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

maeda

Member
Sweet, I guess Iwata was right, the market is ready for new machines. Wii U and 3DS both should have wonderful holidays!
 
Here are the last two Mays.

---

2011:

Software (New Physical Retail only; across all platforms incl. PC)
01. L.A. Noire (360, PS3) Take 2 Interactive - 899K
02. Brink (360, PS3, PC) Bethesda Softworks - 401K [360/PS3 Only]
03. Lego Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game (Wii, 360, NDS, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC) Disney Interactive Studios
04. Portal 2 (360, PS3, PC) Electronic Arts
05. Mortal Kombat 2011 (PS3, 360) Warner Bros. Interactive - 292K
06. Call of Duty: Black Ops (360, PS3, Wii, NDS, PC) Activision Blizzard
07. Zumba Fitness: Join the Party (Wii, 360, PS3) Majesco
08. NBA 2K11 (360, PS3, Wii, PS2, PSP, PC) Take 2 Interactive
09. Just Dance 2 (Wii) Ubisoft
10. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars (Wii, NDS, 360, PS3, 3DS, PSP, PC) Lucasarts

---

2010:

RED DEAD REDEMPTION 360 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE May-10 945.9K
RED DEAD REDEMPTION PS3 TAKE 2 INTERACTIVE May-10 567.1K
SUPER MARIO GALAXY 2 WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA May-10 563.9K
UFC 2010: UNDISPUTED 360 THQ May-10 221.1K
UFC 2010: UNDISPUTED PS3 THQ May-10 192.3K
WII FIT PLUS W/BALANCE BOARD* WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Oct-09
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII WII NINTENDO OF AMERICA Nov-09
ALAN WAKE * 360 MICROSOFT May-10
POKEMON SOULSILVER VERSION NDS NINTENDO OF AMERICA Mar-10
SKATE 3 360 ELECTRONIC ARTS May-10

(*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)


Looks like Diablo's going for the combo breaker on Rockstar.
 

mujun

Member
Less than 236K for Kinect Star Wars?! Oh boy MS, people really love their Kinect. Aren`t they...? Now i understand why you want to torture all of us with Kinect 2.0 from the get-go when Durango hits the stores.


We. Need. New. Consoles
without useless crap like Kinect

What makes the Kinect useless crap?
 

magash

Member
All the signs are there. Nintendo could benefit this transition if they play their cards right. We are seeing fatigue that hasnt been seen since probably 2004/2005.

Console sales are worse than they were in April 2005 and game sales are much worse. Over 1.1 million hardware units were sold in April 2005.

Exactly. Gamers are looking for something new and if Nintendo delivers with the Wii U MS and Sony will really be in trouble
 

USC-fan

Banned
But they're not doing it with 3DS, not doing it with Vita, and the iPod/iPad/cheap entertainment games didn't exist when 360 was released.

It's a totally different world for consumer entertainment compared to when this generation's systems were released.

The new systems better offer something crazy good in terms of novelty or it's going to crash hard.

Ugh no. The core gamers dont buy a 3ds, vita or ipad. I do own a tablet but i dont game much..beside social games but that doesnt really count.

We are still gaming on our ps360. The next gen systems just have to be super powerful and people will do the same thing.


Exactly. Gamers are looking for something new and if Nintendo delivers with the Wii U MS and Sony will really be in trouble
Big problem is that the wiiu will not be much of a jump at all from the ps360.

Seem like no point unless it way more powerful which i highly doubt it will be...
 

Glix

Member
I think a part of it was too many people complaining about "defects" when they arent so Amazon said fuck it

Yeah, I'm sure they went back to Big N, and found them less then helpful as well.

Im sure supply constrained Wii for, like, seven years really pissed them off as well.

eidt - UFC fan, WTF?? Speak for yourself dude. Core games own All the systems.

Core Gamers does NOT equal - COD/Madden dudes.
 
Time for this gen to die

Yeah.

Of course, next generation might very well be stillborn, when many people can't see the difference. We'll just cross that bridge when we get there. Have to euthanize this generation first.

Better games and sub-$150 consoles. That's the tried-and-true prescription. More the sub-$150 than the games, truth be told.
 

antonz

Member
People only complained about defects with Nintendo hardware? And they still sell the 360?

People would send a 3DS back because they didnt think the top portion clicked enough etc. So there was a constant stream of 3DS coming back for people to find the perfect one
 

Majora

Member
I don't know how reflective of consumer spending NPD can claim to be anymore. I spent April playing Fez, Trials Evolution and The Walking Dead, so my contribution as recorded by NPD is zero. In the past month alone we've seen Trials Evolution and now Minecraft setting XBLA sales records and selling literally hundreds of thousands of copies in their first week.

Not saying it makes up for the precipitous drop in retail sales, but from a spend of about 50 dollars in the past month, I've gotten hours and hours of gameplay from XBLA. There was no need for me to buy a retail game.
 

Mr Swine

Banned
Exactly. Gamers are looking for something new and if Nintendo delivers with the Wii U MS and Sony will really be in trouble

Well Nintendo could have a large head start ( 10 million? ) over MS and Sony if they both release their next gen consoles at the end of next year..
 
Based on the sales result I think giving the Wii U a year head start may prove to be a mistake that Microsoft and Sony will rue.

This really depends on just how aggressive a push Nintendo is (capable of) making for the existing HD market. Multiplatform titles won't do much on their own.
 
People would send a 3DS back because they didnt think the top portion clicked enough etc. So there was a constant stream of 3DS coming back for people to find the perfect one

With the decline of brick-and-mortar stores, has this made any appreciable difference in Nintendo hardware sales since that happened?
 

antonz

Member
With the decline of brick-and-mortar stores, has this made any appreciable difference in Nintendo hardware sales since that happened?

Yeah I dont know what portion of sales Amazon can claim but I know they became my go to place for alot of gaming stuff since they give me a free prime account. Get too many benefits and no sales tax.
 
It's not just the length of the generation though that's obviously a big part of it.

The market is diversifying. Console sales and retail sales make up an increasingly small part of the market. As long as NPD doesn't track digital (PC, consoles, handhelds, smartphones) it will be increasingly useless except at telling us that the retail market continues to shrink. Not just sales but also microtransactions, DLC, etc.

There's only so many gaming dollars to go around. Many more of them are getting soaked up in the digital space.
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
We've known for a bit that MW3 has been lagging behind Black Ops, so it's not too terribly surprising.
Yeah I had read that but I thought it was mostly due to Wii and PC which wouldn't have as big of an impact on NPD anyhow. The lack of noteworthy new releases in a month usually favors multiplayer games with strong word of mouth.

Time for this gen to die
I would agree 100% if I had more confidence that new console hardware is actually going to make a big leap in capabilities. I'm not terribly interested in a PS4 or Xbox 720 that has roughly the same capabilities with a bunch of extra bullshit thrown in.

It does seem like publishers are stuck between two bad options though - new hardware will take a long, long time to match the install base of what is currently out there. But the audience for what is currently out there is supporting highly marketed tentpole releases and not much else.

It makes me wonder if we'll get a "God of War" this gen - a new IP very late into the cycle that becomes a big franchise. I don't think Sony is going to give "The Last of Us" more than the usual window of marketing they do now, so that probably will not be it.
 

jkanownik

Member
Xenoblade is included in the numbers, but the title is suppressed in the data. All retailer exclusives get lumped into a single surpressed number.
 
Yikes, talk about a horrible month.

The industry is definitely in a bad shape. Wonder if next-gen can turn things around, or if it's a more fundamental (economic) problem.
 

UberTag

Member
Xenoblade is included in the numbers, but the title is suppressed in the data. All retailer exclusives get lumped into a single surpressed number.
So Xenoblade is part of that $307.2 million software sales figure but we won't know how much of that it contributed due to suppression? Good to know.
Thank you Gamestop for ensuring we'll never know well this title performed. <tips over magazine rack>
 
Exactly. Gamers are looking for something new and if Nintendo delivers with the Wii U MS and Sony will really be in trouble

This assumes Nintendo delivers with the Wii U.

And by "delivers", I mean, provides powerful enough hardware to entice the core audience. Which isn't looking likely given all of the developer reports.

If it's unlikely to sway the core, Nintendo is going to need to rely on recapturing the magic of the casual audience. I don't see that happening since the controller in the Wii U is just a tablet and not something revolutionary like the Wii Controller was at the time.

Microsoft and Sony will probably drop prices this year as well. So sales should only be marginally down from last year, if not flat. Which means they most certainly aren't in trouble. I doubt Wii U will sell 13+ million consoles during its debut year unless they can either strike lighting twice with the casual crowd or entice the hardcore crowd. Both seem a bit unlikely at the moment.

Yeah I had read that but I thought it was mostly due to Wii and PC which wouldn't have as big of an impact on NPD anyhow. The lack of noteworthy new releases in a month usually favors multiplayer games with strong word of mouth.


I would agree 100% if I had more confidence that new console hardware is actually going to make a big leap in capabilities. I'm not terribly interested in a PS4 or Xbox 720 that has roughly the same capabilities with a bunch of extra bullshit thrown in.

It does seem like publishers are stuck between two bad options though - new hardware will take a long, long time to match the install base of what is currently out there. But the audience for what is currently out there is supporting highly marketed tentpole releases and not much else.

It makes me wonder if we'll get a "God of War" this gen - a new IP very late into the cycle that becomes a big franchise. I don't think Sony is going to give "The Last of Us" more than the usual window of marketing they do now, so that probably will not be it.

We're going to see a very smooth transition from this gen to next. Publishers can't risk exclusives. So you will see ported games that look a lot better on the PS4/720, but don't take full advantage of the hardware. Similar to PC ports.

I think that only the main publishers (Microsoft, Sony) will take risks by developing games that are genuinely exclusive to this generation and take full advantage of the hardware.
 
The Prototype 2 TV ads seemed omnipresent so I would have have expected some sales impact from them, though all it really did was interest me in the Johnny Cash song.
 
This assumes Nintendo delivers with the Wii U.

And by "delivers", I mean, provides powerful enough hardware to entice the core audience. Which isn't looking likely given all of the developer reports.

If it's unlikely to sway the core, Nintendo is going to need to rely on recapturing the magic of the casual audience. I don't see that happening since the controller in the Wii U is just a tablet and not something revolutionary like the Wii Controller was at the time.

Microsoft and Sony will probably drop prices this year as well. So sales should only be marginally down from last year, if not flat. Which means they most certainly aren't in trouble. I doubt Wii U will sell 13+ million consoles during its debut year unless they can either strike lighting twice with the casual crowd or entice the hardcore crowd. Both seem a bit unlikely at the moment.

On a scale of 1-doom, where do you place their chances?
 

Rebel Leader

THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
So Xenoblade is part of that $307.2 million software sales figure but we won't know how much of that it contributed due to suppression? Good to know.
<tips over magazine rack>


6UAtJ.gif
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Well it's either that or general interest in video games is dying. Lets hope it's what you said.

Yikes, talk about a horrible month.

The industry is definitely in a bad shape. Wonder if next-gen can turn things around, or if it's a more fundamental (economic) problem.

Given the growth in arenas like mobile and f2p, I would propose any fundamental issues are more platform and business model centric than audience or economic centric.
 
I would agree 100% if I had more confidence that new console hardware is actually going to make a big leap in capabilities. I'm not terribly interested in a PS4 or Xbox 720 that has roughly the same capabilities with a bunch of extra bullshit thrown in.

I agree and that`s also the problem Nintendo has to face with the Wii U. Their timing is golden but i don`t know if the Wii U is the answer.
 

antonz

Member
Just for Comparison of last transition period.
April 2005
XBX DOOM 3 - 384,712
PS2 Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition - 238,443
XBX Jade Empire - 199,900
PS2 God of War - 182,571
XBX Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Chaos Theory - 168,664
XBX Midnight Club 3: DUB Edition - 159,325
XBX WWE WrestleMania XXI - 108,712
PS2 LEGO Star Wars - 120,296
PS2 Gran Turismo 4 - 82,796
PSP Need for Speed: Underground Rivals - 79,010

PSP = 351,000
PS2 = 332,000
Xbox = 153,000
GCN = 63,000
GBA and DS = 250,000
 

LQX

Member
Why can't the low sales be due to the games just not being that compelling? Look at some of the games released, Prototype 2, Kinect Star War.

It might be that people are just more wary of games they think are potentially shit rather than being fatigue with this generation of consoles.
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
I agree and that`s also the problem Nintedo has to face with the Wii U. Their timing is golden but i don`t know if the Wii U is the answer.
I think their timing is great (the market around the current hardware is slowing) and they tend to price things well enough. I think their problem is that a lot of the Wii/DS audience is buying games on iOS and isn't coming back. They haven't been a primary destination for western development for ages, and that is where a lot of the games are coming from for both high end and lower priced casual stuff. If the system doesn't run UE4 and mobile developers aren't impressed with their digital distribution, where is the support coming from?

Big time Japanese third party franchises are increasingly sourced out to western developers. And their impact on the market isn't what it used to be.

Why can't the low sales be due to the games just not being that compelling? Look at some of the games released, Prototype 2, Kinect Star War.

It might be that people are just more wary of games they think are potentially shit rather than being fatigue with this generation of consoles.
This is a good point but evidence points to the fact that terrible games are selling just fine elsewhere. :-\
 
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