Netherscourge
Banned
Ubisoft be happy with dem numberz
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
NPD Sales Results for June 2014 [Up3: All Hardware (June/LTD), Top 10 Software SKUs]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Huh?
It's doing well during the retail drought. All of the big titles are crammed in the holiday 2014/early 2015 lineup. We should see better sales from PS4/X1 in the upcoming months based on the software release schedule.
They can still cater to those people if they want to, just not on consoles.
I don't see what the big deal is, (especially since most of the companies that create content for the 8th gen consoles never catered to them to begin with).
Most important of all would be profit. Absolutely, it's more complicated than simply units sold. There are several variables to consider.
pharmboy044
Member
I'm guessing this is the first and last time we will get real numbers.
Yeah, I came in here to say that the link in the OP leads to a 404. The NPD articles — all of them from the last several months — have been pulled from Gamecrate.
It was fun while it lasted. Thanks, NPD ninjas.
Jimmyfenix
Member
probably
ethomaz
Banned
Petrae
Member
Pretty much, though I don't know why retailers (other than GameStop) would replenish a device with such weak demand. That shelf space and purchasing money can easily be used on other items.
EDIT: I'm stunned to see the actual report data blatantly shared like this by a website. It's not just the numbers; it's major parts of the actual snapshot. Gamecrate, I'm guessing, is going to be in at least a bit of trouble for copying & pasting bits of a report that costs subscribers serious cash.
I'd say they can still cater to them on consoles, just not with the consoles they have actually created. Just like Sony could have catered to casuals with a hypothetical PS3 which was designed differently, but not with the actual PS3 they ended up creating.
It only matters if you care about the health of the console market generally. If all you care about is that the games you personally enjoy will get sequels (and the games you enjoy are big AAA titles which are currently successful), then none of this is a concern to you.
You can't really conclude that though, Nielsen and NPD studies have always indicated a high proportion of multiconsole ownership for Wii and other consoles, both past and concurrent. I believe one from Nielsen about the US market stated 70% of Wii owners had also owned a PS2 at one point.
The casual audience wasn't entirely new with Wii. It did more to draw more people in, but it wasn't 100% different.
joecanada
Member
Huh?
It's doing well during the retail drought. All of the big titles are crammed in the holiday 2014/early 2015 lineup. We should see better sales from PS4/X1 in the upcoming months based on the software release schedule.
well any console could see a path change for sure so nothing is set but for now it looks like ps4 is holding a ps2 - like path, and X1 a GC - like path... ps2 had pretty crazy steady sales though would be a triumph for ps4 to maintain that route.
sörine;121611169 said:
Nintendo has been a second console for gamers for awhile. GCN owners were also PS2 owners in many cases. I'd say roughly 25 million of the Wii owners were those second console and/or Nintendo fan gamers. The rest was that new sudden market that is now gone.
I've owned every Nintendo console ever made, but my last 3 gens of Nintendo console ownership was as a second console to go with my Xbox (after Dreamcast) or my 360 or my PS4.
Jimmyfenix
Member
Why unfortunate ? It is good to see every consoles increasing sales!
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
That's because people in May waited til June for the Kinectless SKU.
Isleofsancroy
Banned
Nirolack your year to date hardware has to be wrong, there are mutliple articles about the 360 passing the Wii and being the best selling in the U.S.
CosmicQueso
Member
Great points.
In terms of consumer spend on software for the Consoles, across both physical and digital, we've seen continued growth, even during the transition.
But, as Opiate mentions, it's profit. And as development expenses rise, making profit is becoming more difficult.
What we're seeing is the top 15-20 games selling more than they ever have before. They are also generating more profit than this tier of game has ever generated before.
It's everything else that's the problem. If a game is not in the top 15-20 in the year, they are selling less than ever before, and the losses are bigger than ever before.
That's why you see Sequels, DLC, Season Passes, Consumables, Mobile tie-ins, etc.
But yeah, a lot of factors.
Consumer demand is fantastic this gen on the Consoles. Way above all pre-launch forecasts. But can demand grow enough to offset the rise in dev costs? Tougher question.
One last point... the declines in physical SW sales in the market since 2009 are perfectly correlated to the decline in release count. It's a chicken and egg problem. Games have to be made to be sold, and right now the dev cost/demand problem outside of the top tier of games has made taking bets on mid-tier/new IP releases exceptionally risky.
I mean, that's certainly possible but where's the data to support it? That's the problem with trying to set aside Wii for whatever reason, we just can't delineate down the audience as pure "casual" or "gamer" and if we could somehow split things like that then we probably should also do it for every mainstream console with a sizable casual audience (NES, PS1, PS2, 360).
Petrae
Member
Unless Gamecrate doctored the NPD snapshot data, the numbers shared are pulled right from the report. The images are representative of what monthly snapshot reports look like, so I'm inclined to believe that the numbers are NPD-accurate at this time.
spatenfloot
Member
Based on Ubisoft's sales, I would say it is getting pretty close. By the end of this year, most software sales are likely to be on current gen platforms. 360/ps3 sales are dropping like a rock.
KillerMan91
Member
Maybe I should have used apostrophes with ''subpar''. Didn't mean PS4 itself is selling badly by any means but like others have explained it should sell even more every month as rest of the (deticated) market is collapsing and if we want to have healthy industry someone has to pick up the slack. Personally I believe that this year holiday season just has even bigger partion of the whole years sales because of this barren summer and overall deticated market will have healthy yearly numbers (well excluding handhelds).
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Would be nice if we could see some numbers that include digital sales to get a better idea how software is selling. Unless the NPD has worked out a deal to track digital sales seeing lower software sales at retail probably isn't anything to be that concerned about. Though what was released last year compared to this year would also have to be taken into consideration.
Aquamarine
Member
All of the June numbers are reasonably accurate.
I've been vouching for them, and so have several other people here on GAF. They're not doctored.
Jimmyfenix
Member
I think Aqua mentioned before that NPD held a trial run of trying to track Digital sales.
I disagree with this statement but not entirely, Activision and EA are 2 of the biggest American based companies and so long as XBone is selling well in America as it has in terms of software there is no reason for neither company's American centered games to not make it onto the system and then think about it's appeal outside of the states afterward, just like how the PS3's okay Japaneese sales was able to provide Japaneese support that Microsoft couldn't grasp naturally without almost throwing financial incentives at everyone.
Your statement however does ring true with Japaneese games at least, and i'd say Europe, but there is enough overlap for games made in Europe to be successful in the states, only something as catastrophic as the WiiU's first year of software sales will put American and Euopean devs off entirely, which I find damn near impossible all things considered.
And then we have indies and MS' policies but that's a different kettle of fish.
Petrae
Member
Software sales are a tricky thing to analyze for exactly this reason. While I know that NPD is working on getting digital data and inplementing it into its reports, we're still not close yet and really don't see the full picture when it comes to SW.
7DollarHagane
Banned
It hasn't been and never will again be the case that large numbers of older and non gaming people will buy a $250 console in the numbers they bought the Wii.
It really was a fad and one that flashed out quick.. Those people might play games on their phones now or pay 99 cents for some garbage in candy crush once or twice a year, but that fad for consoles is over.
In another 30 years consoles will probably be a thing of the past and smaller and long life competitive PC games and mobile will be the entire game industry.
Petrae
Member
I just assumed they were valid when I saw them because those images look to have been pulled right from the snapshot report. Thank you for clarifying it.
Aquamarine
Member
It's very, very hard to get companies like Sony / Microsoft / Nintendo to give up digital data for all of the companies who sell things on their digital marketplaces.
It's easier to go to someone like Activision and ask them to share their digital sales figures. But it takes a lot of time, a lot of negotiations, and a lot of planning to build up enough reliable, consistent data that people would actually pay for.
CosmicQueso
Member
Software sales are actually in a dead heat in the US, and tie ratios are higher on the Xone than the PS4 (physically at least).
They will not lose any 3rd party support unless they actively decide to exit the market.
One small thing interesting to me: the Xbox One launch will still be the "best Xbox launch ever!" for a long time, even as sales have flattened out.
Who ever came up with that messaging at Xbox done good.
Square2015
Member
Paracelsus
Member
You may want to CIRCLE Mario Kart
Someone link this guy how much did PS3 sell the month MGS4 released.
Aquamarine
Member
Yeah...if I'm not mistaken, NPD tie ratios for Xbox One should be above 3, while PS4 tie ratios have yet to hit 3.
I wonder why Microsoft doesn't brag about that fact in their PR statements.
vpance
Member
I think they stopped using that messaging already. It would sound stupid to trot that out every month for the next 6-8 months, when those lines will cross with my super accurate finger measuring method.
gundamkyoukai
Member
With them being so close maybe they think it's not worth talking about .
Sho_Nuff82
Member
MS shipped 5 million units by the end of March. By any historical metric, the launch was strong. Third party game sales, though weaker than PS4, still make up the vast majority of the console's sw sales, and it has several million selling games. 3rd parties cut off support when their games are moving <100k (or in the Wii U's case, often less than 25k), not when games like Watch Dogs sell 500k in two months in one territory. Any 3rd party abandoning MS with a 2:1 sales ratio in Sony's favor would still be leaving significant revenue on the table.
And I realize the irony of this statement relative to my tag.
Edit: I didn't see Aqua and Cosmic's posts above, I guess One software sales are stronger there than I thought. They are also pretty close month to month in the UK.
Aquamarine
Member
http://www.gamecrate.com/playstation-4-continued-outsell-xbox-one-march/
http://www.gamecrate.com/playstation-4-outsells-xbox-one-april/
http://www.gamecrate.com/ps4-continues-dominate-watch-dogs-tops-may/
http://www.gamecrate.com/playstation-4-dominates-june-sales-npd-reports/
Yep. All dead.
See? What did I tell you guys? NPD Ninjas work very, very fast to shut down that kind of liberal data disclosure once it gets spread throughout the Internet.
It's because Gamecrate really stepped over the line in terms of breaching Newegg's contract with NPD. It was great for us...not so great for Newegg and that ignorant Gamecrate editor who has to feel NPD's wrath.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted.
RIP Gamecrate 2014-2014
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
How have attach rates been in the past? Do attach ratios lower the further into a console's life due to increased hardware sales? Or is this really dependent to the amount of games out on the market?
Isleofsancroy
Banned
There are tons of articles about the 360 pulling past the Wii in NA, the numbers do not make sens.e In fact, one said the PS3 was around 28-29 as well.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Are we still getting console doom and gloom despite the fact that the PS4 is outpacing the PS2's first year world wide numbers despite much, much greater competition? The XBO and WiiU would be selling better if it wasn't for poor decisions their companies made and really, off the top of my head the only generation where one platform didn't run away with hardware sales was the fourth generation with the SNES and Genesis/Mega Drive. Well, unless you want to not count Nintendo last generation and still in North America MS pretty much trounced Sony.
Obviously coming from a strong gen you will have much more early adopters than coming from a weak or no user base at all. It is the few percent that are loyal enough to buy everything at every price.
sörine;121612717 said:
Sony, SEGA, Microsoft, none of them have had a sudden 100 million console sales spike in one generation that was quickly erased in the next. You can historically go with N64, GCN, Wii, Wii-U and look at their overall sales in each generation. The Wii is the only one that suddenly blew up, and you can extrapolate that the GCN console total is probably close to what the "Nintendo fan that was going to buy Nintendo's console no matter what" crowd total would have been for the Wii.
Yes, all of this is guess work as is any marketing discussion about what kind of customer buys each of these consoles. Nobody has any solid data on that, otherwise marketing would be a super easy job. Not everything that we discuss can be backed up by solid data. Otherwise these markets wouldn't be so constantly misread by people making 6 figures whose job it is to figure out these markets.
You may want to CIRCLE Mario Kart
140k in June definitely isn't horrible, but it is coming on the back of the Wii U's biggest software release probably ever. I don't think that really qualifies as saved.
Square2015
Member
Alright:
WiiU beginning to move ahead of Dreamcast in monthly sales...has a ways to go before reaching it (about 800k more to go).
LTDS:
WiiU 2.5m
DC 3.3m
GC 4.2m
*click to enlarge*
WiiU beginning to move ahead of Dreamcast in monthly sales...has a ways to go before reaching it (about 800k more to go).
LTDS:
WiiU 2.5m
DC 3.3m
GC 4.2m
*click to enlarge*
You know for how much last gen was an "anomaly" and all, it sure does look a heck of a lot exactly like the gen before it, at least in the first 18 months.
