You'd think that what happened with the PS3/Go would have humbled them. That they would have learned from their mistakes.
Yet they didn't and went for the same market all over again, in a worse economic climate. I don't get it.
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NPD October 2012 Sales Results [Up3: NBA, MoH, NSMB2 + History, Pokemon, RE6]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
You'd think that what happened with the PS3/Go would have humbled them. That they would have learned from their mistakes.
Yet they didn't and went for the same market all over again, in a worse economic climate. I don't get it.
outunderthestars
Banned
I imagine there are internal debates about simply letting the current stock dwindle down and quietly retiring the product or trying to take massive losses on each unit in an attempt to salvage it.
I personally think they are going with the former. They don't want to burn developers by canceling a platform while games are in development. At the same time, they don't want to take more losses by cutting prices another $50 - $100 per unit.
Woo-Fu
Banned
PSPGo was a test, a test they didn't learn enough from, evidently.
The power of Giantbomb.
You really think they're giving up? I mean I'd moreso believe that they think it can somehow turnaround. I mean they thought it'd do well enough to bother releasing the thing.
Because the Vita is DD only ...
No it's never a test. You build and then sell. It either sells or doesn't.
MasterSheen
Member
Sure there is. DS is cheap and has a huge library. Vita is the complete opposite.
Raises hand*
I think they're in a position where they have to limply support and acknowledge it, to not burn customers or developers. They'll budget things that can be moderate hits accordingly. But internally, they have to realize that it's over and taking up resources that could be put to better use elsewhere.
Relaxed Muscle
Member
I bought it, DD though ..
outunderthestars
Banned
I would wager that there are people at Sony arguing just that. Can they afford to continue supporting a dead platform?
OldJadedGamer
Banned
I haven't been keeping up but how do we not know again that they didn't chart if we don't have an individual top 10?
The start of the generation is when the first next gen system launches. For this gen that means November 2005 for home systems.
Heart Attack
Member
Hell yeah. Can't wait till retailers clear out stock. $10 in two months i'm callling it.
Warm Machine
Member
Should have been a phone. They should pull the guts out and make it a damn phone.
Launch aligned, the 3DS is pretty much in line with the sales performance of the GBA and the DS.
While it's true the 3DS hasn't taken off so much in the west yet that's due to a number of factors. Price, as you said yourself, is a huge point. the GBA launched at $99. The DS Lite took off at $129. The entry point for the 3DS and 3DS XL at $169/$199 is simply too high. Another factor is the state of the DS. It may not be seeing major software releases anymore, but the system is still moving a lot of units and is a tremendous value with an amazing software library. As the DS fades out/stops being produced and the 3DS library continues to grow consumers will eventually make the upgrade. Another point is the simple fact that the US is historically slower to adopt new hardware.
The explosive growth of the tablet/smartphone market has certainly had an impact but Nintendo still very much has a place in the market with their handhelds. I think the biggest impact smartphones/tablets have had is in securing the casual market. Their mass market, more casual oriented hits like nintendogs, brain training, crosswords, etc no longer have the same selling power. Casuals are perfectly content playing angry birds and farmville. However, there's still a market for gamers who want a deeper handheld experience, and that's what Nintendo is offering with the 3DS. You're simply not going to find experiences that rival kid icarus, monster hunter, resident evil, kingdom hearts, etc on a phone or tablet.
When all is said and done, will the 3DS meet the 150 million+ units sold by the DS? No, but then again, basically no system will. the DS was a phenomenon and will likely be the best selling game platform ever before it goes out of production. That doesn't mean the 3DS can't be a success selling "only" 80 million units, which I can easily see it doing.
Vita was never going to get western style games. The large western publishers don't currently, never have, and never will care about releasing quality software on handhelds.
Megadragon15
Member
The Vita should be given the Virtual Boy/32X/PSPGo treatment at this point.
Conflict NZ
Member
NBA 2K13 < ?
Relaxed Muscle
Member
Just shows how good software is the most important thing (and a more reasonable price)
Ebgames Canada already had 10$ off the game at the end of October. I found that to be really quick. Now we know why.
Probably going to be a boxing day deal.
It also explains why Capcom is actively trying to patch the game. It's really something that it seems like the game is selling more in Japan.
When you think about it, it's not really that surprising.
-No major tv ads for the game. In comparison, I've seen tons of tv spots for AC3 (I'm coming home, coming home) which is supposed to be the best debut for the series so far.
-Demo already turned off people from playing the game. The first one (Dragon's Dogma) was really awful too.
-Some people already didn't like how 5 turned out. Burn me once...
-Reviews for the game were mixed with the average score being under 70
-Operation Raccoon City was poorly reviewed and I would guess many don't know/care it was developped by Slant Six and not Capcpom. Burn me twice...
-Some people might have been saving their money for the big releases of November (Halo 4, BLOPS II, WiiU, AC3)
Market research be damned!
Hell, it might've been perfect for 2008. But we had an economic crash at the end of that year, and most of the handheld market seems to either have gone to mobile or are fine with just Nintendo's offering. At least that seems to have healthy enough numbers, slightly underwhelming rather than trainwreck.
Alternatively: waiting for the holiday season with a really good marketing push might've helped!
outunderthestars
Banned
they did....
and it tanked
The economic crash hasn't stopped Apple from selling every iPad they can make.
Not before I get my Jack Bros. sequel.
UncleSporky
Member
Bought it on ios surprisingly doesnt suck
Capcom ain't doing so hot.
Their strategy in the next few years will be very interesting.
The SEGA way.
Make a poor game, start to lose sales. Like it should be. The fact Dishonored got half of RE 6 sales is amazing to me. Gamers are wising up almost, if not for X Com sales being shit. But honestly X Come is a hard sell. I know its supposed to be great but even i'm not that interested.....gonna get it on sale.
Momentum!
If thats true we now know why we got that "we have listened to the fed back" statement last week.
Plinko
Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
Except sales show that most people don't give a crap about any of those things.
SolarPowered
Member
wait
woah
waaaahhht
That is a far bigger drop than I expected.
The effect of AAA fatigue. Not everyone wants a blockbuster.
Proud to be one of those 5k.
Had mine preordered, but got it a day later; with that Gamestop deal that for $10-more you got both the Vita and PS3 game.
Every other blockbuster and all sports games are seeing a boost, I'd say this is on Resi's quality more than anything.
I don't think they want to compete with Apple and making the Vita a smart phone probably wouldn't lower the price of games without giving us even lower budget/quality titles.
It appears to be to keep funding sequels to games that do poorly like Lost Planet and Dragon's Dogma.
SolarPowered
Member
You've got a point. I'm just saying that RE and it's fans weren't necessarily the blockbuster sort. The game is certainly not every RE fan's cup of tea mechanically/thematically?(action vs survival horror) to boot. Keep in mind that a lot of other games that sold well have been built up to be blockbusters this year(and the last) only to be deemed "bombas" because they could only ship 1.5-2 million copies.
Also, I'm not so sure that I'd call a sports game a blockbuster.
I wish they'd do the same for UMvC3.
When it comes to blockbusters, I would say the difference between successes like Borderlands 2, Madden, and FIFA versus games like Resident Evil 6 and Medal of Honor is that you actually get to play the game in the first three while you experience QTEs and ultra linear gameplay in the others.
Call of Duty may be a linear romp on the campaign front, but at least you have quite the array of choices when playing online.
Fuck it, I'm calling this one. Straight up DOA, if it reverses its fortune at this point, it would be a record setting resurrection. I'll eat the crow gladly if this thing finds a way to do that. But its doing pretty much just as horribly here as it is in Japan, thats 2 of 3 territories, and I have no reason to believe its doing decent in the EU either.
3DS is no Nintendo DS, but its still doing numbers, more than enough to survive and have a full profitable generation, and a userbase large enough to service 1st and 3rd party software. In short, It wont break the 3DS's crazy records, but it will survive handily and turn plenty of profit over its lifetime. The Vita is just done, without the Vita to compliment the 3DS the gen over gen comparisons of HW and SW for handhelds is going to be fucking ugly.
bigtroyjon
Member
I'd say it needs to do 750K in Nov and Dec combined to have any chance of gaining traction in the US. With the recent trends of Nov sales eating into Dec, hard to peg down an amount for just Nov.