October 2015 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes November 10th

freefornow said:
525k
feel free to point and laugh

20 days on sale with positive WOM
Black friday discount deals
And i feel that this will be "value added" to many an XB1 deal that surfaces on BF (I am assuming that games value added to official bundles get counted by NPD)
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So far, there are no deals on Tomb Raider on Black Friday. You can get the Tomb Raider bundle for $50 off at Best Buy on Black Friday ($50 off all Xbox One Consoles), but Bundles dont count in NPD Sales. Also, the bundles are limited to Best Buy and Microsoft Store. I just wanted to point that out.


However, Bundles will probably count in Microsoft PR when they announce "The Biggest Launch in Tomb Raider History" or "The Biggest Launch in Tomb Raider History on Next Gen Consoles."
 
Just a reminder folks, tomorrow is NPD, just incase you want to take the day off for what could be a legendary NPD!


Never mind looks like it will be a just another normal NPD. Lol
 
Mikey Jr. said:
Man, this npd is going to be fucking fun. Kind of hoping ps4 wins just for the shit show that will follow.
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You will get a shit show from Halo 5 numbers alone more than likely

Also I'm sticking to my 200k to 300k TR prediction. Leaning towards the lower end of that. 360 version will sell practically nothing in the grand scheme of things
 
ethomaz said:
Bomb Raider will do less than 200k in NPD.
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Which, even if it sold that level, would make it a top 20 game despite being released on only 2 platforms.

In the current market, some of you cats need to rethink what you consider "bomb" sales levels. Pacakged games just ain't selling like they used to.
 
Death2494 said:
Splatoon, smash, and mario maker... Nintendo has some of the best non-bundled attachment ratios on consoles period.
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but these have all been bundled, no?

serversurfer said:
Why would it still be so expensive?
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IIRC, the x1 apu is larger and runs at a higher freq which reduces yields and requires more cooling and power hardware. The board is also larger and more complex. The console also weighs more and takes up more space, so shipping is also affected.
 
CosmicQueso said:
Which, even if it sold that level, would make it a top 20 game despite being released on only 2 platforms.

In the current market, some of you cats need to rethink what you consider "bomb" sales levels. Pacakged games just ain't selling like they used to.
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Given its likely budget I would classify that as bomb. It would be near The Order territory.

And there are plenty of retail games having franchise best results in NPD this year alone.
 
Mikey Jr. said:
Man, this npd is going to be fucking fun. Kind of hoping ps4 wins just for the shit show that will follow.
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Dash_Riprock said:
Don't worry, if Xbox wins they'll be an equal amount of "Told ya so!" fanboys getting banned too. So its gonna be a blast regardless of who wins.
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Yep -- either way there will be a vocal group that will be FAR too happy and "rub in it", and another group that will downplay the win in some way (especially if the gap's under 100K, which is what I'm expecting).

It's going to be a complete mess either way.
 
CosmicQueso said:
Which, even if it sold that level, would make it a top 20 game despite being released on only 2 platforms.

In the current market, some of you cats need to rethink what you consider "bomb" sales levels. Pacakged games just ain't selling like they used to.
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All this says to me is that the top 20 ain't what it used to be. That's a pretty poor result for a big budget AAA title and digital is not pushing it into "ok" territory. Sub-200K would be really quite bad.

edit: But we knew that. Consolidation has meant the top 5 games have gotten bigger and everything else has wilted. Top 20 is like being 47th in a marathon of 200 people.
 
Y2Kev said:
All this says to me is that the top 20 ain't what it used to be. That's a pretty poor result for a big budget AAA title and digital is not pushing it into "ok" territory. Sub-200K would be really quite bad.

edit: But we knew that. Consolidation has meant the top 5 games have gotten bigger and everything else has wilted. Top 20 is like being 47th in a marathon of 200 people.
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Exactly.

Obliterator said:
Given its likely budget I would classify that as bomb. It would be near The Order territory.
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But if they got a bunch of money due to the partnership it could have offset the loss of revenue by not going multi-plat, and then it could paint a different story. But since the terms of the deal will never be known it'll be impossible to know for sure.

Even if it does decline versus the prior version on the MS platforms (which is the right comparison), some portion of that can be made up for with digital purchase share being higher than when TR13 launched.

Knowing the forecasting history of those guys, however, it's very likely they had some crazy topline projection, so it may certainly disappoint. But when you put all the ancillary factors together, it might not be as bad a picture as it may look at first glance. Could still be bad, or really bad, but not quite as really bad.

Obliterator said:
And there are plenty of retail games having franchise best results in NPD this year alone.
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Sigh. Of course there are. There are always outliers to the overall trends.
 
CosmicQueso said:
But if they got a bunch of money due to the partnership it could have offset the loss of revenue by not going multi-plat, and then it could paint a different story. But since the terms of the deal will never be known it'll be impossible to know for sure.

Even if it does decline versus the prior version on the MS platforms (which is the right comparison), some portion of that can be made up for with digital purchase share being higher than when TR13 launched.

Knowing the forecasting history of those guys, however, it's very likely they had some crazy topline projection, so it may certainly disappoint. But when you put all the ancillary factors together, it might not be as bad a picture as it may look at first glance.



Sigh. Of course there are. There are always outliers to the overall trends.
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Yes, there are lots of variables, but nobody talks about whether a game bombed or not in NPD threads by looking at the product's revenue and gross margin.

I've seen a lot of posts lately bemoaning a lack of information that stops us from speaking with certainty. It's true, but I think we know enough.
 
CosmicQueso said:
But if they got a bunch of money due to the partnership it could have offset the loss of revenue by not going multi-plat, and then it could paint a different story. But since the terms of the deal will never be known it'll be impossible to know for sure.

Even if it does decline versus the prior version on the MS platforms (which is the right comparison), some portion of that can be made up for with digital purchase share being higher than when TR13 launched.

Knowing the forecasting history of those guys, however, it's very likely they had some crazy topline projection, so it may certainly disappoint. But when you put all the ancillary factors together, it might not be as bad a picture as it may look at first glance. Could still be bad, or really bad, but not quite as really bad.
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All good points.
 
Most games these days aim to make it into at least the Top 10, and are budgeted to do so. Most games, by nature, cannot do that, obviously. The majority of games published, therefore, can be considered to be "bombs". But when a game does make it into the Top 5 or Top 10, the gains there offset the misses on other titles. That's why the megapublishers are getting bigger and the other guys are going away. The megapublishers can keep putting out titles and absorb the risks involved waiting for that one game to break out. The smaller publishers cannot do this. They need every game to hit. The market in 2015 cannot support this. It's the classic, recognized, dilemma of AAA publishing in the modern era.

Y2Kev said:
Yes, there are lots of variables, but nobody talks about whether a game bombed or not in NPD threads by looking at the product's revenue and gross margin.

I've seen a lot of posts lately bemoaning a lack of information that stops us from speaking with certainty. It's true, but I think we know enough.
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Well I'm not arguing against it being disappointing, or even really disappointing, or even horrible results. Going up against Fallout was a questionable decision to say the least, and going exclusive at launch was certainly going to limit the audience.

I'm just offering ideas as to why the results might not be as bad as they might look at first glance.

It's like your point on the Top 5 and then everyone else. The prima facie take on results could look terrible, but relative to the rest of the market they could be not so bad.

The last business anyone should want to start these days is becoming a developer or publisher of disc based Console games. Terrible investment.
 
CosmicQueso said:
Sigh. Of course there are. There are always outliers to the overall trends.
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"Outliers"

Meanwhile we have Mortal Kombat, Witcher, Batman NBA 2K, etc. posting franchise best ever sales.

Cosmic your are nearly always downplaying AAA despite the industry still being massive. I realize you work in the industry in some capacity but can't say I agree with your overall outlook much on the industry.
 
Bgamer90 said:
Yep -- either way there will be a vocal group that will be FAR too happy and "rub in it", and another group that will downplay the win in some way (especially if the gap's under 100K, which is what I'm expecting).

It's going to be a complete mess either way.
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I mean, it's not about downplaying, but do you think it's actually good for MS to win Halo month by a nose, specially considering that they probably thought they were going to be able to shrink the lead considerably these holidays again? This is their only chance this gen (in my opinion of course) to actually take back their primary market. I know it's all about revenue now for them, but still.

In this case, I would argue that "rubbing it in" wouldn't be smart, but questioning the results (if close) would actually be understandable. Even if it sounds a bit fanboyish.
 
Ricky_R said:
I mean, it's not about downplaying, but do you think it's actually good for MS to win Halo month by a nose, specially considering that they probably thought they were going to be able to shrink the lead considerably these holidays again? This is their only chance this gen (in my opinion of course) to actually take back their primary market. I know it's all about revenue now for them, but still.

In this case, I would argue that "rubbing it in" wouldn't be smart, but questioning the results (if close) would actually be understandable. Even if it sounds a bit fanboyish.
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Even if MS wins by a big margin, it won't allow them to reclaim US. A single game won't be able to do that. So, I do think it would be unnecessary to go on and on about what Halo 5 couldn't do for the X1.
 
Ricky_R said:
I mean, it's not about downplaying, but do you think it's actually good for MS to win Halo month by a nose, specially considering that they probably thought they were going to be able to shrink the lead considerably these holidays again? This is their only chance this gen (in my opinion of course) to actually take back their primary market. I know it's all about revenue now for them, but still.

In this case, I would argue that "rubbing it in" wouldn't be smart, but questioning the results (if close) would actually be understandable. Even if it sounds a bit fanboyish.
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You have to consider the fact that there wasn't a $350 or $400 bundle for Halo 5. If a $500 bundle can drive enough sales on the back of the pack in game to sell more than the extremely popular competition, I'd say that's pretty good for Microsoft. The difference in margin between a potential $400 bundle and the $500 bundle they ended up selling has to be about $90 to $95 per console sold.
 
Pankratous said:
Xbox had Halo in October.

I don't see how PS4 could win.
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Have you been following this thread? We on page 55 of the PREDICTIONS thread and the overall theme had been that it will be close, but that PS4 will likely edge XB1 out, even with it being a Halo month.

Man, tomorrow is gonna be fun!
 
CosmicQueso said:
Most games these days aim to make it into at least the Top 10, and are budgeted to do so. Most games, by nature, cannot do that, obviously. The majority of games published, therefore, can be considered to be "bombs". But when a game does make it into the Top 5 or Top 10, the gains there offset the misses on other titles. That's why the megapublishers are getting bigger and the other guys are going away. The megapublishers can keep putting out titles and absorb the risks involved waiting for that one game to break out. The smaller publishers cannot do this. They need every game to hit. The market in 2015 cannot support this. It's the classic, recognized, dilemma of AAA publishing in the modern era.
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Then they should budget accordingly. If you cant be a MegaPublisher, that can survive a AAA Bomb, Just be a AA Publisher like Paradox. They Sruvive and thrive.
 
Obliterator said:
Cosmic your are nearly always downplaying AAA despite the industry still being massive.
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Funny. And here I was thinking I was providing a positive spin.

The AAA industry is still massive.

The DISC BASED AAA industry, as MEASURED BY NPD is declining. It's becoming less meaningful every year. When ATVI or EA or any of the big publishers report results, you know what they're not doing a lot of? Talking about disc based packaged software sales.

My take on the Pacakged SW market has nothing to do with the overall market in general.

Kyougar said:
Then they should budget accordingly. If you cant be a MegaPublisher, that can survive a AAA Bomb, Just be a AA Publisher like Paradox. They Sruvive and thrive.
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Not in the disc based Packaged console SW space they don't. That's exactly my point.
 
CosmicQueso said:
Funny. And here I was thinking I was providing a positive spin.

The AAA industry is still massive.

The DISC BASED AAA industry, as MEASURED BY NPD is declining. It's becoming less meaningful every year. When ATVI or EA or any of the big publishers report results, you know what they're not doing a lot of? Talking about disc based packaged software sales.

My take on the Pacakged SW market has nothing to do with the overall market in general.
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And when Fallout and Battlefront post best franchise sales ever next month and COD will be up substantially over the past 2 years they will continue to be more "outliers" am I right?

Because Cosmic you are starting to get a pretty damn big list of outliers this year alone.
 
Ricky_R said:
I mean, it's not about downplaying, but do you think it's actually good for MS to win Halo month by a nose, specially considering that they probably thought they were going to be able to shrink the lead considerably these holidays again? This is their only chance this gen (in my opinion of course) to actually take back their primary market. I know it's all about revenue now for them, but still.

In this case, I would argue that "rubbing it in" wouldn't be smart, but questioning the results (if close) would actually be understandable. Even if it sounds a bit fanboyish.
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If MS gets October, then they would have gotten the month thanks to a $500 bundle that was up against the #1 console getting its first official price drop. I don't see how that's bad in anyway.

On top of this, we are still talking about October. They weren't going to greatly decrease (i.e.: winning by more than 300K) the gap this month. That's more suitable for November and December (though I think Sony's Star Wars partnership will prevent his from happening).
 
Pankratous said:
Xbox had Halo in October.

I don't see how PS4 could win.
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this was the common sentiment before october and all sony had to do was drop 50 bucks at the beginning of the month and "some" are beginning to doubt themselves because they didn't expect sony would drop the price...

maybe they should have added the caveat "if sony doesn't do anything" before predicting xbox would win halo month...
 
Bgamer90 said:
If MS gets October, then they would have gotten the month thanks to a $500 bundle that was up against the #1 console getting its first official price drop. I don't see how that's bad in anyway.

On top of this, we are still talking about October. They weren't going to greatly decrease (i.e.: winning by more than 300K) the gap this month. That's more suitable for November and December (though I think Sony's Star Wars partnership will prevent his from happening).
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I'm talking in terms of helping the Xbone take over the US. If Halo doesn't have that much impact then it's understandable to question the results. MS clearly wants to be the leader, even if they don't acknowledge that now, and if their biggest franchise doesn't do much to help with that (if the win is close, I repeat), it's definitely interesting to discuss.

Just as it would be if Halo 5 helped MS sell a shitload more consoles than Sony this month.
 
Ricky_R said:
I'm talking in terms of helping the Xbone take over the US. If Halo doesn't have that much impact then it's understandable to question the results.
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As I said in my post though, Halo helping by that much wasn't going to happen in October. November and December are far more bigger months to actually reduce the gap. Even without the PS4's price drop, an Xbox One win for October would have probably been a win by nothing more than 200K. While that would have caused the gap to go down, it definitely wouldn't have been enough to make "possible comeback" statements.

MS clearly wants to be the leader, even if they don't acknowledge that now, and if their biggest franchise doesn't do much to help with that (if the win is close, I repeat), it's definitely interesting to discuss. Just as it would be if Halo 5 helped MS sell a shitload more consoles than Sony this month.
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If MS cared about reducing the overall gap at that level via just the month of October (instead of the whole Holiday period) then they would have released a cheaper Halo bundle.

While I'm sure Microsoft was confident that they would get the month of October months ago (thanks to Halo 5), creating a $500 bundle for a game doesn't scream "we want to significantly reduce the gap in October". It screams "we want to make as much money from Halo's launch as possible".
 
Bgamer90 said:
While I'm sure they were confident that they would get the month of October months ago thanks to Halo 5, creating a $500 bundle for the game doesn't scream "we want to significantly reduce the gap in October". It screams "we want to make as much money from Halo's launch as possible".
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They had some pretty nice non-halo bundles did they not?
 
I've gone for a PS4 win,

so that's guaranteed that the Xbox is nailed on for October

the final 3 months in the prediction league is going to ruin me
 
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