Ben-DutkaFor just a moment, consider the numbers.
Recently, a Sony financial report stated that 3.7 million PlayStation 3 units had been sold worldwide in the second fiscal quarter of 2011.
That brings the global total to 55.5 million units . Last month, Microsoft said they had shipped 57.6 million units of the Xbox 360 worldwide. Now, Sony counts its number as "sales" but it's tough to determine if they're referring to the actual sell-through number or the sell-in (shipment) statistic. As you can see, Microsoft counts the shipped numbers.
Therefore, even if we assume the worst and say Sony's 55.5 million is a shipped number, we have to consider a few factors: firstly, there's no doubt that the 360 has had terrible reliability in the past, thereby resulting in a whole lot of sales to the same consumer (I don't know anyone who hasn't gone through at least three 360s since 2005). The sales number doesn't change, of course, but in terms of new customers , it seems obvious that the PS3 has seen more.
Also, have we all forgotten that the 360 launched a full year before the PS3? Even if both are shipped numbers, that's 57.6 million 360s shipped in 6 years, while it's 55.5 million PS3s shipped in 5 years . Therefore, if we remove the first 360 year where it had no competition, the PS3 has indeed sold more in head-to-head competition. Interesting stats, no?
yeah – also for consideration – im on my 3rd xbox – still first ps3 – with the rrod failure rate xbox should be selling more!!!
After the 2nd 360 how could you continue to support such garbage?
hey i'm on my 3rd ps3 so be careful. my first 60 gb ps3 lasted about 3 yrs then ylod'd on me so i sent it off to sony. the one they sent back(it was not the same one i sent in) lasted all of 8 months before a blu ray drive failure. it stopped reading ps3 games and blu rays. the ps1/ps2 games and dvds still worked. ofcourse it was outside the 90 day warranty so i was screwed. i know exactly why those 360 users replace their 360's. the same reason i replaced my ps3's. i have too much invested in games to just walk away. i now have a gamestop refurbed 60 gb ps3 that came with a 1 year warranty. i picked it up in may of this year. at least i can take comfort in the 1 yr warranty.
"gamestop refurbished ps3"
I hope its not one of those scenarios where you buy a used game for $54 as opposed to spending $5 and getting a new copy?
As soon as my 3 year ps3 started showing signs of going towards the light guess what i did? Sold it to Gamestop, who probably just formatted the hard disc and slapped a price tag on it.
no the one i got was a factory refurb. it has a green sticker over the place where the black warranty sticker was and is refurbished. i would never buy a gamestop used ps3 becuase i know people have traded in their ps3s that were heading off to light as you say. the used ones only come with a 90 day warranty as well. i had to call multiple gamestops but i eventually tracked down a refurbed 60 gb model. no complaints. it was in prestine condition. i already tried sending off my 1st ps3 to sony but the one they sent back bought the farm as well. sony only guarantees their refurbs 90 says. gamestop 1yr so it was a no brainer.
Yeah, I agree with Excelsior1. Be careful with that PS3 ulsterscot. At this point in time, most of us are running with the Slims. You're very lucky! Not a lot of us can say that.
Yea?
Unless there is a definitive take over in sales the xbots will never be convinced. And by that time they will probably claim it as irrelevant and ramble on about the glory of live.
Still have the fat motorstorm backwords compatible 80GB ps3 going. Its a work horse…very loud. 🙂
I have the same PS3, and it's still going strong. Fan gets going pretty good sometimes, but never had any problems. Love my fat PS3.
Oh, by the way, my friend Matt is on his 3rd crapbox.
Last edited by tazdood1199 on 11/3/2011 12:21:20 AM
Same here….but once I heard the fan getting louder, I bought a slim just in case 😉 I placed my Phat3 on early retirement so now just use it for movies in the bedroom.
I am on my 2nd 360 (which I bought when Circuit City was going under…last time I turned it on was for Gears 3 and I will probably never turn it back on. Now Uncharted takes Gears 3 place and hopefully my slim keeps on going 🙂
My fatboy just crapped out on me….5 months ago. Was sad to see…but its in the box in my closet. Idk how my PS2 is still working tho. First gen PS2…came out 2001.
I just talked game system replacement with my sister's boyfiend, he said he was on his 6th Xbox.
well if only you wouldn't keep hiding them from him, he'd probably be on his 5th xbox…
LOL! I've only been posting this comment for two years now! 😉
It's about time the media started to wake up to this. Pimping the 360 using Kinect as an excuse to buy a new system is a ridiculous marketing strategy. MS stopped gaining significant new customer numbers a year or so ago. Their XBL subscriber numbers certainly suggest that.
Regarding PS3 longevity; I have two 60GB Phats, one is a Sony refurb after my original original one died in the summer heat. My other is a 3 year old refurb done by a very careful guy that has/had a business reconditioning PS3s, upgrading them and then reselling them. Still going strong, as is one of the original wave of 40GB systems my son abuses regularly. Since we all game heavily in this house I really cannot imagine if we were each on our 3rd (or worse) 360….
Last edited by TheHighlander on 11/2/2011 10:27:32 PM
It was just a matter of time. I knew it even before the PS3 launch. There goes 55.5 million slaps in the face for those fanbox's, Oh wait! they're shopping a new console because it broke again.
Sounds good and PS3 sales are increasing month on month.
no, it's still it's still technicly in last place. there's really no need to to try to spin it into second place. we all know the ps3 came out later and the 360's hardware failure rates were bad with the earlier models. don't get me started on hardware failure rates becuase i have had 2 ps3's die on me. one got the infamous ylod of death and the other stopped reading blu rays and ps3 games. so i'm on my 3rd ps3. i wonder how many ps3's sold are replacement units themselves. we really have no way of knowing, but i imagine it's higher than people might think. especially with the 60 gb/earlier ps3 models.
the ps3 may very well over take 360, but even if they do the amount of market share they have lost this gen has been tremendous. right around half of it. hard to spin that as a good thing. they should not be behind ms in first place considering the momentum they had going into this gen. the over all shift in the market has been pretty unbelievable when you think about it but it's that very fact that gives me hope for sony going into next gen. anything is possible. sony could reclaim their 1 spot next gen.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 11/3/2011 1:02:44 AM
So, even if a platform has more unique, or active customers, the fact that the other platform has sold X million defunct units means it wins? Great logic there….
yep, we go by total console sales. that's how it works the last time i checked. the industry does not track defunct units or active, unique users. how we do track unique users? it's a cute argument, but ultimately they go go by how many units did each console sale. do the 2 ps3's i repaired/replaced count as a console sold? maybe/maybe not. how many of those 360 units were actually replaced? or were they sent off to ms and repaired? does ms count those 360's sent in for repair/replacement as a console sold? i have no way off knowing, total units sold are the only hard number we have to work with. the rest is just an educated guess.
okay the 360 sold 438,000 units in na in sept. the ps3 sold 372,000. are we trying to say nope that does not count becuase X amount of 360 sales were becuase of defunct units? it's still a console sold, right? it's a lot simpler just to go by the total number of units sold. i'm pretty sure that's the only numbers the industry cares about.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 11/3/2011 4:16:05 AM
Yup, here we go again. Excelsior insisting the PS3 is in last place and will always be in last place.
The industry doesn't count defunct units? Then what are all those sold:return ratios reported by retailers? It doesn't matter that there are simply more customers for Sony's product? Well, all right.
yes they are in last place. they have been this entire gen…as for always in last place. i did not say that. they may overtake the 360. a lot of that depends on if ms cuts their price i think. i will be a very happy person when and if the ps3 does overtake the 360 in total units sold. i'm not going to sit back and try to count broken consoles and subtract that from total units sold. it's impossible to do.
Excelsior, your lack of knowledge not withstanding it's a known fact that the first 2-3 years of 360 production suffer a catastrophic failure rate, and that anything between 25% and 30% of them are currently dead. It's also a known fact that the couple of years after than production systems were marginally better, but still extremely prone to failure, resulting in more dead systems. A conservative estimate of the dead system count runs well past 2 million. Even if you simply analyze unit sales of 360s against the total number of XBL accounts (gold or silver), there is a huge gap. Remember the only way to update your Xbox to run firmware is to have an XBL account of some kind. So this should be very nearly a 1:1 ratio with hardware unit sales, and it's not even close.
I'm sorry, but you're trolling if you are honestly claiming that only hardware unit sales matter. What matters is the number of customers buying games. It doesn't matter if you've sold 57.5 million consoles compared to your competition's 55.5 million if there you only have 45 million actual customers, and your competition has 50+ million customers actively using the systems and buying games. That is the point, and demonstrates the complete fallacy of quoting hardware unit sales as the be all and end all. In a normal situation it might be, but when one of the competing products being compared has experienced the catastrophic failure rate the the 360 has in the past, looking beyond the bare units shipped number is important since that number masks the truth of how many actual customers there are.
BTW, in addition to units shipped to the retail channel, Microsoft also counts every unit that they ship as a replacement to a user as one of their shipped consoles. I'm pretty sure that Sony does not do that that since they count sales, not shipments.
Either way, you're intentional blindness is very irritating and in my opinion you've crossed the line from provocative, sometimes borderline trolling, to outright trolling in this particular topic.
okay. how about this? let me rephrase. total consoles sold are all that matters for me. i admit the 360's numbers are inflated. the day when sony overtakes the 360 in official numbers is the day i'll be happy. i will make note of everything you guys say though. i guess there is an asterisk by ms numbers so to speak. they are definitely inflated.
Every 360 owner I know at work (about 10 of them) has had AT LEAST 3 units and 2-3 of them as many as 5 units, all due to hardware failures. I had the YLoD on my 60GB PS3 while it was still under extended warranty and the unit was repaired, not replaced. I only purchased a 2nd PS3 because I wanted to keep Other OS on the 60GB unit and kinda wanted a new slim model for regular use anyway.
Last edited by xnonsuchx on 11/3/2011 3:39:46 AM
on the contrary, im still on my first 360 but have been through well ive lost count how many ps3s!
several YLODs, 2 bluray lasers, and 1 unit for some reason would not pick up my move controller.
on launch of the move i cam home hooked it up and i could use it with my USB cable but once i took it out it lost the connection.
i rang $ony and as usual they were clueless.
i took it back to EB, and tried 4 others same problem.
so i rang $ony again and again they were clueless, the best they could give me was send it in.
so i took it back to EB since i had extended warranty and they replaced it for me.
my 360 though, she has not skipped a beat!
only problems ive had with that was some DLC issues codes would not redeem but that got rectified and to say sorry and thank you for putting up with us they gave me a month gold sub for free!
i dont see $ony giving me anything as a apology, i had to f*cking sue them just to get my freaking PSN account back!
OMG, I also have this unicorn that i have not replaced in over a decade. How did it last so long you ask? I never touched it
What an utter crock of sh!t.
I mean, this guy lives in fantasy land. None of this happened, stop insulting our time and intelligence.
Shows again, the underlying strength of the PlayStation 3. It is only coming into its own now… and the games seem to be getting better and better. Incredible really.
Q!
"play.experience.enjoy"
I worked for the xbox so i know first hand why I never will buy one had to quit that job couldn't handle it anymore.
I am on my 2nd Ps3 but like I said to Sony I played the Crap out of my PS3 I don't remember it being off very much the slim is great I want to get my fat one fixed but I think I'm just going to get a nice case for it so I can put it on display kinda like this i waited for in the cold wet snow for 4 hours 🙂
ps3 60 gb fat. best console ever made imo. i even think it looks better. i'm not a fan of the slim's design. it strikes as cheap chinese knock off when compared to the shiny chromed out fat ps3.
i wonder how many here are on their second ps3's or more. i know you, bikersaint, blankline, jawk, highlander, world(maybe he mentioned having problems), xnon, kealan, and myself have all had at least 1 fail. what does that tell us? not much really except this has been a bad gen in terms of reliabilty. especially if you were an early adopter of hardware. i know those 60 gb are prone to ylod of death and blu ray drive failures but becuase of the bw compatabilty i keep replacing it. if another one dies on me i will replace it with the more reliable slim but i won't be happy about it.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 11/3/2011 8:30:44 AM
I find it ironic that the same people that complain about Microsoft's inflated console numbers have purchased multiple PS3s.
I've had 2 RROD on my Xbox 360 and both times I simply sent it to Microsoft and they either fixed it or sent me a refurbished one (which I don't think would count toward total units sold). I still find it shocking that so many 360 owners would physically go out and just buy a brand new console after theirs craps out. Microsoft extended the warranty to up to 3 full years for the RROD. Why wouldn't you call them to get it taken care of?
So far my PS3 slim has been great. Besides a recent hard drive failure that cost me $80 to replace (320GB) it runs smoothly and I've had no problems.
@jimmy
i could not agree more.
Jimmy, that warranty extension didn't happen until the 360 had been on the market for 2 FULL YEARS. Up until that point, gamers had to pay $150 to get it fixed or chances were, it wouldn't be fixed and they'd send you a crappy refurbished one, which would be dead in a week.
And the manufacturer's warranty is only 90 days. Therefore, a great many people simply opted to buy a new console and hope for the best. Also, let's not forget that the reliability was at its absolute worst during those first two years, and I firmly believe the only reason Microsoft never admitted it and never did anything about it was BECAUSE people kept buying new systems to artificially inflate sales.
Oh, that crappy refurb that Microsoft *SHIP* to the customer? That is counted by Microsoft as one of their shipments. So for every user who has had three replacements from MS, you can count 4 units, the original, and the three replacements – each counts separately in Microsoft's figures.
Ben,
I had purchased a 360 during the Fall of '05 and it broke the next summer. It was still under their one year warranty so I didn't have to pay a dime. What Microsoft did was extend the 1 year to 3 year for RROD-related problems. But its 3 years *AFTER* the new one you received. So my next RRoD came about 2.5 years after my first. I guess I got "lucky" for the timing of them, but I never had to pay anything out of pocket to get it fixed.
Highlander,
are you sure about that? Not to mention sometimes they fix the unit itself, like they did the first time for me. That surely doesn't count as a new unit. I also question them counting a refurbished unit as a new one.
Highlander, even if that's true, the fatty refurbished PS3s break down on people too. You'd have to be really lucky to make it last more than a year. There was so much report on this I just got myself a new Slim. That to me doesn't sound any better than refurbished 360s breaking down on people even if it's the first week. A console breaking down, is a console breaking down.
I don't care about the frequency of who breaks down more, but if its to the extent that it's "frequent" enough and notable, then it's a bit ignorant not to mention it when talking about broken 360s.
Quoted from article: "I don't know anyone who hasn't gone through at least three 360s since 2005"
This may not sound as bad, but personally "I honestly don't know anyone with an early PS3 model having to go through at least a second PS3 or bought a slim since 2006."
Not only that, a broken 360 is one thing, but a broken launch 60gb ps3? It's irreplaceable! Best console ever made thus far imo, and it doesn't last for many people. I thought mine being made in Japan would make a difference lol. This doesn't really relate to the article, but a broken original PS3 is more damaging personally in terms of cost, value, etc., if you know what I mean. A Slim is NOT a launch 60gb PS3.
I swear, the PS4 better not go through this again.
Jimmy, if they actually fix your unit (very unlikely now) then no, they don't count it. But yes, they do count refurbs shipped as units shipped.
Then I must be really lucky Daus, since I have 2, and only one of them failed after 4 and a half years of heavy use, before being replaced with a factory refurb. It's well documented that the failure rate of 360s is far higher than that of any other console on the market, the PS3 is not as reliable as the Wii overall, but is considerably more reliable than the 360, the two are incomparable in that regard.
@ daus:
just got 2 questions, 1) do you still have you phat3? and if so, does it still work? 2) do you own a 360 and if so, how many have you gone through?
I am not sure what PS3 i am on lol. My first 40GB lasted 2 years it got ylod. then i got a slim games kept freezing on it. I got 3 or 4 more slims but they kept turning off, i got another but i broke it as i was frustrated with black ops lol. Slim i have now since january is working fine, ive been unlucky with PS3's though i shouldn't have broke 1. My m8 had PS3 60GB got ylod he got slim, but just last year he got xbox i dno why as he only plays cod4 on it, wen he could have just played cod4 on his PS3 lol
Last edited by Kealan94 on 11/3/2011 8:13:09 AM
Where's all the outrage about Microsoft reporting units shipped and not sold? If Sony reported units shipped, the nerd rage on the internet would be unbearable. I guess Microsoft gets a free pass for being a US based company. The bias in this country(USA)is downright embarrassing!
Last edited by Evil Incarnate on 11/3/2011 8:33:18 AM
It is a well known fact that the xbox 360 has had in its lifetime a higher fail rate than the PS3. Just because you personally are on your 3rd or 4th PS3 does not justify you implying that the PS3 has a similar fail rate to the xbox 360. I don't think I am far out on the limb in stating that more xbox gamers have purchased new 360s to replace failed ones than PS3 gamers have purchased new PS3s for the same reason. I can't prove it, but logic tells me that I am right.
It is also a well known fact that the PS3 sells better than the 360 except for in NA and the UK.
As both, Highlander & myself, have said in the past, the PS3 has had to have already surpassed the 360 in "actual" sales.
You have to remember that many 360 gamers are on their umpteenth machine due to RROD's, that M$ gave tons of 360's away at various shows, such as the Jimmy Fallon Show, Oprah, & the Ellen show, gave tons of 360's away at all the Girls & Boys Clubs of America, gave tons of 360's away at the Kinect launch in Times Square, plus M$ also did numerous contests, such as the huge Burger King contest where xbox's were also given away daily for months.
————
As for my own machines…..
I never bought a 360 till I got the COD MW2 bundled 320 GB console, & so far it's still going strong(although it's fan sounds like a 12-passenger hovercraft at times), but it did came with a 3 year warranty, so I'll just ship it out for M$ repairs if it does start acting skittle-ish.
As for my PS3's, the first one I bought was just a "used" 60 gigger from GS & it lasted about 10 months before the disc drive started making grinding noises when taking the disc in or out. Since it was still under my optionally-bought 12 warranty, I just swapped it out for another 60 GB'er.
I believe this 2nd one died a bit faster due to all my constant marathon gaming sessions without any real breaks or cool-down periods, so I now consider that to be at least 50% my own fault
(This one was the one that the USPS postal gorilla's smashed, thereby rendering it useless, while in transit to GopherMods for a more minor $69.99 red blinking light repair).
Since then, I've bought a new 320 GB Slim Move bundle PS3(and slapped a 1-T HD into it, plus I've also added Sony's extra 2 years warranty onto this PS3 too, for a total of 3 years on it).
And I've recently re-bought myself another 60 GB Phat Mistress, but I learned my lesson about buying PS3's used, so this time, I bought it as a GS "REFURB" instead(FYI:GS no longer sells Sony-branded refurbs).
Plus I also added an extra 2 year warranty to GS'e original 90 day warranty(I've also swapped out this 60GB'ers HD with a phatter 750 HD too).
And just to make sure everything's good to go, I also added additional 2 year warranties on both of the HD's, themselves.
Last edited by BikerSaint on 11/3/2011 10:01:37 AM
that "minor" red blinking light repair you mention is in fact a ylod. the first time you turn it on after a ylod it will shows a yellow light. subsequent attempts blink red. the light does not stay yellow for long. mine did the exact same thing. i noticed highlander says the "summer heat" claimed one of his ps3's. you say a"marathon gaming" session killed one yours. how many 360's were killed by summer heat or marathon gaming sessions? i'd argue a console that can't take the summer heat or a marathon gaming session was poorly built. you are on your 3rd ps3 if i counted correctly. so am i. you are wise to have extended warranties. especially if it's a fatty.
now this is just my small opinion but i too find it ironic people that have had multiple ps3s fail complain about microsoft's inflated numbers. i used to complain as well until i replaced 2 ps3's myself. after that i felt like a hypocrite whenever i would want to mention the 360's hardware problems. so to be fair i always mention my own ps3 hardware troubles when on the subject of hardware reliability.
Excelsior, the world exists beyond your own experience.
It doesn't matter how many PS3s YOU replaced. It doesn't matter how many your friend replaced. What matters is the overall numbers, as you tried to say above. Why are you saying it's all about the sales numbers and nothing else when it comes to giving Microsoft its just due, but won't go with the simple sold : returned defective ratios for the two systems?
The 360 is still around 20% for most retailers; that's 1 in every 5 360s that comes back dead. It was at a catastrophic 33% for four major retailers in the US during its first two years. The PS3 never got above 10%, and that was only in the first year; it has since been at a very normal 3-4%.
Stop trying to say the 360 is somehow just as reliable as the PS3. It has never been true and will never be true.
Last edited by Ben Dutka PSXE on 11/3/2011 10:43:23 AM
you are correct the world does exist outside of my experience. that's why i mentioned other peoples experiences here. we have 4 people on this small thread on a small gaming site that have admitted to being on their 3rd or more ps3!! i admitted that does not really tell us much except this gen has been a bad gen for reliability. at least it was for myself, but your are correct that's only my experience. well my experience and some of the others on this thread. it's not official or anything. it sure looks like an unreliable gen of hd hardware from a distance.
i never said the 360 is as reliable. you are putting words in my mouth. i just find ironic that people that are admittedly on their third ps3's are complaining about broken 360's. that's all. i am sure the 360 is more unreliable. i believe you when you say that. the 360 is much more unreliable. especially the early 360's.
Last edited by Excelsior1 on 11/3/2011 11:14:49 AM
Biker, MS counts units shipped – including refurbs shipped to customers. Sony counts only units sold. I keep pointing out that the actual absolute number of XBL subscriptions lags Xbox 360 unit sales by more than 10 million. It should be a 1:1 ratio because you can only update the firmware on the 360 via XBL. That right there illustrates a 20% or so hole in the 360's shipment numbers. If the units are shipped and with customers, why do they not show up as XBL subscriptions? The clear and inescapable conclusion is that there are a lot of dead and banned units, plus a lot of 'ghost' shipments caused by counting refurbs shipped to customers. All in all, if I were a game publisher, I would be very wary of MS' quoted shipments and supposed market domination.
Excelsior, please take note.
1. i agree the 360's numbers are artificially inflated. 2. i agree there are more dead 360's than ps3's. 3. official console sales are what the industry tracks. 4. i will put an asterisk by ms's artificially inflated numbers but no i don't consider sony to be in second place until they officially surpass ms in total consoles sold. that's just how i feel about it. it may very well happen soon. 5. the 360 is more unreliable than the ps3. is anything i said there that bad really?
Official consoles sales are what NPD and other self appointed market analysis groups track. The Industry tracks sales of games, consoles, accessories and subscriptions. The industry tracks these other things because they make their money on things other than simply console hardware sales, and because these other things indicate how active a console's user base is.
Industry watchers like NPD are not the industry.
Excelsior1,
Nope, my PS3 never YLOD'ed, it went right into the red blinking light, which according to Goghermods repair shop is not the same as the much worse YLOD, hence the cheaper $69.99 for my repairs, compared to their more expensive $139.99 for the YLOD.
Anyways, I believe you missed my whole point on my 360 & PS3 repairs too.
Notice I said I bought the "NEWER" 360 that had the much smaller newer chipset & that's why I haven't had any problems with it yet(but the fan is starting to sound louder lately).
And I have no doubts had I bought my 360 when they first came out, I would've had to trash it long ago due to RROD due to it being a faulty machine , and with only a 1 year warranty.
And that's exactly why I waited soooo long in order to get a newer & smaller designed chip-setted 360
Also, you also seemed to neglect that I said I stupidly bought my 1st 2 PS3's "USED", therefore they could very well been neglected or abused consoles. and both had different problems, one just a minor grinding sound as the disc tray opened & closed, and the other machine, an actual red blinking light failure
Which was exactly why I bought a REFURB instead this time around, at leasr this one's been tested, and/or fixed & it's been certified as an A-OK machine
(And yes, I trust refurbs, as a majority of my gaming consoles are indeed refurbs & not one has ever given me a bit of trouble).
As for my marathons, some of them lasted all the way up to 36 hours without any cool-down periods or major breaks which started my fan to runs louder & faster as time went on, so like I said, it was partly my own fault of ignoring that which led to my red blinking light. And like I said before, I didn't know if the owner (or multiple owners) before me neglected or abused the machine before me either.
Soooo, all that has to be taken in consideration too, in my case.