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

FordGTGuy

Banned
We do not know #1 or #3 at all, unless you have facts that you aren't sharing with others.

It probably sold at a profit at launch, but that's all we can say unless you have links and other information supporting your claims.

Actual we do know 1 and 3 and we knew since before launch.
 
Do the math and you get US/UK 50% so far this gen. (assuming LTD's end of this year WW and in US, not too difficult to work out at this point tho).

PS3 sales:
US: 25m (nov 2013)
UK: 5m (oct 2012) < can't find newer figure.
Last know WW ltd: 80m (nov 2, 2013)

So roughly 37.5% of PS3 WW sales are from US/UK. And this % is only going to get lower with time as Sony systems tend to sell couple of millions more units in emerging markets by end of their life before discontinuation.
 

QaaQer

Member
So MS won over a few more hundred thousand people looking for the cheapest COD box this Xmas... Who's surprised?

What ALMOST surprises me is that no one's buying the WiiU despite having the best selection of games you can't play on PC. I say almost because Nintendo didn't even try when it came to BF deals

It's not surprising.

The family market is disappearing. Deals would not have helped. The teen-to-30s male market is still OK. But, if kids don't cut their teeth on things like gba/Ds/Wii/kinnect1, will they transition over to stabby/shooty power fantasy games? I have my doubts. I bet the average age of a console gamer is increasing, just like with Opera/Symphony goers.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
Finally caught up on this thread... Great #s for PS4 & XB1. Props to everyone but Nintendo =(....

Btw Harker, you said the Wii U software ecosystem is like a cavern... but I'm kind of curious whether the the top 9 non-new releases on PS4/XB1 add up to CoD's sales either (aka based on your Smash comparison).

Also Bayo 2 2nd month sales = top X SKU on Wii U? My guess is Smash > MK8 > JD/Skylanders/DI2.0 > Bayo 2 2nd month? Does Hyrule have any legs?

At least I feel like the Wii U has gone from "Nothing sells at all" to "some tentpole titles kind of sell in their first month" after MK8. Is that not the case? It's not a huge leap, but it seems better than nothing at least.
 
Finally caught up on this thread... Great #s for PS4 & XB1. Props to everyone but Nintendo =(....

Btw Harker, you said the Wii U software ecosystem is like a cavern... but I'm kind of curious whether the the top 9 non-new releases on PS4/XB1 add up to CoD's sales either (aka based on your Smash comparison).
Given what's been shared, and assuming when percentages have been given for only the PS4 SKU for certain titles, cs is only comparing the current gen SKUs (which is what he has done before) just taking GTA, Unity and FC4 amounts to the same as COD for the PS4. If you take the same titles for the XBO, the MCC quite easily pushes over the amount COD sold.

I.e. these other titles are still selling hundreds of thousands, while COD does it's million two hundred or so on each of the platforms.

I don't know if this is a function of COD's retail decline though, in part.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
Given what's been shared, and assuming when percentages have been given for only the PS4 SKU for certain titles, cs is only comparing the current gen SKUs (which is what he has done before) just taking GTA, Unity and FC4 amounts to the same as COD for the PS4. If you take the same titles for the XBO, the MCC quite easily pushes over the amount COD sold.

I.e. these other titles are still selling hundreds of thousands, while COD does it's million two hundred or so on each of the platforms.

I don't know if this is a function of COD's retail decline though, in part.

Right, but I was asking for non-new titles. As in titles released in a prior month. Both Unity & FC4 were released in November right? The reason the Wii U software ecosystem might look like "Smash, and then everything else really low", is because it has so few new releases. I guess though Lego Batman 3, Sonic Boom Wii U, and Watch Dogs Wii U did release for the system, but apart from Lego, I see no reason for those to sell well (quality for Sonic & just lack of interest for watch Dogs).
 
Right, but I was asking for non-new titles. As in titles released in a prior month. Both Unity & FC4 were released in November right?
Oh I missed that.

Yes, they did. Madden sold more than any of these titles, but the platform distribution is unknown, likewise 2K14. But the numbers are likely in the hundreds of thousands as well given their chart positioning.

I don't think Harker specified non-new releases in his original comment though.

It's something of a flawed comparison. The Wii U doesn't have as many new releases competing with Smash, obviously, but as you note in your edit the new releases it did have didn't exactly light up the charts. Limiting comparison to only non-new releases amounts to only considering PS4/XBO titles that have already sold considerable amounts (which isn't necessarily the case for Wii U releases new or non-new) and are competing with a slew of AAA new software releases rather than just one big release.
 
Reading comprehension it was then. Understanding of the current state of affairs.
They don't need each other to stay competitive. Sure the consoles are selling great. For now. So are more people chaining themselves to the devaluing of software and ignoring consoles at the same time. That thinking that still rationalises as it was pre-Apple is just wrong. Faux pas or not we are always underestimating it. Even if MS is the only one left to compete with no other console out there they wouldn't slow down their aggressiveness. The casual market would never come. Well perhaps if shit was $200.

PS. Ms is like the 30-something largest company in the world. Apple is like 15-20(just looking at profits, looking at the war chest neither makes it in the top 100). Learn Chinese people. it'll be good when your grand kids need to learn it in school.

You could not be any more wrong.

From April

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/businesslatestnews/10760392/Apple-and-Microsoft-have-bigger-cash-holdings-than-UK.html

and since Microsoft has again reported big profits.
 

Pezus

Member
Not sure that's the case, and isn't most of that from PC ? Do we have last years MVC/GFK breakdown.

Most of PS4 sales from PC? We do know PS4 has passed 1m in Germany and is thus PS4's 3rd biggest market globally (behind US and barely behind UK). France should not be far behind. Then PS4 has every other European country on its side as well + Asia/Africa/Australasia. Together they make for a sizeable figure
 
People talking about Xbox division's demise are omitting the fact that MS has poured and lost billions on their phone and tablet efforts with no good return on revenue or profit, despite them being much larger markets. MS will ride out Xbox if they think it can return to profitability, and I don't see any reason it shouldn't be able to with their strong ability to generate services revenue (which even phone and tablet can't do unless they're office subscribers).

Most of PS4 sales from PC? We do know PS4 has passed 1m in Germany and is thus PS4's 3rd biggest market globally (behind US and barely behind UK). France should not be far behind. Then PS4 has every other European country on its side as well + Asia/Africa/Australasia. Together they make for a sizeable figure

Spain isn't huge but the gap was 5:1 PS4 I thought at last report.
 

PhatSaqs

Banned
People talking about Xbox division's demise are omitting the fact that MS has poured and lost billions on their phone and tablet efforts with no good return on revenue or profit, despite them being much larger markets. MS will ride out Xbox if they think it can return to profitability, and I don't see any reason it shouldn't be able to with their strong ability to generate services revenue (which even phone and tablet can't do unless they're office
Most of the people talking like this are wishful thinkers. Xbox is a household name. Its not going anywhere.
 

Biker19

Banned
Even if digital is 100%, sales remain bad.

I agree. Plus 3rd party publishers, etc. don't exactly get 100% of the profits for being digital only, because there's server costs involved, & having to pay both Microsoft & Sony for having the games on XBL & PSN, etc.
 
Most of the people talking like this are wishful thinkers. Xbox is a household name. Its not going anywhere.
I'd throw both PS and Xbox in the trash because under the best case they make small profits and under the worst case huge losses. The ROI is crap and the strategic positioning is debatable.
 

truth411

Member
I think people are getting the market share aspect twisted. GBA had higher market share for its respective hardware cycle than DS did. Which system do you think Nintendo considers to be more successful? If Microsoft closes the gap in market share percentage, but Sony remains happy with what PS4 is selling in absolute unit terms, they are not going change very much in the short term. I'm not sure who outside of Sony could claim to know what their quarterly expectations are for PS4, but they don't seem to be in much of a panic to throw another bundle (or lower priced bundle) together for December. It seems like they have settled on Microsoft selling more for two months being less critical than maintaining ASP.

They could be right, they could just as easily be wrong. My guess is they see the relative lack of output from Microsoft for January through May and expect to start outselling Xbox One again through the first half of the year. They probably do not want a snowball effect where people expect the PS4 to be less expensive for several months prior to E3 simply because of a temporary price cut during the holidays. What Microsoft actually ends up doing with pricing in January is what will make this interesting.

^^^ Great Post!!!
 
It's not surprising.

The family market is disappearing. Deals would not have helped. The teen-to-30s male market is still OK. But, if kids don't cut their teeth on things like gba/Ds/Wii/kinnect1, will they transition over to stabby/shooty power fantasy games? I have my doubts. I bet the average age of a console gamer is increasing, just like with Opera/Symphony goers.
Maybe that family market's moved over to XBO and PS4?

Again, forgive the faux pas but I'm basing it on Apple. The casual market for games are flocking to them. The casual market that the consoles needs to survive.



Yes, they are 1 and 2 in perceived market value. Counting profits Apple is in the bottom of the top 5 and MS in the low tens but for warchests? They aren't even close to enter the top 100.
A lot of this is over my head, but in layman's terms....are you saying MS is valued at $387 billion but doesn't actually have $387 billion?
 

Biker19

Banned
Yea, their shareholders are going to be vying for blood when outselling their competitor by 50% for the month lol.

If they can keep this trajectory, I think MS will happily stay at $350.

They care about profitability, not about being #1 in sales.

Profitable consoles aren't preferable if it comes at the cost of market share.

Market share is worth many times more in profit than any profit that could be made on the sale of a console. You're comparing a small short term return to a decade long return on services and commissions.

Microsoft's ability to run Xbox has nothing to do with the amount of profit they make on every Xbox One. For god sakes Microsoft has like 9 different billion dollar businesses and is the second largest company in the world.

So what? That doesn't exactly mean that the Xbox brand has unlimited funds or that Microsoft can just easily spend all of their money on the Xbox division. Their shareholders will flip the fuck out.
 
So what? That doesn't exactly mean that the Xbox brand has unlimited funds or that Microsoft can just easily spend all of their money on the Xbox division. Their shareholders will flip the fuck out.

If Microsoft bought out all the 3rd party publishers they'd probably still have money left over.

The whole "spend all their money on Xbox" argument is a silly one because they have so fucking much and we can see that they're not anywhere near doing that. Theres plenty of money for Xbox
 

RayMaker

Banned
They care about profitability, not about being #1 in sales.



So what? That doesn't exactly mean that the Xbox brand has unlimited funds or that Microsoft can just easily spend all of their money on the Xbox division. Their shareholders will flip the fuck out.

MS make around 16 billion dollers a year? and sony are having a loss?, plus MS has hordes of money as well far greater then what sony has.

You would of thought MS would be able to spend quite a bit more wouldn't you, I dont know what else there is telling use otherwise.

MS said they spending $1 billion investing in games and new game studios , I wonder what the time frame is on that amount?
 
MS make around 16 billion dollers a year? and sony are having a loss?, plus MS has hordes of money as well far greater then what sony has.

You would of thought MS would be able to spend quite a bit more wouldn't you, I dont know what else there is telling use otherwise.

MS said they spending $1 billion investing in games and new game studios , I wonder what the time frame is on that amount?

Of course they could. Doesn't change the fact that they are not spending billions of money to Xbox if they don't see good returns for it. They are not in gaming business to win console wars for their console warriors. They are there to make money. There is a reason why MS also abandoned the extreme razor and blades business model this gen with Xbox despite that they had easily money to sustain it. It costed too much and didn't make business sense. As long as Sony is not bankrupt MS hoarding massive amounts of money doesn't matter a shit when it comes to gaming.
 
Wii U is done for. Nintendo better release its successor ASAP.

Wonder how big the Xbone <---> PS4 gap will be in December's NPD. I would say +/- 33% of current one (400k).
 
MS said they spending $1 billion investing in games and new game studios , I wonder what the time frame is on that amount?

Well, I don't know exactly how its all going to happen but there seems to be several new studios of unknown size/intentions: LXP, Platform Next, [Fun]ction Studios, SOTA and Decisive Games (new RTS studio) - now, whether some of these get merged or not I have no idea really, but they all seem to exist in some sort for some purpose. Things seem to be progressing at LXP somewhat as I've seen a few Linkedin changes in recent months, the others are a lot more elusive. I doubt they opened 5 new studios for AAA games but either way it seems like a decent level of investment

Team Dakota have opened a new incubation team to start a new project, Twisted Pixel have been hiring a lot recently, Rare have an incubation team too (I'm unsure if its new or not, it might be), Lionhead are hiring a lot and working on new IP in their incubation team

Twisted Pixel and Rare both looking for people with UE4 and Unity experience, Rare are almost certainly working on more than one game and also avatars but I'm unsure if TP just want people with experience on the modern popular engines or if there is more than one things going on over there, there is kind of a hint that they might be.

Lift London are also working on console in some capacity and PressPlay have several unannounced original IP in development iirc.

Not to mention Black Tusk are hiring for Gears, 343i are working on a "new product line" of Halo games or something (probably Halo Wars 2 tbh)

Everything seems to be expanding in time
 

Opiate

Member
Maybe that family market's moved over to XBO and PS4?

It doesn't seem like it so far. Consoles have lost a significant portion of the pull they had with women, young children, and older adults (a group colloquially referred to as "families.")

It doesn't mean it's impossible to get them back, but this is really what we're talking about when we talk about market contraction for consoles. The console market is doing more than fine with 16-35 males; it's doing less well with most other demographics, relative to how it did last generation.
 
Just because Microsoft could do something doesn't mean that they will especially if there's no incentive to do it. They could probably win every single generation and drive Sony and Nintendo out of business if they were aggressive enough with their money and yet they don't.

I think people are letting the warzzz and emotions get in the way of the facts of how corporations operate.
 

Elandyll

Banned
MS make around 16 billion dollers a year? and sony are having a loss?, plus MS has hordes of money as well far greater then what sony has.

You would of thought MS would be able to spend quite a bit more wouldn't you, I dont know what else there is telling use otherwise.

MS said they spending $1 billion investing in games and new game studios , I wonder what the time frame is on that amount?
This is such a strawman argument, smh.

From an investor's perspective, and the board, there are divisions that either make money or not (hint: the xbox one has hardly ever made any, aside for a time with Kinect1), and divisions that are of strategic importance or not. The only thing that has saved the Xbox division so far from the fate of a Zune, is that it is considered strategically important.

How long will having a set top box under the tv be important in a world of Chrome, Smart tvs and tablets?

Sonys priorities, being a hardware maker with a cinema/ television studio are actually different.

For now MS (the parent company) still thinks they can own the living room through Xbox. Not sure it's going to be the case much longer after 2015, but we'll see.
 

FordGTGuy

Banned
They care about profitability, not about being #1 in sales.



So what? That doesn't exactly mean that the Xbox brand has unlimited funds or that Microsoft can just easily spend all of their money on the Xbox division. Their shareholders will flip the fuck out.

I don't think you understand exactly how much money Microsoft has sitting around.

Phil Spencer already said in a interview that he has a blank check and has permission to buy any studio he wants if he wanted to.
 

orochi91

Member
I don't think you understand exactly how much money Microsoft has sitting around.

Phil Spencer already said in a interview that he has a blank check and has permission to buy any studio he wants if he wanted to.

That's amazing.

MS should be doing stuff like this more often, put that money to use.
 
That's amazing.

MS should be doing stuff like this more often, put that money to use.

Their history with acquisitions is pretty poor and they've certainly dropped off from doing it regularly. The 5 most recent ones are Mojang, PressPlay, Twisted Pixel, BigPark and Lionhead (dating that far back).

LH were in bad financial difficulties, I think PressPlay were going that way and were already working with MS on Max and wanted to not have to worry about doing contract work, TP I'm unsure about, BigPark was Don Mattricks baby before he went to MS and Mojang was for Minecraft.

Taking out BP and Mojang it seems to me considering the long list of other studios that have gone elsewhere in the past (Double Helix, RedLynx etc) I think unless a studio is in trouble of money issues MS won't really dip in and buy them.

I would love it if MS bought Remedy and Playground personally, but I suspect neither of them want them to be bought. Im not expecting any other studio acquisitions either
 
and yet, we were not able to buy the 20th anniversary ps4. only 20 for germany in a lottery. wuhuuuu....

That is really amazing. Happy for sony.

6276887281_9bd98f03e3_m.jpg


Even Luxemburg gets 10
 

Prine

Banned
Yes, like buying titles which were annouced for all platforms. That'll make them really, really, really popular among gamers! Wait...

But X1 seems to have had a cracking November in US/UK despite the TR exclusivity, so sour gamers on the opposite end haven't really impacted them. Pretty confident next TR will be huge, MS will push it hard.
 

kitch9

Banned
MS make around 16 billion dollers a year? and sony are having a loss?, plus MS has hordes of money as well far greater then what sony has.

You would of thought MS would be able to spend quite a bit more wouldn't you, I dont know what else there is telling use otherwise.

MS said they spending $1 billion investing in games and new game studios , I wonder what the time frame is on that amount?

MS have shareholders and investors who can vote, just like any other company. Here's the twist. PS4 is currently printing money for Sony when its other divisions are floundering, whereas most of MS's divisions print money apart from Gaming which is now struggling with a product that will only sell under apparently extreme forced circumstances which isn't profitable.

Which set of shareholders do you think are currently happy with their gaming ventures?
 

orochi91

Member
Their history with acquisitions is pretty poor and they've certainly dropped off from doing it regularly. The 5 most recent ones are Mojang, PressPlay, Twisted Pixel, BigPark and Lionhead (dating that far back).

LH were in bad financial difficulties, I think PressPlay were going that way and were already working with MS on Max and wanted to not have to worry about doing contract work, TP I'm unsure about, BigPark was Don Mattricks baby before he went to MS and Mojang was for Minecraft.

Taking out BP and Mojang it seems to me considering the long list of other studios that have gone elsewhere in the past (Double Helix, RedLynx etc) I think unless a studio is in trouble of money issues MS won't really dip in and buy them.

I would love it if MS bought Remedy and Playground personally, but I suspect neither of them want them to be bought. Im not expecting any other studio acquisitions either

This is interesting. Makes sense that the bigger/prominent studios won't be available for acquisition, they'll benefit from remaining multiplat.

What's keeping Remedy from joining MS 1st party?
 
This interesting. Makes sense that the bigger/prominent studios won't be available for acquisition, they'll benefit from remaining multiplat.

What's keeping Remedy from joining MS 1st party?

I suspect they are happy working with Microsoft independently and they also have their mobile projects on the side. If the relationship is good (which it seems to be) then there really isn't any need for MS to buy them. Acquisitions seem to come with the top people in the studio signing 5/6 year contracts then leaving anyway so... theres that too.

What happens to Remedy and Remedy/MS if Quantum Break doesnt sell well though will be interesting to watch. Alan Wake was great though, so im hoping QB does well.

Mojang purchase was mainly because of Windows Phone and not Xbox though.

Minecraft was because Notch wanted to sell. Windows Phone version was already in development
 
But X1 seems to have had a cracking November in US/UK despite the TR exclusivity, so sour gamers on the opposite end haven't really impacted them. Pretty confident next TR will be huge, MS will push it hard.

Of course with that price. It's kind of dumb to not to buy an X1 with that price if you're going to buy it anyway. It's a steal.

But that TR deal is still one of the shadiest things MS have done this year. People really loved that move.
 

Boke1879

Member
But X1 seems to have had a cracking November in US/UK despite the TR exclusivity, so sour gamers on the opposite end haven't really impacted them. Pretty confident next TR will be huge, MS will push it hard.

I said this before. I don't think TR is one of those games that will push a huge amount of systems. Sure it's a game you'll buy because it's on your platform. But it's not a game you can't live without imo.

If this is a game MS is hoping to put up against Uncharted 4. I fear they are going to lose that battle.
 

blakep267

Member
I said this before. I don't think TR is one of those games that will push a huge amount of systems. Sure it's a game you'll buy because it's on your platform. But it's not a game you can't live without imo.

If this is a game MS is hoping to put up against Uncharted 4. I fear they are going to lose that battle.
Alone no. But if halo 5 is legitimately a good game. Having tomb raider and quantum break only strengthens the consiles value during that fall period.

If it turns out that TR is essentially just like uncharted and uncharted is Sonys big game for the fall, it'll just make MS line up look that much better
 
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