• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Instro

Member
Summer will not be pretty for 3DS, unless they decide to release something in June/July to help.

Heroes of Ruin, Theatrhythm, Rhythm Thief, and Kingdom Hearts come out during those months. Plus Mario Tennis at the end May. Depends how they are pushed, Nintendo may help with the marketing as they have been doing recently with Resident Evil and some other titles.
 
Well after arguably the best game on the system (RE:R) bombed horribly, you can't blame the third parties. It's the shitty ass userbase.

Blame that on Capcom releasing a full-priced Mercenaries game turning people off and then doing absolutely nothing to market the new game and instead marketing a shooter spin-off many magnitudes more.

They sent RE:R to die.

Not when Apple can sell every ipad they can manufacture.

At this point, there's no stopping Apple sales. Until the economy improves, people will only have enough spending money to support one major electronic company, and it will be the one releasing a new device every few months.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
any chance we can attribute the poor sales this month to a stagnant/declining economy?

nah, gaming was actually doing quite well a few years ago during the recession.

We have a dead market leader, and the two consoles that are still getting games have been on the market for way too long.

people want new experiences.

Portables are worrisome though as we have two new platforms and neither is selling.
 

AniHawk

Member
game prices on handhelds are too high. make them $29.99 again across the board, and things will pick up.

handhelds themselves also need to go back to being the sort of dedicated device they were in the 90s. okay, so the game boy was pretty widespread. it was also pretty inexpensive for most people.

on the console side, keeping prices at $300 and more for seven years running really sucks. the xbox 360 and ps3 should be $99.99 right now, and the wii should be $79.99.
 
on the console side, keeping prices at $300 and more for seven years running really sucks. the xbox 360 and ps3 should be $99.99 right now, and the wii should be $79.99.

Again, the PS2 took nine years to be $99 and that was a normal 5 year hardware cycle. The PS3 was on the market for 3 years by that point.
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
People are waiting for the PS Vita and the 3DS revisions (and price drops)

Gotta move that battery life up to 10 hours.
 

AniHawk

Member
Again, the PS2 took nine years to be $99 and that was a normal 5 year hardware cycle. The PS3 was on the market for 3 years by that point.

the ps2 could have been $99.99 much earlier than that. sony just chose not to dip below $129.99. same with nintendo and the ds lite.

the $300-at-launch-psx was $129.99 in 1998, when it was three years old.
 
Heroes of Ruin, Theatrhythm, Rhythm Thief, and Kingdom Hearts come out during those months. Plus Mario Tennis at the end May. Depends how they are pushed, Nintendo may help with the marketing as they have been doing recently with Resident Evil and some other titles.
Well, Kingdom Hearts will sell well regardless of any possible Nintendo advertising. It's always a big seller in the USA.
 

thirty

Banned
What stops Sony or Nintendo from starting a true competitor to smartphone markets on their handhelds? There is no reason that these little apps that are on iOS and Google play couldn't be ported. One of the reasons xbl does so well is because it's the perfect middle. Old games and new exclusives on the cheap. In the past manufacturers made their money back on software fees. Now Sony nor nintendo seem to want such software and still want to make top dollar on the hardware. They want it both ways and the industry can't work that way.
 

Eusis

Member
The industry is dying in its current form. Can't wait for the rebirth.
That depends on how it's reborn. Ideally to me we step back to... I dunno, the late 90s/early 2000s, and progress again from there, but I fear we might get "social" games that are all about exploiting everyone for as much money as possible.
 
Nintendo stock got hammered today in Japan, down almost 5%. I'd assume due to NPD as there aren't any articles out about anything else right now. Hit it's lowest point in over 8 years.

Edit-Closed down 5.41%
 
Well, Kingdom Hearts will sell well regardless of any possible Nintendo advertising. It's always a big seller in the USA.
The same was true of the actual "main" KH titles in Japan--they always did decently for themselves. Then 3D came and ended up bombing terrible there... Due to the way Kingdom Hearts has been handled and the public's current impression of the handheld entries due to stuff like 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, and it simply having been too long since the last console entry, I'm really not convinced at all right now that the same thing won't end up happening in the US. Currently expecting North American sales to end up being similar if not even more disappointing than the Japanese sales of the game. I really hope I'm wrong and it does well for itself, but I'm just really not at all confident that it will at this point.
 

antonz

Member
Nintendo stock got hammered today in Japan, down almost 5%. I'd assume due to NPD as there aren't any articles out about anything else right now. Hit it's lowest point in over 8 years.

Japan is not reacting well in general today it seems to Sony or Nintendo. Sony shares are at a 32 year low.
 

NateDrake

Member
game prices on handhelds are too high. make them $29.99 again across the board, and things will pick up.

handhelds themselves also need to go back to being the sort of dedicated device they were in the 90s. okay, so the game boy was pretty widespread. it was also pretty inexpensive for most people.

on the console side, keeping prices at $300 and more for seven years running really sucks. the xbox 360 and ps3 should be $99.99 right now, and the wii should be $79.99.

I agree. I'd even accept $34.99 3DS/Vita games as the standard.
 

Instro

Member
The same was true of the actual "main" KH titles in Japan--they always did decently for themselves. Then 3D came and ended up bombing terrible there... Due to the way Kingdom Hearts has been handled and the public's current impression of the handheld entries due to stuff like 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, and it simply having been too long since the last console entry, I'm really not convinced at all right now that the same thing won't end up happening in the US. Currently expecting North American sales to end up being similar if not even more disappointing than the Japanese sales of the game. I really hope I'm wrong and it does well for itself, but I'm just really not at all confident that it will at this point.

We'll see, the DS Kingdom Hearts was much more successful in the US than the PSP games.
 
Well after arguably the best game on the system (RE:R) bombed horribly, you can't blame the third parties. It's the shitty ass userbase.
Capcom already managed 2 million sellers on that "shitty ass userbase". They've never managed that in a platform's first year on shelves, not even with PS2.

Revelations sold what they expected it to by all accounts. It's sales certainly reflected the confidence and effort Capcom put behind it's promotional budget at least.
 
I think you'll see 3DS games settle into the $29.99 price point eventually. I distinctly remember GBA and DS games being $39.99 near the launch of the hardware but they eventually settled into a $29.99 average once the hardware was on the market for a bit.
 
Capcom already managed 2 million sellers on that "shitty ass userbase". They've never managed that in a platform's first year on shelves, not even with PS2.

Revelations sold what they expected it to by all accounts. It's sales certainly reflected the confidence and effort Capcom put behind it's promotional budget at least.

Pretty sure they hit 2 million sellers on the 360 in it's first year
 

Dalthien

Member
Revelations sold what they expected it to by all accounts. It's sales certainly reflected the confidence and effort Capcom put behind it's promotional budget at least.

Yeah, it sold what was expected of it. Capcom typically goes down to the 800k threshold when they report their fiscal year projections for games. They projected 800k for RE: Darkside Chronicles, and 800k for Dead Rising 2: OTR. They never gave any projection for Revelations. So it's absolutely certain that they expected less than a million, and given the two examples of 800k forecasts, it is extremely likely that they expected less than 800k for Revelations.

So the game sold pretty much exactly what Capcom expected from it. It wasn't a bomb by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't even a disappointment to Capcom.
 

NateDrake

Member
Yeah, it sold what was expected of it. Capcom typically goes down to the 800k threshold when they report their fiscal year projections for games. They projected 800k for RE: Darkside Chronicles, and 800k for Dead Rising 2: OTR. They never gave any projection for Revelations. So it's absolutely certain that they expected less than a million, and given the two examples of 800k forecasts, it is extremely likely that they expected less than 800k for Revelations.

So the game sold pretty much exactly what Capcom expected from it. It wasn't a bomb by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't even a disappointment to Capcom.

Well said, however gamers/fans will decree it as a bomb due to the low numbers even if the developers/publisher are happy with the sales total. I hope Capcom brings another RE to the 3DS because Revelations was an excellent portable RE game.
 

subversus

I've done nothing with my life except eat and fap

lol retail

Grave-Dimensions.jpg
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Mmmh...this month has been bad for basically everyone, and normally it's the worst month of the year, right? So, also considering this context...
The doom and gloom about 3DS is quite a bit exaggerated, with the numbers it has already done in 14 months ( with just one Holiday season...Wii an DS already had two at this point ) and the incoming software...still, they need to improve in the next months a lot, however, and I think the mass market games they are developing now and that we'll see soon, aside BT3, will help. Especially if priced reasonably. And NSMB2 is coming shortly, and THIS is the game which really started the DS frenzy, toghether with the DS Lite. Neither BT helped so much. NoA needs to be far more aggressive for sure, however.

Having a brand new color releasing with Mario Tennis is a start, but they need more: they need bundles with NSMB2, Pokemon ( yeah ) and the other big games, they need more promotion for the current lineup and the incoming games, they need casual games at low prices ( not at 40 Dollars like Nintendogs anymore ).

And there's a need of a good stream of valuable titles saleswise every month or almost. From July, we should start seeing it, with T:FF, KH and NSMB2, and there are so many Nintendo titles not dated, but which will come this year...and let's remember that "Western support catching up" ( even if I want to see it before, but this isn't something said by Reggie, so it's trustable XD ).

So, it's not doom and gloom again. We won't have another DS, that's for sure...but let's also remember that USA is slow in buying new hardwares, and we'll see in three / four years 3DS' peak, certainly not now, without a revision and with DS still doing something ( little, but still ).

Vita, instead...doing even less than DS NOW in its third month, probably it's under 90k even. Horrible as it was the 3DS in its third month. Sony must step its game up, with far better ad campaign ( the launch one was unuseful, to say at least ), being serious with games tailor made for the platform and PROMOTING them. It's necessary.
 

liger05

Member
3DS sales are bad and Vita sales are shocking.

Vita needs a price cut but they aint dropping the price after 3 months.
 
You have been posting very poorly recently. Maybe you should go through a second party before you put shit down. Just an idea. Not me. I would just fuck with you.

Thanks for your input. The point still stands. One can't say it is the poor economy when another company sells a $500 - $800 toy and can literally sell all of them that they can manufacture.

Yup, smaller, cheaper, greater variety of experience, can't trade them back. It's rescuing that void this gen.

Just look twice this month two XBLA games have set sales records for the service.

And Journey recently set the PSN record as well.
 

antonz

Member
Just my feeling, or the industry is collapsing in the States?

Global mostly. US and UK are down by 32 and 31% respectively. Its that fatigue ridden transition time. It happens every gen. This time the problem is only 1 of the 3 are transitioning on time relatively. How things go is anyones guess.
 

StevieP

Banned
Are you serious? Hardcore games didn't sell on the Wii, period. In fact nothing much did, but Nintendo games a few faddish titles that unpredictably caught on.

People blame everybody but themselves. If the Wii market is so lucrative, you start a company and go rake in all that cash developing for it and see how far you get.

The Wii's tie ratio is 8.5 and there are more 3rd party million sellers on the Wii than there are first party million sellers. This myth needs to die, at the very least, in sales-age threads.
 

Joni

Member
Japan is not reacting well in general today it seems to Sony or Nintendo. Sony shares are at a 32 year low.
Sony announced a $5.5 billion loss. The shares will suffer a lot the coming days.

And before I'm going to pronounce doom and gloom for the gaming industry, I'd like to see how Japan and Europe are doing year on year. The PS3 shipped about as much as last year in the first trimeste and shipped more games so I'm presuming somewhere the industry is still growing.
 
The same was true of the actual "main" KH titles in Japan--they always did decently for themselves. Then 3D came and ended up bombing terrible there... Due to the way Kingdom Hearts has been handled and the public's current impression of the handheld entries due to stuff like 358/2 Days, Re:Coded, and it simply having been too long since the last console entry, I'm really not convinced at all right now that the same thing won't end up happening in the US. Currently expecting North American sales to end up being similar if not even more disappointing than the Japanese sales of the game. I really hope I'm wrong and it does well for itself, but I'm just really not at all confident that it will at this point.
Maybe America is more receptive to sequels?

If Birth by Sleep posted decent numbers in America, I'd say it suggests KH has real staying power, regardless of platform.

It seems like KH is more of a handheld series anyway now. Five out of seven of the games have been on portables - four of those five on Nintendo consoles. I feel like the griping over no console game is an internet phenomenon, and doesn't really occur to the more casual KH fan.
 

Erethian

Member
Nintendo stock got hammered today in Japan, down almost 5%. I'd assume due to NPD as there aren't any articles out about anything else right now. Hit it's lowest point in over 8 years.

Edit-Closed down 5.41%

It's because investors see the overall outlook for the videogame market in the US as being terrible. Namely the "Overall industry down 32%. Software sales at retail are down 42%." bit.

Combined with a very weak Nikkei, due to concerns over the global economy and political insability in Europe.
 
its okay guys Microsoft, Sony, and (maybe) Nintendo r just giving iOS gaming more time to mature and take over the market

so 2-3 more years of this gen
 
Microsoft itself refuses to drop the damn price of their hardware and expanding their market further, although this contract thing is a nice try I feel they'd be better off opening the floodgates to sell more software as well. Sony is being stingy as fuck because of the ps3 fiasco. No reason for memory cards to be necessary for a handheld at that cost no less and no reason for hand held games to cost what they do.

They will drop, but they're still selling them at a rate that they comfortable with. They'll use the eventual price drop at key points (i.e. when Sony price drops or wii-u launch).

I don't know if Sony's memory card strategy is best for Vita though. Gamers don't like price gauging and have probably researched the total costs of buying a Vita instead of impulse buying. Sony will do a Vita price drop announce at E3, possibly with unknown titles announced too. But those games had better come out this year, not announce shit for next year.
 
Top Bottom