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[Dreams-Visions]

Yes for both.

no, it's not. the retailer has to sell those products in order for them to make money.

Sony (or whatever publisher for whatever game) will have already made their money by selling copies to the retailers. Retailers have to sell it to us.

At least, that's my understanding of how this works. They don't just *give* the products to the retailers. They are sold to the retailers. The retailers mark up the prices so that they make some profit and sell them to us.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

no, it's not. the retailer has to sell those products in order for them to make money.

Sony (or whatever publisher for whatever game) will have already made their money by selling copies to the retailers. Retailers have to sell it to us.

At least, that's my understanding of how this works. They don't just *give* the products to the retailers. They are sold to the retailers. The retailers mark up the prices so that they make some profit and sell them to us.

Retailers can return product if it doesn't sell or discount it and the maker must pay for it. You don't just sell it to a store and that's the end of the story.

 

[Gadfly]

To be fair, the biggest prediction on GAF was that Kinect would sell very well out of the starting gate, but would fizzle after four to five months.

I admit that MS is doing quite well, but 'won this generation' is a massive, massive overstatement.

That's revisionist history at best and selective memory at worst. Only after MS started to predict they will sell 3 and then 5 million, GAF thought maybe MS knows something they don't and moved the goal post.

Go back to price announcement thread and tell me GAF was predicting that the initial sales would be anything but abysmal.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Retailers can return product if it doesn't sell or discount it and the maker must pay for it. You don't just sell it to a store and that's the end of the story.

so it's a little more complicated, but for all intents and purposes shipped only means that they've been sold to retailers (with a bit of flexibility afforded retailers).

that number has nothing at all to do to with retail sales.

That's revisionist history at best and selective memory at worst. Only after MS started to predict they will sell 3 and then 5 million, GAF thought maybe MS knows something they don't and moved the goal post.

Go back to price announcement thread and tell me GAF was predicting that the initial sales would be anything but abysmal.

agree with that.

 

[TheOddOne]

Shhh, you're messing up his argument.

Your back? How was the vacation time?

 

[Paracelsus]

Retailers can return product if it doesn't sell or discount it and the maker must pay for it. You don't just sell it to a store and that's the end of the story.

Stock protection isn't given to everybody.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Stock protection isn't given to everybody.

oh..

well that's that.

 

[RedStep]

Retailers can return product if it doesn't sell or discount it and the maker must pay for it. You don't just sell it to a store and that's the end of the story.

That's not entirely true.

A) Smaller retailers do not have that option.

B) It isn't nearly universal. Retailers take a big chunk of the risk. That said, Activision probably had to make a deal like that to keep retailers buying the latest Guitar Hero box.

 

[Ashes]

What thread were you supposed to be posting this to?

This thread, and was responding to a much earlier post it seems. never mind.

Anyhow, any word on how sly collection did?

 

[Curufinwe]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

 

[Cheech]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

The old 360s aren't being thrown away. They're being recirculated. As such, the new owners are also buying games.

 

[FrankT]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

Stump posted a well rounded version of this earlier in the thread. Thread is huge though heh.

Edit;

Here's the thing about that. I know you're right. I know you're being honest. I know plenty of 360 console owners are rebuyers. I'm not undermining you here. But:

The 360 has a great tie ratio. A really great tie ratio. Better than the PS3 or the Wii. Tie ratio is the number of pieces of software sold for each piece of hardware, and the 360's are top shelf both month-to-month and lifetime. This means that if a higher percentage of 360 buyers are repeat owners, we'd either expect the tie ratio to be lower (because someone who buys a second 360 doesn't also rebuy their whole library) or we'd say that it is artificially low, and the 360's actual active owner : software tie ratio is enormous, dwarving everything else ever made by a significant amount.

It seems likely that 360 owners buy a lot of software and unlikely that that they buy a totally mindboggling amount of software, so we have to assume that the repeat buyers are about normal.

One of the reasons here is that most people who rebuy a console trade their old one or sell it and then the person that buys that buys software. So most of your repeat buyers were also driving used sales and thus driving the install base, even if you didn't know they were.

Now, I'm not equating the 360's failure rate to any other console. In fact, let's pretend we're not talking about the 360 at all. Let's talk about the PS2. And now let's pretend no one's PS2 ever broke. Ever. Right? Still, a lot of those people replaced their fat PS2s with slim PS2s (or bought a second one and kept both), right? Sounds fair.

But in spite of this, we don't think of the PS2 as not "earning" all its sales, or of having a lower "actual" ownership number than the sales represent or any other claim like that. We basically accept that whatever the percentage of people who own two or break one and buy a new one or are otherwise rebuyers or upgrade or look for new colours or buy holiday bundles for collectors sake or whatever, it's not something that we actually worry about. We count the sales as honest and act as though the install base is the install base.

Hope this explains the conventional wisdom on rebuying.

 

[JKBii]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

The attach rate is the number of games sold in comparison to the number of console sold. A high attach rate means people buying new 360s are buying games with them. If people were just replacing dead 360s, they would not be buying games with them, so you would see a low attach rate.

 

[jkanownik]

This is a really good point. I just caught the end of "Ellen" and her Christmas gift show and the last thing she gave away was a copy of Udraw with a Wii. It's interesting because this thread is the first time I had heard anything about the game.


And no, I don't watch Ellen.

Buzz has been building since 11/16 when preorders started on Amazon. THQ stock is up 38% since then.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

 

[chespace]

Your back? How was the vacation time?

Played some GT5

Bach'ing it up for 3 months.

Yourself?

 

[Curufinwe]

Yeah, also a good point. I would imagine this is a notable factor in the success of the 360 post-Slim launch.

I was one who waited till the 360 had wireless built in till I bought one, and when I first was able to buy a console in September 2009 I went with the PS3 mainly because it had wireless built in.

 

[Zoe]

The attach rate is the number of games sold in comparison to the number of console sold. A high attach rate means people buying new 360s are buying games with them. If people were just replacing dead 360s, they would not be buying games with them, so you would see a low attach rate.

Though couldn't you say that if a person cares enough to replace their 360, that means they're enough of a gamer to continually buy new games versus a person who buys the console and is content to stick with just the first games they bought?

 

[Curufinwe]

Buzz has been building since 11/16 when preorders started on Amazon. THQ stock is up 38% since then.

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=...=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

My local Best Buy has a giant videogame section which includes a really big Wii area, and I saw every Wii peripheral sitting on the shelves today except uDraw. I was going to ask if they had any in stock out back or in the locked area up front, but my wife was nearby and it's supposed to be her Christmas present. I might try again tomorrow.

 

[TheOddOne]

Played some GT5

Bach'ing it up for 3 months.

Yourself?

I myself am killing Templars with my bro's and doing some real estate.

Met this yellow dude yesterday, keeps saying waka waka waka. I have no idea what he's saying, but he eats ghosts and stuff. Seems like a fine fellow.

 

[Eagle316]

I certainly applaud Microsoft for their tremendous sales. I do find it interesting though that Nintendo was still able to generate the same (and a little better) momentum than they did last year with the Wii without having any gigantic mega hits.

Microsoft had a console redesign, Kinect, a massive marketing push, and excitement over Black Ops and (less recently) Halo: Reach.

Nintendo had the color red.

So I think it is rather significant that Nintendo was still able to generate that volume of sales.

 

[jkanownik]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

The 360 software attach rate is already above all other comps, so if you start reducing the install base the number goes higher and seems really out of whack with every other console.

There's also the fact that dead consoles aren't thrown away. In theory there are actually more 360's out there than the NPD numbers report. The majority of broken 360's are refurbished and resold. The refurb sales aren't captured by NPD. There are potentially 4MM+ refurbished 360's in operation in the US. This would actually help to explain the higher attach rates for the 360, but there is no direct proof of this so the NPD install base numbers are accepted as the best numbers available.

 

[Tmac]

Can someone give me the quick and simple explanation for why the high attach rate for the 360 invalidates the argument that 360 hardware numbers aren't that impressive because so many sales are from people just replacing dead 360s?

I know that argument is bullshit, but I can't think how to word that properly to reply to someone who's making it on another forum.

It doesnt invalidate.

Attach rate tends to goes up all the time. Xbox 360 being the oldest of the bunch, should have the highest attach rate, thats the norm.

 

[Indyana]

UPDATE
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6285151.html
Pachter also noted that one third of PS3 sales were $400 PlayStation Move bundles, versus one half of all Xbox 360 purchases being Kinect bundles. (There are two Kinect bundles, a $300 4GB model and $400 250GB model.) "Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PS3 Move console bundles by more than 5 to 1," said the analyst.

I've seen another source of this quote and it's slightly different:

"About one fifth of PS3 sales included bundles with Sony’s Move controller, suggesting a modest third month. About half of Xbox 360 sales included bundles with Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, suggesting a strong first month. Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PS3 Move console bundles by more than 5:1," he noted.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/...selling-move-ps3-bundles-by-more-than-5-to-1/

 

[Captain Tuttle]

Though couldn't you say that if a person cares enough to replace their 360, that means they're enough of a gamer to continually buy new games versus a person who buys the console and is content to stick with just the first games they bought?

You could say that but you'd be wrong.

If a person has one 360 and ten games the attach rate is 10. If the 360 dies and the person just replaces it then that person attach is now 5. Any new games bought are now spread out over two 360's when discussing attach rate.

That's what your implying, right?

 

[Version 3.0]

Retailers can return product if it doesn't sell or discount it and the maker must pay for it. You don't just sell it to a store and that's the end of the story.

Sorry to do this to you, even though I've been beaten to it, but :lol .

I work in retail, and that really made me laugh. Only a small percentage of product is sold on a guaranteed sale or consignment basis, even to the largest retailers.

For videogames specifically, it's on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, credit is issued when MSRP is changed, but returns are not taken. Big retailers get a better deal than small ones, and big publishers get a better deal than small ones.

Seriously, how could you think this? Retailers quite often resort to selling below cost to clear out old goods. Why would there ever be such bargain bin sales if they could just get their money back? In most cases, they can't.

 

[GarthVaderUK]

I've seen another source of this quote and it's slightly different:

"About one fifth of PS3 sales included bundles with Sony’s Move controller, suggesting a modest third month. About half of Xbox 360 sales included bundles with Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, suggesting a strong first month. Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PS3 Move console bundles by more than 5:1," he noted.

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/...selling-move-ps3-bundles-by-more-than-5-to-1/

Looks like Gamespot got the fraction and the month mixed up, whereas the bit you've posted looks like a direct quote. Everywhere else seems to be saying "one fifth" too.

 

[Version 3.0]

You could say that but you'd be wrong.

If a person has one 360 and ten games the attach rate is 10. If the 360 dies and the person just replaces it then that person attach is now 5. Any new games bought are now spread out over two 360's when discussing attach rate.

That's what your implying, right?

I think what he's saying is that this person with 10 games, if he's willing to buy another 360 when it breaks, will soon have 15 or 20 games because the additional purchase indicates he's an avid gamer who buys a lot of games. I don't think that's a safe assumption, though. A person with 10 games may still just want to play those 10 games, and consider it worth the cost of a new 360 to do so.

 

[Tmac]

You could say that but you'd be wrong.

If a person has one 360 and ten games the attach rate is 10. If the 360 dies and the person just replaces it then that person attach is now 5. Any new games bought are now spread out over two 360's when discussing attach rate.

That's what your implying, right?

That in a individual basis. Thats not how attach rate works.

Over time that numbers tends to goes up.

Xbox attach rate started on 4, then reached 5-6 and now is at the 8-ish range. Ps2 ended it's life cicle with 10+ attach rate.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Sorry to do this to you, even though I've been beaten to it, but :lol .

I work in retail, and that really made me laugh. Only a small percentage of product is sold on a guaranteed sale or consignment basis, even to the largest retailers.

For videogames specifically, it's on a case-by-case basis. Generally speaking, credit is issued when MSRP is changed, but returns are not taken. Big retailers get a better deal than small ones, and big publishers get a better deal than small ones.

Seriously, how could you think this? Retailers quite often resort to selling below cost to clear out old goods. Why would there ever be such bargain bin sales if they could just get their money back? In most cases, they can't.

thanks for the further clarification.

 

[doicare]

Just a heads up, apparently the psp did 290,000 this month and the ps2 did 80,000.

 

[charlequin]

Though couldn't you say that if a person cares enough to replace their 360, that means they're enough of a gamer to continually buy new games versus a person who buys the console and is content to stick with just the first games they bought?

Sure, but again, that would still mean that the 360 attach rate is underreported basically in proportion to the degree that the sales are overreported.

 

[Cosmonaut X]

Just a heads up, apparently the psp did 290,000 this month and the ps2 did 80,000.

Source?

 

[Boney]

Source?

.

 

[speculawyer]

Congrats to EA for the very excellent Need For Speed title. First NFS I've bought in 5 years.

And congrats on their ability to sell a lot of Madden. I think all their many $35 & $39.99 sales during black friday time really sold a lot of copies.

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Seriously, how could you think this? Retailers quite often resort to selling below cost to clear out old goods. Why would there ever be such bargain bin sales if they could just get their money back? In most cases, they can't.

Read it in the Game Over book from David Sheff about Nintendo breaking into the US market. Things could have changed since then but regardless, the book is a great read.

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Is it a bad sign I'm taking the success of these companies as a personal affront. Even though it sold millions it makes me sad that with that many new xbox's sold people are buying shit like fable 3 and not Reach. If any game should have the numbers black ops has right now it's Reach. I'll just buy another copy

 

[OldJadedGamer]

Is it a bad sign I'm taking the success of these companies as a personal affront. Even though it sold millions it makes me sad that with that many new xbox's sold people are buying shit like fable 3 and not Reach. If any game should have the numbers black ops has right now it's Reach. I'll just buy another copy

A lot of people on my friends list just dropped Reach off after a few weeks from release and after we all beat it co-op Legendary. It was the fastest I've seen a Halo drop off from my friends list. I think the series ran it's course and there wasn't much left to add to it. I sold mine back in too and haven't had a single moment where I miss playing it.

 

[mujun]

Is it a bad sign I'm taking the success of these companies as a personal affront. Even though it sold millions it makes me sad that with that many new xbox's sold people are buying shit like fable 3 and not Reach. If any game should have the numbers black ops has right now it's Reach. I'll just buy another copy

Yes it's a bad sign.

I personally think BLOPS is pretty shit but it sold 8.4 million, all you can do is laugh about it :lol

 

[oldie-newbie]

Did GT5 act as a reverse system seller? It made people not buy a ps3?

In fact, PS3 won this month:
- 530k new PS3 were sold to consumers,
- 1 000k consumers sold their used PS3 because they were disappointed by GT5 :lol

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Yes it's a bad sign.

I personally think BLOPS is pretty shit but it sold 8.4 million, all you can do is laugh about it :lol

Shit I knew it was a bad sign. I'm going to start collecting duck tales stamps surely that hobby will never let me down.

 

[quickwhips]

Everyone is waiting for Halo 4 Seriously I think that is when we see Call of Duty take a back seat. Until an official Sequel that everyone can get with MC. Great sales for Xbox and Wii. I don't understand what happened to PS3. But I think a price drop will fix it.

 

[Pride]

There are a lot of data to back it up, just now as precise and easy to come by as NPD.

Despite 360 head start and huge advantage on cumulative NPD, overall worwide numbers for both consoles are pretty much neck to neck. That difference should be comming from somewhere else, of course japan and europe.

Link for Europe's sell thru?

 

[Gadfly]

Lets not forget the the Wii is probably kicking the bollocks out the Kinect (and to a lesser extent the 360) on a worldwide basis.

And the reason that we should not "forget" that in an NPD thread is exactly what? What's the point of minimizing 360's success in the market that we know for sure they are successful?

Have you ever seen somebody going to a PAL or media create thread and "remind" them that 360 is doing well in US??

Talk about leaving up to your tag..

 

[donny2112]

Chance for 360 to reach 7 million this year. I believe that would beat out the 2nd best year of PS2 iirc.

8.4m for PS2 in 2002. Wii beat that in 2008 and 2009.

In Japan Monster Hunter shifted how many units on what is considered to be a "dead" platform?

In Japan, it's the Monster Hunter platform. Elsewhere, it's the "dead" platform.

Source:http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-ceo-john-riccitiello-talks-e3-online-pass-3d-gaming-and-more/

I think two of the retailers are GameStop and Amazon. Toys R' Us bailed out a while ago, and we know Wal-Mart isn't included, but we still have two mystery slots.

He's wrong. Maybe he means that it's just four signficant retailers, though.

By the way, can you fix that mistaken "5-week" thing in the OP?

Edit:
If there's really only two more, it'd be Best Buy and Target. Pretty sure there are a lot of smaller companies that NPD tracks, too, though.

Spoiler

I want to give money to EviLore to let us search back to the forum's beginning, but in the meantime, here's a marketshare breakdown from 2005.

 

[Slavik81]

Though couldn't you say that if a person cares enough to replace their 360, that means they're enough of a gamer to continually buy new games versus a person who buys the console and is content to stick with just the first games they bought?

The fact that he buys a second system still lowers his tie ratio, regardless of how high it was to begin with.

Case A: Person buys an Xbox. Person buys 10 games. Xbox dies. Person Buys an Xbox. Person buys 10 games. Tie ratio: 10.
Case B: Person buys an Xbox. Person buys 10 games. Person buys 10 games. Tie ratio: 20.

 

[Lebron]

Is it a bad sign I'm taking the success of these companies as a personal affront. Even though it sold millions it makes me sad that with that many new xbox's sold people are buying shit like fable 3 and not Reach. If any game should have the numbers black ops has right now it's Reach. I'll just buy another copy

They just want to be king, who are you to deny them that joy?

 

[Gadfly]

For the North American market, the MOVE has always been too me-too. Couple this with an inferior marketing campaign to Kinect (which looks and feels "different" from the Wii) and we have a good reason why the PS3 and the MOVE failed to push significant hardware this month. (I guess this also establishes that the fate of both consoles (X360 and PS3) are tied to each other.)

So was SCE wrong to go with the MOVE? Well here is my assessment (but in-short no).

Their mistakes were:

...

(2) MOVE bundle price. Sorry but $399 is too much for a mainstream product. $299 would have been a great price.
..
(4) Allowing MS to gain momentum at the beginning of the year. Their lack of action on the supply issue (when the demand for the PS3 was greater than the Xbox 360) allowed the Xbox 360 become the console of choice for HD crowd at the time. This allowed them to build momentum during the beginning of the year.
..
.

2) you know the 360 sku that is hard to find is the $400 one (250G+Kinect). right?

(4) what the hell are you talking about? PS3 was supply constrained in January 2010 and that has given momentum for the year to 360?:lol :lol :lol

 

[see5harp]

A lot of people on my friends list just dropped Reach off after a few weeks from release and after we all beat it co-op Legendary. It was the fastest I've seen a Halo drop off from my friends list. I think the series ran it's course and there wasn't much left to add to it. I sold mine back in too and haven't had a single moment where I miss playing it.

Dude the new map pack is awesome. There are plenty of people still playing it.

 

[Gadfly]

It'd be nice if people stopped lumping all of GAF together. Not going to happen, of course, but it would be nice.

Well, the problem is that you didn't say "your" biggest prediction was blah blah.. you claimed that “GAF's” biggest prediction was that “Kinect will sell well out of starting gate by will fizzle out” and once people called you out on that claim about "GAF", you are now complaining why people lumping all of the GAF together? Here's what you said (emphasis mine):

To be fair, the biggest prediction on GAF was that Kinect would sell very well out of the starting gate, but would fizzle after four to five months.

 

[manueldelalas]

Well, the problem is that you didn't say "your" biggest prediction was blah blah.. you claimed that “GAF's” biggest prediction was that “Kinect will sell well out of starting gate by will fizzle out” and once people called you out on that claim about "GAF", you are now complaining why people lumping all of the GAF together? Here's what you said (emphasis mine):

But from his post you can infer clearly that there are other opinions on GAF.

It's different from saying something like: "GAF thinks Wind Waker was an awesome game, but GAFs opinion sucks because it was a horrible Zelda game".