Support NeoGAF

[gofreak]

Hmmm. This is totally OT, but posting here cos this is the page I saw it on.

Don't know if this is a glitch or what, but was very weird - for some reason while on this page, a large floating ad for a garnier blackhead face scrub appeared over the page? I clicked on close and it went away. But I don't know how it appeared here...I don't have any other pages open where the ad could have come from (and where the browser might have glitched and displayed it in this tab instead of another).

Just wondering if anyone else has seen this behaviour or if it's something with my browser?

edit - solved it. Turns out it was an ad from MSN messenger somehow overlaying on my browser, even though msn is running in a background window. Dunno if that's a problem with windows 7 or what, but strange nonetheless...have minimised msn now so hopefully won't happen again.

 

[Moor-Angol]

Well HM3 is a bomba (according to several poster in several MC threads) at 850k so these games are obviously also bombas.

uhm.... i didn't consider that, you're right :lol

 

[Kurosaki Ichigo]

@Kurosaki Ichigo
The ones you list > 100K with SKUs from 1999 and later are not easily explainable with saying it's due to missing Famitsu data. We have the Top 300/500 after 1999, so it's not going to mesh with missing ~100K in data on individual games. I think we're just going to have to accept that Famitsu is not going to always reconcile with what publishers put out, which is what YSO is using.

True, I don't think there's huge sellers that went under every of our radars (after 1999) but I'm trying to give the most complete view on them. For example, Crash Bandicoot 3 has a 600k difference, and I say there's two SKUs (1999 and 2001) with no data, but I'm not saying Famitsu has those at 600k combined (or anywhere near).
Such extreme case looks to be impossible to explain (did sony really say crash 3 did 1.5m? did they count asia? famitsu blew it? were there bundles and famitsu didn't count them? did sony ship and recall? how did the budget titles do after all?).
Some are easier to explain though, Densha the Go has two skus without data and a 70k difference. Cue in shipped vs sold on the top of what they did and you probably have a pretty complete view on its case.

"Best Hits" is a sequel.

Beatmania
Beatmania Best Hits

Looks like it. Can't check now but I suppose I took the other title numbers and the Beatmania actual budget re-release number is lacking:
BeatMania (Konami the Best) Konami SLPM-86390 - SLPM-86391 12/09/99 JP

 

[Chris1964]

I just can't trust many YSO's numbers. I remember Square2005 had posted a similar list a couple of years ago, and even back then many numbers looked extremely high.
Most recent example is Pokemon Gold / Silver. They have it at 3,64+3,53=7,17M, when famitsu's LTD is 6,09M. So either famitsu undertracked it by 1 million or there are 1 million copies unsold at the japanese retailers.
If we go to Pokemon Red / Green / Blue / Yellow things get out of hand. YSO has it at 4,18+4,04+2,01+3,16=13,39M, when famitsu's LTD is 10,07M. 3,3M difference.

 

[ethelred]

I'm genuinely curious as to why we wouldn't count budget priced versions and other publisher-issued rereleases. This seems fairly arbitrarily applied, and frankly it seems that such a disclusion would, rather than enhance, do more to restrict our full understanding of both the performance of individual titles as well as the health and sales of the systems as a whole. Attempting to define down the list of PSX million sellers into the teens in order to win a "my system is bigger than both of your systems" pissing contest hardly sounds helpful. Many of the games being so arbitrarily excluded are most certainly platinum; that a portion of those sales came at discounted prices (and thus likely fed off of word-of-mouth) is most certainly interesting to note, but it does not in itself disqualify them from said platinum status.

If Phantom Hourglass, now discounted to 1000 yen, manages to push past a million copies, we would absolutely count it. There is no practical difference between such a retailer-driven price decrease leading to a sales surge, and a publisher-driven sales decrease (in the form of a rerelease) leading to a similar sales increase (except that the latter probably reflects better on the game's performance, not worse). There's also the fact that plenty of games are released at budget prices to begin with, or are multi-SKUed with a secondary version carrying a greater value/price -- see, for instance, the performance of the bundled CE-style MH3 and the regular versions, each of which had different prices and varrying levels of demand. Still, we all have the explicit understanding that if MH3 ever becomes a million seller it will be because of both of these.

 

[DNF]

I'm genuinely curious as to why we wouldn't count budget priced versions and other publisher-issued rereleases. This seems fairly arbitrarily applied, and frankly it seems that such a disclusion would, rather than enhance, do more to restrict our full understanding of both the performance of individual titles as well as the health and sales of the systems as a whole. Attempting to define down the list of PSX million sellers into the teens in order to win a "my system is bigger than both of your systems" pissing contest hardly sounds helpful. Many of the games being so arbitrarily excluded are most certainly platinum; that a portion of those sales came at discounted prices (and thus likely fed off of word-of-mouth) is most certainly interesting to note, but it does not in itself disqualify them from said platinum status.

If Phantom Hourglass, now discounted to 1000 yen, manages to push past a million copies, we would absolutely count it. There is no practical difference between such a retailer-driven price decrease leading to a sales surge, and a publisher-driven sales decrease (in the form of a rerelease) leading to a similar sales increase (except that the latter probably reflects better on the game's performance, not worse). There's also the fact that plenty of games are released at budget prices to begin with, or are multi-SKUed with a secondary version carrying a greater value/price -- see, for instance, the performance of the bundled CE-style MH3 and the regular versions, each of which had different prices and varrying levels of demand. Still, we all have the explicit understanding that if MH3 ever becomes a million seller it will be because of both of these.

maybe i misunderstood something but i haven't seen anybody explicitly claiming that budget releases shouldn't being counted towards total ltd.
they just used numbers where the different sku's weren't counted together by the trackers as i understood.
only problem they have is that the numbers in some cases don't match, as you can see one post above for example.

 

[donny2112]

Attempting to define down the list of PSX million sellers into the teens in order to win a "my system is bigger than both of your systems" pissing contest hardly sounds helpful.

Completely agreed, if that's the motivation. My own motivation is trying to remain consistent. If we're going to use Famitsu to define the list of million-sellers on DS, then it makes sense to try to use Famitsu to define million-sellers for other consoles, if we're going to compare them. (As an aside, even on that measure, it seems unlikely that DS would surpass PS1+PS2 million-sellers, but that still shouldn't be why we decide to stick to Famitsu numbers or not.)

Many of the games being so arbitrarily excluded are most certainly platinum; that a portion of those sales came at discounted prices (and thus likely fed off of word-of-mouth) is most certainly interesting to note, but it does not in itself disqualify them from said platinum status.

I have no problem with combining BEST re-releases with main releases to say it sold 1 million as long as it's noted as such. If you say, "Monster Hunter Portable sold 1 million according to Famitsu data," that's where I have issue. It should be stated, "The combined sales of Monster Hunter Portable are over 1 million according to Famitsu data," or, even better, list out the individual SKUs as tracked by Famitsu. It's the misrepresentation of a tracker's data that I'm trying to avoid, when I balk at someone saying a game sold "whatever" without noting that that only happened by combining SKUs reported separately by the tracker.

On a slightly unrelated note, I also dislike people comparing the sales of a predecessor game which includes it subsequent re-releases to the currently released main game. I think comparing main game to main game would be a plainer comparison.

 

[HK-47]

I believe he is referring to donny who seems to be comparing BEST releases with counting expansions as original game sales.

 

[Road]

I'm genuinely curious as to why we wouldn't count budget priced versions and other publisher-issued rereleases. This seems fairly arbitrarily applied, and frankly it seems that such a disclusion would, rather than enhance, do more to restrict our full understanding of both the performance of individual titles as well as the health and sales of the systems as a whole. Attempting to define down the list of PSX million sellers into the teens in order to win a "my system is bigger than both of your systems" pissing contest hardly sounds helpful. Many of the games being so arbitrarily excluded are most certainly platinum; that a portion of those sales came at discounted prices (and thus likely fed off of word-of-mouth) is most certainly interesting to note, but it does not in itself disqualify them from said platinum status.

If Phantom Hourglass, now discounted to 1000 yen, manages to push past a million copies, we would absolutely count it. There is no practical difference between such a retailer-driven price decrease leading to a sales surge, and a publisher-driven sales decrease (in the form of a rerelease) leading to a similar sales increase (except that the latter probably reflects better on the game's performance, not worse). There's also the fact that plenty of games are released at budget prices to begin with, or are multi-SKUed with a secondary version carrying a greater value/price -- see, for instance, the performance of the bundled CE-style MH3 and the regular versions, each of which had different prices and varrying levels of demand. Still, we all have the explicit understanding that if MH3 ever becomes a million seller it will be because of both of these.

Well, I don't think anyone is disputing that on this thread

Spoiler

yet

.

The first guy got his list from japan-gamecharts and I pointed out he overlooked the existence of budget versions, which would increase the number of million sellers. Then, Captain Smoker posted his numbers including those, which were still distant from the 52 and I brought the possibility of "enhanced" versions of the original game being included.

Can't speak for othesr, but I was just trying to explain what caused the differences on the numbers people pointed out.

About YSO, doesn't seem like they themselves combine multiple releases　(with expansions etc.) of the same game, otherwise MGS2 and 3, for instance, would be on their list. Seems like games that are there and haven't reached one million with only the original + budged re-release were included based on press releases.

 

[test_account]

Great Pokémon sales! Also, judging by some screenshots, the 2 new Pokémon remakes looks pretty good i must say. The only Pokémon game that i had played is Pokémon Red for the first Gameboy and that was about 9-10 years ago or so (i have tested some other Pokémon games as well, but i havnt really played them that much). Looking at the screenshots for the 2 new Pokémon remakes, it brings back some Pokémon memories for me

Well HM3 is a bomba (according to several poster in several MC threads) at 850k so these games are obviously also bombas.

Did someone claim MH3 to be a bomba at about 850k copies sold? I cant see how that is a bomb, 850k is a pretty good number in my opinion. Or did they say that MH3 is a bomb because it takes some time to sell out the first shipment?

 

[AniHawk]

Wait, the first week of the DS remake of Gold/Silver was better than the first week of the original Gold/Silver? Wow. Has that sort of thing ever happened before?

...And is there still Pokemon Red/Blue/Green at the end of the game?

 

[donny2112]

Has that sort of thing ever happened before?

Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green?

Spoiler

Edit:

who seems to be comparing BEST releases with counting expansions as original game sales.

Absolutely not. While I try to avoid combining BEST re-releases with the main game personally, I can at least see the reasoning: it's the same game. I was pointing out that YSO's list seemed to include a combination of main game (e.g. SSM4) with the expansions to get above 1 million, which would actually mean that Koei combined them to say it sold over 1 million, since I don't see a BEST re-release showing up in the Famitsu Top 500s anywhere.

 

[HK-47]

What were the first week totals for the other entries?

 

[Stumpokapow]

Mentally, I would assume that if
a) a game shipped significantly over 1 million (say 1.1 million or more)
b) data is very close to a million (say 0.9 million or more)
c) the game is not commonly in stock anywhere in Japan
d) there's a SKU not counted in actual data

then you can probably assume that the game is over a million. with any of those four missing, there's an element of doubt to it.

I'm genuinely curious as to why we wouldn't count budget priced versions and other publisher-issued rereleases. This seems fairly arbitrarily applied, and frankly it seems that such a disclusion would, rather than enhance, do more to restrict our full understanding of both the performance of individual titles as well as the health and sales of the systems as a whole. Attempting to define down the list of PSX million sellers into the teens in order to win a "my system is bigger than both of your systems" pissing contest hardly sounds helpful. Many of the games being so arbitrarily excluded are most certainly platinum; that a portion of those sales came at discounted prices (and thus likely fed off of word-of-mouth) is most certainly interesting to note, but it does not in itself disqualify them from said platinum status.

of course if we want to talk about arbitrary disqualification, excluding games that sold 995k because they don't meet the imaginary line is pretty foolish too, especially given that the distribution of >900k+ <1million titles is uneven.

so the entire concentration of the discussion in terms of platinum titles is a bit stupid imo. for systems for which we have full data, why not look at stuff like "number of <x console> titles in the top 500 titles ever tracked" or "number of <x console> titles in the top 1% of titles ever tracked"? certainly, this excludes discussion of pre-n64/ps1 titles, but the further we get away from that era, the less important that discussion is.

 

[slaughterking]

What were the first week totals for the other entries?

Gold/Silver           1.425.768
Ruby/Sapphire         1,245,003
FireRed/LeafGreen       955,337
Emerald                 643,987
Diamond/Pearl         1,586,360
Platinum                967,675
SoulSilver/HeartGold  1.408.980

Don't know how Red/Green/Blue/Yellow and Crystal did, though.

 

[donny2112]

What were the first week totals for the other entries?

GBOY Pokemon R/G/B - 109,395 *
GBOY Pokemon Yellow - 851,091
GBOY Pokemon G/S - 1,425,768
GBOY Pokemon Crystal - 707,580
GBA Pokemon R/S - 1,245,003
GBA Pokemon Emerald - 643,987
GBA Pokemon FR/LG - 955,337
NDS Pokemon D/P - 1,586,360
NDS Pokemon Platinum - 967,675
NDS Pokemon HG/SS - 1,408,980

* - Based off of back fitted point data multiplication, and Blue apparently was released 8 months later without a bump. This game is really, really freaky in Famitsu's tracking. :lol

Edit:
Mostly beaten.

 

[AniHawk]

Kinda interesting to see what a comparative letdown the GBA was. The DS has been acting as more of a true successor to the original Game Boy.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green?

Spoiler

Hmm, yeah. Probably quite a few examples looking at remakes/ports/whatever for the first entry in a series before it's caught on. Monster Hunter G Wii comes to mind.

But for one that came in established and huge? Pretty weird.

 

[Road]

On that other topic of sales forecast, (it seems) Enterbrain's president told Bloomberg he expects 500k PS3s sold this year-end.

We can add him to the prediction ballot.

 

[schuelma]

On that other topic of sales forecast, (it seems) Enterbrain's president told Bloomberg he expects 500k PS3s sold this year-end.

We can add him to the prediction ballot.

That would be pretty low IMO.

Edit- another translation saying that number is just for December, which would be very impressive.

 

[Liabe Brave]

At the very least, Parasite Eve (only 6k short) and Densha de Go (50k short with two uncounted budget releases) are very likely to actually be million-sellers. Crash 3 (80k off with two uncounted budget releases) and Beatmania (75k off with one uncounted budget release) are not big stretches, either.

I understand the urge to only go by the "standards", the numbers from Famitsu and Media-Create. But, like ethelred, I'm not sure why we'd have zero--rather than simply less--confidence in numbers from the publishers. They are always rounded and may even be spun sometimes, resulting in definite imprecision. But the to-the-unit precision of tracker numbers is a complete fabrication as well, conveying a false impression of accuracy. The publishers do at least have access to the actual true number, even if they don't represent it 100% correctly.

I'm not suggesting we take publisher press releases in preference, but when they're not very implausible--as in the cases I pointed out above--I believe they should have some weight. In other cases, as with I.Q. being 200k off with no uncounted releases, I agree they can be dismissed as gross error.

 

[Road]

That would be pretty low IMO.

Edit- another translation saying that number is just for December, which would be very impressive.

Well, what he said translates as "year-end period". Guess leaving the "period" out of it led you to read that as "until the end of the year". Hehe

I didn't say December because there's not a direct quote of what he said. But it's based around FFXIII so it could be understood that way.

 

[donny2112]

I'm not sure why we'd have zero--rather than simply less--confidence in numbers from the publishers.

I don't think anyone has said that they have "zero" confidence in publisher numbers.

 

[bttb]

.

 

[dolemite]

Famitsu/Enterbrain

DSi – 66,416 (125,524)
PS3 – 57,056 (207,888)
PSP – 19,572 (42,117)
Wii – 14,556 (32,643)
DS Lite – 9,206 (14,765)
Xbox 360 – 4,927 (9,541)
PS2 – 3,100 (6,788)

source
PS3 is no longer #1

 

[Loudninja]

So that is the whole shipment.

 

[FrankT]

Much larger drop than even I expected. Was thinking more like ~50%.

 

[thestopsign]

Damn, that was way worse than I was expecting for the second week, especially after the solid first week numbers. That said, the Wii numbers are pretty pitiful still in comparison.

 

[BlazingDarkness]

i expect the PS3 to decline to 25K and settle just below there, before FFXIII media release hype and then they'll shoot way back up again into the new year

 

[onken]

Famitsu/Enterbrain

source
PS3 is no longer #1

I love how the article is portraying 57k in week 2 as a bad thing. Wasn't someone in here predicting 20k for this week?

 

[Interfectum]

Wii is falling worldwide.

Can Sony and MS stop messing with motion controls now? Please?

 

[gofreak]

Much larger drop than even I expected. Was thinking more like ~50%.

Well, it was a 62% drop which isn't THAT larger

Anyway, we had a missed opportunity for a "PS3 sales down 62% - outsells Wii 4:1" follow-up to last week's PAL threads...

 

[FrankT]

Wii is falling worldwide.

Can Sony and MS stop messing with motion controls now? Please?

Until the impending price drop of course.

 

[Interfectum]

Until the impending price drop of course.

Which will give it a decent bump before it starts to go downhill again.

 

[thestopsign]

Wii is falling worldwide.

Can Sony and MS stop messing with motion controls now? Please?

The Wii went up in August in both NA and Japan. Maybe not over last year, but over July. The Wii has also always had a September and October slump in Japan. The Media-Create hardware will also be 3k-4k more than the Famitsu hardware, or at least that's what the trend has been for most of this year. I shouldn't really be protecting the Wii's sales, but I'm going to be optimistic about the holiday sales for it, with or without a price drop. New Super Mario Bros will have a lot of push, a lot more than most people think.

 

[FrankT]

Which will give it a decent bump before it starts to go downhill again.

I'm thinking on a WW basis not for good while, and of course as mentioned above it did see a tick up in the US which is always a good sign before the holidays. Japan could be interesting though.

 

[AdventureRacing]

The wii and PSP are both really down. Unlike the wii the PSP isn't exactly performing well WW either.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Wii is falling worldwide.

Can Sony and MS stop messing with motion controls now? Please?

How incredibly shortsighted.

 

[Minsc]

Wow, so I guess the answer to my question about # of weeks over 100K the PS3 would get in a row was really no chance in hell!

151K > 57K > ??? > ??? > ???

If there's no big releases coming out over the next few weeks, the blanks aren't looking so good. Better than 10K a week, sure, but if it goes to 35K next week, and 25K the following and under 20K after that, it's going to have a much lower impact than I thought.

 

[markatisu]

Wii is falling worldwide.

Can Sony and MS stop messing with motion controls now? Please?

smh

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

Wow, so I guess the answer to my question about # of weeks over 100K the PS3 would get in a row was really no chance in hell!

151K > 57K > ??? > ??? > ???

If there's no big releases coming out over the next few weeks, the blanks aren't looking so good. Better than 10K a week, sure, but if it goes to 35K next week, and 25K the following and under 20K after that, it's going to have a much lower impact than I thought.

To be fair, thanks to the realities of supply, there was never any chance for your question to have any other answer.

Though even with the supply it would have been really damn unlikely.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

Wow, so I guess the answer to my question about # of weeks over 100K the PS3 would get in a row was really no chance in hell!

151K > 57K > ??? > ??? > ???

If there's no big releases coming out over the next few weeks, the blanks aren't looking so good. Better than 10K a week, sure, but if it goes to 35K next week, and 25K the following and under 20K after that, it's going to have a much lower impact than I thought.

I just don't know how anybody could have expected the Slim to perform better than this in Japan. There's only two marquee games releasing in the near future (FFXIII and GT5) and the day to day library is anemic at best.

In fact, shy of the DS and PSP right now, the above can be said of all the hardware in Japan. A dearth of software in the wake of handheld dominance = diminished sales long term.

 

[spwolf]

To be fair, thanks to the realities of supply, there was never any chance for your question to have any other answer.

Though even with the supply it would have been really damn unlikely.

whats the supply situation in japan? I was suprised when someone commented how it is hard to find slim at retail in germany - it definetly caught Sony off guard.

 

[Loudninja]

Umm how could it have done better if the first shipmemt was 200k?

 

[markatisu]

it definetly caught Sony off guard.

Not sure why, unless Sony is that stupid and did not pay any attention to sales trends or the demands by analysts and the net to needing a price drop

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

whats the supply situation in japan? I was suprised when someone commented how it is hard to find slim at retail in germany - it definetly caught Sony off guard.

It's not scarce, though it is sold out at a couple of shops. I'm not sure if they could have sold more if they had more, as at any given point in Japan, you're probably about ten minutes walk from the next game shop, and they will probably have it.

It's going to depend a lot on how quick they can get more systems out though. Supply's fine for now. It won't be after another week or two if they don't get a good quantity out there.

 

[Vilix]

whats the supply situation in japan? I was suprised when someone commented how it is hard to find slim at retail in germany - it definetly caught Sony off guard.

Some JPGaffers were saying they're already seeing used PS3 slims for sales in stores.

 

[Clear]

57k is still a substantial number compared to everything bar the DSi.

Look at it this way; a weekly average of 57k is close to 3million units over a year. Which is significantly more than anyone is predicting.

Realistically anything north of ~30k per week is a fantastic result for Sony.

 

[FrankT]

Some JPGaffers were saying they're already seeing used PS3 slims for sales in stores.

So not supply side.

57k is still a substantial number compared to everything bar the DSi.

Look at it this way; a weekly average of 57k is close to 3million units over a year. Which is significantly more than anyone is predicting.

Realistically anything north of ~30k per week is a fantastic result for Sony.

Yes that would be a lot better average for the next year, and it should be interesting if they maintain 30k for the next year.

 

[botticus]

57k is still a substantial number compared to everything bar the DSi.

Look at it this way; a weekly average of 57k is close to 3million units over a year. Which is significantly more than anyone is predicting.

Realistically anything north of ~30k per week is a fantastic result for Sony.

The problem is it will likely be significantly lower than 57k next week.