Irish Times article on Christmas game sales

LookingFor

This is kind of novel - the Irish Times reporting on game sales here over Christmas as if it were a big business story It's the second lead business article in today's paper, "Sony enjoys the happier Christmas".

It paints a good picture for Sony. Says the best selling game was Fifa 08 - 34% of sales on PS2, 20% on PS3, 19% on PSP and 14% on 360. Second best selling game was Assassin's Creed, 56% sold on PS3, 44% on 360. The article goes on to say that in nearly every game on the top 20, PS2 and PS3 outranked 360, with the exceptions of CoD4 (50% on 360), and Guitar Hero 3 (37% on 360).

Seems to indicate a fairly dramatic turnaround for PS3 late in the year. There's a quote from a Sony guy who's roundly pleased, while a Microsoft guy takes umbrage with the fact that the data (from Chart Track) misses out on two retailers. Data was supplied by Chart Track.

mcgovern

Just proves that Irish people are still infatuated with the Playstation brand.
In the states the 360 out performed the Wii and PS3 combined.

sweetie

a pinch of salt, anyone?

LookingFor wrote: »

This is kind of novel - the Irish Times reporting on game sales here over Christmas as if it were a big business story It's the second lead business article in today's paper, "Sony enjoys the happier Christmas".

It paints a good picture for Sony. Says the best selling game was Fifa 08 - 34% of sales on PS2, 20% on PS3, 19% on PSP and 14% on 360. Second best selling game was Assassin's Creed, 56% sold on PS3, 44% on 360. The article goes on to say that in nearly every game on the top 20, PS2 and PS3 outranked 360, with the exceptions of CoD4 (50% on 360), and Guitar Hero 3 (37% on 360).

Seems to indicate a fairly dramatic turnaround for PS3 late in the year. There's a quote from a Sony guy who's roundly pleased, while a Microsoft guy takes umbrage with the fact that the data (from Chart Track) misses out on two retailers. Data was supplied by Chart Track.

LookingFor

mcgovern wrote: »

Just proves that Irish people are still infatuated with the Playstation brand.
In the states the 360 out performed the Wii and PS3 combined.

I think you have that mixed up - talk is that in Dec the Wii may have outsold the 360 and PS3 combined. PS3 did do alright there, though. Sony says they sold 1.2m PS3s in the last 5 weeks of the year in North America.

Bear in mind also that the article seems to mostly contrast PS3 and 360. It's hard to determine relative Wii performance, given that a lot of Wii games wouldn't be multiplatform, and you wouldn't be able to split the comparison as you can with Fifa or Guitar Hero or whtever. But it does at least suggest that they turned things around vs 360.

sweetie - I'm just passing on what the Irish Times reports, I'm not sure what you want people to take a pinch of salt with. Electricnews has a snippet of the article here if you don't believe me:

http://www.electricnews.net/article/10123673.html

Ri_Nollaig

its funny how when it saw the title "Irish Times article on Christmas game sales" and saw that the OP was "lookingFor" i was instantly able to assume this thread was some kinda pro-ps3

zAbbo

I stopped reading after it said the best selling games was Fifa08.

Who cares what games sold and on what system, I don't have shares with Sony, MS or Nintendo.

Consolewarz!!!1111.

Ciaran500

Ri_Nollaig wrote: »

its funny how when it saw the title "Irish Times article on Christmas game sales" and saw that the OP was "lookingFor" i was instantly able to assume this thread was some kinda pro-ps3

Same, look through his other threads everything is Playstation related except for one about Crysis and one within seconds of the news titled "Microsoft admits 'unacceptable' 360 reliability issues; extends warranty".

LookingFor

OMG, reality is pro-PS3! Let's ignore it!

Seriously lads, get over it. And for at least one of you to complain about bias of others is laughable. I guess you can start penning your letters of complaint to the Irish Times now.

Retr0gamer

I smells a shill.

Seriously it's not surprising that the PS3 preformed so well in Ireland. Ireland has always had the most playstation consoles per head of population than any other country other than japan. The Playstation brand is enough to sell it in Ireland. Unfortunately for Sony this doesn't hold true for the rest of the world.

MikeHoncho

I seriously dont know why anyone bar the companies themselves care about this stuff. The fact that Fifa 08 is the top selling game says it all really as it was definatly not the best game available over xmas. I really dont care about all this PS3 IZ GR8R DAN TREESIXTY bullcrap. That also goes for any CNSOL G8MS R DE GYNES type thread's too. Why do people care so much about these companies? Play your games and enjoy them. Id be more for championing a certain game itself or a developer but not the feckin console manufacturer.

LookingFor

I don't particularly care about sales of any platform. As a former Nintendo-only gamer I know all about the irrelevance of market performance to personal enjoyment of a platform. I for one know that all of these platforms are sufficiently backed to stay around for the long haul.

The reason I posted this was a) my surprise at seeing the irish times place a local gaming story front and centre, b) my surprise at the apparent ps3 performance and c) as much as you might like it not to be the case, ps3's market performance does come up again and again on debates that we have on these boards about which console would be preferable.

Kenjd

I know for a fact that a lot of their reporters got free PSP's when they first came out, a reporter friend of mine has a psp with about 5 games sitting in his closet!!!
I think the Irish Times should be reporting on the governments lack of support for the Irish game development industry and not this bullsh*t. But hey that might step on a few toes!

Azza

The Playstation brand name is really strong in Ireland. I know several people who own them that are not big gamers but like a game every now and they just automatically think of the playstation when buying consoles without considering the games list of each format. When I asked my brother why was he not interested in the Wii or Xbox 360 he said he did not know of any games on those formats. I asked what games made him choose the PS3 and he didn't know what games where on it either. He just assumed it was better cause it was the Playstation.

I will probably get a PS3 this year but not for a few months.
Leaving aside Sony's marketing blunders of the past, the dropping of the rumble feature on its joypads and its price there is not really anything bar Uncharted: Drakes Fortune games wise that attracts my interest but that should change when some of the big hitters come out mid year. It should probably come good in the end but I think they deserved the run of bad sales they got at first. It was like they took things for granted.

mcgovern

LookingFor wrote: »

I think you have that mixed up - talk is that in Dec the Wii may have outsold the 360 and PS3 combined. PS3 did do alright there, though. Sony says they sold 1.2m PS3s in the last 5 weeks of the year in North America.
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Ah, you are right. I was talking about combined rather than hardware only sales, but it looks like the figures I read were from November.

In the US, through November, the Xbox 360 platform did $3.5 billion in business, more than the Wii and PS3 combined. These latest figures put Microsoft on track to register the biggest year in video game history as U.S. consumers spent more on the Xbox 360 platform in 2007 than on any other gaming platform.

Remember that the 360 has the highest attach rate for any console, and a 360 costs more than a Wii.

Cuddlesworth

mcgovern wrote: »

Remember that the 360 has the highest attach rate for any console, and a 360 costs more than a Wii.

360 might cost more, but it sells at a horrific loss. The higher attach rate at best means they might be breaking even on the console. The wii has no such problem. Out and out, the wii has won in business terms.

Ciaran500

krazy_8s wrote: »

360 might cost more, but it sells at a horrific loss.

Pretty sure they gone past that and now sell them at a profit.

sprinkles

I'm amazed at the amount of people that would be more casual gamers (ie not read up about anything to do with gaming but rather base their purchases on advertisements and graphics) in Ireland that are so dismissive of the 360 in comparision to the PS3.

Apparently the PS3 has waaaaaay better graphics and better games. News to me.

There's 2 people I live with who both went out and bought the PS3 purely to play PES and GTA4. After explaining the background of those games and the consoles to them I was told that the PS3 has better graphics. Neat.

Then another guy in work was talking about his recently bought PS3 and COD4 and how great it was. I also bought COD4 for the 360 and was discussing it with him. Once he heard I was playing it on the 360 he was amazed that it was similar to the PS3 version...... as if the 360 is some sort of relic.

The average Irish consumers attitude to almost every area of consumerism is ridiculously ill informed. It must be the easiest job in the world to be an advertising/marketing exec in Ireland. Fly my pretties fly!

Azza

I agree with you totally sprinkles. Alot of people I know are very dismissive of the Xbox 360. My house mate another causal gamer said to me he would take the PS3 over the other 2 next gen consoles when the PS3 was first released. I asked why and he replied I dunno I just prefer it. Got the impression he assumed it would auto win the console war and it would have the majority of the best games. My thinking up till recently was that it might be something to do with the reliability issues the Xbox 360 has but taking to the casual gamers they are mostly unaware that the Xbox 360 has had reliability issues.

From what I have heard all the EA sports games run at better framerates on the Xbox 360, as well as games like Assassins Creed and the Orange Box. Graphical quality is very close on both and it really is down to personal preference but I think I would opt for a game that has no slow down at all than one with better graphics and even occasional slow down. Also I heard people who use both consoles tend to prefer the Xbox 360 controller.

The PS3 is only marginally better in terms of graphical hardware but graphics alone don't make games as Crysis proved on the PC.

Just people I guess are so use to the Playstation brand after the PS2 they don't want switch.

Jazzy

mcgovern wrote: »

In the states the 360 out performed the Wii and PS3 combined.

no it didnt.
more games were sold for the 360 over the course of the year and as we know games = $$$ for the hardware developers, but the run from black friday to 31st Dec the Wii and 360 were pretty much neck and neck sales wise. Nintendo havent released exact sales figures yet for the holiday period but i suspect we will see them wednesday or thursday.

it is also interesting to note that 360 sales for 2007 were 7.3 million which is down from the 8.9 million of 2006. due to last year being the biggest year in games ever i dont really see a significant raise in that figure meaning that by the end of 2008 there will be roughly 25 million 360's shipped. meaning that its selling better then the xbox 1 but not by as much as ppl might think (cba doing maths )

Vegeta

I just feel for all the suckers who bought a PS3 to play fifa.

and LookingFor pimping the PS brand, there's a surprise :rolleyes:

Otacon

With regards the OP, I agree that it is still strange to see gaming news in the Times but tbh I think its about time. The gaming industry is huge and rightly should be a big business interest.

Now you can all go back to what is fast becoming another ConsoleWarz!!!11 thread.

conzy

McGovern is a 360 fanboy out and out , he just strolls into every games thread changes the topic to Xbox360 / Halo.......

Anywhoo, nice to see some irish gaming news

mcgovern

conzymaher wrote: »

McGovern is a 360 fanboy out and out , he just strolls into every games thread changes the topic to Xbox360 / Halo.......

Anywhoo, nice to see some irish gaming news

Thanks for your great input there :rolleyes:
I haven't mentioned Halo in this thread (and don't actually play the game), and I think you'll find the thread is about the Wii, the PS3 and the Xbox 360.
But since I'm a fanboy I better go home and dump my PS2, PSP and DS because they aren't Xbox.

@Jazzy,
Thanks for correcting me, otherwise I would never have realised my mistake and admitted it almost 2hrs before your post.
Oh, and the topic was about software sales anyway, not console sales.

steviec

It seems sales figures can prove one of two things.

If you like what's selling well, it proves that its the best.

I you don't like what's selling well, it proves that the public are idiots.

I think what's worse than uninformed punters is people who are informed and still follow popular myths like FIFA 08 is rubbish (most critics rated it higher than PES 2008 and I'd agree) or the PS3 has no games (it has 90% of what the 360 has and some very good exclusives too) to further a point.

Jazzy

np mcgovern, didn't see ur other post rectifying ur error

so i decided to do a bit of maths this morning to see the actual difference in MS fortunes in the console "war"
it all makes for interesting enough reading. I would be inclined to do something similar for the PS3 and the Wii but i feel the figures will be inaccurate as they have only really been out a year.

anyhow, lets see how they are faring up.
in the 2001 - 2005 period we see the Xbox 1 sold 24m units in total. this averages to 6.25 million a year
in the 2005 - 2007 period we see the xbox 360 has sold (not shipped) 16.2 million units. this averages to 8.1 million a year
so that means so far there is an increase of 29.6% in sales of the Xbox brand compared to the last generation. but think of that more of a "gross" figure because if we bring in other calculations, the picture is a bit more clear.

in the first sales year of the Xbox 1 (2002) MS shifted 8 million units
in the first sales year of the xbox 360 (2006) MS shifted 8.9 million units
That is an increase of 11.25% for the first sales year, which in my opinion isn't really all that great a figure due to the fact that the 360 had no "next gen" competition whereas the xbox was going against the PS2 and the Gamecube.
factors that may have influenced this are the 33% failure rate in the console and the fact that there wasn't a Halo game on the 360 for 2006.

in the second sales year of the Xbox 1 (2003) MS shifted 5.7 million units
in the second sales year of the Xbox 360 (2007) MS shifted 7.3 million units
that is a 28% increase for the second year. This is quite an impressive figure considering that the competition in 2007 was the most fierce in years. 2007 was also the biggest year in games ever and MS gained significant ground over their chief rival, Sony.
factors that may have influenced this rise are mainly game orientated imo. We had the monster hit which is Halo 3 and then of course we also had Bioshock and Mass Effect which both sold bucket loads for the 360. consumers seem to be trusting MS more despite the poor reliability of the console. The competition in the gamers market has also diversified massively with Nintendo making up a lot of its sales through non-traditional gamers and the struggling PS3 meant that MS could make up a ton of ground in the "traditional" market, which they did.


It is also interesting to remember the fact that MS make a loss on every 360 sold, more of a loss then they would make in the early days of the Xbox 1 and the retail price for each console were around the same. So for MS to have made their money they would have had to really really rely on selling games for the 360. thanks their stars then that they had some top notch games in 2007. We can see with all their recent marketing that they have been looking at Nintendo's play book so I expect to see the 360 branching out over 2008.

it proves though that it doesnt really matter what extra bells and whistles you have with your console, what will drive it forward are the games themselves. as good as IPTV sounds, its just another bell for the 360 and i shouldn't really expect it to affect actual sales.

mickoneill30

Jazzy wrote: »

It is also interesting to remember the fact that MS make a loss on every 360 sold

Have you got links for the current figures?

In 2005 they lost $173 million.
In 2006 they lost $95 million.

I've heard that this was a big year for the 360 but I can't find links for their current profits.

sprinkles

steviec wrote: »

It seems sales figures can prove one of two things.

If you like what's selling well, it proves that its the best.

I you don't like what's selling well, it proves that the public are idiots.

I think what's worse than uninformed punters is people who are informed and still follow popular myths like FIFA 08 is rubbish (most critics rated it higher than PES 2008 and I'd agree) or the PS3 has no games (it has 90% of what the 360 has and some very good exclusives too) to further a point.

I'd agree with you to a degree.

Fifa 08 was quite good but not as good as PES imo. It's still too easy to score.

As for saying the PS3 has 90% of what the Xbox has is rubbish. It doesn't. Even those cross platform games that have come out in the past year - most have been better on the xbox (see the Eurogamer head-to-heads) for one reason or another so at the minute I would be of the stance that the Xbox has the advantage software wise. That said the PS3 can't be written off. It's lineup this year is interesting to say the least but so is the xbox's. The very good exclusives amount to ... eh.... Uncharted and um..... eh....... exactly.

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not a MS fanboy and never have been. I'll end up buying the PS3 (mainly for the top gear test track in GT5) but the sales figures showing the PS3 is selling better than it's rivals in Ireland does at least indicate, imo, that the Irish casual gamers are ill-informed. The 2 examples I gave earlier are not isolated, they are the view of a large proportion of game buying public and they are the same people who will have picked Fifa over PES in the past cause it had Rooney's correct boots in it and they'll snap up Killzone no matter how it scores in any reviews. They also read the sun/mirror, watch big brother and creamed over the scene in Die Hard 4 where he stood on the F35 cause it looked kewl. [/stereotyping]

Vegeta

steviec wrote: »

I you don't like what's selling well, it proves that the public are idiots.

Anyone who blindly displays brand loyalty even though there is a better alternative is indeed an idiot

I think what's worse than uninformed punters is people who are informed and still follow popular myths like FIFA 08 is rubbish (most critics rated it higher than PES 2008 and I'd agree) or the PS3 has no games (it has 90% of what the 360 has and some very good exclusives too) to further a point.

Fifa 08 is a great game but I wouldn't buy a console for it nor if I owned said console would it be the type of game I'd rush out and buy. Seems I am not in the majority though.

Popularity does not equal quality

monument

I'm the author of the article (and your mod who hasn't had time to post lately), if anybody has any questions please fire away. I'm a freelance journalist, and not an Irish Times staffer.

ADDED: It can be viewed in full via the following link to Eircom.net's news section which uses Irish Times and Irish Independent content (one slight correction Xtra-vision are not included in the charts as stated, this was an error on Chart-Track's part)...

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/11916144?view=Eircomnet

Mossy Monk

People bought a PS3. Why is that such a big deal for some people?

corcaigh07

has anyone got the feeling that sony practially bribe the media to cover news about Playstation?? when PS2 and PS3 got released, they were covered in hype in papers and news. not so for wii or 360.

monument

corcaigh07 wrote: »

has anyone got the feeling that sony practially bribe the media to cover news about Playstation?? when PS2 and PS3 got released, they were covered in hype in papers and news. not so for wii or 360.

Wii got a tone of mainstream news coverage before Chistrmas, and the 360 got the same at the Halo 3 launch.

corcaigh07

monument wrote: »

Wii got a tone of mainstream news coverage before Chistrmas, and the 360 got the same at the Halo 3 launch.

but that was because the wii was sold out over christmas and Halo 3 is massive with or without coverage. i just always felt the media "like" sony more. as someone already said, newspaper reporters all got psps for nothing.

steviec

corcaigh07 wrote: »

but that was because the wii was sold out over christmas and Halo 3 is massive with or without coverage. i just always felt the media "like" sony more. as someone already said, newspaper reporters all got psps for nothing.

Heh. Halo 3 is massive with or without coverage? Surely it's massive because of the coverage. Microsoft's marketing money is the one and only thing it has had over franchises like Call of Duty and Half Life over the years and I don't think many people who are into games would possibly consider it the massive world conquering event it was universally hyped to be by the media when it came out. Microsoft's official xbox Live usage figures for this month have even shown Call of Duty 4 to be ahead of it, and it had practically no hype by comparison.

Same goes for the Wii. It's been all over the media since it came out, god knows how many times I've seen presenters showing people playing tennis and bowling on various shows, not to mention seeing billboards with the likes of Philip Schofield endorsing the DS all over the place here in the UK.

Sony are equally bad of course but they're certainly not the only ones. Historically (well, in the last decade) Sony did get by far the most coverage but that's because they basically accounted for three quarters of the entire games market in Ireland for years, and now that Microsoft and Nintendo are making strides they're getting coverage too.

monument

corcaigh07 wrote: »

...newspaper reporters all got psps for nothing.

Did they all get them?

Jazzy

corcaigh07 wrote: »

but that was because the wii was sold out over christmas and Halo 3 is massive with or without coverage. i just always felt the media "like" sony more. as someone already said, newspaper reporters all got psps for nothing.

they also got free xbox 360's

seraphimvc

well...all i can tell is...my friend got a ps3 for xmas,what did he get?

a tennis game and smack down...GREAT.

people really buy the console for the brand?no doubt for me ireland is a big supporter of Sony,which is sad we never treated well by (any) game company...