Truth Blurry: Sony PS3 or Microsoft Xbox 360 winning Europe?
May 10, 2008 | Filed under Gaming, Sony Playstation 3, Xbox 360
With many tracking services around keeping an eye on games console sales, you would think the truth would not be blurry on who is the winner in Europe, but it is. The Sony PS3 was said to be winning Europe and we reported a couple of days ago that Sony’s David Reeves confirmed over five million Playstation 3’s have been sold across Europe, he also said the PS3 has outsold the Xbox 360 for 6 months (since October 2007). Now we have heard Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg deny these figures, they have said that the “Xbox 360 has an undeniable strength in North America” and that it had “over a 1-million-unit lead across Europe”, he based these figures on the sell-through from Chart Track and GfK.
Its strange how the two brands are coming up with different figures, although Sony did not deny Microsoft’s lead in the United States, in fact Sony did say they could take North America given more time. What we got to think about here are not how many units is sold from each games console, but more on what they are used for. I know a few people that have bought the Sony PS3 as a cheap Blu-ray player, while those that buy the Xbox 360, really only use it for games.
So the figures we would want to see here are how many games are owned per user on the Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 as an average. This will give us an idea of who is really winning, which games console gets more games bought for it and played more. We can look at the unofficial numbers for VGChartz, if we are talking just units then they have the Playstation 3 at 5.4 million unit sales outside of North America and Japan, while the Xbox 360 is said to be 6.4 million. This is still confusing as we could see other countries like Australia mixed into them figures.
Source: Read
Get the latest news in our RSS Feed, Newsletter or follow us on Twitter.
Whether or not the PS3 is ahead or behind in Europe, it has been ‘winning’ in terms of week-on-week hardware sales for the last six months or so. Only a matter of time before it passes the 360 - if indeed it hasn’t done so already.
The US is a different story. Sales have been pretty much neck and neck this year, so It’ll take much longer to catch the 360 there.
As attach rates go, if the 14-16 month head start for the 360 is discounted, I believe they’re pretty much neck and neck on that count as well.
How can Sony be winning Europe when they are being trounced by the Wii? That Sony and Microsoft are so excited about second place is amusing.
Agreed Brick.
360 owners are very quick to jump on the ‘attach’ rates, but mysteriously forget that they had a 16 month lead time in which people were buying games and upping the attach rate.
@Flip
Its either A : They don’t view the Wii as ‘next gen’ or a ‘real’ gaming machine. I own one as well as my PS3, and I DO think it is a gaming machine.
Or B : They’re so far behind, whats the point in bringing it into thier press releases.
Its not a good press release if you say ‘well yep we beat the xbox 360 but the wii still has us bent over and taking it’
I guess C could be a combination of both.
These are the same people that told us to buy HD-DVD.
I choose NOT to believe them.
Thanks.
PS3 is amazing. Buy one and see for yourself!
funny Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg does not say “they are wrong, we have sold X numbers of xbox 360 in europe”
if they are 1 million ahead, why Microsoft’s Aaron Greenberg does not just say “we have sold more than 6 millions xbox in europe”
maybe cause they have not, and talk about numbers from some 3rd sales trackers, cant he give a call to the sales deparment and ask how many xbox have sold in europe
and about the 10 millions plus units sold in america, you know every RROD xbox that microsoft exchange for a new one are tracked as a sale.
so i guess they have sold 17 millions of consoles worldwide, but only about 12 are in costumers hands, the rest are garbage, well, more accurate in garbage
we know that before the new design chip in the last xbox, microsoft cant give a reliable console to costumers, thats the reason they were just re-shufling consoles the first year, now they can give a more reliable one, and count those as a new sale, besides microsoft already made the check to expend 1 billion dollars buying xbox 360 for the next 3 years, last year when they extended the warranty and recognized they built and sell a faulty console (im still waiting someone to sue them, just take their words to a court, to bad i dont live in US for sue myself)
Sony are clearly winning everywhere outside the US. The PS3 has overtaken the 360 in the EU despite being on sale for 16 months less meaning its selling over twice as quickly.
@ Josh
Even though I don’t think the Wii should count as a gaming console, it’s doing rather well considering the games look like crap. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy Wii Bowling, and anytime I drink with friends that I’m not the first person turning on my friends’ Wii to play. But other than getting drunk and playing games, I’ve never been able to get into the games I’ve played on it (SSBB, Mario Galaxy, Zelda, Wii Play, etc) when I’m sober. The Wii is like the fat chick at the bar at closing time; you don’t want it unless you’re drunk and nobody talks about it the next day.
Everybody is always throwing around Sony’s and Microsoft’s “Attach Rate” without fully examining the average attach rate per month for the consoles’ life cycles. I know, there is no flawless formula that will represent a these numbers, but if you take the attach rate (AtRt) and divide is by the number of months (Ms) the console has been available it should show you which console owners are actually buy games more often (AtRt/Ms = Winner)
I pulled each console’s release date from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org
I used Gamer Blorge’s attach rate figures from April 27th, 2008.
http://gamer.blorge.com/2008/04/27/xbox-360-leads-software-attach-rate-even-the-wii-beats-ps3/
As per Wikipedia, the X-Box 360 was released November 22nd of 2005, which means it’s been available for 2 year 5 and a half months (29.5 months) and has an attach rate of 7.5. The Playstation 3 was released on November 17th of 2006, which translates in to 1 year and almost 6 months (18 months) who’s attach rate is 4.6. The Wii was released on December 8th, 2006 (17 months) with a current attach rate of 5.3. Now to put the formula to the test.
We’ll start with the 360. 7.5 divided by 29.5 = 0.2542 (AtRt / Ms = 0.2542, or 1 game purchased every 4 months). A very respectable figure.
Now for the Playstation3. 4.6 divided by 18 = 0.2556 (AtRt / Ms = 0.2556, which is near identical to the 360)
And finally for the Wii. 5.3 divided by 17 = 0.3118 (AtRt / Ms = 0.3118)
So, lets forget who has sold MORE games and focus on which company is selling more games per month on average; this will show which console is selling better on a month to month average.
To put this in order
First Place
Wii: 0.3118
Second Place
PS3: 0.2556
Third Place
360: 0.2542
Those give you a semi-accurate evaluation to how many games each console owner buys on average since the date they were released.
Sony’s David Reeves gave the media the impression that Sony had overtaken total 360 sales in Europe which isn’t the case. Personally I dont think David did this on purpose because he confirmed five million Playstation 3’s have been sold (in Europe). 6 1/2 million 360’s have been sold in Europe and it’s obvious that the 360 is still leading at this point in the region. However, it is true that the PS3 has been leading week to week sales since the big PS3 price cut in October last year.
And oh yeah…Australia makes very very little difference.
Australian Numbers:
360 = 300,000
PS3 = 200,000
Australia is a very small market.
why even reference vgchartz? it’s not about those numbers being unofficial estimates, it’s about those numbers being estimates taken from the top sales weekly charts from the likes of Amazon, as well as manufacturer’s released shipping numbers, and then validated numbers from companies like NPD and Chart-Track. in other words, the estimates used by that crappy site aren’t even its own estimates. in the future, why not just say “according to estimates” because it would make your articles far more believable.
Well I dont know what all the fuss is about, at the end of the day whether they have sold 5-20 million consoles it does not matter, all these companies are bothered about is filling their pockets with cash.
If that bloke bought a Wii, the other one bought a PS3 or Xbox 360 does it really matter? They made their choice and from what I have seen they are all good consoles.
Both Sony and MS spout rubbish from one day to the next and the only reason they keep doing it is because we all react to it. At the end of the day does it really matter?
Sony claim to be ahead in Europe but don’t mention where there data is coming from, MS claim to be 1 million ahead in Europe and give Chart track and Gfk as their source, If MS were not telling the truth they wouldn’t list a source that could call them out so i’m gonna have to go with MS on this one.
One interesting fact is that MS had a 7 million lead, there are now supposed to have a 5 million lead, if you take Japan (who are never likely to buy an MS product that isn’t windows) out of the equation, that’s 1.5 million consoles difference would mean that through out the rest of the world Sony has only caught up half a million consoles so far.
My guess is that Sony will eventually overtake the 360 because of Japan but MS will still keep a good lead in North America and Europe will be split.
Don’t have a clue what the Wii is going to do though as it has already kept up momentum longer than most people could have predicted.
Sony based their numbers on shipments numbers just released by MS (MS shipment numbers vs. Sony shipment numbers)
MS based their numbers on GFK and ChartTrack
david dirty nail reeves said that the ps3 has sold more units in europe from its release in march 2007 to may 6th 2008 than the 360 did from its release in november 2005 to may 6th 2008, not that its outsold it.
that means that the ps3 sold 5 million in europe in little over a year, the 360 took a almost2 years. thats what he said. read the facts and know things before you say them dumbos.
lol I completely agree with flip
I have a big penis….
this man has a point, i was planning to buy a PS3 just cause of the Blue Ray player until i found out that it only outputs 60Hz instead of 120Hz. what kind of machine would do a half a$$ job with only 256MB memory compared to 360 512MB. take more space from the hard drive that cant be upgraded or replaced. & this is called the next gen ultimate machine????? please grow up, its just advertising. the only way you can make something sale is by making people believe that everyone is buying it.
The reason that the wii isn’t counted is because it is aimed at a different market. Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo have all said the wii doesn’t compete with the PS3/360 they co-exist.
the fact is the wii is so different that it would be bought alongside one of the more serious gaming consoles
“So the figures we would want to see here are how many games are owned per user on the Xbox 360 and the Sony PS3 as an average. This will give us an idea of who is really winning, which games console gets more games bought for it and played more”
No, because the 360 came out a year earlier so will obviously have a higher games to console average!
Too many Sony fan boys on here plus the unit sales don’t make the games any better. You boys must be lovin paying more then anywhere else on the planet for your system just so the Americans and the Japanese can have it at a cheap price.
360 averages a 7.2 games per console attach rate. Wii is at 4.5 and PS3 is at 3.7.
This was released about 2 weeks ago. It was suprising that the Wii was above PS3.
Who cares anyway? It’s not like units sold implies that it is the best console. The Wii is the best selling console and yet has one of the absolute worst line up of games, terrible graphics, terrible online funtionality, and the worst attach ratio of all three consoles (and no, it is not a next gen system). People will buy whatever is hyped up and in demand. Sure the PS3 is an alright system but again has a lower attach ratio, implying people buying the system and really not liking the game line-up so much. The 360 has the best online functionality, graphics, and line-up of games including the best/most exclusives. It also has a attach ratio that rivals that of the PS2, what statistics consider the best console of all time.
Can you name more than two games to look forward to (EXCLUSIVES, remember most of the PS3 games are also on the 360) for the PS3?
After the release of MarioKart, can you think of a must have title for the Wii?
Besides most sales data is units sold to the retailer, not the consumer. So YIPPIE, PS3 shipped more units to the retailer than the 360!!! Numbers don’t mean anything. I own all three systems and the Wii and PS3 collect a lot of dust. Games I am playing right now: COD4 360, Mass Effect 360, GTAIV 360, and MarioKart Wii.
Unfortunately, it’s things like this that make me feel that Britain is the ‘dumbass’ of videogaming. Too many Brits are “oooh, shiny graphics, must buuuy” or “OMG Wii ur wii is kidy!!!” it’s ridiculous. There are some smart British gamers out there, but the majority seem ignorant.
More than 2 PS3 exclusives I plan on buying, that is a tough one:
-Metal Gear Solid 4 (obvoiously)
-Resistance FOM 2
-Killzone 2
-Little Big Planet
-Wipeout HD
-Siren: Blood Curse
-Haze
-Final Fantasy XIII
-God Of War 3
-Tekken 6
Is that more than 2? why yes it is, and most of them are out before christmass…
Im sorry but I would like to see your reason for stating that. You do reiase that Britian has Rare and makes GTA dont you?
that was at deku by the way
I too have a big penis
@ Neil
“No, because the 360 came out a year earlier so will obviously have a higher games to console average!”
Yes, the numbers add up. 0.2556 is the AVERAGE number of games each console OWNER buys every MONTH; this is NOT the average number of games sold per console sold. There is a very big difference you douche. You must be a high school student who is fail math because you don’t understand the simple formula that I listed above. Fuck, get a grip Neil you fuckin fanboy…the numbers are only statistical and favor Sony of the 360 so quit getting your panties in a bunch, woman.
@ Neil
“No, because the 360 came out a year earlier so will obviously have a higher games to console average!”
Yes, the numbers add up. 0.2556 is the AVERAGE number of games each console OWNER buys every MONTH; this is NOT the average number of games sold per console sold. There is a very big difference you douche. You must be a high school student who is fail math because you don’t understand the simple formula that I listed above. F@kk, get a grip Neil you f@kkin fanboy…the numbers are only statistical and favor Sony over the 360 so quit getting your panties in a bunch, woman.
@ Neil
Just to reiterate…YOU’RE WRONG AND YOU’RE A DOUCHE!!!
I dont care who is winning, wiitarts is in the lead of its kind and not a next gen machine in next gen perspectives. 360 just sucks balls. And ps3 is definetly next gen. As far as whos winning, let it go. Play a game and shut the fu@k up.
“You must be a high school student who is fail math”
me fail english, that unpossible
Well I live in the UK which is in Europe and I know one person that has a PS3. Its early days in the UK for this machine and people are upset with Sony because of the high price a large delay. I guess in a couple of years and afew good titles under its belt and people will soon forget.
I haven’t been blown away by it so far not to say I won’t be in the future. I will stick with my 360 for now.
@ rorkimaru
I don’t care enough to proof read my posts, so if my typos bother you maybe you could suck on a lead pipe when you’re done smoking your father pole. Here’s a little something that you can feel free to correct. You ain’t finna post ne thang odda dan a coorrreeeccctttiioonnssiioonnss.
Lol You like that faggot. Gave ya lots to correct me. You and Neil should have a tryst and get it over with.
I know you’ll respond, because you’re a little queer who needs to have to last word. Too bad you can’t come up with anything original, you tampoon.
@Josh
Dam right I’ll respond. I was merely pointing out tht you were mocking someone’s mathamatical skill with the scentence structure of a five year old. every one makes mistakes in spelling, grammer ect but that was pretty bad.
as far as your mathamatical formula is concerned it doesent give a very accurate reprisentation of game sales as it does not allow for sale rate declines. here is an example
in 4 months the per conslole sales are 7,6,3,0
using your methood that says monthly attach rate is 4. that said there is a steady decline in sales. while 4 is a good number i doubt the hardware sellers would be comfertable with this sales trend.
Then you have to concider external factors. would the 360’s game sales have been affected by other consoles on the market? yes. would the few extra units out there counterbalance? possibly(not now that the wii has sold the most units).
so as you see it is not as simple as deviding one number by another and saying bing. If it were people would be doing it already.
BTW, if using big boy words like “faggot”, “queer” and “tampoon” make you feel like a hard man when you are hiding behind your keybord that is fine but maby one of thease days you are going to have to figure out how to solve your daddy issues and uncomfertably with your sexuality. until then try to be a bit more imagination with your comebacks. tell me something I haven’t heard before
@ rorkimaru
As for the number, if you put the figure that my formula has provided and put them in reverse you’ll get the total number of games sold.
Take the 360’s ‘Average Number of Games Sold Per Month’ number, multiply it by the number of months on the market and then by the total number of consoles sold…
0.2542 x 29.5 x 18 Million =
7.4989 x 18 Million =
134,980,200 total games sold.
The PS3
0.2556 x 18 x 12 Million =
4.6008 x 12 Million =
55,209,600 Total Games Sold
The Wii
0.3118 x 17 x 18 Million =
5.3006 x 18 Million =
95,410,800
Notice how when you reverse my formula and multiply the ‘AVERAGE GAMES SOLD PER MONTH’ by “# OF MONTHS ON THE MARKET’ you get the “Attach Rate”, which then show you total software sales. These numbers are always in favour the the 360 because it’s been on the market longer. My formula eradicates this unever favour and show which CONSOLE OWNERS are buying more games PER MONTH; nothing more. Now shut the fuck up and realize that I’m smarteresty that you are.
@ josh
first thing we need to do is calm down and realise this is not a competition of inteligence.
I am well aware that if you multiply average monthly sales by number of months you get total sales. My point is that there are ebbs and flows in monthly sales. for instance your formula doesnt take into account declining sales as a current representation. it uses past performances to strengthen poor current performance and vice versa.
allow me to present a non hypothetical example:
http://kotaku.com/390211/yup-the-ps2-is-still-buttering-eas-bread
The chart at the following link shows how the profits per quarter for the PS3 increase from 13M to 152M.
an actor is only as good as his last movie and that poor start by the PS3 is masked by the great leap it takes towards the end of its year.
what I mean to say is the current sales rate is much more favorable than the average sales of the year. games dont sell at the average rate they sell at the current rate.
If you try to visualise this think of a graph with various data points. what your formula does is draws a best fit line through all the points and uses its slope as the sales rate. a more accurate way to discover rate is to take a tangent to the graph at the current moment in time and you will know how titles are selling right now.
of cource this figure will rise and fall over time but as the consoles are still on market and “alive” it is better to take a current snapshot rather than simplify them into the total occurances of their life cycle as this cycle hasnt ended yet.
do you see my point? I hope I was clear
@ rorkimaru
Just so you know, the formula that I provided specifically states that it will generate the average number of games each console owner has bought per month. This implies that the formula is only using ‘past-to-current’ sales information provided. The formula itself also implies that this is correct ‘to-date’, and there are no ‘x’ factors in the formula to represent future market irregularities that may or may not have an impact on these figures. If I wanted to do that first I would need to analyze the recession that the U.S. is having, or is on the brink of having, and find out past recession spending trends. Then I would need to analyze other major markets (Europe, Australia, Japan, etc.) and the sales and spending trends of those countries.
So, if I wanted to do that I would have come up with a formula like this off-the-cuff formula
Country(Multiplied by Expected Average Consumer Spending for that Region), multiplied by Past Sales Trends(times the percent of Average Annual Spending Increase), Multiplied by “X” which could represent hardware boost/lags due to software releases, price cuts, publicity, companies financial holdings, marketing campaigns, or total lack thereof.
US (0.75) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
Eur(1.10) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
Jpn(1.14) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
Can(1.09) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
Aus(1.22) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
AOM(1.00) x PST(%AASI) x “X”
I would then take the figures, figure out how much each market represents each company’s sales (US represents 50% of X-Box sales so the US economy would impact the 360 more than Sony and Nintendo, right? Right!), plug those numbers in and would have a relatively accurate analysis of what future trends would like, but I don’t care that much (maybe you do b/c you eat $h*t and are obviously very under educated to question my authority as well as my statistical, mathematical, and actuarial education), nor do I have the inclination to stop playing GTA long enough to research these things. If you know anything about market analysis you would know how complex it is to configure an equation that incorporates those “X”-factors, douche.
I always find it funny when someone who is claiming to be smarter and more inteligent than me reffers to me as a “douche” and tells me to go eat “$h*t”.
The only reason I started replying to you was because you were acting like a jerk to that Neil guy. I was hoping civil conversation could cure you of this but I guess not.
You did clearly state it was averages but you also said it was a more acurate way of viewing the market, that is debateable.
Since it is clear you know about market analysis to some extent you should know better than to try and oversimplify like that. Market studies are complex and even the best analysers out there can make huge mistakes. To try to boil it down to dividing two numbers is folly.
Anyway, If you choose to reply to this message please refrain from such juvinile language as faggot, queer, douche, eating $h*t, tampoon, suggesting a tryst,smoking my “father pole” etc. If you have to curse or use this kind of language it weakens your argument more than it intimidates.
Do any of you giving comments, actually have a PS3 or 360? I have a PS3 and it is kick butt. I also have a 360,but i play the PS3 more.
yes josh listen to rorkimaru , stop the cussing.
I have a ps3 and an xbox 360 Elite. The 360 sucks arse to be quite frank, and I gave it to my son. The Ps3 on the other hand does not suck arse and is used on a daily basis. So, in conclusion,
XBOX 360 = SUCKS ARSE
PS3 = DOES NOT SUCK ARSE
————————-
WINNER = PS3 ————
————————-
And that’s case closed. Thank you.
Gentlemen… they are both good machines, PS3 is behind and probably will always be. I have both and the games on the PS3 are brutal, that can change. Even the ones that have been released later on the PS3 are worse, RB6LV, GRAW@, etc. The controller is inferior on the PS3, and thats being nice. the 360 Controller is superior. The 360 has THE best games, best controller, the best Live experience by far. All because of a 16mo head start, but its still better regardless. I grew up w a PS1 and PS2, and now play the 360 religously, its just that good. PS3 plays like its 16mos behind so give it another year and that may change, but for the most part its an inexpensive BR player and thats about it. 40% of the purchases or a Ps3 has to be for a BR player, there are No games worth a crap - I’ve tried. May be MGS4 will help, but COD4, H3, RB6LV, GTAIV, add the new ones coming out, PS3 is always going to be behind. Thats as long as M$ doesnt slow down and mess things up and take their eye off the ball. Add live content, movies,etc… 360 is just too far ahead…Sorry PS3, you are just to far behind.
@ Face
**Stop Fanboyism; hang yourself**
not fanboyism… if thats the case I’d be a PS fanboy as I owned all PS’. 360 is just better, like I said.. for now. So dont hate the player, hate the game… Hang myself? Brilliant, what else you got? must be tough to hit this site as you flip the big bites at the local 7/11
man. i can’t believe i read articles like this. they are seriously some of the most inane. what’s worse, is they are only written by people biased towards one console or the other.
and yes, Face, your comment is full of fanboyism. that is nothing to be ashamed of.
Read: “360 has THE best games, best controller”
=
severe bias. especially with regards to the controller. the 360 controller is ugly, wired (or full of batteries), bulky, awkward, and hurts my hands. as a musician/gamer, i can’t afford something that causes extra joint stress like that.
and yes, i am a sony fanboy.
The player? Fukk, your a 360 fanboy, nothing more and most of all not a playa, son.
Can you show proof that you own all PS consoles? No? That’s exactly what I thought. So you can say you own the computer that you’re using to make your pansy-a$$ posts, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not down at your local library with nothing better to do, right? Right! So blow your mouth all you want about you own this and you own that, fact of the matter is your a 360 fanboy trying stand up for your console of choice; that is fanboyism. Maybe you should take some advise on how to stop fanboyism, which could be done is as much time as it would take you to reply…maybe even less.
**Stop fanboyism; hang yourself**