Pretty bad Nov industry wise.
Not great numvers for PS5
Bad numbers for the Xbox Series
Okayish number for Switch (given the age, the raw number is not great) but signals a replacement is needed.
Not great numvers for PS5
Bad numbers for the Xbox Series
Okayish number for Switch (given the age, the raw number is not great) but signals a replacement is needed.
Thanks for this because I felt like I was taking crazy pills when everybody kept saying this should be peak year and I was remembering year 2 as the biggest year and year 3 being a drop off typically but didn't have the data so didn't want to bring it up. You do great work. I bookmark a ton of your posts for reference.
And this isn't to say Xbox is doing great but just that a drop from last year isn't some incredibly hard thing to wrap a head around.
Yes, I have seen one among the dozens of disc version yesterday (Hungary). That was funny.
View: https://twitter.com/MatPiscatella/status/1735311524590481574
It is kind of funny how the "MS isn't concerned about console sales" argument is supporting the "MS should go third party" argument in a roundabout way.
How many people are actually even saying Xbox doesn't care about console sales tho. It's such a small amount of people but then all arguments kind of get grouped in and conflated with the most extreme.
Any time hardware sales criticism is brought up in every sales thread for a year or older.
The next gen Xbox talk being "too" soon and then this thread reminded me how the GBA lasted what, 3 years before the DS? And still managed to sell a shit load. Just insane
MS doesn't care about software sales was introduced when their games started to bomb during the Xbox One Gen and GamePass was introduced. When Series S/X released and hw numbers didn't look too impressive despite GP being a much more mature service and doing a lot of things right, it evolved into Xbox doesn't care about hardware sales.
Both statements are obviously wrong.They would love to see Starfield sell like Skyrim or have the legs of BG3/Witcher 3 while selling as much a consoles as the competition.
GBA was the safest bet there is next to the PS2 with pretty much no competition, while the DS expanded the market to a whole new level.
MS can't do the same with Sony and Nintendo around in the console space. Spending 100-130 bucks for a DS that has full BC is not the same as asking Series X owners to drop another 400/500 for an early next gen transition during a recession.
Both statements are obviously wrong.They would love to see Starfield sell like Skyrim or have the legs of BG3/Witcher 3 while selling as much a consoles as the competition.
You can't in any way or shape compare MS current standing in the space to what the GBA was or what the DS turned out to be.
GBA was the safest bet there is next to the PS2 with pretty much no competition, while the DS expanded the market to a whole new level.
MS can't do the same with Sony and Nintendo around in the console space. Spending 100-130 bucks for a DS that has full BC is not the same as asking Series X owners to drop another 400/500 for an early next gen transition during a recession.
lmao
DS was a nintendo handheld, there is no reality where ms accomplishes what nintendo did with the DS. I dont even think nintendo can top the DS😂
I wasnt implying they could, just reminiscing. It just seems wild looking back how we were all just ok with 3 and 4 year console cycles back then (Xbox to 360). Just wildly different times, when developers could bang out AAA hits in under 2 years.
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I don't come in the sales threads often but is the argument being made by these people you see (mostly) that Xbox literally does not care at all or that they don't care as much as they had to in the past because of their diversification strategy? Because this is where the conflating comes in. Saying they don't care as much, or that they no longer have to care as much, about console sales is a valid argument to make and you can have an actual discussion about it. And Mat isn't saying anything about it in the Tweet. Saying they literally don't care isn't a serious person having a serious discussion.
Essentially, to me, the tweet is a 'duh' but I've seen it try to be used as an argument against the idea above that Xbox is de-emphasizing console as the only place to play their games and that naturally comes with a downturn in console sales built in. So when someone says "Xbox doesn't care..." and follows it with reasoning about PC and mobile, the argument being made isn't the counter to Mat's argument. It's an entirely different discussion.
The argument is not that MS does not care about hardware at all, but that is no longer the focus and not important which is also not true. Hardware drives software, hardware drives services, hardware drives accessory and licensed product sales. We know this from sub growth flatlining and Phil's interview, I am sure they would like GP to take off outside of hardware but that is not reality.
Yeah they are definitely concerned and they probably have a forecast of how their hardware will do over the next few years. So we will see how fast the next Xbox comes given how low November 2022 & 2023 sales have been in the US with sales potentially slowing further
We know Satya Nadella and the Xbox leadership team review the monthly Circana reports. I mean it's no coincidence after these results the price of the Xbox Series X dropped to $399 in the USA.
The Series X was not being stocked as well as Series S for a long time. And still the vast majority of the latest consoles are together Series X and PS5. Series X would most likely have had a higher procentage of the Series split if they managed to produced more in the beginning.
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It's not pointless, but at $299 or less, the S for some is an impulse purchase, possibly a secondary console. If they could have got a Series X at that price then of course they would go with that. Series X has been going for $350 recently, so I could see some of those S owners maybe doing a trade-in or new customers buying that model.
Yes, that split would probably be different, but not sure by how much. It was just a curiosity, though, because that was such a intense talking point in the months previous to the release of these consoles, and since most consumers have not chosen the most powerful one, for different reasons, I wonder if that will be a factor when designing next generation.
Not that power is not important, but having that extra 10/15% maybe is not worth, after all. Afaik PS5 has been profitable since early this generation, and Series X has not, so it it's another problem for MS.
It is like mid gen refreshes, only cater to a limited customer percentage, so should be designed with profitability in mind
Technically that is not true, even if the sales of the previous Pro was only 20% of the system post-2016. Enthusiast buyers that you are trying to entice are also the ones that will scrutinize the hardware more. They cannot just "throw something together" for profits sake and hope that audience will buy it. The hardware upgrade needs to be substantial enough, and the price competitive in the console space.
I agree, not that I consider pro consoles pointless, just that has to make sense, as you said, going after the hardcore , that is, usually , a big spender. But sometimes just having the edge over your rival, while gives you that extra marketing point, which maybe XB needed vs Playstation, is worth as long the long term is financially sustainable
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The vast majority would be PS5 and Series X though if we add both brands together.
Yes, for sure. Both are quite close in performance. But the having the most powerful one didn't really help MS close the gap. In fact seems to be doing worse than previous gen compared to the competition.
Multiple contributing factors to that. Power being one of the least important.
Yeah the XSS certainly made it easier for a customer to enter the Xbox ecosystem. MS needs to make compelling games to keep those customers long term.
Yes to multiple factors contributing to that. Power race didn't help at all despite all the discussion early into the gen. That's my point, it didn't move the needle. As long as the console is balanced and the games are there, being a bit better here or there doesn't seem to really change the overall result.
PS5 would have not sold more if it had been marginally more powerful than Series X, but may have not been profitable for Sony.
People thought the edge would make a huge difference, like the power advantage PS4 had was the reason it outsold the X1 so the same should happen with the XSX against the PS5. But that only makes sense if you ignore everything else that made the PS4 more appealing and the X1 not appealing.
yeah wtf are those takes, Starfield was always catalogued as the "turning point" in xbox sales lmao.
Exactly, that's what I mean. It is the overall product that is appealing. Power needs to be there, to justify the new generation, and having the edge is better of course,
As Silver X said, even last gen's bigger gap wasn't the main factor. It just added and extra reason.
I would say brand loyalty, ecosystem, are a much bigger factor. Unless the gap is really huge, and the only one I can remember is Saturn vs PSone and I'm sure that wasn't the main reason why one succeeded and the other didn't