Sony, Microsoft Consoles Struggle With Thin Launch-Day Stock (bloomberg.com) 47
Sales of Sony and Microsoft's new gaming consoles fell short of their predecessors during their first week in Japan, suggesting persistent supply bottlenecks will hamper the debut of two of this holiday season's most hotly anticipated gadgets. From a report: Sony sold 118,085 PlayStation 5 consoles from its debut on Nov. 12 to Nov. 15, roughly a third of the PS4's performance over launch weekend, Famitsu estimated. Microsoft tallied 20,534 units of its Xbox Series X and S during the six days from its start on Nov. 10, also shy of the 23,562 that the Xbox One managed during its first few days, the research house said. The estimates provided a first glimpse at sales of the new Xbox and PlayStation, two devices that should dominate wishlists this Christmas. Japan was among the first markets globally to get the consoles and is considered a key battleground between two companies vying to establish a lead in next-generation gaming and drive longer-term growth. Factory and logistical disruptions during the pandemic have hurt manufacturers' ability to keep up. The outcome is likely more reflective of the available supply than demand for the consoles, as both companies saw their machines sell out on day one, said Serkan Toto, an industry consultant in Tokyo.
Enough for the streamers (Score:4, Interesting)
There's so few games, I'm happy watching streamers show off the Demon's Souls remake. And they've all (the significant ones I know of) got their consoles, probably direct from Sony marketing.
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Wow, I wanted to upgrade our family Rock Band setup from Nintendo to the new XBox. I thought the hard part would be getting a console in time for Christmas. But, it turns out, the controllers have not been manufactured in years, so they are the real bottleneck. The bundles go for $900 used or $1300 new!
I realize the games are no longer such hot stuff but I sure hope some company steps up to fill this gap!
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There's so few games, I'm happy watching streamers show off the Demon's Souls remake. And they've all (the significant ones I know of) got their consoles, probably direct from Sony marketing.
This time around they play the previous generation games with better frame rates, and way quieter (Can't speak for Xbox but I expect the same), a huge plus in the living room. Quite a few games had variable frame rates this generation, but plenty are also locked to 30fps. At least those will be solid 30fps without fans revving up, all the rest will be solid 60fps from what I'm seeing, silent, unless it was flat out unoptimized garbage. Then there's the trickle of PS5 version upgrades for popular stuff.
Have to sell out (Score:5, Informative)
You have to sell out first day, otherwise your product is a failure. So you intentionally keep supply lower than demand so you sell out quickly. Even if you have the capacity or product availability, what you then do is slowly send more product out, allowing more people to buy it but while still keeping availability low. This keeps up demand for your product and you get the bonus of word of mouth or viral advertising from people saying "woohoo! i finally got my thingamajig!", making other people wanting to go out and get theirs while they can, or anxiously waiting for them to come back in stock.
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You have to sell out first day, otherwise your product is a failure. So you intentionally keep supply lower than demand so you sell out quickly. Even if you have the capacity or product availability, what you then do is slowly send more product out, allowing more people to buy it but while still keeping availability low. This keeps up demand for your product and you get the bonus of word of mouth or viral advertising from people saying "woohoo! i finally got my thingamajig!", making other people wanting to go out and get theirs while they can, or anxiously waiting for them to come back in stock.
In other words, you have to treat the stupid addicted consumers, like stupid addicted consumers.
Watching that from the sidelines is like chasing the lemmings off a cliff to feed to a group of trained walruses barking for food.
Re: Have to sell out (Score:2)
If people want to be stupid, let them. If companies want to take advantage of this stupidity in this way, let them.
You don't need an Xbox or a Playstation. You need food, water, and shelter.
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If people want to be stupid, let them. If companies want to take advantage of this stupidity in this way, let them.
You don't need an Xbox or a Playstation. You need food, water, and shelter.
If you only need those three things, then I guess you won't mind giving up Freedom, Liberty, and Rights then...also known as those things that allow a human to secure food, water, and shelter, and preferably without another violent human killing you for it.
And let them? Fuck no. I don't feel like standing off to the side and watching Stupid dictate and define policy. Because Stupid ends up in charge, and ignorant fucks who stood by and let Stupid be Stupid thinking it was no big deal won't even realize
Re: Have to sell out (Score:2)
"up Freedom, Liberty, and Rights "
How is not being able to get the latest happy shiny having to do with this?
We are talking about a frivolous physical item not being easy to find, and I replied with a small list of physical items that humans actually need.
Really, how did this turn into "you must be a commie"? :\
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"up Freedom, Liberty, and Rights "
How is not being able to get the latest happy shiny having to do with this?
We are talking about a frivolous physical item not being easy to find, and I replied with a small list of physical items that humans actually need.
Really, how did this turn into "you must be a commie"? :\
You're still here assuming this would ever be a discussion limited to gaming consoles, but let's assume it is for a moment. Thankfully you nor I are in this position, but ever consider the person earning a living off evaluating gaming consoles and games that cannot do so right now? If you were a massive football fan but heard that footballs could not be manufactured because of a shortage of construction material causing no games to be played, I wonder how many would consider your constant bitching, frivolo
Does not compute (Score:1)
In other words, you have to treat the stupid addicted consumers, like stupid addicted consumers.
If you have a bunch of addicted customers, would not you make way more money simply selling them as many consoles as they wanted?
An artificially limited supply of consoles at launch would mean fewer, not more, of consumers were not addicted to your product line.
Re: Does not compute (Score:2)
"If you have a bunch of addicted customers, would not you make way more money simply selling them as many consoles as they wanted?"
Exactly. If these were food or pharmacutical companies creating artificial scarcity, that's one thing.
But this is about video game consoles, and it's not the end of life if you can't get the latest and greatest Xbox.
People are always going to be stupid, and if they get played around with, I simply don't care.
Once upon a time, Darwin would've handled them, but I heard he is now b
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The same goes for restaurants. If there's never a line to get in, your restaurant is a failure.
Don't think so (Score:1)
You have to sell out first day, otherwise your product is a failure.
Same effect can be had with limited pre-orders alone, then you just supply as much stock as you want at launch.
The simple truth is, both new consoles are expensive to make, and you want to wait as long as possible before production ramps up so that you can get the benefit of any component price decreases over time, and add features into the console as late in the dev cycle as possible. So anything as expensive and complex as the PS5 or Xbo
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You have to sell out first day, otherwise your product is a failure. So you intentionally keep supply lower than demand so you sell out quickly. Even if you have the capacity or product availability, what you then do is slowly send more product out, allowing more people to buy it but while still keeping availability low. This keeps up demand for your product and you get the bonus of word of mouth or viral advertising from people saying "woohoo! i finally got my thingamajig!", making other people wanting to go out and get theirs while they can, or anxiously waiting for them to come back in stock.
A business idea environment is for Supply to Meet demand. So at the end of the day, the shelves are empty, than by opening the next day they are full for the exact number of units that people will want to buy the next day.
While it may feel nice to have a shortage, in which they may be able to sell the product for more. However that opens the door for people looking at alternatives.
If XBox is selling out and becoming very hard to find and expensive to get, the Play Station can be an acceptable alternative,
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You have to sell out first day, otherwise your product is a failure. So you intentionally keep supply lower than demand so you sell out quickly.
This has nothing to do with first day sales. Every product launch even outright turds sell out in the first day. This is about how long it will take to get capacity so your customer base doesn't lose interest.
The idea that this keeps up demand is some kind of twisted fantasy that defies even the logic of MBAs.
Re: Have to sell out (Score:2)
That wasn't marketing, that was being a week or so behind in distribution.
Re: Have to sell out (Score:2)
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The XBox and PlayStation are not really good platform for Casual Games. It is like having a Server Blade to use as your Home PC. Unless you really are into it, it is overkill and too expensive.
It is a good platform for these Immersive worlds were you can get into the story and explore virtual worlds. If you just want to race around a track and throw shells at other people, get a Nintendo Switch. Or play many of the games available on your phone for an hour a day just to let you to unwind at the end of t
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My personal opinion: User experience. It's easier to veg out on the couch with a console. I sit on my computer chair for 8-9 hours a day as it is, I at the end of the day I don't want to be in it any more. That, and I don't have a 60" 4k monitor with 7.1 surround sound in my office.
Only other thought... I don't buy new consoles when they come out. I'm perfectly happy to wait for the price to go down to the 300$ range. It's still pretty difficult to put together even a budget gaming PC for that price.
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Not that big of a deal. Just take a few extra weeks of savings.
The game library and the general usefulness makes the wait worth it.
Re:Please explain (Score:4, Insightful)
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You are looking at $1000 if you don't have a TV or are looking to upgrade.
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intentional ? (Score:4, Interesting)
short supply leads to scarcity and the perception that it's in demand when it's just another same old box with slight updates to older games; which are not even out at launch anyway.
I keep wondering when will people get sick of racing, EA sports roster update, and new 1st person shooter cutscenes ?
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For a few days yes, then it creates disinterest and demand plummets. Selling out on day one is a good sign. Not having something back on the shelf a few days later is not.
Maybe better off for it (Score:2)
Neither system have that many greta launch titles - the PS4 at least has Spider Man, but that is about it (Godfall looks interesting but Metacritic score is rather low).
Xbox is even worse, they pretty much have nothing even that interesting that is exclusive.
So maybe both systems are better off not having a huge number of people wondering why there are not more next-gen games out yet.
Playstation will be better off after Ratchet & Clank / Horizon drop, and the Xbox after the new Halo releases.
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PS5 breathes a lot of new life into PS4 games.
I did wonder about that, as even with PS4 titles it would greatly improve load times, and a number ofttimes are also doing updates to take advantage of the power... so I probably will be a fairly early purchaser of the PS5.
Games Pass + bw-compatibility, not exclusives (Score:2)
Neither system have that many greta launch titles - the PS4 at least has Spider Man, but that is about it (Godfall looks interesting but Metacritic score is rather low).
Xbox is even worse, they pretty much have nothing even that interesting that is exclusive.
So maybe both systems are better off not having a huge number of people wondering why there are not more next-gen games out yet.
MS did a lot of things right. They have a cheapo version at $300 and a good one at $500. I don't personally care about next gen titles. I hated the generational divide. The XB1 and PS4 games are good enough for most things. My wife would never be able to tell a PS4 from a PS5 game. I'm not even confident I can reliably do so. It's not as dramatic as the PS2 to PS3 jump. The XSX is the best way of playing als the games released recently. Faster loading, smoother gameplay, sometimes even better graph
Is that good though (Score:1)
MS did a lot of things right. They have a cheapo version at $300 and a good one at $500.
Doesn't that kind of suck for game devs though?
The PS5 devs can count on a specific level of system performance, whichever PS5 a person bought.
But the Xbox dev, there is a pretty large gap in CPU between the S and X - 4 TFlops vs 12Tflops, and also less system RAM (10GB vs.16GB, also lots slower on the S).
It means you are pretty much going to have to make sure the game can run on the lower GPU, with the lower amount of m
Where's the coverage of the BL6? (Score:2)
Launch games? It comes with six, and at least 3 of them you've heard of before.
Match your decor? There must be a six pack in there somewhere...
Expensive? Bidding on the one is currently over $4,000.
I'd say hold my beer, but this console can do that, too (also capable of holding a Bud Light if you don't drink actual beer).
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I'd say hold my beer, but this console can do that, too
I thought the last console Sony made with a beer holder was the PS2?
Day 2/3 sales REALLY dismal (Score:2)
If both sold out on day 1, that means zero sales the rest of the "launch window".
Sort of (Score:1)
If both sold out on day 1, that means zero sales the rest of the "launch window".
At this point stores do get some new stock in from day to day, just much slower than people are buying them still. Probably true through December, with an added push for people getting new consoles anticipating another hard lockdown...
I think when they do pre-orders they try to be conservative and still have some extra stock on hand to see release day as well.
Why waste money (Score:1)
Why waste money on a POS Sony console? Sony hasn't made a decent piece of hardware (in any division) in well over a decade. Going on two. Consoles? Terrible. Cameras? Terrible. Phones? Terrible. TVs? Terrible.
It's overpriced. It's exclusives aren't worth it. They're controllers suck. Backwards compatibility decisions were made by apparent retards.
There is a reason I don't buy Sony hardware. If you think Sony's hardware is good, then you're probably the same type of person who thinks a Bose Soundbar is worth
Those numbers are terrible. (Score:2)