Sales drop 82%

kaizersoze123

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=74928

ntlbell

"Sony Computer Entertainment Europe declined to comment."

They were quick enough to comment after the sales of the first two days were announced :rolleyes:

xanthor

It's March/April If things are as bad after Xmas THEN the Ps3 is in trouble.

Pacifico

Over 30,000 impulse purchases, in April, in the UK for one week.....not bad

Noelie

Didn't the Xbox360 and Wii sales drop by 100% in the second week of their launch.
I'd be much more interested in a comparison of all three's sales for the first two weeks of release.

peepingtom

i love tabloid writing i do

i think its safe to say it will pick up in time for santa

ntlbell

Noelie wrote:

Didn't the Xbox360 and Wii sales drop by 100% in the second week of their launch.
I'd be much more interested in a comparison of all three's sales for the first two weeks of release.

Because there was no unites actually on sale?

Noelie

Yeah i know that, but saying a fall of x% isn't really relative, since neither MS or Nintendo could supply enough units, numbers or units is more so.

SNL

Noelie wrote:

Yeah i know that, but saying a fall of x% isn't really relative, since neither MS or Nintendo could supply enough units, numbers or units is more so.

But in comparison to supply and demand who you agree that if MS and Nintendo had the units would the sales have dropped as rapidily so its kinda relative, i dont see why people are jumping to defend facts about it not selling

peepingtom

basically they are saying they have sold 205,000 units in the UK in a week and a half.

That little story could have been written in a positive light ... i wonder why it wasnt?

LookingFor

SNL wrote:

But in comparison to supply and demand who you agree that if MS and Nintendo had the units would the sales have dropped as rapidily

No, because they didn't satisfy all initial launch demand, which Sony was able to do.

SNL wrote:

so its kinda relative, i dont see why people are jumping to defend facts about it not selling

Well, it is selling. I think having had enough units to satisfy all demand last week, going on to sell 30k the next week is pretty decent. If they sold that every week, it would be pretty amazing. People are just using relative numbers to stir some drama - the bigger the initial launch numbers, the bigger the post-launch drop will be. Consider this - if Wii had had a 0% drop in its second week in the UK (in reality it was probably more like a 100% drop due to supply issues ), it still would only have sold about the same as the PS3 in its first two weeks.

Tank Top Fever!

For a console launch that satisfied all initial demand an 82% drop doesn't seem all that unreasonable

Noelie

SNL wrote:

But in comparison to supply and demand who you agree that if MS and Nintendo had the units would the sales have dropped as rapidily so its kinda relative, i dont see why people are jumping to defend facts about it not selling

We can never know as neither MS or Nintendo supplied enough units. where as Sony obviously did.
What really needs to be compared is all three consoles available number of units and the number of sales for the first two weeks. as Nintnedo may only have made 200K(I don't know the actual number) units available to the UK so by selling out in one weekend they still only sold the same amount as Sony. So if Sony only had 200k unit available they would have also sold out. If sony wanted to sell out they could have just release the PS3 earlier in the waer and it would have happened, in the UK anyway.

ntlbell

LookingFor wrote:

No, because they didn't satisfy all initial launch demand, which Sony was able to do.

by delaying the launch for more than a year, chicken egg chicken egg.

anto1208

Well i imagine the vast majority of people going to buy a ps3 got it in the first week this would explain the drop off , 18% of the first weeks sales is still prob 30,000 units

LookingFor

ntlbell wrote:

by delaying the launch for more than a year, chicken egg chicken egg.

Sure, but that's irrelevant to the point I was making and the point I was responding to. He was asking if Wii would have seen a similar drop-off had supply been there, and the answer is no because they had more initial pent-up demand in reserve left over after their first week because they satisfied less demand in their first week. Why that was the case (supply) is irrelevant to my point.

Stormbringer

Well Eidos have delayed releasing titles for this platform until 2008 because they reckon there are not enough units bought . So regardless of whether Sony had enough available at launch or not, not enough have been sold!

I reckon Sony made available as many of the slimmed down EURO version of the PS3 as they could possibly manage hoping to sell them all and still have demand for more..............As we now know this has not been the case.

Retr0gamer

Colour me unsurprised. It's an extremely expensive piece of kit that negates impulse purchases. We'll only find out how bad demand really is (if it is indeed bad) come Christmas.

scrapland

Sony are in a difficult place.


If they and they could have held back unit's limiting the amount of PS3's for launch, they may have recieved some bad press for not being able to supply demand, however whilst you get moaning and groaning - not having enough is a good thing in the long run, because it adds kudos to your item, a kind of exclusivity which leads to more people wanting it, which again leads to less units on the shelf. It's self perpetuating process and you can see that the Wii has been riding high on that band-wagon since it was launched.


Having enough units - whilst you don't dissapoint fans, you leave stock on shelves and it sends a bad impression of a console not selling, which in turn actually acts as a blocker to the consumer, and makes them reconsider.


So whilst it was great for sony to ramp up production - it was actually a fairly bad marketing decission to flood the stores with so many units at launch.



However regardless - Sony's machine will be fine, and whilst Sony at the end of the race, may not have that much of an advantage (market share wise) I'm sure they will still end up coming first.




As for the others....

Wi..

Nintendo have been very clever with the Wii (with specualtion that the 'hard to find console' is actually an artificial status) restricting units - after all it's a glorified cube, how hard could it be to manufacture if Sony managed to do it with the PS3. But whilst Nintendo have created hype and a general good buzz hardware wise - they are failing in the most important aspect - software..... The awful euro release schedule, with launch titles from the USA like Trauma Centre slipping to the end of July 2007, and very little else worthy of much attention until christmas (mario galaxy & metroid if were lucky), the wave of public praise will undoubably turn into bitterness when they realise there's f'all to buy other than crappy ps2 ports with a bit of wiggle.




Xbox 360....

Have got the software thing down to a tee. It has a fantastic summer lineup with the likes of Mass Effect & BioShock, however I personally thing the 'Elite' 360 is a croc o **** and the last thing it needs is a third SKU.

They should had dropped the Core, and added Wifi & HDMI to the existing 360. A 120gb HDD should just have been made available as a user upgrade for those with way too much money

However it's the software that sells the machine and this is Microsofts strong point. This is where the competition really lays.

astrofool

They could have brought forward the launch date a few weeks/months and still satisfied demand tbh, someone at Sony really f'd up on their estimates.

xanthor

ntlbell wrote:

by delaying the launch for more than a year, chicken egg chicken egg.

Depends how you define delay, since it wasn't available anywhere six months ago.

Captain Chaos

Retr0gamer wrote:

Colour me unsurprised. It's an extremely expensive piece of kit that negates impulse purchases. We'll only find out how bad demand really is (if it is indeed bad) come Christmas.

I have been very close to impulse buying the PS3 a few times. At the last second I always think of something else I can do with €630.

Whenever I'm browsing in a shop and see a PS3 on the shelf I get the urge to pick one up. Its a terrible condition I have, I'm always grabbed by the latest high tech gear.:o

peepingtom

Captain Chaos wrote:

I have been very close to impulse buying the PS3 a few times. At the last second I always think of something else I can do with €630.

Whenever I'm browsing in a shop and see a PS3 on the shelf I get the urge to pick one up. Its a terrible condition I have, I'm always grabbed by the latest high tech gear.:o

do it .... you know you want it

SNL

or dont and go tour a foreign country because at the end of the day "That is living"

peepingtom

SNL wrote:

or dont and go tour a foreign country because at the end of the day "That is living"

so is posting on boards at 12.30am

LookingFor

Stormbringer wrote:

Well Eidos have delayed releasing titles for this platform until 2008 because they reckon there are not enough units bought . So regardless of whether Sony had enough available at launch or not, not enough have been sold!

Eidos wants the install base to be at a certain point before releasing 'major' titles on it. That's not a reflection on the launch - no launch would be able to get any console to the point Eidos is demanding.

As regards this UK launch, they've sold more in their first two weeks than either Wii or 360 did.

Stormbringer wrote:

I reckon Sony made available as many of the slimmed down EURO version of the PS3 as they could possibly manage hoping to sell them all and still have demand for more....

You seem to be confusing a sell-out for a good launch. Which is better - to sell out of a fewer number of units, or to not sell out, yet still sell more? The latter is the situation PS3 is in.

Maybe Sony should have artificially constrained supply to 100k units in the UK to please certain people :rolleyes:

sprinkles

selling out a console hypes up the demand so I think getting a balance of supplying the demand while selling the console out is preferable. Just think of the hype that would be generated for the PS3 if the metro ran with a "PS3 completely sold out" news story.

Still though it's far too early to be gauging the sucess of the console. It need some killer apps to justify the price for most people and no doubt they'll come (as will a price drop)

Vegeta

LookingFor wrote:

As regards this UK launch, they've sold more in their first two weeks than either Wii or 360 did.

I am not arguing about the PS3 launch being a success or not. After the early adopters 82% drop or whatever seems completely predictable and normal.

I just want to add that Wii or 360 didn't have the volume of consoles available(even if the shortage was a marketing ploy) that the PS3 had so they could not have outsold it even if the demand for them was there.

This does not mean the launch is a failure, just wanted to point it out

sprinkles

astrofool wrote:

They could have brought forward the launch date a few weeks/months and still satisfied demand tbh, someone at Sony really f'd up on their estimates.

That's a very good point. Why did they wait so long?

Vegeta

LookingFor wrote:

Eidos wants the install base to be at a certain point before releasing 'major' titles on it. That's not a reflection on the launch - no launch would be able to get any console to the point Eidos is demanding.

agree completely, its not a reflection on the launch at all as the console is out for 6 months in America and Japan