Why is the Xbox One sales volume less than 40 units during the bleak "Double Eleven"?

Since Singles’ Day became a shopping festival, Double 11 has become a “carnival” for many consumers who are keen on online shopping. Consumers often “bet” on the most important products they want to buy on this day, so for most merchants, Double 11 is also a good time to “boost” sales.

However, as the first home game console sold through formal channels after the game console industry was "thawed" in the Chinese market, Microsoft Xbox One's performance in this golden shopping season was disappointing.

On November 12, Microsoft's Tmall flagship store sales data showed that the non-KINECT version of Xbox One, priced at RMB 3,199, sold less than 40 units, while the seemingly more cost-effective KINECT package version, priced at RMB 3,799, sold less than 300 units. Note! The statistics here are still the monthly sales of these two products. In comparison, the Tmall Magic Box, also a device for TVs, sold more than 170,000 units within 24 hours on the "Double Eleven" day.

Why is the Xbox One selling so poorly in China? This is a question worth pondering.

Domestic gaming culture is immature, and gaming consoles are still a niche market

The first and foremost reason is that the current domestic market is not a good market for selling game consoles.

There is no doubt that game consoles are the mainstream in the foreign game market, otherwise Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox would not have the confidence to be replaced from generation to generation. Especially for professional game enthusiasts, a more dedicated gaming experience and a large number of exclusive games will make playing games on game consoles more enjoyable than on PC.

In China, the market environment is completely different. The "Little Overlord" was indeed popular in the past, and many consumers did buy "parallel import" game equipment, but PC games and mobile games are still the main battlefields for domestic users. Even many well-made 3A-level game masterpieces are far less popular in China than online games with simple themes. Therefore, it is no wonder that when Xbox One officially debuted at ChinaJoy this year, its limelight was completely "killed" by ShowGirls.

On the other hand, spending the price of a high-end smartphone on a device that mainly features gaming functions does not meet the purchasing intentions of most current consumers, even if a few games worth hundreds of yuan are given away randomly. In Microsoft's eyes, the Xbox One, which was reduced by 500 yuan during the "Double Eleven" event, is "losing money to gain publicity." For teenagers who want to have professional gaming equipment, they can convince their parents to spend 4,000 to 5,000 yuan to replace a computer or buy a mobile phone for them, but can they get their parents to invest more than 3,000 yuan to buy a game console for them?

Region locked, distorted, licensed Xbox One itself is not cost-effective

Of course, most consumers are reluctant to buy the licensed version of Xbox One, and problems with the machine itself are a big factor.

The issue of region lock has been discussed repeatedly since the launch of the Xbox One in China. This result is actually inevitable under the current social and industry system.

In fact, even though paying to play genuine games is not a high consumption threshold, the fact that the machines are region-locked and the games cannot be played unless they enter China is obviously unacceptable to players, because this means that although we have been looking forward to the licensed game consoles, they are only semi-finished products.

In addition, Xbox One previously had titles such as "English learning machine", OMG, game consoles are really not cool at all in China.

Don't worry, there's still PS4

Although Microsoft's Xbox One is still the only one that stands out in the formal channels in the current domestic game console market, and its overall quality is far from comparable to a group of domestic game consoles that use Android platform mobile games to make a small profit, Sony's PS4 is about to come.

The Shanghai Inspection and Quarantine Bureau recently disclosed that it has conducted port entry verification on more than 20,000 game consoles that have newly obtained national 3C certification certificates imported into the free trade zone. Two gaming devices, Sony's PS4 and PS Vita, have successively obtained national 3C certification. At the same time, some netizens have directly exposed photos of the outer packaging boxes of the licensed PS4 game console. Combined with the previous news disclosed by Sony that the Shanghai packaging factory will start production in December, the licensed PS4 is getting closer and closer to domestic players.

In the international market, in this battle of next-generation game consoles, Sony PS4 has an overwhelming advantage over Microsoft Xbox One. On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that the shipments of its Xbox One game console will soon exceed 10 million units, while Sony PS4 reached this number as early as August this year. According to statistics, in the past 9 months, Sony PS4's total sales have exceeded 13.5 million units.

The choice of gamers is not without reason. The PS4 is more attractive than the Xbox One in terms of performance and appearance. If game consoles entering the domestic market are inevitably subject to "genetic recombination" and price changes, consumers will be more willing to wait and choose better products.

This year, Microsoft officially expects Xbox One sales in China to be one million units. However, based on the current situation, 38 units are sold in 11 days, or 80 units a month. If Xbox One wants to reach Microsoft's goal this year, it will have to start selling from the Northern Song Dynasty, which would take more than 1,040 years. For a game console, how many generations is this?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.