The Myth of Slow PS3 Sales

[SlmShdy1]

For the past two generations, I find myself to be favoring the "underdog". Sales figures don't mean a thing. Truthfully, I could care less about sales numbers, but these "reporters" need to pull their heads out of their asses and do some frickin' research. It's all about the games, not the sales figures.

The other day, a guy I work with was telling me that the 360 has a 75% fail rate. I wonder how many 360 owners are repeat customers being forced to buy a second console because the first one broke.

[Blinkman987]

We'll see if lower prices help PS3 sales or else the exodus of Activision may have the same effect as the Warner Bros. exodus from HD DVD.

Originally Posted by SlmShdy1

The other day, a guy I work with was telling me that the 360 has a 75% fail rate. I wonder how many 360 owners are repeat customers being forced to buy a second console because the first one broke.

Anecdotal evidence is practically worthless.

Also, any company would kill for that amount of brand loyalty.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Blinkman987

We'll see if lower prices help PS3 sales or else the exodus of Activision may have the same effect as the Warner Bros. exodus from HD DVD.

Bah, Bobby Kotick and Activision aren't going anywhere. They love money too much. Worry not.

[Ascended_Saiyan]

Originally Posted by Icemage

Bah, Bobby Kotick and Activision aren't going anywhere. They love money too much. Worry not.

That's the truth! Over 40% of their revenue is via the Playstation brand. Plus, it's not like Activision is the Warner Bros of gaming software either (it's more like The Weinstein Company of gaming software).

[DarchAmonNagar]

Good read. I would be surprised if Activision jumped ship. What company could write off 40% of there sales because a console in to expensive. Here in the UK Activision rip us off left, right and centre with the price of Guitar hero and the like. £120 for Modern warfare 2 prestige edition, that's about $195. I think Activision should look at there pricing.

[SillyMammo]

Originally Posted by DarchAmonNagar

Good read. I would be surprised if Activision jumped ship. What company could write off 40% of there sales because a console in to expensive. Here in the UK Activision rip us off left, right and centre with the price of Guitar hero and the like. £120 for Modern warfare 2 prestige edition, that's about $195. I think Activision should look at there pricing.

Activision would stupid to jump ship on Sony. Not only would they get no more revenue from the last gen and present gen of the PS, but they would sour all relations in the future. Who knows how Sony's new generation console will do (whenever that may be)? It might be the dominating console like the PS2 was and Bobby Kotick and his ilk would have to come crawling back with hat in hand to Sony.

[jono_0101]

its a good article, i hate the sales thing always being pushed in PS3's face, its really annoying that the only reason based on the actual numbers is that the 360 had a 1 year head start, the only thing it doesnt take into consideration on the PS3 side is the people that bought the console to serve as a blu ray player only, i know that doesnt mean anything in terms of console sales, but that does show up in the software sales, which is a good part of the big picture, but at any rate, the release of the slim is going to help in shortening the margin between the two consoles, hopefully soon the PS3 will match the 360, and xbox fanboys will have to find something else to try and put the PS3 down about, its fun to watch them scramble

[AikonEnt]

A good, interesting and well written read. Luckily I manage to miss most of the negative press because this is pretty much the only site I get information from. I like my Blu and I like my PS3, and no amount of negativety about either would change that.

I think the days of having journalism associated with the word truth are, for the most part, long gone. So even when the PS3 is far outselling the 360 I'd still expect 'those' type of articles to appear. I mean, how many times do you still here people use the 'the PS3 still has no games' comment?

[DarrenT]

Its nice to see some positives coming for Sony because the press really has dogged them since the launch for various reasons.

The problem is that in journalism today people get paid for clicks. They can write utter garbage but they get a lot of hits and so revenues go up. Praising the PS3 is only one step down form Xenophillius Lovegood printing in the Quibbler "support Harry Potter" (yes, i have just finished reading the series again!). Its not what everyone wants to hear and so the pop press wont report it.

The annoyance for me however is the reliance on the US for a lot of this stuff. As far as i am aware the 360 only outsells the PS3 in this market, yet because the USA is the centre of the universe nothing that happens anywhere else is worth taking any notice of.

[Maximus]

That's a pretty decent article.

I do feel that it should be mentioned that consoles don't exist in a vacuum, so even though the PS3 has outsold the 360 since it launched it hasn't caught up yet and it is important. Not that I don't think it will ever catch up, not at all, I believe the new PS3 will help a great deal, and when Sony finally decide to remove the power brick and 32nm parts come in March 2011 sales will go through the roof.

Stuff like the Wand will help too, it is much more usable than Natal, and people will find that Natal while a cool concept is not going to be usable for good gaming.

[Sylin]

Originally Posted by DarrenT

The problem is that in online journalism today the publishers get paid for clicks.

Fixed that for ya.

Originally Posted by DarrenT

The annoyance for me however is the reliance on the US for a lot of this stuff. As far as i am aware the 360 only outsells the PS3 in this market, yet because the USA is the centre of the universe nothing that happens anywhere else is worth taking any notice of.

True, it is biased towards the US market. But in fairness, this is because the US is the world leader in entertainment consumerism. Ere go, it will always be the barometer for stuff like this.

[TL OWNS U]

Originally Posted by AikonEnt

I mean, how many times do you still here people use the 'the PS3 still has no games' comment?

I hear A LOT of that from my friends on XBL. They are like "Dude, PS3 sucks, it has no games and it costs too much. PS my d*ck is huge."

Even my friends from school say "but 360 has Halo and Gears and PS3 has nothing. Plus, my 360 was only 200 bucks."

Out of all of my friends, 87% of them had to get a new 360 because of RRoD. one of them said "Screw that, I'm getting a PS3." and lived happily ever after.

[Xerios]

should be first page in all news papers worldwide...

[Psybits]

good read!
great article!

[Weirded Wonder]

I just wanted to say from personal knowledge of the video game industry, which I work in, that most of these sales figures are inflated and misleading. For example, if our store buys 500 Xbox360s, 400 PS3s, and 1,000 Wiis, these are all reported as sales. Now mind you that we will sell out of the PS3s and that about 95% of the Wiis will sell too. The 360 is the one that sits on the shelf the longest.
At our store as well, we sell PS3 games at about a rate of 1.6 to 1. We've always been confused by the sales reports of the 360s and we believe that is why. Just look at the inflated sales of Guitar Hero. The Best Buy in our area has a big huge stack of them on the floor, roughly 50 games with guitars. Guess what, those are already recorded as sales whether or not a consumer has already purchased them.

Don't believe the hype.

[Seablazer]

Originally Posted by beardmoen

I just wanted to say from personal knowledge of the video game industry, which I work in, that most of these sales figures are inflated and misleading. For example, if our store buys 500 Xbox360s, 400 PS3s, and 1,000 Wiis, these are all reported as sales. Now mind you that we will sell out of the PS3s and that about 95% of the Wiis will sell too. The 360 is the one that sits on the shelf the longest.
At our store as well, we sell PS3 games at about a rate of 1.6 to 1. We've always been confused by the sales reports of the 360s and we believe that is why. Just look at the inflated sales of Guitar Hero. The Best Buy in our area has a big huge stack of them on the floor, roughly 50 games with guitars. Guess what, those are already recorded as sales whether or not a consumer has already purchased them.

Don't believe the hype.

On consoles, yes.. But with games, a sale is only counted when the game is physically recorded in the companies system (be it BB, Gamestop, etc.,) and money/credit is used. Consoles as with other CE items, are sales the moment the buying company receives item (depending on freight terms; FOB Destination or Origin)

[christopher2200]

Originally Posted by SlmShdy1

For the past two generations, I find myself to be favoring the "underdog". Sales figures don't mean a thing. Truthfully, I could care less about sales numbers, but these "reporters" need to pull their heads out of their asses and do some frickin' research. It's all about the games, not the sales figures.

The other day, a guy I work with was telling me that the 360 has a 75% fail rate. I wonder how many 360 owners are repeat customers being forced to buy a second console because the first one broke.

Microsoft repairs the faulty systems for free to the original owner for up to three or four years. If your system fails you call they ship box with shipping tag inside. I have personally bought 2 Xbox 360 myself first one broke shipped had fixed for free gave to my friend. Then bough myself a Xbox 360 elite have had no problems with. So I don't know what you are talking about. I'm not a Xbox 360 fan I own both systems and can tell you with experience that Microsoft does a better job of taking care of their costomers than Sony. My ps3 froze up doing a system update on their network and they charged me $150.00 to repair. My friends ps3 overheated charged him same price took over 2 months to get back not even 3 months later the same thing happened and sony charged him again.

[Shin-Ra]

Selling hardware with such a high fail rate and then extending the warranty rather than recalling the hardware isn't really taking better care of your customers. But that's not really the focus of this thread.

[Kyo28]

Originally Posted by christopher2200

Microsoft repairs the faulty systems for free to the original owner for up to three or four years. If your system fails you call they ship box with shipping tag inside. I have personally bought 2 Xbox 360 myself first one broke shipped had fixed for free gave to my friend. Then bough myself a Xbox 360 elite have had no problems with. So I don't know what you are talking about. I'm not a Xbox 360 fan I own both systems and can tell you with experience that Microsoft does a better job of taking care of their costomers than Sony. My ps3 froze up doing a system update on their network and they charged me $150.00 to repair. My friends ps3 overheated charged him same price took over 2 months to get back not even 3 months later the same thing happened and sony charged him again.

You also have to take into account the following:
- PS3 repairs cost money, which is indeed a downside but on the other hand, it happens rarely. So, it's the luck of the draw
- 360's indeed do get fixed for free in the first 3 years but only if the failure was an RROD due to overheating. Other system failures don't fall into the 3 years warranty, if you read the fine-print. That's why we see so many forum posts of users asking how they can make their 360 overheat when another technical malfunction occurs, because they want to be able to get the 3-year warranty.
- PS3 get world-wide coverage, 360 doesn't: both my consoles are Japanese and I live in Europe. A short mail to Sony shows they'll fix my Japanese console but will charge me. Microsoft says "tough titty, shouldn't have imported" and refuses any kind of support, even though I'm willing to pay for it.
- 3-year warranty was offered because the 360 has an inherent overheating flaw that shouldn't have existed to begin with. It's basically fixing an open wound with a bandaid instead of operating. If it wasn't for RROD, 360 would have had the same standard 3-month or 1-year warranty as the other brands.

Each system has it's pros and cons but it's not as clear-cut as saying: PS3 failure, you pay 150 USD / 360 gets free fixes for 3 years. There's more nuance and fine-print to it than that.

[infamous8]

Originally Posted by Kyo28

You also have to take into account the following:
- PS3 repairs cost money, which is indeed a downside but on the other hand, it happens rarely. So, it's the luck of the draw
- 360's indeed do get fixed for free in the first 3 years but only if the failure was an RROD due to overheating. Other system failures don't fall into the 3 years warranty, if you read the fine-print. That's why we see so many forum posts of users asking how they can make their 360 overheat when another technical malfunction occurs, because they want to be able to get the 3-year warranty.
- PS3 get world-wide coverage, 360 doesn't: both my consoles are Japanese and I live in Europe. A short mail to Sony shows they'll fix my Japanese console but will charge me. Microsoft says "tough titty, shouldn't have imported" and refuses any kind of support, even though I'm willing to pay for it.
- 3-year warranty was offered because the 360 has an inherent overheating flaw that shouldn't have existed to begin with. It's basically fixing an open wound with a bandaid instead of operating. If it wasn't for RROD, 360 would have had the same standard 3-month or 1-year warranty as the other brands.

Each system has it's pros and cons but it's not as clear-cut as saying: PS3 failure, you pay 150 USD / 360 gets free fixes for 3 years. There's more nuance and fine-print to it than that.

I'll take a three year warranty with a condition that can be easily be induced rather than a 3 month-1 year warranty any day.