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NPD Sales Results for April 2009

EviLore said:
PSP 116K
Nintendo DS 1.04M

rampage-arona.gif
 
DeaconKnowledge said:
Well yeah, basically. Sony is gonna lose money no matter what. The gamble is how much: they can either slash the price of their console and move kit that isn't moving now at a lower price, losing money per unit but gaining more audience to buy the revenue generating games, or they can do nothing and have already accounted for stock rot on the shelves and lose millions in revenue (which is happening now).



Trust me, I am not talking about the hardware wars. Sony has very cleanly and decidedly lost that. I'm talking about not taking a bath on product that isn't moving. If Sony does nothing, they're going to continue to suffer heavy losses with the PS3 (which will in turn lower their stock exponentially). If they cut the price, they'll STILL lose money, but at least they'll be generating more revenue on kit that's already been accounted (read: paid) for. Sitting on their hands is not an option at this point.

I honestly fail to see the logic on them losing even more on the PS3 project at this point. They've already got something ridiculous like $4 or $5 billion to recoup. Why cut the price when it is plainly obvious that all it will achieve is to inflate that figure even more? And to what end? No matter what they do now, they're routed to last place, I just don't see what any more losses is going to gain them other tha jeopardise the long term viability of their game division. That money would be much better spent on the PS3's successor, at least that may have a chance of gaining them some money.
 

FtsH

Member
GSG Flash said:
I don't understand the "holy shit lol PS3 fail" comments, it's not as if the 360 tore up the charts. So if PS3 fails, then the 360 does as well, or certainly comes very close to it.
360 is better than expected based on Xbox, PS3 is a lot worse than expected based on PS2, that's why.
But if you are talking about the absolute number, yeah, they both fail.
 

itxaka

Defeatist
GSG Flash said:
I don't understand the "holy shit lol PS3 fail" comments, it's not as if the 360 tore up the charts. So if PS3 fails, then the 360 does as well, or certainly comes very close to it.


Somebody already mention it, it's the 6th MOM down for the ps3 meanwhile is the first one for the 360.

That should count for something.



bgassassin said:
http://fearless-blog.com/GIFS/rampage-arona.gif


The fuck?
 
GSG Flash said:
I don't understand the "holy shit lol PS3 fail" comments, it's not as if the 360 tore up the charts. So if PS3 fails, then the 360 does as well, or certainly comes very close to it.

To give you a serious answer the 360 did suffer a drop this month as did the Wii. Overall for the year however the 360 is up for the year and the Wii while maybe down for the year total is still putting up big numbers. The difference is for the PS3 that this is part of a continuing 6 month trend for a console that is already in third place and arguably had their big hitter software title already release and now have to wait until the fall for another title of that stature to impact sales in year where they are already way down for the year.
 

Sadist

Member
FtsH said:
360 is better than expected based on Xbox, PS3 is a lot worse than expected based on PS2, that's why.
But if you are talking about the absolute number, yeah, they both fail.
And the gap is widening between the two aswell. Even with the not so spectacular 360 sales, their is still a clear gap between the two. And its getting bigger and bigger.
 

legend166

Member
It's interesting no one is saying anything about the anemic PSP sales. Is it because it's assumed there's a successor coming out soon? I haven't paid much attention to the Go! or whatever, is it a successor or a redesign?
 
mujun said:
one day we will figure out the best way to compare these type of things.

you might be right, it might be more of an achievement to sell slightly less at double the price.

then again it might be a case of ms is selling more at a bigger margin while sony is selling less at a smaller margin.

When your losses are higher at that higher price point it most definitely is not. That line of thinking ignores any sense of logic at all. Now, if Sony were making twice the profit as Microsoft at the $400 pricepoint you may have a point, but since the PS3 was a hardware design not in any way suitable for the current consumer market, that is simply not the case.

Kutaragi and his team left Stringer's Sony with a machine that is simply not suitable for the market in any way shape or form. They're now paying the price for letting a division run wild and build a product not in any way targetted towards the market it was designed to serve. The PS3 as a product simply has no future for Sony in terms of a successful venture, the only logical strategy is to simply cut their losses by minimising losses, which sensibly seems to be the strategy they've been persuing these last 12 months.

If Sony thought the PS3 had a chance of having an impact in the market they would have reduced its price down to soemthing competitive a long, long time ago.
 
brain_stew said:
I honestly fail to see the logic on them losing even more on the PS3 project at this point. They've already got something ridiculous like $4 or $5 billion to recoup. Why cut the price when it is plainly obvious that all it will achieve is to inflate that figure even more? And to what end? No matter what they do now, they're routed to last place, I just don't see what any more losses is going to gain them other tha jeopardise the long term viability of their game division. That money would be much better spent on the PS3's successor, at least that may have a chance of gaining them some money.


When do you think a PS3 successor would debut? What would they do with the PS3 in the meantime? How much do you figure R&D for a new console costs? Do you think retailers will sit and do nothing when the PS3 is wasting away on shelves?

How much longer do you figure 3rd party support will continue for the PS3 if it continues to sell like this? Do you think devs will be willing to jump easily to the PS4 if Sony abandons the PS3?
 

JoJo13

Banned
Sony forecasts that the PS3 will sell 13 million WW in 2009, which would represent the PS3's best year yet in terms of sales.

So far in 2009, they've been down. So you do the math on how they can turn downward tending sales to a substantial surplus year over year in a recession. Obviously, a price cut is coming, and not an insignificant one either.

These threads will have quite a different tune, and it'll be funny seeing the reactions of the 'PS3 is DOOOMed' crowd.
 

Barrett2

Member
PS3 with 6th straight month of lower YOY sales is just sad.

KZ2 < 90K for April is horrible. PS3 games fall off a goddamn cliff after about 6 weeks. Good Lord...
 

lowrider007

Licorice-flavoured booze?
Karma said:
I will ask you directly then. How much should the 360 be outselling the PS3 to be considered good to you?

Considering the price difference I'd say about about 75% more tbh.

What was the average monthly sales of the PS2 after being on the market for the same period of time?

RBH said:
How do you feel about the PS2 outselling the PS3 then?

I think it's brilliant tbh, @ $99 it's 4 times cheaper than the PS3, and what with the state of the economy atm it's a dam good console to go for if want to get into gaming @ a low price point.
 

gcubed

Member
mujun said:
im gonna take a stab in the dark and say that you are a sony fan.

right?

seriously? the ps3 numbers are shit, but at least the ps3 has somewhere to go in regards to price, the 360 a 199 and those horrific numbers?

economy am cry
 
B-Rad Lascelle said:
I believe Activision indirectly stuck a dagger in all future band-focused Guitar Hero/Rock Band releases. Apart from diehard fans of any band, everyone else will now just wait it out for the inevitable $10 retail firesale that we saw from Guitar Hero: Aerosmith.

I have been wondering this myself.

It set a horrible precedent.

You misspelled "wonderful".
 

mujun

Member
JoJo13 said:
These threads will have quite a different tune

who are you kidding (lopsided perspective?) the doom sayers will be making excuses and the excuse makers will be doom saying.

it goes on equally on both sides.

please dont pretend otherwise.
 
DeaconKnowledge said:
When do you think a PS3 successor would debut? What would they do with the PS3 in the meantime? How much do you figure R&D for a new console costs? Do you think retailers will sit and do nothing when the PS3 is wasting away on shelves?

How much longer do you figure 3rd party support will continue for the PS3 if it continues to sell like this? Do you think devs will be willing to jump easily to the PS4 if Sony abandons the PS3?

Well that's the problem, they have to show publicly that the PS3 is not a dead end platform but in reality, when it comes to Sony's bottom line it really is, that thing's never going to break even. They need to continue focus on cost reductions and maintain its price at a level that does not hurt them so bad.

In the current economic environment a new console launch is not going to be viable for at least another two years. This economic crash coulsn't have come at a worse time for Sny's gaming division, in the past they could have gotten away with a sneak early launch, that's just not going to be possible at this moment in time.

The one thing that they do have in their favour is that now that the whole tool pipeline is setup with a multiplatform centric development environment, ports to the PS3 from the 360 are still viable as costs are becoming increasingly negligeable. PC ports of such games manage to remain viable with sales even lower than PS3 versions so they may not have too much too worry about in this respect.
 

mujun

Member
gcubed said:
seriously? the ps3 numbers are shit, but at least the ps3 has somewhere to go in regards to price, the 360 a 199 and those horrific numbers?

economy am cry

sure, you are right.

but isnt it a double edged sword? drop the price means less profit margin but higher numbers. same price means more margin but worse sales numbers.

i dont know which is better. please inform me (no sarcasm intended).
 

markatisu

Member
I do not know whats worse, the anemic sales of everything but the DS, PS2 and Wii (since face it the Wii selling the PS3 and 360 combined is still impressive despite it being lower than last year by a lot) or the fact that someone somewhere is going to run with the decrease of the Wii in articles declaring its death.

There are some pretty heavy hitters (compared to the last few months) coming to the Wii in the next two months (Punch Out, EA Active, The Conduit, Tiger Woods and WSR), will be interesting to see if it boosts sales any or keeps them "stable"
 
I am absolutley shocked that sales were so low for the PS3 and 360 given one of the most jam packed months of game releases ever.

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena
The Godfather II
Ninja Blade
Hannah Montana: The Movie
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2
Velvet Assassin
X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I am not surprised that Halo Wars dropped of the list. That game was obviously front loaded. Killzone dropping off the list so fast is troubling given the hype and anticipation that was built up for the game.

rvf5zn.jpg
 

Barrett2

Member
Is it too late to predict terrible numbers for inFamous?

Now that the recession seems to be catching up with the non-family casual hour, there are going to be some terrible months ahead for would-be AAA games.
 

Bizzyb

Banned
legend166 said:
It's interesting no one is saying anything about the anemic PSP sales. Is it because it's assumed there's a successor coming out soon? I haven't paid much attention to the Go! or whatever, is it a successor or a redesign?


No one cares about PSP anymore. I mean sure there are a few great games on the system and a few great ones announced but come on man, it's PSP.
 

JoJo13

Banned
Stoney Mason said:
It's now official. Wait for Price Drop! has replaced wait for X title as the popular new PS 3 meme.

'Wait for price drop' has always been the case when discussing PS3's future sales. Where have you been?

I mean, what else should we be waiting for?

You can look at their forecast for yourself.
 

FrankT

Member
We've seen the impact of essentially a $200 price drop going to $399 SKU during holiday 07. It will be very interesting to see what $100 will do at this point. 13 million is going to be more than tough anyway you slice it, and especially so since at least two of those months during the fiscal will be well down YoY.
 
lowrider007 said:
Considering the price difference I'd say about about 75% more tbh.

What was the average monthly sales of the PS2 after being on the market for the same period of time?

Why do you continue to ignore my previous post?

Incase you missed it:

Me said:
When your losses are higher at that higher price point it most definitely is not. That line of thinking ignores any sense of logic at all. Now, if Sony were making twice the profit as Microsoft at the $400 pricepoint you may have a point, but since the PS3 was a hardware design not in any way suitable for the current consumer market, that is simply not the case.

That higher pricepoint does nothing for Sony unless larger profit margins come with it. They do not.
 
drakesfortune said:
As much as I love my PS3...Sony fucking drop the price or drop out.

Sony as a company is losing billions of dollars. Do you really think it is in their best interest to drop the price and take a loss on the PS3? It may be good for Console Warriors, but it is bad for business.

small+seagul.JPG
 

Gwanatu T

Junior Member
So no Excitebots numbers yet, huh? Depressing numbers, but I guess nothing came out in April anyway other than the DSi.
 

JoJo13

Banned
lawblob said:
Is it too late to predict terrible numbers for inFamous?

Now that the recession seems to be catching up with the non-family casual hour, there are going to be some terrible months ahead for would-be AAA games.

I think they'll do alright.

I would guess that it'll actually chart (or not....) just based on the fact that there's really nothing releasing at all in May. The demo impressed a lot of people and it's getting good reviews. I think the hardcore will buy it.

Probably around 80-100k in May for its first few days of tracking, which should translate to solid sales over time for a title made by a pretty small dev.

I don't think the recession is hitting gaming (software, at least) as much as April just flat out had no big releases across the board. People still purchased games like RE5, SF4, Halo Wars, and KZ2 in droves.
 

billy.sea

Banned
lawblob said:
Is it too late to predict terrible numbers for inFamous?

Now that the recession seems to be catching up with the non-family casual hour, there are going to be some terrible months ahead for would-be AAA games.

Man I wish the game do well, but when more hyped title like LBP and Killzone 2 didn't light the chart on fire, less marketed game (definitely less hyped than even Resistance 2) like Infamous might have trouble hitting the chart. Good thing May doesn't have a lot of games coming out, so it might have a chance of being in the bottom end of top 10.
 

Barrett2

Member
Spiegel said:
Where's GTA:Chinatown Wars?

LOOOOOOOOOL

billy.sea said:
Man I wish the game do well, but when more hyped title like LBP and Killzone 2 didn't light the chart on fire, less marketed game (definitely less hyped than even Resistance 2) like Infamous might have trouble hitting the chart. Good thing May doesn't have a lot of games coming out, so it might have a chance of being in the bottom end of top 10.

With UFC and Bionic Commando both May releases, im' pretty sure inFamous will be DOA.
 

drakesfortune

Directions: Pull String For Uninformed Rant
FirstInHell said:
Sony as a company is losing billions of dollars. Do you really think it is in their best interest to drop the price and take a loss on the PS3? It may be good for Console Warriors, but it is bad for business.

I agree, which is why I said drop it or drop out. Personally, if this was my business, and I am a business owner, I would ditch the PS3 if they can't at least break even on it at $300 by now. I mean good God, what the hell were they thinking releasing a console that by this point couldn't be breaking even at $300. Sony of all companies should have been aware of costs and their cost structure.

And again, I love my PS3, it's my favorite console this gen, but Sony really screwed up badly this time around. I honestly didn't think we'd be sitting here in mid 2009 with Sony still losing money on a $400 console. I can't even fathom how they're still losing money at that price point, and how the PS3 got green lighted without a clear plan to get the cost down to AT LEAST $300 asap.
 

lowrider007

Licorice-flavoured booze?
brain_stew said:
Why do you continue to ignore my previous post?

Incase you missed it:



That higher pricepoint does nothing for Sony unless larger profit margins come with it. They do not.

Yes I agree in terms of profit, but I'm not talking about profit here, I'm talking about sales figures, tbh I don't care about the profits margins for each console, this 'fanboy war' is primarily based on market share and how many consoles are sold, I'll leave the profit wars for company executives.
 

Karma

Banned
lowrider007 said:
Considering the price difference I'd say about about 75% more tbh.

What was the average monthly sales of the PS2 after being on the market for the same period of time?

This is the 4th April for the 360 and it did 175,000. The PS2 did 180,000 it`s 4th April.
 
brain_stew said:
Well that's the problem, they have to show publicly that the PS3 is not a dead end platform but in reality, when it comes to Sony's bottom line it really is, that thing's never going to break even. They need to continue focus on cost reductions and maintain its price at a level that does not hurt them so bad.

In the current economic environment a new console launch is not going to be viable for at least another two years. This economic crash coulsn't have come at a worse time for Sny's gaming division, in the past they could have gotten away with a sneak early launch, that's just not going to be possible at this moment in time.

The one thing that they do have in their favour is that now that the whole tool pipeline is setup with a multiplatform centric development environment, ports to the PS3 from the 360 are still viable as costs are becoming increasingly negligeable. PC ports of such games manage to remain viable with sales even lower than PS3 versions so they may not have too much too worry about in this respect.


Sony has said in their recent financial statements that they plan to sell 3 million more units this year than last. How do the facilitate an increase like that without a price drop?
 
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