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Analysis: Will PS3 Overtake Xbox 360 In 2011? (Or: GameCube Nears 40 Million Systems)
by Matt Matthews
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August 3, 2009
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[We asked Gamasutra's stats whiz Matt Matthews to investigate an interesting Sony PR-forwarded claim on game hardware sales -- and as he notes: 'Linear modeling is fun and easy -- but also of limited value for extensive extrapolation.']
Porter Novelli -- Sony's PR firm -- recently forwarded Gamasutra editors a link to a story at Total Video Games which extrapolates global shipments of the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over the next few years.
The upshot is that, according to the models, the PlayStation 3 [graph link] will have caught the Xbox 360 [graph link] by 2011 -- something that Sony would be quite happy to have people know about, of course.
Porter Novelli particularly cited the following:
"- TVG research has shown that at each console's current rate of growth, sales of PlayStation 3 units will overtake those of the Xbox 360 in January 2011 according to sales figures published by Microsoft and Sony to-date.
- While this is merely an estimation of future sales according to current sales trends, it does nonetheless reveal that Sony has been selling PS3s at a faster rate than Microsoft has Xbox 360s. This is despite higher total sales for Microsoft's console, which are the result of a one year head start on the market."
It's likely that the TVG authors weren't trying to do a rigorous market analysis, but it should be pointed out that a linear model, as they used to estimate forward, isn't always ideal, especially when one uses it to extrapolate too far away from the known data.
If we were doing something similar at approximately the same point in the lifetime of the Nintendo GameCube, for example, we'd end up with the following figure:
The black points are the worldwide GameCube hardware shipments through the 11th quarter. The purple line is a linear fit to that data. Looks great up to that point.
The full set of known GameCube shipment data ends in mid-2008. By that point in time, the linear model would predict 37.5 million GameCube systems. However, Nintendo says they only shipped 21.74 million systems at that time. Look at the red data points in the graph above. There's no way the GameCube is ever hitting 25 million, much less 37.5 million.
Using the same principle and data from Microsoft, we could estimate that the original Xbox would have sold 31 million systems by mid-2008. The last data I'm aware of for the system (from December 2005, when the Xbox 360 was already on the market) pegs its global total at 24 million systems. I'm fairly confident that it hasn't gone much further since then.
Doing the same again for the PlayStation 2 (11 quarters of data, make a linear model), we could have predicted global sales of 115 million systems by March 2007. According to Sony, the system had reached 118 million systems by that point. In this case, the linear model does a remarkably good job of prediction.
I'm not discounting linear models -- they're terribly useful in certain situations -- but they also have their limits, just like any other idealization. We can't know that the linear models in the Total Video Games article won't be right, but there is ample reason to be very skeptical.
[Picture hat tip to XKCD, thanks to Gamasutra Blogs commenter Tyler Glaiel for pointing out.]
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Sony just announce 23.8 million ps3s sold this weekend. Microsoft announced over 30 million 360s sold in May.
Who can predict what will happen? Nothing is static. Sony will announce a price cut...and Microsoft will follow. I don't see the PS3 overtaking the 360 ever.
With the PS3 no longer even being the cheapest BD-player option, how long can Sony ignore the numbers in favor of embracing pipe-dream extrapolations of sales? We've heard the same party line of "10 year hardware cycle" and a late comeback for the PS3 for years now, but I have yet to see the numbers pan out in Sony's favor.
I can't say for sure if the 360 has peaked because they keep reinventing the console. The newly polished NXE, the continually evolving XBL, and the promise of the Natal keep the console fresh to me, and likely other consumers (if Jimmy Fallon's interest is any indicator).
We heard this all before.
2007 - This is the year of the PS3!!!!
2008 - Actually, THIS is the year of the PS3!!!
2009 - NO, Developers will finally be coming in droves and the games will put the PS3 over the top!
It won't happen, sorry.
as J Gott states the significantly more expensive ps3 has sold at a greater rate than the xbox360 until now, and due to its higher price has far more leeway for price cuts. Though Alex Chiang is correct at $400 the ps3 has peaked
Just as the Wii became a "game-changer" we shouldn't be totally surprised if Microsoft or Sony's motion hardware achieves at least some degree of success among the mass market. It's quite possible that the mass market will view the PS3 (or 360) very differently when they come out with their motion-based controllers.
Personally I think the PlayStation brand is still strong and despite the success of the 360, IPs like Gran Turismo and God of War are still hot commodities. Price drops along with a constant stream of high quality first party games is something that should reward Sony with more PS3 sales.
On the other hand, the PS3 is a distant 3rd in North America. Secondly, highly sought after 3rd party games are ending up looking noticeably better on the 360 than on the PS3 (UFC Undisputed is a textbook example of this)...despite the 360 being much cheaper than the PS3. Throw in the recession and you realize that Sony has a mountain to climb.
But I think that despite these things they should keep with their long term strategy and go for gold. It was quite bold of their PR firm to tout this information but at the same time they are privy to info most of us don't have (price drops, PS3 slim model, game release dates, etc.).
I do agree with zed zeek, when I compare total sales "from launch date", the PS3 is much closer to the 360 than most would think. Check out this chart...
http://vgchartz.com/hwlaunch.php
...something to think about for sure.
And I do agree with Alex Chiang about eventually peaking with the $400 buyers, but that's when a price cut would most likely come into effect. I'm sure Sony is researching this possibility.
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