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NPD Sales Results for April 2014 [Up2: XB1/360 hardware, PS4 #1/XB1 #2 best selling]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
The game got good reviews right?
So, why blame the industry? They made good product. Blame the consumers.
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
Did Sony always intend the Vita to be a very niche product or is it even selling incredibly worse than they expected?
I know you're being sarcastic but Mario Golf was only available on 2nd May. How many days of tracking is that? Not that it's going to change the overall big picture but it's probably not that bad compared to first glance at the figure.
Well that's good. I have a feeling that most of the industry can survive without the casual gamer, others, in particular certain genres will have to change how they are accessed.
Hades Hotgun
Banned
As far as I am aware the majority of consumers in the US earn hourly wages and are not salaried. So I believe I am correct to say that most consumers don't get inflation adjustments when discussing the US.
http://www.bls.gov/cps/minwage2011.htm
Steve Youngblood
Member
I'm blaming everyone! Even you! Not you as in John Harker, but the general "you" as in anyone reading this post.
Even if we bought three copies??
HORRORSHØW
Member
tag quote.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
You can blame me, I've never played a Mario golf game ever!
While Evey thing is not roses, and there are some bumps ahead, I don't want panic still after this holiday season. Let's see some trends after a year first.
Sure, except that the 360 sold considerably better than the Wii U in that same time period. So once again, you're comparing apples to oranges. This isn't agreeing to disagree. You're comparing a console that has sold worse than virtually every console which has released in the past 20 years to a console that was one of the best sellers. There's obviously a problem with your logic. Believe what you want, but logically your argument makes little sense.
hodayathink
Member
The Vita was dead the moment everyone realized how not good Black Ops: Declassified was. A portable COD + a portable Assassin's Creed should have been enough to sell the system for the first year, but the games came out mediocre (AC) and out and out bad (COD) and that was the end of that, at least as far as everywhere that isn't Japan. And the honest fact of the matter is that I don't even blame SCEA for that.
Ninja Scooter
Member
The market potentially contracting != a crash. People are being really hyperbolic thinking that could happen again. The situation right now reminds me of the comic book industry in the early to mid 90s.
if i buy mario golf, will you still blame me?
I really want to know.
Do you even remember my original comparison? I'm comparing last gen software sales to current gen software sales, that's it. All next gen consoles are out now, all next gen consoles were out in early 2007, software sales were skewed towards next gen consoles back then, software sales now are skewed towards last gen consoles. Jesus, I never compared the Wii-U to the 360 besides them releasing a year earlier.
You don't like my comparison, okay. Stop putting words in my mouth and completely ignoring my original and only argument.
Well, when X comes out I'll probably buy a Wii U. I'm sure I'll get quite a few other good Nintendo games as well. Mario Golf might be one of them, but the Wii U just doesn't appeal to me enough to be worth the purchase yet. Sorry. <3
Mass Effect
Member
Mario Golf is a 3DS game.
Yeah, I've argued before against referring to this gen as current-gen (despite the hypocrisy that line just implied), and the key part of that is that we haven't really gotten many really great games on it, mainly cross-gen titles and "pretty good" exclusives at best, so to me it hasn't gotten going and it's more like PS2 in the earlier part of 2001. I actually wonder if the mainstream is similar, in that they still need to be convinced to jump in, and once they do things can really get rolling. If the likes of Arkham Knight don't get things going and we see a fairly lukewarm holiday season like for Wii U then I'll definitely become seriously worried.
I do think there's a threat of games just getting too big for the audience that's there though, in that we COULD have a fairly high install base, but the budgets don't support that so things start collapsing anyway. Which could be interesting to see in and of itself because it probably means there'll be several people to cater to one way or the other and get big much like Notch and Mojang did with Minecraft.
EventHorizon
Member
Yes to this. Plus it is pretty obvious what is happening. The XB1 and PS4 had a lot more supply at launch than the previous gen. Some of the sales that would have happened in April happened earlier because of that.
The XB1 and PS4 have had record sales, but somehow we are in a slump? What?!? And don't bring up the Wii U. That had a whole host of reasons why it tanked that don't apply to the XB1 and PS4.
BoboBrazil
Member
Nintendo is fucked under Iwata. I don't see how they come back.
Yea, I'm currently nearly 150 hours into Xenoblade. Will DEFINITELY pick up
a Wii U when it comes out.
I did my part, I'm bought both Mario Golf and Kirby.
I have no idea what I'm doing in Mario Golf.
Mario plays golf?
travisbickle
Member
I'm blaming the anecdotal-ers for ruining my predictions. They said it looked like similar sales pace to last month, yet if Sony delivered the same amount (~380k) there was 180k sitting on shelves, nearly half the stock. Why didn't the anecdotal-ers notice this?
iamvin22
Industry Verified
That Wii audience totally bailed out. It's rather unfortunate.
Honestly, I thought Assassin's Creed was quite decent for the Vita. It was no where near as awesome as Persona 4 Golden or Gravity Rush, but it was better than I expected. I think people were expecting way too much from the Vita. Granted some of that is Sony's fault for pretending it was a PS3 in your pocket, but it's definitely the best handheld I've ever owned. Critics kept comparing Vita games to PS3 games and 3DS games to DS games. It seemed very skewed to the 3DS even though the Vita was technically superior. I'm not sure why it ended up that way, but for some reason critics kept treating Vita like a home console. Handheld games aren't console games. Marketing aside, critics should be smart enough to know better. I'll admit that prejudice could definitely play a part in my reasoning, but there were some pretty decent handheld games that got low scores for almost no reason for the Vita.
The issue may be that they contract on PS4/XB1 too. And that game budgets DON'T adjust for this.
Mass Effect
Member
Mario does everything.
Everyone wants Mario NFL
Going through NPD threads of this year:
What's going on with Marvel Super Heroes?
In January, the DS version didn't even exist.
Also, the Wii U and 3DS version were dead last excluding the Vita and PC, for obvious reasons.
and now....A wild DS version appears? When did it even come out?
I guess that explains it being above the 3DS version. Because it just came out. Well, it explains a little at least.
And the 3DS and Wii U versions are higher now? Is there a particular reason why...?
Anyone have some insight?
DangerMouse
Member
Yup, it's one of the main reasons I have mine.
Imperfected
Member
It's not a great sign, though. The games industry should be seeing year over year growth based purely on population growth in industrialized nations, much less when you also add in modernization of markets that were previously lacking the infrastructure and economics to support a dedicated gaming market.
If the industry has already reached full maturation/stagnation, then frankly something is wrong; it's not completely catastrophic and doesn't mean gaming is going to dry up and blow away, but it does mean it's not behaving according to logical economic models, and that's not particularly good.
That said, it's one month of sluggish sales in one region. There are obviously some worrying trends showing, particularly for the XB1 since the region in question and month in question were both expected to be much better for the system's adoption, but there's hardly enough data to say that PS4 sales are going to fall off a cliff and never recover just because it had a sales dip during a historically slow month in which virtually no games were actually released.
Sakura
Member
GoofsterStud
Member
This is actually the best news for me. Maybe Camelot will make RPGs again.
Ouch, it seems the collapse in sales the X1 suffered in January was a true reflection of where the system was. February and March sales simply benefited from a Titanfall bump. However Titanfall wasn't enough to ignite massmarket acceptance of the console. Sales may have been dropping week on week as well which would make May likely to be under 100K even without the June price cut announcement. However the price cut is Kinectless which puts it in danger of being viewed as a gimped SKU. Even if it doesn't it might have the stigma of being underpowered next to PS4 at the same price.
I see 4 potential candidates for MS woes:
1) Economic downturn makes premium price consoles unviable for massmarket.
2) Negative word of mouth since last years E3 reached the massmarket and destroyed the image of the console.
3) It was unable to compete head to head with PS4, especially with the PS4 being both more powerful and cheaper. This makes PS4 an easy sell to anyone that walks into a store wanting a new console.
4) Something more fundamental to the market as a whole
The PS4 at 199K is also treading water. People have been panicking about 3DS dropping 20-30% year over year. PS4 dropped 30% month over month. There also may have been weekly drops which would mean the first week was closer to 70K and the fourth week might have been around 40K. This would mean May could be trending towards 150K.
It is more unclear what is happening with PS4 supplies and shortages may have had an impact. MLB and Watchdogs might give a good bump. Maybe they'd even push it over the threshold of massmarket acceptance and allow a strong baseline. Sony might have to play their price cut card earlier than they wanted. Year end line up is pretty strong but it's like they're giving themselves an uphill battle.
I see 4 potential candidates for MS woes:
1) Economic downturn makes premium price consoles unviable for massmarket.
2) Negative word of mouth since last years E3 reached the massmarket and destroyed the image of the console.
3) It was unable to compete head to head with PS4, especially with the PS4 being both more powerful and cheaper. This makes PS4 an easy sell to anyone that walks into a store wanting a new console.
4) Something more fundamental to the market as a whole
The PS4 at 199K is also treading water. People have been panicking about 3DS dropping 20-30% year over year. PS4 dropped 30% month over month. There also may have been weekly drops which would mean the first week was closer to 70K and the fourth week might have been around 40K. This would mean May could be trending towards 150K.
It is more unclear what is happening with PS4 supplies and shortages may have had an impact. MLB and Watchdogs might give a good bump. Maybe they'd even push it over the threshold of massmarket acceptance and allow a strong baseline. Sony might have to play their price cut card earlier than they wanted. Year end line up is pretty strong but it's like they're giving themselves an uphill battle.
It would be interesting to see if a Mario Gridiron actually took off wildly.
NO ONE EXPECTED AMERICAN FOOTBALL TO SAVE NINTENDO.
Where is the GIF from?
Yeah, I factored in ~30% weekly drop in sales for X1 based on past March->April transitions, but this industry is just tanking. With PS4 being sub-200K, too, the U.S. dedicated video game console industry is just not anywhere close to past gens. Yes, PS4/XB1 are 3m over where PS360 were after 6 months each, but add in the Wii U/Wii and that drops to 1.62m over last gen. And then the PS2 was still going strong selling 3m itself in either the 360's first 6 months or PS3/Wii's first 6 months.
Need to do some graphs ...
Easy question.
Nintendo. Shit, Microsoft took a bet on that audience and lost a lot of money on that wager.
Except have black friends.
the wii moved 900m units of software. what percentage of that do you believe was first-party and how much of a percentage of 900m does it take that it won't be missed?
You could say it's in the rough, har har.
But for real, it's a travesty. Despite the year-long delay and day one DLC bullshit, it turned out to be a great game. I guess the U.S. is just done with handhelds, in the same way Japan might be done with consoles, judging by the recent numbers coming from there.
Where is the GIF from?
Yeah, I factored in ~30% weekly drop in sales for X1 based on past March->April transitions, but this industry is just tanking. With PS4 being sub-200K, too, the U.S. dedicated video game console industry is just not anywhere close to past gens. Yes, PS4/XB1 are 3m over where PS360 were after 6 months each, but add in the Wii U/Wii and that drops to 1.62m over last gen. And then the PS2 was still going strong selling 3m itself in either the 360's first 6 months or PS3/Wii's first 6 months.
Need to do some graphs ...
Polygon should hire you for their graphing department.
Nevermind it really isn't healthy go go "well screw that market!" They can bring in a lot of money to a platform holder or to the publishers to keep things going. If anything you'd want the PS4 and/or XB1 to absorb that market and make sure it's a good, stable, diverse platform rather than just hoping to stay afloat off of the hardcore alone.
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