James Sawyer Ford
Member
I think Sony's strategy for March was to combat the release of Titanfall with increased allocations to the US vs. the rest of the world.
Remember that the PS4 had massive shipments to the US based upon Amazon purchases and our Best Buy insider. It also seemed to be in healthy supply, and was only limited at the start of the month.
Meanwhile, Europe is still starved for supply, although the UK started getting better supply at the latter portion of the month, the rest of mainline Europe has not received as many shipments.
This leads me to believe that the US may command > 50% of worldwide supply for the month of March, or roughly 500K, which would be pretty crazy for the month of March. At the bare minimum I expect 400K, but I will not be surprised if the actual number is closer to 500K, if not surpassing it.
Whether or not this is enough to beat Microsoft's Titanfall + price drop + bundling push is anyone's guess. I think the Xbox One will do well given all these promotions, but to see PS4 outsell it wouldn't surprise me.
More importantly though, Sony managed to do these huge numbers quietly with no price drop and no huge marketing campaign. Once the promotions and Titanfall demand tail off in the coming months, the system really is back to where it was before. We'll probably get a permanent price drop at E3, but that only will level the playing field slightly in the grand scheme of things. It will get Microsoft back in the race for US/UK markets, but it doesn't do a whole lot to change their situation globally. Sony will have the preferred console for the slew of multiplats that are targeted for release in the coming months, which is going to be a much bigger deal than Titanfall, IMHO. Destiny will do much larger numbers than Titanfall will and will likely have far more word of mouth factor which will usher in purchases of PS4 as a viral effect.
Remember that the PS4 had massive shipments to the US based upon Amazon purchases and our Best Buy insider. It also seemed to be in healthy supply, and was only limited at the start of the month.
Meanwhile, Europe is still starved for supply, although the UK started getting better supply at the latter portion of the month, the rest of mainline Europe has not received as many shipments.
This leads me to believe that the US may command > 50% of worldwide supply for the month of March, or roughly 500K, which would be pretty crazy for the month of March. At the bare minimum I expect 400K, but I will not be surprised if the actual number is closer to 500K, if not surpassing it.
Whether or not this is enough to beat Microsoft's Titanfall + price drop + bundling push is anyone's guess. I think the Xbox One will do well given all these promotions, but to see PS4 outsell it wouldn't surprise me.
More importantly though, Sony managed to do these huge numbers quietly with no price drop and no huge marketing campaign. Once the promotions and Titanfall demand tail off in the coming months, the system really is back to where it was before. We'll probably get a permanent price drop at E3, but that only will level the playing field slightly in the grand scheme of things. It will get Microsoft back in the race for US/UK markets, but it doesn't do a whole lot to change their situation globally. Sony will have the preferred console for the slew of multiplats that are targeted for release in the coming months, which is going to be a much bigger deal than Titanfall, IMHO. Destiny will do much larger numbers than Titanfall will and will likely have far more word of mouth factor which will usher in purchases of PS4 as a viral effect.
