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Circana (NPD) November 2023: #1 COD MWIII #2 Spider-Man 2 #3 Hogwarts Legacy; PS5 #1 Units + Revenue, XBS #2 Units + Revenue

Hardensoul

Member
I know inflation was bad, but these consoles should not be the same price they were 3 years ago now. the series x probably should be closer to 400 dollars year-round anyway.
We here are in a bubble not seeing how bad inflation and bad economy is affecting the everyday people. Our hobby is pretty expensive. This NPD is looking like proof of that!
 
I imagine they'll start putting the squeeze on Playstation owners with the next Call of Duty. They'll run all the advertising for it, give a small mention to other platforms you can play it on, but blast DAY 1 ON GAME PASS and make sure that's the last thing you see.
If a brand new exclusive from Bethesda doesn’t move the needle is a new subscription service going to entice people? For a game they can keep getting on the console they already own and community/friends they’ve made.
 

Deerock71

Member
If a brand new exclusive from Bethesda doesn’t move the needle is a new subscription service going to entice people? For a game they can keep getting on the console they already own and community/friends they’ve made.
Well, it doen't seem like things have gone Microsoft's way in this space, but they're sure as shit going to make another push after this.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
If a brand new exclusive from Bethesda doesn’t move the needle is a new subscription service going to entice people? For a game they can keep getting on the console they already own and community/friends they’ve made.

The problem is, starfield didn't land where it needed to. Many people enjoy it massively, but it ended up being more of a death Stranding type game, divisive but loved by some, hated by others. Starfield needed to be a god of war level game, or skyrim, or fallout 3...not a death Stranding divisive game with glaring issues.
 
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We here are in a bubble not seeing how bad inflation and bad economy is affecting the everyday people. Our hobby is pretty expensive. This NPD is looking like proof of that!
Bro gaming has long been one of the cheapest hobbies, you should try pricing out a new bicycle or something one of these days. Go to your local sporting goods store and see how much stuff costs, meanwhile game consoles and games haven't gone up in price over for over 20 years even though the value of the US Dollar has halved in that time
 

We've firmly reached the point where typical economic factors, like value perception either on price or usefulness, are no longer applying to this product. If this is how its doing in its strongest region, every region outside of NA is tanking and hard. Price cuts aren't helping, a solid showing all year on SW didn't help either. Sales for their console will basically be flatlining outside of NA once we hit January. Xbox is cooked. Never seen a tech product recover from this.
 
We've firmly reached the point where typical economic factors, like value perception either on price or usefulness, are no longer applying to this product. If this is how its doing in its strongest region, every region outside of NA is tanking and hard. Price cuts aren't helping, a solid showing all year on SW didn't help either. Sales for their console will basically be flatlining outside of NA once we hit January. Xbox is cooked. Never seen a tech product recover from this.
It's like watching the final death of Windows Phone again. Or HD DVD. Or Zune. Or Internet Explorer.

Microsoft's problem is they only know how to throw money at problems and then they are out of ideas. Well, they threw $70 billion at acquiring ABK, what's the next step in your master plan MS?
 

tommib

Gold Member
The problem is, starfield didn't land where it needed to. Many people enjoy it massively, but it ended up being more of a death Stranding type game, divisive but loved by some, hated by others. Starfield needed to be a god of war level game, or skyrim, or fallout 3...not a death Stranding divisive game with glaring issues.
Delusional take. Starfield has nowhere near the cult potential of Death Stranding which is absolutely loved by the PC gaming community:


4KfJFBl.jpg
hwcwbz3.jpg
 

Thirty7ven

Banned
We've firmly reached the point where typical economic factors, like value perception either on price or usefulness, are no longer applying to this product. If this is how its doing in its strongest region, every region outside of NA is tanking and hard. Price cuts aren't helping, a solid showing all year on SW didn't help either. Sales for their console will basically be flatlining outside of NA once we hit January. Xbox is cooked. Never seen a tech product recover from this.

Xbox management should've put more thought into what kind of audience they wanted to appeal to, and what type of messaging it would take to reach that audience. That they seemed to have settled on uneducated sounding idiots, who look like low rent MCU content creators shills, speaks volumes from a message standpoint. Where are they getting their cues? They took the wrong conclusion from the data they have. Who at Xbox thought it was a good idea for Phil Spencer to be so close to the toxic waste (oddly quiet right now where's his weekly contribution?), and who told Sarah Bond that it was a great idea to go on stage and deliver an all time bomb in "Starfield is the most important RPG ever".

The brand management is woeful top to bottom. But congrats the Xbox logo will now appear on Call of Duty games, that will change everything.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Does this include 100% parity? Will xbox become the COD default console for events? Can they add exclusive levels / weapons etc to XBOX owners that others don't get? Many ways to make people play on xbox over other consoles unless it's stated 100% across the board.
This includes 100% parity. Xbox has submitted in court that COD will be exactly the same on both Xbox and PS - both in terms of content and the timing/availability of said content.

The only thing that will change is that Xbox will showcase the next COD games in their Showcases, instead of Sony.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism

Xbox has dug its own grave with these discounts.

As the consoles are still available and not selling at $349 and £399, how will they increase their price back to the MSRP of $500?

If they revert the price, it won't sell. If they decrease it any further to increase sales, they will have to eat even more loss. There is no way out. Seems very reminiscent of Sega. and Dreamcast -- at least the console pricing structure.
 

Unknown?

Member
Xbox has dug its own grave with these discounts.

As the consoles are still available and not selling at $349 and £399, how will they increase their price back to the MSRP of $500?

If they revert the price, it won't sell. If they decrease it any further to increase sales, they will have to eat even more loss. There is no way out. Seems very reminiscent of Sega. and Dreamcast -- at least the console pricing structure.
And they had the same problem last gen with Xbox One. The only difference is that they were able to sell consoles during the discount back then but they still tanked until the next deep discount. Now the discounts barely even work.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Delusional take. Starfield has nowhere near the cult potential of Death Stranding which is absolutely loved by the PC gaming community:


4KfJFBl.jpg
hwcwbz3.jpg
Absolutely great point, but there is something to be said that there is 5 times as many reviews for Starfield as Death Stranding and death stranding launched much later on PC I believe, where it was a known QTY what the game was. I think this would have an impact on who picked up the game and were aware of what they were getting into. Meaning, those that bought it probably had a good idea that it was a game that interested them...if that makes sense.
 

HeWhoWalks

Gold Member
Consoles sales down due to inflation. Lots of people hurting for just rent and food right now. Buying a premier system isnt on the radar for most people right now. They either have one or are riding out the current one till economy is better.

Also maybe im wrong but the XBOX numbers while still in third are pretty good. Yeah they down a little but they are performing around the smae if not better than last gen if Im reading this right.
Xbox numbers are not good. They are down a large amount from last year and last gen.
 
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Astray

Member
Small experiment so might not be super indicative of anything, but I went on Camelcamelcamel and searched for the pricing history of the Zune HD 32GB on Amazon.

Filtering only for Amazon's pricing without 3rd parties (because they would have a direct relationship with Microsoft, and thus would have "officially mandated" price changes), this yields quite the interesting timeline:

Launch date of the Zune HD 32GB: September 15, 2009 (MSRP = $269.00).
Lowest Amazon price tag: $169.00 (posted on March 7 2011), which is a ~%37 discount.
Microsoft announces that they are stopping new Zune model development on March 15 2011 (almost exactly a week after the biggest discount), and then announces the complete discontinuation of the Zune brand after 7 more months, in October 2011.

Right now, Microsoft is discounting the Series S|X very heavily, with the S going as low as $150 (%50 discount), and the X going as low as $350 on Amazon (%30 discount, maybe more because I'm seeing game bundles sold at the exact same price). You will also note little to no marketing during the holiday season, apart from social media posts.

Make no mistake, this is an absolute fire sale, and if my inferences are correct that there's a pattern there, I think we might indeed be watching the beginning of the end of home console wars as a concept.
 
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I will tell you guys what I always tell my wife during arguments..... Just trust what I am saying. I am always right.


I had a feeling that the units would have to be down on the Xbox side even with the discounts, just because they seem to have shifted focus to the XSX this year where last year they were focusing a lot more on pushing XSS. Even at $350 that's a $100 bump in dollars per unit over the $250 XSS they were putting front and center last year. Still think it was a good move though, they needed to try and get more XSX units out.

@ Astray Astray , I think you might need to investigate a bit more. MS loves to fire sale consoles at the holidays, when PS4 was still at $250 they'd have the X1 out there at $150-$160, it's what they do.
 
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Animated GIF


Profit seeking company wants to sell their product at a huge loss because its enjoyable.

Someone there definitely thinks its worth taking a hit to try and get more systems out the door. Probably not something the number crunchers are all that happy with, but something they do repeatedly regardless (every generation, almost every holiday outside of launch years). LOL Absolutely not a new thing from them.

Context is important.

Joe Biden Oops GIF by The Democrats
 
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Killjoy-NL

Gold Member
Xbox management should've put more thought into what kind of audience they wanted to appeal to, and what type of messaging it would take to reach that audience. That they seemed to have settled on uneducated sounding idiots, who look like low rent MCU content creators shills, speaks volumes from a message standpoint. Where are they getting their cues? They took the wrong conclusion from the data they have. Who at Xbox thought it was a good idea for Phil Spencer to be so close to the toxic waste (oddly quiet right now where's his weekly contribution?), and who told Sarah Bond that it was a great idea to go on stage and deliver an all time bomb in "Starfield is the most important RPG ever".

The brand management is woeful top to bottom. But congrats the Xbox logo will now appear on Call of Duty games, that will change everything.
All you have to do is look back at the topics pre-release, with all the Xbox fans cheering about a serious Tflop difference between PS5 and Series X and who to this day claim that Xbox is doing fine.
 

mckmas8808

Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Thank you captain obvious welfare. MS are known for channel stuffing.
eNf7OPe.png



Then you have 2 🤡s telling me i don’t know what i’m talking about when every retailer and their grandma are having fire sales on the xbox series.

A0aEwve.png

Welfare has an audience that doesn't know what you know though.
 

nowhat

Gold Member
Thank you captain obvious welfare. MS are known for channel stuffing.
eNf7OPe.png



Then you have 2 🤡s telling me i don’t know what i’m talking about when every retailer and their grandma are having fire sales on the xbox series.

A0aEwve.png
You know, I belong in a minority. A minority that is is constantly being ridiculed, but we are really right. That being invert-Y.

But you light-theme users should face involuntary commitment.

(try having an OLED laptop - the light, it burns us!)
 
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Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Saw this on resetera. Tweet is gone now

BHfrEgX.jpg
Been saying the same thing.

Xbox has dug its own grave with these discounts.

As the consoles are still available and not selling at $349 and £399, how will they increase their price back to the MSRP of $500?

If they revert the price, it won't sell. If they decrease it any further to increase sales, they will have to eat even more loss. There is no way out. Seems very reminiscent of Sega. and Dreamcast -- at least the console pricing structure.
 
I am quite curious about the December sales in the USA, it is a very big price difference between PS5 and SX (100-150$), and what Mat says is nothing that is not known, now MS must choose between maintaining prices and selling little at a loss a lot of money or go back to the original price and sink the console permanently.

GCcOTz3XYAAFRzi
 
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MWIII as the best selling game? No surprise but I'm hoping more people see it for the dumpster fire it is. What a shit show that franchise has become over the last couple games.
 
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