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[Agent Icebeezy]

All of those options, especially on the PS3 side can be disputed

 

[GhaleonEB]

Here's a question for you sonycowboy -

How many units does Microsoft need to sell through in order for the early launch to be consisdered a success? I'm thinking in every territory, but especially the US where the fight should be the closest. 3m? 5m?

If MS does not install at least 3-4m units in the US (assuming they have a fully year advantage in the territory) then I'd say they blew their advanage of the early launch. I'm interested in your take.

 

[gofreak]

How many units does Microsoft need to sell through in order for the early launch to be consisdered a success? I'm thinking in every territory, but especially the US where the fight should be the closest. 3m? 5m?

If MS does not install at least 3-4m units in the US (assuming they have a fully year advantage in the territory) then I'd say they blew their advanage of the early launch. I'm interested in your take.

I'm not Sonycowboy, but do you mean before PS3 arrives? In the US?

 

[Flo_Evans]

the above post got me thinking - assuming the demand is there, how many units can MS produce in thier year head start? It seems like Sony's production will be limited by cell chip yeilds. Is there any part (that is known) in the 360 that could cause production problems?

 

[gofreak]

It seems like Sony's production will be limited by cell chip yeilds.

This is a common conception, and it's not difficult to understand why. But as far as I can see, if MS are going with a 3 core CPU with 1MB of Cache, it's not going to be a much smaller chip than Cell (if at all smaller). If they're aiming for similar clockspeed ranges, it may be pretty much just as difficult to manufacture, and just as expensive.

The other potential risk for MS on the CPU side is that IBM are supplying chips to another console manufacturer (Nintendo), and doing a little sidework for a second (I believe Sony are using them for some manufacturing, but not all or even most) - if things start bottlenecking on IBM's side in terms of supply it could be problematic.

 

[Teddman]

I agree that holiday launches help - but just to pick up on the point re. DC and PSP, DC took over two weeks to sell what PSP sold in two days. Is 500k units in 2 days disappointing? It's all relative to the goals you set yourself, so from that point of view you could say it was disappointing for SCEA (who probably hoped to move 1m very quickly). But in absolute numbers, the PSP launch was a better one than DC's, and thus compared to it can't be considered disappointing.

Times have changed from 1999, the comparison really isn't relevent. At the time, the DC was the fastest-selling console ever.

 

[snapty00]

My mad psychic abilities tell me this:

U.S.:
Sony: 50%
Microsoft: 40%

Japan:
Sony: 75%
Microsoft: 10%

 

[GhaleonEB]

I'm not Sonycowboy, but do you mean before PS3 arrives? In the US?

Yes and Yes.

 

[gofreak]

Yes and Yes.

Well if you're putting it out as a general question, I'd say 5-6m globally by Oct/Nov 2006. I'm not sure if that'd be "enough" or not, though (?)

 

[sonycowboy]

Here's a question for you sonycowboy -

How many units does Microsoft need to sell through in order for the early launch to be consisdered a success? I'm thinking in every territory, but especially the US where the fight should be the closest. 3m? 5m?

If MS does not install at least 3-4m units in the US (assuming they have a fully year advantage in the territory) then I'd say they blew their advanage of the early launch. I'm interested in your take.

I think they need to ship a minimum of 4.5M units in the US (2M holiday 05 and 2.5M for the first 10 months of 2006 (average of 250k/month) to really take advantage of the year head start. Anything less than that would be not taking advantage of what they have in front of them.

However, I'm of the thought that even if they managed to sell ~6M in the US in that time that it still will come down to how well they compete against Sony when they are going head-to-head. Sony will have a tough time having enough units at launch (generally true of launches) and I think Microsoft would love to do to Sony what Sony did to them in 2001. Sony essentially sold 4.5M units from September 2001->February 2002 and I think Microsoft will need to have comparable numbers (say 3M at least) to feel comfortable.

The initial 1st year is incredibly important and I think Microsoft will do absolutely everything they can to ship as many units as humanly possible before the PS3 ships. However, I think that holiday 2006 is even more critically important for Microsoft and slightly less so for Sony. Sony should sell every single unit they can produce, so they're already constrained. Microsoft needs to make holiday 2006 their beachhead and have a software lineup that will boggle your mind. IMO, it's way more important to have a strong 2006 lineup that launch lineup for Xbox360.

All this being said, there are simply so many variables, that putting numbers is probably a bad way to do it. It's more how the systems compete against each other. With like 8 systems out in holiday 2006 potentially, the numbers may not break out how many might expect them to do.

 

[element]

If MS ends up getting all the Japanese support I keep hearing rumors about, then they will do signifigantly better then the previous gen. At least get 20% of the Japanese market.

 

[Mrbob]

Ms gets a two Christmas head start which is nice.

They get this year. They also get next year when the PS3 is supply constrained.

I think it is next Xmas where MS really needs to make its move with the Xbox 360 to help and try dethrone the PS3. If they can pick up all the lost PS3 sales (Due to being out of stock) and roll that momentum into 2007 it could be a great thing.

 

[DJ Sl4m]

I realize there does need to be comparisons to the DC because of so many factors, but keep in mind the major thing that killed the DC's potential was the way they treated their fanbase leading up to the DC.

It's hard to deny no matter how much love I have for Sega that the Saturn was a total fiasco and the end of it's life wasn't building up for the next gen with any kind of momentum whatsoever.

That's a HUGE difference, people still have confidence in the Xbox brand name, they have momentum building up and seem to have a damn nice plan in tact with key developers for quite an impact.

Hell Sega couldn't even get DarienA's favorite developer to sign on. :lol

Sorry D, I had to do it since so many newbies seem to love to beat a dead horse.

 

[Mrbob]

Next.

Gen.

Madden.

One.

Year.

Exclusive.

It's on!


Nintendo had an iron grip on this industry with the NES and Sega took nearly a 50 percent marketshare in NA with the Genesis. Why can't MS take a 50 percent share or better with the 360?

 

[sonycowboy]

Next.

Gen.

Madden.

One.

Year.

Exclusive.

It's on!


Nintendo had an iron grip on this industry with the NES and Sega took nearly a 50 percent marketshare in NA with the Genesis. Why can't MS take a 50 percent share or better with the 360?

Are you being serious or just kidding around? You seem to have gone into lala land.

 

[artful_dodger]

...


I bought an xbox because I wanted to play next gen games and have a decent mod system to run emulated snes/ arcade games. I know most of my friends did as well.

It was a hack system.

If thats not available (ie; heavy anti - mod this time around) , i'm thinkin' xbox sales -10 / 15% out of the overall picture.

Just another factor to weigh in on the reasoning behind xbox1's current success vs. sony (although you could mod the PS2, it wasn't nearly as common).

 

[Norse]

You cant compare DC with 360 year ahead launch as DC had absolutely 0 EA support...even the mighty ps2 would have died if that had happened to them.....360 has plenty of EA support so lets toss out the DC comparisons already.

If DC had EA support at launch with a nice Madden game to boot, we may have had an entirely different race back then.