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[Dave Long]

This NPD format really makes console exclusive games look shitty for the most part.

That was kinda the point of the change. Which first-party was dominating the charts before NPD changed the way they reported sales? Nintendo. This way, it helps make it look like "core" games are more popular than Nintendo games.

I'm cynical about it, but I think the third parties wanted this change because their investors kept asking WTF was up with Nintendo dominating the charts every month outside a few exceptions. Now they don't have to deal with that as much.

 

[plagiarize]

That was kinda the point of the change. Which first-party was dominating the charts before NPD changed the way they reported sales? Nintendo. This way, it helps make it look like "core" games are more popular than Nintendo games.

I'm cynical about it, but I think the third parties wanted this change because their investors kept asking WTF was up with Nintendo dominating the charts every month outside a few exceptions. Now they don't have to deal with that as much.

is that your personal take on it, or did i miss a news story? honest question.

 

[szaromir]

That was kinda the point of the change. Which first-party was dominating the charts before NPD changed the way they reported sales? Nintendo. This way, it helps make it look like "core" games are more popular than Nintendo games.

I'm cynical about it, but I think the third parties wanted this change because their investors kept asking WTF was up with Nintendo dominating the charts every month outside a few exceptions. Now they don't have to deal with that as much.

You made my day.
IF multiplatform sales are higher than those of exclusives, it means that multiplatform games ARE more popular. Case in point - Call of Duty is more popular than Donkey Kong, and Donkey Kong is more popular than Need for Speed. Being multiplatform/exclusive doesn't change that. This "anti-Nintendo" conspiracy is ridiculous.

 

[John Harker]

Old?

Ubisoft Claims Top Third Party Kinect Sales In 2010
by Kyle Orland


January 13, 2011

Ubisoft Claims Top Third Party Kinect Sales In 2010

indiePub Games
In advance of NPD's sales report for December 2010, Ubisoft is claiming its slate of Kinect software made them the number one third party publisher on the new hardware platform in 2010.

Ubisoft didn't reveal precise sales numbers or proportions for its three currently available Kinect titles -- Your Shape: Fitness Evolved, MotionSports and Fighters Uncaged -- though Your Shape has recently started appearing on Amazon's top selling video games lists.

In a statement announcing the position, Ubisoft declared it's hoping to repeat the feat in 2011 with titles including Child of Eden and a Kinect port for the multi-million selling Michael Jackson: The Experience.

“We believed in the potential of Kinect from the start and we set out to be the leading third-party publisher," said Laurent Detoc, Ubisoft North America president. "It worked. But this is only the beginning for us."

Last week, Microsoft announced it had shipped 8 million Kinect units worldwide in 2010, and last month NPD revealed Harmonix's Dance Central was the top-selling Kinect game during the hardware's launch month of November.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

That was kinda the point of the change. Which first-party was dominating the charts before NPD changed the way they reported sales? Nintendo. This way, it helps make it look like "core" games are more popular than Nintendo games.

I'm cynical about it, but I think the third parties wanted this change because their investors kept asking WTF was up with Nintendo dominating the charts every month outside a few exceptions. Now they don't have to deal with that as much.

I'm pretty sure the relevant shareholders get a bit more data then the top 20. If any company wanted to tout multiplat sales in the past, all they needed was a press release.

 

[Neuromancer]

That was kinda the point of the change. Which first-party was dominating the charts before NPD changed the way they reported sales? Nintendo. This way, it helps make it look like "core" games are more popular than Nintendo games.

I'm cynical about it, but I think the third parties wanted this change because their investors kept asking WTF was up with Nintendo dominating the charts every month outside a few exceptions. Now they don't have to deal with that as much.

Yeah I don't know man. I think you're really reaching here.

 

[T Ghost]

There was a shortage though... of standalone SKUs. You can find the Kinect system bundles everywhere, even now. the 4GB and 250GB without Kinect, however, are very scarce.

In other words, Microsoft lost a ton of sales by putting too many Kinect bundles in the channel.

What is the rationale of pushing the Kinect bundles so hard when you can have the console AND the Kinect available at the POS and work POS promotion with retailers to bundle themselves as a store bundle? Why to lose the flexibility by locking both Kinect and Console in a single box from factory?

 

[Elios83]

Still no PSP number I see, not that it's really important btw.

 

[Littleberu]

Anecdotal evidence in this case is useless because it all depends on your location. In my area, a week before Christmas, there were stacks of the 250GB Kinect and 4GB w/ Kinect bundle everywhere, along with standalone Kinects at Best Buy, Meijer, Target. Should have taken some pictures, but they definitely weren't sold out.

Should have taken some pictures and shown to the Microsoft PR. STICK IT TO THE MAN.

 

[Yopis]

Well GT5 is at a crossroads but no franchise last forever on top. This has been a strange HW cycle for sure.

 

[Dave Long]

is that your personal take on it, or did i miss a news story? honest question.

Just my take on it. If someone has a better reason for the change, I'd like to hear it.

 

[Dave Long]

I'm pretty sure the relevant shareholders get a bit more data then the top 20. If any company wanted to tout multiplat sales in the past, all they needed was a press release.

Doubtful. Are shareholders paying for the entirety of NPD reporting? Only the very largest... maybe and even then only if their portfolio is all based in videogames.

There's a very large paywall between the NPD's SKU numbers and the average stockholder.

 

[Kenka]

Old?

It is. And those PR bastards neglected the rest of the numbers regarding AssBro and Just Dance. They just wanted to show off their Kinect performance.

Ugly devils.

 

[Vinci]

Dave, you should really stop that kind of thinking. It's paranoid and doesn't help anything. NPD doesn't give a damn what these companies would prefer.

 

[Kafel]

Old?

Fortunately for them YSF sells very well. They're the third party that released the more games for Kinect, quite normal for them to sell more than the others.

 

[Luckyman]

GT3 numbers are heavily inflated. It was bundled with every console..

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

Over 500k for GT5. That's actually higher than I expected.

 

[Saint Gregory]

that's a semantics argument then. do you need to be completely sold out universally across all retail outlets to be sold out or is it enough to be sold out at a percentage of them?

they sold out, maybe not nationwide but they were still 'selling out across the country'.

just as when the PS3 slim was thin, that hurt sales. you don't have to completely sell out for your sales to suffer. just as i believed Sony then, i believe MS now, because while some places aren't selling out, a lot of places are.

i put a lot more value in anecdotally in stock at someones local stores than anecdotally out of stock at someones local stores... because you can have shortages and be in stock at some places, but if you have no shortages you probably aren't out of stock at every store in a given area, statistically speaking.

Nintendo also didn't make enough Red Wiis, but that's a little different because a black Wii is much more equivalent to a Red Wii than a Kinect free 360 is to one with Kinect.

it's a lot harder to sell someone a 360 without Kinect that wants Kinect (and vice versa) than it is to sell someone a different coloured console with a different bundled game that is the same exact price.

I would imagine you're right, I think my skepticism (and probably others) comes from the fact that there have been so many times over the last few years that Sony has blamed their low sales on "supply constraint" while in the meantime most of us were in stores climbing over piles of unsold PS3s to get into the gaming aisles. I can't think of anytime in the past that MS has done that and what other explaination can there really be for their sales to fall short of what so many were expecting?

 

[BladeoftheImmortal]

Well GT5 is at a crossroads but no franchise last forever on top. This has been a strange HW cycle for sure.

It's still going to be the highest selling exclusive franchise for a Sony console, though, unless UC3 breaks records.

It's also still the highest selling Racing Sim franchise in existence, so I don't understand what you mean, and how it isn't still on top. If you mean highest selling game, ever, well the GTs never were that to begin with.

Spoiler

except maybe GT3

I would imagine you're right, I think my skepticism (and probably others) comes from the fact that there have been so many times over the last few years that Sony has blamed their low sales on "supply constraint" while in the meantime most of us were in stores climbing over piles of unsold PS3s to get into the gaming aisles. I can't think of anytime in the past that MS has done that and what other explaination can there really be for their sales to fall short of what so many were expecting?

MS did that in January '08.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Just my take on it. If someone has a better reason for the change, I'd like to hear it.

Because it presents a more accurate picture of total units sold by aggregating the platform sales together? If we lived in a one-console future, the chart should still look similar to what it looks like now.

 

[shinnn]

- LittleBigPlanet 2 currently has a Metacritic score of 94, which makes it one of the Top 10 PS3 games of all times.

Sony PR forgot to check out metacritic recently... lol

 

[BruceLeeRoy]

It's still going to be the highest selling exclusive franchise for a Sony console, though, unless UC3 breaks records.

It's also still the highest selling Racing Sim franchise in existence, so I don't understand what you mean, and how it isn't still on top. If you mean highest selling game, ever, well the GTs never were that to begin with.

Spoiler

except maybe GT3

MS did that in January '08.

That is a excellent avatar.

 

[LosDaddie]

Another great month for the X360. The non-Kinect bundles were difficult to find here in Orlando. I got lucky to find a 250GB non-Kinect Holiday Bundle at my local GS because they had just received 2 the night before. Really nice piece of hardware and it had 2 great games (Forza3 and Alan Wake) bundled with it. Excellent holiday strategy by MS.

And yes, this was a bad year for the PS3. It couldn't manage positive YoY growth with a Gran Turismo game (it's #1 IP by a long mile), a $100 price cut (always a hardware mover), a God of War game, a new control scheme with PSMove, and even a mega-popluar game like BLOPS. That Sony PR was just laughably bad.

Software-wise, I'm happy to see Halo Reach get #3 in 2010. I'm not surprised to see Epic Mickey chart either. The game was marketed heavily on the Disney channel. I really need to check out DKCR, but I have a backlog to get through first.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Christ, sony should get metalmurphy to write their PR bullshit.

 

[kame-sennin]

Any word on Super Mario All-stars? I heard NOA didn't ship many copies, but I figured it would have done well considering people have reported that it's hard to find in stores.

In other words, Microsoft lost a ton of sales by putting too many Kinect bundles in the channel.

What is the rationale of pushing the Kinect bundles so hard when you can have the console AND the Kinect available at the POS and work POS promotion with retailers to bundle themselves as a store bundle? Why to lose the flexibility by locking both Kinect and Console in a single box from factory?

It's a marketing decision to help with re-branding. When people buy the Kinect 360, it (I would assume) comes in a special Kinect box, so it feels more like a new system. Store bundling means that the customer has to buy the Xbox 360 (with its core market branding) along with a Kinect add on. This is all an assumption on my part, but it's probably the reason.

 

[GregLombardi]

Sony PR forgot to check out metacritic recently... lol

Are you really quibbing about a 2 point difference between Metacritic and PR? If the game's average had dropped to 85 I could see it, but I think your point is weak.

 

[Huevos de Oro]

Without what Opiate just said (a strong software lineup) dropping the price to U$99 would just make it seem cheap (as in: less sofisticated) in comparison to Kinect and probably would hurt it more than help it. The near-impulse-buy price tag may offset that a bit, but I don't think a price drop without an aggressive marketing campaign and the titles to back it up would do much good. Nintendo is going to be focused on the 3DS this year anyway so I think they're not too worried about the Wii losing a bit of steam.

I do agree with most of your post, especially the fact that software and to a lesser extent advertising would be critical parts of an effort to drive system sales up. I still think an aggressive price cut would be very beneficial, although I concede putting the system at that price might negatively impact its perceived value, from a consumer standpoint.

 

[Mrbob]

Hardware availability would be a regional thing.

For example, my area is overflowing with 4GB Kinect systems. No 250GB Kinect Systems. 4GB arcade systems are available as are 250GB holiday bundles and standalone 250GB systems.

I think the only mistake MS may have made is the impact they thought the 4GB Kinect system would have. I don't believe those have sold as well as forecasted.

 

[Kafel]

Are you really quibbing about a 2 point difference between Metacritic and PR? If the game's average had dropped to 85 I could see it, but I think your point is weak.

Publishers should just start a dozen of websites to get high metacritic scores instead of bullying the press. Maybe it's what they're doing already.

"PlaystationLifestyle", wtf ?

 

[BenjaminBirdie]

one of the Top 10 PS3 games of all times.

I'm not crazy, right? That's grammatically unsound, right?

 

[Souldriver]

Sony PR forgot to check out metacritic recently... lol

The joke is not that the score is slightly wrong, but the simply fact that they used a review score of a future release as a highlight in a holiday sales PR statement.

 

[kswiston]

It's still going to be the highest selling exclusive franchise for a Sony console, though, unless UC3 breaks records.

It's also still the highest selling Racing Sim franchise in existence, so I don't understand what you mean, and how it isn't still on top. If you mean highest selling game, ever, well the GTs never were that to begin with.

It may be the highest racing sim franchise because that is a smaller sub-genre, but technically it's the third highest selling racing franchise behind Need For Speed (which is over 100M units in total) and Mario Kart.

 

[Vinci]

Are you really quibbing about a 2 point difference between Metacritic and PR? If the game's average had dropped to 85 I could see it, but I think your point is weak.

Relying on metacritic at all is pretty weak though. I agree with your point, BTW, just saying.

 

[Lagspike_exe]

Ubisoft absolutely nailed the casual market this gen. Their DS, Wii and now Kinect production is a pure money print. And if that means bigger budgets for their AAA games, I'm all for it.

 

[Vinci]

Ubisoft absolutely nailed the casual market this gen. Their DS, Wii and now Kinect production is a pure money print. And if that means bigger budgets for their AAA games, I'm all for it.

Boggles the mind how this rationale makes sense to people.

 

[FrankT]

Kinect bundles still running at about 50%;

Microsoft's Xbox 360 Kinect Bundles Outsold Move Bundles By 5:1
Posted January 14, 2011 by James Brightman

If you want to look at the recent holiday season as "Round 1" of the motion controls battle between Microsoft and Sony, it would appear that Microsoft's Kinect is winning handily (bad pun, considering that it's "hands free" gaming). Not only has Kinect quickly shipped 8 million units, but for the month of December, Xbox 360 Kinect bundles outsold PS3 Move bundles considerably. The software for the motion camera is faring far better too, according to Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter.

"About one fifth of PS3 sales included bundles with Sony’s Move controller, suggesting a modest third month (we have chosen not to subscribe to peripheral data). About half of Xbox 360 sales included bundles with Microsoft’s Kinect peripheral, as Xbox 360 Kinect console bundles outsold PS3 Move console bundles by 5:1," Pachter said.

"Microsoft announced that it has shipped 8 million Kinect units since launch (in November), which was raised from its earlier goal of 5 million. More significantly, in our view, the top two selling Kinect software titles outsold the top two Move titles by over 13:1."

http://www.industrygamers.com/news/microsofts-xbox-360-kinect-bundles-outsold-move-bundles-by-51/

 

[Megadragon15]

Edit: Beaten badly by the post above.

 

[Arpharmd B]

So Kinect Sports and Dance Central are both over a million. I see both these titles having "legs" ( I hate that term) for a long while. They are the go to Kinect games.

Very surprised to see next to nothing on Move sales. Has any game on Move even approached the top ten? Move seems to be dead in the water as far as the US in concerned.

MS is in a strong position going into 2011. I think once they get the supply issues sorted out it could easily be the number 1 console in the United States going forward.

 

[Kafel]

Kinect bundles still running at about 50%;http://www.industrygamers.com/news/microsofts-xbox-360-kinect-bundles-outsold-move-bundles-by-51/

More significantly, in our view, the top two selling Kinect software titles outsold the top two Move titles by over 13:1

:O

 

[Vinci]

No one with a clue outside of console fanboy wankery considered Kinect and Move in direct competition with one another, or that Move would come anywhere close competing with Kinect even in a vague way. The fact that MS keeps harping on it just comes off as immature as hell.

 

[Zoe]

I think everybody knows Move isn't selling to new customers. Hopefully someone has standalone sales.

 

[pslong009]

I'm not crazy, right? That's grammatically unsound, right?

Nope, you're not crazy.

They also used "line up" in two places where it should be "line-up" (which they used at the end of the release) or "lineup". And there's another grammatical error in the release as well. They're little errors, but strange to see in a press release.

 

[Megadragon15]

No one with a clue outside of console fanboy wankery considered Kinect and Move in direct competition with one another, or that Move would come anywhere close competing with Kinect even in a vague way. The fact that MS keeps harping on it just comes off as immature as hell.

That isn't Microsoft. That was Pachter.

 

[Nirolak]

No one with a clue outside of console fanboy wankery considered Kinect and Move in direct competition with one another, or that Move would come anywhere close competing with Kinect even in a vague way. The fact that MS keeps harping on it just comes off as immature as hell.

This is Pachter's report, not Microsoft's.

Edit: Beaten.

 

[okenny]

Are you really quibbing about a 2 point difference between Metacritic and PR? If the game's average had dropped to 85 I could see it, but I think your point is weak.

It does make their statement false though It would have to have atleast a 93 to be in the running.

 

[FrankT]

No one with a clue outside of console fanboy wankery considered Kinect and Move in direct competition with one another, or that Move would come anywhere close competing with Kinect even in a vague way. The fact that MS keeps harping on it just comes off as immature as hell.

smh

 

[Vinci]

That isn't Microsoft. That was Pachter.

Yeah, throw him in too.

Oops.

 

[Sydle]

nvrmnd

 

[Jonsoncao]

More significantly, in our view, the top two selling Kinect software titles outsold the top two Move titles by over 13:1

@_@

 

[RedStep]

Publishers should just start a dozen of websites to get high metacritic scores instead of bullying the press. Maybe it's what they're doing already.

"PlaystationLifestyle", wtf ?

Playstation isn't a platform, it's a way of life!