Sales | Tag Archive

Latest Gear Live Videos

Subscribe:

YouTube

iTunes High Definition

iTunes Standard Version

RSS

Microsoft’s Xbox Quarter: Losses Shrink, So Does Revenue

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Xbox 360,

Xbox 360 Yesterday, Microsoft reported their quarterly results for the period ending March 31, 2007. Overall, the results were good for the company, moving to record profits based largely on getting Vista and the latest version of Office out the door. Still, for gamers, one thing has stood out – while losses in the Entertainment and Devices Division shrunk, so did revenues.

Dean Takahashi at Mercury News describes this reduction in sales as a “disturbing trend.” Since Microsoft doesn’t break out revenues by subgroup in the Entertainment division, it’s really hard to understand where this leaves the Xbox 360. Comparing March totals, Xbox 360 sales were down around 30% year-over-year, but this reflects a time period where Microsoft was still pretty much in the initial honeymoon phase of the console launch. Microsoft notoriously had supply problems during the first few months, but by March had seemed to catch up with demand, so the company was probably still dealing with early adopters.

More interesting is Takahashi’s dissection of the company’s ongoing losses with the Xbox 360. Even with cost reductions in hardware and having a really strong tie rate, the company is still losing money per console. With the estimated figures in the article, this projects to $53 lost per console. We can’t really know what the financials behind the Xbox 360 are, but project this to Sony, where their tie rate is much lower and the console hardware cost is much higher, or Nintendo, who claims to make a profit on each console sold, regardless of software sold later.

Nintendo Has Record Year on DS, Wii Sales

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Corporate News, Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, Wii,

Nintendo just announced their financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, and the numbers are huge. Revenues are up 90% to 996.5 billion yen, over $8 billion US. Profits are also up, nearly 150% to 226 billion yen, nearly $2 billion in profit.

Nintendo moved over 23 million DS handhelds, just an insane number, along with 5.84 million Wii consoles. The Wii number seems to be short of Nintendo’s projections of 6 million units—this would seem to point to a genuine supply constraint on Nintendo’s part. Some analysts had suspected that Nintendo was holding back shipments of the Wii because Nintendo had “made their numbers” but Nintendo’s results would seem to indicate that this was not the case.

Nintendo’s projections have them selling 14 million Wii consoles in the upcoming fiscal year, and 22 million DS handhelds. 22 million would seem to be a conservative estimate, given their strong sales from the previous year. 14 million Wii consoles moved, though, would seem to indicate a fairly decent ramp up in Wii production in order to meet their targets. Overall, though, the console that both Sony and Microsoft dismissed seems to be poised to challenge for the lead in worldwide sales.

Nintendo’s full press release continues below

Click to continue reading Nintendo Has Record Year on DS, Wii Sales

March NPD Data Hits, DS, PS2, Wii Lead Sales

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Xbox 360,

DS Lite The NPD sales data for March has been released, and Gamasutra is reporting on the sales numbers. Overall, the sales data pretty much seemed to follow expectations. The Nintendo DS again showed strong sales, moving over 500,000 units in March. Sunday’s release of the latest in the Pokemon series might have the potential to even spike this further in April and May. The PSP sold 180,000; this month’s price drop would seem to ensure an increase for April. Of the non-portable consoles, the PS2 continues to have legs, moving 280,000 consoles and outselling all of the current generation platforms. This was probably helped a bit by the release of God of War II, which sold over 833,000 units.

Within current generation platforms, rankings stayed the same. The ever-supply-constrained Wii moved 259,000 consoles; Nintendo has promised more supply, but this may not happen for a few months. The Xbox 360 continued to hold on, with 199,000 units sold, and Sony’s sales numbers held relatively steady at 130,000 units.

Playstation 3 Sells 165K in UK

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Culture, PlayStation 3,

Despite reports of low turnouts at midnight launch events for the PlayStation 3 in Europe, Sony managed to break records for console sales during its opening weekend, moving over 165,000 units in the UK. ChartTrack in the UK believes that this sells through approximately 75% of the initial launch allocation for the UK, and surpasses all other console launches in the territory, including the Wii and the Xbox 360. Gamasutra also reports on UK software sales for the opening weekend, with Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm taking spots one and two in the top ten. Of course, launch weekends are generally for the hard core; generally the first couple of million consoles sold are the easiest. Time will tell how Sony’s console does as its purchasing demographic shifts.

NPD: Nintendo DS, Wii Lead Hardware Sales

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, Nintendo DS, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PSP, Wii, Xbox 360,

Wii February’s NPD data has been released, and things look good for Nintendo. 1up has the details on video game sales for last month, and the Nintendo DS sold 485,000 units, the Wii 335,000. For the rest of the next-generation hardware, Microsoft maintained its sales pace by moving around 228,000 consoles, while the Playstation 3 saw a significant drop to 127,000. The PSP didn’t do much better against the DS, moving 176,000 handhelds.

The only bright spot for Sony would be that in the non-handheld category, the PS2 took second behind the Wii, selling 295,000 units, showing that their now last-generation technology still has plenty of legs at retail. Still, having their PS3 sales drop by nearly half over last month’s sales is a significant change; if new software from Sony can’t change course, the company may have to do something drastic to turn things around.

Microsoft should be pretty happy; while they didn’t lead the pack, the company will surely trumpet their increase in year-over-year sales. That, and having the number one game at retail for the month of February, Crackdown will also help. 1up’s article also further details the rest of the software charts for the month.

Wii Leads January Sales, Playstation 3 Trails

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360,

Wii A Credit Suisse analyst has Nintendo’s Wii leading January console sales with 436,000 units, according to a report from Bloomberg news. The report cites January NPD data, and has the Xbox 360 selling 294,000 units with the Playstation 3 trailing with 244,000 consoles sold. Above 200,000 units for January is a decent showing, but it will be hard for Sony to spin its numbers in the face of increasing availability on store shelves. Nintendo, of course, will be happy with their January sales; every indication into the third week of February has the Wii still facing shortages on shelves, so one might expect this trend to continue. While many had dismissed the Wii’s new control scheme as a fad, the console’s continuing popularity gets harder and harder to deny as the months continue.

Update: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has comments from both Microsoft and Nintendo here.

Pachter Predicts Wii Over PS3 In January

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3, Wii,

Wii Michael Pachter at Wedbush Morgan is predicting that Nintendo’s Wii console sold significantly more units than the PS3 in January. He expects NPD numbers of around 500,000 Wii consoles sold to 300,000 Playstation 3 consoles sold by Sony. According to Gamasutra, the analyst is also predicting that game sales will increase year over year by 32%. Pachter believes that while the PS3 may be entering a lull, there is potential for sales of the console to rebound as hardware availability becomes more widely known, advertising increases, and better software titles emerge. Pachter also lays down his leading software title sales predictions as well. Of course, like many analysts, Michael Pachter’s predictions haven’t always been 100% accurate; he has admitted to overestimating Xbox 360 performance and also recanted predictions that there would not be a Bully sequel.

20 GB PS3s Get Discounted In Japan

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Hardware, PlayStation 3,

Akiba It looks like 20GB PS3s have gotten temporary price reductions from some Japanese retailers; Kotaku has pointed out a post on the Akiba blogs showing some retail chains in the country reducing the price of the 20GB model by 10,000 Yen, around $80. We know PS3 sales have hit somewhat of a lull recently, so stores may be aggressively reducing price to reduce stock levels. Continued price reductions can not be sustained without support from Sony; if sales continue to languish, Sony might have to reduce the price of the 20GB system even further.

Retail Channel Has PS3 Availabilty, No Wii

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: Nintendo, PlayStation 3, Wii,

American Technology Research’s recent stock check of the retail channel is showing PS3 availability but no Wii availability, according to a Reuters report. Analyst Paul-Jon McNealy found 28 of 52 stores had Playstation 3 consoles for sale; none of the 52 stores had any Wii consoles at all. Apparently most stores had single-digit availability, with one store having more than 60 machines in stock. Without further data, it is hard to judge what the stock situations actually mean. Nintendo could be trickling in Wii consoles as they try and sate demand for the game system worldwide. Sony claims that the recent pockets of availability are due to their continued efforts to fill their shipping channel. Future sales numbers will be the only way to determine whether Sony’s claims are correct or if demand is really softening.

Japanese PS3 Shipments Hit 1 Million

Posted by Christopher Sasaki Categories: PlayStation 3,

Playstation 3 Sony Computer Entertainment Japan today announced that PS3 shipments in Japan have reached 1 million consoles, according to a Reuters report. Sony’s initial targets were to have 2 million consoles shipped by the end of the year; with today’s announcement, it looks like while Sony made its shipment targets in the US, the company missed its goals in Japan by two weeks. The announcement comes after Japanese analyst Nomura Securities indicated that Sony might miss its worldwide shipping targets by as much as 25% due to lackluster sales. Actual PS3 demand is somewhat hard to gauge, and gamers will probably have to wait for January NPD sales numbers to know the truth. Certainly the initial demand surge has slowed and finding a console has become much easier. Gamestop is trying to drive sales through a $100 PS2 trade-in offer, but still offers expensive bundles online for pre-order only.

Welcome, Guest