• 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.

PS5 reaches 1 million units sold in the UK after 39 weeks

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
I am still trying to figure out the difference in ARPU between MS and Sony then, it's not a 2:1 revenue difference which is the console difference (could it just be MS services? or might have that console sales difference wrong as well)
That's a good question and could lead to interesting discussions. Here are some reasons that I think may be a factor:
  • PC game sales for Xbox likely affect this gap. I think this is the biggest reason.
  • As consoles market share increases, it includes more casuals that don't usually spend as much, e.g., a large share of people who just buy consoles to play one game (COD, FIFA) and don't even spend money on MTX. I know a lot of people like this. That group of people is more likely to purchase a PlayStation than an Xbox.
  • Lastly, it is the revenue (not operating profit). And although it shows a very valid metric, it doesn't paint the full picture. For example, companies may grow revenue from a variety of ways, (e.g., running a service that gets them revenue but makes operating loss). Sony, being a relatively more conservative company, may choose to not indulge in revenue-generating sources like these, while Xbox may (and we know it does).
 

reksveks

Member
That's a good question and could lead to interesting discussions. Here are some reasons that I think may be a factor:
  • PC game sales for Xbox likely affect this gap. I think this is the biggest reason.
Trying to do the maths quickly, 2:1 on a 25bn revenue leads to Microsoft should having 12.5bn xbox revenue instead of 15.4bn so roughly missing 2.9Bn. PC sales might be a decent chunk of that, I will try to get Gog's revenue.


GoG 106 333 thousands PLN for the first 6 months of 2021. Is that 20m gbp?

  • As consoles market share increases, it includes more casuals that don't usually spend as much, e.g., a large share of people who just buy consoles to play one game (COD, FIFA) and don't even spend money on MTX. I know a lot of people like this. That group of people is more likely to purchase a PlayStation than an Xbox.
That could be the interesting one, as well. I do wonder about the f2p, I suspect that they might spend more than their fair shares. Maybe something in the epic numbers could give a bit insight.

  • Lastly, it is the revenue (not operating profit). And although it shows a very valid metric, it doesn't paint the full picture. For example, companies may grow revenue from a variety of ways, (e.g., running a service that gets them revenue but makes operating loss). Sony, being a relatively more conservative company, may choose to not indulge in revenue-generating sources like these, while Xbox may (and we know it does).
Yeah, didn't want to touch the profit conversation otherwise I am going to start to feel like a broken record.
 
Last edited:
By the way, this article also [finally] answers the question of physical vs. digital when analyzing data from UK boxed sales of game software.

  • Physical sales represent 37% of total software sales, while digital is at 63%.
  • Also, PS4 leads the digital sales by 36.4% (so there goes the theory that PlayStation has a lower digital sales ratio and that's why it leads in physical copy sales).
What question does it answer though? A lot of numbers are still missing (classic Christopher Dring btw, I assume he simply isn't allowed to share all the numbers).
 

sublimit

Banned
It's obviously all due to scalpers guys.
giphy.gif
 

yazenov

Member
By the way, this article also [finally] answers the question of physical vs. digital when analyzing data from UK boxed sales of game software.

  • Physical sales represent 37% of total software sales, while digital is at 63%.
  • Also, PS4 leads the digital sales by 36.4% (so there goes the theory that PlayStation has a lower digital sales ratio and that's why it leads in physical copy sales).

We can finally put to bed the tales of 100% digital for Xbox.

The ratio for games remains the same whether it be digital or physical. PS consumers just by more games period.
 

yazenov

Member
Nobody ever claimed that.

PS outsold Xbox 2:1. PS players should be buying more games. We still know nothing about the digital ratio though, that's why I was confused by his post.
Some people were claiming that the reason the ratio was overwhelmingly in favor of PS (80%) was due to Xbox consumers buying games digital instead of physical.

This quote says that more people are buying games digital on PS. So if we include digital as well as physical, the ratio of third party sales would be more in favour of PS.

So that begs the question, is Game Pass affecting consumer purchasing habits on the Xbox? AKA renting games instead of buying them. Because this generation, the ratio has increased exponentially towards PS from last gen.
 
Some people were claiming that the reason the ratio was overwhelmingly in favor of PS (80%) was due to Xbox consumers buying games digital instead of physical.
True, I remember that.
This quote says that more people are buying games digital on PS. So if we include digital as well as physical, the ratio of third party sales would be more in favour of PS.
The only thing we know is that 36% of digital games sold are on PS4, and that's only if we entirely ignore Switch digital sales. That's not enough data to say anything, really.
So that begs the question, is Game Pass affecting consumer purchasing habits on the Xbox? AKA renting games instead of buying them. Because this generation, the ratio has increased exponentially towards PS from last gen.
We don't know the ratio, that's kinda my point.
 

yazenov

Member
The only thing we know is that 36% of digital games sold are on PS4, and that's only if we entirely ignore Switch digital sales. That's not enough data to say anything, really.

We don't know the ratio, that's kinda my point.

We don't need digital numbers for Nintendo as we are comparing 3rd party games released on PS and Xbox only.

As for the ratio, at least we do know now that Xbox digital numbers are not as some crazy people some are claiming it to be, and PS has the lions share of the digital ratio. This artice while missing a few details at least shed some light into the digital numbers and should put to bed some of those outlandish claims by Xbox fans.

Also people who are calming that physical is irrelevant should check this quote.

  • Physical sales represent 37% of total software sales, while digital is at 63%.
 
Last edited:

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Trying to do the maths quickly, 2:1 on a 25bn revenue leads to Microsoft should having 12.5bn xbox revenue instead of 15.4bn so roughly missing 2.9Bn. PC sales might be a decent chunk of that, I will try to get Gog's revenue.
I'll have to double check the reports, but off the top of my head, I think their second last quarter had a revenue of 13 billion, so that's more in line.
 

yurinka

Member
So only Wii got the 1M faster and only a week faster. With a few extra stock available PS5 would be the fastest selling ever console even in UK, a market that always have been the first or second European market and where in several generations Sony had a worse market share than in the worldwide market.

Good luck to the people asking to fire Jimbo and Hermen xD

I expect MS to flood the market with Series consoles once Halo is about to release.
I think that like Sony they aren't holding back the shipments on purpose. They simply don't ship more units because can't manufacture more due to the chips shortage, something it doesn't depend on them.
 
Last edited:

reksveks

Member
think their second last quarter had a revenue of 13 billion, so that's more in line.
Microsoft? The personal computer division was fifty something for the year and so I think 13 for the quarter across that division is about right. The 15.4bn annual rev I think comes from analyst using the YoY/QoQ differences.

GoG is sub 100m annual as far as I can tell for some context, I want to say it was 27m usd for the first half of the year. I would be interested to confirm what the MS store contributes to.
 

ethomaz

Banned
No mention of the switch time to 1 million is strange. Do we not know when it hit 1 million?
We can’t compared a milestone that was not made public.

And Swtich sold way slower than Wii and PS4 in UK… the numbers we have:

700k in Feb 2017 (48 weeks)
1.4m in second week of December (92 weeks)

Edit - Fixed week count.
 
Last edited:
Yes, and to add to that, they just revealed that, at least in UK, PlayStation leads with a higher digital sales. So, if anything, PS4 players buy relatively fewer physical copies.
What's interesting is the digital ratio. We don't know the ratio. Is it 80:20 like with some physical games? Is it 2:1, closer to what you would expect when looking at console sales? We don't know.
 
It's all down to "scalpers", apparently.
There you go Jim, your console is in such high demand that customers are willing to pay up to double what you are asking of them. PlayStation's eccentric, mad professor uncle was right all along Jim, feed the suckling sickly swine of modern corporate level capitalism...increase the price now, apparently.

CjLVwd2.jpg
 
Last edited:
We can’t compared a milestone that was not made public.

And Swtich sold way slower than Wii and PS4 in UK… the numbers we have:

700k in 2017 (35 weeks)
1.4m in second week of December (84 weeks)

The chances to have sold 300k units in 5 weeks in January to reach 1 million before PS4 are zero.

You got those numbers mixed up.
48 weeks to 700k


And 1.2m in 89 weeks (200k in 3 weeks BF and Christmas pre sales)
1.4m in 92 weeks.



Switch was released in week 9 of 2017 and reached 1.4m in week 49 of week 2018
 
Last edited:

Bryank75

Banned
That's a good question and could lead to interesting discussions. Here are some reasons that I think may be a factor:
  • PC game sales for Xbox likely affect this gap. I think this is the biggest reason.
  • As consoles market share increases, it includes more casuals that don't usually spend as much, e.g., a large share of people who just buy consoles to play one game (COD, FIFA) and don't even spend money on MTX. I know a lot of people like this. That group of people is more likely to purchase a PlayStation than an Xbox.
  • Lastly, it is the revenue (not operating profit). And although it shows a very valid metric, it doesn't paint the full picture. For example, companies may grow revenue from a variety of ways, (e.g., running a service that gets them revenue but makes operating loss). Sony, being a relatively more conservative company, may choose to not indulge in revenue-generating sources like these, while Xbox may (and we know it does).

Minecraft and legacy / multiplat sales of Zenimax titles.

Revenue bump from adding Zenimax.

My guesses.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Microsoft? The personal computer division was fifty something for the year and so I think 13 for the quarter across that division is about right. The 15.4bn annual rev I think comes from analyst using the YoY/QoQ differences.
No, I think Xbox's revenue as per the second last financial reports was around $13 billion (which then jumped to > $15 billion)? But I'm literally just recalling it from memory, so I could be completely misremembering it. Please excuse and ignore if I indeed am.
 
Minecraft and legacy / multiplat sales of Zenimax titles.

Revenue bump from adding Zenimax.

My guesses.
Just an fyi, Zenimax numbers shouldn't be included in last year's revenue. I don't know for sure how they do their accounting but Zenimax was officially acquired at the end of the financial year. So their revenue is probably not included. If someone knows accounting, I'd be interested in details.
 

reksveks

Member
No, I think Xbox's revenue as per the second last financial reports was around $13 billion (which then jumped to > $15 billion)? But I'm literally just recalling it from memory, so I could be completely misremembering it. Please excuse and ignore if I indeed am.
Ehh, I will probably wait for the next months earning call to have another look and hopefully we can gain a better understanding of the xbox business

Minecraft and legacy / multiplat sales of Zenimax titles.
Forgot about minecraft and the fact that it still sells a lot and alot of merchandise.
 
Last edited:

ethomaz

Banned
You got those numbers mixed up.
48 weeks to 700k


And 1.2m in 89 weeks (200k in 3 weeks BF and Christmas pre sales)
1.4m in 92 weeks.



Switch was released in week 9 of 2017 and reached 1.4m in week 49 of week 2018

My bad… I jumped a month in the count but actually from March 3 to end of 2017 I counted 43 weeks.

Edit - Makes sense 700k was in February and not end of 2017.
 
Last edited:

Bryank75

Banned
Just an fyi, Zenimax numbers shouldn't be included in last year's revenue. I don't know for sure how they do their accounting but Zenimax was officially acquired at the end of the financial year. So their revenue is probably not included. If someone knows accounting, I'd be interested in details.

It depends when the actual acquisition was formally recognized.... I'm not sure about the date. But I would assume they applied the acquisition accounting in that quarter.....it could have aligned with FYE.

It's been a long time since I did accounting. All the rules are in the IFRS's. If you're curious.
 

ethomaz

Banned
If they are on the same node then yes. I kind of doubt cars use bleeding edge chips though.
It is not just about the same node but the same manufacturer.

In most cases the same machine can be used to silicon write a wafer in 10nm, 7nm, etc… they just need to do some fine running for each process.

But each company has a production line with a pre-determined capacity… so the consumers wanting to use that manufacture company will fight for it capacity.

In PS5 and Series case it is TSMC.

TSMC can products X number of wafers per year… so unless they do a heavy investimento in new fractures location and machines that is the max capacity they can do per year.

In that capacity in 2021 Sony hold from AMD (AMD has the contract with TSMC and not Sony/MS) 80k wafers… and MS holds 40k wafers… that means 80% of the 150k wafers AMD has in contract with TSMC in 2021 (AMD themselves are using 30k wafers).

Of course the biggest TSMC consumer is Apple and while I don’t have their numbers by logic it is over 150k wafers… if I have to guess it is probably double or more more than… plus nVidia has it allocation too.

Remember the same machine used for 28nm, 20nm, 16nm, etc years ago are being used for 7nm and 5nm today… the wafer (silicon) is the same… the machines are only adapted (like they change the laser or others parts) to the process that the consumer wants to use.

Apple using the wafers they hold for 5nm and AMD using for 7nm means the same… they are using the capacity of production from TSMC.

TL;DR: the manufacture capacity is determined by Wafers… so the big consumers get more Wafers than others in a company production line.

For consoles AMD made a deal of 80k wafers for Sony and 40k wafers for MS in 2021.
 
Last edited:

Bo_Hazem

Banned
3 weeks faster than PS4 thanks to a lot of new consoles in July and August, after slower April, May and June.

September is slower again, as supply is drying up across all of Europe.


Road to 1M :
Wii 38 weeks
PS5 39 weeks
PS4 42 weeks
Nintendo DS 45 weeks
PS3 46 weeks
PS2 50 weeks
XB1 52 weeks
X360 60 weeks


ZVjj.gif


BKMa.gif
 

yurinka

Member
Trying to do the maths quickly, 2:1 on a 25bn revenue leads to Microsoft should having 12.5bn xbox revenue instead of 15.4bn so roughly missing 2.9Bn. PC sales might be a decent chunk of that, I will try to get Gog's revenue.
Maybe good chunk of these 15.4bn revenue isn't from Xbox, but instead from PC and also from Minecraft/Zenimax/Double Fine/etc revenue from Sony and Nintendo consoles.
 
Top Bottom