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[Duxxy3]

uhh...

xbone had a fifa 14 promo and a forza 5 promo for eu.


and those are the two games that eu will most likely buy on the xbone.

look at what happened. nothing. xbone can't even capture eu with a football and a racing game.

Which is why it also needs the price cutting moves as well. The 360 sold well in Europe because it was console created for an international market. The XB1 was, wrongly, designed for the U.S. and nothing else.

 

[Banjo-Kazooie]

Can you break down for me how much it would cost to port XV to the One versus how much revenue 400,000 copies would generate. And then can you give me your projections for what it would take to develop a brand new 3DS game or XII HD and explain why both a XII HD port AND a XV Xbox One port couldn't be done? To be perfectly clear here, my angle here is not that I think an Xbox One port is assured and is definitely the perfect business call. However, I will state plainly that I think your motivation here has less to do with your understanding of the logistics involved with the tradeoffs of Square Enix making these kinds of decisions and more with your affinity for Sony hardware. Now that I've laid that out, I'll conclude by stating that I'm not actually terribly interested in your estimates.

Love this, haha.

 

[jcm]

Something seems a bit off with the percentages in the top block.

That said, handhelds remain completely disastrous.

Thanks, good catch. My percentage calc formula in the YOY section was using February's data because I suck. Here's the corrected data.

Year Over Year

            2014  2013  % Change
XB1          311         
360          111   261   -57.47%
PS4          371         
PS3           67   211   -68.25%
WIU           70    67     4.48%
WII           28    91   -69.23%
3DS          159   230   -30.87%
NDS           86    
PSV           10    33   -69.70%
PSP                  8     
                  
Family                  
MSFT         422   261    61.69%
SONY         448   252    77.78%
NINT         257   474   -45.78%
                  
HAND         169   357   -52.66%
CONSOLE      958   630    52.06%

Gen over Gen

Console     2014  2007  % Change
360                199   
PS2                280   
WII                259   
PS3                130   
TOTAL        958   868    10.37%
                  
Handheld    2014  2008  % Change
NDS                698   
PSP                297   
Total        168   995   -83.02%

And here's the always exciting Powerhouse ™ 3DS vs PSP race:

           3DS 2014     PSP 2008    NDS 2008
January          97          230         251
February        153          243         587
March           159          297         698
April                        193         415
May                          182         452
June                         337         783
July                         222         608
August                       253         518
September                    238         537
October                      193         491
November                     421         1570
December                    1020         3040
                409         3829         9950

 

[SaintR]

Can you break down for me how much it would cost to port XV to the One versus how much revenue 400,000 copies would generate. And then can you give me your projections for what it would take to develop a brand new 3DS game or XII HD and explain why both a XII HD port AND a XV Xbox One port couldn't be done? To be perfectly clear here, my angle here is not that I think an Xbox One port is assured and is definitely the perfect business call. However, I will state plainly that I think your motivation here has less to do with your understanding of the logistics involved with the tradeoffs of Square Enix making these kinds of decisions and more with your affinity for Sony hardware. Now that I've laid that out, I'll conclude by stating that I'm not actually terribly interested in your estimates.

I wish I had the proper gif that would encompass what just happened to Zomg because damn...lol

 

[Hoo-doo]

What exactly are people buying the PS4 for?

To play videogames.

 

[KefkaPalazzo]

Now that it's clear it won't and with the first Japanese title skewing heavily towards PS4 there should be a reassessment within SE and other Japanese pubs as to the extent of support they give the Bone. Franchises like Resident Evil and MGS make sense because they are action oriented, but RPGs from SE don't. Xbox doesn't even have exclusive Mistwalker titles this time to widen the userbase to include RPG buyers.



That reason is why I think we're all set for a repeat of the PS2, at least when it comes to Japanese and other niche titles. A lot of the time it may not be worth the additional expense of porting.

Umm...no? It's not like the X1 is completely bombing. It's selling decently enough, it just isn't going to be a threat to the PS4 if current trends continue. Publishers aren't (and should not) sacrifice extra sales because of that. It's all about money.

Now speaking of bombing...poor Vita. Pathetic.

 

[spekkeh]

As I mentioned, it's not actually down that much from February, which Nintendo put at 130k between retail and digital. I'm not sure what the true breakdown between both were, and I can't seem to find any indication if it was revealed in the last NPD thread, but the game has legs, surprisingly enough.

Taken on their own, they're definitely not great numbers, but it's not doing terrible for itself. It does lead more credence to the idea that Nintendo has created a very toxic culture on the Wii U, where it can't even engage the diehards enough to buy sure things like SM3DW in great numbers, and that's something that they desperately need to fix really quick here. There seems to be a lot of positive hype for Mario Kart 8, both from guys like us and from the press, and the Smash Direct was well received, but they need to be doing that stuff for everything going forward, and not just announcing something out of the blue and going "Ehh? Ehhhhh?" while it's looking back-and-forth between the game and a confused group of customers.

I don't think it's a toxic culture as much as that Nintendo and a number of its fans here have been misguided by the Wii numbers into thinking that there is a big interest in platform games. There never was. Just look at Rayman. Rather the large number of people that bought NSMBW and Donkey Kong were mostly kids, casuals or nostalgics that wanted to try out a classic Nintendo character game. They weren't there for the genre and wouldn't buy a second installment. The resurgence of platformers among Indies was due to twist elements turning it upside down, not classic platforming itself.

 

[Jeels]

Which is why it also needs the price cutting moves as well. The 360 sold well in Europe because it was console created for an international market. The XB1 was, wrongly, designed for the U.S. and nothing else.

Created for the international market? I'm not entirely sure what that means. The 360 sold well in Europe because it was significantly cheaper and beat its competitor to release by a year and a half. And it still got passed up.

 

[Crimson_Fate]

We keep hearing from Microsoft now how it's a marathon not a sprint so I dont think there is any worry about the XBox One losing relevance like we are seeing with Vita and Wii U.

Does it really matter if its a marathon or sprint if you have no legs to stand on ? There is nothing which will close this gap now, and when project Morpheus coming to fruition it will get even worse.

Comparing the Vita to the XB1 isn't exactly apples to apples here but it will survive because of the PS4. MS currently only has one pony at the show and its looking a bit lame. If it isn't healthy by next fall they may need to put it down.

 

[LX_Theo]

Certainly surprised, thought the One would at least outsell during March due to TitanFall launch. Seems like 360 owners were able to wait a few weeks for TitanFall's launch rather than swap to the One, has to be one of the reasons for these results.

I am thinking more and more that an aggressive price cut is the only thing that will make it competitive with PS4, at the expense of MSFT's financials but what's the alternative? Selling at the current pace and making minimal revenue while your competitor continues to outsell?

Seen a lot of "Xbox is done" comments here which may be true if MSFT continues on the current trajectory of keeping a much higher price point. Either a formal price drop or a new SKU at a lower price seem to be the company's only remaining options..

Also PC version. I know a lot of people who got it on PC.

 

[Skenzin]

launching @499, this really shouldn't be a surprise to MS. Early momentum is everything to a console race. It takes twice the effort later to make up for early mistakes. Too much 'group think' at MS. I think reality is finally setting in. This silent price drops are funny in a 'nothing to see here' kinda way.

If they are serious about competing they would be at $399 yesterday, $299 if they are serious about being market leader.kinect/specs are a dog. All they can do is out price at this point.

 

[Van Owen]

Good thing Iwata's test isn't until June.

 

[Duxxy3]

Created for the international market? I'm not entirely sure what that means. The 360 sold well in Europe because it was significantly cheaper and beat its competitor to release by a year and a half. And it still got passed up.

It was created to have full functionality in every market, and appeal to every market. I don't see that with the XB1.

 

[Ridley327]

I don't think it's a toxic culture as much as that Nintendo and a number of its fans here have been misguided by the Wii numbers into thinking that there is a big interest in platform games. There never was. Just look at Rahman. Rather the large number of people that bought NSMBW and Donkey Kong were mostly kids, casuals or nostalgics that wanted to try out a classic Nintendo character game. They weren't there for the genre and wouldn't buy a second installment. The resurgence of platformers among Indies was due to twist elements turning it upside down, not classic platforming itself.

There really hasn't been a lot of large movements towards their other games on the Wii U, though, despite putting out quite a few good titles out there. It's more than just the platformers that are suffering.

 

[makingmusic476]

On the topic of SE ports, did we ever get a reason for why they thought continued ports of FFXIII games were worth the expense, but (presumably far easier) ports of FFX and KH were not?

Was it because the engine was designed to be multiplatform from the getgo,so it wouldn't be very expensive to do a port?

And if they thought a FFX port to 360 wasn't a good idea, I'd assume they're even less interested in a FFXII port to XBO.

 

[Omotesando]

To play videogames.

How? PS4 has no games.

 

[EmptySpace]

launching @499, this really shouldn't be a surprise to MS. Early momentum is everything to a console race. It takes twice the effort later to make up for early mistakes. Too much 'group think' at MS. I think reality is finally setting in. This silent price drops are funny in a 'nothing to see here' kinda way.

If they are serious about competing they would be at $399 yesterday, $299 if they are serious about being market leader.kinect/specs are a dog. All they can do is out price at this point.

they have to throw away r+d costs plus all their business deals from manufacturing to ads when they throw away kinect.

not gonna happen.


considering they already threw away (or so we thought) their investment in their always-online, no used games infrastructure. i can imagine why ea stuck with ms and threw away their online pass model. lol.

 

[speculawyer]

Damn! 100+ pages....back to the old days of NPD threads.

I look forward to the next Xbox discount offer.

 

[Sho_Nuff82]

Multiplatform games that look better was my reason. I was 99.5% Xbox last gen. That's going to change.
Thanks for making a beast of a machine Sony. =)

It was rather amusing reading posts month after month with "what games are people actually playing on 360?" when 8 of the top 10 games were multiplat. When 95% of your AAA library is 3rd party, having the best version or the cheapest console certainly matters. Having both is a huge deal.

Kinect is the elephant in the room. If KS Rivals doesn't move big numbers they can't justify it being in the box, as it's not moving exclusive software and actively impeding uptake of multiplatform software.

 

[RaikuHebi]

I meant that it might not do well on Xbone.

Agreed.

 

[kinoki]

How? PS4 has no games.

Hopefully this is a stupid troll comment. If so, why did you feel the need to post it?

 

[MDSLKTR]

Also PC version. I know a lot of people who got it on PC.

Would really like to know the numbers, I tried to play the campaign this week and couldn't find a match which was surprising.

 

[Kikarian]

What exactly are people buying the PS4 for?

To put coffee on top of it.

 

[Duxxy3]

they have to throw away r+d costs plus all their business deals from manufacturing to ads when they throw away kinect.

not gonna happen.


considering they already threw away (or so we thought) their investment in their always-online, no used games infrastructure. i can imagine why ea stuck with ms and threw away their online pass model. lol.

Kinect and TV are the last links to the old Xbox.

 

[spookyfish]

Meanwhile at Nintendo...

OK, now I want someone to make a thread full of these.

 

[jhmtehgamr20xx]

The XBox One won't lose relevance as far as software goes aside from Japanese support unless the gap continues to widen over the years. Even then I don't see much in the way of third party exclusives making their return to the Playstation like the PS2 days.

We keep hearing from Microsoft now how it's a marathon not a sprint so I dont think there is any worry about the XBox One losing relevance like we are seeing with Vita and Wii U.

It might lose some relevance w/ European developers and emerging market devs, the way things seem to be going. If only b/c of the direct competition in PS4.

 

[spekkeh]

There really hasn't been a lot of large movements towards their other games on the Wii U, though, despite putting out quite a few good titles out there. It's more than just the platformers that are suffering.

That's true, though I feel the only other good Nintendo games are Pikmin 3, which was never going to be big, and WWHD, which did sell very well.
TW101 really bombad, but PG games too never had a large following, sadly.

 

[BigDug13]

It was created to have full functionality in every market, and appeal to every market. I don't see that with the XB1.

Different era. Hell, even the PS4 comes with Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc that is not fully functional in every market. Media apps simply didn't exist when 360 released so that's not really a fair criticism IMO.

 

[EmptySpace]

Kinect and TV are the last links to the old Xbox.

it still boggles my mind as to why xbone felt the need to have that tv pass through. in an age of netflix, no less. tv stations left and right are cutting jobs. tvs are coming with built-in apps.

then there's this supposed fortaleza ar google glass which works with kinect. why not vr? i don't get it.

 

[DNAbro]

OK, now I want someone to make a thread full of these.

Tomodachi Life thread is full of them.

 

[Diprosalic]

PS4 sales will not slow down into summer:

-Watch Dogs exclusive marketing and bundle
-TLOU Remaster
-Destiny exclusive marketing, and likely bundles
-GTA V rumored, if real, probably exclusive marketing and bundles too like the PS3 version
-DriveClub possibly coming out before Fall
-E3 hype

System sellers right there.

what a sad state all of the next gen consoles are in if that is considered a system seller lineup.
Not saying you are wrong btw.

 

[Later Alligator]

Certainly surprised, thought the One would at least outsell during March due to TitanFall launch. Seems like 360 owners were able to wait a few weeks for TitanFall's launch rather than swap to the One, has to be one of the reasons for these results.

I am thinking more and more that an aggressive price cut is the only thing that will make it competitive with PS4, at the expense of MSFT's financials but what's the alternative? Selling at the current pace and making minimal revenue while your competitor continues to outsell?

Seen a lot of "Xbox is done" comments here which may be true if MSFT continues on the current trajectory of keeping a much higher price point. Either a formal price drop or a new SKU at a lower price seem to be the company's only remaining options..

there was already a drop to $449 with titanfall in march. it wasn't official, but it was basically at every retailer so it may as well have been. which makes it the same price as the ps4, or cheaper if you consider the kinect and titanfall worth > $50 (titanfall on it's own is worth $50 to me. kinect is worthless but i'd take it for free)

and they still sold less for the month

 

[BigDug13]

It was rather amusing reading posts month after month with "what games are people actually playing on 360?" when 8 of the top 10 games were multiplat. When 95% of your AAA library is 3rd party, having the best version or the cheapest console certainly matters. Having both is a huge deal.

Kinect is the elephant in the room. If KS Rivals doesn't move big numbers they can't justify it being in the box, as it's not moving exclusive software and actively impeding uptake of multiplatform software.

It wasn't even reviewed that well. We were told that Kinect is the future of game control back when the XBO hype machine was building. Now we have a game made by Microsoft's own Kinect-based development team and it's simply a slightly more accurate version of Kinect 1 games. All that "game changer" talk when it comes to Kinect simply isn't happening. And Microsoft could have replaced it with a Microphone so that people could talk to their Xbox since that seems to be the one feature Xbox fans enjoy about the Kinect functionality.

 

[Ludicrous Speed]

and? how is the xbone different in that regard? demand moves profits. if demand isn't as big as ps4, then retailers won't buy as much xbones just as they would return the detergent.

again, the console manufacturers rely most on revenues that get sold through the console, not the sale of the console itself. profits made through the sale to the retailer is meaningless. let's say they get what, 25-30 bucks of profit per unit? meanwhile, ps4 gets that base profit plus way more because the console is a vehicle for way more revenue streams. selling the console to the retailer is just a first step.

Okay? But the point that I made was the Microsoft already made the money. I'm not talking about future sales, nor was the person I was responding to. It is an absolute fact that Microsoft has sold those consoles and they have the money to prove it. The sales to the retailer are NOT meaningless. I'm not sure what you don't understand about the revenue stream. Microsoft has the money, thus those sales are not meaningless. Not sure how else to explain this.

 

[EmptySpace]

what a sad state all of the next gen consoles are in if that is considered a system seller lineup.

sad state?

please tell us how to solve this. save us from this sad state.

 

[Duxxy3]

Different era. Hell, even the PS4 comes with Hulu Plus, Netflix, etc that is not fully functional in every market. Media apps simply didn't exist when 360 released so that's not really a fair criticism IMO.

The difference with those media apps is that they don't add additional costs to the system (either in producution, or R&D).

I still don't understand what they were thinking with the TV stuff, but hopefully the person that pushed for it is no longer with the company.

 

[Kysen]

10k Vitas in the whole of the US, fuck. It is well and truly dead, the strategy of late ports, indies and a few JP titles isn't doing anything. Sony should just double down on the PS4 and leave it as a companion device. Such a shame, but the market has moved on.

 

[pixlexic]

ps4 isn't selling mainly on games its that $399 price point. until MS can BEAT ( not just match) that sony can cruise and keep all their big hitters on hold.

 

[BigDug13]

what a sad state all of the next gen consoles are in if that is considered a system seller lineup.
Not saying you are wrong btw.

Playstation brand doesn't operate on singular "system sellers" like Halo, Mario, Gears,
Zelda. They operate by providing a wealth of good content across all genres and letting the overall strength of library be their system seller.

 

[PuppetMaster]

GTA4: San Andreas stories for Next Gen only.

Sell essentially an HD remake with extra content as a a full priced game.

Profit.

 

[noobasuar]

Can you break down for me how much it would cost to port XV to the One versus how much revenue 400,000 copies would generate. And then can you give me your projections for what it would take to develop a brand new 3DS game or XII HD and explain why both a XII HD port AND a XV Xbox One port couldn't be done? To be perfectly clear here, my angle here is not that I think an Xbox One port is assured and is definitely the perfect business call. However, I will state plainly that I think your motivation here has less to do with your understanding of the logistics involved with the tradeoffs of Square Enix making these kinds of decisions and more with your affinity for Sony hardware. Now that I've laid that out, I'll conclude by stating that I'm not actually terribly interested in your estimates.

This is amazing.

 

[dallow_bg]

Vita numbers will be even worse until May NPD (2000 model/bundle). May numbers won't be great, but they don't be on the edge of 4 digits either.

OLED availability was getting small in March, and now in April a lot of the major stores don't even have stock anymore.

 

[tzare]

Playstation brand doesn't operate on singular "system sellers" like Halo, Mario, Gears,
Zelda. They operate by providing a wealth of good content across all genres and letting the overall strength of library be their system seller.

This. It has hurt sony, though, not having that iconic IP of their own that helps when other things fail. See Mario or Halo.

 

[Rolf NB]

Why do Americans hate handhelds so much?

 

[Massa]

Vita numbers will be even worse until May NPD (2000 model/bundle). May numbers won't be great, but they don't be on the edge of 4 digits either.

OLED availability was getting small in March, and now in April a lot of the major stores don't even have stock anymore.

Yep, both Amazon and Gamestop are out of stock.

 

[EmptySpace]

Okay? But the point that I made was the Microsoft already made the money. I'm not talking about future sales, nor was the person I was responding to. It is an absolute fact that Microsoft has sold those consoles and they have the money to prove it. The sales to the retailer are NOT meaningless. I'm not sure what you don't understand about the revenue stream. Microsoft has the money, thus those sales are not meaningless. Not sure how else to explain this.

no one considers their sale to a retailer a profit, especially if their units are not moving.

you keep on harping about the sale to a retailer. everything is relative. demand dictates the profit. yes, xbone is sold to a retailer. meanwhile, ps4 is sold to a retailer at twice the rate. it's the rate at which they get sold, not the sale itself.

again, no one values their sales to retailers as it's usual business. that's not considered a profit-making move.

that is why people are quick to dismiss sold-in to retailers. why? because you are going to sell to retailers no matter what. no shit. a business not making a sale to a retailer is nonexistent.

 

[pixlexic]

Playstation brand doesn't operate on singular "system sellers" like Halo, Mario, Gears,
Zelda. They operate by providing a wealth of good content across all genres and letting the overall strength of library be their system seller.

Last Gen Sony's strategy was the exact opposite. They rarely had the multiplatform advantage. They instead pushed their awesome first party games hard.

 

[CoG]

Why do Americans hate handhelds so much?

Because we all already carry "handhelds" around that do a thousand other things.

 

[Diprosalic]

I wonder if MS will ever make money on a console. Seems like they are in a big hole right now with the XB1 and will have to cut price and spend more in the future.

Nadella should just cut the entire branch.

 

[dallow_bg]

Yep, both Amazon and Gamestop are out of stock.

They're also "unavailable" at every Best Buy store in DFW and I imagine most other major cities.