio s in the next 5 to 7 years


so i really don't know what should be in any way funny about that. i find your comment rather funny. and still i don't laught about it, because i'm well-educated

LOL at the bolded. Man look educated people shouldn't have to inform others that they are educated. Just sayin.

 

[Jingo]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

 

[Humdinger]

LOL at the bolded. Man look educated people shouldn't have to inform others that they are educated. Just sayin.

That made me chuckle, too, especially with the misspellings and sloppy punctuation.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

It would have been the same actually probably worse if Xbox One had won NPD.

 

[Moneal]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

Good competition isn't both doing equal. Good competition is trading blows because one gives better value and the other responds by increasing its value. If you are for competition you should want the best value to win.

 

[RexNovis]

The good news is we've stabilized over the last 2 years so it looks like rock bottom has been hit.

The decline came by and large due to the enormous rising costs of game development. There's only a few houses left in town that can afford to create the massive titles that gamers want.

I maintain that those rising costs are in large part due to major publishers playing big stack poker and inflating AAA costs far beyond what they would have become organically. After all its to there benefit if there are fewer big players on the field. The problem is that now its become unsustainable for even the biggest publishers which is why we are seeing increasing amount of post release monetization in order to offset these inflated AAA development costs.

 

[KawabataSan]

The good news is we've stabilized over the last 2 years so it looks like rock bottom has been hit.

The decline came by and large due to the enormous rising costs of game development. There's only a few houses left in town that can afford to create the massive titles that gamers want.

And now comes the part where the AAA publishers start eating into each other.

Thankfully they have diversified over the years into mobile, PC and other non game development areas.

 

[MatPiscatella]

And now comes the part where the AAA publishers start eating into each other.

Only 46 companies have published a game on disc in 2016, and I think only 11 could be considered major publishers.

Those 11 could experience more M&A activity, but it'd be tough. Could get more big media companies picking some of the 11 up, but even that seems a bit far fetched in the current climate.

My guess is that things will stay somewhat settled as is for the next year. But I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong either.

I maintain that those rising costs are in large part due to major publishers playing big stack poker and inflating AAA costs far beyond what they would have become organically. After all its to there benefit if there are fewer big players on the field. The problem is that now its become unsustainable for even the biggest publishers which is why we are seeing increasing amount of post release monetization in order to offset these inflated AAA development costs.

If you're implying that development budgets have risen by choice of the bigger publishers I'd have to strongly disagree. If publishers could create the kind of content that tops charts with much smaller budgets it would be a huge competitive profit advantage. Consumer demands have risen as much or more than the development budgets. And I'm not talking about the GAF connoisseur, talking about the mass market consumer, the person that buys FIFA/Madden, a Shooter and maybe one other game per year (after they've bought GTAV of course). It's now huge risk/huge reward. And when you look at the best-sellers charts for a year, they're almost exclusively big production budget, big marketing budget mega-games. I just don't agree that big publishers ever saw the smaller publishers as competition worth dealing with by raising production budgets so high that it would squeeze out the smaller players while putting such intense pressure on their own bottom lines.

Good competition isn't both doing equal. Good competition is trading blows because one gives better value and the other responds by increasing its value. If you are for competition you should want the best value to win.

You can believe this only if the ecosystems couldn't change, and that offerings at one point in time were locked for an entire generation like it used to be. If those competitors are "trading blows" effectively by improving services/reducing prices the result should be fairly equal sales.

 

[klier]

It's sold out in the UK until 2017, so I won't be surprised if the situation is similar in the US.

Weird, nobody seems to want one here on the mainland.

They want to try the demo at best.

 

[Moonstone]

Weird, nobody seems to want one here on the mainland.

They want to try the demo at best.

Sold out at german amazon.de - ebay.de instant buy starts with 430.-€

 

[KawabataSan]

Only 46 companies have published a game on disc in 2016, and I think only 11 could be considered major publishers.

Those 11 could experience more M&A activity, but it'd be tough. Could get more big media companies picking some of the 11 up, but even that seems a bit far fetched in the current climate.

My guess is that things will stay somewhat settled as is for the next year. But I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong either.

I mean that they will eat into each others sales. Not that they'll buy each other.

 

[MatPiscatella]

I mean that they will eat into each others sales. Not that they'll buy each other.

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh. I see. Well, unless we start seeing more diversification in the kinds of games the big publishers are making, that's very likely to happen/may have already happened this year.

But then that takes us into a bigger conversation around benchmarking and risk. When budgets get this big there can be a pull to being conservative, making only games that are somewhat similar to other games that have sold very well. But then you just get slight revisions on the same basic game idea. Not exactly the best way to grow and expand an audience.

 

[Michael F. Assbender]

So did we ever get an estimate of the spread between the two?

 

[cakely]

So did we ever get an estimate of the spread between the two?

It's reported to be ~ 100k, and people in this thread have vouched for that.

 

[Curufinwe]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

"Competitive platforms are good for the consumer. Sales parity is completely irrelevant to the consumer."

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=95488867&postcount=624

 

[Sterok]

Only 46 companies have published a game on disc in 2016, and I think only 11 could be considered major publishers.

11 major publishers. Activision-Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, Take-Two, Warner Bros., Bethesda, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, Square-Enix, Bandai Namco. Would it be those 11?

 

[hanspampel]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

both companies doing well. this is no 95% and 5% marketshare situation like the mobilephone os or cpu industry.
even nintendo is doing okayish

 

[Cess007]

"Competitive platforms are good for the consumer. Sales parity is completely irrelevant to the consumer."

http://m.neogaf.com/showpost.php?p=95488867&postcount=624

I mean, at this point, that post should be the first one on each and every sales thread ever created

 

[Compbros]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

PS4 has been in the lead since pretty much day one and still puts out more exclusive (not on xbox) games per year than Xbox does. This competition is good thing is a ridiculous statement, competition is neutral and the outcome is what is good or bad.

 

[KawabataSan]

Oooooooooohhhhhhhhh. I see. Well, unless we start seeing more diversification in the kinds of games the big publishers are making, that's very likely to happen/may have already happened this year.

But then that takes us into a bigger conversation around benchmarking and risk. When budgets get this big there can be a pull to being conservative, making only games that are somewhat similar to other games that have sold very well. But then you just get slight revisions on the same basic game idea. Not exactly the best way to grow and expand an audience.

I would agree that we've already started to see this. Lack of innovation is certainly one factor, but so is being able to compete on a technical and gameplay level. I fear we'll see some current AAA publishers get left behind in the next few years.

 

[maverick40]

It's sold out in the UK until 2017, so I won't be surprised if the situation is similar in the US.

Can't find it anywhere in Ireland too.

I have looked in every tech or gaming shop and all out

 

[donny2112]

Official NPD PR comes out tomorrow. Hope Nintendo feels like sharing their 3DS numbers!

 

[allan-bh]

Official NPD PR comes out tomorrow. Hope Nintendo feels like sharing their 3DS numbers!

Considering $99 n3DS, i think has a good chance of the number be good for Nintendo brag about.

 

[RexNovis]

If you're implying that development budgets have risen by choice of the bigger publishers I'd have to strongly disagree. If publishers could create the kind of content that tops charts with much smaller budgets it would be a huge competitive profit advantage. Consumer demands have risen as much or more than the development budgets. And I'm not talking about the GAF connoisseur, talking about the mass market consumer, the person that buys FIFA/Madden, a Shooter and maybe one other game per year (after they've bought GTAV of course). It's now huge risk/huge reward. And when you look at the best-sellers charts for a year, they're almost exclusively big production budget, big marketing budget mega-games. I just don't agree that big publishers ever saw the smaller publishers as competition worth dealing with by raising production budgets so high that it would squeeze out the smaller players while putting such intense pressure on their own bottom lines.

I think that big publishers inflated the development cost of big AAA games by throwing so much money at them in order to make them the biggest most mass appeal blockbusters around so that nobody could possibly compete with them. I think that the rising of development costs is natural but that the rise we are seeing now was artificially inflated by the desire to make the biggest most graphically bombastic mass appealing titles. Its resulted in a market that is increasingly focused on a handful of releases every year and has led to the collapse of the majority lower cost mid tier development studios.

I dont really think that this blockbuster model is completely sustainable long term for the big publishers hence why we are seeing them incorporate so many alternate revenue streams instead of making more varied less costly projects. This whole idea that the market should be focused around a few massive games is leading to a consolidation of investment form publishers which is continuously raising their stakes for success. I wish they would revert to practices common in the past wherein they would often diversify their investments in development and foster creation of smaller more unique titles in hopes of finding a smaller but still profitable market instead of trying to reel in massive numbers with a dwindling number of games each and every year. Such smaller games used to be commonplace from publishers but nowadays unless the project can appeal to market capable of sustaining a blockbuster budget they are incredibly rare. The result is an increasingly risk averse franchise dependent third party publishing environment which means more and more consumers must look to first party studios to provide a lot of those unique smaller titles instead.

Luckily that smaller more niche development is often filled by independent developers and I can see them growing up to take the place of those lost mid tier publishers but they still have a long way to go to fill that hole in the market especially when it comes to retail releases.

 

[PeregrinSe7en]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

tell us how you really feel

ps4 is the best bang for the buck console on the market now and in the foreseeable future

 

[Chiggs]

It would have been the same actually probably worse if Xbox One had won NPD.

It's tragically pathetic either way. Although, I have to admit being a little bit in the MS camp, just because Sony has been kicking their teeth in for the past couple of years, and I want real competition.

 

[flkraven]

tell us how you really feel

ps4 is the best bang for the buck console on the market now and in the foreseeable future

You state this like it's a fact lol.

 

[Caddyshack]

Its funny to see all this rejubilation for ps4 taking the crowd again, feels a lot of gaffers see this as a personal victory, me? I just want both to sell well,competion is the only way we know none of them is gonna relax...

Were you posting this same thing in previous months when numerous members of this forum were cheerleading Xbox One selling more by any chance?

You state this like it's a fact lol.

Really? Reads like he's stating his own take to me... and it's not like it's a controversial viewpoint or anything.

Weird post to get upset about.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Great points Rex.

 

[hanspampel]

Were you posting this same thing in previous months when numerous members of this forum were cheerleading Xbox One selling more by any chance?



Really? Reads like he's stating his own take to me... and it's not like it's a controversial viewpoint or anything.

Weird post to get upset about.

well he replied to a guy making a general statement about the market. why do you think that answer is just a personal opinion and not meant to be the explanation for that?
does not have to be obviously, but it makes sense.

i would question him being upset about that post more

 

[Caddyshack]

well he replied to a guy making a general statement about the market.

Making a general statement about his own personal wants re: the market you mean?

 

[Norse]

Sold out at german amazon.de - ebay.de instant buy starts with 430.-€

I'm wondering if Sony shorted Europe and flooded North America because I've never seen my Walmart without at least 3 units locked in the playstation area. /shrug

 

[Chiggs]

* In America
**in the last 4 months.
*** in the months where they usually been competitive


The Problem they have is the "pre season", they sell consoles around the holidays fine, rest of the year they don't, which is why they're already estimating to be down YOY in revenue and console volume. Selling consoles Jan through June is the problem they have yet to solve, until they do that, they arent competitive.

Yeah, I probably should have included America, and you're right with the other points you made.

Yes because a buyer buys both consoles don't they. This is the daftest thing I've heard. Like saying yeah but the Xbox one/360 was the regular, the elite version and the S or hey but that includes the 1TB and 500Gb version that's two consoles! People don't buy both, at least not many to be significant. Also what was the gap? Was it 100k? How is 100k slight.

I honestly doubt it was.

To the last question--two new models of Playstation on the market (I'm thinking in terms of buzz here), a better games library (I'll take BC out of the equation), better exclusives and better horsepower on even the base unit. And all of those incredible deals.

All of that and 100k? To the the Sony faithful, I realize this is coming across as me trying to downplay a win, but I have to admit I thought the results would have been more dominant for them. Maybe they will be next year as some of Sony's heavy hitters land.

 

[Norse]

tell us how you really feel

ps4 is the best bang for the buck console on the market now and in the foreseeable future

It appears here in North America, 53% agree with you and 47% don't. If we're just looking at market share. As far as bang for the buck goes, I think xbone s offers much more for my dollar. Uhd blu ray playback, hdmi pass through, and bc are things ps4 lacks. The later two I use everyday while uhd blu ray is also nice to have if needed.

 

[RexNovis]

Great points Rex.

Thanks! <3

I really miss the variety we used to see in the retail market and its hard to ignore how similar AAA retail releases have become to one another. Hopefully things will improve on that front in the future.

 

[KawabataSan]

I think that big publishers inflated the development cost of big AAA games by throwing so much money at them in order to make them the biggest most mass appeal blockbusters around so that nobody could possibly compete with them. I think that the rising of development costs is natural but that the rise we are seeing now was artificially inflated by the desire to make the biggest most graphically bombastic mass appealing titles. Its resulted in a market that is increasingly focused on a handful of releases every year and has led to the collapse of the majority lower cost mid tier development studios.

I dont really think that this blockbuster model is completely sustainable long term for the big publishers hence why we are seeing them incorporate so many alternate revenue streams instead of making more varied less costly projects. This whole idea that the market should be focused around a few massive games is leading to a consolidation of investment form publishers which is continuously raising their stakes for success. I wish they would revert to practices common in the past wherein they would often diversify their investments in development and foster creation of smaller more unique titles in hopes of finding a smaller but still profitable market instead of trying to reel in massive numbers with a dwindling number of games each and every year. Such smaller games used to be commonplace from publishers but nowadays unless the project can appeal to market capable of sustaining a blockbuster budget they are incredibly rare. The result is an increasingly risk averse franchise dependent third party publishing environment which means more and more consumers must look to first party studios to provide a lot of those unique smaller titles instead.

Luckily that smaller more niche development is often filled by independent developers and I can see them growing up to take the place of those lost mid tier publishers but they still have a long way to go to fill that hole in the market especially when it comes to retail releases.

This was a good post. You've made a lot of excellent points and I agree with a lot of them. However I would also say that AAA publishers haven't had much of a choice in the matter with the market heading this way for a long time now.

 

[MatPiscatella]

Been a lot of talk about the future of consoles in this thread. Was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to today's gameindustry.biz article "Where do consoles go from here" if you're interested.

Do you see any difference between what Sony and Microsoft are doing?

Like Sony has very clearly asserted the PS4 Pro as being a PS4, and insisted that the generational model is not going away, but the Scorpio, while tied to the Xbox One through game library, feels like it's been set up more as a system that will still be supported when the Xbox One is sunset, instead of both the Xbox One and Scorpio being simultaneously replaced by the Xbox Two or whatever.

Mind, that's speculation on my part.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to make that call yet. Like you say, it's a bit speculative at the moment. I think it could go many different ways, and we just don't know enough yet.

 

[Nirolak]

Been a lot of talk about the future of consoles in this thread. Was fortunate enough to be able to contribute to today's gameindustry.biz article "Where do consoles go from here" if you're interested.

Do you see any difference between what Sony and Microsoft are doing?

Like Sony has very clearly asserted the PS4 Pro as being a PS4, and insisted that the generational model is not going away, but the Scorpio, while tied to the Xbox One through game library, feels like it's been set up more as a system that will still be supported when the Xbox One is sunset, instead of both the Xbox One and Scorpio being simultaneously replaced by the Xbox Two or whatever.

Mind, that's speculation on my part. Obviously Microsoft hasn't said all that much about the Scorpio beyond their E3 interviews. It probably also depends on what Sony does, since if developers don't want to support the Scorpio when they're making PS5/XB2 games, Microsoft can't really force them to without annoying important partners.