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Media Create Sales 5/14 - 5/20

Odysseus

Banned
sphinx said:
Why isn't the core an option? I mean seriously. you just go and buy a memory unit and your ready to go, isn't it?

people that are that price conscious will very likely not need HD cables, a headset and what not.

I'd like someone to explain why does the core flops.

the core flops because it is gimped too far beyond the price savings, plain and simple

if they de-tarded the tard pack a bit, it might just do better. i really believe the only difference between the tard and premium skus should be the harddrive. but as it is, if someone sees the core and finds out they have to buy a memory card and they see they're already close to the price of a premium sku at that point, they figure they might as well go the extra mile. and that's fine, except that extra $100 also keeps people from buying the 360 because it's crossed another psychological price barrier.

make the core more attractive and it will fare better.
 

Sharp

Member
To be honest, I was going to buy one awhile back, but realized I just don't play games enough to warrant it. Hell, I don't even really have enough time for the Wii, and that's apparently going through a drought. But I understand that hardcore gamers need a 360 this generation.
 
sphinx said:
Why isn't the core an option? I mean seriously. you just go and buy a memory unit and your ready to go, isn't it?

people that are that price conscious will very likely not need HD cables, a headset and what not.

I'd like someone to explain why does the core flops.
If it included a Memory card, and a wireless controller, maybe it wouldn't be such a rip-off. It's like they designed the core pack to make the premium pack seem like a much better deal.
 

donny2112

Member
sphinx said:
Why isn't the core an option?

No backwards compatibility and the general overcharging for accessories that you would have to buy.

Odysseus said:
no sooner than a hardware revision, no sooner than $299, no gaurantees it will happen as soon as the both of those take place

My feelings exactly. $199 premium with hardware revision (i.e. actual reliability) would almost be a definite, though.
 

Odysseus

Banned
i've never spent more than $199 on a console ever. i got gamecube (midnight launch) and xbox at that price, ps2 at $179, and dreamcast at $149. so even $299 creeps me out. $399 and $599 are never going to happen.
 

Sharp

Member
I'm still in shock over just how much the PS3 costs. Honestly, that it's even doing as well as the Gamecube in the US is surprising in and of itself.
 

ethelred

Member
I really loathe the idea of spending 400$ for a console, and I swore a while back that I'd never go higher than 300$... but alas, this year I really need to have Blue Dragon, Assassin's Creed, Lost Odyssey, and Eternal Sonata.

So, August, here we come...
 
Odysseus said:
no sooner than a hardware revision, no sooner than $299, no gaurantees it will happen as soon as the both of those take place
That's kinda where I am. I'm interested in a nice handful of games for it, and if it didn't have the hardware problems, I might have done it as a impulse buy at some point, but any burning desire that I may have had at any one time is gone now. I still want to play GTAIV and Blue Dragon though.
 
sphinx said:
Why isn't the core an option? I mean seriously. you just go and buy a memory unit and your ready to go, isn't it?

people that are that price conscious will very likely not need HD cables, a headset and what not.

I'd like someone to explain why does the core flops.

For the same reason people would rather buy a loaded Corolla than a Camry with no A/C or power windows.

Odysseus said:
the core flops because it is gimped too far beyond the price savings, plain and simple


Bingo, question wasn't even worth asking.
 

Epigamic

Member
Odysseus said:
Ratios and Analysis

I'm afraid I'm not convinced by your analysis yet. If I understand the ratios properly, what you have shown is that the relative sales in each month of the fall/holiday period are roughly the same each year. However, the effect of each GTA release could be obscured if you only look at ratios as the release could affect both the denominator (sales in anticipation) and numerator (sales after release) equally. As a hypothetical example, imagine if each GTA release increased the underlying normal seasonal weekly sales by a factor of 2. In this hypothetical situation GTA sales have a huge effect on console sales but the ratios of sales across months would stay the same.

Perhaps you could try a year-on-year monthly comparison or a comparison of growth of annual sales in GTA vs. non GTA years.
 
Epigamic said:
I'm afraid I'm not convinced by your analysis yet. If I understand the ratios properly, what you have shown is that the relative sales in each month of the fall/holiday period are roughly the same each year. However, the effect of each GTA release could be obscured if you only look at ratios as the release could affect both the denominator (sales in anticipation) and numerator (sales after release) equally. As a hypothetical example, imagine if each GTA release increased the underlying normal seasonal weekly sales by a factor of 2. In this hypothetical situation GTA sales have a huge effect on console sales but the ratios of sales across months would stay the same.

Perhaps you could try a year-on-year monthly comparison or a comparison of growth of annual sales in GTA vs. non GTA years.

He isn't arguing that software doesn't move hardware. He's arguing that individual software releases do not cause breakaway sales spikes that are not in keeping with established sales trends.
 

Epigamic

Member
AdmiralViscen said:
He isn't arguing that software doesn't move hardware. He's arguing that individual software releases do not cause breakaway sales spikes that are not in keeping with established sales trends.

I'm not arguing that his thesis is wrong. I'm arguing that his analysis doesn't prove his thesis is right.
 
360 has some excellent titles that I'd like to play. Eternal Sonata and Naruto figure prominently in those titles.

But, it is far too expensive for a faulty console. I have yet to pay more than 199$ for a console, with the exception of the Wii, and I count it as 199$ with a 50$ pack-in.

The death rates amongst the Xboxen scare me. It saddens me, because I like the games on the thing.

And Sharp and I are in the same boat. Not that much time for gaming. Wii's gaming drought doesn't have much of an effect on me, hell, I'm not finished with TC yet. But I'd still like a 360 for those two titles.
 

Odysseus

Banned
Epigamic said:
I'm afraid I'm not convinced by your analysis yet. If I understand the ratios properly, what you have shown is that the relative sales in each month of the fall/holiday period are roughly the same each year. However, the effect of each GTA release could be obscured if you only look at ratios as the release could affect both the denominator (sales in anticipation) and numerator (sales after release) equally. As a hypothetical example, imagine if each GTA release increased the underlying normal seasonal weekly sales by a factor of 2. In this hypothetical situation GTA sales have a huge effect on console sales but the ratios of sales across months would stay the same.

Perhaps you could try a year-on-year monthly comparison or a comparison of growth of annual sales in GTA vs. non GTA years.

that's a way of looking at it, but it basically comes down to looking at the numbers for yourself, taking into consideration five week reporting periods versus four, accounting for shortages, tagging the months price drops took place and then looking at the holidays.

it all comes down to never seeing prolonged bumps in sales that did not directly follow price drops and never seeing holiday sales out of a particular ratio range versus the rest of the year. major game releases inside and particularly outside the holiday sales period did not seem to create meaningful impact. feel free to check the numbers you can find in many threads here on sales-age, perhaps in the sales archive, and draw your own conclusions.

but you said something i essentially agree with and posted earlier. major games sell consoles, just not all at once. people have been buying xbox 360s for halo 3 since the day the system launched. people will buy xbox 360s for halo 3 in september, and for every month the xbox 360 is on the market. the number of people that will buy the system based in part or in total on that one game cannot easily be measured, but my statement is that you will not notice a huge bump during the release month, and that's based on history.

but in their own ways, xbox 360 and ps3 are writing a new history. we haven't seen sales bumps that could not be explained by price drops or holidays, but we've never seen consoles this expensive (consoles that didn't immediately die, anyway). who knows, maybe a huge bump is exactly what will happen because of the how much the console costs. whereas people would see a game that's months off and decide to buy the system now to play other things while waiting, this time they can't justify the expense until that game comes out. it's counterintuitive because you can't point to that ever happening using the history of the last generation, but these consoles are counterintuitive as it is. it's so crazy it might just make sense.

(but i doubt it.)
 

Wiitard

Banned
Epigamic said:
I'm afraid I'm not convinced by your analysis yet. If I understand the ratios properly, what you have shown is that the relative sales in each month of the fall/holiday period are roughly the same each year. However, the effect of each GTA release could be obscured if you only look at ratios as the release could affect both the denominator (sales in anticipation) and numerator (sales after release) equally. As a hypothetical example, imagine if each GTA release increased the underlying normal seasonal weekly sales by a factor of 2. In this hypothetical situation GTA sales have a huge effect on console sales but the ratios of sales across months would stay the same.

Perhaps you could try a year-on-year monthly comparison or a comparison of growth of annual sales in GTA vs. non GTA years.

Antecipation? GTA 3 was one of the biggest surprises ever. San Andreas was a big non-surprise. Don't you see the antecipation difference?
 

Epigamic

Member
Odysseus said:
it all comes down to never seeing prolonged bumps in sales that did not directly follow price drops and never seeing holiday sales out of a particular ratio range versus the rest of the year. major game releases inside and particularly outside the holiday sales period did not seem to create meaningful impact. feel free to check the numbers you can find in many threads here on sales-age, perhaps in the sales archive, and draw your own conclusions.

Thank you. I find this much more convincing.
 

RiverBed

Banned
skinnyrattler said:
Why is [PS3] slouching? It has the games and marketability. What gives?
what games? no seriously, what? aside from the obvious price barrier, PS3 doesn't have games, imo. why pay that much for a PS3 unit and around $60 for the same game you could buy for $40 or so on your current system (PS2/Xbox)? PS3 has multiplayers. I don't see most people paying $500 to play a bunch of EA multiplatform games that they can already play on any system they happen to own. and having only two games (that aren't that special, imo) isn't enough for most people obviously.

and what marketability? those Euro adds were a total waste of time, imo. and I am not seeing good adverts at all. there are few on them, but they are online-only. they need more and better advertisement.

I advise people around me that ask me about PS3 and I tell them if you 'think' you want a PS3, wait till the end of 08. then you have a bunch of exclusive games to mull over. I am very interested to see how PS3 does by that time since it will have the dilemma of having great games coming out for it by then on one side and having the price on the other.

and since we are on the topic, I will wait on 360 for a bit but not due to the same problem as it already has some great games, but for its manufacturing problem. untill I see an internal revision to deal with this, I am not touching one. I can always catch up on the good games in the bargain bin after all.
 

Branduil

Member
To be honest there are more PS3 games I am interested in than 360 games. But I won't consider buying one until it's at least $200 cheaper. That price is just killing whatever interest there is in the PS3.
 
Moor-Angol said:
I don't know exactly their line-up, but honestly Wii with SBBB has already won for this winter holidays.

Of course i'm talking about home systems, if you add portables, DS + DQ9 will smash everything
Yeah I left out DS for that reason. It's not going to be pretty come launch day, blood, mayhem, bitter tears.

I really want to know what Sony has slated for this christmas, if they don't drop a big bomb at E3 or TGS they have officially dropped the ball. I'm talking about Japan of course.

edit:
Branduil said:
To be honest there are more PS3 games I am interested in than 360 games. But I won't consider buying one until it's at least $200 cheaper. That price is just killing whatever interest there is in the PS3.
Ditto. Most of the stuff coming for 360 I can get for PC as well and a lot cheaper (almost half the price around here). I can't stand playing FPS' with dual analogue. The games that really tempt me to get a 360 are Mass Effect and Ace Combat. But the first one will come to PC eventually and the latter will (hopefully) come to PS3.
 

Vinnk

Member
I would also like a 360 but just not now. $400 (much less $600) is too much to pay for a present for me. When I bought the Wii my girlfriend was also excited about it. It was something we could do together. If I bought a 360, it would be a toy for me alone and at this point in my life I can't justify doing that. I want to play Blue Dragon and Trusty Bell a lot, but I don't need to play them right now. They will be just as good when they are budget-priced games on a $200 Xbox 360 down the road. And if that price point never happens, I will play the remakes of them someday on a system that fits my budget. That said, I would very much like to own a 360 someday.
 

apujanata

Member
ethelred said:
I really loathe the idea of spending 400$ for a console, and I swore a while back that I'd never go higher than 300$... but alas, this year I really need to have Blue Dragon, Assassin's Creed, Lost Odyssey, and Eternal Sonata.

So, August, here we come...

since I haven't finished the last three FF games (FFX, FFX-2, FFXII), I doubt I will ever be tempted to buy a console for RPG game again (especially after having only 5-15 hours per week to play game, and the fact that most RPG need 30-70 hours of gameplay). For SRPG, it is a different story. I bought a PS2 for Dynasty Tactics.

I can see myself buying PS3 when it is 300, and when it have a good SRPG game (like Dynasty Tactics 3, or perhaps Shining games, or some Atlus game).

No X360 for me in the future (for the above mentioned reason of RPG games) and because I don't really like the type of games X360 offer. And I don't see myself buying a console for one or two game, except for Zelda (I wouldn't buy GCN if it does not have Zelda, and if there is no Zelda CE collection).
 

apujanata

Member
Vinnk said:
I would also like a 360 but just not now. $400 (much less $600) is too much to pay for a present for me. When I bought the Wii my future wife was also excited about it. It was something we could do together. If I bought a 360, it would be a toy for me alone and at this point in my life I can't justify doing that. I want to play Blue Dragon and Trusty Bell a lot, but I don't need to play them right now. They will be just as good when they are budget-priced games on a $200 Xbox 360 down the road. And if that price point never happens, I will play the remakes of them someday on a system that fits my budget. That said, I would very much like to own a 360 someday.

Fixed. Congratulation, Vinnk. Now you need to tell more about the games that she like to play with you together.

My wife and I play bowling together. She does not like tennis, and I have yet to convince her to play boxing with me (since I only got the second nunchuk about one month ago).

I can see myself playing Big Brain Academy:Wii Degree with her in the future, since she like BBA on DS (She got either A- or A on BBA DS, while I only got B or B+).
 

Vinnk

Member
apujanata said:
Fixed. Congratulation, Vinnk. Now you need to tell more about the games that she like to play with you together.

My wife and I play bowling together. She does not like tennis, and I have yet to convince her to play boxing with me (since I only got the second nunchuk about one month ago).

I can see myself playing Big Brain Academy:Wii Degree with her in the future, since she like BBA on DS (She got either A- or A on BBA DS, while I only got B or B+).

Yeah, still getting used to the fact that she is my future wife. She and I play Wii sports and WarioWare a lot. Wii play when I first got it was also fun. She is looking forward to Wii Fitness and says I should definitely get it (is that a hint?).

But really she is more into the DS than the Wii right now. She loves New Super Mario. She hadn't played any of the Mario games between the original Super Mario and this one. She loved animal crossing and played it everyday for a month and then got bored wit it and hasn't played it since. Nintendogs never did anything for her.

She has become a big fan of the adventure genre that the DS is reviving. She loves the Gyakuten Saiban series and Project Hacker. She also wants to play Hotel Dusk but doesn’t have it yet.

When I first got my DS she wouldn’t try it, but soon after, her co-workers were taking about them. This is why the DS sells so well. My fiancé hadn't touched a game in 20 years but now she knows release dates for various titles she is interested in. It's crazy.
 

Link

The Autumn Wind
Vinnk said:
She is looking forward to Wii Fitness and says I should definitely get it (is that a hint?).
No, that's a demand. Get used to them.

Just messing with you (maybe). Congrats.
 

Tf53

Member
Vinnk said:
She is looking forward to Wii Fitness and says I should definitely get it (is that a hint?).
No, that's what you call an order or a command. Just reply "mam, yes, mam!"

Edit: too slow.
 

Deku

Banned
Vinnk said:
When I first got my DS she wouldn’t try it, but soon after, her co-workers were taking about them. This is why the DS sells so well. My fiancé hadn't touched a game in 20 years but now she knows release dates for various titles she is interested in. It's crazy.

Again, congratulations. Interesting anecdote.
 

apujanata

Member
Vinnk said:
Yeah, still getting used to the fact that she is my future wife. She and I play Wii sports and WarioWare a lot. Wii play when I first got it was also fun. She is looking forward to Wii Fitness and says I should definitely get it (is that a hint?).

But really she is more into the DS than the Wii right now. She loves New Super Mario. She hadn't played any of the Mario games between the original Super Mario and this one. She loved animal crossing and played it everyday for a month and then got bored wit it and hasn't played it since. Nintendogs never did anything for her.

She has become a big fan of the adventure genre that the DS is reviving. She loves the Gyakuten Saiban series and Project Hacker. She also wants to play Hotel Dusk but doesn’t have it yet.

When I first got my DS she wouldn’t try it, but soon after, her co-workers were taking about them. This is why the DS sells so well. My fiancé hadn't touched a game in 20 years but now she knows release dates for various titles she is interested in. It's crazy.

I think it is not a hint (not yet). After marriage, it could probably a hint. My wife has accepted the fact that I became much more rounded after marriage. I am also looking forward to Wii Fitness to reduce my weight.

Tom Nook will say : Crazzzzzzzzy. I need to look up Project Hacker, since I like Gyakuten Saiban. Already knew about Hotel Dusk.
 

PantherLotus

Professional Schmuck
Ok, Odysseus and co. I essentially agree--no single game causes people to buy consoles according to trends in the US. It makes sense. I could go on and on for all the reasons WHY we don't see one game making a huge immediate impact on hardware sales, but the question remains...

At what point does the amount of software sales, 1st party franchises and 3rd party exclusives actually make its impact on the success or failure of a console? Surely they account for something--look in Japan, at the now infamous Gundabump for the PS3. We all know the myriad of other reasons that the PS3 is failing, but I have to ask when people actually think software makes its impact?

================

I have a couple ideas.

Promised Land. First of all, there's the "promised titles." These are the 1st-party stuff you know you'll get on the console of choice. Mario, GT, Halo. I don't believe THOSE will ever directly impact sales outside of the early adoption stage--the people that want THOSE games want THOSE systems. They don't typically wait until the promised titles are released. This was a purchase that was made long before the anticipated game was released. (See: SSBB, HALO3). My theory is that the software impact of these types of titles is front loaded into the sales. You know, the old "only Nintendo fans are buying it" argument. These lead directly to the next phase of titles. Ok, let's go from there.

Targeted Titles. The next set of software is completely independent of hardware sales, in both directions. Their release has little-to-no direct bearing on the success of a console, and in the same breath, they were coming to the console with or without that console's success. These are usually the very first titles that come out for a system and the ones announced during the launch phase. I'm thinking about titles like Red Steel and Excite Truck. The importance of these types of titles is that they are typically based on what audience the publisher expects the console manufacturer to deliver. In this sense, the publishers themselves are self-fulfilling prophets. The success or failure of the console manufacturer to deliver the expected audience the promised titles, and the publisher that releases the Targeted Titles lead directly to the most significant phase of the software impact on hardware sales.

The Avalanche. This is where it gets tricky, and where all the other factors like price, marketing, mass-appeal, public relations, timing, relevancy, and the IT factor all come into play. Assuming that the console in question somehow nails all of the above, this is the only phase of software that I believe makes a direct impact on hardware sales. These are the titles that get announced AFTER the publishers determine which way the wind is blowing; these are the titles that get the most development money, the most marketing, and often--the most overlooked. These titles are a literal avalanche of games that are announced and released AFTER the initial success of the console has been determined. The significance of these titles is that no single title can be pointed to as THE game that made people run out and buy the system. Nobody knows which title started it...it just happened. One day it was just the promised 1st-party titles, then there was some Targeted Titles...and one day it happened. We turned around and there was an avalanche of software coming down the mountain. This is the moment, if it can be confined to a single moment, that software makes an attributable impact on hardware sales. The problem with this is that because it's not a single title or a single moment...it's completely immeasurable. The impact is spread over time so that it just appears as momentum. Well, just as a single promised 1st-party title can turn into several targeted titles, a snowball can turn into a frozen boulder, and both can turn into an avalanche at any moment.

The Glory. This is kinda obvious, but these are 3rd-party exclusives. Sometimes they are dependent upon console success, and sometimes they are just money-hatted in. Their impact on sales, or at least the significance of their impact is completely determined by their origin. Was this 3rd-party exclusive awarded to the console by the console parent company paying off the publisher? Its potential is therefore limited, as it essentially becomes a "promised title," as noted above. (FF/MGS). The people that buy systems for those games will already have that system. Nothing changes. On the other hand, the titles that get awarded to systems BECAUSE of their success have the most potential for hardware sales impact out of all of these. (GTA, DQ) Why? Because they appear as part of the avalanche, but they have enough distinction to make themselves stand out from that rush of announced titles. In that same sense, their impact is felt but still spread out over time as they become a part of the avalanche.



So, there you go. We have first party exclusives (and money-hatted 3rd party exclusives) which impact the hardware but is almost entirely front loaded into the launch and the first several months. Then we have the targeted titles which don't impact hardware sales at all other than potentially pre-determining which audiences arrive to the console. After that, and if all the stars align properly, we have the avalanche of software (which include success-based 3rd party exclusives) which make the most hardware sales impact, but that is generally immeasurable because it comes at a time of critical mass that is spread out over 100s of titles and the presence of mass-market mindshare has arrived.
 

nli10

Member
pantherlotus said:

Interesting way of looking at it - glad the thread is back in stats & market analysis land. :D

I've been looking at the effect of console sales on titles that are still selling well a year or more after release - unfortunatley I don't have much software at home so it's a painful process...
 

Thraktor

Member
Alright, I had been waiting until next week to put all this info up, but what with exams it doesn't look like I'll be able to, so here it is, if a week from complete.

Wii Sports First Six Months (almost) Sales Analysis

Notable facts:

- Wii Sports has now appeared in the Media Create top 10 for 25 consecutive weeks. By Famitsu's reckoning, it has dropped out of the top 10 on only one occasion. While this is most probably not a record yet (I'd imagine one of Brain Training, NSMB or Animal Crossing DS may well have gone on for longer), it's one hell of an achievement on a supply-constrained console with the top 10 as difficult as it is to get into these days.

- On average, it has sold 64,062 copies per week during that time.

- It has sold at an attach rate of 64.7% to Wii hardware since launch. On a weekly basis, it has never sold less that 50.3% of what Wii hardware sold that week.

- It has never sold less than 27,788 units per week.

- Releases of other software have had no effect on Wii Sport's attach rate to Wii hardware. On the week Super Paper Mario was released (the biggest post-launch game), its attach rate increased slightly from the previous week.

- It sold 1 million copies within 11 weeks and 1.5 million within 23 weeks. It has now sold 1,601,564 copies.

- It has sold more than every PS3 game combined.

Here's how its attach rate to Wii hardware has looked since launch:

wiisportsattach20_05.png


As a matter of interest, I've tried to figure out what it would take for Wii Sports to stay in the Media Create top ten for a full year (which we're now just about half way through). Using data from previous Media Create threads, I've tried to estimate how many copies a game needs to sell to stay in the top ten on any particular week. Taking last year's numbers and increasing them by 24.9% (the average that the figure has increased year-on-year since Wii's launch), I've plotted a graph that might tell us when Wii Sports would be likely to drop out of the top 10.

wiisports_top10expected20_05.png


The green line is what Wii Sports wants to avoid, which it has done up till now. The dotted green line is my forecast of how this will continue. If Wii shipments were to continue at exactly 71,662 a week (the post-holiday average), and Wii Sports sales were to continue at 64.7% of Wii hardware, the only week it would drop out of the top 10 would be the week ending the 5th August. However, given the irregularity of Wii shipments and the gradual decline of Wii Sports' attach rate (especially as more and more new titles come out), this isn't likely to be the case.

What might be worth looking at, though, it the dotted red line on the graph. This is Nintendo's "optimal strategy" for keeping Wii Sports in the Media Create top 10. Presuming that they have production capacity for 71,662 units per week, and they can stockpile to release more in certain weeks and less in others, the dotted red line represents the number of Wiis Nintendo should release each week to see the greatest chance of Wii Sports remaining in the top 10. As it is currently calculated, it would be possible for Wii Sports' attach rate to drop to 41.9% on any one week before it drops out of the top 10, if Nintendo were to follow such a shipping strategy.

*Note - The spike coming up next week seems to be a result of unseasonably good software sales on the corresponding week last year, so I wouldn't necessarily expect it to make the same jump this year. It should be more than possible for Wii Sports to stay in the top 10 with 30,000~ sales by my reckoning.
 

Kaeru

Banned
Vinnk said:
When I first got my DS she wouldn’t try it, but soon after, her co-workers were taking about them. This is why the DS sells so well. My fiancé hadn't touched a game in 20 years but now she knows release dates for various titles she is interested in. It's crazy.

I know this all too well. My girlfriend is also Japanese and she too had not played any games for a long time. But when I bought the DS Lite she wen't nuts, and just couldn't stop playing. It came to the point where she would actually break my records in Mario Kart DS and other games. My nerdhood too a serious blow!
She got one yesterday for herself, but she had to buy a used one on auction since it's hard/impossible to get a new DS Lite in Yokohama(1,5 year and counting)

edit: I want to make love with your charts Thraktor.
 

Verve

Member
very interesting stuff Thraktor, i think Wii Sports is really a title worth analyzing.
and you're doing it very well.
 

Thraktor

Member
Kifimbo said:
What ? HOLY ****ING CRAP !

By quite a margin, too. The last set of data we had put combined PS3 software sales at ~1.2 million (if I recall correctly, someone may be able to look up the exact number), and I don't believe there's been much (if any) sight of PS3 games in the top 50 since then, so I wouldn't imagine it's increased by much. In fact, with the release list for PS3 as thin as it is, Wii Sports could well be 50% higher than combined PS3 software in not too long.
 

jimbo

Banned
PantherLotus said:
I have a couple ideas.

Promised Land. First of all, there's the "promised titles." These are the 1st-party stuff you know you'll get on the console of choice. Mario, GT, Halo. I don't believe THOSE will ever directly impact sales outside of the early adoption stage--the people that want THOSE games want THOSE systems. They don't typically wait until the promised titles are released. This was a purchase that was made long before the anticipated game was released. (See: SSBB, HALO3). My theory is that the software impact of these types of titles is front loaded into the sales. You know, the old "only Nintendo fans are buying it" argument. These lead directly to the next phase of titles. Ok, let's go from there.


Your post is way too long to try to debate all the point you made, but this one in particular stood out as completely wrong.

This way of thinking is pretty popular among gamers on GAF and it's extremely flawed. Most people DO NOT buy consoles for games that come out 2 years later. They buy consoles for what they can play on them now. Watch what happens to 360 hardware in September when Halo 3 comes.

Pay attention to what happened to European sales because of the Halo 3 beta. People have known for quite some time that you could play the beta through Crackdown....so if your theory is correct....why was there a spike in Crackdown sales? Gamers knew for some time that if they wanted the beta they HAD to buy Crackdown. Why didn't they ALL buy it a long time ago?

Because people don't INVEST in videogames. They spend their money on immediate returns. A game that comes out months or years later is NOT an IMMEDIATE RETURN. It's an eventual return, a guarantee......but there's better stuff for them to spend their money on RIGHT NOW.

Just look at all the people on this forum that say they will buy so and so console when so and so game comes out. Sure they KNOW it WILL come out. But they're still not buying that console now.

And of course the other 80% of gamers....that don't spend their time on GAF don't even know when a game is coming out, of if it's even coming out at all. We do. But most people don't.
 

Tf53

Member
jimbo said:
Pay attention to what happened to European sales because of the Halo 3 beta. People have known for quite some time that you could play the beta through Crackdown....so if your theory is correct....why was there a spike in Crackdown sales? Gamers knew for some time that if they wanted the beta they HAD to buy Crackdown. Why didn't they ALL buy it a long time ago?
First of all, there was a spike in Crackdown sales because the game came out quite a long time ago, hence the normal sales figures weren't that high for that time.

Second, can you tell me what percentage of the Halo 3 Beta population does the spike in Crackdown sales count for?

Third, Crackdown costs 59 euros. The 360 costs 350-400 euros. Which do you think people will buy on a whim?
 
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