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[LordOcidax]

Base on November sales my prediction for December.

PS5 - 1.3M
NSW - 950K
XBS - 490K

Here’s mine

Switch 1.45M
PS5 1.4M
Xbox 700K

December 2023 results
PS5 1.4M
NSW 1.3M
XBS 1M

 

[Astray]

The GP price increase happened almost half a year ago, so citing the price increase as a big reason for the growth *now* doesn't make sense

The growth is being measured YOY (meaning Nov 2024 vs Nov 2023).

Until you reach the year mark since that price increase came into effect, you will not be comparing apples to apples.

The really big test is not gonna be this figure anyways, it's gonna be how Microsoft Gaming revenue does in its 1st quarterly report where ABK is part of the running baseline.

 

[SneakersSO]

Ok, but again, to look at some points you and other posters brought up before.

The GP price increase happened almost half a year ago, so citing the price increase as a big reason for the growth *now* doesn't make sense, if it's having growth at this point after half a year with the release of big new game, then it's pretty easy to connect the dots that it seems to have had a notable impact on GP subs, and not just because of the price increase that happened in the summer. Now, whether those are returning folks, people who only sub for 1~3 months etc, that's a different topic and subscriber churn is kinda expected in services like this.

Mat said the sector grew now, and he's not comparing Month-to Month growth - he's comparing YoY. So it increased by 8% from last year. Since last year, GP has gone up in price over 15%. The revenue in this sector went up over 8% total for everyone involved. Its not saying 'it had growth now relative to 6 months ago', its saying 'it grew 8% compared to November of 2023'. Every month since what, June/July, when the restructuring went down, should be up considering one of the big players in that sector had a premium price increase of over 15%.

Its all semantics though - Mat simply put out a tweet, he's not giving a breakdown of this market sector or GamePass. You find it impressive. I find it very much not so considering its both the biggest release of the year and had 15% more premium revenue to account for it. From what I know, they (MS) isn't pleased with how it did all things considered.

 

[Synastry]

Here’s mine

Switch 1.45M
PS5 1.4M
Xbox 700K

December 2023 results
PS5 1.4M
NSW 1.3M
XBS 1M

Not sure if its against the rules but would you like to have a friendly avatar bet?

If your numbers are closer I'll use whatever avatar you want as long as its within the TOS of the forum.

Same if my numbers are closer.

 

[LordOcidax]

Not sure if its against the rules but would you like to have a friendly avatar bet?

If your numbers are closer I'll use whatever avatar you want as long as its within the TOS of the forum.

Same if my numbers are closer.

I think is better to create a prediction thread. Should be fun

 

[onQ123]

They are not "full of shit". Switch declined 3% in revenue, but it increased in unit sales due to discounts.

PS5 sold more unit sales, so that surely dominates no?

Trust you on what?

I know this but That's a pretty big increase in units sold vs a small decrease in revenue. Switch wasn't sold at a discount at all the stores/ online retailers. Throughout November so it's not as simple as dividing the revenue by Switch's discount price.

 

[havoc00]

No, you need to pivot towards Nintendo vs Sony posts in here.

Didn't you get the memo?

These sales threads be like,

 

[LordOcidax]

I know this but That's a pretty big increase in units sold vs a small decrease in revenue. Switch wasn't sold at a discount at all the stores/ online retailers. Throughout November so it's not as simple as dividing the revenue by Switch's discount price.

What numbers you have according to your calculations?

 

[onQ123]

Ok, but again, to look at some points you and other posters brought up before.

The GP price increase happened almost half a year ago, so citing the price increase as a big reason for the growth *now* doesn't make sense, if it's having growth at this point after half a year with the release of big new game, then it's pretty easy to connect the dots that it seems to have had a notable impact on GP subs, and not just because of the price increase that happened in the summer. Now, whether those are returning folks, people who only sub for 1~3 months etc, that's a different topic and subscriber churn is kinda expected in services like this.

You might need to take a break lol

 

[ShaiKhulud1989]

Mat said the sector grew now, and he's not comparing Month-to Month growth - he's comparing YoY. So it increased by 8% from last year. Since last year, GP has gone up in price over 15%. The revenue in this sector went up over 8% total for everyone involved. Its not saying 'it had growth now relative to 6 months ago', its saying 'it grew 8% compared to November of 2023'. Every month since what, June/July, when the restructuring went down, should be up considering one of the big players in that sector had a premium price increase of over 15%.

Its all semantics though - Mat simply put out a tweet, he's not giving a breakdown of this market sector or GamePass. You find it impressive. I find it very much not so considering its both the biggest release of the year and had 15% more premium revenue to account for it. From what I know, they (MS) isn't pleased with how it did all things considered.

Plus every new NSW/PS5 customer is to some degreee a PS+/NO sub too. I find it amusing that people attribute more or less flat 8% growth to GP.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Switch passing PS2 in lifetime sales, Nintendo haters in shambles

Monster Hunter Wilds charting despite being just a single weekend limited open beta is fucking wild lol

 

[Mr Moose]

Ok, but again, to look at some points you and other posters brought up before.

The GP price increase happened almost half a year ago, so citing the price increase as a big reason for the growth *now* doesn't make sense, if it's having growth at this point after half a year with the release of big new game, then it's pretty easy to connect the dots that it seems to have had a notable impact on GP subs, and not just because of the price increase that happened in the summer. Now, whether those are returning folks, people who only sub for 1~3 months etc, that's a different topic and subscriber churn is kinda expected in services like this.

You understand how YoY works, I assume?

Non-mobile video game subscription spending grew 8% when compared to a year ago.

 

[onQ123]

What numbers you have according to your calculations?

I don't have enough information to make an accurate calculation

 

[Heisenberg007]

Ok, but again, to look at some points you and other posters brought up before.

The GP price increase happened almost half a year ago, so citing the price increase as a big reason for the growth *now* doesn't make sense, if it's having growth at this point after half a year with the release of big new game, then it's pretty easy to connect the dots that it seems to have had a notable impact on GP subs, and not just because of the price increase that happened in the summer. Now, whether those are returning folks, people who only sub for 1~3 months etc, that's a different topic and subscriber churn is kinda expected in services like this.

The 8% is referring to YoY revenue growth, right?

So it's not subscription growth. And we know that GP had a price increase since last November, so the YoY increase in revenue growth would obviously be attributed to that.

And as SneakerSO said, GP is showing 8% YoY revenue growth after a 16% price increase YoY. So if anything, it must have lost subscribers.

And this is after the assumption that only Game Pass, and no other subscription, was responsible for that 8% revenue growth.

 

[SneakersSO]

Plus every new NSW/PS5 customer is to some degreee a PS+/NO sub too. I find it amusing that people attribute more or less flat 8% growth to GP.

Its an absurd notion, especially when taking into account the compounded YoY loss in sales into the Xbox eco system has had in its strongest market. Over 80% of all GP users are console users, and the console sales are cratering. Ofc thats gonna affect them on the GP front. Its handwaving of reality like this that has led Microsoft and Xbox to this position in the first place.

 

[LordOcidax]

I don't have enough information to make an accurate calculation

The one who made those calculations almost every time ends up to be right… For years.

 

[leo-j]

I can see why Indiana jones and others are coming to PS after a couple months on Xbox/pc, going third party is going to help Microsoft bank, hardware is limiting their sales potential. Especially console exclusives. They just don’t sell what Nintendo or PS do.

 

[onQ123]

The one who made those calculations almost every time ends up to be right… For years.

Not saying he is wrong I just want to know the discount this year vs last year.

I know the only thing that save PlayStation from a decrease in revenue was PS5 Pro because of the discounts but I didn't know Switch had such a deep discount this year vs last year.

 

[XXL]

Plus every new NSW/PS5 customer is to some degreee a PS+/NO sub too. I find it amusing that people attribute more or less flat 8% growth to GP.

Exactly.

When Xbox fans started saying "console sales don't matter" I knew there was some delusion going on when it came to Game Pass. Xbox is the primary driver of Game Pass and I honestly don't see it succeeding on PC either.

For example, I bought every Fallout title made, every Betheda game, every Arkane game, Wasteland 3 and countless others that are on Game Pass for between $100-$150 (CDN) on Steam collectively.

A long term sub to Game Pass seems kind of pointless on PC imo.

 

[EN250]

?

Pointing out that it's sold less than PS4 Pro is not spin, it's what's being reported.

I'm gonna be the first to admit I thought the PS5Pro was unnecessary, but considering it costs almost twice as the PS4Pro back when it launched, it's obvious the price barrier alone would not help with sales to a wider audience, so it's doing good considering it's a $700 console

 

[LordOcidax]

I can see why Indiana jones and others are coming to PS after a couple months on Xbox/pc, going third party is going to help Microsoft bank, hardware is limiting their sales potential. Especially console exclusives. They just don’t sell what Nintendo or PS do.

Xbox business model is totally different from Sony/Nintendo and if they end up making a lot of money the industry is going to change. Their next financial report is going to be really important as a whole. But battling at this point i think is not making sense because we don’t have any reference.

 

[dragonyeuw]

Huge L from Microsoft. They're in 3rd while having 3 different sku's on the market. The hubris on microsoft's end is thinking that they can sell their console at the same price at Sony. Their console needs to be $100 cheaper than Sony as their overall brand/value proposition is worse. Essentially, they're pulling an AMD(in the GPU space).

I said this in another thread, the lack of significant price drops for Xbox Series this holiday is laughable. There's the idea that at this point they're so far behind that it doesn't matter....and yes competing in hardware sales with Sony is and has been done for a while.....but even to drive gamepass subs they don't seem to care about promoting the Series S/X as its primary driver, instead throwing it into the lot with whatever else you got lying around that can stream Xbox games. Even the timing of releasing the new digital Xbox Series X was poor because while they've dropped it to $399 for the holidays, last year the Series X was easily found at $349 and that's where it should be now. The Series S should be $199-$249( depending on storage). They simply have no leverage to have the Series X priced anywhere near the PS5 at this point.

 

[PurePlatinum]

The continued sales of the Switch are just incredible.

Xbox hardware continues to plummet. They are clearly going the SEGA route but they can't just rip the band-aid off halfway through a console generation...they have to ease their customer base into it. By this time next year things will be more clear.

 

[AyraSutoraifu]

For people that missed out on the Sega console twilight…
Almost a quarter of a century later, here it is. A console demise.

 

[mayham2199]

Xbox business model is totally different from Sony/Nintendo and if they end up making a lot of money the industry is going to change. Their next financial report is going to be really important as a whole. But battling at this point i think is not making sense because we don’t have any reference.

If they end up making a lot of money? They already gave a forecast for next quarter and it was pretty much everything being flat and hardware down. No one is following MS down this path. Do you honestly believe Sony and Nintendo also want their hardware sales to crater like MS?

 

[AyraSutoraifu]

Xbox business model is totally different from Sony/Nintendo and if they end up making a lot of money the industry is going to change. Their next financial report is going to be really important as a whole. But battling at this point i think is not making sense because we don’t have any reference.

They could saved 80 fucking billion.

 

[mayham2199]

For people that missed out on the Sega console twilight…
Almost a quarter of a century later, here it is. A console demise.

I was there for it. Literally got my first job, saved up over $600 and spent it all on a Dreamcast and games. Really had fun with Skies of Arcadia and PSO at least. It was the first time me and my other two cousins all got the same system and game and we all played together.

 

[adamsapple]

You understand how YoY works, I assume?

Yes, i missed the YoY part.

And as SneakerSO said, GP is showing 8% YoY revenue growth after a 16% price increase YoY. So if anything, it must have lost subscribers.

We don't know how much GP's growth is over last year, the 8% is for all the sub services, which is approx 50m for PS Plus, 20m for Now (but that's a few years old), etc etc

I would not be surprised if the GP sub count, at this moment, is in the high 30's or close to 40 million.

 

[kazuyamishima]

Where PS5 will once again sell more?

For the PS5, I think that goalposts are changing, I saw a lot of people saying on the internet that November would be lower than Nov 23 because the pricing wasn’t aggressive and the sale only consisting for the last 8 days of the month.

Switch numbers seems to be around 600-650k.

But people seems to forget that the price promotions are still running in the US contrary to Dec23 and the system still sold 1.5m units.

 

[Woopah]

Its cited by name purely because nothing else changed in the non-mobile gaming subscriptions sector outside of CoD releasing in November. Nothing else of significance occurred.

Keep in mind, the data isn't more granular then this. You see an increase in revenue in a sector, you look at what market factors may have caused it. In this case, the only major thing that occurred is BO6 released into GamePass. There you go, theres your headline. No one is conducting an exit survey of all users in said space to try and quantify what exactly drove these things.

Maybe I'm missing something, but how would Circana know the total amount spent on PSN, Gamepass and NSO, but not know the breakdown? How else would they calculate the spending in that sector?

It would be like knowing the total number of consoles sold but not knowing how much Xbox sold.

 

[SneakersSO]

Maybe I'm missing something, but how would Circana know the total amount spent on PSN, Gamepass and NSO, but not know the breakdown? How else would they calculate the spending in that sector?

It would be like knowing the total number of consoles sold but not knowing how much Xbox sold.

Circana only knows largely self-reported figures from the big platform holders or from retailers who participate in it. They only have information given to them. What I meant by them not knowing more granular data is specifically that they don't know what factors can be directly attributed to certain findings. They don't know have data that informs certain things.

For example, Mat is attributing BO6 and CoD in GP to the increase of 8% for the entire gaming subscription rev YoY increase in the sector. The problem is, they would need to be conducting market research data with those users to actually know that. Otherwise, you need to just generally attribute that finding with any big things occurring in the sector that were notable, like say, the annual launch of the industry's yearly big tentpole sales monster releasing day 1 into the service in that month. Its a fine assumption, but it doesn't get into actual granular analysis of the figures.

 

[dragonyeuw]

For people that missed out on the Sega console twilight…
Almost a quarter of a century later, here it is. A console demise.

I was around for that, I had no idea Sega was exiting the hardware race. In some ways I kinda miss the 'ignorance is bliss' of just playing and buying games back then before being hyper aware of all the meta stuff of sales and behind the scene happenings. As far as I knew Dreamcast was in fine shape and I was having a blast with it.

 

[LordOcidax]

They could saved 80 fucking billion.

I don’t know well how the taxes system works in US, but big companies prefer to invest over to pay taxes. They didn’t save 80 billon, they invested that money, so, less taxes to pay.

 

[Luminoth-4545]

If Switch had a 3% decline how did the sales go from 570k to 700k? Was the price that much different this year vs last year?

It's been adjusted down, it was based on LTD being 45.9 million last month but it was confirmed to be 46.0 million. Still higher units than last year but not by so much.

 

[Sushi_Combo]

XSX is in high demand tho

 

[onQ123]

They could saved 80 fucking billion.

They did not buy Activision/King for Xbox Consoles this was for the future when Consoles don't matter & owning IPs will come in handy,

 

[Reckheim]

XSX is in high demand tho

*in eastern poland

 

[onQ123]

It's been adjusted down, it was based on LTD being 45.9 million last month but it was confirmed to be 46.0 million. Still higher units than last year but not by so much.

What are the new numbers & where is the guy who was questioning me?

 

[Luminoth-4545]

Base on November sales my prediction for December.

PS5 - 1.3M
NSW - 950K
XBS - 490K

Xbox seems too low, it sold around 1.1 million last December. I would expect a decline but by more than 50% would be shocking.

 

[Luminoth-4545]

What are the new numbers & where is the guy who was questioning me?

620k

 

[Azelover]

I highly doubt PS2 Europe advantage is bigger than Switch US + Japan advantage

 

[Unknown?]

Xbox seems too low, it sold around 1.1 million last December. I would expect a decline but by more than 50% would be shocking.

Seems likely to me. Switch has some discounts and PS5 has heavy discounts most of the month. Series is not officially discounted.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

For people that missed out on the Sega console twilight…
Almost a quarter of a century later, here it is. A console demise.

It was very abrupt

For the most part there was a lot of good will around the Dreamcast and games were reviewing well

Summer 2000 rumours started swirling around a deal with Acclaim to bring games to PS2

Then in Feb 2001 it was suddenly all over

Xbox is different, it’s just slowly fizzling out

 

[Unknown?]

It was very abrupt

For the most part there was a lot of good will around the Dreamcast and games were reviewing well

Summer 2000 rumours started swirling around a deal with Acclaim to bring games to PS2

Then in Feb 2001 it was suddenly all over

Xbox is different, it’s just slowly fizzling out

Xbox would have been dead in 2004 if it wasn't backed by Microsoft. It's just a slow transition now to 3rd party.

 

[Woopah]

I know this but That's a pretty big increase in units sold vs a small decrease in revenue. Switch wasn't sold at a discount at all the stores/ online retailers. Throughout November so it's not as simple as dividing the revenue by Switch's discount price.

My understanding is that Switch hardware did get some nice discounts in November, which explain the discrepancy. Though I believe the Switch figures were closer to 600,000 than 700,000

Circana only knows largely self-reported figures from the big platform holders or from retailers who participate in it. They only have information given to them. What I meant by them not knowing more granular data is specifically that they don't know what factors can be directly attributed to certain findings. They don't know have data that informs certain things.

For example, Mat is attributing BO6 and CoD in GP to the increase of 8% for the entire gaming subscription rev YoY increase in the sector. The problem is, they would need to be conducting market research data with those users to actually know that. Otherwise, you need to just generally attribute that finding with any big things occurring in the sector that were notable, like say, the annual launch of the industry's yearly big tentpole sales monster releasing day 1 into the service in that month. Its a fine assumption, but it doesn't get into actual granular analysis of the figures.

They wouldn't know the exact reason per say, but they could look at the growth figures reported to them for each service and see:

1. The $ growth in Gamepass was a large % of the $ growth across all services. Hence knowing that Gamepass was the primary driver of growth
2. The % increase in Gamepass revenue being higher since COD came out, telling that that it is likely that game is having an effect

On top of that, Circana does conduct monthly market research with players. So some of that data could be informing Matt's statement as well.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Takes like these are why I don't feel bad for the Xbox fanboys crying at the state of console sales. They choose to be stupid, ignorant, idiotically optimistic and have to make up narratives to do so.

Where exactly is PS5 Pro momentum waning? Everywhere I've seen they're up vs. PS4 Pro. Even if it does start waning soon (I think it will later Q1 next year), did you forget the base PS5 still exists? In what world in all five billion timelines does Xbox suddenly see a major surge of sales due to 1P games that we 1: don't even know the state of quality of (Avowed looks mediocre, Fable could turn out to be only average, same with South of Midnight etc.) and, 2: ARE EITHER ON STEAM DAY 1 OR WILL BE ON PS5 DAY 1!?

Seriously, the amount of delusion from that camp is so insane it's actually annoying. They're going through a trauma crisis.

XSX is in high demand tho

"High demand" relative to an Xbox and relative to where demand evidently was earlier when sales were even lower.

That's why terms like "(X system) is in high demand" mean nothing without having reference data/numbers behind them. Series X's "high demand" still wasn't enough to help Xbox get that much beyond 400K for the month of November in its strongest market, going by sales estimates others have been posting.

 

[onQ123]

My understanding is that Switch hardware did get some nice discounts in November, which explain the discrepancy. Though I believe the Switch figures were closer to 600,000 than 700,000

They wouldn't know the exact reason per say, but they could look at the growth figures reported to them for each service and see:

1. The $ growth in Gamepass was a large % of the $ growth across all services. Hence knowing that Gamepass was the primary driver of growth
2. The % increase in Gamepass revenue being higher since COD came out, telling that that it is likely that game is having an effect

On top of that, Circana does conduct monthly market research with players. So some of that data could be informing Matt's statement as well.

It's been updated to 620k , I didn't even do any math & could tell that something was off

 

[onQ123]

Takes like these are why I don't feel bad for the Xbox fanboys crying at the state of console sales. They choose to be stupid, ignorant, idiotically optimistic and have to make up narratives to do so.

Where exactly is PS5 Pro momentum waning? Everywhere I've seen they're up vs. PS4 Pro. Even if it does start waning soon (I think it will later Q1 next year), did you forget the base PS5 still exists? In what world in all five billion timelines does Xbox suddenly see a major surge of sales due to 1P games that we 1: don't even know the state of quality of (Avowed looks mediocre, Fable could turn out to be only average, same with South of Midnight etc.) and, 2: ARE EITHER ON STEAM DAY 1 OR WILL BE ON PS5 DAY 1!?

Seriously, the amount of delusion from that camp is so insane it's actually annoying. They're going through a trauma crisis.

You see that word (Momentum) again? The Minions have their orders & they're out here trying to push this false Momentum/Potential narrative for next year. I've been calling it out for the last few weeks it's been a meeting & this is the angle they are going with pay attention lol.

 

[Unknown?]

My understanding is that Switch hardware did get some nice discounts in November, which explain the discrepancy. Though I believe the Switch figures were closer to 600,000 than 700,000

They wouldn't know the exact reason per say, but they could look at the growth figures reported to them for each service and see:

1. The $ growth in Gamepass was a large % of the $ growth across all services. Hence knowing that Gamepass was the primary driver of growth
2. The % increase in Gamepass revenue being higher since COD came out, telling that that it is likely that game is having an effect

On top of that, Circana does conduct monthly market research with players. So some of that data could be informing Matt's statement as well.

Were not those sales based on retailers and not official?

 

[LordCBH]

Takes like these are why I don't feel bad for the Xbox fanboys

I really like my Xbox.

But I want it to die after seeing the fanboys on Twitter.