Is the PS3 doing any better than what it was a couple of years ago?

[cimerians]

Japanese console sales can and do dictate the life expectancy of a console just as much, if not moreso than the US video game market.

 

Why though? I've heard people that state similar claims, but give no reason as to why. The first video game system was a U.S product. The Xbox is a U.S product. Japan doesn't sell more video games than the U.S of any home console, if fact, it sells considerably less for the reason you just stated. They have less people.

 

There are about 130 million people in Japan.

There are about 300 million in the US

So lets say there are about 2.5x more people in the U.S

 

The total (Wii, PS3 and 360) consoles sold in Japan so far is around 12 million.

The total (Wii, PS3 and 360) consoles sold in the U.S. is around 47 million or about 4x as many as in Japan

 

The U.S. clearly sells more video games than Japan. If it's simple, simply explain why Japan dictates the life of a video game console.

 

 

Back in the late 80's, 90's and up to the release of the first Xbox it seems its been Asia that dictates anything and everything videogames. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Konami, Capcom, Square.............

 

All Asian based companies.

 

But since the creation of the Xbox and Micro$ofts endless supply of cashflow thats all been changed. Along with Xboxlive which I think pretty much changed how we play games.

 

It will be interesting to see if the Xbox or its successor can take over in those countries finally. (Im talking China, Japan, Korea etc).

Its a big world out there.

[moycon]

But since the creation of the Xbox and Micro$ofts endless supply of cashflow thats all been changed. Along with Xboxlive which I think pretty much changed how we play games.

 

This is kind of the way I saw it as well. I don't see Japan as dictating as much when it comes to video games these days.

The market controls the future of a product. American's speak 4 times as loud as Japan these days.

I'm sure someone like Microsoft wants a heavy Japanese presence, but they certainly don't depend on it.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love for it to be the 90's again and still be in my 20's, but times change.

[atarian63]

Japanese console sales can and do dictate the life expectancy of a console just as much, if not moreso than the US video game market.

 

Why though? I've heard people that state similar claims, but give no reason as to why. The first video game system was a U.S product. The Xbox is a U.S product. Japan doesn't sell more video games than the U.S of any home console, if fact, it sells considerably less for the reason you just stated. They have less people.

 

There are about 130 million people in Japan.

There are about 300 million in the US

So lets say there are about 2.5x more people in the U.S

 

The total (Wii, PS3 and 360) consoles sold in Japan so far is around 12 million.

The total (Wii, PS3 and 360) consoles sold in the U.S. is around 47 million or about 4x as many as in Japan

 

The U.S. clearly sells more video games than Japan. If it's simple, simply explain why Japan dictates the life of a video game console.

 

 

Back in the late 80's, 90's and up to the release of the first Xbox it seems its been Asia that dictates anything and everything videogames. Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Konami, Capcom, Square.............

 

All Asian based companies.

 

But since the creation of the Xbox and Micro$ofts endless supply of cashflow thats all been changed. Along with Xboxlive which I think pretty much changed how we play games.

 

It will be interesting to see if the Xbox or its successor can take over in those countries finally. (Im talking China, Japan, Korea etc).

Its a big world out there.

Thats kind of my point, M$ lost boatloads of money trying to buy the industry but only have about 1/3 of it and failed in japan and have done only fair in europe. Asia still dictates the game world, though I wish it was the US,just not the evil m$. Not an innovator. Atari would be good.

[JamesD]

Microsoft has billions in cash and is still raking in the dough in spite of the market and 360 losses. They are thinking long term and you are forgetting that they also profit from games sold and those are selling well. The amount they are losing on the 360 is small compared to their profits.

Japan will probably never accept a non-Japanese console well but the 360 beat the PS3 when Ace Combat 6 was released.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6182608.html

 

Current news:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/0331...it-console.html

3 million PS3s, 1 million 360s in Japan. The 360 has already outsold the XBOX.

 

To put things in perspective... the 360 sold more units in the US in one month than the original XBOX had total sales in Japan.

<edit>

one article listed over a million for a month period in the past but I think that is a typo after looking around. So it's a little over 3 months of current US sales is greater than all 360 Japanese sales.

 

 

And here is the real bad news:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/ps3-...on-year-decline

Sony's PlayStation 3 has seen a year-on-year decline in sales of 24.5 per cent in January, according to data released by NPD.

 

Last year, the console sold 269,000 units, compared to last month's results of 203,200 units.

 

During the same period, Microsoft saw sales grow 25.5 per cent, from 230,000 units in January 2008 to 309,000 units in January 2009, while the Nintendo Wii saw sales rocket 59.5 per cent, from 274,000 units to 676,000 units.

Edited April 2, 2009 by JamesD

[JamesD]

A little math for you.

If Microsoft has to replace every 360 at least once at a cost of $50 (refurb, shipping, labor) times 30 million units sold = $1.5 billion.

Microsoft has over $29 billion in cash on hand and it's Office and Windows products generate about $1 billion / month.

So, the loss you keep touting amounts to 1.5 months of software sales and those aren't their only products.

That is every 360 sold to date mind you and they now say they have the problem fixed.

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/309852_software02.html

[atarian63]

A little math for you.

If Microsoft has to replace every 360 at least once at a cost of $50 (refurb, shipping, labor) times 30 million units sold = $1.5 billion.

Microsoft has over $29 billion in cash on hand and it's Office and Windows products generate about $1 billion / month.

So, the loss you keep touting amounts to 1.5 months of software sales and those aren't their only products.

That is every 360 sold to date mind you and they now say they have the problem fixed.

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/309852_software02.html

It is still typical M$, cant make it by innovation so just throw lots of money at the competition.Remember the old "competetive upgrades. Too bad they were no broken up. However there is still Linux. Mac also is cutting into them due to the bad job they did on Vista.

Also with all the billions they have spent you would think they would have gotten farther. only 25% or so after all the billions is pretty bad. Besides it's really only a pc. not much innovative about that,at least as a console.

also the link is bad

The page you have requested was not found. The link is either incorrect or the page no longer exists. If you believe there is a problem, please send a message to newmedia@seattlepi.com.

 

A Washington News article.. could be a bit biased..

[JamesD]

The PS3 was a little better off here but still trails.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090321/x...playstation.htm

 

And just so you know why Microsoft isn't bailing on the game market:

In spite of tougher economic times, the overall industry sales of hardware, software and accessories made $1.47 billion for the month, a 10 percent increase over February 2008.

A market worth about $1.5 billion / month. Even if they own 1/3 that is half of Windows + office sales.

Do you really think that 2nd controller costs them $50 to make? The accessories and games make a killing.

[atarian63]

A little math for you.

If Microsoft has to replace every 360 at least once at a cost of $50 (refurb, shipping, labor) times 30 million units sold = $1.5 billion.

Microsoft has over $29 billion in cash on hand and it's Office and Windows products generate about $1 billion / month.

So, the loss you keep touting amounts to 1.5 months of software sales and those aren't their only products.

That is every 360 sold to date mind you and they now say they have the problem fixed.

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/309852_software02.html

Here is a snippet from a recent article

 

Microsoft has a hole mile deep dug in the middle of Microsoft’s Campus to bury the billion dollars of broken Xbox 360’s they’ve got. The Xbox business is not a profitable business for them. It’s only become incrementally profitable for them after many years, and billions invested. To give you some perspective the Xbox 360, which is the second most popular console in the U.S; All Xbox revenues combined; create less revenue than World of Warcraft subscriptions. The entire 360 software business is minuscule compared to one PC game.

 

http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/09/27/sony-an...3-and-xbox-360/

[moycon]

It is still typical M$, cant make it by innovation so just throw lots of money at the competition.

 

I don't know about the article JamesD was trying to post, but I certainly do see bias in these last few posts.

[atarian63]

It is still typical M$, cant make it by innovation so just throw lots of money at the competition.

 

I don't know about the article JamesD was trying to post, but I certainly do see bias in these last few posts.

That I will admit. to be fair, it has some great games but it's a tough business and each cycle seems to bring surprises. Who would have guessed 2 years or so ago how things would have turned out today.

Edited April 2, 2009 by atarian63

[JamesD]

A little math for you.

If Microsoft has to replace every 360 at least once at a cost of $50 (refurb, shipping, labor) times 30 million units sold = $1.5 billion.

Microsoft has over $29 billion in cash on hand and it's Office and Windows products generate about $1 billion / month.

So, the loss you keep touting amounts to 1.5 months of software sales and those aren't their only products.

That is every 360 sold to date mind you and they now say they have the problem fixed.

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/309852_software02.html

It is still typical M$, cant make it by innovation so just throw lots of money at the competition.Remember the old "competetive upgrades. Too bad they were no broken up. However there is still Linux. Mac also is cutting into them due to the bad job they did on Vista.

Also with all the billions they have spent you would think they would have gotten farther. only 25% or so after all the billions is pretty bad. Besides it's really only a pc. not much innovative about that,at least as a console.

also the link is bad

The page you have requested was not found. The link is either incorrect or the page no longer exists. If you believe there is a problem, please send a message to newmedia@seattlepi.com.

 

A Washington News article.. could be a bit biased..

Oh please... and you aren't biased at all are you. BTW, the link worked fine for me. It just talked about M$ and their cash reserves being at $29 billion anyway and stated how much Office and Windows sales were worth per month.

The rest was just me doing the math.

 

Microsoft owned NONE of the game market a decade ago and now they are in 2nd place in consoles for the current generation and 1st in software sales. Exactly how bad are they doing again? They have probably spent around $3 - $5 billion. Even with 25% of total profits from about $1.5 billion / month that isn't a bad return on the investment.

 

FWIW, I am using a laptop with Vista right now and have never had a problem. My DVR PC is another matter though... grrrrrrr.

 

As for your innovation comment... they made a game machine that could benefit from existing development tools and game engines where their competitors require custom ones. And which console now has the most titles for it by far? Wouldn't that be considered innovation?

 

Take off the PS3 colored glasses. The PS2 popularity has helped the PS3 sales based on image alone and it's falling behind in spite of that.

Don't kid yourself, SONY isn't going away and they have a profitable share of the market as well. But can you say it's doing better than a couple years ago?

Monthly sales... probably better. But from a big picture market position standpoint I still say it's worse off now and leaves SONY with plenty of questions for it's next generation. What I said was accurate.

 

Frankly, I wish someone else would enter the market. M$ and SONY both piss me off and I've never been a Nintendo fan.

[moycon]

Frankly, I wish someone else would enter the market. M$ and SONY both piss me off and I've never been a Nintendo fan.

 

Here's hoping Mattel finally releases the GigaIntellevision.

[JamesD]

Here is a snippet from a recent article

 

Microsoft has a hole mile deep dug in the middle of Microsoft’s Campus to bury the billion dollars of broken Xbox 360’s they’ve got. The Xbox business is not a profitable business for them. It’s only become incrementally profitable for them after many years, and billions invested. To give you some perspective the Xbox 360, which is the second most popular console in the U.S; All Xbox revenues combined; create less revenue than World of Warcraft subscriptions. The entire 360 software business is minuscule compared to one PC game.

 

http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/09/27/sony-an...3-and-xbox-360/

 

First of all... you mean a snippet from a BLOG.

Not exactly a source that does fact checking. Pure opinion.

I showed you the math, figure it out.

 

Less revenue that WOW subscriptions? Total BS!!!!!!!

http://www.playfuls.com/news_12158_The_pro...ubscribers.html

$150 million / month vs a market of over $1.5 billion / month. Even 25% of that is $375 million.

The dude is talking out his you know what.

[JamesD]

Frankly, I wish someone else would enter the market. M$ and SONY both piss me off and I've never been a Nintendo fan.

 

Here's hoping Mattel finally releases the GigaIntellevision.

LMAO

[monzamess]

Frankly, I wish someone else would enter the market. M$ and SONY both piss me off and I've never been a Nintendo fan.

 

Here's hoping Mattel finally releases the GigaIntellevision.

 

 

Nah, a resurrected Atari will come out with a 256-bit* system, release it with mediocre-at-best games, never market it very well, and 10 years later no one will know it existed.

 

As someone who is now a casual gamer, with kids, I appreciate Nintendo more. The N64 and GBA are still great for kids, and Wii is good, especially with GC backward compatibility (hey at least one company got that right).

[Atarifever]

Please people stop saying the Japanese will not accept a non-Japanese console. That makes no sense. The Japanese buy iPods, and Windows, and Coke, and embraced baseball, and pop music, etc. They often love to consume American and Americanized products. They will buy an American made console, provided it is any good. By any good, I mean it offers the type of library they enjoy. Microsoft has sold more 360s there than Xbox 1, and it is more than a coincidence that they have offered more arcade type games and RPGs this generation. If they managed to get the formula right, they would sell a lot of systems in Japan. It's that simple.

 

We didn't buy many TG16s over here. But the TG16 had a ton of shoot em ups and arcade games. That wasn't what the average NA gamer wanted. It wasn't that we refused to buy a Japanese console. It was that we refused to buy a product offering us little of what most of us wanted.

[Atarifever]

Don't kid yourself, SONY isn't going away and they have a profitable share of the market as well.

Wrong on both counts. The Playstation division is losing money overall (has been since 2006), and Sony is in terrible economic shape all around. They just had their first year long loss in 14 years. It looks like Ericson may pull out of their partnership in cellphones, leaving them with that money losing beast. They haven't got first place in any market anymore at all. Samsung beats them in TVs, Dell destroys them in laptops, Apple kills them in portable music, Microsoft and Nintendo are beating them in consoles. They have no fall back position. Every financial statement is worse than the one before.

 

I a not saying Sony, the company, is going anywhere. But with mounting losses in most every division, the need to raise real cash, and the need to aim the company squarely back into the future, I wouldn't be too surprised to see them sell the Playstation division. 3rd place is one of their worst showings in any market, and it's an awful slow climb back up when Nintendo and Microsoft are your competition. It might be better to use the money to try to take the rest of the home electronics market. Every console owner needs a TV.

[Crazy Climber]

I don't follow this stuff very closly but I am wondering...are the PS3 and 360 really doing that bad compared to the last few generations of systems (original xbox, ps2, gamecube, etc..) at this point in there lifespan? I know the Wii is doing very very well but it attracts a different crowd. Hell, my parents, my uncle, my boss all own Wii's but these are people that would have never bought a video game system so I don't think they were taking any buisiness away from the PS3 and 360. I guess my question is, if the Wii did not exsist are the sales numbers still really bad for the other two guys?

[atarian63]

A little math for you.

If Microsoft has to replace every 360 at least once at a cost of $50 (refurb, shipping, labor) times 30 million units sold = $1.5 billion.

Microsoft has over $29 billion in cash on hand and it's Office and Windows products generate about $1 billion / month.

So, the loss you keep touting amounts to 1.5 months of software sales and those aren't their only products.

That is every 360 sold to date mind you and they now say they have the problem fixed.

 

http://www.seattlepi.com/business/309852_software02.html

It is still typical M$, cant make it by innovation so just throw lots of money at the competition.Remember the old "competetive upgrades. Too bad they were no broken up. However there is still Linux. Mac also is cutting into them due to the bad job they did on Vista.

Also with all the billions they have spent you would think they would have gotten farther. only 25% or so after all the billions is pretty bad. Besides it's really only a pc. not much innovative about that,at least as a console.

also the link is bad

The page you have requested was not found. The link is either incorrect or the page no longer exists. If you believe there is a problem, please send a message to newmedia@seattlepi.com.

 

A Washington News article.. could be a bit biased..

Oh please... and you aren't biased at all are you. BTW, the link worked fine for me. It just talked about M$ and their cash reserves being at $29 billion anyway and stated how much Office and Windows sales were worth per month.

The rest was just me doing the math.

 

Microsoft owned NONE of the game market a decade ago and now they are in 2nd place in consoles for the current generation and 1st in software sales. Exactly how bad are they doing again? They have probably spent around $3 - $5 billion. Even with 25% of total profits from about $1.5 billion / month that isn't a bad return on the investment.

 

FWIW, I am using a laptop with Vista right now and have never had a problem. My DVR PC is another matter though... grrrrrrr.

 

As for your innovation comment... they made a game machine that could benefit from existing development tools and game engines where their competitors require custom ones. And which console now has the most titles for it by far? Wouldn't that be considered innovation?

 

Take off the PS3 colored glasses. The PS2 popularity has helped the PS3 sales based on image alone and it's falling behind in spite of that.

Don't kid yourself, SONY isn't going away and they have a profitable share of the market as well. But can you say it's doing better than a couple years ago?

Monthly sales... probably better. But from a big picture market position standpoint I still say it's worse off now and leaves SONY with plenty of questions for it's next generation. What I said was accurate.

 

Frankly, I wish someone else would enter the market. M$ and SONY both piss me off and I've never been a Nintendo fan.

Billions and years wasted on just a 25-30% market share and still barely or not profitable seems like the "GM" business model. If xbox was a stand alone company they would be asking for a bailout Just shows you cant buy the market no matter how deep your pockets are.

Also Vista sell LOTS of Macs. Not to mention if Vista was so great why does Best Buy and others offer a Downgrade available when you buy a new pc. The service dept at my local says they are doing a large percentage of new systems with XP. Doensnt bode well for Microshaft.

As for PS3. I have one. It's my bluray player. I own no games for it. The Wii is my primary current gen console.

[JamesD]

Billions and years wasted on just a 25-30% market share and still barely or not profitable seems like the "GM" business model. If xbox was a stand alone company they would be asking for a bailout Just shows you cant buy the market no matter how deep your pockets are.

Also Vista sell LOTS of Macs. Not to mention if Vista was so great why does Best Buy and others offer a Downgrade available when you buy a new pc. The service dept at my local says they are doing a large percentage of new systems with XP. Doensnt bode well for Microshaft.

As for PS3. I have one. It's my bluray player. I own no games for it. The Wii is my primary current gen console.

I think I'm listening to a broken record and a poorly informed one at that.

 

Doesn't bode well for M$ as they rake in $1.5 BILLION dollars a month anyway?

The downgrade is more because initial hardware support sucked and then the "VISTA SUCKS" stuff started scaring people away.

VISA and old hardware with no drivers is a real problem but it works well on new systems. Not saying it wasn't a total blunder.

Macs are an even smaller part of the market than the 360 is in the games market.

http://techspotlight.today.com/2009/01/02/...-share-roundup/

 

Not profitable? All the not profitable articles I'm finding are from 2006-2007.

The 360 became profitable over a year ago.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/the-xbox-turns-a-profit/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/xbox-go...wn-up-business/

 

And SONY has been in video games for how many generations and owns LESS of he market than M$.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/playsta...ll-way-more-pr/

 

The 360 was released in Nov 2005 and became profitable around the end of 2007.

That's only a couple years and if you believe SONY the life of this generation is 10 years.

Since M$ has a completely integrated CPU+graphics chip still scheduled on it's time line I'd have to say they will be around to make money for a few more years.

[JamesD]

Billions and years wasted on just a 25-30% market share and still barely or not profitable seems like the "GM" business model. If xbox was a stand alone company they would be asking for a bailout Just shows you cant buy the market no matter how deep your pockets are.

Also Vista sell LOTS of Macs. Not to mention if Vista was so great why does Best Buy and others offer a Downgrade available when you buy a new pc. The service dept at my local says they are doing a large percentage of new systems with XP. Doensnt bode well for Microshaft.

As for PS3. I have one. It's my bluray player. I own no games for it. The Wii is my primary current gen console.

I think I'm listening to a broken record and a poorly informed one at that.

 

Doesn't bode well for M$ as they rake in $1.5 BILLION dollars a month anyway?

The downgrade is more because initial hardware support sucked and then the "VISTA SUCKS" stuff started scaring people away.

VISA and old hardware with no drivers is a real problem but it works well on new systems. Not saying it wasn't a total blunder.

Macs are an even smaller part of the market than the 360 is in the games market.

http://techspotlight.today.com/2009/01/02/...-share-roundup/

 

Not profitable? All the not profitable articles I'm finding are from 2006-2007.

The 360 became profitable over a year ago.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/the-xbox-turns-a-profit/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/xbox-go...wn-up-business/

 

And SONY has been in video games for how many generations and owns LESS of he market than M$.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/playsta...ll-way-more-pr/

 

The 360 was released in Nov 2005 and became profitable around the end of 2007.

That's only a couple years and if you believe SONY the life of this generation is 10 years.

Since M$ has a completely integrated CPU+graphics chip still scheduled on it's time line I'd have to say they will be around to make money for a few more years.

[JamesD]

Billions and years wasted on just a 25-30% market share and still barely or not profitable seems like the "GM" business model. If xbox was a stand alone company they would be asking for a bailout Just shows you cant buy the market no matter how deep your pockets are.

Also Vista sell LOTS of Macs. Not to mention if Vista was so great why does Best Buy and others offer a Downgrade available when you buy a new pc. The service dept at my local says they are doing a large percentage of new systems with XP. Doensnt bode well for Microshaft.

As for PS3. I have one. It's my bluray player. I own no games for it. The Wii is my primary current gen console.

I think I'm listening to a broken record and a poorly informed one at that.

 

Doesn't bode well for M$ as they rake in $1.5 BILLION dollars a month anyway?

The downgrade is more because initial hardware support sucked and then the "VISTA SUCKS" stuff started scaring people away.

VISA and old hardware with no drivers is a real problem but it works well on new systems. Not saying it wasn't a total blunder.

Macs are an even smaller part of the market than the 360 is in the games market.

http://techspotlight.today.com/2009/01/02/...-share-roundup/

 

Not profitable? All the not profitable articles I'm finding are from 2006-2007.

The 360 became profitable over a year ago.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/the-xbox-turns-a-profit/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/xbox-go...wn-up-business/

 

And SONY has been in video games for how many generations and owns LESS of he market than M$.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/playsta...ll-way-more-pr/

 

The 360 was released in Nov 2005 and became profitable around the end of 2007.

That's only a couple years and if you believe SONY the life of this generation is 10 years.

Since M$ has a completely integrated CPU+graphics chip still scheduled on it's time line I'd have to say they will be around to make money for a few more years.

[JamesD]

Billions and years wasted on just a 25-30% market share and still barely or not profitable seems like the "GM" business model. If xbox was a stand alone company they would be asking for a bailout Just shows you cant buy the market no matter how deep your pockets are.

Also Vista sell LOTS of Macs. Not to mention if Vista was so great why does Best Buy and others offer a Downgrade available when you buy a new pc. The service dept at my local says they are doing a large percentage of new systems with XP. Doensnt bode well for Microshaft.

As for PS3. I have one. It's my bluray player. I own no games for it. The Wii is my primary current gen console.

I think I'm listening to a broken record and a poorly informed one at that.

 

Doesn't bode well for M$ as they rake in $1.5 BILLION dollars a month anyway?

The downgrade is more because initial hardware support sucked and then the "VISTA SUCKS" stuff started scaring people away.

VISA and old hardware with no drivers is a real problem but it works well on new systems. Not saying it wasn't a total blunder.

Macs are an even smaller part of the market than the 360 is in the games market.

http://techspotlight.today.com/2009/01/02/...-share-roundup/

 

Not profitable? All the not profitable articles I'm finding are from 2006-2007.

The 360 became profitable over a year ago.

http://www.joystiq.com/2008/01/24/the-xbox-turns-a-profit/

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/24/xbox-go...wn-up-business/

 

And SONY has been in video games for how many generations and owns LESS of he market than M$.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/26/playsta...ll-way-more-pr/

 

The 360 was released in Nov 2005 and became profitable around the end of 2007.

That's only a couple years and if you believe SONY the life of this generation is 10 years.

Since M$ has a completely integrated CPU+graphics chip still scheduled on it's time line I'd have to say they will be around to make money for a few more years.

[Atarifever]

Quadruple post. Who's a broken record now?

[JamesD]

Quadruple post. Who's a broken record now?

WiFi connection issues... but at least I'm right.