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[MotherFan]

Wii had big drop but still selling more than the HD twins combined :lol :lol

DS selling tons and making Nintendo lots of money. All in all a good NPD month imo. Nintondo still on top, hd twins sell like crap, what's to complain about?


PS3 MAY get a pricedrop this year, but by the time they do it will be too late. Lastly, good to see all the older DS games on top, where is big budget KZ2?

 

[gregor7777]

PS3 has had another disastrous month, 6th month of YoY decrease in a row, they really need to do something soon otherwise its game over in North America.

These consoles aren't exactly new. The game has been over for some time.

Unless you mean they're just going to close up shop or something.

 

[JudgeN]

We went through this last NPD people lets not begin speculating KZ2 budget again, we just don't know.

But really nothing to see here Wii/360/PS3, its a normal NPD day.

 

[AndresON777]

You know it's true. Had to buy a few for my nephew at Christmas.



6th, Nov-April

Word G. How much money do they make off of the wireless adapter? It's hard to find them in the stores too, people eat them up. Not to mention live gold cards for each one of their kids, controllers, play and charge kits, 60 gig hard drives for the arcade model, and microsoft points. Plus look at all the ads on the nxe dashboard. Ms prints money as well

 

[Regulus Tera]

Guess it's expected. All of those are pretty niche.

rhythm heaven numbers are surprising because of how well it did in japan

 

[Busaiku]

Rythm Heaven not making it into the top 10 is pretty sad to see.
Hopefully it maintains the legs that Layton did though.

 

[Haunted]

True. How's this? What's incredible about it is that it is down 53% and still had a better April than PS2 ever had.

Well, with the growth the gaming industry as a whole has experienced in the last two to three years since the PS2's heyday... ah shit, I can't deny it. It's still fucking impressive.

 

[FrankT]

Word G. How much money do they make off of the wireless adapter? It's hard to find them in the stores too, people eat them up. Not to mention live gold cards for each one of their kids, controllers, play and charge kits, 60 gig hard drives for the arcade model, and microsoft points. Plus look at all the ads on the nxe dashboard. Ms prints money as well

Not sure but the wireless adapter and HDD's are highway robbery and MS knows it, but I do see those adapters on the Amazon top 360 lists all the time. smh

When one sells roughly 125k and the other 175k, 48k is actually quite a difference. Numbers in context my friend.

Well not to mention the ~7.5 million lead in the US, which has only grown even more than what was when the PS3 first hit the market. That's pretty relevant for context as well.

Anyone have LTD's?

 

[The Librarian]

Didn't even know they came out today.

Wow: this month sucked.

 

[desh]

Fixed. Apr 2009 is above Apr 2007, not Apr 2008.

Here are April 2007 numbers. $838.6 million vs ~1 billion for April 2009.

1. DS: 471,000
2. Wii: 360,000
3. PlayStation 2: 194,000
4. PlayStation Portable: 183,000
5. Xbox 360: 174,000
6. Game Boy Advance: 84,000
7. PlayStation 3: 82,000
8. GameCube: 13,000

http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_April_2007
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=25104

So the four home consolse (PS2, PS3, 360, Wii) sold 810k in April 2007, and 814k in April 2009. Yeah, that is solid evidence that the recession is killing the home video game market.

 

[outunderthestars]

MS will never drop the arcade. $149.99 at xmas will make it an impulse buy present....

So sad to see a million people upgrade the ds'es they already had to get a marginal increase in specs.

Nintendo really has done an amazing job of turning into Apple: People rush out to buy every new version, no matter how insignificant.

 

[speculawyer]

Wow . . . pretty good for Godfather 2 . . . I thought it totally bombed. Well . . . it kinda did, everything else just did much worse. :-/

Damn. Well . . . a pretty weak month for new releases other than the Pokemon.

 

[Karma]

When one sells roughly 125k and the other 175k, 48k is actually quite a difference. Numbers in context my friend.

This. The 360 beat the PS3 by 50% last month and 40% this month. Not much of a change.

 

[Revelations]

The lol PS3 crowd is amusing. They're not selling that thing well at $400 while 360 isn't selling good after an epic pricedrop that should have carried it through the recession.

The 360 has its first YoY down this year and people want to start claiming failure. get a grip. The 360 started out good this year and it is still being carried through the recession or whatever youd like to call it. No need to bite the bullet dude. Be worried if this trend is consistent.

 

[soldat7]

FIT W/ BALANCE BOARD Wii 471K
POKEMON PLATINUM VERSION NDS 433K
MARIO KART W/ WHEEL Wii 210K
PLAY W/ REMOTE Wii 170K
THE GODFATHER II 360 155K
RESIDENT EVIL 5* 360 122K
NEW SUPER MARIO BROS NDS 119K
MARIO KART DS NDS 112K
GUITAR HERO AEROSMITH* 360 110K
THE GODFATHER II PS3 91K

(*includes CE, GOTY editions, bundles, etc. but not those bundled with hardware)

I understand that these are the standard games to buy when one gets a new DS, but come on. Has the world not proven itself ready for sequels to these titles? NSMB especially needs to be redeemed.

 

[Stoney Mason]

We can update this little chart also.

Some comparison numbers for KZ2...

360
Gears 1 - 1.00m in 3 weeks to ~3.4m 360s
Bioshock - 0.49m in 10 days (0.64m over 40 days) to ~6.1m 360s.
COD4 - 1.57m in 4 weeks to ~7.8m 360s.

PS3
COD4 - 0.44m in 4 weeks to ~2.4m PS3s.
GTAIV - 1.0m in 5 days to ~4.2m PS3s.
MGS4 - 0.74m in 3 weeks to ~4.8m PS3s.
CODW@W - 0.60m in 2 weeks to ~6.1m PS3s.
Killzone 2 - 0.71 (assuming 91k sales this month) in 9 weeks to ~7.3m PS3s

 

[careful]

DS.. damn.

10th place software at 91K.. sad.

 

[Minsc]

(2) POKEMON PLATINUM VERSION NDS 433K
(3) MARIO KART W/ WHEEL Wii 210K

That's some big gap there (100%+) & pretty nice legs for Pokemon given it held itself so far above everyone else, except for Wii Fit.

 

[brain_stew]

Ouch @ only a 48k difference in sales between the PS3 and 360 with the PS3 costing $400 and the 360 only costing $199. Microsoft can't move much on price given how mainstream their pricing already is, either. It'll be interesting to see the sales of the two platforms when the PS3 receives its rumored price drop and hardware revision. At that point you'll likely see PS3 sales roughly equal to, or above, what the 360 is selling until Microsoft drops the price again.

Really low in general for both the HD consoles. I was expecting low sales, but not quite this low. But, it makes sense - there weren't any big releases in April, and it was 4 weeks.

I guess that puts the argument to rest that GTA4 did nothing to boost hardware sales. It clearly did.

I'll give you a 7 for effort. To attempt to spin those figures when even the Killzone crazies aren't even up to the task takes some bottle.

Sony should just put all their efforts into nailing the PS4 now, the PS3 is a lost cause and has been for more than a year now. No point dropping the price either, just minimize costs by making a profit on hardware sales. Taking a $100 hit on a ship that is already sunk just makes no sense at this point, its just throwing away good money.

 

[Loudninja]

Really no one can spin these numbers at all.

 

[charlequin]

Not at all actually. The majority of consumers is completely out of touch with upcoming games unless it's an established blockbuster.

Killzone was one of the titles with the most free publicity this generation, over four whole years, thanks to its debut at E3 2005. It's consistently been featured in Sony's commentary as one of their tentpole releases for several years... I find the argument very unpersuasive that there was a significant portion of the PS3 audience that was interested in FPSes but somehow magically unaware of this game.

(If the argument is just that Xbox 360 is the shooterbox and PS3 has failed to tap that market effectively, I'd agree, but that has nothing to do with Killzone; that ship sailed when Gears caught fire and almost nothing was going to un-sail it afterwards.)

 

[Amibguous Cad]

This is particularly surprising given how good March was.

 

[witness]

Ugh distustingly low numbers except for the DS of course. How about that PS3 price drop Sony?

 

[Mrbob]

Hmm, I just noticed Halo Wars flatlined off the top 10 chart as well.

I guess the rah rahing about RTS on consoles might need to take a step back.

 

[gregor7777]

Hmm, I just noticed Halo Wars flatlined off the top 10 chart as well.

I guess the rah rahing about RTS on consoles might need to take a step back.

WTF? How on earth did you just come to that conclusion? :lol

We're going to need to go a little deeper with this one.

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

I said to Private Hoffman in another thread on New Years Eve last year that I thought the PS3s best years were behind it and its only downhill from here. It was just a theory back then.

This month's results solidify it for me.

 

[brain_stew]

Ugh distustingly low numbers except for the DS of course. How about that PS3 price drop Sony?

Like I've already mentioned, nothing is going to save PS3 hardware sales at this point. They're stuck in third place and nothing's going to change that now. That ship sailed a long time ago. All a price drop is going to achieve is to bleed Sony of money they can't afford to lose. Money that would be better spend readying the PS4.

I'm convinced that Sony will be first to launch next generation now. They're the only ones with nothing to lose and a whole lot to gain. The PS3 project has just been a huge black hole of money, market share and mindshare, the quicker the sweep that aside the better. The only problem with that ofcourse is that now is not the time to launch a new console, they're going to have to wait two years at theminimum it seems. They're really in pretty much the same situation as Sega in 1997 if you ask me, stuck with a product that consumers don't want, that isn't nice for developers and that is very expensive to build.

 

[lowlylowlycook]

So isn't the DS number a record for any console/handheld outside of Nov/Dec?

 

[Zhuk]

Ouch @ only a 48k difference in sales between the PS3 and 360 with the PS3 costing $400 and the 360 only costing $199. Microsoft can't move much on price given how mainstream their pricing already is, either. It'll be interesting to see the sales of the two platforms when the PS3 receives its rumored price drop and hardware revision. At that point you'll likely see PS3 sales roughly equal to, or above, what the 360 is selling until Microsoft drops the price again.

 

[Haunted]

Has the world not proven itself ready for sequels to these titles?

Take a look at that chart. Ask yourself that question again. There's your answer.

Apparently, the market is not yet ready for sequels to these titles as indicated by the strong demand the respective first entries still enjoy.

Is GAF ready for sequels? Hell yes! We were ready for them two, maybe three or four weeks after NSMB released, because we were finished with the game by then.

 

[Deku]

::bow:: DSi ::bow::

 

[Redd]

I know the PS2 library is amazing and whatnot, but why buy a PS2 now? I can't get into my head how that console manages to stay up there every month.

Maybe because new PS3 consoles can't play PS2 games.

 

[Metaphoreus]

Meaning the majority of the consoles sold are the $300 model.

Not at all. If each model sold 1/3 of the total sales, then the average sale price would be $300. If you increased the number of $200 consoles sold, you would lower the average sale price. There's no reason to think that, because the average price is $290, a majority of consoles sold cost $300.

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

What the fuck at EVERYTHING (including software) excpet DS.

 

[RPS37]

Lack of good releases couple with recession and a slow month. What were the releases around this month last year?

GTAIV and Mario Kart Wii.

The industry could use at least one Big Name release soon.
inFamous is this month...did Uncharted chart when it launched?

 

[AndresON777]

WTF? How on earth did you just come to that conclusion? :lol

We're going to need to go a little deeper with this one.

I think he's right.

Time for master chief and friends party games on 360. Waggle?

 

[cakefoo]

Then Sony has failed miserably then because that's exactly what it should have been and there is no reason it shouldn't have reached those type numbers.

Gears has splitscreen, which allowed people to more easily convince friends to buy the game. Killzone 2 doesn't.

Gears's style: easily-accessible weaponry and gameplay modes, with over-the-top gore and steroid-filled protagonists. Killzone 2 mp: you're placing turrets, using disguises, forming squads, etc. This might have improved KZ's chances for a positive critical reception, but probably wasn't love at first sight for the typical mass-market gamer.

Gears was developed by Epic Games, who created the Unreal series. Killzone 2 was the sequel to the not-so-great Killzone 1. People had their doubts all the way up through launch.

Gears launched as the first big exclusive multiplayer shooter of this gen, during a holiday season. Killzone 2 launched well-after the gen started, and just before the Spring season.

Shooters are the Xbox's strongest genre and the PS3's weakest.

 

[Haunted]

I'm a bit disappointed that NPD didn't distinguish between DSi and DSL sales, like the Japanese trackers do. :/

 

[Linkup]

True. How's this? What's incredible about it is that it is down 53% and still had a better April than PS2 ever had.

That changes things a bit.

 

[Cat in the Hat]

I said to Private Hoffman in another thread on New Years Eve last year that I thought the PS3s best years were behind it and its only downhill from here. It was just a theory back then.

This month's results solidify it for me.

Join the massive list of people who proved Hoffman wrong.

 

[Basileus777]

I don't know how you can use the PS3 isn't an FPS console excuse when CODWAWA sold at a faster rate than Killzone. Part of that is due to the release date, but Killzone probably should have been released last Fall and Resistance 2 released this Spring.

 

[ghst]

Hmm, I just noticed Halo Wars flatlined off the top 10 chart as well.

I guess the rah rahing about RTS on consoles might need to take a step back.

console rts developers need to look to madden and pikmin, not starcraft.

 

[paparazzo]

PS3 has had another disastrous month, 6th month of YoY decrease in a row, they really need to do something soon otherwise its game over in North America.

Why don't you tell us you how really feel?

The PS3 is such a disaster of epic proportions one could write a doctoral thesis on where Sony went wrong, but for the fandroids out there (a hamster has more intellect than this lot) I shall explain it to them once more why the PS3 is inferior to the Xbox 360. The PS3 is the worst designed console of all time, with its poorly designed architecture and like the runt of the litter the PS3 is a real mangy mutt, it uses a veritable patchwork of garbage and unsuitable components for a home entertainment system, such as the use of the CELL processor, limited RAM, RSX and Blu-Ray a great example of Sony puttings its own corporate greed and interests over that of developers it has created a machine that is horribly inefficient and unwieldy, less powerful than the Xbox 360 while being significantly more to produce. This has led to higher development costs and inferior quality games on the PS3 platform, and consumers in all their wisdom have decided to abandon this sinking ship of a console once and for all.

Not only has the marketplace abandoned the PS3, but we have seen thousands of development houses and publishers abandon the PS3 like rats off a sinking ship and now every single major publisher and development house on the planet now calls the Xbox 360 its lead platform and home for the future of home entertainment.

The fandroids are the sort of people who have no concept whatsoever of value or quality and have gladly continued to pay more for less. Throw away your money to your sleazy Sony gods fandroids, as it will all be for nil.

It's time to jump in before its too late for you all.

:lol

 

[FrankT]

Not at all. If each model sold 1/3 of the total sales, then the average sale price would be $300. If you increased the number of $200 consoles sold, you would lower the average sale price. There's no reason to think that, because the average price is $290, a majority of consoles sold cost $300.

That messed up reality would have to account for a nice chunk of Elites being sold to keep it at that $290 and we know that simply is not the case. Elites are no where near 1/3.

 

[Metaphoreus]

the Wii needs to be $200 at least.

Good thing it's $250 then, huh?

 

[Mrbob]

WTF? How on earth did you just come to that conclusion? :lol

We're going to need to go a little deeper with this one.

I remember the microsoft pr induced spin about the game selling a million copies worldwide, and comments talking about how rts games on consoles can sell.

Well I guess they can, when you have the Halo name attached. But it looks like those sales are short lived.

 

[Sadist]

And remember of course:

After 30 weeks, the PS2 was at 17.5 million consoles.
After 30 weeks, the Wii now is at 20 million consoles.

Damn.

 

[desh]

This was the second best April ever. How is that so horrible? I really don't understand this "sky is falling" attitude most everyone seems to have.

 

[AndresON777]

And remember of course:

After 30 weeks, the PS2 was at 17.5 million consoles.
After 30 weeks, the Wii now is at 20 million consoles.

Damn.

Console gaming is as dead as this npd thread?

 

[chubigans]

Why don't you tell us you how really feel?


:lol

Holy crap! :lol

but for the fandroids out there (a hamster has more intellect than this lot) I shall explain it to them once more why the PS3 is inferior to the Xbox 360.

I'd love for you to bring that kind of know-it-all attitude to GAF. Please educate me, good sir.