PS3 Slim sales increase 1000% (not a typo) in UK...

Chart-Track has toldGamesIndustry.bizthat sales of the PlayStation 3 have rocketed 999 per cent over the past week.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/playstation-3-sales-rocket-1000-percent-on-slim-release

While the specific numbers haven't been released, one has to admit that this is a very big increase. I guess this was the boost Sony was looking for, but can they maintain this momentum and what impact will the Holiday software releases have on this spike if any. Of note of course is that sales saw a dip as retailers prepared for the Slim launch (and sold off stock), but I was pretty impressed.

EDIT: Removed comparison.

Sales in Japan of the PS3 Slim were reported at 150.000 units in a 4 day period following launch, providing a 150 time increase over previous week sales. The biggest spike since the console launched.

Cool. Pricecuts are beautiful things. It will be interesting to see what type of numbers the hyperexpensive PSP Go puts up.

system wars...weezyfb

No, *points around* General Games Discussion.

It can be argued that by mentioning the relatively minuscule 360 increase in sales he is undermining the system, but that's rather weak. There's nothing polarizing about what he is stating. He's simply just reporting an unusually high amount of increase in sales for the PS3 Slim, without implying one thing about that system or any other system's quality. It's no different than posting the monthly NPD sales.

That's somewhat expected. People must have waited until slims were available to purchase, so you have a lousy week followed by a week of a redesign launch.

Certainly sounds impressive but 1000% from what and for the 360 43% from what.

Kind of expected, i bet people have been holding out for a price cut for a long time, i am unsure if that kind of momentum will keep going however.

According to destructoid the PS3's increase is 11 times last week or sop while the 360 only rose like 29% =\

It was inevitable, now Sony and Microsoft can finally start selling some consoles and be competitive.

Strong start for the Slim in Japan and Yurope, I wonder how it will do in NA.

Certainly sounds impressive but 1000% from what and for the 360 43% from what.

Archangel3371

We might have to wait for some exact figures, but I think regardless the sales increase is impressive (someone posted some figure calculations based on numbers from VGCharts).

Also this was never meant to be inflamatory and hence was not posted in system wars. Personally I am more interested in the sway and movement of the market based on this and what other people may infer from the shifting perseptions of Sony especially as many people stated that it was not a wise choice to relaunch the console during such difficult economic times. As Carnage mentioned competition is a beautiful thing and this will probably allow me to finally take the plunge and buy a PS3 Slim for Christmas.

The PSP Go though, we will wait and see. Finally I think not every company 'can' compete at price (Xbox Arcade for example is priced less than the Wii in the UK) so its always interesting to see how different companies are affected differently by similar factors. I am curious about the increase in sales the console will post in the US and Japan when released.

In Japan the Slim exceeded the launch sales of the PS3 by almost 80%( 150K last week vs 88K launch week) making it the PS3's best week ever.

Sony's launch of the new slim PlayStation 3 is certainly making a big impact on the company's bottom-line, at least in their homeland of Japan. Famitsu reports (via Kotaku) that in the first three days, over 150,000 PS3 Slim units were sold. This is compared to the launch of the console in Japan, which only moved 88,000 units. Console shortages at the time may have artificially deflated that number, but doubling the launch sales three years later is still an impressive feat. Meanwhile Eurogamer reports that in the U.K., PS3 sales have increased 1,000% from the week prior to the Slim launch

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3175932

Now they just need some great exclusives that the mainstream audience might actually care about. I suppose Xbox 360's "killer app" was Halo 3. (I don't really care about the Halo series myself, and I don't even have a 360 for that matter.) As far as I can tell, the PS3 doesn't really have any. It has some great exclusives, like Uncharted, but I just don't think it has one that has that sort of wide audience that the Halo series got. Not much on the horizon either. God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."

The price cut is definitely a move they needed to make, but at the end of the day the 360 is not more expensive, and it has a significant lead and more games, and the Wii has the "casual" console market (which arguably didn't really exist before to a significant degree anyway) on a leash. It also doesn't help that developers commonly complain that the PS3 is far harder to develop for. Exclusive games sell systems. That has always been the case and it always will be. Sony needs to find some games that a lot of people feel like they just "have to" own that are not available on the 360.

The PS2 decimated the Xbox for basically one reason, and that is that it was first to market. The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console. The PS3 has an upward battle ahead of it.

The slim was expected by many, I guess.
A large portion are probably phat owners, who wants to get the newest PS3.

MS will put an end to this with a 199 elit deal i can see it coming

The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console.

SpaceMoose

Without verging even further into system wars territory (in retrospect the TC's mention of the X360 was a mistake), let me just note that post-NES, the first system released in a given generation has never been the bestselling system. That is true whether the system was named the Turbographx, the 3DO (or maybe the Jaguar?), the Dreamcast or the X360. There are a lot of things which factor into third party support decisions(tastes of the audiences of various systems, what one thinks the size of the install bases will be at the time your game launches, who is writing checks, etc).

MS will put an end to this with a 199 elit deal i can see it coming

Addict187

With the arcade at $199, they're already tapping into the lowerprice-pint market, moving the elite to $199 is not going to have anywhere near as much ofan impact.

Now they just need some great exclusives that the mainstream audience might actually care about. I suppose Xbox 360's "killer app" was Halo 3. (I don't really care about the Halo series myself, and I don't even have a 360 for that matter.) As far as I can tell, the PS3 doesn't really have any. It has some great exclusives, like Uncharted, but I just don't think it has one that has that sort of wide audience that the Halo series got. Not much on the horizon either. God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."

The price cut is definitely a move they needed to make, but at the end of the day the 360 is not more expensive, and it has a significant lead and more games, and the Wii has the "casual" console market (which arguably didn't really exist before to a significant degree anyway) on a leash. It also doesn't help that developers commonly complain that the PS3 is far harder to develop for. Exclusive games sell systems. That has always been the case and it always will be. Sony needs to find some games that a lot of people feel like they just "have to" own that are not available on the 360.

The PS2 decimated the Xbox for basically one reason, and that is that it was first to market. The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console. The PS3 has an upward battle ahead of it.

SpaceMoose

The PS2 was not the first to market, the dreamcast was the first to market. The wii right now isgiving the HD consoles a beatdownand it sure as hell wasn't the first to market. The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.

The slim was expected by many, I guess.
A large portion are probably phat owners, who wants to get the newest PS3.

Foggel

Or a large portion could possibly be people who have never owned one. I know at least 8 people who have already bought one who have previously never owned a Playstation system before.

As for the percentage increase, this is really impressive indeed, especially considering the Elite just had a price drop quite recently.

[QUOTE="SpaceMoose"]

The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console.

CarnageHeart

Without verging even further into system wars territory (in retrospect the TC's mention of the X360 was a mistake), let me just note that post-NES, the first system released in a given generation has never been the most popular system. That is true whether the system was named the Turbographx, the 3DO (or maybe the Jaguar?), the Dreamcast or the X360. There are a lot of things which factor into third party support decisions(tastes of the audiences of various systems, what one thinks the size of the install bases will be at the time your game launches, who is writing checks, etc).

As far as Genesis vs. SNES, Nintendo was able to pull ahead with SNES due to exclusive amazing first party games (as is generally the case with Nintendo systems) and Street Fighter II, which was the game in its day (and the eventual Genesis version was crappy by comparison anyway). I know what games people bought that system for. I do not know what games that are ONLY on the PS3 which really have that level of mass appeal. The market is not the same as it was back then or even as it was a few years ago for that matter.

What is the huge selling point for PS3 for all of the people that already own a 360? FFXIII, coming to 360. GTA IV, that's on the 360. I don't think there's a huge following of people that really care all that much about another Ratchet and Clank game, regardless of the quality. People with a PS3 will buy it, but I don't think many people are going to get a PS3 for it. The original Xbox had the graphical might advantage and the benefit of a hard drive and it still lost that battle. The PS3 isn't even perceivably better so far than the 360 in terms of anything it can do.

I'm not really going to get into the Wii as I think it is selling mostly to people who either don't otherwise buy gaming consoles or who have one of the other two anyway.

(By the way, If I came off as believing that the PS3 will not do well, that is not what I think at all. I'm just saying it has an uphill battle.)

[QUOTE="SpaceMoose"]

Now they just need some great exclusives that the mainstream audience might actually care about. I suppose Xbox 360's "killer app" was Halo 3. (I don't really care about the Halo series myself, and I don't even have a 360 for that matter.) As far as I can tell, the PS3 doesn't really have any. It has some great exclusives, like Uncharted, but I just don't think it has one that has that sort of wide audience that the Halo series got. Not much on the horizon either. God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."

The price cut is definitely a move they needed to make, but at the end of the day the 360 is not more expensive, and it has a significant lead and more games, and the Wii has the "casual" console market (which arguably didn't really exist before to a significant degree anyway) on a leash. It also doesn't help that developers commonly complain that the PS3 is far harder to develop for. Exclusive games sell systems. That has always been the case and it always will be. Sony needs to find some games that a lot of people feel like they just "have to" own that are not available on the 360.

The PS2 decimated the Xbox for basically one reason, and that is that it was first to market. The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console. The PS3 has an upward battle ahead of it.

EvilTaru

The PS2 was not the first to market, the dreamcast was the first to market. The wii right now isgiving the HD consoles a beatdownand it sure as hell wasn't the first to market. The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.

God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."SpaceMoose

I was done after the first one. Anyway, as for upcoming PS3 exclusives with mass appeal - who knows, Agent might deliver. Meh, regardless of its mass appeal, it's certainly the most attractive game on the PS3 for me personally. Hopefully, they'll be ready to show the damn game now that The Ballad of Gay Tony is nearing release.

The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.EvilTaru

They have a launch price...three years after launch. It's not as horrible as it was, but it's not exactly "right" either.

None of those systems ever had a huge installed base (except the Genesis which you didn't mention). The point was that I was talking about having a huge lead in sales, which the 360 has over the PS3, and the PS2 had over the Xbox. It doesn't matter if you're second to market when nobody bought the competing system in the first place.

SpaceMoose

The gap between the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 is no where near huge. In fact its much closer than most people seem to believe, especially in Europe (we will of course not mention Japan). The argument of more games on a system that has a larger installed user base is ultimately a catch 22. Need more systems for more games, but need more games to sell more systems. I honestly believe that Sony has spearheaded an awesome comeback with its price drop. Sure the system might not have THE killer app it needs but its predeccesors always succeeded based on breadth of software.

The Playstation 3 has come to its own in terms of software and I think most everyone can find something they will enjoy on it (MGS4, Killzone 2, Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, et al), the real barrier was price and now that that has come down I have a feeling the market is going to see a real shift.

Also as carnage pointed out sales in Japan has hit a high of 150.000 units sold in a period of 4 days, beating the spikes seen even by titles like MGS4. Also I might edit out the Xbox 360 part in the opening post if people think it is inflamatory (I included it because the news post on Gamesindustry included it).

And so it begins.....

(Dont know if PS3 can ever catch up to the 7 million units lead the 360 has built up over the last four years, but does it really matter at this point? :P )

The part about the 360 in the OP really has nothing to do with my posts. I'm just saying that while a price drop of course causes a spike in sales, it doesn't really say much about the long haul. I think the PS3 will do just fine. I still think it really needs to find its huge selling point though.

[QUOTE="EvilTaru"]

[QUOTE="SpaceMoose"]

Now they just need some great exclusives that the mainstream audience might actually care about. I suppose Xbox 360's "killer app" was Halo 3. (I don't really care about the Halo series myself, and I don't even have a 360 for that matter.) As far as I can tell, the PS3 doesn't really have any. It has some great exclusives, like Uncharted, but I just don't think it has one that has that sort of wide audience that the Halo series got. Not much on the horizon either. God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."

The price cut is definitely a move they needed to make, but at the end of the day the 360 is not more expensive, and it has a significant lead and more games, and the Wii has the "casual" console market (which arguably didn't really exist before to a significant degree anyway) on a leash. It also doesn't help that developers commonly complain that the PS3 is far harder to develop for. Exclusive games sell systems. That has always been the case and it always will be. Sony needs to find some games that a lot of people feel like they just "have to" own that are not available on the 360.

The PS2 decimated the Xbox for basically one reason, and that is that it was first to market. The Xbox was pretty much a superior system in every way, except for one little detail: PS2 had all the games. Once a system has a huge user base, that is what developers want to put their games on, which of course creates even more sales for that console. The PS3 has an upward battle ahead of it.

SpaceMoose

The PS2 was not the first to market, the dreamcast was the first to market. The wii right now isgiving the HD consoles a beatdownand it sure as hell wasn't the first to market. The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.

The DC failed in Japan, but the US sales were quite strong (the US sales of the Playstation 2 were roughly the same as those of the DC).

Wii aside, the sales of the HD consoles areembarassing (for the first time in forever, the hardcore market has shrunk) due to the 'get a second job' pricetag of the PS3 and the 'all expenses spared' design of the X360.

[QUOTE="SpaceMoose"]

[QUOTE="EvilTaru"]

The PS2 was not the first to market, the dreamcast was the first to market. The wii right now isgiving the HD consoles a beatdownand it sure as hell wasn't the first to market. The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.

CarnageHeart

The DC failed in Japan, but the US sales were quite strong (the US sales of the Playstation 2 were roughly the same as those of the DC).

Wii aside, the sales of the HD consoles areembarassing (for the first time in forever, the hardcore market has shrunk) due to the 'get a second job' pricetag of the PS3 and the 'all expenses spared' design of the X360.

Well hopefully the PS3 will start to gain traction in Japan, so third-party Japanese publishers will start putting more titles on the system.

[QUOTE="SpaceMoose"]God of War 3? I think God of War had room for about 2 great games in it. By the end of the second one, my thoughts were basically, "Yep, I've kind of had my fill of this."UpInFlames

I was done after the first one. Anyway, as for upcoming PS3 exclusives with mass appeal - who knows, Agent might deliver. Meh, regardless of its mass appeal, it's certainly the most attractive game on the PS3 for me personally. Hopefully, they'll be ready to show the damn game now that The Ballad of Gay Tony is nearing release.

The biggest problem the PS3 had was the price and now the price is right.EvilTaru

They have a launch price...three years after launch. It's not as horrible as it was, but it's not exactly "right" either.

I don't buy the mass appeal argument. The PS1 and the PS2 are the only two console in history to hit the 100 million benchmark (the PS3's sales are now in excess of 130 million) and all of their games appealed to niches. GTA sold to 10% of the fanbase, and it had the highesttie-in ratio on the PS2. Couple this with the fact that the PS2 had the highestattach ratio (meaning PS2 gamers had the most games per console) and the evidence supports the conclusion that traditionally Playstations have suceeded by hitting niches a bunch of niches. Yes, GTA, GT, FF and RE played major roles in the success of the PS2, but so did Romance of the Three Kingdoms (whatever happened to that franchise?), Carnage Heart (I'm probably the entirety of its US fanbase, but it has three sequels in Japan), Ico, Katamari Damancy and countless others.

The best thing MS and Sony can do besides chop their prices is release the types of games that aren't selling well at the moment.

And so it begins.....

(Dont know if PS3 can ever catch up to the 7 million units lead the 360 has built up over the last four years, but does it really matter at this point? :P )

S0lidSnake

No. The real reason why this will be a 10-year console cycle is to recover from all the red ink that has been spilled by MS and especially Sony. As far as marketshare, if the price cuts would have been of real help to Sony, it would have happened already. Its been a running joke about which game is going to finally be the "killer app" to save the PS3 for a reason. I doubt little will change for the remainder for the rest of this console generation.

Video games will help to overcome economic instability :lol:

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

And so it begins.....

(Dont know if PS3 can ever catch up to the 7 million units lead the 360 has built up over the last four years, but does it really matter at this point? :P )

MarcusAntonius

No. The real reason why this will be a 10-year console cycle is to recover from all the red ink that has been spilled by MS and especially Sony. As far as marketshare, if the price cuts would have been of real help to Sony, it would have happened already. Its been a running joke about which game is going to finally be the "killer app" to save the PS3 for a reason. I doubt little will change for the remainder for the rest of this console generation.

There are people who won't pay more X dollars for a system, no matter its library, so pricecuts do impact the sales of a system (does anyone believe that the PS1 or 2 would have sold 100,000,000+ systems at $600?).

I think price cuts have legitimately been out of the reach of Sony since their impact has been demonstrated in the recent past. When Sony chopped the price of the PS3 US sales slightly exceeded those of the X360 up until MS responded with a pricecut of its own (at which point the X360 resumed outselling the PS3 3 to 2). Judging by Sony's financial losses inside and outside the game division that job cuts that have taken place outside the game division, I don't think Sony has a big pot of money they could have drawn on to cut the price/increase hardware losses.

[QUOTE="MarcusAntonius"]

[QUOTE="S0lidSnake"]

And so it begins.....

(Dont know if PS3 can ever catch up to the 7 million units lead the 360 has built up over the last four years, but does it really matter at this point? :P )

CarnageHeart

No. The real reason why this will be a 10-year console cycle is to recover from all the red ink that has been spilled by MS and especially Sony. As far as marketshare, if the price cuts would have been of real help to Sony, it would have happened already. Its been a running joke about which game is going to finally be the "killer app" to save the PS3 for a reason. I doubt little will change for the remainder for the rest of this console generation.

There are people who won't pay more X dollars for a system, no matter its library, so pricecuts do impact the sales of a system (does anyone believe that the PS1 or 2 would have sold 100,000,000+ systems at $600?).

I think price cuts have legitimately been out of the reach of Sony since their impact has been demonstrated in the recent past. When Sony chopped the price of the PS3 US sales slightly exceeded those of the X360 up until MS responded with a pricecut of its own (at which point the X360 resumed outselling the PS3 3 to 2). Judging by Sony's financial losses inside and outside the game division that job cuts that have taken place outside the game division, I don't think Sony has a big pot of money they could have drawn on to cut the price/increase hardware losses.

Bear in mind I'm not saying that the PS3's current pricecut will translate into a longterm advantage over the X360, because the cheapness of the X360's hardwarecoupled with the greater overal profitability of MS means that MS will always be able to match whatever cut Sony makes (the Xbox was a much more expensive system than the PS2, but its price always matched that of the PS2 because MS didn't care how much money it lost).

Can't argue much with any of that. Even in the months of Sony's biggest releaes this gen saw them trailing the X360 by over 50,000. What a difference a $100 price difference makes.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad Sony is trying to remain competitive, but they have only been able to cut so much with the way they've been running in the red as you alluded to. Who knows, perhaps Blu-Ray was the real objective here. If so, mission accomplished, albeit at the expense of their gaming division. Its especially maddening to see Sony's product, a good piece of hardware, eating the dust of a console that doesn't work. With the PS3 slim, Sony should be able to salvage a break-even in another few years.

As far as MS's profitability, I wonder why they don't just drop the hammer entirely and cut the X360 to $149-$199 (clearly I'm not counting Arcade). You'd figure with Windows 7 coming out next month, that MS would be awash in even more money than they know what to do with. There must be other things in planning going on for this holiday season.

I don't buy the mass appeal argument. The PS1 and the PS2 are the only two console in history to hit the 100 million benchmark (the PS3's sales are now in excess of 130 million) and all of their games appealed to niches. GTA sold to 10% of the fanbase, and it had the highesttie-in ratio on the PS2. Couple this with the fact that the PS2 had the highestattach ratio (meaning PS2 gamers had the most games per console) and the evidence supports the conclusion that traditionally Playstations have suceeded by hitting niches a bunch of niches. Yes, GTA, GT, FF and RE played major roles in the success of the PS2, but so did Romance of the Three Kingdoms (whatever happened to that franchise?), Carnage Heart (I'm probably the entirety of its US fanbase, but it has three sequels in Japan), Ico, Katamari Damancy and countless others.

The best thing MS and Sony can do besides chop their prices is release the types of games that aren't selling well at the moment.CarnageHeart

I think that any game that sells in the millions has a certain level of mass appeal. Grand Theft Auto and Gran Turismo sell over 10 million with every new installment - their mass appeal cannot be denied no matter the installed userbase. The PS3 hasn't really seen a game with that level of mass appeal yet, most of its high-profile games sold about a million or two at best (not bad numbers at all, but not quite Halo 3 either).

That said, I agree that library breadth is more important than a single runaway hit. But I was talking more in the context of the games themselves, not really how it affects the platform it's on.