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[Daneel Elijah]

I'm telling 'ya, Game Pass is NOT making up for the loss in sales revenue on Xbox. Heisenberg 007 & I went over some reports and data months back, to try figuring out Game Pass annual revenue (at least for 2022). The amount I felt comfortable landing at was a little over $2 billion in annual revenue. I'll post a portion of the convo & process below:

Probably true. But Gamepass was there before 2020. So we have to believe that it would happen anyway, S or no S console. The question is do the Series S is a net positive or a net negative? I think that it was a positive until recently, and should continue to be so unless studios snob Xbox because of it, like maybe Baldur's gate 3. Then it became a question about Gamepass itself. I can understand both visions : the potential, and the fact that they are losing money on it right now.

I agree with you that it's a software issue with Xbox; not necessarily in quality. They HAVE quality games over there. But they lack many (or really, any) mass-market big-name IP with strong selling power and mindshare appeal among a large part of the market. The one IP they had left in that style, Halo, is in a proverbial coma and may never come out, let alone return to prominence. It's one reason they went and bought Zenimax, and want to buy ABK.

I hope so. They do have games. But not that many games that make their consoles a must have. That is what I was trying to say too. For their future, I do not see them putting Zenimax games on Playstation if they have no contractual obligations to do so.

Even then it would take some effort to build up that brand association between them and Xbox/Microsoft.

Absolutely. And they are taking the blame if the games are not good too.

Once again, not a fan of the X/S strategy. But it saved them, or at least allowed them to maintain the illusion of a duel with the PS5. The USA really is sensible to the value proposition of the S it seems. And of Gamepass. AS for the future we will have to see their showcase to find out what they have in store for us. I hope that they have something as good as Starfield. I would want 1 or 2 games at least. But I doubt it.

 

[Crayon]

Series S was a juvenile idea. It's the type of idea you get when you're sitting with 4 friends in your dorm room, all stoned.

Not sure if juvenille is the right word but it's getting warmer to how I feel about it. Hard to put my finger on but I feel like xbox has been operating on forum logic. The x/s strat is a prime example. Making the bom of the sx so high because they thought that it was so important to have a higher teraflop number (only important to fandom if you don't get anything on-screen to show for it), and then chopping down the baseline for the whole gen with the s and handwaving any problems there with the mantra "games scale". It really sounds like something we would come up with here lol. Juvenille, amateurish, something like that.

 

[Rubik8]

Series S was a juvenile idea. It's the type of idea you get when you're sitting with 4 friends in your dorm room, all stoned.

"Dude, we should have 2 products: one expensive, the other cheap. So we get both types of customers. The one who has money, and the other who don't have money."

Totally ignoring all the other variables that are involved.

It stinks of strategy-by-committee.

 

[DeepEnigma]

But you use a shitty OS on your PC that's controlled by a mega corp!

 

[Interfectum]

Series S was a juvenile idea. It's the type of idea you get when you're sitting with 4 friends in your dorm room, all stoned.

"Dude, we should have 2 products: one expensive, the other cheap. So we get both types of customers. The one who has money, and the other who don't have money."

Totally ignoring all the other variables that are involved.

 

[FrankWza]

That would've been the preferable approach, for sure. I think MS just wanted to do something to look different, but something should've told them if Sony wasn't considering that type of approach, there was probably very good reason market data-wise why they weren't doing so. Same with Nintendo, for that matter.

Yes they're smaller companies than Microsoft so that's one reason they probably didn't consider the two-system model but they've also been much more successful in console/gaming hardware overall compared to Microsoft so that would be the biggest factor leading them to their reasonings.

It was their attempt at a safe approach. For a company that is backed by a monster they really don't want to take a loss and gain market share. Even gp was met with a gold price hike they ultimately had to abandon but it was obvious that was their plan all along to offset those $1 deals. Same with Activision. That wasn't exactly a risk. It's as safe of a $70b investment a company can make with all of the ips they acquired and cod cash cow. If they had a efficiently engineered console that could go punch for punch they could have made the x a $400 console while taking a smaller loss and really gone after PS market share.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Probably true. But Gamepass was there before 2020. So we have to believe that it would happen anyway, S or no S console. The question is do the Series S is a net positive or a net negative? I think that it was a positive until recently, and should continue to be so unless studios snob Xbox because of it, like maybe Baldur's gate 3. Then it became a question about Gamepass itself. I can understand both visions : the potential, and the fact that they are losing money on it right now.

That might be fair to say. From late 2020 to around late 2021 I would say Series S was a net positive for MS in general. There were still issues even from the beginning of course, but they weren't exacerbated like they've become now.

But after late 2021? I don't think Series S has been doing them many favors in retail. The record NPD months they had in early 2022 were due to increased Series X supply, not the S, and that peaked with March before starting to slide. If PS5 supply were a bit better just a couple months earlier, they'd of started outselling Xbox in NA from April rather than June. I think 2022 languishing for Xbox the way it did in terms of heavy-hitting exclusives and big games associated with the platform, just naturally dragged down demand for both models, whereas before I'd of said that maybe demand for S was weakening but demand for X was holding well.

I hope so. They do have games. But not that many games that make their consoles a must have. That is what I was trying to say too. For their future, I do not see them putting Zenimax games on Playstation if they have no contractual obligations to do so.

TBF their games being Day 1 on PC doesn't help the appeal of the console, either. Which is kind of more of the reason why IMO they should maybe just pivot Xbox hardware into a mini-PC NUC style gaming business. At least then Day 1 on PC would not impact the appeal of the console because now the console IS the PC legit, just one hyper-focused on gaming in a console-like presentation and package.

Absolutely. And they are taking the blame if the games are not good too.

Once again, not a fan of the X/S strategy. But it saved them, or at least allowed them to maintain the illusion of a duel with the PS5. The USA really is sensible to the value proposition of the S it seems. And of Gamepass. AS for the future we will have to see their showcase to find out what they have in store for us. I hope that they have something as good as Starfield. I would want 1 or 2 games at least. But I doubt it.

I would actually say the US market has not been too kind to Series S the past several months, because sales have been lagging in that market as well. This is after price cut promotions began for Series S in the middle of summer last year, I notice the "get 1 free game" deal around July/August being...weird. Peculiar. One of those games being Elden Ring, so that was definitely a promotion to try moving hardware, and this was in the middle of Summer 2022. In the US, Xbox's strongest market (historically speaking).

The S probably did more to boost Xbox sales during the pandemic lockdowns throughout most of 2021 I would say, because new GPUs were hard to find, PS5s were hard to find, the new gen had just started, people were getting their checks, and subscription services were booming. A cheap entry point into next gen via Series S amidst all of that seemed like a great idea, and it worked for a while.

But it was never going to last, and now we are seeing what the S's real demand looks like in a market not plagued by a pandemic or mass economic lockdowns, or by a subscription service boom that blessed pretty much every entertainment sector for a year. I think demand for the X would be higher if the software consistency were there, but it isn't, and I don't think it's nearly as supply-constrained as some are trying to make it out to be.

It was their attempt at a safe approach. For a company that is backed by a monster they really don't want to take a loss and gain market share. Even gp was met with a gold price hike they ultimately had to abandon but it was obvious that was their plan all along to offset those $1 deals. Same with Activision. That wasn't exactly a risk. It's as safe of a $70b investment a company can make with all of the ips they acquired and cod cash cow. If they had a properly engineered console that could go punch for punch they could have made the x a $400 console while taking a smaller loss and really gone after PS market share.

Yeah, essentially this. The resources they put into the S could have been spent on actually ensuring the X got the 20 GB of RAM so it wouldn't need the odd set-up it has. Could've gone towards more robust I/O hardware subsystem, a faster internal SSD and subsidizing the production costs to hit at a $449 or even $399 (though I don't know if MS would have gone for a discless Series X) price point.

That would have done a lot for them in sales and avoided the problems with Series S and X performance in all these multiplats we've been seeing for a long time now. Would've also allowed for better logistics in system production, with only one model to account for in wafer allocations, assembly line processes and component sourcing.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

I want to declare that i am not trying to bully anyone. i just want to demonstrate my earlier point about people not wanting weaker SKUs:

I'm going to make a comment, at the risk of everyone pointing their swords at me.

But I think the idea that consoles have to be cheap is absurd. I take cell phones for example, people tend to change a $1,300 iPhone every two 2 years and consoles are supposed to last 5 years and run at 60 fps + 4k + RT.

Launch a console at 1500 dollars that really lasts 5 years and that can be amortized over time.

I think "entry level" consoles would still have to be a thing. Obviously that's the thought process with something like the Xbox Series S.

But to see a low-end $300-$400 SKU, a mid-tier $500-$600 SKU, and a high end $800-$100 SKU would be really appealing to me, personally.

Here is an ongoing thread about console prices, and here are the posts that once again declare they want $1500 consoles, followed by someone else saying they want weak consoles for other people to buy. So yes, people to this day are still posing about wanting Series S to exist but to not buy them.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

But it was never going to last, and now we are seeing what the S's real demand looks like in a market not plagued by a pandemic or mass economic lockdowns, or by a subscription service boom that blessed pretty much every entertainment sector for a year. I think demand for the X would be higher if the software consistency were there, but it isn't, and I don't think it's nearly as supply-constrained as some are trying to make it out to be.

Microsoft is fundamentally not a creative company and doesn't know how media is made, but that's beyond the point here. Their other problem is they aren't forward looking at all, they chased the Wii with Kinect years after the Wii fad was dead. Then they chased this sub model with Gamepass years after massive streaming service saturation and people getting tired of the shit tier content quality on Netflix. Since they have never actually created anything themselves, they don't know how to do anything but chase trends but they always seem to get there a few years too late which isn't really surprising because stuff like Kinect and Gamepass can't be developed in a day. By the time it's developed and produced and releasing to market, the market has already moved on.

 

[CobraAB]

I guess its time for MS to buy EA now!

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

Microsoft is fundamentally not a creative company and doesn't know how media is made, but that's beyond the point here. Their other problem is they aren't forward looking at all, they chased the Wii with Kinect years after the Wii fad was dead. Then they chased this sub model with Gamepass years after massive streaming service saturation and people getting tired of the shit tier content quality on Netflix. Since they have never actually created anything themselves, they don't know how to do anything but chase trends but they always seem to get there a few years too late which isn't really surprising because stuff like Kinect and Gamepass can't be developed in a day. By the time it's developed and produced and releasing to market, the market has already moved on.

Yeah I can see that point for sure; when I think about it the games they have under their belt which I would consider being prime examples in their genre, or industry-defining in some way, or standard-setting in some way...are mostly simulators or games where elaborate fictional worlds & stories aren't of importance. Flight Simulator is really "just" a recreation of flying a plane in real life, but virtually. Minecraft is basically a crafting simulator. Forza Horizon is an arcade racer, etc.

They don't really have much of a GOW or Spiderman, Ghost of Tsushima, Mario, Zelda etc. And I'm not saying they need to copy those things wholesale but, with what games they do have that stand out from Sony & Nintendo fare, I think they could've done more. Imagine if Flight Simulator had an original Story Mode campaign in the spirit of Top Gun to tie in with the movie's release. That would have been much better (and marketable) a use of their marketing tie-in than what they actually did.

Microsoft don't seem to do a lot to transcend a lot of their games in creatively unique & unexpected ways that can maybe set some new standard for their genre and help that genre grow in popularity, by and large.

 

[Luminoth-4545]

There is no official sales data for Xbox consoles (apart from 2001 to 2005) so i have looked up vgchartz estimates per year for Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series. These are just their estimates from limited data but it gives an idea of what Xbox consoles usually sell per year compared to Playstation consoles. It shouldn't really come as a surprise that Xbox Series isn't competitive against PS5 because the only time the Xbox brand did compete was with the Xbox 360 against the PS3, every other generation was a walk over. According to these numbers the Xbox 360 is the the only Xbox console to ever sell 10 million or more in a single year.

Note: Xbox data tabulated by calendar year so 20 million lifetime for Xbox Series is as of 31st December 2022.

 

[Luminoth-4545]

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/business_segment_meeting/pdf/2023/GNS.pdf

Sony revealed sell-through numbers per quarter for the PS5 and now there is a healthy gap of 2.4 million between sell-through and shipped.

FY Sell -through v Shipped

FY Quarter	Sell Through	Shipments	Sell Through LTD	Shipments LTD
Q3 20/21	4,400,000	4,500,000	4,400,000	4,500,000
Q4 20/21	3,200,000	3,300,000	7,600,000	7,800,000
Q1 21/22	2,300,000	2,300,000	9,900,000	10,100,000
Q2 21/22	3,200,000	3,300,000	13,100,000	13,400,000
Q3 21/22	4,000,000	3,900,000	17,100,000	17,300,000
Q4 21/22	2,000,000	2,000,000	19,100,000	19,300,000
Q1 22/23	2,300,000	2,400,000	21,400,000	21,700,000
Q2 22/23	3,000,000	3,300,000	24,400,000	25,000,000
Q3 22/23	6,600,000	7,100,000	31,000,000	32,100,000
Q4 22/23	5,000,000	6,300,000	36,000,000	38,400,000

Looks like for FYQ1 ( April - June) They're estimating just over double the shipments of last FYQ1 which was 2.4 million so potentially another huge quarter of 5 million shipments. With the release of FFXVI they expect June to be huge.

 

[DenchDeckard]

https://www.sony.com/en/SonyInfo/IR/library/presen/business_segment_meeting/pdf/2023/GNS.pdf

Sony revealed sell-through numbers per quarter for the PS5 and now there is a healthy gap of 2.4 million between sell-through and shipped.

FY Sell -through v Shipped

FY Quarter	Sell Through	Shipments	Sell Through LTD	Shipments LTD
Q3 20/21	4,400,000	4,500,000	4,400,000	4,500,000
Q4 20/21	3,200,000	3,300,000	7,600,000	7,800,000
Q1 21/22	2,300,000	2,300,000	9,900,000	10,100,000
Q2 21/22	3,200,000	3,300,000	13,100,000	13,400,000
Q3 21/22	4,000,000	3,900,000	17,100,000	17,300,000
Q4 21/22	2,000,000	2,000,000	19,100,000	19,300,000
Q1 22/23	2,300,000	2,400,000	21,400,000	21,700,000
Q2 22/23	3,000,000	3,300,000	24,400,000	25,000,000
Q3 22/23	6,600,000	7,100,000	31,000,000	32,100,000
Q4 22/23	5,000,000	6,300,000	36,000,000	38,400,000

Looks like for FYQ1 ( April - June) They're estimating just over double the shipments of last FYQ1 which was 2.4 million so potentially another huge quarter of 5 million shipments. With the release of FFXVI they expect June to be huge.

So they overshipped? That's a large gap.

Means stock will be plentiful at least.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

So they overshipped? That's a large gap.

Means stock will be plentiful at least.

Yep, seems all channels are full of PS5s. Heck, I've seen both the digital and disc PS5 at MSRP here in my tiny EU country, where the retailers usually sold them at 5% - 10% above MSRP.

 

[MasterCornholio]

So they overshipped? That's a large gap.

Means stock will be plentiful at least.

That's not necessarily a bad thing in this case. They are selling them fast enough where it isn't an issue. It would be worse if they had a shortage like last year.

 

[jroc74]

That's not necessarily a bad thing in this case. They are selling them fast enough where it isn't an issue. It would be worse if they had a shortage like last year.

Yup.

Like some Sony CEO stated yesterday and in the slides, they basically fixed their stock issues.

Now only thing left to see is how long will it take to reach 100 million.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Yup.

Like some Sony CEO stated yesterday and in the slides, they basically fixed their stock issues.

Now only thing left to see is how long will it take to reach 100 million.

Also there's a huge benefit to consumers as well.

For example scalpers won't be able to rip people off anymore. And anyone who really wants a PS5 can get it easily. Not to mention with an abundance of stock there's always the possibility that retailers can make sales and give consumers a good deal.