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NPD Sales Results for February 2013 [Up5: Dead Space 3, Crysis 3, Official PS3/WiiU]

Orgen

Member
So if the cost of the AC III Wii U port was 1 million €... has Ubisoft made it back now? Or not yet? (how many units does it need to sell to make it profitable?)

I'm guessing a "yes" for an answer seeing that Black Flag is going to have a Wii U version too but I don't know for sure.
 
Tomb Raider doesn't seem positioned to build an audience on anything. If it was trying to, it'd probably be releasing next-year. It looks positioned to take advantage of the most profitable time of the PS3/360. I'm not even aware if they planned on turning this one into a series or not.

No idea on DMC. It's one of those games that I just don't think about and I don't really want to do research into it. I wasn't aware it was that significant anymore.

Why are your tastes the barometer (or litmus), for measuring what quantiitize(s) successful third party games?

There are many successful third party games releasing (current and future)*, which are of importance, with no known WiiU version on the forecast.

That is only a negative - not a positive.

*DmC, Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis3, Dead Space 3, Lightning Returns, Dark Souls 2, GTAV, Destiny, etc.
 
Shouldn't the big news be the terrible sales of dead space 3 and crysis 3? I always assumed the third game in a series has the biggest sales.

Also how the hell is any next gen game (other than like 5 of them) supposed to turn a profit?

There isn't a lot of historical precedence for this assertion.
 
So if the cost of the AC III Wii U port was 1 million €... has Ubisoft made it back now? Or not yet? (how many units does it need to sell to make it profitable?)

I'm guessing a "yes" for an answer seeing that Black Flag is going to have a Wii U version too but I don't know for sure.

It doesn't cost much for companies to port games to the Wii U. When companies are willing to lose profit by ignoring the Wii U, it just speaks volumes on the amount of bias that exist in this industry.
 

MDX

Member
Mileena stop! ZombiU outsold all those games.

We are interested in original, good games. Nobody asked for Ninja Gaiden, Tekken, etc.

Exactly.

Ninja Gaiden had a lot of bad press
Madden etc didnt usher in next gen with the WiiU
CoD is mainly marketed to X360.

Only major publisher that took the WiiU seriously was Ubisoft.
If publishers are not serious about having their games sold on the console, then they have themselves to blame for poor sales. It is a competition after all for market share.

Case in point, Activision seems happy enough to have Nintendo versions of CoD to ride the coattails of the 360 by not bothering with adverstising. So they cant and dont expect high sales. If they were serious about CoD on the WiiU they could have came with a special version to usher in the next gen possibilities. One that would stand out on its own. They could have even made a deal to bundle it with the Nintendo pro-controller. Or forget the port, be creative, and like ubisoft, come out with some exclusive titles.
 

Pie and Beans

Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Or forget the port, be creative, and like ubisoft, come out with some exclusive titles.

Ubisoft quickly changed their second exclusive title to multi-platform because they caught up to Activision's wiser stance: why bother.

It doesn't cost much for companies to port games to the Wii U. When companies are willing to lose profit by ignoring the Wii U, it just speaks volumes on the amount of bias that exist in this industry.

Ha ha ha, superb. Can you give us an approximate cost of how much it costs Mr Unbiased?
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I was only referring to unit sales. Not in any position to comment on revenue.

I was quoting you but really responding to someone else above talking about profits.

And you don't get a 'cut' of a bundle, first party buys a bunch of games from you, usually at some discount, and they package it together and sell their hardware
 

Orgen

Member
It doesn't cost much for companies to port games to the Wii U. When companies are willing to lose profit by ignoring the Wii U, it just speaks volumes on the amount of bias that exist in this industry.

Even if Ubisoft made 2 million € in net profit from the AC III Wii U version I can understand if Ubisoft wanted to spend this million on another more profitable versions and ditching the Wii U version.

Not every profitable version has to be made so if Activision, Ubisoft, EA... don't care about only one million of profit when the PS3/360 versions make them much more profit, it's understandable (at least IMO).
 
Even if Ubisoft made 2 million € in net profit from the AC III Wii U version I can understand if Ubisoft wanted to spend this million on another more profitable versions and ditching the Wii U version.

Not every profitable version has to be made so if Activision, Ubisoft, EA... don't care about only one million of profit when the PS3/360 versions make them much more profit, it's understandable (at least IMO).

Yes, but some profit is better than no profit.
 

Osiris

I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
Yes, but some profit is better than no profit.

no, because this ignores opportunity cost. If third parties could get a better return on that money somewhere else other than investing it in nintendo's platform (on other platforms, other projects, additional staff, etc) then it doesn't make sense to invest it.

"some" profit isn't enough. it has to be enough profit to forgo competing uses for that money.
 

prwxv3

Member
Nintendo really isn't notorious for this. One of the main complaints most people I know have with Nintendo is their lack of marketing. However, Nintendo is a pretty docile company. They aren't like Sony or Microsoft who attempt to over-hype their products, not deliver on them, and then try to convince you that they sold you gold.

hahaha oh wow
 

Into

Member
Cost is not just about money spent

It is also about time spent, if they spend X amount of hours making just Y amount of money, then they might figure that its not worth it. When that same amount of hours could be spent making extra DLC that will in the end make more money in the end.

If these companies really had a bias they would never release a single game for the system, they would not need to "hide" their bias, see EA and my avatar.

Porting a game is not launching some PortDevice_from360toWiiU.exe on the desktop and 6 months later churning out a port of whatever game they put in. It not only costs money, but man hours that could be spent on something that will net the company even more money in the end.

In fact most companies have people hired precisely to figure these things out
 

Orgen

Member
Yes, but some profit is better than no profit.

Of course.

But what if this million could be used to make a new multiplayer mode for the AC IV 360/PS3 versions that would make the game ending up with more sales thant AC III?

What I'm trying to say is that there's a lot of variables and we don't know them. I hope Ubi made a profit with AC III Wii U and Liberation, Activision with Blops II and Declassified... etc., but I won't be surprised if there's no more AC and CoD for Wii U and Vita (which doesn't seem to be the case right now at least with AC).
 

Munkybhai

Member
I haven't bought any of the 3rd parties on the Wii U simply because why should I?
If companies are going to do quick ports with no attempts to either optimize their engines so that they can run well, add new graphical upgrades that leverage the newer GPU, or even play-style upgrades that take advantage of Nintendo's unique input devices, and on top of that charge me $60 for the pleasure of playing their low-priority, low-effort products, why should I fork over my money?

I'll wait until they are $20, because that's about all I'm prepared to pay for now. If they take the time and effort, I will gladly reimburse them.
 

Cromat

Member
It doesn't cost much for companies to port games to the Wii U. When companies are willing to lose profit by ignoring the Wii U, it just speaks volumes on the amount of bias that exist in this industry.

I don't really get this attitude of being angry at third parties for not supporting the Wii U. The question of whether they should or should not support it isn't that important since clearly the fact is that it's not getting massive third-party support.

Basically, if you want to play these third-party games you should get a system that can play them. There's no use getting a Wii U or Vita or whatever and then being pissed off when it doesn't get the games you want. Buy a console that can play the games you want, not a console that you think should have the games you want if it weren't for evil third-parties.
 
Well AC IV was already announced for Wii U. I think it's obvious that Wii U will at minimum continue to get current gen ports from Ubisoft until they halt development on them 2-3 years from now.
 
It doesn't cost much for companies to port games to the Wii U. When companies are willing to lose profit by ignoring the Wii U, it just speaks volumes on the amount of bias that exist in this industry.

Their is no Nintendo bias. That's just ridiculous.
The Wii U has had only 1 retail game released all year (spiderman) & the Vita i think only has two releases (Ninja Gaiden & Earth Defense Force).
Looking at sales numbers for 3rd party games on those systems in this very thread it's easy to see why companies aren't supporting those systems at retail.
 
Not always.

It's not worth spending $1 billion to make $100k. It's just WAY too risky.

If these publishers saw value with a Wii U port, there would be a Wii U port.

I wouldn't call that a profit, would you?

Of course.

But what if this million could be used to make a new multiplayer mode for the AC IV 360/PS3 versions that would make the game ending up with more sales thant AC III?

What I'm trying to say is that there's a lot of variables and we don't know them. I hope Ubi made a profit with AC III Wii U and Liberation, Activision with Blops II and Declassified... etc., but I won't be surprised if there's no more AC and CoD for Wii U and Vita (which doesn't seem to be the case right now at least with AC).

No offense, but you just said absolutely nothing just now. Essentially you're saying, "Hey... Maybe you're right... Maybe you're wrong."
 
Their is no Nintendo bias. That's just ridiculous.
The Wii U has had only 1 retail game released all year (spiderman) & the Vita i think only has two releases (Ninja Gaiden & Earth Defense Force).
Looking at sales numbers for 3rd party games on those systems in this very thread it's easy to see why companies aren't supporting those systems at retail.

There has always been Nintendo bias since the N64. There's no denying that.
 

prwxv3

Member
There has always been Nintendo bias since the N64. There's no denying that.

dude the reason why third parties do not flock to Nintendo is not because of a Nintendo bias its because Nintendo has a horrible history with third party relations. Though it has gotten better.
 

Bruno MB

Member
Sly Cooper 4 at No. 9 makes me happy.

Aliens: Colonial Marines at No. 6 makes me sad.

You shouldn't be too sad about Aliens: Colonial Marines, it sold below 200,000 units and it will be heavily front-loaded. Of course, it would have been better if its sales were close to 0.
 
There has always been Nintendo bias since the N64. There's no denying that.

A) They went for a cartridge based system, when the developers desired CD's
B) They had awful third party relations, especially the god awful shit Nintendo pulled with third parties in the 80s
C) There was a viable third console manufacturer in Sony
 
You shouldn't be too sad about Aliens: Colonial Marines, it sold below 200,000 units and it will be heavily front-loaded. Of course, it would have been better if its sales were close to 0.
Superman 64 sold fairly well for being the lowest rated game ever at the time.

Name recognition can sell anything alone.
 
A) They went for a cartridge based system, when the developers desired CD's
B) They had awful third party relations, especially the god awful shit Nintendo pulled with third parties in the 80s

C) Their 1st party lineup is so dominant and evergreen that it's hard for third parties to succeed, ESPECIALLY with core games. Most of the third party success stories on the Wii were for more casually-focused titles like dance, music, and minigame compilations.
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
C) Their 1st party lineup is so dominant and evergreen that it's hard for third parties to succeed, ESPECIALLY with core games. Most of the third party success stories on the Wii were for more casually-focused titles like dance, music, and minigame compilations.

Like Red Steel, Trauma Center, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Dragon Quest Swords, Monster Hunter 3, No More Heroes, deBlob, the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the first Pro Evolution Soccer released on the console, and so on.
 
C) Their 1st party lineup is so dominant and evergreen that it's hard for third parties to succeed, ESPECIALLY with core games. Most of the third party success stories on the Wii were for more casually-focused titles like dance, music, and minigame compilations.

And most of those were "evergreen" titles as well.

Titles that saw continued success, over the day one blockbuster model seen on other platforms.
 

Mario007

Member
C) Their 1st party lineup is so dominant and evergreen that it's hard for third parties to succeed, ESPECIALLY with core games. Most of the third party success stories on the Wii were for more casually-focused titles like dance, music, and minigame compilations.
Also the first party titles don't actually bring in the audience that would buy most of the AAA games these days, or at least that audience is quite small. It's kinda odd that Nintendo hasn't bothered with many genres that are super popular these days and most of their IPs still stem back from the old days and reflect the genres that were popular back then.
 

FoneBone

Member
B) They had awful third party relations, especially the god awful shit Nintendo pulled with third parties in the 80s

Kind of a side tangent but businesses don't have that long a memory, and you might as well be agreeing with Quinton if you think that's still remotely a factor.
 

Jeels

Member
Like Red Steel, Trauma Center, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Dragon Quest Swords, Monster Hunter 3, No More Heroes, deBlob, the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the first Pro Evolution Soccer released on the console, and so on.

Are you getting into a list pissing match? Half of these titles didn't even sell well enough for their respective companies to keep supporting the Wii...hell some of these franchises no longer have games coming out on any platform.

There has always been Nintendo bias since the N64. There's no denying that.

Oh come on. Nintendo was using expensive cartridges and discs were the future. There are other factors but business is business. Had nothing to do with some ill-wished bias.
 
Kind of a side tangent but businesses don't have that long a memory, and you might as well be agreeing with Quinton if you think that's still remotely a factor.

Yeah, but I was more arguing about the N64, and that the shit they pulled in the 80s was just a symptom of the overall problem Nintendo had with third parties leading into the N64.

I think going cartridge was a bigger symptom of the problem anyways.
 
C) Their 1st party lineup is so dominant and evergreen that it's hard for third parties to succeed, ESPECIALLY with core games. Most of the third party success stories on the Wii were for more casually-focused titles like dance, music, and minigame compilations.

i don't think this is a great interpretation.

nintendo's first party is high quality, but all of it tends to have the same sort of feel and design. Even for their sports (mario tennis, strikers) and racing (mario kart) games, they re-use their mascot characters, giving everything basically the same appeal. These games sell systems, but they are very much unlike the games that third parties tend to make. even their fighters (smash brothers) are cutesy mascot games. over time, fans of nintendo consoles tend to get locked into the nintendo ecosystem (if you like mario, mario is prone to show up in spinoff titles...as is donkey kong, link, etc) and nintendo preferred this, as they make more money from selling their own titles.

Since nintendo rarely branches outside of their comfort zone in terms of game design (metroid is the only series that really comes to mind here), nintendo fans simply keep buying the games that are similar to the high quality games they're used to, and are less open to branching out and trying third party efforts.

Sony's design philosophy is a lot different- they tend to make series that are similar to what the rest of the market is doing in terms of gameplay and design, so it's not that big of a jump for someone who likes uncharted to check out tomb raider. (and vice versa...uncharted was clearly inspired by tomb raider) Looking at sony's output across the PS1, PS2, and PS3, they've had their fingers in just about every genre you can think of- JRPGs, stealth games, party games, music games, FPS games, adventure games, fighters, etc.

nintendo has done a bad job at this- tending to ignore market trends and concentrating on the games they're comfortable with, market demand be damned. It's a false assertion that nintendo's games are somehow SO MUCH BETTER than third party efforts that Tekken Tag and Call of Duty can't possibly compete with mario kart. Gran Turismo has been of staggeringly high quality since the PS1, and yet sony fans will still check out other racing games. Halo is a 500 pound gorilla on the Xbox, yet other shooters still sell.


the issue is that for several generations nintendo has said to consumers "we don't make those kinds of games, if you want them, look elsewhere." and now that gamers have done this and they're down to the core that ONLY cares about Mario etc, they're in a bad position.
 

jcm

Member
Does a Vita look like a tablet? Why or why not?

I own three different tablets and none of them look like a GamePad (unless you squint really hard and view them from a very specific angle I guess?).

Tablets are almost universally button-less and flat. The GamePad is clearly neither. Find me a tablet (from a major manufacturer) that has the same general ergonomic shape of the GamePad, and also has that many buttons and analog sticks, then maybe we'll find some agreement that they look similar. I otherwise flat out reject the notion that anything with a screen that is held in your hands and is roughly 10 inches in size is or resembles a tablet

Do you also deny the existence of the zillions of news stories and reviews that refer to the gamepad as a tablet-style controller? Maybe you have much more stringent criteria for what tablets look like than the rest of us, but the topic at hand is what the average consumer sees, and what the see is something tablet-like.
 
Like Red Steel, Trauma Center, Resident Evil 4, Resident Evil: The Umbrella Chronicles, Dragon Quest Swords, Monster Hunter 3, No More Heroes, deBlob, the first Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, the first Pro Evolution Soccer released on the console, and so on.

It's good you put them together like that at least now there's slight chance they match sales of Deca Sports + Mario&Sonic Olympics ;)
 

Meelow

Banned
A) They went for a cartridge based system, when the developers desired CD's
B) They had awful third party relations, especially the god awful shit Nintendo pulled with third parties in the 80s
C) There was a viable third console manufacturer in Sony

If publishers are still mad about that they really need to get it over it. it was 30 years ago so I really doubt they still have hatred over Nintendo because of it.
 

Orgen

Member
I wouldn't call that a profit, would you?



No offense, but you just said absolutely nothing just now. Essentially you're saying, "Hey... Maybe you're right... Maybe you're wrong."

No offense taken :) What I'm trying to say is that IF Ubi doesn't make any more AC Wii U versions it's not for some bias/vendetta propaganda. Maybe they don't see the profit good enough (despite being better than no profit like you said).

Better now? :p
 
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