| CVG-Russell's profileGames of LifePhotosBlogLists |  Tools  Help |
Games of LifeThink for yourself May 09 Missing the marketA recent quote at GameIndustry.biz. The 'he' is Robbie Bach (president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division)
Now the reason I mention it.
I think Robbie has missed the mark. The casual market isn't a small niche market. The casual market is THE market. Hardcore gamers are a niche market. One that is not financially viable unless you own all of it. If you look at the success of the Playstation and Playstation 2, they were not successful because they owned hardcore gamers. Instead, they owned a portion of the hardcore, and most of the casual market. The 360 is looking to be a hardcore's dream machine, but I don't think it will be profitable unless it reaches out to mainstream. By branch out, I mean totally focus on the casual market. Trying to through the bone to the casual market by making Viva Pinata won't do it when the 'big' game each month for 12 months is a first or third-person shooter. What you end up with is a larger percentage of the ravenous shooter fans, but little else as you are alienating the casual market by trying to own the niche.
"Fairly specific appeal." That is the description of niche and currently of the Xbox 360. More than anything else, that is what needs to be overcome in order for the machine to truly excel. The way to do that? Embrace the casual market as THE market you want.
April 19 Survey Says - I Beat the AnalystSo a few days ago I made my console/handheld March sales predictions after seeing Michael Pachter's and believing he was a bit off...how did it all pan out? Well do you think I'd be writing if I had been beaten? ;)
The closer of the two of us is in italics below. Michael did beat me on one of the seven, guessing the GBA numbers more closely than I did, so I have to give him his dues, but for the moment I'm feeling like I'm king :) .
Wii
Michael - 400,000
Me - 250,000
Reality - 259,000
PS2
Michael - 250,000
Me - 270,000
Reality - 280,000
DS
Michael - 250,000
Me - 300,000
Reality - 508,000
XBox 360
Michael - 250,000
Me - 210,000
Reality - 199,000
PSP
Michael - 210,000
Me - 165,000
Reality - 180,000
PS3
Michael - 165,000
Me - 125,000
Reality - 130,000
GBA
Michael - 165,000
Me - 125,000
Reality - 148,000 April 13 March Sales PredictionJust for fun (and because I think the analysts are way off) let's predict sales numbers for March. I pinned the Xbox 360 Christmas numbers quite well (mine was 1.5-1.75 actually was 1.61) so who knows, I might get some of these right as well.
Michael Pachter, a noted analyst has made his predictions on the March NPD sales numbers, I'll list mine below in () to the right of his, followed by the +/- difference between our numbers. And who cares who is right, but I often wonder where analysts get their numbers from...so let's see if I have reason to wonder or not!
Wii - 400,000 (250,000) -150,000
PS2 - 250,000 (270,000) +20,000
DS - 250,000 (300,000) +50,000
Xbox 360 - 250,000 (210,000) -40,000
PSP - 210,000 (165,000) -45,000
PS3 - 165,000 (125,000) -40,000
GBA - 165,000 (125,000) -40,000 Reasons for the Wii drop? Well, I think supply of the console in March was especially low. The lack of Wii availability could turn to Microsoft's favor as I think the 250,000 360 numbers are within reach, potentially the 360 will outsell the Wii in March. It's a small victory, but the media and fanboys will enjoy it immensly.
I'm really perplexed by the PSP numbers. Either I'm really underestimating its sell-through or the analyst is. Same with the GBA, I think that ship has sailed and you'll soon see large drops in sales in the GBA. I would put a higher number for the DS, but I fear it has been hardware constrained like the Wii. November 10 Xbox Year One Sales - an offical non-analyst report
Couple things to note...September was a 5 week month for the numbers in 2006, which impacted September/October numbers a bit (analysts were of course not thinking about this when they made their October 2006 predictions, but I digress). Most interestingly, perhaps, is that Xbox 360 hasn't burst out yet. It is doing better in the media than in reality (which brings to mind the extreme media interest in the PSP of a year ago...it was supposedly THE cool device for Christmas and the clear choice against the DS, which has dominated it in sales for some time now). I expect a big Christmas for the 360, but I don't think it will sell more than 2 million units in the Christmas (Nov+Dec) numbers. I expect it will sell 1.5-1.75 million units for Christmas this year. The best Christmas the original Xbox had was 1.75 million. The PS2's best Christmas was 4 million. The GCN's best Christmas was 1.9 million. The Wii is expecting to have 2 million consoles available for Christmas. Notably, despite how 'small' the media has reported it to be, it's actually a very large number. The GCN never sold that many units for Christmas (and of course no console has launched with that many, so it's hard to gauge in comparison). The DS sold 1.4 million last Christmas, the PSP 1.5 million, the GBA 2 million. Just for more comparisons. Unless the Xbox 360 sells 3-4 million this Christmas I think it is unlikely it will build a lead over the PS3 that will last through January 08. September 08 Sales to Date in the USJust for fun I thought I'd post the sales to date for each of the console game system in the US.
These numbers are representative of November 2005 to date in the United States. So really you are looking at Xbox 360 launch to date numbers for all console systems.
#sold - Console
4,128,611 - PS2
3,464,357 - DS 3,425,334 - GBA 2,858,097 - PSP 2,412,699 - XBox 360 1,281,491 - GameCube 982,340 - Xbox and in a chart format, month by month (these are NPD sales numbers, which are representative of consoles sold, not shipped)
I think the numbers are interesting for a number of reasons, but for the most part they only tell a piece of the story. For example, the software sales for the PSP tell a different story of its relationship to the DS. The software for the Xbox 360 has also been quite strong, though the margin of the PS2 software dominance is huge due to install base. Still the software sales for the Xbox 360 is quite encouraging.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Send a private message
Subscribe to RSS feed
Tell a friend
Add to My MSN
Add to your network
Sign up for alerts
|
|
