Arstechnica: Don’t read too much into the PS4’s million day-one sales

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kyser73

Member
Sleeplessnights said:
One of the Ars staff is not happy with the opinions we're posing on their opinion article

IKEN4j4.png
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Byakuya769 said:
Guffaw.

Umm, I misspelled fellate not the ars guy. I assumed who I was responding to was trying to bag on me cause he likes reading stupid articles or is a guilty party.
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Ars guy did it too ;)
 
N

NoirVisage

Banned
DeBurgo said:
okay. if you want to go through the tweet history of every game journalist and game dev person that is addressing someone in the public in an offensive or off-color manner, regardless of context, then be my guest. go out and bring justice to those unprofessional people. get them fired from their jobs.

however, I somehow don't think that's what this is about.
sooo... have you ever worked with somebody that was fired for something they said on twitter? If so, what did they say?
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we're talking about a comment a journo made today as in the present, what are you even talking about "checking history" keep up.
 
P

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Sleeplessnights said:
One of the Ars staff is not happy with the opinions we're posing on their opinion article

IKEN4j4.png
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Bad thing about this too is the guy seems to be a little more up in the food chain if you look at his position within the company as the Creative Director.

Aurich Lawson is the Creative Director for Ars Technica, where he oversees the look and feel of the site as well as the day-to-day story graphic needs. He has over 17 years of experience in the interactive field, from Fortune 500 consulting to video game marketing to running his own design company. Aurich grew up in San Francisco, the son of painter George Lawson, where he developed a passion for the arts and visual design. Now these days, nights, and weekends he can be found holed up in his Southern California studio, glued to Photoshop, trying to remember to blink. When the eventual urge to do something that doesn't involves pixels strikes he can be found in his garage, building things like an arcade cabinet or tinkering with his car.
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http://arstechnica.com/author/aurich-lawson/

And links to the Conde Nast twitter and Ars Technica one, for those who are weak in Google-fu.

Get those images saved and tweet back at the "hand that feeds".

https://twitter.com/CondeNast

https://twitter.com/arstechnica
 
D

danwarb

Member
SolidSnakex said:
I'm not sure if i'm reading your comment correctly, but the PS2 probably had the best first year lineup of any console. From October 2000-2001 games like Onimusha, GT3, GTA3, Silent Hill 2, Klonoa 2, ICO, DMC, TM Black etc. were all released exclusively for it. And by the end of 01 there was MGS2, FFX and J&D. The first few months for the console were definitely rough, but once it gained its footing it never let up.

There's a lot of misinformation about the early period of the PS2. From the idea that power didn't matter to it having a poor first year. Even it's launch was pretty damn solid (RRV, Tekken Tag, Timesplitters and SSX), but even that for some reason is often remembered as being crappy.
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A lot of early multiplatform games ran at a higher resolution on Dreamcast, sometimes double, at 480p. The DC had more VRAM and better texture compression, so games looking sharper on DC early had people worried.
 
A

AyaisMUsikWhore

Member
Nerokis said:
It's certainly a flawed article, but my god, the overreaction to it in this thread is far worse. The main flaw is in the assumption that consoles will inevitably sale out on launch day, but otherwise, it is more or less fine for what it is. The PS4 sales could be the result of a number of things, and considering both that and past trends (which the author highlights in the article), it is indeed possible to misread their significance.

When I read the article, I imagine this train of thought: "Impressive number, but it begs for context. Hmm, looking over past sales trends, it seems launch sales tend to be quite good, but otherwise a poor indicator of future success; and with that in mind, I suppose it was always likely the PS4 was going to have a great day 1, and it's very possible the things that resulted in such record breaking sales won't always translate into similar expressions of demand in the future. This will be an informative article."

Clearly I'm missing something, since I don't sense nefarious intent or conspiracy in every article that doesn't express overwhelming jubilance at every piece of positive PS4 news.
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How about this...

Sony did very well for its launch day. What is so hard in saying that. Why downplay the success of something by comparing it to other consoles in a negative light? No one is saying the PS4 is winning, and the XBox is dead. That wasn't even a discussion, but bringing this up as if this is the overall picture for the future is ridiculous. Where was articles like this when the 360 was deemed the best despite the PS3 not even released yet or even priced? Or what about the Wii? Like it's unnecessary and uncalled for. Sony finally... Like FINALLY has everything right for once. Just give it to them. It doesn't have to be praise, you can compare it to other launches as well but just hand it to them. They came from the grave and the shameful ps3 launch to now making history in the NA.. A market they would have never if we were to guess this back in 08. Just give it to them. It's not that hard... It really isn't.
 
V

vcc

Member
Fun Factor said:
BULL & SHIT!

Dreamcast was cheaper & had a vastly superior library of games around the PS2 1st year & still got destroyed.

Brand loyalty matters.

It mattered for PS2 transitioning from PSX, it mattered for all Nintendo systems transitioning from post SNES.
Xbox 360 success will matter for XBOne.
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If you take a look at it, they destroyed themselves though extremely bad business practices. It wasn't a matter o brand loyalty. Sega essentially could not succeed with the dreamcast no matter how well it sold and it did sell well initially. What help it back wasn't consumer interest but pissing of retailers.

They were taking a bath on each unit. They insisted retailers take a part of that bath with them. Then it became apparent that DC disks were easily pirated and their retail support collapsed. It didn't matter if they sold 1m units; they would have had to fold it after retailers pulled out and the income from licencing dried up.

Just look at the examples you alluded to. SNES gave way to PSX. PS2 gave way to 360/wii. Brand loyalty didn't stop the transition although it likely prevented a landslide crushing of the incumbent.
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
Journalism is dead and social media killed it. Could you imagine Walter Cronkite or Peter Jennings openly mocking their audience with constant antagonizing remarks? Shit is getting ridiculous.
 
C

ClearData

Member
I not sure why the writer seems to think people were declaring Sony the winner of the generation and he had to "disprove" that notion. Most of the conversation I saw was related to how Sony did in the context of a time when console gaming was seen as "dying," and having the best launch of all time.

I don't see anyone trying to convince the general public not to get too excited about the millions of iPhones that Apple sells at every launch.
 
P

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
danwarb said:
He probably is getting all kinds of a abuse and threats though, such is the interweb.
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Act like a dick and its the nature of the beast really.

Look at Shuhei Yoshida, that guy is one of the top totem dudes for Sony and you dont see him freaking the fuck out with Twitter regardless of the kind of stupid thats thrown at him on both Twitter and from reading what folks have to say about Sony / PS4 in general.

It all comes down to attitude and obviously those two from Ars have a shit one.
 
S

Shosai

Banned
zomgbbqftw said:
It's still sold out, demand was higher than supply, even with the 1m shipped. for launch day. There is an unprecedented level of demand.
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Every console sells out at launch. Had the PS3 launched with 1 million units at the ready instead of 300k, it would've sold out just as well.
 
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NoirVisage

Banned
Byakuya769 said:
Guffaw.

Umm, I misspelled fellate not the ars guy. I assumed who I was responding to was trying to bag on me cause he likes reading stupid articles or is a guilty party.
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ha ha, i already edited to show my ignorance a long time ago dude, how long have you been writing your reply? :D
 
V

vcc

Member
Shosai said:
Every console sells out at launch. Had the PS3 launched with 1 million units at the ready instead of 300k, it would've sold out just as well.
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PS3 didn't sell out at N.A. launch. It shipped more than 300,000 and sold through 197,000. Had they launched at 1m units, they would have faced Nintendos dilemma with the Wii U and warehouses of depreciating consoles.
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
Xenon said:
Well the comparisons most certainly are.
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It is their job to report facts and to present things in an objective light while remaining a professional. Period. It's the least they can do since it's what they were hired to do. All of these opinionated fluff pieces are just works of pure biased ego. Not informative or entertaining. And the people that have been writing this shit know we're right because when they're called out on it their natural inclination is to strike back out of frustration.
 
N

NoirVisage

Banned
DeBurgo said:
you worked with adam orth? interesting. so that means you would know he was fired for his comments on twitter, what a scoop.
okay then tweets today. I'm sure you can find them, there are a lot of game journalists and game developers out there.

get to it.
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Are you pretending to be daft or just so intent on white knighting these writers that common sense continues to elude you to this very day?
 
T

test_account

XP-39C²
Its true whats written in the article, but to me it reads more like downplaying the initial success of the PS4. I'm not sure if that is the intention though, but i kinda read it like that.
 
K

Kleegamefan

K. LEE GAIDEN
Microsoft will easily sell more Xbox Ones the first 24 hours than Sony sold PS4s the first 24hrs


Expect a lot of "the usual suspects" to focus on this as further proof Sony has been outclassed by MS :lol
 
Xenon

Xenon

Member
ThisWreckage said:
It is their job to report facts and to present things in an objective light while remaining a professional. Period. It's the least they can do since it's what they were hired to do. All of these opinionated fluff pieces are just works of pure biased ego. Not informative or entertaining. And the people that have been writing this shit know we're right because when they're called out on it their natural inclination is to strike back out of frustration.
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No his job is to write interesting articles to get people to click on the website. I think what you're describing is a news anchor.
 
Teletraan1

Teletraan1

Banned
DeBurgo said:
sooo... have you ever worked with somebody that was fired for something they said on twitter? If so, what did they say?
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I have known people who said off color things about the company I worked for on a message board and were terminated for it. (they were incredibly dumb and their identity was evident, kinda like twitter) I remember a colleague that was fired for comments made on an internal chat client that was being monitored. I have also known many people who used inappropriate language in front of clients/customers and were let go. In a lot of these cases they were overall good people, who were good at their jobs who did something stupid and lost their jobs. Hopefully they learned from their mistakes. I doubt Adam Orth mouths off on twitter like he used to. How many Adam Orths is it going to take before people stop treating Twitter like it is a private message.

I left that industry before Twitter was even a thing so I can imagine at least in the case of the message board firing that it probably would have taken place on twitter in today's climate. They can fire you with a simple "Not a good fit." and pay out your severance and most of the time you dont have a leg to stand on.
 
T

ThisWreckage

Banned
Xenon said:
No his job is to write interesting articles to get people to click on the website. I think what you're describing is the news anchor.
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You're confusing the two jobs. They're both journalists and are bound by the same etiquette and level of professionalism. One of the biggest issues in journalism now is the movement of writing vacuous articles designed to get clicks. As I said earlier, social media and the Internet is killing the profession.
 
R

RyuHei

Member
Kleegamefan said:
Microsoft will easily sell more Xbox Ones the first 24 hours than Sony sold PS4s the first 24hrs


Expect a lot of "the usual suspects" to focus on this as further proof Sony has been outclassed by MS :lol
Click to expand...


Imagine the craziness of GAF/News sites if the Xbox one sells less on launch day worldwide to PS4 NA launch.
 
T

travisbickle

Member
"Don't read too much onto this" says the guy who writes a 1500 word article that includes extrapolating non-existent sales from previous consoles.
 
C

CosmicGroinPull

Member
I don't see anyone proclaiming Sony's victory for the next 5-7 years?


But oh, it's "Arstechnica". I thought it was "From the desk of Microsoft PR".


Edit: WOW. Those tweets from them.... are they really posted by grown, working men? *shakes head*
 
S

Shosai

Banned
vcc said:
PS3 didn't sell out at N.A. launch. It shipped more than 300,000 and sold through 197,000. Had they launched at 1m units, they would have faced Nintendos dilemma with the Wii U and warehouses of depreciating consoles.
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The 197,000 number is the total number of PS3's shipped to the US, not the entire North American continent. They originally planned for 1,000,000 to ship at launch for NA, then revised it down to 400k, then announced that launch day shipments would be 40% below that.

http://www.joystiq.com/2006/12/08/sony-only-shipped-197-000-units-to-us/

Still, the PS3 definitely sold out at launch. As I recall, eBay prices for the console in December were in the thousands.
 
PSYGN

PSYGN

Member
AyaisMUsikWhore said:
How about this...

Sony did very well for its launch day. What is so hard in saying that. Why downplay the success of something by comparing it to other consoles in a negative light? No one is saying the PS4 is winning, and the XBox is dead. That wasn't even a discussion, but bringing this up as if this is the overall picture for the future is ridiculous. Where was articles like this when the 360 was deemed the best despite the PS3 not even released yet or even priced? Or what about the Wii? Like it's unnecessary and uncalled for. Sony finally... Like FINALLY has everything right for once. Just give it to them. It doesn't have to be praise, you can compare it to other launches as well but just hand it to them. They came from the grave and the shameful ps3 launch to now making history in the NA.. A market they would have never if we were to guess this back in 08. Just give it to them. It's not that hard... It really isn't.
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Maybe because every other news outlet is saying that and they wanted to run it through a different light? A light that causes the likes of you (maybe not you specifically) to go bonkers and give them more views?

Really, an unsettling number of you guys are overreacting to this article. It's pretty sad.
 
V

vcc

Member
Kleegamefan said:
Microsoft will easily sell more Xbox Ones the first 24 hours than Sony sold PS4s the first 24hrs


Expect a lot of "the usual suspects" to focus on this as further proof Sony has been outclassed by MS :lol
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Considering almost every retail source I've had or heard of pegs the distribution at 3 ps4s :1 xb1 or worse I find it unlikely they will ship that many units let alone sell through that many. I think Sony has been producing PS4's for longer than MS has been producing XB1's and had a big upfront shipment, they simply won't have enough no matter what the demand is.
 
P

PsychoSoldier

Banned
The conclusion that the proverbial race isn't over is a valid one, but it's like a response to something that very few people have even vocalized---very few considered the million sold to be an indisputable proof that Sony will "win" in the long run, just that it was a very successful start, and a possible indicator of future success.

That's why the article feels strange to me---it's like an athlete has a great first half of a game and someone blurts out "But that doesn't mean they'll win the whole series" when few have even made that assertion---mildly reeking of either bitterness or an attempt to rabble-rouse.
 
N

NoirVisage

Banned
PsychoSoldier said:
The conclusion that the proverbial race isn't over is a valid one, but it's like a response to something that very few people have even vocalized---very few considered the million sold to be an indisputable proof that Sony will "win" in the long run, just that it was a very successful start, and a possible indicator of future success.

That's why the article feels strange to me---it's like an athlete has a great first half of a game and someone blurts out "But that doesn't mean they'll win the whole series" when few have even made that assertion---mildly reeking of either bitterness or an attempt to rabble-rouse.
Click to expand...

That's it folks, its either one or the other, and that's why the article is horrible.
 
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