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

Media Create Sales: Nov 23-29, 2009

ethelred

Member
duckroll said:
First week. Although, I just remembered it's a 6800yen game. I think I'll revise that to 25-30k. I expect the lifetime to be about 50-60k at least. The word of mouth should be interesting.
duckroll said:
I'm confident it will do way better than Sin and Punishment 2. Especially in the LTD.

I'm not. I don't see anything that makes me think this will outperform Sin and Punishment 2, Takt of Magic, Another Code R, Disaster, or any of these other core-targeted Wii games that receive virtually no support from Nintendo.

10k-14k opening is my guess.
 

duckroll

Member
ethelred said:
I'm not. I don't see anything that makes me think this will outperform Sin and Punishment 2, Takt of Magic, Another Code R, Disaster, or any of these other core-targeted Wii games that receive virtually no support from Nintendo.

10k-14k opening is my guess.

What I expect to make a difference is that this game actually has multiplayer and online. A simple feature like that transforms a portion of single sales into 2-3 more sales. If it would normally sell 15k, if 5k of those convince 2 friends who normally wouldn't have bought it to buy it, that's a 10k boost in sales instantly. If the word of mouth is then good, it could double the initial sales simply because there is more incentive to buy a game your friends are talking about if you can play WITH your friends too.

We're not talking about a huge hit here, but I can easily see the game doing over 50k in LTD, if it's as fun and as captivating as EDF2. Remember, EDF2 was a budget title from a shit publisher (D3) which sold 40k in the first week and went on to almost sell 200k from word of mouth alone. That was just with splitscreen multiplayer!
 

donny2112

Member
duckroll said:
Mar:
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker - 460k

You'd have to assume that the MGS1-4 crowd will en masse believe a game not titled MGS5 is, in fact, MGS5. I do not believe that to be a good assumption, at all.
 

duckroll

Member
donny2112 said:
You'd have to assume that the MGS1-4 crowd will en masse believe a game not titled MGS5 is, in fact, MGS5. I do not believe that to be a good assumption, at all.

Thanks, I feel better now. With you disagreeing, it's all but certain that it will sell that amount. :)
 

duckroll

Member
cvxfreak said:
No Darkside Chronicles predictions? :(

Oh, I tend to zone out on JP releases which come after a US release until it's much closer to release. Why is it coming out 2 months late in Japan anyway?
 
donny2112 said:
Care to actually address the reasoning?

I'm guessing here that it's a bit of MGSPO's & PO+ strong performance during a much weaker time in the system's life + relatively strong dedication of the MGS fanbase evidenced by MGS4 performing much better relative to previous entries than other cross-generational sequels on the PS3 + new coop gameplay stratching the MH itch, cf. Phantasy Star Portable & Dynasty Warriors Multi Raid.
 

cvxfreak

Member
duckroll said:
Oh, I tend to zone out on JP releases which come after a US release until it's much closer to release. Why is it coming out 2 months late in Japan anyway?

Good question. My suspicion is that Nintendo asked Capcom to release it in January because of the loaded lineup for 2009. Being in January gives the Wii some post-holiday ammo. Not sure it will work too well, but Capcom's stepping up the advertising efforts worldwide.
 

duckroll

Member
donny2112 said:
Care to actually address the reasoning?

No offense (okay that's a lie), but you've shown a very poor ability to judge how audiences tend to receive titles. I dunno what you base your assumptions and predictions on, since everyone clearly has their own methods for making forecasts, but personally when I make a prediction I use a variety of factors including how well received certain things are within a fanbase, and how the word of mouth is for certain franchises between titles and what people in Japan in particular are saying about certain things.

This is why way in advance, I was already warning people that 4WoL was going to seriously underperform in comparison with the other FF RPG titles on the DS. I could feel that there was a lack of anticipation and hype, and obviously things like that directly affect sales, especially for front loaded titles. In the same way, pretty much everyone except you knew that Crystal Bearers was going to crater because if you actually pay attention to what people are saying (or not saying at all) about something, you can get a good feel of how anticipated something is.

Peace Walker has had two playable demos released so far, so I don't think the core fans of the series have to "believe" that it is MGS5 to buy it. They simply have to download a free demo, play it, and decide if they want to buy the game or not. Responses to both demos have been overwhelmingly positive even before the release date was announced. Of course I'm not even aware if you take these things into account, or even know anything about that when you make your forecasts, so it's not my place to tell you that you're certainly wrong. You could have other factors and reasonings you use in your forecasts.

But I'm just saying, considering your track record so far, I'm feeling good that you disagree! :)
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
Here is the Mario chart that hopefully will be updated tomorrow.

Famitsu data:
Code:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|    |     [NDS] NSMB    |[WII] Mario Galaxy |  [WII] NSMB Wii   |       difference      |
|    |     (25/05/06)    |    (01/11/07)     |     (03/12/09)    |                       |
|----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------|-----------|
|Week|  Weekly |   LTD   |  Weekly |   LTD   |  Weekly |   LTD   |NSMBW-NSMB | NSMBW-SMG |
|----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------|-----------|
|  1 |  865.024|  865.024|  256.431|  256.431|         |         |           |           |
|  2 |  315.197|1.180.221|   78.439|  334.690|         |         |           |           |
|  3 |  242.932|1.423.153|   43.317|  378.007|         |         |           |           |
|  4 |  204.007|1.627.160|   37.484|  415.491|         |         |           |           |
|  5 |  169.852|1.797.012|   36.354|  451.845|         |         |           |           |
|  6 |  153.047|1.950.009|   48.750|  500.595|         |         |           |           |
|  7 |  132.375|2.082.434|   70.541|  571.136|         |         |           |           |
|  8 |  120.220|2.202.654|  109.029|  680.165|         |         |           |           |
|  9 |  146.837|2.349.491|   67.519|  747.684|         |         |           |           |
| 10 |  114.471|2.463.962|   62.017|  809.701|         |         |           |           |
| 11 |  103.008|2.566.970|   17.617|  827.318|         |         |           |           |
| 12 |  119.991|2.686.961|   16.643|  843.961|         |         |           |           |
| 13 |  115.335|2.802.296|    9.056|  853.017|         |         |           |           |
| 14 |   66.336|2.868.632|    7.234|  860.251|         |         |           |           |
| 15 |   72.235|2.940.867|    6.344|  866.595|         |         |           |           |
| 16 |   51.643|2.992.510|    5.868|  872.463|         |         |           |           |
| 17 |   52.070|3.044.580|    4.357|  876.820|         |         |           |           |
| 18 |   54.595|3.099.175|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 19 |   51.541|3.150.716|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 20 |   37.678|3.188.394|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 21 |   39.915|3.228.309|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 22 |   30.564|3.258.873|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 23 |   33.482|3.292.355|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 24 |   31.940|3.324.295|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 25 |   26.939|3.351.234|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 26 |   23.777|3.375.011|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 27 |   32.086|3.407.097|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 28 |   28.132|3.435.229|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 29 |   45.298|3.480.527|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 30 |   72.194|3.552.721|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 31 |  185.021|3.737.742|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
| 32 |   80.472|3.818.214|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
|----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------|-----------|
|Year|   YTD   |   LTD   |   YTD   |   LTD   |   YTD   |   LTD   |NSMBW-NSMB | NSMBW-SMG |
|----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------|-----------|			
|  1 |3.818.214|3.818.214|  747.684|  747.684|         |         |           |           |
|  2 |1.176.939|4.995.153|  197.442|  945.106|         |         |           |           |
|  3 |  377.034|5.372.187|   19.308|  964.414|         |         |           |           |
|  4 |  203.000|5.575.000|        -|        -|         |         |           |           |
|----|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-----------|-----------|
| LTD|        -|5.575.000|        -|  964.414|        -|         |           |           |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

New Super Mario Bros. LTD is up to 29/11/09
Super Mario Galaxy LTD is up to 12/07/09
 

donny2112

Member
Die Squirrel Die said:
I'm guessing here that it's a bit of MGSPO's & PO+ strong performance

MGS:pO - 194K FW
MGS:pO+ - 89K FW

Die Squirrel Die said:
during a much weaker time in the system's life

MGS:pO+ was launched with the PSP Slim. There isn't a stronger hardware period for the PSP's life. Software is overall up now compared to 2007, but it's still not "great" on the PSP.

Die Squirrel Die said:
+ relatively strong dedication of the MGS fanbase

Which didn't help any previous MGS game on the PSP to the level that duckroll is considering.

Die Squirrel Die said:
evidenced by MGS4 performing much better relative to previous entries than other cross-generational sequels on the PS3

Possibly having to do with it actually being called MGS4. If this were called MGS5, I'd have a different opinion, which is what I said in the first place.

Die Squirrel Die said:
+ new coop gameplay stratching the MH itch, cf. Phantasy Star Portable & Dynasty Warriors Multi Raid.

Which is the only thing that I wasn't sure of. However considering that this is still the PSP, a first week of 460K still doesn't seem likely. That could definitely push its LTD much higher, though.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Chris1964 said:
Here is the Mario chart that hopefully will be updated tomorrow.

I'm kind of doubting that we get numbers early. Seems like only the really mega software and hardware titles/weeks get that. Looking back at the 2006 thread I don't believe NSMB DS got an early sales announcement.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
schuelma said:
I'm kind of doubting that we get numbers early. Seems like only the really mega software and hardware titles/weeks get that. Looking back at the 2006 thread I don't believe NSMB DS got an early sales announcement.
I'm almost sure we will get the Mario numbers tomorrow. I hope Famitsu doesn't let me down.
 

duckroll

Member
donny2112 said:
Which didn't help any previous MGS game on the PSP to the level that duckroll is considering.

There has only been one MGS game on the PSP, and it was released with pretty much no fanfare, 6 months after being announced. It was totally in the shadow of MGS4 as a "support" title. This "support" title still managed to sell over 300k, with the online only expansion selling over 300k as well. I don't expect you to understand the MGS fanbase though, since you clearly have no understanding of the games themselves.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Chris1964 said:
I'm almost sure we will get the Mario numbers tomorrow. I hope Famitsu doesn't let me down.


Well you are the resident genius so I hope you are right!
 

donny2112

Member
duckroll said:
you've shown a very poor ability to judge how audiences tend to receive titles.

Fair. I get some stuff correct, but when I'm off, I can be way off.

duckroll said:
I dunno what you base your assumptions and predictions on, since everyone clearly has their own methods for making forecasts,

Typically something to do with the numbers, which means I miss out on a lot of the subjective reasonings.

duckroll said:
when I make a prediction I use a variety of factors including how well received certain things are within a fanbase, and how the word of mouth is for certain franchises between titles and what people in Japan in particular are saying about certain things.

Which I think is fine for saying whether a game will do well or not. It's the extrapolation of that to the fifth highest (probably sixth highest by the time it comes out due to BBS) first week total for a PSP game after MHP2, MHP2G, CC:FFVII, and Dissidia that I have trouble following. After those four, there's PSP (329K) and then a bunch of stuff below 250K. You're basically saying that MGS:pW will be MHP2 without a MHP level intro or a Crisis Core/Dissidia/BBS level game. There isn't a lot of middle room there on PSP, as shown by the severe drop off in first week numbers.

I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm just saying that the historic PSP sales numbers don't support that. Things can obviously change, though.
 

cvxfreak

Member
I think Peace Walker will sell between 250,000 and 325,000 the first week, but have longer legs than any MGS game before it.

That said, I haven't joined the prediction league because I find the general notion of guessing the closest to be unappealing when we can all be discussing trends and word of mouth, but I wanted to weigh in on this particular game because I think it can definitely surprise a lot of people.
 

duckroll

Member
donny2112 said:
Which I think is fine for saying whether a game will do well or not. It's the extrapolation of that to the fifth highest (probably sixth highest by the time it comes out due to BBS) first week total for a PSP game after MHP2, MHP2G, CC:FFVII, and Dissidia that I have trouble following. After those four, there's PSP (329K) and then a bunch of stuff below 250K. You're basically saying that MGS:pW will be MHP2 without a MHP level intro or a Crisis Core/Dissidia/BBS level game. There isn't a lot of middle room there on PSP, as shown by the severe drop off in first week numbers.

I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm just saying that the historic PSP sales numbers don't support that. Things can obviously change, though.

I think you're putting WAY too much focus on historic software sales figures which ultimately have nothing to do with individual titles. I'm pointing this out because I think it will certainly help make better forecasts if you enter with a different sort of mindset. The first most important thing to look at is the title itself, not other titles or how things might have historically sold on a platform. The second most important thing to look at is whether demand and userbase numbers can match what the title is offering to the market. These two factors are the primary variables in determining what something sells.

The reason why historic sales do not matter much is because aside from using that to see a trend (ie: historically a certain genre sells well on a certain system, so a new IP in that genre on that system could do better than expected), it doesn't help calculate anything for a major title with an existing fanbase. Before Crisis Core was released, there were pretty much zero Final Fantasy games on the PSP. Historically PSP games up until then sold like dogshit. Based on your method of approaching a forecast, it would then be highly unlikely that Crisis Core could have sold anywhere close to what it sold. But yet if we look at the product itself, and the anticipation around it, and all the factors revolving around the release, there was nothing unlikely about the sales figures at all. Using solely a historic trend to gauge the success of a major title when there are many other factors available will not only limit your result, but hinder the accuracy substantially.

I think that's something to consider and think about. You need to focus more on the product itself, rather than trends and other historic data. Those come in to aid a forecast after you already have a good feel and handle on the potential selling power of a title itself based on demand and anticipation. Even then, for certain titles historic data is completely pointless because if you read the level of anticipation and word of mouth leading up to a release, it might be completely unique from all previously released titles under a trend. Crystal Bearers is a great example of this.

cvxfreak said:
I think Peace Walker will sell between 250,000 and 325,000 the first week, but have longer legs than any MGS game before it.

That said, I haven't joined the prediction league because I find the general notion of guessing the closest to be unappealing when we can all be discussing trends and word of mouth, but I wanted to weigh in on this particular game because I think it can definitely surprise a lot of people.

You know, I absolutely agree. I personally don't really care to get something spot on by the thousands, because ultimately a lot of that is luck, and it doesn't really mean very much. But I think throwing numbers out, especially this year, is a great way to generate discussion about the sales potential of upcoming games and how we each judge the anticipation of the titles and whether consumers will bite or not.
 

cvxfreak

Member
duckroll said:
Very useful post

To be fair ducky, you probably have to own or have very good knowledge of every game system to make this work. Not going to name names or point fingers, but that can be very hard to do when you're into sales analysis but only own one company's system. :p
 

ksamedi

Member
duckroll said:
I think you're putting WAY too much focus on historic software sales figures which ultimately have nothing to do with individual titles. I'm pointing this out because I think it will certainly help make better forecasts if you enter with a different sort of mindset. The first most important thing to look at is the title itself, not other titles or how things might have historically sold on a platform. The second most important thing to look at is whether demand and userbase numbers can match what the title is offering to the market. These two factors are the primary variables in determining what something sells.

The reason why historic sales do not matter much is because aside from using that to see a trend (ie: historically a certain genre sells well on a certain system, so a new IP in that genre on that system could do better than expected), it doesn't help calculate anything for a major title with an existing fanbase. Before Crisis Core was released, there were pretty much zero Final Fantasy games on the PSP. Historically PSP games up until then sold like dogshit. Based on your method of approaching a forecast, it would then be highly unlikely that Crisis Core could have sold anywhere close to what it sold. But yet if we look at the product itself, and the anticipation around it, and all the factors revolving around the release, there was nothing unlikely about the sales figures at all. Using solely a historic trend to gauge the success of a major title when there are many other factors available will not only limit your result, but hinder the accuracy substantially.

I think that's something to consider and think about. You need to focus more on the product itself, rather than trends and other historic data. Those come in to aid a forecast after you already have a good feel and handle on the potential selling power of a title itself based on demand and anticipation. Even then, for certain titles historic data is completely pointless because if you read the level of anticipation and word of mouth leading up to a release, it might be completely unique from all previously released titles under a trend. Crystal Bearers is a great example of this.

I agree with this. I'm happy someone in here looks at individual titles and their appeal instead of the composition of the user base. Often you see people discussing a consoles selling power. This was true for the PSP for a long while. What people didn't see though is that the titles were just not appealing and people weren't interested in those titles for a reason and yet we expected them to sell more and blamed the user base. It still happens a lot around GAF but I'm glad sometimes we can look at stuff from a different point of view.
 

donny2112

Member
duckroll said:
Before Crisis Core was released, there were pretty much zero Final Fantasy games on the PSP.

Crisis Core was a system seller for the PSP from before the PSP was even released.

duckroll said:
Based on your method of approaching a forecast,

You're way over-simplifying what I do to predict, by the way.

duckroll said:
Using solely a historic trend to gauge the success of a major title when there are many other factors available will not only limit your result, but hinder the accuracy substantially.

Which would be a good reason why I don't solely use historic trends to gauge success of a major title. Using Crisis Core as an example again, it would be foolish to look at Crisis Core simply as just another PSP game. It was also a prequel/spinoff to the best-selling Final Fantasy game which we had already seen another game with FFVII attached to it sell a bunch. For Crisis Core, in particular, I had predicted a LTD of 750K. Famitsu stopped tracking it at 810K.

duckroll said:
Even then, for certain titles historic data is completely pointless because if you read the level of anticipation and word of mouth leading up to a release, it might be completely unique from all previously released titles under a trend.

It does make it interesting. :D

cvxfreak said:
To be fair ducky, you probably have to own or have very good knowledge of every game system to make this work. Not going to name names or point fingers, but that can be very hard to do when you're into sales analysis but only own one company's system. :p

Very true, for myself included.

Edit:
To clarify, it's "very hard" but not impossible. The first part of your statement was more applicable. "have very good knowledge of every game system" is the key, whether you own it or not. If you don't own a system or (more importantly) don't actively keep up with the system's releases/buzz, you'll miss out on surprise hits/bombs due to only having a superficial understanding of the system's software environment.
 

ethelred

Member
duckroll said:
We're not talking about a huge hit here, but I can easily see the game doing over 50k in LTD, if it's as fun and as captivating as EDF2. Remember, EDF2 was a budget title from a shit publisher (D3) which sold 40k in the first week...

Yeah, but budget games from shit publishers sell more than Nintendo's niche Wii games.
 

duckroll

Member
ethelred said:
Yeah, but budget games from shit publishers sell more than Nintendo's niche Wii games.

That is true. We will have to see if Nintendo's poisoned well of "core game offerings" on the Wii is too tainted for the cleansing refreshing spring water of Sandlot to flow through.
 

ethelred

Member
duckroll said:
That is true. We will have to see if Nintendo's poisoned well of "core game offerings" on the Wii is too tainted for the cleansing refreshing spring water of Sandlot to flow through.

But I do take your point that multiplayer might help. I mean, if Crystal Bearers had multiplayer, it might have managed to sell 50k! So maybe Regenleiv will.
 

RpgN

Junior Member
ethelred said:
But I do take your point that multiplayer might help. I mean, if Crystal Bearers had multiplayer, it might have managed to sell 50k! So maybe Regenleiv will.

I rememeber the original FFCC being heavily criticed on the gc for being a multiplayer game and nothing like the main FFs. I think they changed this with the Crystal Bearer because of this but they still made it a very different game and more casual friendly. In the end, I believe that it should have sold more on the wii then how it is currently performing.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
duckroll said:
You know, I absolutely agree. I personally don't really care to get something spot on by the thousands, because ultimately a lot of that is luck, and it doesn't really mean very much. But I think throwing numbers out, especially this year, is a great way to generate discussion about the sales potential of upcoming games and how we each judge the anticipation of the titles and whether consumers will bite or not.


Well said. I think it keeps the discussion flowing in between numbers.
 
RpgN said:
I rememeber the original FFCC being heavily criticed on the gc for being a multiplayer game and nothing like the main FFs. I think they changed this with the Crystal Bearer because of this but they still made it a very different game and more casual friendly. In the end, I believe that it should have sold more on the wii then how it is currently performing.

The criticism of the original's multiplayer were more to do with decisions like having to carry a bucket and the GBA hoop jumping needed to even play it with other people, than simply it being a mutiplayer action rpg.
 

Road

Member
Famitsu's November Top 10 (Oct. 26 to Nov. 29):

01. [PS3] World Soccer Winning Eleven 2010 (Konami) - 321,722 / NEW
02. [NDS] Tomodachi Collection (Nintendo) - 308,944 / 1,709,209
03. [NDS] Layton Kyouju to Majin no Fue (Level 5) - 301,290 / NEW
04. [WII] Wii Fit Plus (Nintendo) - 282,224 / 942,128
05. [NDS] Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver (Pokemon) - 250,472 / 3,021,701
06. [PS3] Bayonetta (Sega) - 187,379 / NEW
07. [NDS] Hikari no 4 Senshi: Final Fantasy Gaiden (Square Enix) - 178,510 / NEW
08. [PSP] Persona 3 Portable (Atlus) - 174,228 / NEW
09. [NDS] Inazuma Eleven 2: Kyoui no Shinryakusha - Fire (Level 5) - 163,769 / 659,104
10. [PS3] Tekken 6 (Bandai Namco Games) - 158,965 / NEW

http://www.famitsu.com/game/rank/monthly/1230277_1818.html?ref=rss
 
Die Squirrel Die said:
The criticism of the original's multiplayer were more to do with decisions like having to carry a bucket and the GBA hoop jumping needed to even play it with other people, than simply it being a mutiplayer action rpg.

My group of friends and I didn't mind the bucket but having to use the GBA's was quite annoying.

An upgraded sequel that played just like the originals bar the GBA's would have been great.
 
Nirolak said:
Is it common for Mario games to perform that much better on Day 2 than Day 1?
It's actually day 2, 3 and 4. And no, that is still not common at all, but good weekend growth is much more common with games that have such a wide audience as Mario.
More than doubling its first day sales is pretty outstanding, though.
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Nirolak said:
Is it common for Mario games to perform that much better on Day 2 than Day 1?

Going by the first day number sinobi reported, it had an absolutely amazing weekend (this is for days 1-4, not 1-2), with better sales than Galaxy, Mario Kart, and NSMB DS.

With this weekend I'd guess it will get past 2 million by the end of the year.


duckroll said:
I told schuelma to have faith after the first day numbers. :)

Indeed. I really wish I hadn't gotten carried away with my final prediction..I had it at 900K right up until I made it when I got a little frisky. :lol
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
Wow, and to think DR2K's post right after mine had me doubting my own 750k prediction. Now I'm 187k off. :(

AdventureRacing said:
Almost went straight past SMG. Good to see 2D gaming back on top.
If NSMBW brings about more 2D revivals, I'd be so happy. Unless it's another Sonic game from Sonic Team.
 

duckroll

Member
It seems quite a few of us nailed the 900k figure. How the PSP titles perform will probably determine this week's result. :lol
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
Chris1964 said:
Don't be too excited guys. From now on it will perform like City Folk.


I just hope it can overtake Mario Galaxy.
 
Top Bottom