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April 2014 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes May 12th

NPD in less than 18 hours :)

Be hilarious if XB1 somehow does fine and the kinectless SKU announcement was just a coincidence

I think sub-150 is really unlikely, but we'll see a 150-230 difference and yeah, when you have a few months of those, its definitely a trend that needs to be reversed. Once the early adopters start shifting, there's trouble.

May could be a bloodbath.
 
I think sub-150 is really unlikely, but we'll see a 150-230 difference and yeah, when you have a few months of those, its definitely a trend that needs to be reversed. Once the early adopters start shifting, there's trouble.

May could be a bloodbath.

Just to clarify what you're saying

Sub-150k for XB1 is unlikely? Yeah that sounds a reasonable take

150k - 230k difference? So if XB1 sells 150k, PS4 sells 300k to 380k? That seems really unlikely as April is 4 weeks instead of May's 5 and I think is naturally down anyways. PS4 could very well be below 300k [might even be more likely to be honest]

But yes May will likely be a bloodbath for XB1, Although as I've stated earlier MS could be strategizing and trying to move some May sales into June on purpose to give them a shot of winning June and stopping PS4's win streak
 
NPD in less than 18 hours :)

Be hilarious if XB1 somehow does fine and the kinectless SKU announcement was just a coincidence

If the XB1 was doing "fine" (or rather, doing as well as Microsoft's internal projections), they wouldn't have bundled Titanfall for free last month, added in a $50 gift certificate, and would have outsold the PS4.

They also wouldn't have reversed their stance (which was pretty staunch prior to launch) yet again by dropping Kinect and effectively introducing a $100 less expensive Xbox One.

Sales are bad. Microsoft knows they are bad, and they are fighting for dear life trying to stave off abysmal sales and at least remain somewhat respectable in one of the few territories that they are relevant in.

January sales were a huge indication of how poorly the console would perform without certain measures. February sales reflected some anticipation of Titanfall and tax returns. March sales reflect the reality that, no matter how big of an exclusive they release, and no matter how great of a deal they offer, the Xbox One just isn't something that has resonated with consumers who are opting for the competition instead. April and May sales will see the attenuation of the Titanfall effect + bundled deals.

Also, Microsoft does not care about announcing a price drop in advance, to diminish one month of sales in order to come bouncing back for a single month's bragging rights (if that even happens to begin with). Their story about "getting it out of the way prior to E3" sounds about right to me.
 
James, you read too much into what I said

I am one of the loudest proponents that up until now the XB1's sales have started becoming a truly worrying sign

I simply meant that April NPD could be reasonable XB1 sales and not the bloodbath that many think initiated a PR move with the kinectless SKU announcement like 3 days before NPD came out
 
James, you read too much into what I said

I am one of the loudest proponents that up until now the XB1's sales have started becoming a truly worrying sign

I simply meant that April NPD could be reasonable XB1 sales and not the bloodbath that many think initiated a PR move with the kinectless SKU announcement like 3 days before NPD came out

Yeah I think it's possible that it won't be too dramatic - but probably internally the whole console is premised on domination of the market and each adjustment costs things like deals with media partners, etc.
 
James, you read too much into what I said

I am one of the loudest proponents that up until now the XB1's sales have started becoming a truly worrying sign

I simply meant that April NPD could be reasonable XB1 sales and not the bloodbath that many think initiated a PR move with the kinectless SKU announcement like 3 days before NPD came out

Nah i expect an January type bloodbath 2:1 for PS4.
 
I don't know what to say. Sub-100k would be mind-numbingly bad

I just can't fathom that. That might be the craziest NPD thread yet this year
 
For the sake of my prediction results, I really hope the 2:1 situation is 140K <-> 280K.


If Xbox One is under 100K, that would be disastrous for my predictions:


For PS4 / XBO predictions, I'm using last-gen precedent:

d9nN2CH.png


For the rest, I'm predicting downward adjustments from last month.


[360] 86K
[3DS] 107K
[PS3] 53K
[PS4] 259K
[WIU] 56K
[XB1] 172K
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
i dont think april is going to be that bad. might be pretty close as didn't a lot of those crazy bundle deals roll over into april?
 
I don't know what to say. Sub-100k would be mind-numbingly bad

I just can't fathom that. That might be the craziest NPD thread yet this year

PS3 did 80k during its first April. Anything is possible, though I don't think Xbox One will do that poorly. I suspect it will do slightly more than 100k and PS4 sales will be roughly double.
 

Tommy DJ

Member
sub 100k is highly doubtful... otherwise there would've been fire sales this month.

They pretty much did that by slashing the price at all major retailers and packing in Titanfall and other goodies for "free".

If you consoder the value of Titanfall, misc goodies, and the Kinect, which you can sell, the value of the bundles were way better than their "game changing" $400 stand alone console.

And sales didn't really surpass the stock $400 PS4. This was a console bundle packed with so much stuff that it was pretty much cheaper than the PS4 by at least $50 if you gave no shits about specs.
 
PS3 did 80k during its first April. Anything is possible, though I don't think Xbox One will do that poorly. I suspect it will do slightly more than 100k and PS4 sales will be roughly double.

Xbox One, first year post-launch:

January: 141K
February: 258K
March: 311K


PS3, first year post-launch:

January: 244K
February: 127K
March: 130K
April: 82K
May: 82K
June: 99K
July: 159K
August: 131K
September: 119K
October: 121K



It seems like that, given Xbox One's very low 141K in January + PS3's penchant for sub-100K numbers during its early release, a drop below 100K wouldn't be entirely unheard of for Xbox One.


I certainly think that May has a sub-100K possibility for Xbox One given the early announcement of the June price cuts. But then again, I'm not sure I would equate the Xbox One's current situation to PS3's former situation. It does seem to be more successful at this juncture.
 
2:1 PS4 to XB1 is a lot more reasonable to me then XB1 selling sub-100k

PS4 could be 250k - 280k and XB1 could be 125k to 140k

Still terrible for XB1 but not OMG Dead in the Water kind of bad
 

orochi91

Member
2:1 PS4 to XB1 is a lot more reasonable to me then XB1 selling sub-100k

PS4 could be 250k - 280k and XB1 could be 125k to 140k

Still terrible for XB1 but not OMG Dead in the Water kind of bad

I sincerely hope the Wii U surpasses the XB1 for the month (or May). I love
watching huge threads and meltdowns unfold on this site :3
 
The XBO was fine in February, but that still resulted in the bundling and retailer specials. And that led to some overreaction before Feb NPD iirc. So I'm somewhat reticent to read too much into MS's actions.
 

AniHawk

Member
I don't know what to say. Sub-100k would be mind-numbingly bad

I just can't fathom that. That might be the craziest NPD thread yet this year

it's really not unheard of for systems running in second or third place. it's what the ps3, gc, and xbox did their first aprils.

i guess the big difference would be microsoft having already sold a lot of consoles, indicating a huge drop in interest or a level of saturation at the current price.
 

mrklaw

MrArseFace
I wonder if we'll see Sony react for the rest of May? Eg hold units back for June knowing they'll be fine in may anyway?
 
The XBO was fine in February, but that still resulted in the bundling and retailer specials. And that led to some overreaction before Feb NPD iirc. So I'm somewhat reticent to read too much into MS's actions.

Recent reactions are due to hints by BruceleeRoy and apparently a high-level gamestop employee on another forum for whatever that's worth

I'll see if I can't find the gamestop post

Here's the other post I was thinking of in response to BruceleeRoy's. Obviously take both with a huge grain of salt

haha should be interesting. On a different forum someone who works at gamestop (higher level employee) said the NPD numbers might be a bit nuts too. Bring on Thursday
 
I sincerely hope the Wii U surpasses the XB1 for the month (or May). I love
watching huge threads and meltdowns unfold on this site :3

May is going to be ridiculous. Microsoft completely shot their sales momentum with that announcement.

May 2014 Reporting Period:
May 4th - May 31st (4 weeks)

May 13th - Xbox One price cut announcement


That leaves 19 days of sales that are going to be affected by this announcement, and 9 days that are unaffected.

I'm guessing that the net effect of the price cut announcement will cut sales by at least 50K.

So if May was already going to be like 130K for Xbox One, that would bring it down to 80K.


When you couple this with the fact that Mario Kart 8 releases on May 30th, we'll see Wii U sales momentum during that time as well as core adopters will buy Mario Kart Wii U bundles on May 30th + May 31st as well as the game.


So who knows, maybe Wii U will actually manage more sales than Xbox One in May. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. And yeah, if it did, GAF would explode.
 

dolemite

Member
I heard rumors that the terrible April weather prevented most of the potential XBone buyers from making the purchase.

Microsoft completely shot their sales momentum with that announcement.
Not necessarily. We are comparing a barebones $399 version to a fully featured $499 system with a free good game.
 
I heard rumors that the terrible April weather prevented most of the potential XBone buyers from making the purchase.


Not necessarily. We are comparing a barebones $399 version to a fully featured $499 system with a free good game.

That will never get old. Were the Halo centres empty though?
 

Ty4on

Member
For the sake of my prediction results, I really hope the 2:1 situation is 140K <-> 280K.

If Xbox One is under 100K, that would be disastrous for my predictions:
Ahaha!

I think the same way. "Sub 100K? What about my poor predictions!?"

Edit: WiiU beating the Xbox One in May sound very likely unless I overestimate the day with MK.
 

GribbleGrunger

Dreams in Digital
I cant see the XB1 being sub 100k but I can agree with the a 2:1 ratio in favour of the PS4. But May? Perhaps both. The spike for Wiiu is likely to effect the XB1 more than the PS4 in my opinion.
 

allan-bh

Member
So who knows, maybe Wii U will actually manage more sales than Xbox One in May. It's certainly not out of the realm of possibilities. And yeah, if it did, GAF would explode.

I don't think Wii U beat Xbox One in may is a explosive fact. Honestly at this point is kinda expected.

Xbox One sales will dive and Mario Kart 8 is a huge game for Wii U.
 

AniHawk

Member
I don't think Wii U beat Xbox One in may is a explosive fact. Honestly at this point is kinda expected.

Xbox One sales will dive and Mario Kart 8 is a huge game for Wii U.

hard to determine that when the wii u will only see two days of sales from mario kart. i expect it'll be frontloaded, but probably not enough to do huge numbers like that in such a short amount of time. and then by june, that first couple of days won't matter and microsoft's price drop will be in effect.
 

Asd202

Member
I don't think Wii U outselling Xbone in May would cause meltdowns in the light of the recent price cut announcement.
 

Bgamer90

Banned
Interesting point that I didn't think of yet. To be honest, it may very well outsell the Xbox One with Mario Kart coming out this month + the June $400 SKU. We'll see...

There will be a lot of fanboys going nuts though (haha).
 

allan-bh

Member
hard to determine that when the wii u will only see two days of sales from mario kart. i expect it'll be frontloaded, but probably not enough to do huge numbers like that in such a short amount of time. and then by june, that first couple of days won't matter and microsoft's price drop will be in effect.

Sales for Xbox One in april will determine the chances of this happen. If sales are more close to 100k than 200k, I can see Wii U outselling it in may.

Anyway, with price cut announcement I don't think Wii U > Xbox One is big news.
 
May is going to be ridiculous. Microsoft completely shot their sales momentum with that announcement.
That assumes MS has any momentum to kill. Seems they're just grasping at straws in an attempt to slow Sony's sales.

This announcement comes just days before April NPD, so I'm gonna go out on a limb and say MS already have a pretty good idea of what their non-TF-powered sales look like, especially if NPD has weeklies they distribute "privately." You're right that "Better offer coming soon!!" will lower their current sales significantly, but maybe cutting them in half won't make much difference when it comes to thousands sold. Let's say they're at 90K in April. Cutting their sales in half is bad, sure, but it's still only 45K units lost, which doesn't mean much at the end of the generation.

But, there are some number of people out there saying to themselves, "I really love XBox but I really hate Kinect, and MS say they'll never get rid of it, so I guess I'll buy a PS4 now." How many there are is hard to say, but at this point, MS are just hoping they can temporarily stem the flow of gamers to PS4. At least until E3 when they get a chance to get up on stage and show off a bunch of games that won't be out for years. If MS can get them to wait on their PS4 purchase, then there's still a chance they'll let MS give them the bone instead.

I also think that finally taking down the paywall indicates they're preparing themselves to become an "exclusives console." PS4 is well on it's way to becoming the default console this generation, meaning that a large portion of XBone sales will come from people who already own a PS4, but still want to be able to play Halo, Forza, and Gears. Even $400 is a lot of money to spend on hardware just to play three games, and the proposition is even less attractive if the hardware in question is largely non-functional apart from the ability to play those three games. Removing the paywall makes XBone more viable as a spare console.
 

FiggyCal

Banned
Like I said earlier, can we not panic when Xbox One is sub 150k? I feel like the people saying that it's not likely are setting themselves up for a meltdown.
 

LevelNth

Banned
I got an email today showing a 'just announced' Xbox One price drop to $399... but there is no GAF thread I can see and I would've figured it'd be huge and constant first page.

Is it not an official price drop? (I'm in Canada, it was from Future Shop).
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
I got an email today showing a 'just announced' Xbox One price drop to $399... but there is no GAF thread I can see and I would've figured it'd be huge and constant first page.

Is it not an official price drop? (I'm in Canada, it was from Future Shop).

It probably spanned 10 different threads at one point yesterday.
 

LevelNth

Banned
It probably spanned 10 different threads at one point yesterday.
Ahh I see, I was curious to what the general reaction would be. Is one thread in particular best to check out?

EDIT: Oh wait sorry, I just saw the $399 is simply without Kinect, so it's not really a full price drop. Anticlimactic.
 
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