Well maybe if they actually develop a character that people can relate to instead of some one-dimensional ice queen...
NPD Sales Results for March 2014 [Up4: FFX/X-2 HD]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Well maybe if they actually develop a character that people can relate to instead of some one-dimensional ice queen...
Phoenician_Viking
Banned
SE should give the most attention to its western brands. TR and Hitman should be massive if done correctly.
Yes, that would help. But I don't know if they are going to blame the failure on her writing/portrayal or on her gender.
I really would like to see what you define as a 'flop'.
Square's characters (baring a few exceptions) have always been prety one dimensional.
It's hardly something new. Square's writers aren't at Falcom's level quite yet
speculawyer
Member
He is gonna help Zynga just like he helped Microsoft.
pokeystaples
Banned
I know Amazon is just a small cog, but this is the second time NPD's have released and that little green arrow has appeared next to the PS4 after not being there for a day or two. NPD bump? I find it interesting.
Metalingus5150
Member
PS4 outselling the Xbone was worth it just for the meltdowns I have seen. lol
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
This is the single worst thing about Xbox today. The money isn't really the issue - most people will pay for Gold because of the multiplayer anyhow. The issue is that continuing to change for what is essentially negative added value (removed functionality behind paywall) Microsoft continue to demonstrate a complete lack of respect for their customer base. They can bring the most games in history to an E3 and have Phil Spencer be infinitely better than Mehdi/Mattrick but as long as they keep the media paywall, it shows they truly haven't changed one bit.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
How does Daisuke Watanabe still have a job? His writing is on a fan fiction level.Square's characters (baring a few exceptions) have always been prety one dimensional.
It's hardly something new. Square's writers aren't at Falcom's level quite yet
brandonh83
Banned
So are those good sales numbers for FFX? Is it enough to sway them into doing FFXII HD?
Luckily they have had other female characters in the past that were just fine.
Neuromancer
Member
MS may never be able to recover due that one week lead.
Stock is improving. Some cities might have stock issues here and there but its regularly being restocked. LA and NY have them in stock right now at all Best Buy's but they were mostly out of stock last week. My city has them in every store now for the past 2 weeks. Best Buy doesn't stack them out. You have to ask. Most stores are suppose to put out a sign when its in stock right when you walk into the store
I don't even know what MS could realistically do at E3 to change their image that much. I'm guessing we'll see a lot of multiplats , maybe some Halo 5 footage. I think they might show off a few new kinect games.
I still think they'll cut the price and take Kinect out by August.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
XHD's JP sales are more in the 650k region. There are digital + Individual SKU data buried in depths of one of the many Media create threads.
Also creamsugar who is a trusted source states that the 208 is just for one version. There was also another source that states the sales were 4:1 PS3:Vita. So it's likely in the 260k region.
andromeduck
Member
and right now they're not even taking a loss on hardware so there really is no excuse
speculawyer
Member
Software numbers are dismal. The number one title is viewed as a flop.
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
Numbers weren't quite as high as I expected, but still decent nonetheless. Xbox One numbers are a bit troubling given all the promotions and big releases for the month and it sold less on a weekly basis than February. That sort of tells me that a lot of February sales were in anticipation of Titanfall, and that the January sales may more accurately reflect the longer term trend. It'll be interesting to see how Xbox One does going forward.
I'm thinking we'll see a steep decline for Xbox One over the coming months moving into the fall, whereas PS4 will only see mild declines that approximate the seasonal trends we normally expect.
Good sales for Titanfall itself, but you have to wonder just how much EA is shooting themselves in the foot for that exclusivity deal. Then again, Microsoft paid for a ton of bundled units as well as a massive marketing campaign, so maybe they made out like bandits and the only real company that lost out in the deal was Microsoft, which didn't see much of a boost for their system which is performing below their expectations. The series received a lot of attention due to the exclusivity from Microsoft, so perhaps this is a good thing for the series whenever Titanfall 2 comes to PS4 and can elevate the series to much larger numbers. However, unless there are major improvements to the sequel, I can see the series getting lost in the mix to genuine next-gen online titles.
InFamous: SS did really strongly as well...500K is for the physical sales, and 10-20% digital sales would push it to 550-600K, which is basically elevating the series to Uncharted 2 levels of success for its first month, and about double what the previous title sold. Well deserved for Sucker Punch, who are poised to be compared now to the likes of ND and Sony Santa Monica in their studio arsenal.
I'm thinking we'll see a steep decline for Xbox One over the coming months moving into the fall, whereas PS4 will only see mild declines that approximate the seasonal trends we normally expect.
Good sales for Titanfall itself, but you have to wonder just how much EA is shooting themselves in the foot for that exclusivity deal. Then again, Microsoft paid for a ton of bundled units as well as a massive marketing campaign, so maybe they made out like bandits and the only real company that lost out in the deal was Microsoft, which didn't see much of a boost for their system which is performing below their expectations. The series received a lot of attention due to the exclusivity from Microsoft, so perhaps this is a good thing for the series whenever Titanfall 2 comes to PS4 and can elevate the series to much larger numbers. However, unless there are major improvements to the sequel, I can see the series getting lost in the mix to genuine next-gen online titles.
InFamous: SS did really strongly as well...500K is for the physical sales, and 10-20% digital sales would push it to 550-600K, which is basically elevating the series to Uncharted 2 levels of success for its first month, and about double what the previous title sold. Well deserved for Sucker Punch, who are poised to be compared now to the likes of ND and Sony Santa Monica in their studio arsenal.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
Made a thread (that was locked) attempting at giving a rough estimate of XHD's WW sales. I believe it has exceeded 1 mil worldwide.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=804117
Need help finding the JP data tho.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=804117
Need help finding the JP data tho.
The only "existing data" you used was the sales figures and you even got that wrong
The FF XIII "franchise" is the very definition of a flop. Compare FFVII/VIII/IX sales (ww) to FFXII/XIII-2/XII-3 nd check for yourself. Not to mention how insanely more expensive they were to develop.
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
A one million seller new IP is a flop now? Wut.
If SE is too stupid to realize Lightning is insufferable as a character absent her gender, then they've got issues.
Frankly, they need someone on the team that "gets" the whole Ivalice vibe from FFXII and put them on something. At this point it's the only design aesthetic I can stomach from the company.
Back to the actual charts. I'm glad to see Infamous:SS up there at number 2, even though I did feel it was a bit flat from what I remember of Infamous 2 (I really missed the "boss like" bigger enemies that were in the streets of I2). Hopefully, SS sales will get SP some more staff to better plan and execute more varied mission variety in the next game as I feel they've pretty much nailed the design process for making various powers fun to play. I'd also prefer they go back to a fictional city that they can make more distinctive - I felt Seattle was a little less memorable compared to the first two games that had multiple main landmarks that helped make navigating the city easier.
infiniteheteroskdasticity
Member
There never was an excuse. Ever. Its like Apple charging you to use the internet on your iphone. Its malicious, stupid and ultimately counterproductive.
I'm surprised that the PS4 is ahead again. I don't think this means that this is over for the Xbone though, it just shows what the Xbone audience is and the guys at Microsoft are serving them.
They stated that they are 60% ahead of the 360 at the same point in time and the 360 is considered successfull. The PS4 is also way ahead of the PS3 at the same point in time. Given this trend and the vaccum left behind by the Wii and WiiU, would this be a partial shift of the more "casual" audience over to PS4 and the wide support of developers and games? This "casual" audience also isn't neccisarially the online only tethered audience as well following the flood of "bad news" from last year, so it could just be a lot of pent up desire for change over time combined with simply following the current popular trend and we could see by the end of the generation a general rebound (outside of japan) in the console market since the PS2/Wii into "normal" territories instead of odd fluctuations of hit gimmick devices.
This said, I also think that if the Xbone can keep selling like it is, it should be considered a successful console even though it is in "last" place until Nintendo decides to do something different again. No real word on that yet though.
They stated that they are 60% ahead of the 360 at the same point in time and the 360 is considered successfull. The PS4 is also way ahead of the PS3 at the same point in time. Given this trend and the vaccum left behind by the Wii and WiiU, would this be a partial shift of the more "casual" audience over to PS4 and the wide support of developers and games? This "casual" audience also isn't neccisarially the online only tethered audience as well following the flood of "bad news" from last year, so it could just be a lot of pent up desire for change over time combined with simply following the current popular trend and we could see by the end of the generation a general rebound (outside of japan) in the console market since the PS2/Wii into "normal" territories instead of odd fluctuations of hit gimmick devices.
This said, I also think that if the Xbone can keep selling like it is, it should be considered a successful console even though it is in "last" place until Nintendo decides to do something different again. No real word on that yet though.
Price cuts never "help". Essentially sales at the lower price point replace sales lost from the higher price point. Steady sales will remain steady with a price cut. Falling sales will continue to fall with a price cut.
Honestly with the system still selling in the 200-300K range I disagree with everyone calling for a $350 Kinect-less announcement at E3.. That is to say MS needs to accept second place at this point and just stick to their pricing plan. Even dropping Kinect... I mean why? Get rid of the one thing that truly differentiates you from your competition? So you are left with a box that costs just as much but performs worse than the competition? It doesn't make sense.
MS' best option right now is to stay the course. It's not a bad course. They aren't really doing anything wrong. Yeah their dreams of being number one in the US are gone, but does that really matter if they can hit and maintain profitability for the business?
Fortunately for MS this is the same thing their mobile division is now starting to realize. Not trying to lead but still being a modest and profitable part of a particular industry sure as hell beats trying to lead/control that industry while failing miserably and losing money hand over fist.
Guys, can we please stop trumpeting this?
1) the 360 was severely supply constrained for months after release. the xbone was not.
2) last-gen lasted for 8 years. the PS2 gen lasted for 5 years. Gamers were very anxious to upgrade this time around.
3) when you remove the launch/holiday numbers (aka 2013) from xbone, it's 2014 numbers right now aren't great. Not Wii U bad, but not much better. 2013 just showed there were ~3M 360 owners who were tired of last-gen and dying to get their hands on a new generation xbox. 2014 is showing us that once those gamers got their systems, the market for xbone is much smaller than it was for 360.
andromeduck
Member
well it could work like phone contracts - I'm not saying I'm for it or that I agree with it but simply that that even that excuse isn't available
I mean if they launched it as XB1 at $400 at launch or $450 with 4 months free XBL one could at least they could make the argument
KoopaTheCasual
Junior Member
I mentioned this before, but you can't look at raw figures. You have to look at sales trends, and the most alarming is that the XB1 sold worse week for week in March, than it did in February. Titanfall, aggressive bundling, and strong discounts couldn't stop the drop off in sales. It sets a really really bad precedent, especially heading into the summer where the XB1 lineup is pretty dry. MS needs to reinvigorate their platform support at E3, or else the trend will only get worse
The last numbers from what we can see was 487,329 for japan.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=759815
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=763832
Dragonborn
Member
What's worse is Halo 5 might be 2015 which is just to late. WW by that time the PS4 will likely be 10 million+ ahead and increasing
I'm sure they will just show trailers of everything they've already teased and maybe 2 NEW games but I totally agree with you. I don't expect any "get up and go get an XB1 "RIGHT NOW" announcements."
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
FFXHD out selling lightening returns in all territories makes me giddy as a school girl.
So good. Lol
So good. Lol
Different markets and times is all I really need to say. Any brand selling over 10 million titles should never be considered a flop, especially since all three games use the same assets.
MaulerX
Member
They need to convert as many current 360 owners as possible to the XB1 and one way to do it imo is to somehow manage and announce some sort of backwards compatibility (even if it's just for Arcade games) and lower the price. And focus on their exclusive heavy hitters (new IP or otherwise).
CadetMahoney
Member
MS lost the gen before it started on price and grossly underpowered hardware.
metalslimer
Member
Of course.....
Compared to the way MS was advertising the game as the 2nd coming of Jesus? Yeah, it didn't sell the way MS wanted it to.
Stella looks kind of like an ice queen. Which could be OK if SE can come up with a catchy musical number.
So MS expected it to sell to OVER 50% of the userbase? That's insanity.
Syphon Filter
Member
wtf lightning sold less than 200k?
MaulerX
Member
How can you actually say that? It's weaker than the PS4, sure. But that doesn't make it "grossly underpowered". And of course it's too early.
AlphaDragoon
Member
Ding ding ding, give the girl a prize.
PS4 outselling Xbone on the launch month of Titanfall is legitimately surprising to me. MS needs to get their house in order before the momentum becomes something majorly bad for them over the months.
Syphon Filter
Member
I think the game sold well for the installed base but it did not move systems like MS hoped i bet. I am thinking MS doesn't even try to get the sequel exclusive.
MS expected it to actually move a significant amount of consoles.
andromeduck
Member
We're already at about 7M in 6 months - I'd be surprised if we're not around 15 M by end of year - possibly even 20 if they can boost production and kill it in the holidays.
I have a feeling by the start of the holiday season it will have become blatantly clear even to the average consumer the PS4 is the the console to be on this generation for games and when that happens it'll be like PS2 all over again.
SolsticeZero
Banned
EA probably wouldn't even let them exclusive it with the way the competition has been selling.