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PS4 Tops January 2017 US Sales
- Thread starter e-gamer
- Start date
It is and will only get worse as time goes by, 360 later years were crazy with Kinect and Call of Duty taking of.
Doctor_Thomas
Member
Yeah, based on this thread and how people are reacting to the PS4's sales, we've had a few breakdowns.
Version 3.0
Member
lol
I don't get it. Image search not helping.
slavesnyder
Member
The PS4 Pro is an incriminantal hardware upgrade.
Primethius
Banned
It was a locked thread that's now unlocked. So, not necessarily you bumping an inactive one.
Edit: Fairly sure it was locked earlier this morning.
The Mad Draklor
Member
Dear lord, what the fuck did I just read?!
Sangetsu-II
Member
Perfection, you read perfection lol.
Primethius
Banned
No, if stuff does leak it'd be sometime next week when we get the list of top 10 games and so on. Just have the leaked numbers from the past two months.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
Christ almighty this thread.....
Sangetsu-II
Member
Primethius
Banned
statham
Member
This is my 10 minutes of fame. T-shirt companies call me.
onemanasylum
Banned
What mental Gymnastics. How many people would have got a slim if Pro was not an option? How many Xbox Slim buyers are Xbox Phat buyers? What Bundles/Promos would sony have had the Pro not been released? Sony already said a big portion of PRO owners never owned a PS4. PS4 has been outselling X1 for years, Pro or No Pro, the split tells you nothing.
Yeah but let's move past this. Mods already came through and cleaned house so let's focus on the topic at hand.
Because it's February and I'm thinking of the Halo Wars 2 bundle I just saw online, it's interesting to see what Microsoft has been doing in the States with bundles in the last 12 months. Yes they do occasionally feature third-party games like Battlefield but most of their bundles are first-party titles.
If I recall correctly, there's been a bundle for Halo Wars 2, Minecraft, Forza, Gears of War, Recore, and that TV show thingy released last Spring that I forgot the name of. Even though one could argue that some of these games would have sold well regardless, creating bundles for almost every first-party game seems like a smart way to give those titles extra exposure. I would imagine it also has the added bonus of helping to define the brand to the casual consumer.
On the flip side, Sony really doesn't do this, even though they have more third-party partnerships, more console exclusive third-party games, and more first-party games. With limited supply chains, obviously it's impossible to bundle everything but they don't even try to bundle a quarter of what they have available.
At the end of the day, a sale is a sale and total sales (plus revenue) is what matters the most but I find it interesting that Microsoft is going all-in on first-party bundles whereas Sony is sticking to as little as possible.
DriftingSpirit
Member
You're thinking of Quantum Break, Sirronoh!
I think Sony only bundles the first party games that they think will align well with the US market. So, basically, all the big, first party titles from western studios - UC4, Horizon, God of War, etc...
Sony has stated that it is on the success of their bigger titles that they can afford to venture into the smaller titles and the loss they may bring. So, I think Sony is just trying to maximize what they know will work in US while the rest of the world carries the other stuff.
I think Sony only bundles the first party games that they think will align well with the US market. So, basically, all the big, first party titles from western studios - UC4, Horizon, God of War, etc...
Sony has stated that it is on the success of their bigger titles that they can afford to venture into the smaller titles and the loss they may bring. So, I think Sony is just trying to maximize what they know will work in US while the rest of the world carries the other stuff.
Thank you! And yes, I agree. Certainly looks like Sony is trying to focus on what has been traditionally defined as US-centric brands. Still, it could be an interesting experiment for their analytics team to mix things up every once in a while to see if the market has changed. Instead of just Uncharted or The Last of Us (they still haven't committed to Horizon btw), they could've tried the Last Guardian. Perhaps try Persona 5. I dunno but sometimes you just don't know until you try (within reason of course) and times change.
miller.skippins
Banned
the king (of trolls) has returned. All bow before him!
Will be more hilarious if you did what you did between the month of scorpio (October 24 November 22)
DriftingSpirit
Member
Mmm, I see what you're saying. I think there is potential in something like Persona 5, for example, and it would be nice for them to at least look at the potential of specific titles if they are not going to do it for everything.
Oh, and why do you think Sony has committed to Horizon yet? I do think they need to step up marketing but I think that will come soon.
MiloHoffman
Member
Congrats Sony, hail to the king
That's a good question. In regards to Horizon, I find this somewhat baffling to be honest. Sony is on record stating they see this as their next big franchise. They've done a lot of press events and the game is getting a lot of coverage as a result of that. There's lots of videos out in the wild plus print and digital advertisements. It feels like the only thing they haven't done is give Horizon a bundle.
I think what it comes down to though, is that Sony's marketing team is just not as aggressive as Microsoft's marketing team in the States. I want to be careful saying that because I'm not suggesting Sony in general is conservative because they certainly take a lot of risks, particularly on the diversity of games they offer. But when it comes to marketing in the States, even though they're #1 right now in terms of market share, they don't feel the need to go for complete domination like they tried to do back in the PS2 days. (There's a famous E3 photo going around show Kaz trashing Nintendo and Microsoft during some on stage presentation.)
Seems like Sony is content to focus on (a) Sony and (b) profitability. Microsoft on the other hand seems to very much be focused on (a) profitability and (b) bridging the gap between Xbox and PlayStation in the States. It's why they can't stop talking about Sony. Even when they find some statistic they can use to highlight themselves (MAUs, YoY growth, etc.), they find a way, directly or indirectly, to bring up Sony to try and play the momentum card.
I can dive deeper into why I think Microsoft is doing this but my point is that Sony is doing amazing worldwide so they're not going out of their way in the States if they don't absolutely feel like they need to. PS4 sales in the second half of 2016 have indeed been down in the States compared to 2015 but besides having great new games available and the usual holiday price cut (and now February price cut), they haven't done much else to address that particular issue. And maybe that's OK once we step back and look at the larger picture.
They recently announced the white PS4 slim available everywhere except for the States. It wasn't until just the other day that they announced the white slim would come to the States and even then, it's exclusive to Walmart of all places. Why not have a white Horizon bundle available at all retailers to sit alongside the Uncharted 4, Call of Duty, and Pro consoles?
The examples that I mentioned above coupled with how aggressive Microsoft has been end up making Sony look not as aggressive. Some of that is simply because of what Microsoft is doing but some of that is simply on Sony. And it's not a bad thing -- Sony should do whatever they feel is necessary for their business. All three hardware manufacturers have different strategies after all. As some random guy on salesgaf though, I just find Sony's marketing approach with their bundles interesting because from the outside looking in, I think Sony has a lot of potential that maybe they aren't taking advantage of.
This is a hits driven industry and every game has potential to be a deciding factor to bring new customers into an ecosystem. Uncharted wasn't always Uncharted after all; it had to start somewhere.
onemanasylum
Banned
They have TV, Theatre ads already running, it is already getting a big push from Sony.
I think you are living in a bubble...Horizon is being pushed nearly as hard as an established franchise UC4.
...I wasn't suggesting that Sony wasn't pushing Horizon:
Just commenting on the lack of a bundle, that's all.
DriftingSpirit
Member
I think the Horizon bundle will come. I think Sony is just trying to give the UC4 bundle its last push before it is phased out.
I do see what you're saying in general though. MS is certainly more aggressive in the states and it makes sense. They are behind in their strongest territory so they should be throwing everything they can at the market.
Sony has better bundle variety outside of US and it probably aligns with how the world makes up their share of Sony hardware/software.
As we agreed earlier, I think Sony could mix things up from time to time in the US but I think they go with the 'less is more' strategy because it works best with the type of software they put out.
Yeah, I just started seeing more of a push on TV. I've seen quite a few ads for Horizon now.