-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
November 2014 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes December 9th
- Thread starter donny2112
- Start date
CosmicQueso
Member
What incentive would there be to supply digital sales to a third party? It can be argued that the only reason the packaged stuff exists is because retail receives a tangible benefit from "selling" that information to NPD.
I'm guessing it will become a black hole. We'll see I guess.
Aquamarine
Member
Therein lies the biggest obstacle to NPD Group's evolution.
They want to move forward with accurate digital information, but it's just *so* hard to convince the Big 3 to actually give them digital sales data.
And trying to go to each publisher to get them to comply...it's really tough. Kudos to the guys at Port Washington who have to deal with that kind of headache.
FullMetaltech
Member
Thursday
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
I can't be bothered to search, but a long while ago there were threads that broke down the component costs for the PS4 and they were just around the MSRP price, if not a bit less. The same was done for XBO and it was a bit more than PS4's total mainly due to the ESRAM.
As to your other part, yeah both of them can, but ESRAM prices will continue to command a premium for the lifecycle of XBO, whereas GDDR5 costs will become quite a lot cheaper. People saying MS will switch to stacked DDR4 or whatever are a bit out of it imho; that would bring massive compatibility issues with pretty much every XBO game and they'd be wasting money on better RAM that can't be used to any advantage b/c the system has to operate at a certain bandwidth and frequency regardless.
I don't know about that. Sony's taken it easy on MS by not gloating about actual numbers, just a general, to-the-chase statement. For MS to suddenly turn around and get gloaty for winning one month out of the year is just inviting Sony to start doing the same when they start winning regularly again after the holidays (if they even lose the holidays, that is. We still don't know what's what yet).
They'll probably give some crazy statistics that we're supposed to somehow work with to figure out the numbers, i.e "over $450 million generated over the month of November"..without even saying if that's hardware or software, or whatever.
CosmicQueso
Member
The only way this will happen with consistency is if NPD offers to "buy" this data from the publishers. But that's the rub. The publishers are the customers. Right now, all the publishers would have to agree to support an initiative in a similar way while not being compensated. Ain't happening.
Then say you get a couple that do participate, and that begin sharing. What about the publishers that don't? Do they see nothing? If so, does this represent anti-competitive behavior?
Some publishers (EA, Activision, Ubi) will have to give much more than they'd get from such an initiative as well. Since they are so advanced in digital sales, DLC, etc. do these results offer some kind of competitive advantage? Why wouldn't a smaller pub offer up its puny data pool in order to figure out where these bigger publishers are making the most money?
The whole idea is destined to fail in a fire.
AstroNut325
Member
So none of this can be streamlined or automated? Modern day technology allows processing/analyzing of TRILLIONS of transactions in minutes. I'm pretty sure most retailers are already monitoring their sales in real-time nationwide. Them passing the info to NPD and then NPD doing processing/analysis is still not a legitimate excuse for taking such a long time in the year 2014 and soon to be 2015. How is this acceptable to major corporations?
Edit:
DOH... my post was intended to be a response to CosmicQueso.
Edit 2:
Fixed.
It would be funny if Sony did release worldwide sales tomorrow though. It would fuck with people's heads like it did in March.
CosmicQueso
Member
NPD has an effective monopoly on this service. It's not acceptable, but there's no competitive service to go with.
As to your other points, the largest US retailer for games doesn't have EDI. Its transactions are not transmitted using modern day technology. Take them out of the picture, and the turnaround could be accelerated.
Oh... the delays are also accepted because digital is becoming more and more important, which isn't even included, and every company does internal sales reporting covering the company's own products. NPD is just used for calculating share, maybe taking a peek at hardware sales. But no day to day decisions are ever driven by NPD. Not many people really care about it at major publishers anymore to be honest. It becomes less and less relevant to the business every month.
Both memory types are on their way out and will likely get more expensive as their market shrinks. In the graphics market, GDDR5 will be replaced by HBM (HMC for NVidia) and in the PC market, DDR3 is being replaced by DDR4.
At some point, it will become cheaper to switch than stay with the current memory type. As you mentioned, game compatibility is a concern that might make a switch difficult.
That point being the next console cycle.
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
Sony said that they designed the PS4 with cost-cutting in mind. There is [thread=689845]a 2013 patent from them[/thread] describing a CPU using stacked wide I/O memory, back then speculated to be for a PS3 refresh. But it is something which fits the description of HBM as well. A switch to stacked memory in this console generation would not surprise me.
LowEndTorque
Member
No specific numbers but I predict X1 to have outsold PS4 by 300K-350K units.
Aquamarine
Member
It's now 8:01 PM. The deadline for predicting November 2014 NPD sales was 8:00 PM. All predictions after this post will no longer be counted.
CMojicaAce
Member
With no Black Friday PR from either side, the PS4 and XB1 clearly sold the exact same amount of consoles in November.
MS would be screaming from the rooftops if that was true.
If we're talking value, the XB1 has already hit the sub $200 mark during BF.
$329 bundle including $100 worth of software and a $50 card at Walmart...
ESRAM isn't a component. It is a part of the SoC and takes up die space. A cheaper process node would make it cheaper while DDR3 and GDDR5 depend on demand. I think it scales well, that makes sense for memory which is just a blob.
The PS4 SoC is smaller, but I don't think we know the yield. All i know is that the PS4 has two redundant CUs (GPU related) to aid yield and runs at a slower clock speed. I dunno if the extra cooling in the XB1 is beneficial to yield.
With a bigger chip, external PSU and equally priced RAM it does make sense for the XB1 to be the most expensive.
Aquamarine
Member
What if they don't know what PS4 sales are for November?
then that would explain why both sides are keeping quiet...
SwiftDeath
Member
What black friday deal was this? Because the best Walmart BF deal I saw was $329 for XB1 kinectless + Halo MCC + $30 GC
Valuing the digital DL of Halo MCC at $60, puts the XB1 at $239
You probably mean the target deal and are valuing a digital DL of AC Black Flag at greater than $20 for this to be true
Maybe MS wants to change their approach to NPD? Even if they win in November and December they probably expect not to keep outselling PS4 especially when this Holiday bundle will get discontinued. So them boasting about it now while early next year they'll start losing again will only make them look stupid. Be more humble may be the new PR strategy with NPD results compared to the days of 360.
Unless tomorrow they'll release some crazy ass PR lol.
Final Verdict
Member
Cornbread78
Member
Lol, u so funny..
Major, Aaron, Mehdi and crew will be shouting from the mountain tops at about 6:30 pm Thurs. ... It can only help promote their brand and their amazing victory, lol. Dis gonna be fun, lol
Slight mistake, it was Target, not Walmart.
http://www.windowscentral.com/targe...ed-bundle-and-50-gift-card-32999-black-friday
Effective $179 value. Even if we only value Black Flag at $20, it's a $199 value, so still holds true.
SwiftDeath
Member
Final Verdict
Member
He is probably confused with target...
X1 +ACU + AC4 + $50GC = $329
ACU = $60 value
AC4 = ~$20 value
So $329 - $60 - $20 - $50GC = $199 for the console itself.
EDIT: Beaten
Also, HOLY CRAP at those Unity Prices! $12??
Same, still under $200.
If you don't think Yusuf Mehdi will put out the most condescending PR statement imaginable when they win then I got a nice bridge to sell you.
SwiftDeath
Member
I would say effective value is around $200 and won't argue about under/over as that seems pointless
Regardless the target deal was incredible for a one year old console
Great deal for consumers, certainly. Also one if not the largest value drop in history for 1y in a new console
Final Verdict
Member
Condescending is quite strong.
I imagine we will get "best selling" or something along those lines, but that is hardly putting down anyone else.
gotstrangepowers
Banned
Yeah, and I'd want to get as far away from PSX as possible. Sites were still writing articles about it today. The X1 victory PR statement is coming, probably tomorrow.
jhmtehgamr20xx
Banned
Well assuming Sony does that, is there a way they can ensure game compatibility? You're still talking about a different memory type and it still has to be locked at a certain bandwidth to whatever the motherboard was originally designed in mind with. And even then, if there are bandwidth gains from that memory type they won't be put to use would they?
What makes HBM and DDR4 so different that Sony could design their system around switching to that but MS can't do so with theirs? Or is there something about DDR memory I'm missing?
Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.
LowEndTorque
Member
They will be screaming from the rooftops on Thursday.
If Sony designed the PS4 with HBM already in mind, they could have added restrictions for things that GDDR5 does better than HBM (e.g. 32 bit vs 256 bit access granularity).
Who told you that? Going from DDR3 to DDR4 should be as easy if not easier. Mostly a matter of buying the memory controller IP block from AMD.
Great deal for consumers, certainly. Also one if not the largest value drop in history for 1y in a new console
Yea dropping 3/5ths of your cost in under a year has to be some sort of record. That's just absolutely insane.
If Ms doesn't win US sales selling the console at a value of $200 with bundled software that's pretty much all she wrote at that point. I mean what else could you possibly do?
shadowfall
Member
I have a gut feeling that PS4 and Xbox One sales are very close with PS4 outselling Xbox One sales by a margin less than 50K. Like others have said, I think there is no PR statement yet is because it might be too close for call.
Trogdor1123
Member
Im not ashamed, if xbox had been price/bundled like this a year ago I would have gotten it.
It wasnt though, so im in the PS4 camp like i have been for the last 4 generations (except i was more a GC fan than PS2).
I seriously want MS to do well here, they deserve it. They have made a HUGE push this month. I would be shocked if they did not win.
It wasnt though, so im in the PS4 camp like i have been for the last 4 generations (except i was more a GC fan than PS2).
I seriously want MS to do well here, they deserve it. They have made a HUGE push this month. I would be shocked if they did not win.
Aquamarine
Member
It's now officially Wednesday.
NPD releases tomorrow.
NPD releases tomorrow.