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Sony announces 18.5 million PlayStation 4 consoles sold WW
- Thread starter Krakn3Dfx
- Start date
serversurfer
Member
XB2 had shipped 10.4M through its second Christmas, but they only shipped about 700k in the following quarter, IIRC. But yeah, as other have mentioned, it's about trying to achieve some sort of critical mass. They didn't reach it, but it was helping, which is why they immediately went back to $349.
Nadella's statement wasn't exactly clear, and could be interpreted a couple of ways. Even if we assume he used "shipping" to mean "having shipped," it's possible the last boat of the year pushed off on the 2nd.
Regardless, I wouldn't be surprised if they pushed out 10.5M, if only to hang on to "outpacing the 360" for another quarter. Edit: I doubt it was much higher, if only because I doubt Sony is much lower than 19.5M shipped. As said though, once we get Sony's numbers, we should be able to use AMD's to get a best case for MS, and we might get more hints based on what they say about its pace versus XB2, if anything.
Ideally, they're measured in the number of weeks it takes a given unit to move through the various shipping steps and land on the shelf in front of the customer. Long story, short, Sony's channels seem to run about 5-6 weeks. When we get a shipped number from their quarterly, it's usually roughly equal to the sell through they announce shortly in to the month that follows. That's kinda confusing, so look at their shipments through June. It was 10.2M through June 30th, and they announced "more than 10M" on like August 10th. So whatever they announce as their sold-in through December is gonna be roughly equal to their projected sell-through for Valentine's Day. Assuming everything was right where they wanted it on New Year's, and they weren't over- or under-stocked anywhere.
Like the EU.
That said, the channel's capacity is measure in units rather than weeks, so it's certainly possible to have more than six weeks worth in the channel, especially if you've got a lot of sweetheart retailer deals and your overall sales are comparatively low. So MS may have a lot more than six weeks of stock sitting unsold, even if it's the same number of unsold units Sony have, and they may simply have more units unsold, meaning even more weeks of stock on hand.
Follow? lol
PoweredByHentai
Member
Right, I'm just confused as to where the line is for channel stuffing vs regular stocking.
PoweredByHentai
Member
Ideally, they're measured in the number of weeks it takes a given unit to move through the various shipping steps and land on the shelf in front of the customer. Long story, short, Sony's channels seem to run about 5-6 weeks. When we get a shipped number from their quarterly, it's usually roughly equal to the sell through they announce shortly in to the month that follows. That's kinda confusing, so look at their shipments through June. It was 10.2M through June 30th, and they announced "more than 10M" on like August 10th. So whatever they announce as their sold-in through December is gonna be roughly equal to their projected sell-through for Valentine's Day. Assuming everything was right where they wanted it on New Year's, and they weren't over- or under-stocked anywhere.Like the EU.
That said, the channel's capacity is measure in units rather than weeks, so it's certainly possible to have more than six weeks worth in the channel, especially if you've got a lot of sweetheart retailer deals and your overall sales are comparatively low. So MS may have a lot more than six weeks of stock sitting unsold, even if it's the same number of unsold units Sony have, and they may simply have more units unsold, meaning even more weeks of stock on hand.
Follow? lol
Just saw your post. Yeah, that explains a lot. Thanks!
The Artisan
Member
no i'm not reading his shit there's nothing around to read but I spent about a half hour watching his video. all those guys sound so deluded, and quite immature as well.
I can see that, but how can have any integrity if he's just a closeminded, dogmatic fanboy?
oh my god, they actually said somehwere sometime that they think units sold for xbone is 14m?
I see. I didn't know it was that type of deal.
these guys post on gaf?!
Vallen Chaos Valiant
Banned
The line is whether the stock ordered is consistent with expected demand, or on the other hand if stock is delivered with no consideration on demand.
You stock up before Christmas if you expect a burst of sales to increase demand. But that is only a prediction; you won't actually know the true purchase numbers until the month is over. You have the pre-orders, which can be rather handy to predict how much you are going to sell month by month.
Sony's PS4 is on a "just in time" business model, a method developed by the Japanese for their car manufacturing that have since spread elsewhere. The idea being you make as much as you think you are going to sell, so you don't waste money storing extra stock and pay a fee for it. The benefit is that you get better profits through efficiency, the down side is that you might lose sales if some place suddenly ran out of stock.
Channel stuffing (and let me be clear that we can never know for sure if it is occurring because it is meant to be a trick to manipulate market sentiment, and you can't trick people if you TELL them you are tricking them.) is when you simply make and ship more than you need and use the inflated shipped numbers to make your product appear more popular.
The line is there. The line is intent; do you want to be more efficient in making money, or do you want to manipulate market sentiment?
Sony needs money. Microsoft needs market sentiment. So the two companies, with their different priorities, acted differently.
Channel Stuffing wastes money. But if you need good news, you might think the money is worth wasting.
PoweredByHentai
Member
Thanks for the detailed explanation! So how is it possible for Microsoft to channel stuff against the retailers' wishes? It doesn't make sense why retailers have to take shipments when they don't need nor want it.
Are they obligated by contract to take shipments regardless of the sales situation?
CosmicQueso
Member
It isn't possible. MS could incentivize through volume rebates or other promotional means but retailers are not obligated to take X amount of shipments.
serversurfer
Member
"C'mon, son. It's Halo, FFS. You know it's gonna move hardware."
"If you agree to take delivery of everything you'll need through Valentine's Day by Dec. 2nd, we'll give all of them to you for $325 each, and I'll throw in a couple cases of Play 'n Charge kits."
"Well, if the DC really is that full, maybe we should cut back on your shipments of Windows and Office until you guys have some more space. We certainly don't want to overburden you."
There's all kinds of ways to get someone to buy something they may or may not really need.
Neuromancer
Member
As my pappy used to say, if you're not first in the US, you're last.
PoweredByHentai
Member
This sounds like racketeering. >_<
I've been checking Amazon multiple times every day and the PS4 has been ahead by a decent margin all the time. It seems like consumers may have finally lost interest in the AC bundle or are smart enough to wait for a bigger price drop. The latter seems more likely I think. Anyway, I expect the PS4 to take the lead by ~70K this month
Vallen Chaos Valiant
Banned
Well Microsoft is a big and powerful company, they have the means to get their way to some extent. However, you can't do that for very long without having to start giving retailers serious incentives. Extra stock in warehouses aren't just money not being earned; the extra stock bleeds money for every month that the storage facility charges a fee having the stock there. Further, at some point retailers would simply stop ordering any more.
That's why I say channel stuffing wastes money. You have to eat into your profits to maintain it, and the longer it lasts the worse it gets. Marketing is all about spending money for making a good public image, and yet there are real limits.
Nightengale
Member
There's another reason that channel stuffing can happen.
To hit the "sales target."
Sometimes rationality can go out of the window for a little bit for the sake of achieving a sales target that was given to you.
To hit the "sales target."
Sometimes rationality can go out of the window for a little bit for the sake of achieving a sales target that was given to you.
Sounds exactly like what Microsoft did. I'm pretty sure the main reason thousands of X1 consoles are just sitting in warehouses is because Microsoft channel stuffed retailers to hit that 10 million figure to "boost" sales
serversurfer
Member
There are all sorts of ways to make a sale, which is effectively what MS and Sony are doing with the retailers; selling them product.
Brad Grenz
Member
It would have been extremely embarrassing for MS, after spending all year talking about how the Xbox One is outpacing the 360, to have their next financial report come out and reveal they had shipped less through the Xbox One's 2nd holiday than the 360 did. They would have been highly motivated to hit that mark, even if it meant stuffing the channel again.
how long and how much they can channel stuff XB One to show its ahead of 360??
They can avoid the inevitable for at most 2 Quarters.. i dont think they can run away from reality formore than that...
That was a good read. Cheers.
If PS4 surpass Xbone in January, I think the internet gonna explode.
SMOK3Y
Generous Member
Hmmm...
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Doubt it. Sony won NPD for 10 months straight prior to this past November so it would not be anything unusual.
Yeah, but SONY didn't win any NPD after Xbone price cut.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
It will win the next 10 months again. January is in the bag unless Amazon is wrong for the first time. It's not impossible but very unlikely.
shadowsdarknes
Member
StrongBlackVine
Banned
A whole two months...
shadowsdarknes
Member
Sure.
But we already saw the gap shrink last month in December. The difference between PS4 and XB1 was pretty small.
The gap really has no reason to widen. It could stay neck and neck. But the trend could reverse.
The Xbox One Price Cut caused such dramatic momentum upwards, the sales are bound to come back down. The Price Cut is nothing new now.
People bought one because the price was supposed to go back up. We now know the XB1 price is here to stay for quite awhile.
Isn't it ps4 above xbone in Amazon in both November and December? I don't think Amazon it's exactly a good meter for such things. I'm expect both very close in the next months, but I don't give the lead of ps4 how guaranteed, except in the months with better release. Npd of December doesn't give me exactly a clear idea about the americans and the xbox brand. Sales were huge but Christmas time it's always great for the Xbox in US. Still I'm really curious in the normal months because Xbox sales dropped incredibly after this time, at least in the past.
shadowsdarknes
Member
Nah.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2014-12/videogames
Xbox One was the best selling product in December. PS4 was 15.
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Nope. Amazon has been 100 percent accurate so far on which sold more. Still not a guarantee of anything though.
XB1 was at original price for half the month though. I don't see it all that difficult to imagine PS4 leading in January.
GribbleGrunger
Dreams in Digital
No, the XB1 lead in November and December on Amazon. The PS4 is leading on Amazon (and Amazon best sellers) and Walmart and Bestbuy and has lead for quite some time in January. I can provide links but I don't think they're allowed here.
tattooed_dwarf
Member
I see these meltdown and eploding comments everytime when talk of NPD sales rise. But I have yet to see these meltdowns of GAF or internet.
Well ironically I don't think drop the price could be a win win at all. Keeps in mind tons of people could be attracted to the temporal promotion excuse. That's a double swords what MS did.
StrongBlackVine
Banned
True. The only surprising thing to me is Xbox One never outsold the PS4 hourly after the price went down again, not even initially. The impact has clearly tapered off at this one retailer.
That's not that surprising. Like I said some people could been more attracted because they though it was temporal, in the past months. Will see however.
Bananajama
Banned
See now as a consumer I'd be looking at that $349 price and wondering.
When's the next drop then.
But I am a tight fisted Yorkshire man
When's the next drop then.
But I am a tight fisted Yorkshire man
1st Course
Member
We will get official shipment figures from Microsoft on Monday after the market close.
Nintendo and Sony's reports will release on jan 28 and feb 3, respectively.
I think you mean on monday, right?
1st Course
Member
Yes you're right.
Nadella's statement wasn't exactly clear, and could be interpreted a couple of ways. Even if we assume he used "shipping" to mean "having shipped," it's possible the last boat of the year pushed off on the 2nd.
I just wish Microsoft were more open with their sales figures for X1. It'd make updating my spreadsheet a lot easier.
But most likely only a XB1+360 figure.
If MS would have sold better WW, they would be more open. The only reason why Sony it's that open it's because ps4 has the lead WW. But looks how much silent they are about December and November npd just because MS beaten them. And their false humbleness 'we don't know why we sell that much' lol. Pure gold. They know perfectly why, they projected ps4 for years with this success in mind . I admire Nintendo because it's the only who provide clear numbers whatever they sell.
ArchedThunder
Banned
Most likely, and I'm super excited to see how this holiday will go down. Xbox One will probably be $300 for Black Friday at the very least and I imagine the PS4 will be down to $350 as its base price by holiday so it will probably have some comparable deals. Then there is the big fight between Halo 5 and Uncharted 4.
People though Holiday 2014 was interesting? Holiday 2015 will be incredible to see.
Facism
Member
Thanks. Is there a possibility for an educayed guess at this time?
I'm expected 299 for ps4. 349 it's a weird drop applied just for particular situations. (when pratically you can't drop the price how much you really wanted because cost)
StrongBlackVine
Banned
It's all about price at this point. That is pretty much the only way Xbox One can outsell the PS4 even in the U.S. It will be interesting to see how Sony responds next holiday season because Microsoft will likely use the same strategy again.