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November 2014 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes December 9th

SDCowboy

Member
The market is changing and it appears a lot of 360 owners and parents waited until they got the price drop to officially upgrade their systems. Working in retail, it's been a pulpable change in the market the last month or so since the price drop started. I clearly expect MS to win Nov. and will be nausiated by their PR reeases, but congrats to MS on making the changes needed to be competitive in the marketplace. They definately have the better value proposition right now in the marketplace.



Some anecdotal sales info from BF:
I had someone return one of the BF Halo bundles so I could finally check the sales numbers from BF and it appears that the PS4 with standard ($50GC) and GTA bundle sold more during the BF week than the Halo and AC bundles did. We received a large shipment of the GTA bundles, and limited of the Halo bundles, so that would account for it.
I don't think the market has changed at all. The Xbone is just selling for a price now that's so low that even many people who would rather have a PS4 are going to find it hard to pass up.
 
[XB1] 800K
[PS4] 900K
[3DS] 500K
[WIU] 300K
[360] 220K
[PS3] 125K

I really don't think the Xbox One will win even with the huge price cut. Sure, it will boost sales, but not enough to win. I bet people are going to have a rude awakening come NPD (Yet again, this is like the fifth time people have been saying Xbox will win to no avail) PS4 just has too much of a lead in terms of mindshare and public perception to me that no matter how much they lower the price or bundle games it just wont catch up.
 

cakely

Member
Clearly not, as it seems.
PS4 is getting its ass kicked at the moment (in NA).
Sony needs a price cut ASAP.
And the $400+ price for the white Destiny bundle is a bad joke.
$349 should be the new price tag if they still want to compete in NA.

It's time to react.

Eh, they're comfortably ahead, world wide and still selling at launch price. I expect they'll still have their LTD lead in NA after the holidays, but by a narrower margin.

A price drop is a one-way operation that will literally take hundreds of millions of dollars off their revenues, it's not something they need to step into lightly.
 

SDCowboy

Member
It's a good deal again when you consider you get the better hardware and probably the one that more of yor friends have.

To us hardcore gamers, yeah we'd rather have the better hardware. To the average/casual consumer, I'm not sure they care enough when the Xbone is at the price it's currently at. It's not like they're making a WiiU level of downgrade for the lower price. lol
 
What huge hit? Pulling Kinect wasnt a hit and at 349 theyre probably breaking even minus the games of course.

No i meant huge hit as in price drop from 499 to 349. I think they cant get it lower that that without losing money. I think 349 will end up as the base point for them but with little room to wiggle anymore. Sony on the other hand doesnt need to lower the price at this point and can still profit from here up to when they do lower it.
 
Xbox PR will be release a day early to talk about #1 on Wednesday without saying #1.

it'll actually talk about numbers and just not hours played in games. more on the game tie in ratio.

don't worry. i'm an Microsoft expert.

I kinda want to see when the $349 is gone or if microsoft will even bother to chance price or just go "Oops!"
 

Rubik8

Member
Never posted to these threads before, but why not jump in on the most confusing month in recent memory?

[360] 200k
[3DS] 545k
[PS3] 100k
[PS4] 850k
[WIU] 375k
[XB1] 900k

One of those ps4s was mine.
 

SDCowboy

Member
No i meant huge hit as in price drop from 499 to 349. I think they cant get it lower that that without losing money. I think 349 will end up as the base point for them but with little room to wiggle anymore. Sony on the other hand doesnt need to lower the price at this point and can still profit from here up to when they do lower it.
We don't know that Sony doesn't need to lower the price. What we do know is the PS4 has taken a sudden free fall over the last month to present in rankings on Amazon. If that's any implication at all, the Xbone may be at a price that isn't only increasing their own sales, but also heavily eating into the PS4's.
 

BadWolf

Member
To us hardcore gamers, yeah we'd rather have the better hardware. To the average/casual consumer, I'm not sure they care enough when the Xbone is at the price it's currently at. It's not like they're making a WiiU level of downgrade for the lower price. lol

Not sure why some people are expecting to be able to pick up a cheaper PS4 just because the X1 is fucking up. There is a very good reason MS is doing the deals they are doing with X1.
 
We don't know that Sony doesn't need to lower the price. What we do know is the PS4 has taken a sudden free fall over the last month to present in rankings on Amazon. If that's any implication at all, the Xbone may be at a price that isn't only increasing their own sales, but also heavily eating into the PS4's.

This is what sales threads have become....Comgnet and Amazon rankings
 

hepburn3d

Member
Just going out on a limb here ... but could the lack of PR be because Microsoft don't really want to scream to investors "hey we sold tonnes and tonnes of stock at a huge discount that will ultimately come out of shareholders dividends"?.

or I could be wrong
 

PhatSaqs

Banned
No i meant huge hit as in price drop from 499 to 349. I think they cant get it lower that that without losing money. I think 349 will end up as the base point for them but with little room to wiggle anymore. Sony on the other hand doesnt need to lower the price at this point and can still profit from here up to when they do lower it.
Point was 499 to 349 wasnt a price drop. 399 to 349 is. Dropping Kinect and going to 399 was more of a price increase really lol.
 
Just going out on a limb here ... but could the lack of PR be because Microsoft don't really want to scream to investors "hey we sold tonnes and tonnes of stock at a huge discount that will ultimately come out of shareholders dividends"?.

or I could be wrong

They can still spin that as install base for Live revenues and software licensing.

If we get PR the day before, that's a bad sign.
 
I know this may be far-fetched, but I wonder if PSX was Sony's alternative (or small step on the way) to a price-drop. It was announced the same week as the $349 X1 price drop. It's not a stretch that they found out about the price drop from industry sources before the actual announcement. They probably had marketing estimates that showed that the X1 might pull ahead based on this drop. From what I heard at PSX, X1 achieved what they set out to do.
 
[XB1] 800K
[PS4] 900K
[3DS] 500K
[WIU] 300K
[360] 220K
[PS3] 125K

I really don't think the Xbox One will win even with the huge price cut. Sure, it will boost sales, but not enough to win. I bet people are going to have a rude awakening come NPD
Nah, I guess you will have a rude awakening come NPD ;)
Eh, they're comfortably ahead, world wide and still selling at launch price. I expect they'll still have their LTD lead in NA after the holidays, but by a narrower margin.
Shawn Layden doesn't care about the worldwide lead. His job at SCEA is to handle the US market. November is lost (99% sure, imho), December too, if you look at some stores like Amazon, etc. What's next? January, February, March......? Do they want to get outsold for half a year until the finally react and drop the price?
 

vin-buc

Member
What huge hit? Pulling Kinect wasnt a hit and at 349 theyre probably breaking even minus the games of course.

How is pulling Kinect NOT a hit? R&D, manufacturing contracts, OS development? Where are the decoupled units at $150 - are they flying off shelves? While the loss will run its course from non-kinect system only sales - dont kid yourself thinking there isn't a hit.
 
I know this may be far-fetched, but I wonder if PSX was Sony's alternative (or small step on the way) to a price-drop. It was announced the same week as the $349 X1 price drop. It's not a stretch that they found out about the price drop from industry sources before the actual announcement. They probably had marketing estimates that showed that the X1 might pull ahead based on this drop. From what I heard at PSX, X1 achieved what they set out to do.

1) why would PSX effect PS4 sales now in any notable way? That seems like silly logic.
2) To organise and even that big takes lots of preparation and time.
3) XB1 pull ahead.....in which country on Earth is this true?
 

BadWolf

Member
I know this may be far-fetched, but I wonder if PSX was Sony's alternative (or small step on the way) to a price-drop. It was announced the same week as the $349 X1 price drop. It's not a stretch that they found out about the price drop from industry sources before the actual announcement. They probably had marketing estimates that showed that the X1 might pull ahead based on this drop. From what I heard at PSX, X1 achieved what they set out to do.

You do realize PSX was Playstation's 20th anniversary celebration, right?
 
Nah, I guess you will have a rude awakening come NPD ;)

Shawn Layden doesn't care about the worldwide lead. His job at SCEA is to handle the US market. November is lost (99% sure, imho), December too, if you look at some stores like Amazon, etc. What's next? January, February, March......? Do they want to get outsold for half a year until the finally react and drop the price?
MS is not going to offer $329 console and free games after the holiday season. 399$ PS4 is still competitive with $349 Xbox One especially as Sony has far stronger Q1 game release wise (Order and Bloodborne)
 
It was a huge marketing campaign.

It was very rushed.

They won in November.

1) You still haven't answered the question. The games announced or shown are not the ones releasing this year.

2) Now your just being silly. Do you honestly think that Sony could plan this in less than 2 months? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

3) Even if they did, thats only in the US......a country in which the PS4 still leads by over 1 million. So again how are they pulling ahead?
 
I know this may be far-fetched, but I wonder if PSX was Sony's alternative (or small step on the way) to a price-drop. It was announced the same week as the $349 X1 price drop. It's not a stretch that they found out about the price drop from industry sources before the actual announcement. They probably had marketing estimates that showed that the X1 might pull ahead based on this drop. From what I heard at PSX, X1 achieved what they set out to do.

It's extremely far-fetched, because setting up events are :

a. ridiculously fucking expensive
b. take a long, long, long time. Like, at least 5-6 months of preparation.
 
1) You still haven't answered the question. The games announced or shown are not the ones releasing this year.

2) Now your just being silly. Do you honestly think that Sony could plan this in less than 2 months? I find that incredibly hard to believe.

3) Even if they did, thats only in the US......a country in which the PS4 still leads by over 1 million. So again how are they pulling ahead?

For example, maybe they were hoping that 360 owners that are huge SF fans would not buy a X1 after the exclusivity announcement.

Yeah, I was just saying that they won in November, not total sales. November, of course, is such an important month with holiday shopping and it'll be interesting to see by what margin X1 was ahead.

Obviously, I attended PSX so I'm a Sony fan. I hope both consoles do well, just telling you what I heard.
 

VinFTW

Member
My predictions: No numbers :p

PS4 will win again, people underestimate how much the buzz is selling the console, despite amazing deals and games from MS (not saying Sony doesn't have either of those).

I think both will sell amazingly well, but I really don't know why people keep betting against the PS4.

It's almost like creating this adversity that doesn't need to be there? Idk, calling it now, PS4 will win Nov though! :p
 
My predictions: No numbers :p

PS4 will win again, people underestimate how much the buzz is selling the console, despite amazing deals and games from MS (not saying Sony doesn't have either of those).

I think both will sell amazingly well, but I really don't know why people keep betting against the PS4.

It's almost like creating this adversity that doesn't need to be there? Idk, calling it now, PS4 will win Nov though! :p

I think GAF would have a mini-meltdown if that were to occur.

Nearly everybody (including me) is predicting a MS win
 

VinFTW

Member
I think GAF would have a mini-meltdown if that were to occur.

Nearly everybody (including me) is predicting a MS win

Really don't know why though... PS4 has won every month because it's mind-share is simply too strong, period.

It just seems like people WANT to predict an MS win so that when they lose (like they will) it's this amazing bomb-shell thing :p

Idk, I could be off, but I can't imagine it.
 

cakely

Member
Nah, I guess you will have a rude awakening come NPD ;)

Shawn Layden doesn't care about the worldwide lead. His job at SCEA is to handle the US market. November is lost (99% sure, imho), December too, if you look at some stores like Amazon, etc. What's next? January, February, March......? Do they want to get outsold for half a year until the finally react and drop the price?

If exclusive software selection has any influence on new buyers (and I'm not saying it really does) then Sony should be fine for the first half of 2015.

Being able to sell your console at launch price means higher revenue, right? And I'm sure that's part of Shawn's job as well.
 
Really don't know why though... PS4 has won every month because it's mind-share is simply too strong, period.

It just seems like people WANT to predict an MS win so that when they lose (like they will) it's this amazing bomb-shell thing :p

Idk, I could be off, but I can't imagine it.

Actually, Xbox One was the winner of December 2013 NPD.

It's not completely unprecedented to imagine Microsoft winning a holiday month.

Normally the "PS4 has won every month" would hold weight, but Microsoft was just so aggressive this month with so many discounts and deals...even with the lack of PR it's hard to see them still behind the PS4.
 
Obviously, I attended PSX so I'm a Sony fan. I hope both consoles do well, just telling you what I heard.

Who told you that at PSX anyway?

Anyway, as someone who worked with external companies on event management, whatever you're saying is laughable. Nevermind all the set-up, even things like booking the venues are often needed to be done months in advance. Furthermore, arranging the schedules of hundreds of people, etc. And ensuring that every team on set has some content, demo, presentation, material ready for the keynote, etc.

Even a simple event takes at least 3 months, from my experience. Something the size of E3 or PSX is not a 3-month job.
 
Can some of you guys stop talking in absolutes? I don't care if theres a 98.9 percent chance of MS winning November, stop talking like they already did or that you know they won.
 
Reaction from Sony may really comes down to how much XB1 outsold PS4 by (if it did).

If it's by a small margin with a XB1 bundle at $350 or below for the whole month to PS4's $400 bundle available for a just a few days some stores, does Sony really need to cut price?

It shows me what Sony should do is stop that $450 single game bundle nonsense, especially if they see that a $400 games bundle out-sold or kept pace with MS' bundles during the Black Friday period.
 

Cornbread78

Member
Which retailer do you work for?


Wal-Mart



I don't think the market has changed at all. The Xbone is just selling for a price now that's so low that even many people who would rather have a PS4 are going to find it hard to pass up.



I can't see such a big change being purely on cost. The differential isn't that big comparitively. More likely a combination like you say of people seeing a critical price level to prompt them to upgrade from 360 (we have seen relatively high levels of 360 software sales suggesting those users hadn't switched yet Vs PS3), combined with perhaps PS4 hitting a level of demand satisfaction due to great initial sales - the sort of thing that would suggest Sony need to naturally drop the price a little to maintain sales. The two together could combine to create a big win for Xbox in November


You both appear to be right here in a way.
I think like MRK said, XBox owners are jumping onboard a little bit later than PS fans did. Maybe the comments Mehdi, were indeed correct, who knows, but at the price the XB1 is listed at, it appears to be more incentive for current 360 owners to upgrade than a brand new console owner ("casual") to jump into the mix. When parent's are purely looking for price, regardless of what is on those XMas lists, it tough to argue the value that the 2 games and $349 price offer.


I'm interested to see the reaction to the new PS4 bundle and GC deal WM is offering in-store right now though. those will be interesting numbers to track. Wal-Mart is all about price though, that appears to be a constant trend when I compare my small sample of numbers to Abdeils larger sample from BB.



Thats suprising because I remember you had that pic with a huge pile of Ps4s next to Xones.

Do you know if Sony plans to restock the GTA bundle. Seems they already stopped advertising it and are back to pushing Destiny for some odd reason. They would be wise to at least drop that bundle to $399.


I know, I was shocked when I checked the numbers last night!! If someone hadn't returned one of those Halo bundles, I would never have know. We just got a large amount of PS4 bundles to sell so that made up the difference. It was very very close though, I mean by only a couple units. Just odd from the traffic we saw that day.

Also, what that also might say is that the 1 hour gaurantee bundles might have either used a different SKU (which I don't believe to be the case) or people forgot to ask for the ticket
 

Moneal

Member
Actually, Xbox One was the winner of December 2013 NPD.

It's not completely unprecedented to imagine Microsoft winning a holiday month.

Normally the "PS4 has won every month" would hold weight, but Microsoft was just so aggressive this month with so many discounts and deals...even with the lack of PR it's hard to see them still behind the PS4.

Xbox had similar deals in March when Titanfall came out. Everyone was saying the same thing then, "Xbox won, they have Titanfall and great deals." just replace Titanfall with MCC and you have the same exact argument. PS4 only lost December 2013 because they were basically sold out the entire month.
 

Alefas

Neo Member
I think it is much more likely that XboxOne will sell more than PS4 for November. The PS4 might have more mindshare but the price differential will be too much for many people to ignore.

The thing though is that Sony does not care that much about losing 1 or 2 months even by big margins. The number one priority for them is to make as much money as they can from each sell. They are fine in mainland Europe where they face almost no competition, and they only have to worry about the UK. And of course Japan is a non issue.

I don't see a PS4 discount until MS permanently drops the One to $300...
 

Cornbread78

Member
Actually, Xbox One was the winner of December 2013 NPD.

It's not completely unprecedented to imagine Microsoft winning a holiday month.

Normally the "PS4 has won every month" would hold weight, but Microsoft was just so aggressive this month with so many discounts and deals...even with the lack of PR it's hard to see them still behind the PS4.



Funny enough. I had a customer last night that was buying a XB1 tell me that they recently read a MS press release that stated they were now beating the PS4 in sales (globally obviously). People underestimate those tweets that go out to the common gamer. They really have no clue and there is a reason is so anbiguous about there messages. It works!
 

Welfare

Member
I think GAF would have a mini-meltdown if that were to occur.

Nearly everybody (including me) is predicting a MS win

Exactly. If MS really can't secure a win for one month this year, the one month where they dropped the price by $50, bundled in 2 games in the main bundle, and dropped the price even further on Black Friday, they are seriously screwed in gaining back market share in the US.

But I guess people get to watch the [Xbox Division] burn.
 

MisterR

Member
Maybe I'm crazy, but Sony freaking out and price dropping and all this stuff based on some impressions from stores and an amazon chart before Novemeber results are even released seems a bit extreme. Especially consisdering their worldwide lead. They have good excusives in Q1 and XBox won't be $329 bundled with a bunch of games. They should just let it play out and see what happens. If this is the start of a trend for MS, then they can do a price cut.
 
Some anecdotal sales info from BF:
I had someone return one of the BF Halo bundles so I could finally check the sales numbers from BF and it appears that the PS4 with standard ($50GC) and GTA bundle sold more during the BF week than the Halo and AC bundles did. We received a large shipment of the GTA bundles, and limited of the Halo bundles, so that would account for it.

This is a reason why I think it won't be Xbox one domination as some are saying. I too noticed an insane amount of GTA bundles...the ps4 stack at BB was a damn mountain and probably would have killed someone if it got knocked over lol. While the X1 may have sold faster some places, I noticed PS4's getting picked clean too. I definitely think Sony stuffed those stores to the max and sold damn near all of em. Its just that its hard to make up for the rest of the month that X1 was already confirmed winning.
 
Maybe I'm crazy, but Sony freaking out and price dropping and all this stuff based on some impressions from stores and an amazon chart before Novemeber results are even released seems a bit extreme. Especially consisdering their worldwide lead. They have good excusives in Q1 and XBox won't be $329 bundled with a bunch of games. They should just let it play out and see what happens. If this is the start of a trend for MS, then they can do a price cut.

Agreed.
 

BriGuy

Member
I could see Sony winning Black Friday and Microsoft winning November overall and both sides being totally insufferable because of it.
 

Paskil

Member
I don't care to predict last gen, or portables this time. Since my numbers are almost always wrong, regardless, heh. I really think XB1 might win this month, but still going to give it to PS4. I don't think that a few good days of sales translated into carrying the entire month

[XB1] 975k
[PS4] 1100K
[WIU] 245k
 
I mean, shit, I have zero interest in an Xbone since I have a PS4 and even I'm tempted to buy on at that price. Sony is going to have to to have a serious price drop soon if Amazon is any indication at all.
Sony still has nearly all other countries of the world. they were supposed to be 2nd in the US, being the market leader was a nice surprise, but they should not be tempted to follow microsoft on the path of madness and play how low can you go only to win NPD.

They will not be happy about losing november, but they can take it. same with december. 2015 will look better for PS4 with a bunch of heavy hitters and microsoft being forced to show if they keep the price low plus gamebundles. don't know if stakeholders really are happy about that.
 
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