Following Thursday's NPD U.S. video game retail sales results, the big three console makers noted May highlights, including a high attach rate for Xbox 360 and an improving PlayStation 3 supply.
Microsoft said that Xbox 360's software attach rate was an "industry-leading" 8.9. The attach rate is the average number of video games sold per a specific console.
The Xbox 360 boasted the top-selling game for May in Take-Two and Rockstar San Diego's Red Dead Redemption, which sold 946,000 units on Xbox 360. Consumers spent over $156 million in May on Xbox 360 software, Microsoft said.
The company also said Xbox 360 is shaping up for a strong June in terms of hardware sales. Microsoft began shipping a redesigned Xbox 360 this month and lowered the price of the original console by $50 to $149 for the hard drive-less Arcade model and $250 for the 120GB Elite model. Xbox 360 sold 195,000 hardware units in May.
Sony said separately that supply for PS3 is improving. "While tight inventory had an impact on sales numbers in recent months, we are now beginning to experience greater availability of product," said Patrick Seybold, Sony Computer Entertainment America's senior director of corporate communications.
PS3 sold 155,000 units in May in the U.S., an 18 percent year-on-year increase. Software revenue was up 58 percent, Sony said, but the company didn't reveal sales figures.
Nintendo Wii led console sales with 335,000 units in May, and the company's DS handheld led overall sales with 384,000 units. The company said the DS represented over 86 percent of all handheld gaming platform units sold in May.
Nintendo of America sales and marketing EVP Cammie Dunaway said new hardware bundles in May helped push Wii sales. "These May results show that consumers are really responding to the value proposition of our new Wii configuration that now includes Wii Sports Resort and a Wii MotionPlus accessory,"
Leon, your second statement is not exactly true. Attach rate is often used to mask lower overall sales, but mathematically, it is possible for a console with lower attach rate and higher install base to be selling less software.
It is true that it means nothing at all, because attach rate is used to show profitability of software production for a particular console, but in actuality, attach rate is easily manipulated. Profit per unit is a much more accurate figure, but that information is never publicly released.
Why is attach rate not an accurate measure of profitability? Because attach rate does not take financial performance into account. It is simply --and ONLY-- a raw comparison of total software sold versus total hardware sold. It doesn't take into account important info like sales revenue, development costs, free software, downloadable versus retail software (and the related costs therein), when a console was released, etc.
Hypothetical example:
Let console #1 have a 10.0 attach rate. Let console #2 have a 6.0 attach rate. Let console #3 have a 7.0 attach rate. Yay, console #1 is winning!
If we compared average sale price per software unit sold, let console #1 have $23, console #2 have $25, and console #3 have $35.
So now console #1 has software revenue of $230 per console, #2 has $150, and console #3 has $245. Yay, console #3 is winning!
But now we add average development costs per software title. Let console #1 have an average cost of $20, console #2 has $15, and console #3 has $31.
So now console #1 has a profit of $30 per console, #2 has $60, and #3 has $28. Yay, console #2 is winning!
Now let's add developer profit by genre. Let console #1... sigh; no, let's not.
In conclusion... number games suck and only look good in press releases and dumb news comment posts. I'm sure any decent financial analyst could point out that even using average unit cost/revenue/profit does not provide a good indication of what is good for developers. One has to create much more specific analyses.
Well the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers. This is software, it's an industry that the more sales produce a lot more revenue and profit. Attach rate is very important because it provides us to see the ability of a system to sell software. Revenue is tied to amount of software sold.
As Carl Chavez showed, not the pure number of units sold is interesting. You have to look at the other factors involved in game production/distribution. The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. If you produce a big budget title like GTA IV (rumored up to 100 million US$), you have to sell much more games, to reach profitability than for a party game like Just Dance.
"Attach rate is very important because it provides us to see the ability of a system to sell software. Revenue is tied to amount of software sold. "
According to the data on this site: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio the Dreamcast had an attach rate of 6.4 while the N64 had an attach rate of 4.6. But that doesn't say anything about the ability of the system to sell software.
Obviously the Dreamcast had a higher attach rate, but it was also a system, that doesn't sold good enough to be profitable for Sega or for 3rd party developers/publishers, otherwise the console wouldn't have died so soon.
A look at the attach rate doesn't take that into account.
Another thing is, that the attach rate changes to much within the lifetime of a console to be a significant indicator for anything. In the later part of the console life cycle, there will be people, that own the console for several years, they had already built up a pretty decent library of games, but the new consumers will buy the console and will have one or two games first.
In this case the attach rate will become even more misguiding, as more consoles mean you will have more potential customers, that just even bought the console and are eager to buy games, but on the other side the attachment rate will fall, it will fall even faster, with rising console sales.
In the worst case, it can happen, that a platform, which sells almost no more new consoles and very few units in software sales, has a higher attach rate, than a platform, that rapidly widens it's user base and sells lots of units in software has a very low attach rate.
" A high attach rate means nothing at all since a console with a lower attach rate and higher install base can actually sell more software. "
Of course it does. The only people who whine about the 360's very high attach rates are the Wiitards, who are naturaly eager to downplay the Wii's lower atac rates.
If/when the 360 is ahead in software sales Microsoft will say so. When they fall behind then always mention how high the attach rate is.
Microsoft doesn't need to say that for June. NPD did that already.
From NPDs May sales blurb:
As far as platform comparisons, Frazier also noted that the Xbox 360 platform, including software and hardware overall, "contributed the greatest share of revenue to industry sales for the month, and year-to-date."
" Attach rate is often used to mask lower overall sales, but mathematically, it is possible for a console with lower attach rate and higher install base to be selling less software"
Only thing is, the 360 is having its best year ever in terms of 360 hardware unit sales. Plus the 360 has generated more revenues tihis year than any other plaform. There is nothng to mask.
NPD: As far as platform comparisons, Frazier also noted that the Xbox 360 platform, including software and hardware overall, "contributed the greatest share of revenue to industry sales for the month, and yhttp://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29131/NPD_Industry_Sales_Down_5_In_May_As_Red _Dead_Redemption_Tops_Chart.phpear-to-date."
"The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. "
Way to change the topic to what you like in order to push an agenda.
Show me were it mentions profits in this article. The article simply states that the 360 attach rate is now 8.9, and that 360 hardware sales will be very strong in June.
You are the one that is feeling so treathened that you feel the need to go defensive and make up your own scenarios in order to argue against what you just made up, which is not even mentioned in the article at all.
"If you produce a big budget title like GTA IV (rumored up to 100 million US$), you have to sell much more games, to reach profitability than for a party game like Just Dance."
Ummm..GTA IV made VASTLY more profits than Just Dance
In its first week alone, GTA IV made $500 million in sales. The entire $100 million cost of production was covered in just one week, plus anoter $400 million more.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6190520.html
And that is all in just ONE WEEK!
We havent even mentioned post first week sales, or the massive success of GTA IV DLC sales yet.
"According to the data on this site: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio the Dreamcast had an attach rate of 6.4 while the N64 had an attach rate of 4.6. But that doesn't say anything about the ability of the system to sell software."
First of all, 6.4 is NOT equal to 8.9. There is a huge difference in software units sales when that is multiplied by the 40 million 360 install base.
# 2, the 360 has already sold nearly 4 times as many units as the Dreamcast ever sold .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
They are not even on the same planet. Plus, the 360 consistently dominates monthly NPD software charts and is the top platform for 3rd party software sales, something that the Dreamcast never did.
Going back to Jan 2005, even the original XBOX clobbered the Dreamcast:
Top 10 Dreamcast U.S. Game Unit Sales
1. Sonic Adventure - 1,06 million
2. NFL 2K - 990K
3. Crazy Taxi - 970K
4. NFL 2K1 - 905K
5. NBA 2K1 - 740K
6. NBA 2K - 725K
7. Soul Calibur - 575K
8. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - 465K
9. Shenmue - 460K
10. World Series Baseball 2K1 - 420K
Top 10 Xbox U.S. game Unit Sales
1. Halo 2 - 4.3 million
2. Halo - 3.95 million
3. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - 1.5 million
4. Grand Theft Auto Double Pack - 1.26 million
5. Project Gotham Racing - 1.2 million
6. ESPN NFL 2K5 - 1.1 million
7. Madden NFL 2005 - 1.08 million
8. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 1.0 million
9. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - 980K
10. Fable - 900K
Even the # 10 selling XBOX game sold nearly as much as the top selling Dreamcast game.
U.S. Hardware Sales (End of 2004)
Dreamcast = 4 Million
Xbox = 12 Million
For anyone to even attempt to compare the Dremacast to the original XBOX is a joke. To then go further and compare the Dreamcast to the software jaugernaught that the 360 is, is really laughable.
Since NPD doesn't track download games, the Attach Rate is purely for disc based games.
@ Kevin Jones
Is it possible, for you to imagine, that there are people out there, that aren't interested in a kindergarten feud over consoles?
Probably not, otherwise you would have understood, that we are discussing here the use of attach rates in general. The only one with an "agenda" here seems to be you.
Just for the record, you quote me with the sentence
"The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. "
Hadn't you noticed, that I quoted Camillo R in this sentence and answered to his argument? Obviously not, I guess this would mean to actually READ the posts of ther people,
Kevin Jones is a fool so I will try to ignore him.
@ Carl
I know it is possible. I have also noticed the spin that all 3 console makers use on NPD day. Things like stating that revenue is up on software but not giving raw numbers. Using attaching rate instead of software totals.
"Is it possible, for you to imagine, that there are people out there, that aren't interested in a kindergarten feud over consoles?"
Given that every single post on yours on here as been a childish scoolyard rant shilling for Nintendo in one way or another, you might want to look at yourself when you make statments like that wouldnt you?
"Probably not, otherwise you would have understood, that we are discussing here the use of attach rates in general"
You and who exactly?
This article is about 360 attach rates. Microsoft's statement is about attach rates and 360 hardware sales for June. No mention is made watsoever about 3rd party profits in the article, nor did Micropaft make a claim. You on the other and, turned it round made a claim about 3rd party profits, then argued against your own statements, as if thats what Microsoft claimed.
"Hadn't you noticed, that I quoted Camillo R in this sentence and answered to his argument?"
Who himself totally changed what this article was about to serve is own agenda.
Useless to try to understand Kevin Jones logic and arguments, he loves to post numbers, he found on the net, without any profound understanding, what they mean. If he would understand even basic economy, he would know, that worldwide revenues of 500 million US$ for a video game doesn't mean the publisher has a revenue of 500 million US$ and so it is pretty useless to bring up worldwide revenues, when people are talking about publisher's profits.
But maybe it would really help, if he could even read other peoples posts, he could save time and effort to proof, that the XBox has a better attach rate than the Dreamcast, cause nobody here ever compared the DC attach rate to the XBox attach rate.
Kevin can get a little crazy with his posts, but to be fair, most of his sales numbers come from the NPD articles, which I think we can agree are accurate. He also tends to include links to where he finds his numbers.
His inferences from that data may be a far fetched, but more often than not his actual data is sound.
If/when the 360 is ahead in software sales Microsoft will say so. When they fall behind then always mention how high the attach rate is.
It is true that it means nothing at all, because attach rate is used to show profitability of software production for a particular console, but in actuality, attach rate is easily manipulated. Profit per unit is a much more accurate figure, but that information is never publicly released.
Why is attach rate not an accurate measure of profitability? Because attach rate does not take financial performance into account. It is simply --and ONLY-- a raw comparison of total software sold versus total hardware sold. It doesn't take into account important info like sales revenue, development costs, free software, downloadable versus retail software (and the related costs therein), when a console was released, etc.
Hypothetical example:
Let console #1 have a 10.0 attach rate. Let console #2 have a 6.0 attach rate. Let console #3 have a 7.0 attach rate. Yay, console #1 is winning!
If we compared average sale price per software unit sold, let console #1 have $23, console #2 have $25, and console #3 have $35.
So now console #1 has software revenue of $230 per console, #2 has $150, and console #3 has $245. Yay, console #3 is winning!
But now we add average development costs per software title. Let console #1 have an average cost of $20, console #2 has $15, and console #3 has $31.
So now console #1 has a profit of $30 per console, #2 has $60, and #3 has $28. Yay, console #2 is winning!
Now let's add developer profit by genre. Let console #1... sigh; no, let's not.
In conclusion... number games suck and only look good in press releases and dumb news comment posts. I'm sure any decent financial analyst could point out that even using average unit cost/revenue/profit does not provide a good indication of what is good for developers. One has to create much more specific analyses.
As Carl Chavez showed, not the pure number of units sold is interesting. You have to look at the other factors involved in game production/distribution. The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. If you produce a big budget title like GTA IV (rumored up to 100 million US$), you have to sell much more games, to reach profitability than for a party game like Just Dance.
"Attach rate is very important because it provides us to see the ability of a system to sell software. Revenue is tied to amount of software sold. "
According to the data on this site: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio the Dreamcast had an attach rate of 6.4 while the N64 had an attach rate of 4.6. But that doesn't say anything about the ability of the system to sell software.
Obviously the Dreamcast had a higher attach rate, but it was also a system, that doesn't sold good enough to be profitable for Sega or for 3rd party developers/publishers, otherwise the console wouldn't have died so soon.
A look at the attach rate doesn't take that into account.
Another thing is, that the attach rate changes to much within the lifetime of a console to be a significant indicator for anything. In the later part of the console life cycle, there will be people, that own the console for several years, they had already built up a pretty decent library of games, but the new consumers will buy the console and will have one or two games first.
In this case the attach rate will become even more misguiding, as more consoles mean you will have more potential customers, that just even bought the console and are eager to buy games, but on the other side the attachment rate will fall, it will fall even faster, with rising console sales.
In the worst case, it can happen, that a platform, which sells almost no more new consoles and very few units in software sales, has a higher attach rate, than a platform, that rapidly widens it's user base and sells lots of units in software has a very low attach rate.
" A high attach rate means nothing at all since a console with a lower attach rate and higher install base can actually sell more software. "
Of course it does. The only people who whine about the 360's very high attach rates are the Wiitards, who are naturaly eager to downplay the Wii's lower atac rates.
If/when the 360 is ahead in software sales Microsoft will say so. When they fall behind then always mention how high the attach rate is.
Microsoft doesn't need to say that for June. NPD did that already.
From NPDs May sales blurb:
As far as platform comparisons, Frazier also noted that the Xbox 360 platform, including software and hardware overall, "contributed the greatest share of revenue to industry sales for the month, and year-to-date."
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29131/NPD_Industry_Sales_Down_5_In_May_As_Red
_Dead_Redemption_Tops_Chart.php
" Attach rate is often used to mask lower overall sales, but mathematically, it is possible for a console with lower attach rate and higher install base to be selling less software"
Only thing is, the 360 is having its best year ever in terms of 360 hardware unit sales. Plus the 360 has generated more revenues tihis year than any other plaform. There is nothng to mask.
NPD: As far as platform comparisons, Frazier also noted that the Xbox 360 platform, including software and hardware overall, "contributed the greatest share of revenue to industry sales for the month, and yhttp://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29131/NPD_Industry_Sales_Down_5_In_May_As_Red
_Dead_Redemption_Tops_Chart.phpear-to-date."
"The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. "
Way to change the topic to what you like in order to push an agenda.
Show me were it mentions profits in this article. The article simply states that the 360 attach rate is now 8.9, and that 360 hardware sales will be very strong in June.
You are the one that is feeling so treathened that you feel the need to go defensive and make up your own scenarios in order to argue against what you just made up, which is not even mentioned in the article at all.
"If you produce a big budget title like GTA IV (rumored up to 100 million US$), you have to sell much more games, to reach profitability than for a party game like Just Dance."
Ummm..GTA IV made VASTLY more profits than Just Dance
In its first week alone, GTA IV made $500 million in sales. The entire $100 million cost of production was covered in just one week, plus anoter $400 million more.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6190520.html
And that is all in just ONE WEEK!
We havent even mentioned post first week sales, or the massive success of GTA IV DLC sales yet.
"According to the data on this site: http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Software_tie_ratio the Dreamcast had an attach rate of 6.4 while the N64 had an attach rate of 4.6. But that doesn't say anything about the ability of the system to sell software."
First of all, 6.4 is NOT equal to 8.9. There is a huge difference in software units sales when that is multiplied by the 40 million 360 install base.
# 2, the 360 has already sold nearly 4 times as many units as the Dreamcast ever sold .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast
They are not even on the same planet. Plus, the 360 consistently dominates monthly NPD software charts and is the top platform for 3rd party software sales, something that the Dreamcast never did.
Going back to Jan 2005, even the original XBOX clobbered the Dreamcast:
Top 10 Dreamcast U.S. Game Unit Sales
1. Sonic Adventure - 1,06 million
2. NFL 2K - 990K
3. Crazy Taxi - 970K
4. NFL 2K1 - 905K
5. NBA 2K1 - 740K
6. NBA 2K - 725K
7. Soul Calibur - 575K
8. Ready 2 Rumble Boxing - 465K
9. Shenmue - 460K
10. World Series Baseball 2K1 - 420K
Top 10 Xbox U.S. game Unit Sales
1. Halo 2 - 4.3 million
2. Halo - 3.95 million
3. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell - 1.5 million
4. Grand Theft Auto Double Pack - 1.26 million
5. Project Gotham Racing - 1.2 million
6. ESPN NFL 2K5 - 1.1 million
7. Madden NFL 2005 - 1.08 million
8. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - 1.0 million
9. Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon - 980K
10. Fable - 900K
Even the # 10 selling XBOX game sold nearly as much as the top selling Dreamcast game.
U.S. Hardware Sales (End of 2004)
Dreamcast = 4 Million
Xbox = 12 Million
For anyone to even attempt to compare the Dremacast to the original XBOX is a joke. To then go further and compare the Dreamcast to the software jaugernaught that the 360 is, is really laughable.
Since NPD doesn't track download games, the Attach Rate is purely for disc based games.
@ Kevin Jones
Is it possible, for you to imagine, that there are people out there, that aren't interested in a kindergarten feud over consoles?
Probably not, otherwise you would have understood, that we are discussing here the use of attach rates in general. The only one with an "agenda" here seems to be you.
Just for the record, you quote me with the sentence
"The simple formula "the most software sold the more revenue and thus the more profit for the publishers" simply doesn't work. "
Hadn't you noticed, that I quoted Camillo R in this sentence and answered to his argument? Obviously not, I guess this would mean to actually READ the posts of ther people,
@ Carl
I know it is possible. I have also noticed the spin that all 3 console makers use on NPD day. Things like stating that revenue is up on software but not giving raw numbers. Using attaching rate instead of software totals.
" Kevin Jones is a fool so I will try to ignore him."
Thus spake the biggest fool on Gamasutra.
"Is it possible, for you to imagine, that there are people out there, that aren't interested in a kindergarten feud over consoles?"
Given that every single post on yours on here as been a childish scoolyard rant shilling for Nintendo in one way or another, you might want to look at yourself when you make statments like that wouldnt you?
"Probably not, otherwise you would have understood, that we are discussing here the use of attach rates in general"
You and who exactly?
This article is about 360 attach rates. Microsoft's statement is about attach rates and 360 hardware sales for June. No mention is made watsoever about 3rd party profits in the article, nor did Micropaft make a claim. You on the other and, turned it round made a claim about 3rd party profits, then argued against your own statements, as if thats what Microsoft claimed.
"Hadn't you noticed, that I quoted Camillo R in this sentence and answered to his argument?"
Who himself totally changed what this article was about to serve is own agenda.
Useless to try to understand Kevin Jones logic and arguments, he loves to post numbers, he found on the net, without any profound understanding, what they mean. If he would understand even basic economy, he would know, that worldwide revenues of 500 million US$ for a video game doesn't mean the publisher has a revenue of 500 million US$ and so it is pretty useless to bring up worldwide revenues, when people are talking about publisher's profits.
But maybe it would really help, if he could even read other peoples posts, he could save time and effort to proof, that the XBox has a better attach rate than the Dreamcast, cause nobody here ever compared the DC attach rate to the XBox attach rate.
His inferences from that data may be a far fetched, but more often than not his actual data is sound.