Xbox 360 at CES

[Shayne]

10.4 Millions sold as of December 31, 400K more then they had projected.

2.7 million copies of Gears of War sold in 8 weeks.  Its now a "Halo" size franchise for Microsoft.

Halo 3 will be the story of 2007 for the 360

5 million XBL members (largest social network on TV (not sure what that means))
   - "Live on Windows" coming to Vista
      - All 360 peripherals will work in Vista
      - Live guide like on 360 available in Vista
      - Cross platform Vista vs 360 moving forward with many Live Arcade titles and "Games for Windows" titles (Shadowrun)
      - This summer available
   - 3 Billion Hours of XBL logged

360 HD DVD player addon selling out as fast as Microsoft can make them

Xbox Live Video Marketplace
   - Over 1000 hours available
   - Lionsgate now a partner

IPTV
   - 4 providers thus far, many are evaluating and negotiating with Microsoft
   - Next generation of TV, watch and record, videos on demand, search by actor, title, director
   - Runs on an Xbox 360
   - Totally integrated with the 360
      - Same as watching a DVD, can get invites, talk to friends, etc.
   - Holiday 2007 availability

[Shayne]

Nothing about HDMI or a bigger hard drive yet.  They are now onto "Microsoft in the Car" (exclusive to Ford (though I sure like that new Ford Edge))

[TheDruid]

10.4 Million consoles sold? That would make Lazy's nexgenwars signature off by about 900k consoles...

[Lazybones]

10.4 Million consoles sold? That would make Lazy's nexgenwars signature off by about 900k consoles...

Shipped != Sold.. Nexgenwars is only an estimate counter based on sales rate.

[TheDruid]

10.4 Millions sold as of December 31, 400K more then they had projected.

That’s right sold, so why isn’t nexgenwars synched up if its based on sales, especially after this announcement?

[Mr. Analog]

10.4 Millions sold as of December 31, 400K more then they had projected.

That?s right sold, so why isn?t nexgenwars synched up if its based on sales, especially after this announcement?

I'm not sure either is 100% accurate, one is coming from Microsoft who will beef up their own numbers (as all players do in the game we call console marketing) while the other is coming from a source which has had math errors in the past.

Sales figures are sort of irrelevant without knowing the health of the company. Sony shows the lowest sales but hit its sales target for Q4 2006. According to Sony, the launch was a success.

[Lazybones]

Hmm I could have swore they said shipped in the actual video.. I will have to check later.

[Shayne]

Microsoft said sold during the keynote, they didn't say shipped.  I agree that there probably is some sort of margin of error, but to emphasis sold and say they beat forcasts by 400K makes me think that at the very least they hit the 10M.

Press release btw: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/jan07/01-07CES2007PR.mspx

Bach also showcased the strong momentum behind Xbox 360 and highlighted the company?s success in delivering high-definition viewing experiences with HD DVD. Exceeding expectations by hitting the 10.4 million-console-sold mark this holiday season, Xbox 360 is the leading next-generation games and entertainment platform. It is also the largest social network in the living room, with 5 million Xbox Live members.

Transcript from lastnight: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/speeches/2007/01-07ces.mspx

And I'm very excited about the progress we've made to become the leader in this next generation of gaming. We have sold through December 31st 10.4 million consoles across 37 countries around the world. That's a half a million units a head of our projection. (Cheers and applause.)

Sales figures are NOT irrelevant.  Without a very large amount of consoles shipping and selling big franchises and AAA titles will not make it to your console of choice.  The 360s strong sales have already had multiple PS3 exclusive titles defect to go multi platform.  Games make money consoles lose money (with the exception of Nintendo).

[Mr. Analog]

Sales figures are NOT irrelevant.  Without a very large amount of consoles shipping and selling big franchises and AAA titles will not make it to your console of choice.  The 360s strong sales have already had multiple PS3 exclusive titles defect to go multi platform.  Games make money consoles lose money (with the exception of Nintendo).

I have to disagree, if a console remains profitable and good software is developed for it (regardless of its hype) then it will live on and thrive. The PS2 sold 111.25 million Units (according to Sony) whereas the XBox sold 24 million (according to Microsoft).

Is the PS2 "four times" better than the XBox? I don't think it is. Did great games get made for both? You bet! Is one better than the other?  Well, that's a matter of taste. Is an exclusive killer app important? Yes. Does an exclusive killer app determine the success of the console by itself? No, I don't think it does, a large library of fun games will keep the console more profitable than any single game.

[Shayne]

I guess that's your right, but consider that all the GTA's released on the PS2 before the Xbox, and now they are release simultaneously. Once exclusive PS2 games like Virtual Fighter are now going multi platform.  Amount of machines in the wild matters extremely.  Does it make sense for a studio to develop exclusively for a console that has 2M available or the one with 20M available?

I would say that outside of Forza and Halo the better games were on the PS2 platform.  Killer Exclusive Titles matters a very big deal towards the success of a console, do you think that the Wii would be as successful as it is now without Zelda?  Or the original Xbox without the Halo franchise?  The PSOne without Final Fantasy?  I disagree with every single one of those.

[Mr. Analog]

While I can't talk about Halo (I can't find precise sales figures, also they weren't an independant publisher so they really didn't decide what platform to release on) I can talk about FFVII (which was the killer app for the PSX). At the end of 1997, FFVII hit the one million sold mark, at the end of 1997, 13.5 million Playstations were sold. One out of every 13 Playstation owners had a copy of FFVII.

Did FFVII make the PSX or did the PSX make FFVII? Sony had a wide range of quality games released in 1997. SquareSoft had been initially developing their new FF game to run on the Nintendo CD-ROM project, when that split off and eventually became Sony, Square moved with them. SquareSofts decision was hardware based.

If I was an independant game publisher and I wanted maximum exposure, I'd do a massive multi-platform release. If I had to limit myself to one console or another it would probably be because of hardware constraints or the console manufacterer giving me some kind of sweet deal.

[Shayne]

Multi platform releases are the bane of the industry.  I don't want to see anymore of them at all.

As for FF7, you gotta use the right stats dude...

Selling more than one million copies in North America, the Final Fantasy VII frenzy began months ago as hundreds of thousands of consumers throughout the country reserved a copy of the game, months before its release.

Where as your little graph shows that their were 4 Million PSX in North America at that time.  So that would be 1:4.  FF7 was also released in September of 1997 in North America, so in 3 months they managed to sell up to 1:4 ratio.  Seems like a pretty big reason to own a PSX with those numbers.

Looking over at wikipedia we see things like...

Final Fantasy VII was both a critical and commercial success, and set several sales records. Within three days of its January 1997 release in Japan, the game had sold 2.3 million copies.[61] This popularity inspired thousands of retailers in North America to break street dates in September to meet public demand for the title.[85] In the game's debut weekend in North America, it sold 330,000 copies,[86] and had reached sales of 500,000 units in less than three weeks.[87] The momentum built in the game's opening weeks continued for several months; Sony announced that the game had sold one million copies on the continent by early December

2.3 million in 3 days in Japan.

[Mr. Analog]

Multi platform releases are the bane of the industry.  I don't want to see anymore of them at all.

I think those are here to stay.

As for FFVII sales figures, I admit my whoopsie I should have read more in the article, however it doesn't change my opinion. For the limited number of RPG fans that absolutely had to have FFVII and bought a PSX I think there were a lot more gamers who picked up a PlayStation because it had more to offer than the given alternatives (SNES, N64, Saturn, Jaguar, 3DO, etc).

But hey, that's just me.

[Shayne]

360 sells the most next gen in the month of december combined.  PS2 still wins

NPD Numbers confirm that the Xbox 360 was the hot ticket item during Xmas this year for the current crop of "Next Gen" systems (the PS2 still outsold everyone).According to the official hardware statistics released this afternoon, the PlayStation 2 continued to be a popular platform at retail, selling 1.4 million units for the month (37.1 million to date in the U.S.). The Xbox 360 also impressed, selling 1.1 million in December (with 4.5 million lifetime to date), while the Wii sold 604,200 units for the month, putting its total North American number sold at 1.1 million units.

Elsewhere, the severely supply-constricted PlayStation 3 was found to have sold through 490,700 units for the period, with 687,300 units sold since its launch in November - no doubt somewhat of a disappointment for console creator Sony.

Gears still selling super strong as well.

As for software, the top selling title for the month was the Microsoft published, Epic Games-developed Gears of War for the Xbox 360, which sold 817,700 units in December.

Zelda on the GC is more popular (probably due to the inability of Nintendo to get consoles onto shelves)...

Nintendo's Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess sold slightly more for the GameCube with 532,900 units sold, compared to the 519,200 units of the Wii version sold in December.

Source: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12375