Has the videogame market finally stopped growing?
Leon Dexter
thinking...
Apparently, the PS2 is selling very slightly better to date than the PS1
did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of time. Or
800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a total of
somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported 60 million
shipped worldwide).
Meanwhile, the Gamecube and Xbox combined have sold approximately what the
N64 did in that time, give or take a bit (actually, it's higher, but not
much). That is, the Gamecube should hit 10 million any second now, and the
Xbox about 30 seconds after that. (9.6 million and 9.4 million,
respectively, at last count).
That got me wondering...has the videogame market stopped growing? If you
project these numbers out, the current generation of consoles should surpass
the last one in sales numbers, but not by very much--and that's with 3
viable consoles on the market, not 2.
I wonder about the software side of the market, though. All three hardware
makers have boasted at one time or another about their high tie-in ratios.
What do you all think? Has the videogame market fully "matured" and stopped
growing? If so, why? And is it good or bad, or does it not matter?
I'll post my thoughts later on, I'd like to hear some other views...
Asianflow
at least knows somebody else that does. Video Games are mainstream as it
gets, and I don't think there's any more potential customers since there are
games out there for all different age groups, and the variety of games is
staggering.
Joe Ottoson
news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:
> There have been some numbers floating around again lately, and they
> got me thinking...
>
> Apparently, the PS2 is selling very slightly better to date than the
> PS1 did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of
> time. Or 800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a
> total of somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported
> 60 million shipped worldwide).
>
> Meanwhile, the Gamecube and Xbox combined have sold approximately what
> the N64 did in that time, give or take a bit (actually, it's higher,
> but not much). That is, the Gamecube should hit 10 million any
> second now, and the Xbox about 30 seconds after that. (9.6 million
> and 9.4 million, respectively, at last count).
>
> That got me wondering...has the videogame market stopped growing? If
> you project these numbers out, the current generation of consoles
> should surpass the last one in sales numbers, but not by very
> much--and that's with 3 viable consoles on the market, not 2.
>
Part of the problem is that there's really only one viable console. Two
are on life support.
Leon Dexter
> > That got me wondering...has the videogame market stopped growing? If
> > you project these numbers out, the current generation of consoles
> > should surpass the last one in sales numbers, but not by very
> > much--and that's with 3 viable consoles on the market, not 2.
> >
> Part of the problem is that there's really only one viable console. Two
> are on life support.
Really? I think 10 million people is a pretty good market to sell to. I
mean, individual titles of GC and Xbox games routinely outsell such things
as books, CDs, movies, individual models of TVs, VCRs, DVD players, and all
sorts of other entertainment-related products. And all of those products
have a potential buyer pool of pretty much the entire population.
So I'd say the GC and Xbox are pretty healthy consoles. Nintendo is making
money from the GC, and though Microsoft might not have recouped its
investment in Xbox yet, plenty of publishers are making money from the Xbox
market. They're both very much off of life support and doing fine.
Aaron R. Schnuth
> "Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote in
> news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:
>
> are on life support.
I think the biggest problem is the lack of innovation these days in
games. Everything is just the same old, same old with another number stuck
on the end.
Aaron
Alexander Mendes
"Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> There have been some numbers floating around again lately, and they got me
> thinking...
>
> Apparently, the PS2 is selling very slightly better to date than the PS1
> did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of time. Or
> 800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a total of
> somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported 60 million
> shipped worldwide).
>
> Meanwhile, the Gamecube and Xbox combined have sold approximately what the
> N64 did in that time, give or take a bit (actually, it's higher, but not
> much). That is, the Gamecube should hit 10 million any second now, and the
> Xbox about 30 seconds after that. (9.6 million and 9.4 million,
> respectively, at last count).
Dreamcast, saturn, PCs, and the various portables should be in this
list, as they're clearly part of the market. Without that, you really
don't have complete data.
> That got me wondering...has the videogame market stopped growing? If you
> project these numbers out, the current generation of consoles should surpass
> the last one in sales numbers, but not by very much--and that's with 3
> viable consoles on the market, not 2.
Can Xbox be considered viable? It's being supported by MS' other
divisions...
> I wonder about the software side of the market, though. All three hardware
> makers have boasted at one time or another about their high tie-in ratios.
>
> What do you all think? Has the videogame market fully "matured" and stopped
> growing? If so, why? And is it good or bad, or does it not matter?
>
> I'll post my thoughts later on, I'd like to hear some other views...
Clearly, peopel who expect explosive growth will be dissapointed.
Japan, the US, and europe are all in the middle of rough economic times,
so people will cut back on stuff like video games. Bt again, we don't
have enough info here to come up with an overall picture of what's
happening in the market.
Steven Hurdle
> Really? I think 10 million people is a pretty good market to sell to.
You need to have 10 million customers plus momentum on your side. The
Dreamcast hit 10 million but lost momentum. That said, I do think the GCN
market is large enough to support Nintendo's first-party ambitions and the
Xbox market has proven itself fertile ground for both first and third-party
developers.
> So I'd say the GC and Xbox are pretty healthy consoles. Nintendo is
making
> money from the GC,
I don't think that's been conclusively demonstrated when one looks at the
total costs (from inception to present, including R&D and marketing).
However, if Nintendo's not making money it's probably not losing much.
> and though Microsoft might not have recouped its
> investment in Xbox yet, plenty of publishers are making money from the
Xbox
> market. They're both very much off of life support and doing fine.
I think the third-party market is on life support on the GCN, due to the
strength of first-party software on that system. A disproportionately large
number of GCN owners, compared to Xbox and PS2 owners, are self-avowed
Nintendo first-party fans, sometimes largely to the exclusion of
non-first-party games. Look at how traditional sports have sold so poorly
on the GCN (Sega Sports completely left the GCN, EA Sports reduced support
such as not releasing MVP Baseball on that platform). Though Acclaim and
Eidos partly have themselves to blame for their GCN sales (being slow with
GCN ports for example), it's still not a good thing when publishers leave a
system. Revile Acclaim as a crappy publisher all you want, it's not going
to be a feather in the GCN's cap if Burnout 3 comes out only on the Xbox and
PS2, for example.
Beck
"Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Its the Summer lull maybe? Run up to Christmas will see heaps of consoles
sold.
CrazyFool
longer to achieve that. If the Xbox 2 proves not to be a total flop then the
market should get bigger and bigger and that can open up more cool ass tech
jobs for people
"Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
El Guapo
news:nKB7b.124069$la.27...@news1.calgary.shaw.ca...
> "Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote
>
> > Really? I think 10 million people is a pretty good market to sell to.
>
> You need to have 10 million customers plus momentum on your side. The
> Dreamcast hit 10 million but lost momentum.
Momentum had been lost long before that, considering that the Dreamcast was
on clearance when it finally hit 10 million. The Dreamcast never hit the
numbers that the Gamecube and XBox have while it was still a viable console.
Robert P Holley
Just like your desire to eventually kiss a female, cross your fingers *real*
tight and keep praying for that statement and perhaps one day it will become
true.
Robert P Holley
news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
> There have been some numbers floating around again lately, and they got me
> thinking...
>
> Apparently, the PS2 is selling very slightly better to date than the PS1
> did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of time.
Or
> 800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a total of
> somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported 60 million
> shipped worldwide).
>
> Meanwhile, the Gamecube and Xbox combined have sold approximately what the
> N64 did in that time, give or take a bit (actually, it's higher, but not
> much). That is, the Gamecube should hit 10 million any second now, and
the
> Xbox about 30 seconds after that. (9.6 million and 9.4 million,
> respectively, at last count).
Great post as it does raise a lot of question, but on the flip side I don't
think the N64 sold 20 million units in it's first two years.
Dreams5
"Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net...
The first videogame downfall came with Atari years ago. They started
releasing a ton of crappy games right before the bottom fell out. Now,
videogames have become so mainstream that I don't think it will happen again
in the same way. However, if the game companies do not continue to offer
quality releases on a regular basis, the public overall will stop buying as
much.
Someone said that in a slow economy people will not buy as many games. I
think the truth could be the opposite as people who are out of work are more
likely to play games. They may rent them instead of buying, but they have
more time on their hands to play. If a family can not afford an expensive
vacation, what better way to keep the kiddies happy than to get some game
for them instead?
Phil
> thinking...
>
> Apparently, the PS2 is selling very slightly better to date than the PS1
> did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of time. Or
> 800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a total of
> somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported 60 million
> shipped worldwide).
>
ROFL you call shipping 60 million untis more than a year before the
PS1 did SLIGHTY better.
Phil
Nah the Xbox is a viable platform. Nowhere near as much as the PS2,
which is leaps and bounds above it's competetitors but MS has done
pretty good thus far. Gamecube however could easily be said to be on
life support considering the all the 3rd party support that has
vanished.
Android
"Robert P Holley" <holl...@delanet.com> wrote in message
news:bjnab1$l3e6d$1...@ID-121560.news.uni-berlin.de...
The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition). Meanwhile,
the GameCube is going to halt production a mere two years since its
introduction, and Microsoft lost a ton of money after they were forced to
reduce the price of the Xbox by $100 less than a year after launch's --and
you still don't think there is only one viable console? The market is more
one-sided than it has probably ever been.
If Coke or Pepsi sold six times more than the competition, I'm sure their
CEO would stand up and say "The cola wars [sic] is over!"
Robert P Holley
news:DVI7b.27112$mp.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
The GC and Xbox have shipped more than 20 million combined. How did you get
this "six times more" figure?
> Meanwhile,
> the GameCube is going to halt production a mere two years since its
> introduction, and Microsoft lost a ton of money after they were forced to
> reduce the price of the Xbox by $100 less than a year after launch's
How were they forced to reduce their price? Let me guess, I bet you think
they were reacting to Sony price cuts don't you?
If you want to argue they dropped their price to spur more sales, fine. But
if you're insinuating MS was forced by reacting to Sony, you're wrong.
> --and
> you still don't think there is only one viable console? The market is more
> one-sided than it has probably ever been.
Do you know what viable means? Both systems are doing fine, pulling in
money and have announced successors already. Yes they are miles behind the
PS2, but that doesn't mean they aren't viable consoles.
> If Coke or Pepsi sold six times more than the competition, I'm sure their
> CEO would stand up and say "The cola wars [sic] is over!"
And if the CEO of Sony stood up and claimed they sold six times more than
the competition, he's be singled out as a liar.
You realize the competition isn't *just* the GC or isn't *just* the Xbox,
it's both. So Sony hasn't sold six times more than it's competitors. Three
times, yes (which is still a huge margin) but six times, no.
Steven Hurdle
> The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition).
Meanwhile,
> the GameCube is going to halt production a mere two years since its
> introduction, and Microsoft lost a ton of money after they were forced to
> reduce the price of the Xbox by $100 less than a year after launch's --and
> you still don't think there is only one viable console? The market is more
> one-sided than it has probably ever been.
>
> If Coke or Pepsi sold six times more than the competition, I'm sure their
> CEO would stand up and say "The cola wars [sic] is over!"
It's hardly a fair contest what with the PS2 having first launched a year
and a half before the competition (March 2000 in Japan for the PS2,
September 2001 in Japan for the GCN, November 2001 in North America for the
Xbox). The lead is there, whether fair or not, though. :) The market's
not more one-sided than it's ever been, the NES had global marketshare that
the PS2 would envy (which is a real testament to how far Nintendo has
fallen, actually).
The question wasn't whether the PS2 will win/has won, it was whether the
alternative platforms are viable. When I go to www.tothegame.com/ and look
up the Xbox release list and note that there are 343 upcoming Xbox games and
372 upcoming PS2 games (blending North America and Europe together), yes the
Xbox is clearly viable. If the PS2 has a huge advantage in hardware but is
only managing an 8.5% advantage in software (outside Japan, at least) then
that's a success for the Xbox and proof positive of the fact that developers
find it easy (read: cost effective) to develop for, and that they like
developing for the platform and see a future in it. The Gamecube, with 188
new titles listed between North America and Europe combined, about half as
many as either of the competition, is the one that's lagging behind in the
all-important category of software support. Nintendo fans can crow all they
want about Nintendo's first-party output but, much like Sega's stellar
first-party output for the Dreamcast, it can do more harm than good if it
pillages third-party support, and it won't win the console many new fans
given that by now the vast majority of fans of Nintendo's first-party
franchises must have a GameCube, no?
Joe Ottoson
> "Joe Ottoson" <gro...@landfill.net> wrote in message
>
>> > That got me wondering...has the videogame market stopped growing?
>> > If you project these numbers out, the current generation of
>> > consoles should surpass the last one in sales numbers, but not by
>> > very much--and that's with 3 viable consoles on the market, not 2.
>> >
>> Part of the problem is that there's really only one viable console.
>> Two are on life support.
>
> Really? I think 10 million people is a pretty good market to sell to.
Saturn mustered about that much worldwide.
Joe Ottoson
news:ukB7b.40649$3b2.4...@twister.neo.rr.com:
>
> "Joe Ottoson" <gro...@landfill.net> wrote in message
> news:Xns93F2F157DD51ja...@130.133.1.4...
>> "Leon Dexter" <leondext...@earthlink.net> wrote in
>> news:W7z7b.6004$Yt....@newsread4.news.pas.earthlink.net:
>>
>> Part of the problem is that there's really only one viable console.
>> Two are on life support.
>
> I think the biggest problem is the lack of innovation these days
> in
> games.
Nope. This has been and always will be a constant.
Joe Ottoson
Still not sure why me saying Xbox deserves more hype than reality has
delivered will result in increased romance. The logic breaks down there
somewhere, Hardcore.
Joe Ottoson
> "Android" <andr...@NOcomcastSPAM.net> wrote in message
> news:DVI7b.27112$mp.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
>>
>> --and
>> you still don't think there is only one viable console? The market is
>> more one-sided than it has probably ever been.
>
> Do you know what viable means? Both systems are doing fine, pulling
> in money and have announced successors already. Yes they are miles
> behind the PS2, but that doesn't mean they aren't viable consoles.
The same could've been said about the Saturn. Viable it was not.
Robert P Holley
In less than two years? That's impressive.
Jeremy Reaban
"Robert P Holley" <holl...@delanet.com> wrote in message
news:bjnts0$kuvcq$1...@ID-121560.news.uni-berlin.de...
I think 10 million is a bit generous, though. I think it was closer to
7 or 8 million world wide.
The Saturn was actually a fairly big seller in Japan. It was a viable
console there. Things were a lot worse in the US, due to
mismanagement. I think they sold about 1.5 million or so Saturns in
the US, and that was in 3 years.
The Xbox in many ways, is the reverse of the Saturn. It's doing fairly
well in the US, but horrible in Japan and so-so in Europe.
And much like the Saturn, the Xbox is a better machine than it's
competition. The Saturn, though slightly weaker at 3D than the PSX,
was much better at 2D, and with the addional ram cartridge, was
downright impressive. This also extended the life of it in the Japan
(the ram cart never made it out in the US).
Unlike the Saturn, the Xbox is also easy to program for. Part of the
Saturn's problems was that it was hard for some developers to use
properly.
Eiji Hayashi
> The question wasn't whether the PS2 will win/has won, it was whether the
> alternative platforms are viable. When I go to www.tothegame.com/ and look
> up the Xbox release list and note that there are 343 upcoming Xbox games and
> 372 upcoming PS2 games (blending North America and Europe together), yes the
> Xbox is clearly viable. If the PS2 has a huge advantage in hardware but is
> only managing an 8.5% advantage in software (outside Japan, at least) then
Out of curiosity, why would you combine NA and Euro release lists but
don't include Japanese release lists? Considering there's about as
many Japanese PS2 new releases as both the NA and Euro COMBINED!
Either keep each region separate or combine all of them globally,
otherwise it would appear you're playing the number game.
Jordan Lund
> Really? I think 10 million people is a pretty good market to sell to.
It's also 2-5 million less than there are Dreamcasts and that's 3
years after Sega pulled the plug. ;^)
- Jordan
Eiji Hayashi
> The first videogame downfall came with Atari years ago. They started
> releasing a ton of crappy games right before the bottom fell out. Now,
> videogames have become so mainstream that I don't think it will happen again
> in the same way. However, if the game companies do not continue to offer
> quality releases on a regular basis, the public overall will stop buying as
> much.
> Someone said that in a slow economy people will not buy as many games. I
> think the truth could be the opposite as people who are out of work are more
> likely to play games. They may rent them instead of buying, but they have
> more time on their hands to play. If a family can not afford an expensive
> vacation, what better way to keep the kiddies happy than to get some game
> for them instead?
I agree. In fact I remember reading about this a couple of months ago.
Video games are considered "low cost entertainment" when compared to
cruises and vacations. A few game companies apparently attributed
their increased revenues to people who choose not to go on vacations
and stayed home and play video games.
Jordan Lund
> I think the third-party market is on life support on the GCN, due to the
> strength of first-party software on that system.
With the exception of Zelda most of the 1st party stuff has done
really poorly (Mario Sunshine anyone?) Even Metroid whihc was loved by
hard-core gamers and critics was shunned by the public at large.
- Jordan
Jordan Lund
> The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition).
Of course the Sony numbers have always been suspect (shipped vs. sold)
and then you add to that abyssmally high number of defective machines,
replacement machines and all those that are now sitting in finer game
stores as "Refurbished unit $149.99" and trade ins... The actual
number of machines sold through to consumers is probably around 25 to
30 million.
Sony has always reported double the number that have actually been
sold.
- Jordan
DGG
"Jeremy Reaban" <j...@connectria.com> wrote in message
news:vlv303q...@corp.supernews.com...
The Xbox is doing fairly well in Europe too... It was so-so when the Xbox
initially launched but things have changed now....basically it's the #2
console in every market outside of Japan.
Chieh Cheng
> did. That is, the PS2 sold three more units in the same amount of time. Or
> 800,000. I think that's what Sony said. Which is out of a total of
> somewhere between 50 and 60 million (Sony recently reported 60 million
> shipped worldwide).
Personally, I think the reason PS2 sold and is selling so well is
because of GT3. I just wrote about my analysis on why this is the case
earlier today here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PlayStation3/message/8
And I think for PS3 to sell well, Polyphony Digital have to continue
its line of GT games on PlayStation 3. And, perhaps, not port it to
other entertainment systems.
Chieh
Leon Dexter
news:92dbefbe.03091...@posting.google.com...
But it still sold over a million copies, and so did Mario Sunshine, even
before they started giving them away, which is a nice bit of business ($40
million wholesale). Selling a million copies of a game on a system with a
userbase of less than 10 million isn't "poorly". Nintendo has done better
in the past, to be sure, but "poor in comparison" and "poor" are not the
same thing.
Leon Dexter
> The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition).
Meanwhile,
> the GameCube is going to halt production a mere two years since its
> introduction, and Microsoft lost a ton of money after they were forced to
> reduce the price of the Xbox by $100 less than a year after launch's --and
> you still don't think there is only one viable console? The market is more
> one-sided than it has probably ever been.
You think so? I guess you weren't around in the NES days then? The NES was
so dominant most people didn't even know it HAD competition.
By the way, Nintendo isn't "halting production", at least, not the way you
want to make it sound. They're selling off some inventory, not going out of
business.
And Microsoft wasn't "forced" to reduce the price on Xbox. They decided to
do so to help sales--which worked--and Sony was clever enough to reduce
their price a bit quicker to trick people like you into thinking Microsoft
was reacting to them. That also worked, apparently.
>
> If Coke or Pepsi sold six times more than the competition, I'm sure their
> CEO would stand up and say "The cola wars [sic] is over!"
The key word here is "selling". Even if your competition is selling 6 times
what you are, that means your product is also selling. McDonalds outsells
most other restaurants by ridiculous numbers, but that doesn't mean Olive
Garden, Denny's, or even Wendy's has to close up shop.
Leon Dexter
> Great post as it does raise a lot of question, but on the flip side I
don't
> think the N64 sold 20 million units in it's first two years.
No, it took almost 3 years, actually, looking back. That's still better
than GC or Xbox, and they both sold a million practically at launch in the
US. The N64 only sold 250,000 at launch, and about a half million by
Christmas, if I remember correctly.
El Guapo
Last I checked, selling a million+ copies of a game is still a pretty good
way of making money.
Steven Hurdle
> Out of curiosity, why would you combine NA and Euro release lists but
> don't include Japanese release lists?
Because www.tothegame.com/ is the only site I know of that has fairly
reliable release list information and those are the only markets they track.
> Considering there's about as
> many Japanese PS2 new releases as both the NA and Euro COMBINED!
There's certainly some duplication between those lists (from those
Japanese publishers that export a lot of games, like Capcom, Sega, Konami,
etc.). The games that are Japanese-only aren't of interest to a lot of
people outside of Japan (if it were otherwise, they WOULD be being released
outside of Japan :) ).
> Either keep each region separate or combine all of them globally,
> otherwise it would appear you're playing the number game.
And here I was thinking you'd be claiming I was playing a number's game
if I only looked at North America (where Xbox support is strongest),
needlessly electing not to include all the available info at my source.
Looking at it as you suggest, however...
Looking at the same release list at www.tothegame.com/ and removing all
titles already released in North America (and only on the list because they
have a pending European release), all titles not slated for North American
release (such as Championship Manager, etc.), and all games listed as "On
Hold", we come up with 324 games slated for upcoming North American release
on the PS2 and 310 games slated for upcoming North American release on the
Xbox. That gives the PS2 a region-1 (Canada and the U.S.) software
advantage of only 4.5%, significantly less than the 8.5% I had credited to
the PS2 in my post.
I suspected, and suspect, that if I had taken this tack off the bat you
or someone else would have criticised it as looking at the numbers as
narrowly as possible to find the angle that gave the Xbox the strongest
possible advantage. I deliberately did not take this tack because I wanted
to be as inclusive as possible within the available information, and state
very specifically where the information came from and what areas of the
world it represented. Your seeming attempt at a witch hunt ("it would
appear you're playing the number game") is not accurate or appreciated, and
in fact leaves me wondering if you're projecting. :)
Phil
Dude they are 1st party another words owned by Sony, just like Maughty
dag and Insomniac now are.
Phil
Bullshit there are not 30 million PS2 just lying around. Damn 20
million would be a stretch. What ever made you convince yourself that
it could be that high?
Phil
Yeah I was one of the 1.5 mil, what can I say I wanted VF.
> The Xbox in many ways, is the reverse of the Saturn. It's doing fairly
> well in the US, but horrible in Japan and so-so in Europe.
>
> And much like the Saturn, the Xbox is a better machine than it's
> competition. The Saturn, though slightly weaker at 3D than the PSX,
> was much better at 2D, and with the addional ram cartridge, was
> downright impressive. This also extended the life of it in the Japan
> (the ram cart never made it out in the US).
Slighty weaker at 3d it was a hell of alot more than slighty and in
the end what killed it.
> Unlike the Saturn, the Xbox is also easy to program for. Part of the
> Saturn's problems was that it was hard for some developers to use
> properly.
Agreed.
Alexander Mendes
lu...@earthlink.net (Jordan Lund) wrote:
> "Android" <andr...@NOcomcastSPAM.net> wrote in message
> news:<DVI7b.27112$mp.1...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net>...
>
> > The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition).
>
> Of course the Sony numbers have always been suspect (shipped vs. sold)
> and then you add to that abyssmally high number of defective machines,
> replacement machines and all those that are now sitting in finer game
> stores as "Refurbished unit $149.99" and trade ins... The actual
> number of machines sold through to consumers is probably around 25 to
> 30 million.
And never mind that all third party data shows PS2's sell through in
this range for japan and the US alone.
Seriously, Jordan, it's time to get over the whole Dreamcast thing.
Alexander Mendes
gyps...@mindless.com (Chieh Cheng) wrote:
I don't know about Europe or japan, but PS2 sales in the US actually
*declined* in the month that GT3 was released, which shouldn't suprise
anyone, since it was released in the summer. That's not to say that GT3
didn't convince anyone to buy a PS2, but so did Kessen, Dynasty Warriors
2, MGS2, Silent Hill 2, GTA3, FFX, SSX, Madden...well, I think I'll just
stop there.
Robert P Holley
IAWTP
Robert P Holley
news:mumbles-EEED90...@news.verizon.net...
Now that is funny. :-) No offense, but Kessen doesn't spring to mind when
talking about system sellers.
Robert P Holley
news:hwP7b.6626$PE6...@newsread3.news.pas.earthlink.net...
Are you sure MP sold a million copies? If so, what are the break down for
each region?
Eiji Hayashi
> > Out of curiosity, why would you combine NA and Euro release lists but
> > don't include Japanese release lists?
>
> Because www.tothegame.com/ is the only site I know of that has fairly
> reliable release list information and those are the only markets they track.
oic. It'd be helpful if you listed the source to begin with.
> There's certainly some duplication between those lists (from those
> Japanese publishers that export a lot of games, like Capcom, Sega, Konami,
> etc.). The games that are Japanese-only aren't of interest to a lot of
> people outside of Japan (if it were otherwise, they WOULD be being released
> outside of Japan :) ).
corrections.. the powers that be THINKS it wouldn't be of interest.
Whether or not that really is the case is up to debate. For example,
does people outside of Japan really have no interest in Sega's Initial
D Special Stage? since it hasn't been localized? If so, why do I see
tons of people pumping quarters into the Initial D Arcade Stage arcade
machines in my local malls? and I live in Canada. Those machines are
always packed.
> And here I was thinking you'd be claiming I was playing a number's game
> if I only looked at North America (where Xbox support is strongest),
> needlessly electing not to include all the available info at my source.
> Looking at it as you suggest, however...
I'm not claiming that you ARE playing the number game, I said this
would make it APPEAR that you're playing the number game. I'm sure if
you read it again you'll see that's what I meant.
> Looking at the same release list at www.tothegame.com/ and removing all
> titles already released in North America (and only on the list because they
> have a pending European release), all titles not slated for North American
> release (such as Championship Manager, etc.), and all games listed as "On
> Hold", we come up with 324 games slated for upcoming North American release
> on the PS2 and 310 games slated for upcoming North American release on the
> Xbox. That gives the PS2 a region-1 (Canada and the U.S.) software
> advantage of only 4.5%, significantly less than the 8.5% I had credited to
> the PS2 in my post.
that's fine. I'm not questioning the numbers, which I really couldn't
give a damn about, since I don't care for either NA or Euro games, I'm
questioning the methodology.
> I suspected, and suspect, that if I had taken this tack off the bat you
> or someone else would have criticised it as looking at the numbers as
> narrowly as possible to find the angle that gave the Xbox the strongest
> possible advantage. I deliberately did not take this tack because I wanted
umm.. no. I wouldn't have bothered replying since I'm not really
interested in the North American region's console market. You of all
people should know this since I rarely comment on posts that are very
obviously North American centric.
> to be as inclusive as possible within the available information, and state
> very specifically where the information came from and what areas of the
> world it represented. Your seeming attempt at a witch hunt ("it would
> appear you're playing the number game") is not accurate or appreciated, and
> in fact leaves me wondering if you're projecting. :)
moi? witch hunt? non monsieur.. "It would appear" in this case is
taken to mean literally, not implicitly.
Jordan Lund
> Bullshit there are not 30 million PS2 just lying around. Damn 20
> million would be a stretch. What ever made you convince yourself that
> it could be that high?
Because every year since the PS2 was released Sony reports double the
number shipped than have actually been sold. It's been going on almost
since launch when they said they shipped 800,000 machines but once
everyone sold out the number was around 500,000.
- Jordan
Jordan Lund
> Are you sure MP sold a million copies? If so, what are the break down for
> each region?
I remember the UK stats had it at an abyssmal < 50,000. Terrible for
such a huge release. Nintendo themselves said they were disappointed
in the way software was selling on the cube.
- Jordan
Eiji Hayashi
Tell that to Scott
Eiji Hayashi
>
> > The PS2 shipped 60 million (six times more than the competition).
>
> Of course the Sony numbers have always been suspect (shipped vs. sold)
> and then you add to that abyssmally high number of defective machines,
> replacement machines and all those that are now sitting in finer game
> stores as "Refurbished unit $149.99" and trade ins... The actual
> number of machines sold through to consumers is probably around 25 to
> 30 million.
25 to 30 million? are you insane? everyone knows there is only ONE
unit of PS2 machine that was ever sold. One guy plays with it for a
day before he gets bored of all the "exclusive AAA" titles on it and
then sell it, then another guy buys it from him, plays it for another
day and that one PS2 machine just gets circulated day after day so
that 60 million people have played it, but there is only that one unit
which exist at any time. The only time Sony starts up the factory and
make another one is when that one machine breaks, and they're forced
to replace it, which happens frequently.
> Sony has always reported double the number that have actually been
> sold.
only double? don't you mean they overestimate by a factor of 60
million?
all kidding aside why stop at 25 to 30 million? why not 10 million? or
5 million, or one unit as in my example, its all equally correct.