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PSN leaderboards point to top game downloads for January
Gamasutra wasn't able to get its hands on year-to-date PSN sales data directly from Sony, but it has come up with some interesting conclusions based on an unscientific look at ... leaderboard stats. The site broke down January's new releases, as well as a few other games that sold well last month, and the big debut of the month appears to be Hustle Kings, which added over 39,000 players to its ranks. Assault Heroes only picked up 754 new players, but given that it's a game that actually came out in 2006 on the Xbox, that's not a big surprise. PSN also offered up its "10 for '10" sale in January, and Uno came away from that event with a whopping 87,000 new players on its leaderboards. Braid and Critter Crunch also did well, adding 20,000 and 17,000 new players to their leaderboards, respectively. Keep in mind that these numbers are far from official, and not complete anyway -- Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgment, Thexder Neo and Matt Hazard were released on PSN last month, and none of those games are included in this analysis, due to unreliable or nonexistent leaderboards. But it is probably fair to say that PSN had a pretty good month in January, especially with the games featured in its "10 for '10" sale. More of that, please.
That $499 iPad only costs Apple $270; Wall Street analyst is elated
Apple is well-known in the consumer electronics world for relatively large margins on products. According to a bill of materials (BOM) breakdown on the iPad recently performed by BroadPoint AmTech analyst Brian Marshall, the iPad should be able to add a sizable chunk of money to Apple's bottom line. For the 16GB Wi-Fi iPad (US$499), Marshall found that the total BOM cost was $270.50. Manufacturing adds $10 to the cost, and warranty service costs add up to $20. In case you're wondering, the flash memory and the aluminum case both cost about $25, and the Apple A4 processor adds just $15 to the total cost of the iPad. While the entry-level iPad may appear to be a cash cow for Apple, the 32GB and 64GB Wi-Fi models add even more margin to the mix. The 32GB model costs only $25.50 more than the 16GB, but the suggested retail price is $100 more. Apple will really make money on the 64GB model, which costs $76.50 more than the 16GB device but sells for $200 more. Marshall had a chance to use an iPad, which led him to believe that "...this will be another grand slam product for Apple. The ergonomics and the 'media' experience of the device stood out the most to us." His original estimate was for Apple to sell about 2.2 million units in 2010. He's now expecting sales to be much higher. As an example, he feels that if Apple sells seven million units, calendar year earnings per share for Apple would rise from $12 to over $13. Marshall is definitely bullish on Apple, having rated AAPL a "buy" with a target price of $264 per share. Considering the trashing that Apple and most other tech stocks have taken recently, the company has long way to go -- and a lot of iPads to sell - before reaching that target price. [via Hardware Central]
First iPad sales estimates: four million this year, double that in 2011
Even though the device won't be released for another two months, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray has been quick to revise his sales estimates for the iPad. His former estimate of 1.9 million units sold in the first 12 months was based on an estimated average price tag of $600; now that we know the iPad is priced much lower than that, Munster has revised his estimate accordingly. With the official pricing revealed, Munster now projects iPad sales of 3-4 million units in the first twelve months and double that amount in 2011, which would generate $4.6 billion in revenue for Apple next year. Munster doesn't think the iPad will cannibalize Mac sales, however. "The gadget is a premium mobile device, not a computer," Munster believes, and goes on to say that "consumers looking for an affordable portable computer will likely stick with the MacBook lineup." Munster thinks it far more likely that the iPad will cannibalize sales of the iPod touch, and has revised his sales estimate of that device downward by 1.8 million units for 2010. I can tell you at least one person who won't be part of that 3-4 million sales for the iPad: me. When we at TUAW posted about our dreams for the then-unnamed tablet last August, I said, "In order for me to get really excited about an iTablet, it would have to be more than a gap-filler between the iPhone and the MacBook. It would have to be revolutionary, a device that does something neither existing product is able to do." Based on what I've seen about the iPad so far, though, the device seems to be something targeted toward people who don't already have that particular setup and are missing either an iPhone/iPod touch or a MacBook. That might be exactly what 3-4 million people are looking for this year, and maybe 8 million more next year, but it's not something that suits my own computing needs in any way. What do you think? Are you planning on getting an iPad and joining Munster's legions? Let us know in the comments.
Munster: Apple will sell more than 36 million iPhones worldwide in 2010
The wizard of tech on Wall Street, Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, is bullish on AAPL. Not only does the senior research analyst (who looks nothing like our artistic portrait at right) project that the company will sell 36 million iPhones in 2010, but he believes that the number is conservative for international sales and doesn't take into account any expansion to other U.S. cell carriers -- Verizon, for instance. Munster's prognostications were published in a note to investors this morning, where he noted that this will be the first full year of sales with new carriers in the U.K., Canada, and France, and also the first full year of sales in China. Munster also believes that a new iPhone model will arrive around the usual June - July time frame, and that will drive sales as well. While the estimates seem rather optimistic, Munster says that his models are actually quite conservative, particularly when international sales are taken into account. For example, the Piper Jaffray models show that AT&T alone will sell 15.8 million iPhones to their customer base of 82.5 million customers, while a composite figure for three Russian carriers shows 1.8 million iPhones being sold to a combined base of 160 million subscribers. Looking ahead for calendar year 2011, Munster sees a worldwide total sales figure of 48.5 million iPhones, once again based on a model that he considers conservative. [via AppleInsider]
Apple expected to beat the Street in September quarter
We recently reported on Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster's expectations of phenomenal iPhone sales over the next year, and now he's back with more happy Apple news!As reported on Macsimum News, Munster looked at preliminary July sales results from NPD Group, did some extrapolation, and came up with numbers showing that both iPod and Mac sales could beat Wall Street's expectations for the quarter ending September 30, 2008.Munster's prognostications show Apple selling 2.7 - 2.9 million Macs, which is up 28% year-over-year from the same period in 2007 and beating Wall Street's expectations of 2.65 million units. He also expects iPod sales to hit 10.7 - 11.2 million units, which is slightly above Wall Street's 10.8 million unit guesstimate on the high end. If Apple happens to hit the high end of these estimates (2.9 million Macs, 11.2 million iPods, 4.1 million iPhones, and a 32% gross margin), Munster calculates that Apple could post earnings per share in the range of $1.19, much better than the Street estimate of $1.11.TUAW will definitely be following this monster news during the earnings call in October. [via Macsimum News]
Asia-Pacific Sony VP suggests Blu-ray Discs will outsell DVDs by 2011
Gettin' antsy, are we Sony? Barely a month after the Entertainment Merchants Association pumped out a report suggesting that Blu-ray Disc sales could exceed that of DVDs by 2012, along comes a bullish Sony VP from the Asia-Pacific region to state otherwise. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment's Tim Meade has asserted that the "sales volume of BD movie discs may surpass that of DVDs in 2011," following market reports in the US that indicate that the "global sales ratio of Blu-ray movie discs to DVDs will rise to an estimated 40:60 in 2010." Can't knock a guy for being hopeful, right?
EA thinks PS3 will outsell Xbox 360 this year
If you've been following the goings on at Electronic Arts in regards to the PlayStation 3, you're likely come away a bit perplexed. It seems that one minute, EA is disappointed with Sony's console, and the other minute they're praising it. Well, it looks like EA woke up on the right side of the bed this morning as it's still saying some pretty nice things about the PS3.EA recently released estimates on how it believes this year's hardware sales will shape up in North America and Europe, and while it thinks the Wii will outsell everything, it pushed the PS3 past the Xbox 360, claiming a respectable second place. In total, EA says the PS3 will push 9.5 to 11 million units compared to only 6 to 8 million from the Xbox 360.Moreover, according to EA's estimates, the PS3 will dominate the Xbox 360 in Europe, with the PS3 selling between 5 and 6 million units, and the Xbox 360 managing a paltry 1.5 to 2.5 million. We should all keep in mind, however, that these are just estimates and should by no means be taken as fact. But we did hear that some top EA execs had the Giants over the Patriots in the Super Bowl, so who knows?
EA predicts PS3 will outsell Xbox 360 in 2008
Following the release of its latest financial results, EA has shared its estimates for predicted console hardware sales in North America and Europe in 2008. Though the Wii's continued domination seems obvious in even the murkiest of crystal balls, the publisher sides with Sir Howard Stringer's recent observation that the PlayStation 3 has departed the woods and setsEA sees the PlayStation 3 selling between 9.5 million and 11.5 million units, compared to the Xbox 360's 6 to 8 million units. Sony's system would take the lead in Europe (a view shared by SCEE chief David Reeves), where it's expected to sell between 5 million and 6 million, well over the Xbox 360's 1.5 million to 2.5 million. Towering above both would be Nintendo's Wii, with estimates placing its sales between 12 million and 14 million units.Only time will tell how accurate EA's predictions are and whether the PS3 will start contributing more heavily to the publisher's bottom line.
How much money Blizzard is really making from 10 million subscribers
An article on Playfuls.com (which I found via Incgamers) tried to take the news about Blizzard's ten million subscribers from earlier this week, and suss out just how much money they're making. They do what most people would do, which is multiply their $15 subscription rate per month times ten million, which would mean that Blizzard is raking in $150 million a month, or about $1.7 billion a year is gross profits.Except that's not right. Because while North American and European players pay about $15 a month, many Chinese and Asian subscribers don't pay monthly-- they pay hourly, at a much lower rate than what other players around the world pay. With 2.5 million and 2 million subscribers in North American and Europe respectively, Blizzard is still making $810 million a year (not to mention the cost to purchase the original game and the expansion pack, which at this point is probably negligible at this point given how much retailers like to take out) in those places. But that leaves 5.5 million players in other countries, and their payment plans aren't as rigidly defined.Of course, obviously these are all estimates as well, and they're gross, too-- you have to remember that Blizzard pays a huge group of people money to keep up content, customer service, promotion, and administration, as well as maintenance on what must be a huge number of servers (each realm has at least three or four servers running on it, for each continent and all the instances). And Blizzard has other income coming in as well-- licensing fees, fees from The9 (the company that actually runs WoW in China, and likely collects subscription fees there), transfer fees from players, and so on.Don't get me wrong-- Blizzard is still making a lot of net money on the deal, easily into the hundred millions. But it's not as easily as multiplying what you're paying by ten million, because that's just not the case.
