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NPD Sales Results for November 2014 [Up3: NPD Data Error, AC:U #5]

Relix

he's Virgin Tight™
This is sooo ridiculous and out there that I can't believe I am going to respond to it but here I am.

Games sometime just have to get delayed. It's not always a resource, manpower or management issue. Some times features just don't work as well as intended and/or end up being more difficult to implement.



Yes, but the PS4 provides the best version for all of these.

1. Of course. I am a software programmer, and I conceded that we would have gotten a buggy piece of shit and we don't want that. I agree there, but they could have had some more foresight or added additional manpower if needed.

2) Yes, because Momma Anna cares about that when she sets off to buy a console for little Timmy. Or 15 year old in High School that wants to play COD and hey... Xbox is the COD powerhouse. 90% of the public that buys for the Holidays doesn't care for that... and obviously that's a bullshit statistic but I'd say the vast majority just doesn't give a shit Also, best version is relative. COD gets DLC first and several exclusives, Unity plusses, etc. Not everything is about the Ps.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
My face is still like this:
http://33.media.tumblr.com/5c170128edc2e5b71b60f4c5cd9c650a/tumblr_nd94uiH6dK1qhjbxeo2_500.gif

How is it even possible? Do ppl just care about which one is cheaper? It doesn't make sense to me.

This is quite rude actually. If both systems are similar priced (and Xbox One started more expensive, now it's 50$ cheaper, so the difference before was bigger, just in the other direction) and have almost the same line-up, barring controller preferences and slight technical differences, what should customers base their buying decision on? Also, Xbone arguably had the better exclusive line-up this year's end (though I, personally, don't care for either's exclusive line-up, but Xbone's exclusive line-up is bigger, got better scores is and quite diverse), so is it really so strange that Xbone ended up on the top?

Yeah when the Wii U can only manage to sell a terrible 240k units during November alongside one of Nintendo's biggest franchises (Smash), it's completely screwed.

I'm guessing Nintendo will just give Wii U the PS Vita treatment, keep it around but not devote much resources towards making it a success. No price drops or anything, no more effort trying to sell it. They know it's a lost cause. Even if Wii U sales were to double it wouldn't really change anything.
Considering 8 of my top 10 most wanted games next year are on Wii U, I'm fine with this kind of Vita-treatment. Sadly, Vita wasn't treated like this. Regarding selling the system, I think it's understandable that Nintendo is not dropping the price, but tries to get money out of the system and establish it as a special interest system. They won't be able to compete with Xbone and PS4 anyway, so making the best out of the situation probably boils down to making money from the system and its games, offering a lot of games that are nor too expensive to make but should make fans happy and to establish the system as a strong contender for second system and as a system for younger players.
 
I'm pretty sure when I used 242k for Wii U I got 1223k for XB1 and 828k for PS4

is that right Aquamarine?

Uh... how about American football?
Q1: Holidays 2013, Q2: Early 2014, Q3: Later 2014, Q4: November. 1 point ~~100k
SONY : 17 14 14 7
MS : 17 10 10 12
...12? God. All field goals. MS unable to convert in the red zone confirmed.

ahahaha at the last line
 
I really think without any kind of black Friday esque deals from Sony that December is going to be a bloodbatch in MS favour.

I'm thinking like 900K for XBO and 350K for PS4

December typically doubles November. This will be muted due to the massive discounts on Black Friday, but there's no way the PS4 sells half of November in December.
 

RedAssedApe

Banned
ms still has the better bundle for dec. at most places (2 free games + some retailer specific bonuses vs. 1 free game)

I expect another win but by a lesser margin. What's the usual percentage drop between nov. and dec. npds for a non-launch year? or is it actually higher numbers in dec?
 
If we assume Microsoft lost $50 USD (which is probably on the low end) per console sold (including the cost of bundled software), then November cost them $60 million in the USA alone.

If you want to be incredibly short sighted, then sure. Luckily for Microsoft though, the real money comes throughout the lifecycle of a system, and they now have 1.2million additional people (in the US) tied into their ecosystem for the next 6-7 years.

That's where the money lies.
 

xxracerxx

Don't worry, I'll vouch for them.
If you want to be incredibly short sighted, then sure. Luckily for Microsoft though, the real money comes throughout the lifecycle of a system, and they now have 1.2million additional people (in the US) tied into their ecosystem for the next 6-7 years.

That's where the money lies.

Well it sure would be great if they wanted more people around the world to be tied into their ecosystem. They could start by offering deals like they did here.
 

Yoda

Member
If you want to be incredibly short sighted, then sure. Luckily for Microsoft though, the real money comes throughout the lifecycle of a system, and they now have 1.2million additional people (in the US) tied into their ecosystem for the next 6-7 years.

That's where the money lies.

I think the issue lies in the fact after their 3rd generation of being in the console business they have to subsidize a product in order to adequately compete with their prime competition. There is already a lot of shareholder grumbling over how much money as been sunk into the Surface tablet/laptop and they certainly won't be happy if another piece of inhouse hardware is putting itself in the red in order to gain mainstream acceptance. The question is how long are they willing to take a hit on the console to gain marketshare?
 

Mpl90

Two copies sold? That's not a bomb guys, stop trolling!!!
Using creamsugar's percentages is:

XBO- ~945k
PS4- ~891k
360- ~621K
PS3- ~243k

So, this means, for October and November, no bundles included

XBO- ~ < 315k
PS4- ~ < 279k
360- ~ < 689k
PS3- ~ < 522k
 

AmyS

Member
I just woke up and I can't try to read through this thread from yesterday evening to this afternoon. How many PS4 consoles and how many Xbox One consoles got sold in November ?
 

Mooreberg

is sharpening a shovel and digging a ditch
I'm especially disappointed 2K didn't use the opportunity to push a next-gen Borderlands. Not sure if that's the same thing you're saying since it is an established franchise.
It is definitely the same thing. Just strange maneuvers all around. PS3 and 360 software had been declining for a while outside of GTA V and COD always being big.

2012 was extremely shitty for SCE. Playstation All-Stars was their biggest game of the year...
Ah yes, the other worst year ever. I guess this stuff is cyclical. They had Journey winning a bunch of GOTY awards, but I seriously doubt the digital/retail split is anywhere near where companies thought it would be halfway through this decade. Comcast and the other lousy ISPs are granting brick and mortar a fairly lengthy stay of execution.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Packaged? Yes. Sales of packaged software are likely to continue to decline.

Packaged + Digital + DLC? No. Overall spending on software, including Digital Distribution and DLC has not declined. Between 15-25% of Day 1 sales on core titles are coming digitally now, however, which could get to 25-35% by end 2015. Over a product's life 15-20% of sales will come digitally right now. By end 2015 that maybe gets to 20-25%?? Combine that with what looks to be a packed 2015, can see a path to double digit % growth in software spend in 2015. Look for more offers digitally that include the base game with a season pass at some kind of combined discount (-10% or -15%) with a digital pre-order. This will be the trend of 2015.

Honestly, I'm not as bullish as you are. Maybe next generation, but while retail is declining and digital is increasing, I don't see that reaching a point this generation where digital actually allows the 'overall ceiling' of game sales to actually rise. Which wouldn't net out a sales growth (meaning, the rise in digital won't fully offset the the decline of retail).

There's just too many barriers still.
Bad bandwith access, lack of harddrive space, utterly terrible digital merchandising (it's much easier to walk into a store and find content on a shelf, or to hvae a GameStop rep recommend titles to you to pick up) than digital storefronts offer right now. There's less "window shopping" - current behavior tends to have people logging into storefronts when they know a game is out they want, buying that, and not really browsing. You get less product per basket that way.

Plus, digital is tough to gift.

And you can make the argument that 'core users' will simply buy more because they are the ones with the knowledge on how to do that and the equipment and desire and income to purchase more to make up for it... but the downside of that is pricing, because they want it all but are increasingly reluctant to pay full price for it. Just look at Steam for that; yes that audience is buying more than ever, particularly on digital, but that's mostly driven by massive price promotion. And how sustainable is that right now? Especially when the demand for that audience is things like 1080p/60fps, which isn't reasonable in all instances, not all genres, tools, and studious are created the same, but it costs more money to build games like that, but you're only willing to pay less for your games (since you buy so many, and various other reasons). So there's a lot of re-balancing to do here over this generation.

Re gifting: that's why holidays do so well at retail over digital, parents and friends go in to stores and buy for their kids, or buy one for themselves and one for friends. Digital isn't going to make up for any loss, if there aren't 'big games at retail' enough to drive those shoppers to stores. It's immensely important that 'big, AAA games' continue to exist and do well, the industry needs those tentpole 'event' games to get people to go into the store and pick up hardware and accessories and it needs retail representatives to up-sell people on other games as well, to spread awareness.

This gen is in a difficult position, because hardware is killing it but software last gen was doing so much better, people are just buying fewer games which still affects companies bottom line.

I suspect a lot more subscription services, microtransactions and whatnot if digital continues to grow because that revenue has to come from some where. It's not just about selling box software anymore. Or you'll see companies getting smaller as they focus on what is profitable.

I think we need a full revolution in how we actually are merchandised, access, purchase, and play digital games because I don't think the current storefronts are going to cut it long term.

edit:
That isn't written too well, lot's of rambling, but whatever, you get the idea!
 
Honestly, I'm not as bullish as you are.

Fair enough. I'm not super confident in forecasting anything in this market anymore. Outside of mobile continuing to grow.

I suspect a lot more subscription services, microtransactions and whatnot if digital continues to grow because that revenue has to come from some where. It's not just about selling box software anymore. Or you'll see companies getting smaller as they focus on what is profitable.

Excellent points and I agree with you completely. Thanks for sharing the other insights, lots to think about in there.

When you think about what's happened in the business from 2004 to now... thinking about what 2024 might look like melts my brain.
 

joecanada

Member
Hope it stays competitive in the US because I want to pick up a PS4 soon to complete my console collection. Two remasters wasnt enough to make me jump in for their Black Friday deals. There werent enough exclusives to justify a PS4 if you have an Xbox already especially when the graphical differences for multiplats has gotten progressively smaller since launch

I can't see The Order or Bloodborne having mass market appeal so I'm assuming things will stay relatively even between the two, which I'm hoping leads to some pricing movement by April/May.

Well the order and Bloodborne may not be 5 million sellers but they will sell decidedly better than the zero exclusives ms has planned for spring. If anything the timing is great because it drives steady sales throughout the year. I actually was hoping Sony would get into something like this. Let the multiplats do the heavy lifting during fall and fill the gaps where it's slow... But of course then I have to read a thousand "ps haz no games" posts in between. Also I'm willing to bet Bloodborne outsells sunset overdrive so not sure what exclusives you define having mass appeal. They never sell millions except a select few.
 

Ty4on

Member
I feel the price drop and bundles are overstated. Unity wasn't in very high demand, software sales are strong (making up lost revenue) and the price drop wasn't that big for most of the month. I think it really showed that people still want the Xbox and changed my perception of the market. I mean the WiiU was still cheaper with higher rated games bundled :p
 
One Million, Two-Hundred-Thirty Thousand, Five Hundred Consoles of The All-In-One Gaming And Entertainment System Were Sold In The Four Week Period From November 2nd Through November 29th In The United States Of America Retail Market According To The Definitive Retail Tracker The NPD Group

Now I have to go to a meeting.


Agreed. First 24 hours was a shit show.

That's precisely why I didn't participate.

If any of you guys know me, that's not how I operate.

I didn't say anything about CBOAT because the thread was way too fucking crazy and I didn't want the limelight on me when everybody and their mother is watching GAF's NPD thread.

I almost never participate in the early stages of any NPD thread for that very reason. I hate these threads when they're moving at 10 posts a second.



It was also pissing me off how people were being like "Well, she didn't correct CBOAT, so he must have been correct lol."

It's never appropriate to assume any live data leak is true unless it's from a trusted source.
 
After reading Activisions' comments, digital sales on the PS4 and Xone must be flourishing. That's great to know and I'm happy with that. Retail might be down a bit, but digital must be making up some of the difference.
 
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