All three current generation home consoles are about to or have had substantial price cuts. Sony have been forced into it by being ridiculously overpriced, Nintendo are doing it to counter a huge slump in Wii sales and Microsoft are doing it because they can and because they want more market share. So let’s look at the current state of the Xbox 360.
Firstly for every three Sony Playstation PS3s in the world there are four Microsoft Xbox 360s. A considerable success considering that this is only Microsoft’s second machine and that they entered a market dominated by Sony.
Next the Xbox 360 is played more (figures for North America). It is played more than any other console and about twice as much as the Wii is played. This reflects the fact that it has a far bigger software library ( 684 Metacritic games) than the PS3 (384) and the Wii (455). And also that Xbox Live is a compellingly successful online portal that is a long way ahead of the competitors.
More telling is that PS3 and Wii unit sales in North America have decreased this year, at what should be the peak of the console cycle. Of the home consoles only the Xbox 360 has seen increased sales, up by 17% compared with 2008.
All this will change going into Q4, not only will the hardware price cuts be felt (for instance with PS2 owners upgrading) but there is a veritable glut of new AAA blockbuster titles on all three platforms, a glut that is continuing into Q1 ‘10. It will be very interesting to see what the state of the industry is like in March, after the dust settles.
3 comments ↓
Seems like you have an unusual bias towards Microsoft’s console. I wonder why? Interesting that almost every figure you quote is seriously skewed and flawed.
Firstly, the library of Xbox360 games, PS3 games can easily be found by wikipedia, instead, you counted the number of games reviewed by Metacritic? Do you really think the Xbox has more games than the Wii?
Secondly, you mentioned that only xbox360 is getting a price cut because “they can”? While the others are “forced” to? I wonder what you based your assumption on? PS3 Slim switches to the newest 45nm processes which is cheaper and uses a new fan system which makes it overall much cheaper to produce.
And the price cut that Sony made effectively made the 360 the most expensive console. Soon after Sony’s price cut, MS responded with a price cut on their own. This doesn’t mean anything. But if you want to infer, it is more logical to conclude that MS is the one who was “forced” to make a price cut.
Now even after a price cut, can the Elite, at the same price, out-do the PS3 which packed so much more features?
Next you mentioned some really subjective issues that were constantly being brought up, online services. Is it really ahead by far, as described by you? Even if it is, it is not bringing anything new to the table.
And I do not think it is relevant to bring up past year sales at all. You can infer that the 360 “was” looking good, but you can’t look at the past sales before the price cut, new games etc and say Xbox IS going to look good.
I suggest you should really look into the plans, marketing strategy employed by each companies in detail(publicity, new games, new hardware etc). And the market trend, for example, purchase intent (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24981).
Look at what’s planned ahead by each company, who is really looking “good”?
Wildreamz dont be offended,wikipedia shows clearly that the 360 has more games than the ps3..as for the sales,when natal cums out ps3 sales will drop atleast 50%…with that developers will make lesser games for ps3…man u shudv counted your money b4 wasting it on ps3!
haha, u are amusing, im not saying that the PS3 has more games than the 360, but not to the extend of that mentioned by bruce. And he seem to think that the 360 actually has more games than the wii, simply because he counted the number of games reviewed by metacritic.
I am questioning the way he get the numbers, is it objective journalism at all?
Personally, the number of games is not an issue at all, it is the number of quality games that really matter to the gamer that counts when you are choosing a console.
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