9cupsoftea

@professoress: Yeah I think microsoft did the math, and better than I can for sure. But I think they came to a similar conclusion - that there are a lot of gamers who cannot buy the xbone. I think that's why they emphasised the TV features so heavily in their reveal - they NEED to bring in a lot of non-gamers and new buyers to the xbone to compensate and make it a sustainable, let alone successful, system.

@fearbeard: $50 worth of steam games? Yes, I'll take it.

By dead let's say I mean that the console will sell less than 3.5 million by the end of 2015. For reference, the 360 sold 11 million in its first two years. And I'll add the caveat that the ps4 has to sell over 15 million by then too.

@oginor: Well china is an unsupported country, an it's doubtful they ever will be considering even the 360 didn't get live support there.

My point is that no matter which way you look at it a big portion of gamers (not even general populace, I'm using 360 owners to break the numbers down) are excluded from using the xbone. We're not estimating sales here, we're estimating the MAXIMUM number of gamers that can even buy one. There's a huge difference there. Look:

46 million gold and silver live accounts

Let's say that each live account was made on a brand new and unique 360 (highly unlikely).

Let's also pretend that none of those live accounts were made outside the supported countries (again highly unlikely).

Now add in the 5% average of extra broadband penetration since 2007, and add another 5% for the next 5 years (again unlikely - I mentioned before how broadband penetration has slowed down dramatically)

54 million

Now just for kicks imagine a bunch of people had the option but never connected online with their 360s but would be willing to with the xbone. Rounding up.

60 million

Under even the most stupidly optimistic prediction there are 16 million 360 owners who can't connect online with the xbone. That's over 20% of them. Realistically this number is much, much higher when accounting for multiple live accounts and unsupported territories.

Also, in order for the xbone to equal only the current success of the 360 (76 million) by the end of its entire lifespan, they not only need EVERY 360 owner who can connect online to buy one, they need to find 16 million+ new, online-ready, gamers from somewhere.

The xbone CANNOT sell beyond a certain point - even if everyone was excited and eager about it, it would still sell far worse than any successful console preceding it, and almost certainly not enough to survive in the current climate against the PS4. If you think that the xbone can survive with far fewer sales by default then I get what you're saying, but I don't see it myself.

@oginor: The 360 has currently sold over 30 million in the US. What you're saying is that EVERY single household with a broadband connection needs to buy an xbox one for it to reach only the current level of success the 360 has.

Or look at it another way, 80 million households in the US don't have a broadband subscription, and those households simply can't buy an xbone.

@dfsvegas: Ok there will be more broadband penetration, but I think you're overestimating just how quickly it happens. I did a quick google and came up with a ton of figures. I'm just playing amateur statistician here, so I could be wrong. If I've interpreted these numbers wrong please call me out on it.

Check out some of these pretty thorough numbers from OECD figures: In the US, in the five years between 2002 and 2007 penetration rose dramatically from 5% to roughly 23%, but in the five years from 2007 to 2012 it only rose to 28% - even plateauing and going down in some years. In Canada it hit 29% in 2008 and hovered around there to reach 31% in 2012. In the UK it hit 28% in 2008 and rose by about 1% a year to reach 33%. Everywhere else is the same story, by 2008 you see penetration rates slowing down and only increasing by 1 or 2% each year.

If you look at countries with higher penetration rates, they slow down dramatically as they near 30% and then plateau. The only places that have dramatic increases in broadband penetration are places like Poland, Chile, and Eastern Europe - precisely the kind of places which aren't supported by the xbone at launch.

So only 5% greater broadband penetration in the US since the 360 was launched, and likely a smaller increase by 2017. That's nowhere near enough to account for the massive amount that never connected online with the 360. Though I'll concede not putting a wifi dongle in with the first 360s probably had a big impact on it last gen also.

@mazik765: I don't mean any disparagement when I say xbone - I think it's just a nice abbreviation.

@mamba219: I've had 3 360s due to RRODs, and 4 live accounts. One regular UK account, one for when I lived in Canada, a US one that I made to get some promotion, and another that I made for the free first month of gold. But I don't think you can really count replacement 360s as 'sold' ones.

@vrmn: I somewhat agree with you when you talk about early adopters, but I really think it's worth noting just how many people never had a 360 live account - it's an insane number. I cannot imagine why people wouldn't connect their 360s up if they had the possibility, as do a lot of people who seem to disagree with me. It makes no sense, but it's a fact, a stat released by MS themselves - I'm not just guessing at that. And while none of those people seem to post on forums like this, or be acknowledged at all, they exist and make up a substantial bulk of console buyers. For them it's not a concern, or decision, the xbone may as well not exist for them.

@bigjeffrey: From the article:

There’s simply no way on earth that Microsoft would ever consider forfeiting 46 million subscriptions (though some are free, limited access Silver variants), even if it would put them on equal footing with one of the PS3′s selling points. This is also on top of the cut they take from everything sold on Xbox Live, and the ads they sell which are plastered all over the dashboard.

Forbes

Not gold members, live members. The closest stat i found said that 12 million of those were gold members, but that was old.

Faithfully,

Dr. 9cupsoftea

A large rise in the price of live gold, mark my words.

Listen, I worked on the PS4 with Cerny in his garage and we made this amazing gpu shit that is fucking sick. He lives next to a Taco Bell that throws out their stale burritos at 10 pm - call them up and ask if you don't believe me.