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NPD Sales Results for April 2015 [Up1: Xbox One #1]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
13k difference between the two with Xbox One leading.
The Artisan
Member
hm, well. Since we expect the consoles to sell hundreds of thousands per month, doesn't that make this kinda close?
It's in the OP.
I responded to many posters saying the same thing. If only they would look.
Good point. It's definitely not a system seller but it may give the PS4 a slight edge over the XB1 in May.
Dude, seriously? I saw your later posts, but you don't honestly believe that the XB1 winning one month will mean it will win July and August as well? If anything, the PS4 should take those months quite easily. Assuming that Sony is smart enough to produce enough stock of the standard Batman Arkham Knight bundle, the momentum in June should carry over to July. And don't forget that God of War 3 Remastered is coming out in August. It won't push the PS4 sales very high, but it should definitely give the PS4 a victory in that month. I'm interested to see how long this #HUNTtheTruth hype can last.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Yes probably close to the margin of error in NPD.
theprodigy
Member
wait, we're seriously using margin of error as an argument now? lol
freefornow
Member
Do we have any context for PSN numbers?
Welfare
Member
I don't think it's because of one month. I think it's because of the lower priced system in the slower summer months will probably sell more.
If Sony really are hitting that threshold of consumers willing to buy a PS4 at $399, I don't see why it'll sell more in summer than a console that has recently (in comparison too) gotten a price drop. Besides February (which had a Gamestop deal), the PS4 has been down every month this year. That won't change in May, and I don't see Batman having lasting effects into July and especially August.
God of War:R will have as much of an effect on hardware as TLoU:R did, which was nothing.
I could be entirely wrong on this, but I don't see how this could not be a possibility. I didn't even say something as outrageous as "April will be the start of the Xbox domination", but rather that the Xbox One could win the slower sale months because of price and early Halo marketing.
We'll see. My take on this is that the PS4 sales were down week on week in April compared to previous months because they were no sweet deals and major AAA exclusives, unlike February and March. Also, an interesting thing to note is that based on Amazon and info from fellow retailers, The Witcher 3 has been selling better on PS4, so it may be moving a few units as well. Regarding July, I really believe the Batman Arkham Knight bundle will still look attractive enough to give the PS4 a win. And again, I don't see the Halo #HUNTtheTRUTH hype lasting all the way to October
Wow, that means that almost one third of everyone who bought Bloodborne did not even kill 1 boss.
Sad.
Sony PSN download rankings. Bloodborne was 2.
Not really. That's about standard for every game.
Welfare
Member
Well look at it like this. If there were no deals in February/March, would the PS4 do as well as it did this year? Tax returns in February + the Gamestop deal was pretty big, but even with another deal in March plus the releases of FF Typo, BFH, and Bloodborne, it was down MoM and YoY.
I can not say anything about retail and Witcher 3, but I would guess that it doing better on PS4 is that the user base is already larger by 680k - 690k. That wouldn't correlate with people that don't have either box yet.
Maybe Batman can sustain PS4 sales enough in July, but honestly I don't see the standard $399 doing much 21 months after launch.
#HUNTtheTRUTH is only to E3 I believe. After that I don't see MS pulling any breaks on Halo marketing and will probably introduce another marketing strategy that'll last to October.
I didn't know that. That makes me even sadder.
Effigenius
Member
These other games are also sold digitally though. Why would you assume blood born outsells them digitally when it doesn't physically?
Sony tracks digital sales, it still like number 1 or 2 on the best sellers
Now that we agree on. The PS4 definitely wouldn't have done as well without the deals and it is already proven to be down YoY. This really shows that Sony needs to drop the price soon and $299 would be perfect. But honestly, I'm at the polar opposite of your opinion. I don't see how the XB1 can take July and August.
perfectchaos007
Member
So nintendo decided to be silent this month with no press release? That's too bad
Welfare
Member
Pretty bad results are why.
Effigenius
Member
FFX and x2 are ps2 games that have already been ported to the ps3 and vita. Literally nobody is going to buy a $400 ps4 for that.
anexanhume
Member
Yup, most games seem to have 75-90% with first chapter/boss trophy.
Welfare
Member
That is the point where a lot of gamers decide if the game is good enough to go on. First impressions are everything.
anexanhume
Member
Not just that. They start playing a different game and that grabs them or something comes up. I've started several games I intend to go back to.
boredandlazy
Member
I see it the opposite way, considering the relative difficulty I expected a lower figure.
But Xbone BARELY won with trade-in deals. PS4 won by a good margin in March.
flaviusconstantius
Member
So was wondering about this in the March thread. Do we have LTD for Dragon Age Inquisition?
The reason I am curious is it seemed to do okish in November(<690K I believe) poorly in the initial charts, then showed some staying power internationally thereafter. EA claimed it was "Bioware's most successful launch" but provided a bunch of vapid numbers about playing hours that seemed to beg the question. The whole thing makes me really curious whether EA was spinning, or it was somehow a genuine slow burner, since it seems like it could have been anything from a serious disappointment to a success. And its fate, along with that of the Witcher 3, will say a lot about the future of big budget WRPGs, since really we only have Fallout 4(which is almost another segment of the genre being Bethesda and all) and presumably the next Mass Effect coming.
The reason I am curious is it seemed to do okish in November(<690K I believe) poorly in the initial charts, then showed some staying power internationally thereafter. EA claimed it was "Bioware's most successful launch" but provided a bunch of vapid numbers about playing hours that seemed to beg the question. The whole thing makes me really curious whether EA was spinning, or it was somehow a genuine slow burner, since it seems like it could have been anything from a serious disappointment to a success. And its fate, along with that of the Witcher 3, will say a lot about the future of big budget WRPGs, since really we only have Fallout 4(which is almost another segment of the genre being Bethesda and all) and presumably the next Mass Effect coming.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
It 80k this month iirc. With digital its probably >500k LTD
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
STEAM not even being in the top 10 of 3ds makes me sad
That's pretty sad.... =(
Interesting. Maybe the price point helps too?
So MP10, Smash Wii U, Kirby, MK8, and Toad in that order?
Yay! FWIW, I really think DK hit 1M Worldwide already... I just can't imagine that it couldn't pull 400K outside of JP + US...
PS4 had MLB: The Show last month. It's in the NPD top 5 this month aswell. It's actually really surprising that there are no XB1 exclusives in the top ten (mainly because there hasn't been any big exclusive retail games on it for months) but it lead this month. Multiplatform games seem to be its seller, that or I think the very early Halo 5 marketing is working with the price drop/bundle promotions.
N7Commander95
Member
I agree in regards to Halo. I mean, I'm in the UK, but even then before the Avengers film we had like 3 different Halo 5 trailers. I imagine its the same in the US
Papacheeks
Banned
Metalingus5150
Member
Bloodborne was not that short.
gregor7777
Banned
Hush you
JayhawkerStL
Banned
I'm pretty sure we will see a return to the previous volume of happy animated gifs.
It's Bloodborne though.
Not surprising to me.
Gamers in 2015 are garbage. So many crap gamers spoiled by easy shit flooding the market like AC series or Mordor or Battlefield or CoD. Then they heard about this new 9/10 game called Bloodborne so they thought they should get it too. Rekt.
I would guess MK8 is above kirby....but I'm not sure.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
How the hell did Bloodborne drop out of the Top 10?
At least read the comments above you first.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
Well Kirby did have some pretty decent legs in March, selling more than it did in its launch in February, so you never know.
synce
Member
That's likely but very hard to say exactly tbh. With 360 and original Xbox we have the WW numbers. With Xbox One we don't, and I don't really what to compare shipped with sold through as that skews things. Hence why I'm saying "much more than half" to indicate that once again the ratio is skewed where USA is by far the biggest market for Xbox and is more than all other markets combined.
In regards to PS2. Here is a graph of PS2 Vs PS4 shipments. Please note that the following post looks at worldwide shipments unless otherwise explicitly stated.
Now lets take a look at why the PS4 is ahead.
PlayStation 2 launched in Japan first on March 4th 2000, on its first day alone more than 600,000 were sold at retail and 380,000 through online pre orders. The PlayStation 2 had issues with chip production in 2000 and demand for PS2 was high but Sony were unable to fully cater, even on day 1 they could only actually ship 720,000 of those 980,000 orders.
In Japan sales were high over 2000 and everything that was being shipped was being sold. And here is the key, the first 7 months of shipments just went to one country, Japan. Those first 7 months on the graph account for 3.5 million units that were shipped in Japan only.
The production issues hit the western launch as well with Sony able to only ship 500,000 units to the USA in October, half what they actually wanted to ship to meet demand. Overall Sony were just able to ship 6.40m units in 2000 which was a lot less then where they wanted to be. In fact If I remember correctly they planned to ship at least 1m more worldwide but were unable to. As of the end of 2000, which is month 10 on the graph, the PlayStation 2 had shipped 3.94m units in Japan/Asia and 2.46m units in North America and European countries.
In 2001 (Month 11 through Month 22), Sony were able to solve production issues and get back to selling as they planned with a total of 18.6 million units shipped worldwide taking the cumulative total to 25 million as of the end of 2001 (month 22).
Now lets look at PS4. Unlike the PlayStation 2, Sony's fourth console launched in North America and Europe first, in fact the PlayStation 4 launched in a total of 53 countries and regions during its first two months and expanded to 123 countries by month 15.
So this is a major factor why the PlayStation 4 outsold the PlayStation 2 for the first 7 months easily, because the PS2 was only available in Japan where as the PS4 was in more than 53 countries during the first 2 months and by the 7th month had launched in 72 countries and regions. So whilst Japan is big for gaming, a console launching in 72 regions in 7 months (inc NA+EU) is going to see more sales than a console that launched in 1 country for 7 months.
The PlayStation 4 saw over 1 million shipments in North America and over 700,000 in Europe during the first 24 hours on sale in those territories. Easily surpassing the PS2 launch and solidifying the PS4's early lead in the generation 8 set of consoles. After just two months the PS4 had sold in 4.5 million units in these 53 countries compared to the PS2 which had just sold under 2 million in Japan at the same time aligned.
The PlayStation 4 sales were high because, as mentioned above, the console launched in more territories, it was at a compelling price point and because it was coming off a very long generation where gamers were ready for a next generation console, even the Xbox One had a massive launch because of this final reason.
In 2014 (month 3 through 14), the PlayStation 4 saw continued demand and sold in an additional 15.4 million units. This is slightly less compared to PlayStation 2's 18.6 million units in 2001 (month 11 through 22). The reason for this is because it was still early days for the PS4, Japan did not contribute as much (only 1.1m in 2014 vs 4.3m in 2001) and because the PS4 had competition from the Xbox One where as the PlayStation 2 only had competition in the latter half of 2001.
The PlayStation 4 as of month 14 had sold 19.9m units worldwide where as the PlayStation 2 had only sold ~12m worldwide. Again the 7 months of just Japan only sales really comes in to play here.
The PlayStation 4 is currently at 22.3m units worldwide after 17 months where as the PlayStation 2 was at ~16.5m at this current time when you align launches.
This is a stupid thing to do but If for example you just look at worldwide sales outside of Asia (so 17 months of PS2 and PS4 sales outside of Asia), The PlayStation 4 would be less than 21m and the PlayStation 2 would be over 19m. So very close, and this again shows the impact of those 7 months of Japan exclusive sales and why PS4 is, when aligned, comfortably ahead of the PS2.
However the PS2 goes on to sell gang-busters in 2002 and 2003 and was the fastest console of its time to reach 50 million. Right now I expect the PS4 to fail to break that record and reach 50m just after the PS2. Main reason being competition from Xbox and lack of sales in Japan to boost overall numbers, sure the numbers will come from emerging territories but 20m+ sales in Japan alone for PS2 really helped PS2 get to where it is today.
Sorry for any mistakes in this post.
There's really no comparing the PS4 to the PS2. Early on Sony was handed this generation on a silver platter with that DRM fiasco (also $500 lol) Now that the prices between 4/bone are nearly the same and the average American doesn't give two fucks RAM or CPU speed, it's going to be a repeat of last gen
John Bender
Banned
Yeah.... not really.
What do you mean by that? I'm genuinely curious?
Also, it seems that the PS4 routinely outsells the XB1 (not even talking outside the US) outside of extra deals like in April, even when the PS4 is $50 more expensive than its competitor.
Are you sure that the "average American" doesn't give a damn about tech?
Vroadstar
Member
Pre-season doesn't matter again.
The price isn't nearly the same. Xbox One is at least $50 cheaper everywhere, over $100 cheaper in some places. PS had a drop in sales that is normal for April. Xbox One didn't drop due to a new bundle and trade in deals. I think PS4 will outsell every console outside the PS2, and it will come close to that.
Chobel
Member
You think XB1 will outsell PS4 by 60% in US?