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Analyst: Xbox One global sales at 41 million; digital sale ratio far higher on Xbox One than on other platforms

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TheChronic2060

TheChronic2060

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Oct 28, 2017
925
NoTime said:
Halo 1 sold over 6mil on OG, AFAIK MS didn't count Halo 5 as a success.
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Yeah, I was thinking more of how Microsoft are able to reach pretty impressive sales numbers for the greatest hits on the Xbox One compared to Sony with the PS4, considering their respective installed user bases. Apart from Marvel´s Spider-Man (12 million), which I think has been a runaway success that owes a lot to the popularity of the Marvel brand at the moment, the other best selling candidates on the PS4 are Uncharted and Horizon: Zero Dawn at around 8 million, roughly the same amount that PUBG sold while it was exclusive on the Xbox One. After that, God of War and Halo 5 align at around 5 million each and then you have a lot of games on both Xbox and PS4 that have sold anything from 1-4 million copies (1st party + 3rd party).

With sales of the PS4 console at around 90 million, it wouldnt be too much to expect at least some of their games to hit 20 million +. And a lot more games hitting 10 million +. But they are not; on the contrary, they dont seem to be selling proportionally to the much larger installed user base. Which begs the question: what are all those people doing with their PS4s?

And I dont mean to downplay the success of any of the games, Im just curious why games on the PS4 dont sell in larger numbers, at the same time that I think its impressive that games on the Xbox One can reach the numbers they do.

Maybe this is an off-topic discussion, I will leave it there.
 
chris 1515

chris 1515

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Oct 27, 2017
7,074
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TheChronic2060 said:
Yeah, I was thinking more of how Microsoft are able to reach pretty impressive sales numbers for the greatest hits on the Xbox One compared to Sony with the PS4, considering their respective installed user bases. Apart from Marvel´s Spider-Man (12 million), which I think has been a runaway success that owes a lot to the popularity of the Marvel brand at the moment, the other best selling candidates on the PS4 are Uncharted and Horizon: Zero Dawn at around 8 million, roughly the same amount that PUBG sold while it was exclusive on the Xbox One. After that, God of War and Halo 5 align at around 5 million each and then you have a lot of games on both Xbox and PS4 that have sold anything from 1-4 million copies (1st party + 3rd party).

With sales of the PS4 console at around 90 million, it wouldnt be too much to expect at least some of their games to hit 20 million +. And a lot more games hitting 10 million +. But they are not; on the contrary, they dont seem to be selling proportionally to the much larger installed user base. Which begs the question: what are all those people doing with their PS4s?

And I dont mean to downplay the success of any of the games, Im just curious why games on the PS4 dont sell in larger numbers, at the same time that I think its impressive that games on the Xbox One can reach the numbers they do.

Maybe this is an off-topic discussion, I will leave it there.
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Uncharted 4 sold more than 8,7 millions the 22 December 2016, you think the game finish to sold after this. It was in top 20 or top 15 of many European country in 2017. The game is surely 10+ millions now and probably not so far from 13/15 million.

HZD sold 7,6 millions one years after launch and it continues to sold after maybe not far from being 10+ millions.

God of War we don't have updated sales but it was very high in sales chart all over the world after the number gives by Sony. Sony is strange they don't give sales update of the game they publish. It was Guerrilla Games which gives the number of HZD game sold after one year maybe we will have an update for the second birthday of the release of the game.


Edit: from the PAL week 3 topic Week 3 2019 European chart. Game can sold for a long time, see TLOU for example with the surprising number of 17 millions and other game often into top 20 PSN, maybe before TLOU 2 release the game will reach 18/20 millions sales...

https://www.resetera.com/threads/pal-charts-week-3-2019.94779/#post-17077421

24 (20) GRAN TURISMO SPORT (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
25 (08) MARVEL'S SPIDER-MAN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
32 (40) HORIZON ZERO DAWN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
34 (45) DETROID: BECOME HUMAN (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT
48 (12) GOD OF WAR (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
50 (64) UNCHARTED 4: A THIEF'S END (SONY INTERACTIVE ENTERTAINMENT)
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crimsonECHIDNA

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Oct 25, 2017
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MrKlaw said:
Curious why Xbox would be much larger digitally than other platforms. Disproportionately large US install base compared to global where retail might be more prevalent in many countries?
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Microsoft is the only one of the three console publishers that allows refunds in their digital store front, so I'd imagine that is definitely some real incentive to buy digital there.
 

Deleted member 49804

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1,868
MrTired said:
Ehhmm. Do you have data you can share? Or have you been verified as an insider? Because otherwise your wrong.
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Excuse me? What logic is that?
I already share the data in this topic, or the respective news threads.

About VR unit shipments, Superdata made this chart:


edit: this is their 2016/2017 report that should make it even more clear
HW2017-1024x862.jpg


When the VR adoption on Steam increased from 0.4% to 0.8% on Steam in 2018 (according to Steam Hardware Survey)
SteamHWSurvey2018Chart6.png



On the subscription services revenue pie chart, you can find my explaination here:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/su...d-45-more-on-games.79656/page-4#post-16031354


All based on publicly available official data. Or in the case of Steam Hardware survey, as official as it gets.
 
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cakely

cakely

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Oct 27, 2017
13,149
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KennyX said:
Pardon me? What logic is that?

I already share the data in this topic, or the respective news threads.

All based on publicly available official data. Or in the case of Steam Hardware survey, as official as it gets.
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Oh, so ... you have no new information at all to contradict SuperData. It sure sounded like you did.

I'll just go with what Matt said, then.

Matt said:
It's a market research firm, they do their best to extrapolate information.

On that particular pie chart, to the best of my knowledge it was a relatively accurate reflection of the market share.
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McScroggz

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Jan 11, 2018
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I assume the disproportionate digital sales are primarily due to GamePass and the more concentrated sales in countries like the US and UK where it's more feasible to download a bunch of games versus other countries that the PS4 is dominant in? Or are there other factors?

EDIT: I suppose the sales on PC are also a factor.
 
Curufinwe

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Oct 27, 2017
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TheChronic2060 said:
Yeah, I was thinking more of how Microsoft are able to reach pretty impressive sales numbers for the greatest hits on the Xbox One compared to Sony with the PS4, considering their respective installed user bases. Apart from Marvel´s Spider-Man (12 million), which I think has been a runaway success that owes a lot to the popularity of the Marvel brand at the moment, the other best selling candidates on the PS4 are Uncharted and Horizon: Zero Dawn at around 8 million, roughly the same amount that PUBG sold while it was exclusive on the Xbox One. After that, God of War and Halo 5 align at around 5 million each and then you have a lot of games on both Xbox and PS4 that have sold anything from 1-4 million copies (1st party + 3rd party).
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Where are you getting these LTD sales numbers from?

Uncharted 4 was at 8.7 million at the end of 2016.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...evable-amount-of-copies-in-2016/#7df53bed6850

And at the end of 2017:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-11-uncharted-series-sales-passes-41-million

The studio confirmed lifetime sales of 41.7m units since the first Uncharted on PS3.

This figure not only includes the four main games, but also this year's standalone expansion Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and 2015's remaster collection The Nathan Drake Collection, which brought the original trilogy to PS4.

Interestingly, the series' total sales was last reported as 28 million back in May 2016, meaning 13.7 million units - more than a quarter of lifetime units - have been sold in the last 18 months.

These have no doubt been driven by the huge success of Uncharted 4, the highest-rated game of last year, plus the PlayStation's superior install base this console generation.
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chris 1515

chris 1515

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Oct 27, 2017
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Curufinwe said:
Where are you getting these LTD sales numbers from?

Uncharted 4 was at 8.7 million at the end of 2016.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...evable-amount-of-copies-in-2016/#7df53bed6850

And at the end of 2017:

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2017-12-11-uncharted-series-sales-passes-41-million
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Thanks it is the first time I read the 41 millions number. Great UC4+ UC The Lost Legacy were at 13,7 millions beginning of December 2017. Impressive.
 

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McScroggz

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Ge0force said:
They aren't:
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I don't expect it to be a significant figure, but in terms of the amount of digital sales it adds to increase the ratio what is a realistic number? 3%? 5%? 8%? It may not be a major factor, but every purchase on the PC increases that digital sales ratio. Maybe it's just less than I'm giving it credit for though.

Nonetheless, if Microsoft continues to grow its market on PC that will make the digital sales trend even higher for them. I'm curious what the profit margin is on average for them on that space. With Steam they sell a lot of copies of games although intuitively it seems like a much higher percentage of the games are sold at a moderate if not substantial discount versus physical games sold on consoles.

But I'm not a sales guy so maybe I'm just talking out of my butt.
 
dom

dom

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I dont think Microsoft would be that far off from their current numbers if there was no pre-launch mess up. I would guess closer to 50 if that didnt happen. It was tracking better than 360 and the 360 saw a significant boost in its late years due to the Kinect crowd.

The biggest difference though would be Revenue on the hardware earned. Microsoft has had to do insane amount of sales just to get to 41m. As Sony and Nintendo don't need to do price cutting because of that demand, Microsoft has to price cut to get demand resulting in losing money on hardware.
 
only_fools_&_horses

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domthybomb said:
I dont think Microsoft would be that far off from their current numbers if there was no pre-launch mess up. I would guess closer to 50 if that didnt happen. It was tracking better than 360 and the 360 saw a significant boost in its late years due to the Kinect crowd.

The biggest difference though would be Revenue on the hardware earned. Microsoft has had to do insane amount of sales just to get to 41m. As Sony and Nintendo don't need to do price cutting because of that demand, Microsoft has to price cut to get demand resulting in losing money on hardware.
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In US particularly, yes. Till November 2018. However, on global scale, X1 began to fall behind X360 somewhere during end of 2016 or beginning of 2017.
 
Uno Venova

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-girgosz-

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Interesting note: If we are to believe these numbers then the site we can't mention was absolutely spot on with their estimates.

Edit: Might have been posted earlier
 
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Jenea

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One of the main reasons why digital sale ratio is higher might be the presence in the markets: xbone is pretty much dead in Europe and Asia. Wondering what's the digital sale ratio if we take into consideration only the US customers (where the instalbase is pretty much the same for both consoles).
 
bombshell

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Jenea said:
One of the main reasons why digital sale ratio is higher might be the presence in the markets: xbone is pretty much dead in Europe and Asia. Wondering what's the digital sale ratio if we take into consideration only the US customers (where the instalbase is pretty much the same for both consoles).
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Unless I misunderstand Zhuge's data access, then everything in the OP quote except the 41m number is for US data only. I don't know from where he would have access to global digital data for both platforms. He has the US digital data per platform from NPD subscriber report.
 
Ge0force

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McScroggz said:
I don't expect it to be a significant figure, but in terms of the amount of digital sales it adds to increase the ratio what is a realistic number? 3%? 5%? 8%? It may not be a major factor, but every purchase on the PC increases that digital sales ratio. Maybe it's just less than I'm giving it credit for though.

Nonetheless, if Microsoft continues to grow its market on PC that will make the digital sales trend even higher for them. I'm curious what the profit margin is on average for them on that space. With Steam they sell a lot of copies of games although intuitively it seems like a much higher percentage of the games are sold at a moderate if not substantial discount versus physical games sold on consoles.

But I'm not a sales guy so maybe I'm just talking out of my butt.
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Haha no, what you say makes lots of sense. It's just that Microsoft isn't there yet. This will no doubt change if they improve their store, and release pc focused games like AoE4.
 

Fredrik

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Oct 27, 2017
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H-I-M said:
It sold 6 millions in 2018 and that's with constant heavy price cuts and the release of the One X.
60 millions are not realistic at all.
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There will be more price cuts going forward and we only got one great first party release last year, Forza Horizon 4, coming years should be way better unless they jump start next gen this year.
 
Bioshocker

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Bizzquik said:
That 41mil would include the launch of the Xbox One X and the sleeker Xbox One S. How many double-dips (like myself) does that include? And 50mil is still 9mil away.
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To be fair people upgrade from vanilla PS4 to PS4 Pro too. And I'd say the numbers for the 360 were even harder to judge because so many bought not only two but three or even four of them.
 
Jade1962

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Jenea said:
One of the main reasons why digital sale ratio is higher might be the presence in the markets: xbone is pretty much dead in Europe and Asia. Wondering what's the digital sale ratio if we take into consideration only the US customers (where the instalbase is pretty much the same for both consoles).
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Also more physical games are released on PS4 even in the US where the two consoles are close. According to Matt/NPD even Switch had more physical releases in the US than X1 lady year in the US.
 
Barsi

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Fredrik said:
There will be more price cuts going forward and we only got one great first party release last year, Forza Horizon 4, coming years should be way better unless they jump start next gen this year.
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If they sold 6 million last year with luck they will sell 5 this year. Both PS4 and Xbox one will go down this year. Next year will be even harder for both. So no 60 million is out of reality. I still have doubts about 50 million. I think Xbox One will end around 49 million. 4.5 this year. 2.5 2020 and maybe 500k-1million more after that.
 

Fredrik

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Barsi said:
If they sold 6 million last year with luck they will sell 5 this year. Both PS4 and Xbox one will go down this year. Next year will be even harder for both. So no 60 million is out of reality. I still have doubts about 50 million. I think Xbox One will end around 49 million. 4.5 this year. 2.5 2020 and maybe 500k-1million more after that.
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Why do you think they will sell less this year?
I honestly can't see MS jump in on next gen yet, I think Sony will jump in first and MS will try to wait it out long enough to get a performance advantage. I think they'll start cutting the price though and I think we'll see more first party games, which should mean that they'll sell more.
Next year is the tricky one, it depends on what Sony does, can go both ways depending on the PS5 price, specs and games and how hard MS try to counter it with even more price cuts.
 
BradleyLove

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Oct 29, 2017
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Fredrik said:
Why do you think they will sell less this year?
I honestly can't see MS jump in on next gen yet, I think Sony will jump in first and MS will try to wait it out long enough to get a performance advantage. I think they'll start cutting the price though and I think we'll see more first party games, which should mean that they'll sell more.
Next year is the tricky one, it depends on what Sony does, can go both ways depending on the PS5 price, specs and games and how hard MS try to counter it with even more price cuts.
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You think giving Sony a year's headstart will be a good strategy for MS, especially given history shows power isn't the deciding factor?
 

FacelessSamurai

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Dec 31, 2017
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Dewin said:
Forward compatibility is not just an MS thing. There is nothing stopping Sony to do the same.
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The difference is MS has already stated a lot of their intentions so we have a little idea of what to expect and speculate on. Sony hasn't really said anything.

It's easy to just say "they could do the same if they wanted to!", like Switch could be as powerful as Xbox One X if Nintendo wanted to, doesn't mean it'll happen though.

Until Sony draws a clear path and is more open about the upcoming gen, we will always have a blurrier picture of what they have coming up compared to Microsoft.

Maybe they are trying to keep some stuff secret, but considering the source of their components (amd) for both companies, I think both will end up with similar designs, just different feature wise.

As for forward compatibility, I really wished they'd keep supporting their older consoles. I'm pretty sure stuff like AI, physics, textures and polygon count can be scaled down all the way to Xbox One S levels at 720p, and that means people on low income could still be playing games from the newer gen as some people don't care about the jump in visuals, they just want to play the latest COD and Madden.
 

shark97

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Barsi said:
If they sold 6 million last year with luck they will sell 5 this year. Both PS4 and Xbox one will go down this year. Next year will be even harder for both. So no 60 million is out of reality. I still have doubts about 50 million. I think Xbox One will end around 49 million. 4.5 this year. 2.5 2020 and maybe 500k-1million more after that.
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Thats crazy lowball...didnt they do 4-4.5 just in the states this year? Im in phone so i cant look it up...
 

Fredrik

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BradleyLove said:
You think giving Sony a year's headstart will be a good strategy for MS, especially given history shows power isn't the deciding factor?
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I think they're stuck because they launched the X so late, launching XB2 early means that lots of people get sour because they just bought the X and the difference from the X might get uncomfortable small, MS has also already declared that with Xbox you'll have the most powerful console and I can't see how they can pull that off without launching later since I assume they'll both use AMD tech. I honestly think we'll have off sync launches by all three and it'll be difficult to say when the generation actually started.
 
Bioshocker

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TheZodiacAge said:
Doesn't look like that when you again put it on the worldwide scale.

Xbox never does bad in its 2 main markets but these numbers again show they basically have nothing to fall back on outside of them.
Sony is 50+ Million ahead while only being slightly ahead in the US showing how insanely strong the grip and mindshare everywhere else is in the favor for Playstation.
The same market that pushed the PS3 above the 360 in the end even after how that Gen started out for Playstation.

The 1X or anything else that Phil did had never any impact on the European Market showing its uninteresting for the market they still can't figure out.

Will be interesting to see what and if they have something planned or simply give up on it and try to get their playerbase in the USA back which helped them a lot last Gen.
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This still baffles me a bit. Sure, I was one of the few to pre-order the first Xbox in Europe for an insane price (would translate to about 650$) so I'm not the typical customer. But seeing the massive gap between PlayStation and Xbox here is kind of weird. Microsoft could certainly do more to please European consumers but they're not THAT bad.
 
ps3ud0

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Oct 27, 2017
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KennyX said:
According to this estimate, form this very own topic, the US represents 60% of the worldwide market. Not 65%.
That's quite a difference in over 4 million units.
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LOL sorry I accidently used PS4 US LTD and not XOs and ran with it. So that's 72% of the WW from those 2 markets...

ps3ud0 8)
 
jroc74

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Oct 27, 2017
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Fredrik said:
Why do you think they will sell less this year?
I honestly can't see MS jump in on next gen yet, I think Sony will jump in first and MS will try to wait it out long enough to get a performance advantage. I think they'll start cutting the price though and I think we'll see more first party games, which should mean that they'll sell more.
Next year is the tricky one, it depends on what Sony does, can go both ways depending on the PS5 price, specs and games and how hard MS try to counter it with even more price cuts.
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So here's the situation for MS:

Wait til the PS5 launches, is revealed so they can gain the power advantage...but doing that means hanging on to the XBO and hope sales dont completely fall of a cliff waiting for the PS5 to launch.

Or launch at the same time or before the PS5 to gain momentum ahead of the PS5 or be on even footing at least.

I agree price cuts can help MS, I still believe if the One X was $399 when it launched they might have more sales right now.

I dont know which they will do....but I dont think its so easy for MS to just wait and launch later just to get the power advantage. Whatever their plans are for this year and next, I think MS needs to see some increase or no huge declines in sales to be able to wait to launch for the power advantage.
 

Fredrik

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jroc74 said:
So here's the situation for MS:

Wait til the PS5 launches, is revealed so they can gain the power advantage...but doing that means hanging on to the XBO and hope sales dont completely fall of a cliff waiting for the PS5 to launch.

Or launch at the same time or before the PS5 to gain momentum ahead of the PS5 or be on even footing at least.

I agree price cuts can help MS, I still believe if the One X was $399 when it launched they might have more sales right now.

I dont know which they will do....but I dont think its so easy for MS to just wait and launch later just to get the power advantage. Whatever their plans are for this year and next, I think MS needs to see some increase or no huge declines in sales to be able to wait to launch for the power advantage.
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Like I said above, I think they're stuck in your first scenario since they launched the One X so late, launching XB2 early means that lots of people get sour because they just bought the X and the difference from the X might get uncomfortable small too.

MS has also already declared that with Xbox you'll have the most powerful console and I can't see how they can be so sure to pull that off without launching later since I assume both PS5 and XB2 will use AMD tech.

They've already tried launching earlier too and I doubt they have fond memories of the "next gen don't start until we say so" days. They essentially got lucky that PS3 was so diffucult to code, otherwise that generation could've ended really badly for MS.
 
Mercenary09

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Fredrik said:
There will be more price cuts going forward and we only got one great first party release last year, Forza Horizon 4, coming years should be way better unless they jump start next gen this year.
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They already sell the Xbox One S for $199 pretty often and that really hasn't helped them win any NPDs. Also how is this years lineup going to be better than what they've had? The only thing this year that we really know of that is significant is Gears 5 and sorry to tell you but Gears 4 didn't exactly do a lot to move units. Microsoft's sales will likely be down even more this year.
 
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