Just taking your info on things. I had always said the game itself would be a huge seller. That was without question. I always wondered how many consoles it would move though.
Yeah, I knew the game was going to be a big mover. The discussion always came down to whether the hardware push was going to be a huge swell behind it or not. I was always curious, but I'd heard Halo mentioned as a major reason behind purchasing since the launch of the hardware. There's just been various smaller 'waves' of it, so to speak.
Abdiel, can you share some info about what games people are buying for PS4?
I guess that really depends. There's huge variances in the PS4 audiences. There's folks like me, that buy a lot of Japanese titles (Toukiden, DQH, Tales, etc) who don't really care about a lot of the major titles, but they buy pretty much every major Japanese release.
There's the much larger, and much more common audience of the sports/shooter audience, who gets the Maddens, the NBA, etc. These get less games overall each year, but they are a *huge* audience. Largest audience for games like Madden, CoD, and the upcoming Battlefront as well.
There's the folks I see as the fans of what Playstation brings to the table, in the sense of the more diverse titles, which is stuff like Until Dawn, and other first party titles that aren't anywhere near true mainstream, but sell well enough to get attention.
I mean, any mainstream title also is selling best on PS4 at this point. If it's multi-platform, we see the larger share going PS4, so take that how you will. I just break things down into smaller subsets of buying trends, I guess, based on common customer habits.
Appreciate the insight, Abdiel.
So basically, Halo 5 the game is selling well, but the hardware isn't seeing a substantial increase in sales because many of those interested in Halo 5 (and MS exclusives) will have already bought the XB1 by now.
A lot of folks like MS's first party offerings, and have stated as much since the system was announced. There really wasn't much doubt as to which way they'd lean, just a matter of when it would be that they'd finally put their cash down, from my experience.
I think it was kind of expect it. Most people that wanted play Halo already have an Xbox one. The 500 dollar bundle is for those very few who waited This was already said before and I guess this kind of Proves it. Also the price the 500 price hurt it. I think Sony time the price cut just perfectly and I think MS knew about the price cut but expect it at the Paris games show not a the beginning of the month. Still I think it would be kind of shocking for MS to lose in Halo month. Next month is looking like a landslide victory for PS4.
Thanks for the info Abdiel...
I have no idea how Gamestop or Walmart look at this point. I can only speak for Best Buy, but these trends weren't really something we did anything special to make happen. We saw almost instant reactions from the price drops. People referencing all kinds of value sites or 'price savvy' apps and segments on local news/kind of things calling attention to it. Parents mentioning getting purchases done before the chaos of Black Friday. It's been really interesting to see.
Huh, very interesting. Thanks for your insight again, Abdiel. I think I might give the PS4 a slight win for October. I really wish we had more input from other retailers, though.
I do too. Wish Cornbread would offer some insight, and Shogun were still around.
Thank you for your observations.
This completely aligns with what I figured would occur. Halo 5 itself will sell a massive amount of units. The attach rate should be incredibly high. However, I do not see the rush for hardware being anywhere close to the software movement. It will push systems, of course, but not enough to outdo the PS4's first price cut.
I was already confident in my prediction but this has solidified how I feel.
I fully expect Halo 5 to be one of the most successful titles of the year, hands down. Won't beat CoD on the same platform, but it's already done fantastically well.
Thanks for the info always.
Now I need to know the trend at Gamestop to figure out what my predictions will be. Do we have a current Gamestop resident Bish approved guy/gal expert?
There's that new gent that was making comments on his gamestop store with the trade in offers they're seeing. Interesting perspectives there.
Thank you so much for your insight Abdiel.
I really have no idea what to predict right now. Maybe I'll make my prediction once the final Amazon monthly chart update comes out.
My pleasure. So tired. @_@
The problem with the Xbox bundle to me was that it was $500! MS should have had a $399 bundle available. How do they contend with all the PS4 bundles that started at $350. Because of that, I think that PS4 wins with a bit of a cushion, even though the standalone Halo 5 probably sold a ton, especially if Amazon is any indicator.
I agree the pricing was a problem. They made it a luxury item instead of a mass pricing item. It made the Halo bundle feel disconnected from the rush of the Halo appeal, if that makes sense. And some folks were less than enthused with the digital codes. Plenty of people do still want discs with their bundles.
Were there many cases that people got Halo 5 and the $349 Xbone instead?
We did have people doing that, but that's a lot harder to really weigh. Almost no one was doing that the night of the game release, since I mean, you could just grab the system at any time, and then preorder the game whenever for pickup. Really difficult to measure that sort of metric, you know? The Halo bundle made it a lot more obvious, so to speak.
Didn't MS have a large number of bundles that were significantly cheaper than the Halo bundle? While the Halo bundle may not have sold out, total sales of the console may have increased in October with consumers buying the cheaper bundles that were on offer and just picking up the software separately?
Not sure of using the Halo bundle as the yard stick works this month?
Reference above. We were still selling the other bundles and getting more preorders, but those were just sort of sales throughout the month. It's not like sales simply were dead right up to the Halo release. Consoles were still being sold, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise. Hope that makes it clearer.
If you don't mind answering, was the amount of stock huge to begin with, and has failed to sell out, or was it actually limited and still failed to sell out?
Mix of the two. We got quite a few into each of our stores, more than just enough to fulfill the preorders by far, but it feels like they may have misjudged or been too optimistic on the demand associated with the bundle itself, if that makes sense.