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NPD Sales Results for December 2009
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
Castor Krieg
Banned
Dalthien said:
However you call it doesn't matter for me, really. I was simply pointing out the fact (supported by sales data) that sequels don't sell well on Wii, and I gave explanation for that. It is simply a counter-argument to the notion expressed in earlier posts that now Nintendo can just pump out sequels for their IPs. Didn't mean to start old hardcore vs. casual at all.
Okay, cool.Castor Krieg said:
Of course they can't just pump out sequels ad infinitum. As Leondexter brought up, the sequels have to be quality games. And outside of the annual Mario Party releases, Nintendo has always done a pretty good job of spacing out their franchises.
The sequels don't sell on Wii thing is kind of a fallacy anyway. At least with Nintendo. In Japan (the only country where Wii Sports wasn't packed in), Wii Sports Resort is selling almost identically with how Wii Sports sold. Wii Fit Plus is also selling almost identically with how Wii Fit sold. We'll see how Mario Galaxy 2 fares soon enough, but I think Zelda Wii has a great shot at matching Twilight Princess as well. If 3rd-parties are having problems with their sequels, then that falls on those 3rd-parties.
But that is really irrelevant to my point anyway. Even if the sequels were to drop off for all these series, they would still sell ridiculously huge numbers. Likewise, many of Nintendo's sequels on the NES sold less than the originals. By the time we got around to the Gamecube, the series were all down quite a bit from their peaks, but even then they were still selling huge numbers. By that point 20 years had passed, but many of those sales on the Gamecube were still coming from people who had developed brand affinity with Nintendo way back on the NES. Or children who were introduced to Nintendo because their parents or brothers or whatever had a brand affinity with Nintendo.
Of course it doesn't apply to everyone. It doesn't apply with most people. But if Nintendo can even get 10% of the tens of millions of new gamers on the Wii to develop a brand affinity with some of Nintendo's brands - then those are millions of sales that could carry through the next 20 years.
That's what I think Heidern was getting at. (Although he can certainly step in and defend his own ideas, or correct my interpretation,) And I don't disagree with it.
Maybe this has more to do with the fact that most of the first games sold way more than they should based on their quality and the sequels get what they deserve?Castor Krieg said:
What explanation do you give for the performance of Wii Sports Resort and Wii Fit Plus, since these two are obviously games that go for the ''casual'' market and why haven't they failed?
Mariah Carey said:
You state that as if it's a fact that it's always true, but I'd suggest that it hasn't been true in the past; there hasn't really been all that much significant differentiation between platforms to make a palpable difference between the games; a few more colours here, a couple million more polys per second there, not really much to get excited about.
Now, though, there is a platform that - in principle, at least - offers something clearly different and interesting; interesting enough that people often want to see how that differentiation reflects in games; I certainly do. I agree with Dragona that I'm looking forward to the Sony-wand version of RE5 - but I'd far rather have had it sooner.
In a roundabout way I think I'm agreeing with Ethelred, in many conceptual ways the Wii is regarded in a similar way to handhelds; a distinct market. People often buy handhelds because that's the platform they want to play games on, too.
Harkening back to the early days of the DS, let's use the term 'pillars':
HD gaming pillar: PS3, 360
Motion gaming pillar: Wii
Handheld pillar: DS, PSP
[nb: There's further differentiation *within* the handheld pillar, too, just to make things a little extra confusing]
I would adapt the original comment like this:
"People select a *pillar* because this is the pillar they wish to play games on. They select a platform within the pillar because it has the games they want".
I would submit that the long-term risk for the third parties in general isn't that they're not supporting the biggest platform right now, but the fact that they're not building up the skills and the reputation required to succeed with motion-controlled gaming while it's still in its infancy. *IF* it catches on long-term - and I think it will, now, the groundwork's in place - then they need to nurture that skillset to prepare for the second generation of motion controls.
Cosmonaut X
Member
Castor Krieg said:
A very slight fix there. I think the earlier point about "content" sequels vs "concept" sequels was very astute. The "new" market seems to prefer "concept" sequels which provide new ways to interact, or a new approach to an established IP - Wii Sports Resort, for example - whereas the "core" market is much easier to please with "content" sequels - Gears of War 2, or Left 4 Dead 2 - that keep the same game mechanics, style etc. but add more levels, weapons, story etc.
There is obviously some crossover, as the "core" audience are interested in novelty as well, and the "new" market can be sold on more of the same provided it is priced appropriately and promoted clearly (Wii Fit Plus, for example), but I think a rule of thumb for producing and marketing sequels to the wider, more casual market should be:
"What does this title do new?"
Pureauthor
Member
Uh, do we count Super Mario Galaxy, LoZ: TP and NSMBW as 'sequels'?
By the same logic should we label as "dumb" all PS3 owners who bitch about multiplatform titles often being technically inferior compared to their 360 counterparts, and tell them to buy a 360 instead?Fuzzy said:
I surely wouldn't.
I don't care about the (technical) reasons why this thing often happens: I believe they have all the rights in this world to complain, as customers.
For the very same reason, I think that is not dumb at all for a Wii owner to complain about 3rd parties attitude towards the platform: as many others have said before, I've been looking for RE4-style (and Pikmin NPC, and Metroid Prime Corruption, for that matter) games because I felt wiimote+nunchuck were perfectly suited for it.
IMHO there's absolutely nothing wrong or pathetically biased in preferring one control setup over another, the very same way some people honestly believe dual analog stick or keyboard+mouse are the "right" (and the only one possible) way of playing FPS/TPS and so on.
Games like those were possible on the Wii right from the start, no add-on was required, yet we got almost... nothing! There has to be some shades of grey between black ( = full, almost exclusive serious 3rd party support which PC-PS360 got, and I am NOT envying nor I am saying that the very same games should have gone to the Wii exclusively nor, worse, I am arguing that they would have sold better or on-par on the Wii) and white ( 3rd party serious efforts at least proportional to market share ).
Please note that I currently own all current major platforms (PC included) so what I'm talking about does not stem from being unsatisfied by the Wii alone.
Pretty much this.Opiate said:
EDIT: better worded (twice
)Leondexter said:
Obviously if you make something shit that people don't like then people aren't going to buy it. For the purposes of discussion I think we can assume quality. History shows brand loyalty is a strong factor (Remember, we're assuming quality!) In the US the SNES was a huge success because of loyalty to Mario, but was hindered because Sega changed the dynamic. But look at Japan, Sega didn't hook with their philosophy and Nintendo continued the domination the Famicom achieved because of the brand loyalty to Mario, Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest.
The N64 launched successfully because of brand loyalty to Mario, overtook the PSX in the US after a year. But Nintendo fucked up with a paper thin release list and Sony changed the game with their focus on games for adults seeing great success. In Japan it was brand loyalty to Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest that really propelled the PSX to success.
The PS2 had a horrid first year for quality in Japan, it was pure brand loyalty in that instance. Nintendo and MS came out with competent systems but nothing game changing, so people worldwide stuck to the brands they trusted(Sony, Gran Turismo, MGS, FF etc). And of course with the Wii Nintendo changed the game with the motion controls, MS were again competent and thus mediocre, and Sony messed up with the $599 farce.
Dalthien said:
That's absolutely true, they are ensuring a certain level of success irrespective of what happens with the competition. But in terms of the industry battle what is happening does have big ramifications. Wii Fit and Wii Sports(and the likes of Brain Training and Nintendogs too) aren't just big games, they are gigantic, they are an event just like the release of a Mario game. Nintendo have developed new powerful weapons in the sales battle. Nintendo are pushing up the baseline for what they can achieve. We can see with the N64 and GC the baseline was 25 million or so if things don't go that well. But now, I think that baseline has almost certainly gone up.
Another interesting thing in the history of consoles is, if you do something special you can grow your market(Genesis, PSX, Wii). If you don't you get steady performance(Snes, GC, DC, PS2, 360). And if you fuck up your sales can fall a lot(N64, Saturn, PS3). What this suggests is as long as Nintendo don't fuck up(and they probably won't because they probably have a good understanding of the basic requirements for a console now), they should come within 25% of the sales of Wii and would likely be the dominant console. With the big games being 1st party Sony can't resort to franchise stealing again, so Sony/MS are going to have to start from square one and most likely would have to do something special to compete. Doing something special is not easy, and not guaranteed. Especially when the 3rd parties they rely on have a track record of failure in regards to the new console audience.
Fafalada said:
Yes, that was my understanding (and glad to see you confirming it, as I have strong faith in your opinion). I think PC Gamers were generally shifting their tastes anyway to markets the major parties don't specialize in, i.e. browser games and casual fare a la Popcap.
Which is why most people don't know that revenue is still climbing. Conversations I've had on GAF basically go like this:
Me: PC Gaming revenue is still growing. It's a larger market than either the PS3 or 360.
Person: No it's not. There's no way that's true.
Me: [Provides Link] Yes it is, actually. However, most of that revenue is coming from casual fare, ad revenue from flash games and the like, and MMO subscriptions.
Person: Oh, those don't even count.
PC Revenue is growing, but many people here don't care as it's growing on the back of games that don't interest them.
Glad to see Opiate is back.
The main comment I'd like to contribute is to look at these sales from the consumer's point of view (if possible). I understand that top 10 (even top 20) is very limited and does not reflect the market as a whole. Nevertheless, using the 417k for AC2 on PS3 as the baseline number for 11-17, and ignoring 18+, what I see is:
Wii software units in top 17 >= 9383
X360 software units in top 17 >= 3559
PS3 software units in top 17 >= 1537
Looking at Wii software unit sales as a consumer, is it realistic to expect the Wii owner to buy more games than he/she already is? In order for "3rd parties" to capitalize on this "untapped" Wii market, wouldn't the Wii owner have to:
1) Buy more games than s/he currently is
2) Buy different games than s/he currently is
I'm not sure either of the above is a reasonable expectation for a large share of the Wii market. They're already buying lots of software (supposedly at similar rates to other console owners this gen). They're already buying the software that seem to be "canonical" for the console - NSMBW, WF+, WSR, MKWii. Are they really supposed to do anything more than they have, or do anything differently?
The main comment I'd like to contribute is to look at these sales from the consumer's point of view (if possible). I understand that top 10 (even top 20) is very limited and does not reflect the market as a whole. Nevertheless, using the 417k for AC2 on PS3 as the baseline number for 11-17, and ignoring 18+, what I see is:
Wii software units in top 17 >= 9383
X360 software units in top 17 >= 3559
PS3 software units in top 17 >= 1537
Looking at Wii software unit sales as a consumer, is it realistic to expect the Wii owner to buy more games than he/she already is? In order for "3rd parties" to capitalize on this "untapped" Wii market, wouldn't the Wii owner have to:
1) Buy more games than s/he currently is
2) Buy different games than s/he currently is
I'm not sure either of the above is a reasonable expectation for a large share of the Wii market. They're already buying lots of software (supposedly at similar rates to other console owners this gen). They're already buying the software that seem to be "canonical" for the console - NSMBW, WF+, WSR, MKWii. Are they really supposed to do anything more than they have, or do anything differently?
Castor Krieg said:
Most sequels sell less. This is especially true if people don't know there is a sequel or if the first game sold well but wasn't received positively by all who bought it. Wii Sports Resort is selling particularly well as a sequel, for example, but that's due to how people received Wii Sports.
EDIT: For example... If Nintendo were to make another Wii Music, I suspect it would sell half as well as the first one did.
Re: New PC gaming revenue streams. I would like to see how microtransaction based games are performing, League of Legends in particular. You can earn the characters through normal play, but it takes many hours to buy the more exotic characters whereas you can spend $5-10 to unlock them instantly. If the game didn't feel so barren on content (there is only 1 map right now, although more are supposed to be in the pipeline), I would probably buy some characters.
GregLombardi
Member
I'm really late to this party, had to move to a different apartment, but just WOW at these numbers.
This industry is so unbelievably fragmented right now, in some ways is doing very well, and in others is a bit worrisome. I wonder if it will all come together next gen?
This industry is so unbelievably fragmented right now, in some ways is doing very well, and in others is a bit worrisome. I wonder if it will all come together next gen?
Eteric Rice
Member
GregLombardi said:
Hope so, this generation is a messy one so far.
What I fear more, though, is more smaller game developers being bought up by the bigger ones. I think if game developers continue to use the same business model, they'll be fucked next generation.
Now, supposedly they want to try to turn their games into franchises (movies, games, and toys) to share the resources (and cut costs) and get other avenues of revinue.
Somehow I get the feeling they're going to mostly fail at this.
Isn't it inappropriate to assume that mass third party support (inevitably at the expense of competing systems) would create many additional Wii users?liuelson said:
Also, third parties takes up a large chunk of Wii software sales. Good support would take sales away from lesser quality third party and lesser quality first party titles, thereby buying different games than s/he currently is.
The so-called hardcore among Wii users will buy most of what they currently do, plus many of the extra third party output.
Plenty of room for capitalisation, from this standpoint.
I think they have to find a way to join that upper tier, which is hard because Nintendo still make some of the best software in the world.liuelson said:
Nintendo are one of the few companies still running on pure game design as a fundamental core principle of every game they make instead of relying on screenwriters, technology, genre iteration or all the the above to drive new products. I think that's a serious difference in approach and part of the reason Nintendo will always be here and always have success on a middling or better scale within the industry.
50k for silent hill in its first month npd is pretty great all things considered.
According to that NPD leak Silent hill 4 sold 209k ltd in america, Silent Hill 5 sold 157k ltd across two platforms and silent hill origins sold 234k across 2 platforms
this could end up being quite a bit more successful than them
According to that NPD leak Silent hill 4 sold 209k ltd in america, Silent Hill 5 sold 157k ltd across two platforms and silent hill origins sold 234k across 2 platforms
this could end up being quite a bit more successful than them
SlipperySlope
Banned
Sipowicz said:
We need more people buying Silent Hill: SM.
I added +1 to the January #'s.
Edit - Nintendo should pitch in for some advertising for this game. This game got no advertising whatsoever, and if it wasn't for GAF, I wouldn't even know it existed.
Castor Krieg said:
That's about as true as saying Sega didn' survive the dreamcast because of the hardcore.
By and large, save for the few % of users who boycott a branded system for whatever internal hate they may have, hardcore gamers will support all systems.
What allowed Nintendo to remain profitable despite losing a significant market share over two generations is that it still had products that sold on a scale that sold to masses of people outside the hardcore.
Further, the N64 was a massive success in the west and laid the template for Microsoft's Xbox strategy. Though dwarfed by PSone's sales in the US, Nintendo still managed to sell more N64 units than SNES units. The market exploded in the 32/64 bit generation.
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Castor Krieg said:
No, Nintendo survived the GameCube and N64 because the GameBoy and GBA were making money hand over fist with zero competition.
nextgeneration
Member
Linkup said:
I'm interested to see what the ltd ends up being for this worldwide. Seems like this game is really gaining momentum.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Nintendo did a good job selling what was different, improved, and worth buying about Wii Sports Resort. Wii Fit Plus replaced Wii Fit completely, to the point where the original just disappeared. It wasn't a sequel and most of those purchases were probably new.Chris1964 said:
As a counter-example, look at Spirit Tracks. Phantom Hourglass sold about 250k in its debut month, it doesn't look like Spirit Tracks even got to that. Nintendo didn't sell people on what was different about it, in fact, the advertising campaign mostly centered on what was the same.
Look at Darkside Chronicles, Overkill, New Blood, etc. Unless people have a compelling reason to upgrade, they won't.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Did it? Then totally ignore my counter example, because apparently it's no good.ethelred said:
OldJadedGamer
Banned
onipex said:
It made them money sure, a few dollars here and there but all their profits were coming from the GBA line. Think about it, do you think that profits off the hardware of the GameCube alone during that time would have supported them during a time when they weren't making that many games nor selling that many and had a HUGE R&D budget developing the Wii controller?
It was all the Gameboy line keeping them afloat.
boiled goose
good with gravy
Cromat said:
They are better suited on the PC.
Even if a 360/PS3 version does come out it would still be inferior to the PC version. If you want to play these games, get a PC.
Much profit for GBA, but GC and especially N64 was in the black, and they have a huge hoard if needed. Don't forget they still manage to sell a lot of games on less-popular hardware (Smash Bros, Mario Kart, etc.)OldJadedGamer said:
If you compare to Sega : only ONE million seller IIRC in Japan (Virtua Fighter II) in their whole history. In US, they have four platinum on DC, just above 1M. Nintendo has more than a dozen platinum on GC in US, including three games close or above 4M (Smash, Sunshine and Kart).
They make some money on hard, still a lot of software, even on GC (and N64 was nearly a success in US).
They said they can endure five generation of failures, and seing how they handle money and how much they have... I'm tempted to believe them (or at least think a couple of generation failures won't mean bankrupt).OldJadedGamer said:
Besides, I don't think Wiimote R&D was expensive. Complex, yes. Expensive, probably not. They spend five to ten times more in R&D now than at Wii launch.
And R&D for wiimote started before GC launch!
OldJadedGamer
Banned
Koren said:
Because of the GameBoy, GBA, and DS (before Wii). I'm nearly stating that if Nintendo was a home console company only and there was no Gameboy line... and hence no Pokemon to go with it that Nintendo couldn't keep posting profits on GameCube hardware sales alone during that period. The major part of Nintendo's cash flow (before the Wii) came from the GB/GBA and the Pokemon craze that went with them.
John Dunbar
correct about everything
legend166 said:
While that's true, "good will" means nothing if Level 5 sees better opportunities elsewhere. Business is ruthless.
legend166 said:
From what I've read about it, no. It seems to be basically mindless dancing with very loose scoring. Ubisoft planning to make more games in the franchise could just prove out (again) that while you may be able to trick concept-based gamers the first time, they learn by the second. See Deca Sports, Game Party, Petz, Imagine.