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April 2012 NPD Sales Results [Up3: Best selling game sold less than 236K, Kid Icarus]

Pokemon on 3ds in 2013, will do the trick. The glorious millions. Pokemon should be a title that releases with a console, alongside with Mario.
No need to wait for Pokemon 3DS (which quite possibly won't actually make it to the US until 2014 anyway assuming that they do announce new games next year and the series goes back more towards its regular patten--that is, Gen 6 in Japan in ~Sept 2013, US in Spring 2014)--New Super Mario Bros. 2 and Animal Crossing should hopefully do the trick before that.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
Sony doesn't even put their AAA teams on their own portable platform, why would they do that for someone else's system?
I was just going to say... there are very few sony portable franchises. Which is the problem in japan . In the u s the problems seem to be more systematic as the 3ds is not doing too hot either

I hate to continue the negative tone of the thread but I am really starting to get worried about the next generation.
 

Somnid

Member
The most surprising thing to me is the 3DS. It's shocking to see it still kind of struggling.

I'm curious if Mario Kart/3D Land are bubbling in the 11-20 range like so many DS games did or not.

Probably.

I think it's increasingly clear Nintendo is going to fight the portable battle alone, western support isn't there and Japanese support isn't helping much. They will have to carry the 3DS and it's looking that any dry spell is going to hurt them. I think they can manage, they'll just have to hit hard and make sure that every experience going into 3DS is not going to smartphones which they've done pretty well with so far. Hopefully they can keep something good in the channel once a month.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
All this stuff about smartphones, it isn't smartphones, it's price.

Anyone realize when the DS Lite came out and it took off in sales it debuted for $130?

Main SKU's of the systems on the market are a $300 system thats been out almost seven years, a $250 system that's been out six years, a $250 handheld, a $170 handheld, and Wii is $150 but is basically a legacy console now.

This wouldn't be such a bad few months if companies would have factored in price in their decision making, but it's not a decision at all. They add bigger propietary hard drives to their consoles to justify never dropping the price, when 99% of the people don't need near that much space and would be fine with a SD card, or a smaller hard drive for their digital purchases.

All these gimmicks like 3D and touch added to handhelds, when Nintendo probably could have made a killing on a reborn Game Boy brand with just one screen and no 3D with the same amount of power and a focus on digital, selling for $120 or so.

It's over their head though, there's no one to blame but themselves for this situation. A hard lesson to learn, but eventually they'll understand it when they feel it in their bottom line.
 

Kusagari

Member
I was just going to say... there are very few sony portable franchises. Which is the problem in japan . In the u s the problems seem to be more systematic as the 3ds is not doing too hot either

No Sony franchises besides Gran Turismo are even popular in Japan.
 

Metallix87

Member
Hmm If the DS sold around 100, the portable market is not so doomed.

Portable market was never really doomed. iPhone-pushing analysts were desperate to push this notion, sure, but all data we've gotten since the launch of the 3DS says otherwise.
 

Kusagari

Member
Probably.

I think it's increasingly clear Nintendo is going to fight the portable battle alone, western support isn't there and Japanese support isn't helping much. They will have to carry the 3DS and it's looking that any dry spell is going to hurt them. I think they can manage, they'll just have to hit hard and make sure that every experience going into 3DS is not going to smartphones which they've done pretty well with so far. Hopefully they can keep something good in the channel once a month.

No Pokemon on 3DS until possibly 2014 is really going to hurt them I think.
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
No Pokemon on 3DS until possibly 2014 is really going to hurt them I think.

They might try to localize this one faster but yeah, safe bet. Gen 6 gets announced later this year, comes out fall of 2013 in Japan and early 2014 in the west.

I think they'll be fine with NSMB 2 and Animal Crossing this year and Zelda+whatever next.
 

Somnid

Member
No Pokemon on 3DS until possibly 2014 is really going to hurt them I think.

They have plenty of Mario and they have other things to lean on. Mostly they need those breakout titles that nobody sees coming. The ones that start a new bandwagon.
 

impact

Banned
Man, Dragon's Dogma bombing would actually be quite catastrophic for Capcom if their budget and sales estimate talks are to be believed.

I don't think it even has a chance of not bombing. The demo is awful and it doesn't have a popular franchise name in front of it to get suckers.
 

Dunlop

Member
All this stuff about smartphones, it isn't smartphones, it's price.

Price, portability, functionality Smartphones win in all these areas. The cheapo games does not help

Sure I love my Super Mario World, but I'm perfectly fine with the dozen or so games I have on my phone that cost me a third of the price for ALL of them
 
I'd say that April is the cruelest month, but in this industry it's pretty much every other month.

Funny thing is, Activision ended up being right about Prototype 2 "owning April." Not much of a "victory".

I'm terrified to see how poorly Dragon's Dogma is going to do.

If you're terrified imagine how Capcom feels :'(

The unbelievable part is that they've tied up most of their internal teams for years to finish it while outsourcing sure money franchises like DMC.

An internally produced DMC sequel built on an upgraded version of the DMC4 engine would have been the equivalent of simply depositing cash in the bank.
 
I wonder if the 1.2M copies of Diablo 3 that Blizzard is giving away to their WoW annual pass subscribers worldwide will hurt first month sales for the game. If about half of those were from North America, that's 500-600k copies of Diablo 3 that won't be on the May NPD results. What did Starcraft 2 sell first month in the US?

DD won't be counted anyways. NPD will be virtually irrelevant for the game.
 

Kusagari

Member
The bottom half of May's NPD should sell just as shitty, if not shittier than this month. Dragon's Dogma will probably only have to break 100k to make it. Who knows if it will.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
Price, portability, functionality Smartphones win in all these areas. The cheapo games does not help

Sure I love my Super Mario World, but I'm perfectly fine with the dozen or so games I have on my phone that cost me a third of the price for ALL of them

There's been games on phones for years, this isn't a new thing. The only new thing is how cool Sony and Nintendo think it is to charge a ridiculous amount for a portable game system.

GBA launched for what, $100? DS Lite, $130? Now Nintendo tried to pull $250 and dropped to $170, which is still too high and Sony is sitting at $250 and $300. The original DS or Game Boy Advance would have met the same apathy at these prices.

Nothing's changed with appeal, the only thing that has changed is Nintendo and Sony have priced themselves out of the acceptable market for handhelds. And you could make a case Sony has never been in that market from the beginning.

The same power, minus a screen, minus 3D, and Game Boy branding at $120 launch and Nintendo would have made a killing.
 

Fantastical

Death Prophet
3DS needs a major kick in the ass outside of Japan. Nintendo has done little to help the situation basically going "look at Mario and Mario Kart!"

black2 and white2 should help 3ds numbers.

I really doubt it will help it too significantly. Everyone that wants to buy it will already have a DS. If they want to buy a 3DS with it, that's great, but I think that number will be fewer than most people think it will.
 

Erethian

Member
They have plenty of Mario and they have other things to lean on. Mostly they need those breakout titles that nobody sees coming. The ones that start a new bandwagon.

Pretty much. DS had Touch! Generations, Wii had Wii Sports/Wii Fit. If Nintendo can come up with a compelling new software title for 3DS outside its stable of existing IPs, there's nothing stopping 3DS from exploding in sales.

The alternative isn't so bad, but it'll be a GBA style success.
 

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I have a feeling that any new system that releases at over $300 is going to bomb terribly for the first couple years. The industry is in real trouble.
 

Terrell

Member
Whether its better than the Wii or not, it's still light years behind the standard of the 360 and PS3. If Nintendo truly want to capture the core gamer they're going to have to do a hell a lot better than offer the online functionality of the 3DS.

Way to miss my point.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
There's been games on phones for years, this isn't a new thing. The only new thing is how cool Sony and Nintendo think it is to charge a ridiculous amount for a portable game system.

GBA launched for what, $100? DS Lite, $130? Now Nintendo tried to pull $250 and dropped to $170, which is still too high and Sony is sitting at $250 and $300. The original DS or Game Boy Advance would have met the same apathy at these prices.

Nothing's changed with appeal, the only thing that has changed is Nintendo and Sony have priced themselves out of the acceptable market for handhelds. And you could make a case Sony has never been in that market from the beginning.

The same power, minus a screen, minus 3D, and Game Boy branding at $120 launch and Nintendo would have made a killing.

DS brand is stronger than the gameboy brand you make no sense.

Price is definitely an issue. Not just for hardware, but especially for software.
 

Kusagari

Member
Just 100 k ?

The highest game this month was under 236k, and all next month has for big games is Diablo and Max Payne. Everything else will be a holdover that should do even worse. I'm expecting really, really bad software sales outside of Diablo/MP next month.

Now, going off Capcom's expectations, only selling 100-200k would be a disaster for Dragon's Dogma anyway. But if it doesn't make the NPD top 10, I think we can safely qualify it as a catastrophe.
 

Yoshiya

Member
There's been games on phones for years, this isn't a new thing. The only new thing is how cool Sony and Nintendo think it is to charge a ridiculous amount for a portable game system.

Have you ever used a modern smartphone? The market has been completely transformed in the past few years, no competition like this existed last generation. These things are becoming more affordable than ever as well.

As I said above, it isn't just games. It's entertainment in all its forms, and smartphones are simply doing it better these days, with a product most people in Vita's target demographic already own.
 

kswiston

Member
The graph is a pie chart of the U.S. videogame industry's revenue growth from 2007 to 2008. The graph is also rather misleading (and quite hilarious). Here are some better ones.



Basically, from 2007 to 2008, the revenue from Nintendo platforms increased by ~$3.3 billion, and the revenue from all platforms increased by ~$3.4 billion. Hence being responsible for 99% of the growth! Ta-da!


Ah. Thanks for the info. I missed the 2007-2008 part in the Chart title originally as well. I suppose for that year it made sense.
 

Pranay

Member
The highest game this month was under 236k, and all next month has for big games is Diablo and Max Payne. Everything else will be a holdover that should do even worse. I'm expecting really, really bad software sales outside of Diablo/MP next month.

Now, going off Capcom's expectations, only selling 100-200k would be a disaster for Dragon's Dogma anyway. But if it doesn't make the NPD top 10, I think we can safely qualify it as a catastrophe.

looking @Feb and @ March - i think it will sell 400k to 500

100k to 200k is something i expect from starhawk
 

Novid

Banned
It's a damn shame. The vita's death would leave the portable market up to a severely underpowered 3ds and phones/tablets.

It would be the end of my time with portable games.

Its nearing the fuck over for me because i dont think the ios folks can make a game that makes my ears stand on end and the Vita is 2 steps ahead of everything but 10 steps behind on the things that matter.

That and Apple is overvalued at 600 bucks a share... "Were not falling, WE'RE CRASHING!"
 

Novid

Banned
The highest game this month was under 236k, and all next month has for big games is Diablo and Max Payne. Everything else will be a holdover that should do even worse. I'm expecting really, really bad software sales outside of Diablo/MP next month.

Now, going off Capcom's expectations, only selling 100-200k would be a disaster for Dragon's Dogma anyway. But if it doesn't make the NPD top 10, I think we can safely qualify it as a catastrophe.

It will be fine.
 
There's been games on phones for years, this isn't a new thing. The only new thing is how cool Sony and Nintendo think it is to charge a ridiculous amount for a portable game system.

GBA launched for what, $100? DS Lite, $130? Now Nintendo tried to pull $250 and dropped to $170, which is still too high and Sony is sitting at $250 and $300. The original DS or Game Boy Advance would have met the same apathy at these prices.

Nothing's changed with appeal, the only thing that has changed is Nintendo and Sony have priced themselves out of the acceptable market for handhelds. And you could make a case Sony has never been in that market from the beginning.

The same power, minus a screen, minus 3D, and Game Boy branding at $120 launch and Nintendo would have made a killing.

It's almost like there's a reason 5 year gens and $300 launch prices for consoles and $100-150 launch prices for handhelds had become the norm prior to this gen. Eh, what do I know, the big 3 have this thing figured out.
 
So what are the chances of Sony Move-only game ever reaching top 5?

Man, Dragon's Dogma bombing would actually be quite catastrophic for Capcom if their budget and sales estimate talks are to be believed.

If they didn't want it to bomb, then why release a demo that shitty?

Demo actually sold me on it. Wasn't that great though, but I can see it's a good enough game for me.

Although I am considering buying it used.
 

Instro

Member
Vita numbers are bad but I'm more stunned at the 3DS numbers. I'd figure it'd have a larger percentage of that shrinking handheld pie given all the advantages it has over the Vita.

Well Vita just released, so bit a different situation. Next month will presumably be even lower for it with no major releases. The DS appears to be hurting the 3DS quite badly as well, I mean considering it apparently outsold the Vita this month. Although I suppose it is more profitable to continue shipping DS units right now since the 3DS is being sold at a loss. Reminds me of how the PS2 kept selling through this generation.
 

TheNatural

My Member!
Have you ever used a modern smartphone? The market has been completely transformed in the past few years, no competition like this existed last generation. These things are becoming more affordable than ever as well.

As I said above, it isn't just games. It's entertainment in all its forms, and smartphones are simply doing it better these days, with a product most people in Vita's target demographic already own.

People don't go spend $100 or more with a two year contract for $50 a month just to play games. No one goes out and says "hey should I get the new 3DS or should I lock myself into a 2 year contract." It's ridiculous.

Those using "dumbphones" in the past to play Sonic, Tetris, Pac-Man, or whatever are no different than the transition to smartphones. Sure, the capabilities are better, but the basic funadmentals of why you buy a phone and why you buy a handheld haven't changed. Handhelds were once thought to be complementary to the console big dogs, and priced as such. Now they've got it in their head they can price them the same - or even MORE for some reason.

What has changed though, is how much companies think they can charge you for games. A decade ago you could get a Mario game and a GBA for $130. Now a 3DS and a game is a cool $210. Forget inflation, especially since the economy wasn't in the crapper back then as well - thats a huge difference.

When Nintendo and Sony decide to come down a little with their prices, things will take off. Nintendo should have realized this from the beginning and should have known there's a cost with whatever gimmick they put in. You can't just price stuff whatever you want anymore and expect people to purchase it.
 

Eric C

Member
PSP < ? < Vita < Wii < ? < 3DS < 150k < PS3 < 200k < 360

I believe you guys could figure out what is '?' stand for.

Sorry, DS seems better than Vita.

So it's

PSP < 50K? < Vita < DS < Wii < 100K? < 3DS < 150k < PS3 < 200k < 360

Kid is the best sold handheld game this month, and better than Vita HW.
The new 3DS horror game < 6.5k.

So Kid Icarus probably sold under 100K, but no less than the Vita which is somewhere above 50K.

A morsel of additional data for those who follow the US NPD charts - Kid Icarus: Uprising sold 83,000 units in April - http://t.co/4QkgIpHq

Kid Icarus at 83K means Vita is between 50-83K
 
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