The Big Bad Console Thread - Sway your Station with an Xboner !

Went by a Gamestop today near Cleveland, Ohio. They actually had quite a few of all the major systems. XBones, PS4's and Wii U's (for the two people who might still want one).

Hrm, according to Pachter:

Sony is manufacturing 1.4 million PS4s a month and Microsoft is manufacturing 1 million Xbones a month. They both started manufacturing in September. Sony will have 16.8 million PS4s in a year, MS will have 12 million Xbones.

I forgot to download don't starve and was over my parents and thought "I better download that". Opened the app on my iPhone, downloaded the game, came home and it was waiting for me. Favorite feature of this gen.

Sean_sl said:

Hrm, according to Pachter:

Sony is manufacturing 1.4 million PS4s a month and Microsoft is manufacturing 1 million Xbones a month. They both started manufacturing in September. Sony will have 16.8 million PS4s in a year, MS will have 12 million Xbones.

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That would mean PS4 has sold 4.38 million of approximately 7 million consoles produced. XB1 has sold 3.11 million of 5 million produced.

PS4: 62.5% production sold. XB1: 62.2% production sold. (I know people will niggle about fucking whether or not to include entire January, but that doesn't matter anyways if applied to both)

Pretty fucking close.

I'm pretty sure they have been holding a large quantity back for Japanese release, maybe 2 million or more. Microsoft will never get that market.

Xevy_sl said:

That would mean PS4 has sold 4.38 million of approximately 7 million consoles produced. XB1 has sold 3.11 million of 5 million produced.

PS4: 62.5% production sold. XB1: 62.2% production sold. (I know people will niggle about fucking whether or not to include entire January, but that doesn't matter anyways if applied to both)

Pretty fucking close.

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Portion sold is a valuable figure now?

So if there were three XBones made and they sold two of the three it would be an overwhelmingly better success story than PS4? (66.6%) Really?

Reality is that the sales figures and such lag behind in reporting and some are going to be in transit at any point (plus potentially held for future markets for PS4 - something XBone doesn't have on the itinerary yet), so the figure is completely worthless even as something accurate much less something that means anything.

Vaclav_sl said:

So if there were three XBones made and they sold two of the three it would be an overwhelmingly better success story than PS4? (66.6%) Really?

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Nowhere did I say that. Nowhere. I'm saying that of what they've produced and put out in the market it's astoundingly close. The "PS4s are sold out everywhere!" mentality would assume higher than 63%. Whereas for XB1 and "I see them at gamestop all the time!" this figure makes sense.

Also, portion sold is indeed a valuable figure. It's called the 'demand'. You know, half of the marketing system for, oh, anything ever?

PS4's are sold out everywhere. It's not bullshit or some fanboy conspiracy. 4.2 is what they had ready and distributed by December 28th, not 7 million. Assembly line to market is not that fast. They likely started at the end of September, not the start of it, which lines up with how much they sold on launch giving time for shipping and distribution.

Same for Microsoft, they do not have 3 million sold Xbones and 2 million unsold. They're not totally sold out, but they probably started in a similar timeframe and have the majority of it sold. And a week or two week difference could mean they have 3.25, or 3.5 out there, etc.

Applying your production numbers to that. If 4.2million are 'sold out' and all that were available that's 75% of the potentially possible by the end of December (5.6 million at 1.4 mill x 4 months). Assuming Microsoft has the same factory-to-shelf efficiency, that means it would have had 3.0 million units available (0.75 x 4months x 1 mill). They sold 3.11 million.

Soooo either Microsoft is way better at goods transportation and shipping or PS4's are not as sold out as you want to believe just because the major stores don't have them.

Xevy_sl said:

Nowhere did I say that. Nowhere. I'm saying that of what they've produced and put out in the market it's astoundingly close. The "PS4s are sold out everywhere!" mentality would assume higher than 63%. Whereas for XB1 and "I see them at gamestop all the time!" this figure makes sense.

Also, portion sold is indeed a valuable figure. It's called the 'demand'. You know, half of the marketing system for, oh, anything ever?

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Yea, just ignore the rest of my statement where I talk about shipping time and holding a product for secondary markets, etc. You know, things that are factors that will artificially deflate the figures to make it not representative of demand.

Additionally demand is entirely driven by quantity - otherwise the 66.6% for only selling 2 of 3 would be better. No one says "Wow, McDonald's is in low demand because they throw out half their made burgers each night but Ruby Tuesday sells 100% of the ones they make so they're in higher demand".

PS - I was involved in marketing for my entire working life to a primary or secondary degree. The only time "portion sold" becomes remotely valuable is in MICROmarkets i.e. individual locations or subterritories - when you're talking about macromarkets with national and international sales you want total quantity.

Xevy_sl said:

Applying your production numbers to that. If 4.2million are 'sold out' and all that were available that's 75% of the potentially possible by the end of December (5.6 million at 1.4 mill x 4 months). Assuming Microsoft has the same factory-to-shelf efficiency, that means it would have had 3.0 million units available (0.75 x 4months x 1 mill). They sold 3.11 million.

Soooo either Microsoft is way better at goods transportation and shipping or PS4's are not as sold out as you want to believe just because the major stores don't have them.

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See my edit:

Same for Microsoft, they do not have 3 million sold Xbones and 2 million unsold. They're not totally sold out, but they probably started in a similar timeframe and have the majority of it sold. And a week or two week difference could mean they have 3.25, or 3.5 out there, etc.

You're thinking too much in hard months. You're not accounting for weeks, etc. They don't wait a month and then ship more units out. They do it in chunks.

The video was also filmed pretty much right at the end of December, not 2 weeks into January.

Xevy_sl said:

Applying your production numbers to that. If 4.2million are 'sold out' and all that were available that's 75% of the potentially possible by the end of December (5.6 million at 1.4 mill x 4 months). Assuming Microsoft has the same factory-to-shelf efficiency, that means it would have had 3.0 million units available (0.75 x 4months x 1 mill). They sold 3.11 million.

Soooo either Microsoft is way better at goods transportation and shipping or PS4's are not as sold out as you want to believe just because the major stores don't have them.

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Or they're holding X amount (likely around 1m from how their launch sales compare to US launches from what I can see) for the JPN launch coming up... and shipping times with more territories is going to be slower, that's logic a third grader would understand.

Vaclav_sl said:

Yea, just ignore the rest of my statement where I talk about shipping time and holding a product for secondary markets, etc. You know, things that are factors that will artificially deflate the figures to make it not representative of demand.

Additionally demand is entirely driven by quantity - otherwise the 66.6% for only selling 2 of 3 would be better. No one says "Wow, McDonald's is in low demand because they throw out half their made burgers each night but Ruby Tuesday sells 100% of the ones they make so they're in higher demand".

PS - I was involved in marketing for my entire working life to a primary or secondary degree. The only time "portion sold" becomes remotely valuable is in MICROmarkets i.e. individual locations or subterritories - when you're talking about macromarkets with national and international sales you want total quantity.

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Except when you're talking about 'sold out' demand, it 100% does apply.

PS - My job primarily involves statistics, so let's all play that game

You do realize most "sold out" items never hit 100%, right? And that a hypothetical 1m sitting in JPN warehouses waiting to ship is another thing too right? Or if say companies are holding back 5% of their stock each to replace defective units (if that's still a worry), etc.

You try to ignore all the logistics that differentiate things and want to point at a single abstract statistic as indicative of ANYTHING.

Let me guess, you work for FoxNEWS in their number crunching department, right? Because you're taking the same "Find some random correlation and ignore all the differences approach" that makes anyone with a brain that scratches past the surface consider them a laughing stock. (And other media sources too, but FoxNEWS does it so much more frequently...)

PS - Very few jobs don't involve statistics to a reasonable degree, and most statistics knowledge is very field dependent. My bro in law could blow your socks off with water engineering statistics, doesn't mean he knows shit about marketing statistics. Hell, even my cousin who's VP with one of the most valuable advertising firms in the US knows advertising stats but very little about marketing statistics even though it's got a correlation to her field.

On a sidenote to support your "Sold-Out" might not be completely accurate nonsense though, I did notice something interesting in Target here about a week ago - where I've never seen a PS4 in stock, I noticed they actually don't even have an AREA to stock the consoles, no shelf tags or anything - and when I hailed an associate to ask out of curiosity, they stated they don't even put up signage to state they're there - that they're entirely selling them based on foot traffic asking the associates at the counter who then get them from where ever they stash them. They did state they've gotten a few in and they did take a little while to sell like that though. [But they did have none at that time]

If other stores are doing similar, that would distort perceptions some. Since they are putting XB1's on the floor visibly but not PS4. So both could be in stock and only one would look like it.

Not that I feel that's accurate of the world as a whole, and certainly sellthrough statistics aren't indicative of that. [And if you were in a stats field where you understood such things, you should be using that term not "production sold"]

PPS - But then again, you can always take the easy route and look at stuff like wiialerts.com and see the reality of how many are available of each when it comes to online retailers where every major seller of the units is represented...Sony PlayStation 4 in stock availability tracker and alerts(one shitty bundle available with a retailer I've never heard of [meijer], and nothing else),Microsoft Xbox One in stock availability tracker and alerts(13 retailers represented, most at cost with no stupid bundles)

Vaclav_sl said:

You do realize most "sold out" items never hit 100%, right? And that a hypothetical 1m sitting in JPN warehouses waiting to ship is another thing too right? Or if say companies are holding back 5% of their stock each to replace defective units (if that's still a worry), etc.

You try to ignore all the logistics that differentiate things and want to point at a single abstract statistic as indicative of ANYTHING.

Let me guess, you work for FoxNEWS in their number crunching department, right? Because you're taking the same "Find some random correlation and ignore all the differences approach" that makes anyone with a brain that scratches past the surface consider them a laughing stock. (And other media sources too, but FoxNEWS does it so much more frequently...)

PS - Very few jobs don't involve statistics to a reasonable degree, and most statistics knowledge is very field dependent. My bro in law could blow your socks off with water engineering statistics, doesn't mean he knows shit about marketing statistics. Hell, even my cousin who's VP with one of the most valuable advertising firms in the US knows advertising stats but very little about marketing statistics even though it's got a correlation to her field.

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You know you have 'my dad could beat up your dad' syndrome real bad, right? Every debate you're in you end up name dropping about your AWESOME FAMILY MEMBERS WHO ARE #3 WORLDWIDE AT CONSOLE statistics, or some shit. No one is impressed. Seriously, re-evaluate yourself.

The same percentage for both companies is being purchased by consumers. That means, super-cool-cat, that if the trend continued and XB1 had increased it's production, theoretically (I will agree not likely), they would SELL THE SAME NUMBER OF UNITS. Why? Because as superfan #2 Sean just said, they come in waves. They're not all available. People are grabbing as they see fit. As games launch. It's not fucking health insurance with a deadline before penalization.

Everything you say about their 5% for defects and the Japanese market also applies to XB1. Also XB1 has half of Europe to still release in.

Delayed launch in the EU is 9 months off for XB1 - no? (late Q3 2014 I thought? With 2015 for the rest of the world) Holding back for localities is a 3 month thing generally. JPN is about 2 months away for PS4, EU extension is not.

And of course that's how most people - even the hardcore but on a budget types - buy consoles. That doesn't mean the availability statements are incorrect or whatever other random assertions you're making that are easily demonstrable as false.

Also on my family, it's amusing that I actually used them as examples of being experts in their field but not knowing shit about the subject and you actually took it as the reverse... Knowledge in statistic fields is narrow, that's just fact.

Vaclav_sl said:

Delayed launch in the EU is 9 months off for XB1 - no? (late Q3 2014 I thought? With 2015 for the rest of the world) Holding back for localities is a 3 month thing generally. JPN is about 2 months away for PS4, EU extension is not.

And of course that's how most people - even the hardcore but on a budget types - buy consoles. That doesn't mean the availability statements are incorrect or whatever other random assertions you're making that are easily demonstrable as false.

Also on my family, it's amusing that I actually used them as examples of being experts in their field but not knowing shit about the subject and you actually took it as the reverse... Knowledge in statistic fields is narrow, that's just fact.

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No, I was saying that you always add fucking superlatives like "My dad.. THE BEST MEDICAL EXAMINER IN THE FUCKING WORLD" and your cousin who's not just in sales, BUT "VP OF THE MOST VALUABLE ADVERTISING FIRM IN THE US!" It doesn't reflect as your achievement.

Anywho, I'm a wildlife biologist. Does that mean I deal with supply and demand curves? No. I do however deal with extrapolating trends and yields. I also took the same fucking marketing and stats class that my friends in monkey suits with golden parachutes took.

What's your job? Your real fucking title, no buzz-words, no 'facilitate', none of that shit. What's your job? I bet it involves excel!

Arguing about information that has Pachter as its source... seriously?

Current job is retirement due to my health. I was human resources for close to two decades before my health failed and carry a MSHRM which shares most of the same education as an MBA, and is in fact used almost synonymously with an MBA. And while you might have taken the same starter stat classes, I can almost guarantee you didn't take Econ and Macromarketing. (As well as Micromarketing, which was normally termed "local marketing" during my college days - don't know if micromarketing is a term that anyone other than me uses, honestly but always found it easier to correlate it to econ) Or more in short, that you might understand the numbers, but not how to apply them to reality. (As for my family: her, my wife's second(I think?) cousin and my deceased grandfather are the only really exciting ones that would qualify as experts in anything [and the last on just being superb at being stingy and investing the savings well]... well guess my father too, but I never talked to him about the pharmaceutical photostability stuff enough to understand it and he's no longer lucid most of the time so not gonna ever use him as a resource on that narrow subject)

Using statistics improperly is a common foible - look at how many people think that if you flip a coin and it comes up heads this time that it's more likely to come up tails next time because "statistically 50% of coin flips should come up heads" so it's got to even out. When reality is that each flip is a 50/50 chance regardless of previous or future data.

I took macro, stats, a population based stats class, and a natural resources economics class. We're actually taught to be 'managers', because that's what we do with natural resources. We manage for both public enjoyment and private economic benefit. To think there's any sort of discipline out there without some sort of economics/marketing background built in to the degree nowadays would be naive.