NPD: 360 selling twice as many online-capable games as PS3

[dougp]

Source: http://www.joystiq.com/2011/06/28/npd-360-selling-twice-as-many-online-capable-games-as-ps3/

The NPD Group has released a set of charts highlighting sales in various video game categories over the last few years. Of particular interest is a graph representing online-capable sales between 2006 and 2010. The Xbox 360 leads in the category, with online-capable game sales consistently doubling that of PlayStation 3 since 2008. The Wii reached roughly half of the PS3's online-capable sales in 2008, though that number declined through 2010.

When it comes to points cards used to purchase games and downloadable content online, the Xbox 360 trounces the competition with sales growing steadily every year. Sales of Sony's PSN cards seem to be on the rise, however, while Wii Point card sales have remained relatively flat.

Head over to Gamasutra for more chart-related goodness, including snapshots of 3D game sales and motion control sales.

I thought this was interesting considering the arguments that take place about Live vs. PSN. Game card sales are also pretty damn high for XBL, which has a lot to do with the sales that go on for XBL, and I'm curious about how many people buy the points cards vs. their acct (I know people don't like to keep their CCs on their Live acct, but that's a different argument.)

 

[Beev]

The 360 has a larger userbase here in the states, where most users only care about stupid shit like Black Ops. People that own JUST a PS3 probably only buy games for said PS3, and people that own both routinely buy online games for the 360 because "that's what their friends have" or whatever.

 

[Rage187]

I agree with the Beev. If you have both systems and a game comes out on both platforms and you plan on playing multi player, you likely need the 360 version.

At work, we have a gamertag/psn account sharing thread. Right now, people are sharing 16 PSN accounts and 74 360 gamertags. It could be that people on the PS3 don't want to join up with coworkers though.

 

[Imported]

I own both.. any FPS and sports game (the majority of online games it seems) I'd rather get for the 360. Fighting games I still get for the PS3 since my sticks won't work on the 360.

 

[dougp]

The 360 has a larger userbase here in the states, where most users only care about stupid shit like Black Ops. People that own JUST a PS3 probably only buy games for said PS3, and people that own both routinely buy online games for the 360 because "that's what their friends have" or whatever.

Couldn't possibly be for a better experience, could it?

Oh, and because you dislike a game makes it "stupid shit." Isn't BO the #1 MP game for the PS3 also?

 

[Beev]

Couldn't possibly be for a better experience, could it?

Oh, and because you dislike a game makes it "stupid shit." Isn't BO the #1 MP game for the PS3 also?

Nope. I own both and XBL just flat out is not better than the PSN. They are equals. I usually lean toward my PS3 because I prefer the controller and don't like to be assaulted by shitty ads every time I turn on the damn system.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good. I really enjoyed MW2, so it's not like I hate CoD or anything. Treyarch is shit at making games but the masses don't care.

 

[RedRooster]

Nope. I own both and XBL just flat out is not better than the PSN. They are equals. I usually lean toward my PS3 because I prefer the controller and don't like to be assaulted by shitty ads every time I turn on the damn system.

Just because something is popular doesn't make it good. I really enjoyed MW2, so it's not like I hate CoD or anything. Treyarch is shit at making games but the masses don't care.

You're a very angry fellow.

 

[purbeast0]

as i've stated before, 360 is my online gaming machine, ps3 is my single player exclusive machine. ps3 has way better/more single player exclusives than 360, and XBL just totally destroys PSN in terms of actual online gaming.

this doesn't surprise me in the least.

 

[dougp]

You're a very angry fellow.

I agree. Beev, you need to calm down man - BO is not terribad, and quite frankly, XBL is MUCH better than PSN.

 

[Beev]

Lol, I am pretty angry in general . Sorry. I'll chill out

XBL is MUCH better than PSN

Why do you think so?

 

[dougp]

Why do you think so?

Because the only downtime I've had was a few years ago after Modern Warfare came out around Christmas time. Since then, the downtime has been relatively minor - most of the time I'm at work. Besides that, never had issues with any of my groups / chatting during games, etc. and I find the feature selection rather nice (ESPN, Slacker, etc.) I also have a lot more friends on the 360 ... including you, hah.

 

[Beev]

Heh, when was I last online?

I will admit that the voice chatting is nice, though you can do that with PS+ now. As for the downtime, the PSN had their hack, and XBL had their issue back a couple years ago, but normally both services seem to stay up just fine.

The other features mean nothing to me, so that's probably swaying my opinion quite a bit.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

It's disappointing to see NPD move from providing hard sales numbers to just vague charts of non-specific data.

Just to be clear, I have no doubt that this is true, XBox 360 definitely has the momentum in the online space this generation, whether it comes down to an XBL vs. PSN comparison I couldn't say, I have both and think both are fairly abysmal in their own way.

The fact that XBL costs money to play online and still maintains such a lead is pretty telling though. At the same time, the 360 has a year lead on the PS3, and it hasn't been until the last couple of years that PSN has become a pretty competent online option, for me at least, but only because I rarely play online at all, except for coop stuff, which has always worked pretty well for me on the 360 and PS3.

You also have the prerequisite for most people when it comes to online games that you play on whatever platform your friends play on. In that sense, the 360 is like a snowball rolling down a hill right now, which is great for MS and makes it really hard for Sony to gain any sort of momentum online. At the same time, based on the chart, Sony presence is increasing online, albeit at a slower pace than the 360.

This kind of thread is bound to end up in a fanboy flame war, regardless of initial intent. I'm just going to go get my popcorn and grab a seat.

 

[RedRooster]

Heh, when was I last online?

I will admit that the voice chatting is nice, though you can do that with PS+ now. As for the downtime, the PSN had their hack, and XBL had their issue back a couple years ago, but normally both services seem to stay up just fine.

The other features mean nothing to me, so that's probably swaying my opinion quite a bit.

Sounds like you use Live like us Canadians do. Just the basics, thats all we get anyways. None of those fancy features.

 

[Tom]

I think Microsoft has a good strategy in having an under $200 console. And sometimes WAY under. I paid like $125 for a Slim last holiday season.

They make the money up with Live subscriptions. I hate it, but who can fight it when everybody I know has an xbox now ?

Sony should have sold a PS3 sans hard drive for $200 a couple of years ago when MS brought out the Arcade.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

as i've stated before, 360 is my online gaming machine, ps3 is my single player exclusive machine. ps3 has way better/more single player exclusives than 360, and XBL just totally destroys PSN in terms of actual online gaming.

this doesn't surprise me in the least.

Beast is correct as usual.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

I think Microsoft has a good strategy in having an under $200 console. And sometimes WAY under. I paid like $125 for a Slim last holiday season.

They make the money up with Live subscriptions. I hate it, but who can fight it when everybody I know has an xbox now ?

Sony should have sold a PS3 sans hard drive for $200 a couple of years ago when MS brought out the Arcade.

Financially, maybe, from a "doing the right thing" standpoint, I think Sony did right by people by having every sku come with a hard drive, and an easy to upgrade drive to boot, not requiring you to go back to the console maker to get a larger drive option. I know dozens of people who bought Arcade units for $150-$200 thinking it was an awesome deal, only realizing a few months down the line that buying a 360 without a hard drive is a losing proposition in a lot of cases when they had to go out and spend as much or more on the hard drive add-on than they would have just buying the 360 w/ the drive initially, if you're buying the official MS brand drive at least.

Also, if you look at sales numbers, MS has sold around 55 million 360s worldwide at this point, while Sony has sold 50 million PS3s. Take into account that the PS3 came out a full year later, and year-by-year, Sony has sold as many or more consoles in the same time frame. So in that respect, I don't know that MS holding back a hard drive for a cheaper SKU did them a lot of good in the long term.

55 million / 6 years = 9.2 million consoles per year on average
50 million / 5 years = 10 million consoles per year on average

Also, MS has had the Arcade since Day One as an option, it didn't just come out a few years ago, it was an option at launch next to the Elite (I believe it was called the Core at the time).

 

[purbeast0]

Financially, maybe, from a "doing the right thing" standpoint, I think Sony did right by people by having every sku come with a hard drive, and an easy to upgrade drive to boot, not requiring you to go back to the console maker to get a larger drive option. I know dozens of people who bought Arcade units for $150-$200 thinking it was an awesome deal, only realizing a few months down the line that buying a 360 without a hard drive is a losing proposition in a lot of cases when they had to go out and spend as much or more on the hard drive add-on than they would have just buying the 360 w/ the drive initially, if you're buying the official MS brand drive at least.

Also, if you look at sales numbers, MS has sold around 55 million 360s worldwide at this point, while Sony has sold 50 million PS3s. Take into account that the PS3 came out a full year later, and year-by-year, Sony has sold as many or more consoles in the same time frame. So in that respect, I don't know that MS holding back a hard drive for a cheaper SKU did them a lot of good in the long term.

55 million / 6 years = 9.2 million consoles per year on average
50 million / 5 years = 10 million consoles per year on average

Also, MS has had the Arcade since Day One as an option, it didn't just come out a few years ago, it was an option at launch next to the Elite (I believe it was called the Core at the time).

the core had no internal storage at all. the arcade has 4gb on board storage now i believe. you couldn't even go on xbox live with a core unless you had a memory card with your profile on it. out of the box, i believe you couldn't even save games.

and the elite didn't come out till way later and was the first one with the 210gb hdd.

the normal 20gb was the "premium" one.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

the core had no internal storage at all. the arcade has 4gb on board storage now i believe. you couldn't even go on xbox live with a core unless you had a memory card with your profile on it. out of the box, i believe you couldn't even save games.

and the elite didn't come out till way later and was the first one with the 210gb hdd.

the normal 20gb was the "premium" one.

That's right, I get confused with the labels, I still have my 20GB Premium, although it's a 2nd RROD replacement of the launch model I got as a prize from Mountain Dew when they ran that launch contest.

What sucks is there are still limitations to the 4GB model, not being able to stream Netflix on it being one of them. Otherwise, yeah, it's a lot better option than the older Core and Arcade models were.

 

[mugs]

Also, if you look at sales numbers, MS has sold around 55 million 360s worldwide at this point, while Sony has sold 50 million PS3s. Take into account that the PS3 came out a full year later, and year-by-year, Sony has sold as many or more consoles in the same time frame. So in that respect, I don't know that MS holding back a hard drive for a cheaper SKU did them a lot of good in the long term.

55 million / 6 years = 9.2 million consoles per year on average
50 million / 5 years = 10 million consoles per year on average

Also, MS has had the Arcade since Day One as an option, it didn't just come out a few years ago, it was an option at launch next to the Elite (I believe it was called the Core at the time).

One of those consoles was following a predecessor that had already sold 100 million units and is up to 150 million now.

One of those consoles was following a predecessor that sold fewer than 25 million units.

They weren't exactly starting on equal footing. Using that data to come to any conclusion about the impact of the Core/Arcade is really not much more than a guess. A great number of households in the US don't have access to broadband Internet, and the Core system was ideally suited for those households. It was also a cheap way to get a spare system to put your hard drive in while you were waiting for a RRoD repair.

 

[DaveSimmons]

MS did a lot of things right, ignoring the RRoD :
- Releasing first to gain a head start
- Lower prices, especially the $100 cheaper Arcade unit
- Simpler development thanks to DirectX and other Windows compatible libraries for easier porting and a head start on learning the console
- Also for simpler development, using 3x normal PC-like CPUs instead of 1x core plus fast-but-weird cores that required learning new techniques
- Better online play at initial release (Sony took a while to add features that they should have copied from the xbox 1)

That all helped MS gain a commanding lead in the US, and once all of your friends have an xbox for Madden and shooters it doesn't matter much whether or not the PS3 is now about as good for online, it's too late.

 

[zerocool84]

The horrible pricing of the PS3 in the first few years really hurt it.

 

[KentState]

Having both, I know that having the 360 first is the main reason why I invest in DLC and multi-platform games for it. The PS3 is mainly for exclusives and streaming since it seems much more streamlined and has far less advertisements.

 

[ubercaffeinated]

The 360 has a larger userbase here in the states, where most users only care about stupid shit like Black Ops. People that own JUST a PS3 probably only buy games for said PS3, and people that own both routinely buy online games for the 360 because "that's what their friends have" or whatever.

i buy online games routinely for the 360 over the ps3, because the 360 has better online service - granted i pay for it, but it's not the same. i'll snub my rl friends that play online on the ps3, and just play with randoms online on xbl because the gaming experience is just that much better. i gave up trying to convince myself that ps3 online gaming is good. it's adequate - just that, but i can pay to have something more than just adequate, and so i do. this is just my opinion obviously.

 

[Anubis]

The horrible pricing of the PS3 in the first few years really hurt it.

its a BR player that plays video games. when it came out it BR players were going for just as much and they didn't play games. it was expensive but it was understandable why it cost so damn much

as for online stuff, the ONLY person i know in real life that has a 360 is my brother. everyone else has a PS3. so most if not all my online stuff is purchased for the PS3

the last xbox game i got was Reach
i got BOps for the PS3
ill get battlefield for the PS3