• 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.

NPD Sales Results for April 2014 [Up2: XB1/360 hardware, PS4 #1/XB1 #2 best selling]

TomShoe

Banned
So handhelds are deader and deader in the US, consoles are deader and deader in Japan. The state of Japanese development is going to be reaaaaaaally "interesting" in a couple of years.

Jesus, Americans have no taste at all, calling out publisher like Ubisoft for milking franchises yet continuing to eat the same homogenized garbage every year.
 
Oh man, could Xbone numbers drop below 100K in may?
They could drop below 50K. It basically depends on how many people in April begrudgingly paid $50 extra for Kinect, TV, Titanfall, and a year of Gold, and will instead hold out for a $400 console that has none of those things.
 
I don't understand how Sony thinks they can sell Vitas without some software that would appeal to more casual people. The price is right and is capable of impulse purchases but what software is available that would cause someone to buy it on impulse? Big fighting games? Big shooters? Big exclusives?

I love my Vita no doubt but that is from smaller titles that won't appeal to my more casual buddies.

I think It is too late for the system unless Sony has actual plans for it at E3. Tekken, Ridge Racer, Monster Hunter, Puzzle and Dragons in the Japanese market, The Last of Us, Resident Evil, etc. They have to put the big names like they tried to in the beginning. But, prob too late. Highly doubt Sony wastes time with another handheld next round to be honest unless the PS4 and other departments really start churning in the profits. Enough for them to dedicate money for exclusives and paying for first party development that would excite the market.
 
I understand that maybe, technically, there's an argument to be made. But I just kind of feel that if you're not prefacing your post with an admission of understanding the Vita's overall predicament, it's time to take a good, long look in the mirror and reassess your confidence in your analytical skills if you're arguing that the Vita was supply constrained and not feeling silly for doing so.

I don't think any mortal expects gangbuster Vita sales (haven't for almost 2 years), however, you can't easily buy a new Vita at retail. Those low Vita numbers shouldn't surprise for being abysmally bad (Sony hasn't been supplying new 1000's since Jan), as it leaves the used market (or amazon sellers), which don't count toward NPD....
 
Yep, even though development budgets are going through the roof and next gen hardware adoption is slower than expected, everything's going to be just fine!

Hardware adoption is slower than expected? News to me. I could be wrong here, except I'm not. Even if we have less AAA games in the future, it won't matter imo.

Basically the Wii/PS2 past sales comparisons are just ridiculous and it gets me.
 
What were individual titles share of dollar then vs now? There were also a lot more releases then, with smaller titles getting more share - now we have fewer SKUs, but with higher ceilings for each. Lots of factors.
I'm somewhat curious whether the bigger publishers consider this favourable or not. If they can draw the same revenue from a consolidated line of releases, do they consider that good, bad, neutral, worrying.
 

GamerJM

Banned
Jesus, Americans have no taste at all, calling out publisher like Ubisoft for milking franchises yet continuing to eat the same homogenized garbage every year.

I'm pretty sure the people criticizing Ubisoft on NeoGAF are not the same people responsible for low handheld numbers.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
It's telling how long the stock purgatory for the vita has been happening. That is obviously a terrible thing for keeping the system relevant in customer's eyes. It's sold like, what? Less than 8K in two months? Something around that.

And jesus christ Nintendo.
 

Wereroku

Member
Poor Vita it's a good little game machine but it was sent out to die in NA. I am guessing it will be pretty much killed next year. On a good note indies will probably keep releasing on it and remote play will always work but there is no chance of it getting significant releases.

Best selling next gen game sold 82k. well that's erm

Best selling next gen only game. Best selling next gen game is probably COD.
 

CoG

Member
Has anyone checked to see if Gies and the rest of the Polygon staff are okay? Or have they been spinning so hard they're in the Earth's core now?

Nothing from Polygon. Not even "Titanfall top seller for April" as expected.
 

quest

Not Banned from OT
I'm confused. It looks like everyone is down for April, even ps4 sales dropped, but the industry shows growth?

Because they are using year over year for growth. Last year console sales were on life support before the PS4/Xbone launched. So this year we see growth vs a period where sales were almost dead.
 

alr1ght

bish gets all the credit :)
I don't understand how Sony thinks they can sell Vitas without some software that would appeal to more casual people. The price is right and is capable of impulse purchases but what software is available that would cause someone to buy it on impulse? Big fighting games? Big shooters? Big exclusives?

I love my Vita no doubt but that is from smaller titles that won't appeal to my more casual buddies.

I think It is too late for the system unless Sony has actual plans for it at E3. Tekken, Ridge Racer, Monster Hunter, Puzzle and Dragons in the Japanese market, The Last of Us, Resident Evil, etc. They have to put the big names like they tried to in the beginning. But, prob too late. Highly doubt Sony wastes time with another handheld next round to be honest unless the PS4 and other departments really start churning in the profits. Enough for them to dedicate money for exclusives and paying for first party development that would excite the market.

The only thing that may move some Vitas is a Minecraft bundle.
 

Guevara

Member
Yeah I know .. it's obvious WiiU is no more than 50k, Wii is no more than 25k, and 3DS is under 115k (and all three could be way below that) and that adds up to 190k. It's obvious all 3 combined are way under 200k.

Ok put like this, it makes sense, thanks. I can't get my head around the Wii U selling 50k though my god.
 
This is the shit people were flipping out over in the beginning of the thread?

Bwahahahahaha.

ycUh8eA.gif
 

Freeman

Banned
I still think Sony can improve Vita situation considerably, by lowering the price a little, releasing VitaTV in the West wish PS Now and getting Minecraft on the system. I also hope they fix the memory card prices and multiple account issue.

Sony should have secured stronger partners for the Vita in Japan like Capcom and Level-5. They also wasted to much money on FPS for the Vita like CoD, Killzone and Borderlands 2, I think that Killzone would have suficed. God of War Ascension should have being a Vita game.

I'm still more than satisfied with my vita, but its frustrating to see how slow Sony is to try anything, they just don't seem to care. Vita is a great hardware, 2 years is to soon to give up.
 

tuffy

Member
Both the 3DS and Vita launched way too expensive and never really recovered. Whereas the 3DS could crawl back to less bad numbers with franchise titles, the Vita could not. But Nintendo needs to deliver something closer to impulse buy territory with some compelling exclusives - and soon.
 

ec0ec0

Member
so... nintendo, when are those US 3ds game prices coming to europe!?

(nintendo dropped 5 3ds games prices to $30 in april. If they did the same here, that would mean 30 eur...)
 
Because they are using year over year for growth. Last year console sales were on life support before the PS4/Xbone launched. So this year we see growth vs a period where sales were almost dead.
Ohhhhhh. Ok that makes perfect sense. Thanks for taking the time to clarify.

Can it be said that the hardcore have bought their consoles or is everyone waiting for e3 to decide what to do next?
 

GamerJM

Banned
Like others have said, Vita sales being abysmally bad are kinda funny but explained by low supply. I don't think that's actually the reason it's dead. I mean it IS dead, but not because of this month's sales; its sales have been abysmally bad for a while now to indicate the fact that it's near death.

Worst news here is Xbox One doing bad could potentially mean entire console gaming market is shrinking pretty heavily and that we should really worry about that.

Also I can't figure out what the "HW" thing is.
 
I was originally responding to the question of publishers panicking and pressuring price drops from 1st party. No. There's no discernible trends yet. Software drives hardware. Period.

You can argue that the new boxes might not have the intrinsic consumer value or broadest or strongest appeal by themselves as entertainment centers or "shiny new toys" (Wii u clearly failed here), but There hasn't been enough big game hitters yet to see how they do with the core market. There's barely been anything actually, so while yes every publisher would like hardware to be dirt cheap - why not? - I can't see anyone freaking out. More people are still burnt about the loss of revenue on 360 and ps3 sales falling way faster than new gen can replace, at least so far.


Interesting perspective. To be honest, I was originally tossing the question out there to see if it prompted discussion. So many are down on consoles, and we all point to Wii U as obviously struggling and Xbox One beginning to languish, but why would it only be on Nintendo and Microsoft to improve the situation? Is the situation not also improved with an even stronger PS4? The industry wouldn't care how the pie is split, they just want a large pie, or am I wrong?

Perhaps it is as you say, the worry is not there yet for current generation adoption, as it has certainly been faster out of the gates for 2 of the entrants. But the pace has slowed, they're going to start losing ground, as based on what we can discern, PS4/Xbox One/Wii U did not combine to sell what Wii did by itself in that first April, let alone matching the total with PS3 and Xbox 360 chipped in.
 
Top Bottom