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[Farmboy]

$199 Rev versus $99 PS2: discuss.

Good point, as they might go after the same market. I know Sony marketed the PSOne as a low cost alternative for casual gamers and families (I recall a Disney bundle). Maybe if Sony releases PS'TwoTwo' bundles with retro-compilations (there are enough), they can cash in on the same obsession (esp. in Japan) that Nintendo hopes to exploit.

 

[ioi]

I have to agree that we are talking about shipped numbers here not sold through. I know that doesn't normally make a difference, but bear in mind that Sony claim to have shipped 10m PSPs and have probably only sold about half that amount. I think the same is true of PSTwos.

I think somebody picked up that something like 3.7 million PSTwos have been shipped to Japan? Well this is a crazy number as it's only been selling about 30k a week since xmas and sold maybe a million tops before xmas? I can't see many more PSTwos being shipped / sold in Japan, and I think we have similar stories in the US and Europe. Supplies are plentiful, look back to the Y5 Q1-Q3 for PS2 where it sold about 4.5m in 9 months compared to much higher rates beforehand. Well that was because there was so much stock around so they didn't ship any more while it sold and then brought the PSTwo out.

I really can't see it selling another 30m like some of you are suggesting, it will pass 100m without much trouble tho- maybe 110 or so when finished. I can't see price drops having a huge effect when the next gen comes round, sales are already slowing in the US (250k a month?) and again I'd be suprised if it had sold much more than half of the supposed 10m? shipped to the US.

That aside, it is still an astounding achievement, mainly due to huge increases in the US and Europe (and the PS1 basically created the market in Europe to start with), but sales in Japan have noticably decreased quite significantly and this is definitely an area in which I think Nintendo will see much more success with Revolution, following on from the DS.

Edit: and Sonycowboy you really should be a marketing man "almost the same sales in half the time" is really quite misleading as though you are expecting there will be no drop-off in sales. The fairest comparison is 96m PS2 vs 76m PS1 in the same timeframe (but PS2 was always quicker out the gate than PS1 anyway) so about 20m lead.

Also the whole "selling more at higher price" is definitely to do with PS2 having a good 12 month lead on the competition and it was priced higher supposedly due to DVD playback and so on. PS1 was always a cheaper system in it's lifetime, they dropped to 199 and 149 pretty quickly, especially when N64 came out. That doesn't suddenly mean that now PS2 is at 149 it will sell as much as PS1 did at 149 since it's at the end of it's life, not the start!!

 

[Pimpwerx]

I have to agree that we are talking about shipped numbers here not sold through. I know that doesn't normally make a difference, but bear in mind that Sony claim to have shipped 10m PSPs and have probably only sold about half that amount. I think the same is true of PSTwos.

I think somebody picked up that something like 3.7 million PSTwos have been shipped to Japan? Well this is a crazy number as it's only been selling about 30k a week since xmas and sold maybe a million tops before xmas? I can't see many more PSTwos being shipped / sold in Japan, and I think we have similar stories in the US and Europe. Supplies are plentiful, look back to the Y5 Q1-Q3 for PS2 where it sold about 4.5m in 9 months compared to much higher rates beforehand. Well that was because there was so much stock around so they didn't ship any more while it sold and then brought the PSTwo out.

I really can't see it selling another 30m like some of you are suggesting, it will pass 100m without much trouble tho- maybe 110 or so when finished. I can't see price drops having a huge effect when the next gen comes round, sales are already slowing in the US (250k a month?) and again I'd be suprised if it had sold much more than half of the supposed 10m? shipped to the US.

That aside, it is still an astounding achievement, mainly due to huge increases in the US and Europe (and the PS1 basically created the market in Europe to start with), but sales in Japan have noticably decreased quite significantly and this is definitely an area in which I think Nintendo will see much more success with Revolution, following on from the DS.

Edit: and Sonycowboy you really should be a marketing man "almost the same sales in half the time" is really quite misleading as though you are expecting there will be no drop-off in sales. The fairest comparison is 96m PS2 vs 76m PS1 in the same timeframe (but PS2 was always quicker out the gate than PS1 anyway) so about 20m lead.

Also the whole "selling more at higher price" is definitely to do with PS2 having a good 12 month lead on the competition and it was priced higher supposedly due to DVD playback and so on. PS1 was always a cheaper system in it's lifetime, they dropped to 199 and 149 pretty quickly, especially when N64 came out. That doesn't suddenly mean that now PS2 is at 149 it will sell as much as PS1 did at 149 since it's at the end of it's life, not the start!!

If sales are stagnating, then why are they upping shipments? Sony doesn't just ship units to dead ends. They are orders received from retailers and distributors. The orders, apparently, keep coming in, which is why they have recently upped the shipping totals for both PSP and PS2. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Sales trackers aren't the full story. That or there is equal capacity in the supply chain right now as there is in the entire PSP userbase.

Second, you underestimate the power of the price point. The system hasn't hit $99 yet, and is already gonna blow by 100M. It will top 120M...easily. This shouldn't even be a point of contention anymore. I think we'll see that next year's shipping forecast for the PS2 is gonna be something like 12M units or so, which would then put the userbase over 110M. And you can expect shipments to continue through to 2010 or so. The significant sales should end by 2008, though, but in that time, a $99 PS2 should easily move another 20M units. To put it in perspective, the $150 PSTwo has already moved 22M units since about last September. You don't think they can match that at $99? The market has clearly expanded. PEACE.

 

[Ranger X]

Challenges

2) Who's going to make games for the PS2? Will all the publishers move over to NextGen to quickly? Including Sony?

Don't worry about this one buddy. Nobody is gonna shell double the money on a next-gen game instead of investing a modest amount of money into a PS2 game and making tons of sales for sure. Unless they are really bad business man of course :lol

 

[Tiktaalik]

With these numbers, publishers would be fools to jump to the ps3 right away. They should split their teams up, some trying out new franchises on the ps3, which people will latch onto because there aren't many games out yet, and some making sequels to existing franchises on the ps2 where there is already a huge fanbase.

 

[Ponn]

Slim PS2's were hard to find for awhile there and occasionaly in my local game stores I hear the clerks say they are currently out and getting some more in a few days. So anecdotal evidence but I really doubt PS2's are just sitting on store shelves the way they have been selling. I'm sure they will sell really well over the holidays with a convenient price drop around the 360 launch too.