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[zero_suit]

So, does anyone see a chance of the DS surpassing the PS2 LTD in the US?

It's already at 33.7 million; PS2 is at about 44 million. With the holidays coming up, the DS should do between 3.5 and 4 million in Nov. and Dec. That would put it between 37 and 38 million at the end of the year, so it's a forgone conclusion.

 

[jamesinclair]

so here's the list again, with more nebulous ranges:

1) UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES (PS3) 537,000
2) WII FIT PLUS (WII) 441,000
3) BORDERLANDS (360) 418,000
4) WII SPORTS RESORT (WII) 314,000
5) NBA 2K10 (360) 311,000
6) HALO 3: ODST (360) 271,000
7) NBA 2K10 (PS3) 213,000
8) FORZA MOTORSPORT 3 (360) 175,000
9) KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS (NDS) 169,000
10) FIFA SOCCER 10 (360) 156,000
11) DEMONS SOULS (PS3) 150,000 — 156,000
12) BRUTAL LEGEND (360) 150,000
13) FIFA SOCCER 10 (PS3) 113,000 — 150,000
14) MARIO & LUIGI: BOWSER'S INS. STORY (NDS) 113,000 — 150,000
15) WWE SMACKDOWN VS. RAW 2010 (360) 113,000 — 150,000
16) TEKKEN 6 (PS3) 113,000 — 150,000
17) BORDERLANDS (PS3) 113,000
18) MADDEN NFL 10 (360) 85,000 — 113,000
19) POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: EOS (NDS) 85,000 — 113,000
20) MARIO KART W/ WHEEL (WII) 85,000 — 113,000
RATCHET AND CLANK (PS3) 85,000 — 113,000
TEKKEN 6 (360) 50,000 — 85,000
BRUTAL LEGEND (PS3) 66,000
DJ HERO (360) 62,000
GTA: EPISODES FROM LIBERTY CITY (360) 57,000
DJ HERO (PS3) 39,000
DJ HERO (WII) 19,000
BORDERLANDS (PC) 15,000
GTA CHINATOWN WARS (PSP) <10,000
A BOY AND HIS BLOB (WII) <10,000 (less than GTA)
DJ HERO (PS2) 3,300


other random data:

GUITAR HERO 5 (360, PS3, WII, PS2) 81,000
NBA 2K10 (PS2, PSP, WII, PC) 51,000

Thanks for keeping it all in one place.

 

[grandjedi6]

It's really close between Demon's Souls and Persona 4.

One day we'll get the updated Persona 4 numbers that I wish for :'(

 

[Jokeropia]

Why would I be offended about sales of all things? It was just an observation.

Well, it did prompt me to track down a pretty interesting stat. Since we got the total January to September sales up there, and we got the top ten for all these months I decided to calculate how much of the total sales this year that were contained within the monthly top tens. (Approximately at least.)

The result was slightly less than 17%. That is, sales outside the monthly top ten has made up roughly 83% of all sales so far this year. (Through September.)

I hope this will stop people from trying to draw conclusions about the overall state of software sales on a particular platform based only on the monthly charts we get from NPD.

 

[Shiggy]

There probably were too many music games. I cannot say that I am sad to see those sales.

 

[Zombie James]

Well, it did prompt me to track down a pretty interesting stat. Since we got the total January to September sales up there, and we got the top ten for all these months I decided to calculate how much of the total sales this year that were contained within the monthly top tens. (Approximately at least.)

The result was slightly less than 17%. That is, sales outside the monthly top ten has made up roughly 83% of all sales so far this year. (Through September.)

I hope this will stop people from trying to draw conclusions about the overall state of software sales on a particular platform based only on the monthly charts we get from NPD.

Interesting stat, thanks!

 

[Yoboman]

Can one of our chart loving friends throw together an Atlus one of known first month in their titles?

 

[grandjedi6]

At the time, Divnich believed that sell-through of 200,000 would be disappointing in itself, explaining: "With the majority of publishers currently taking a risk-adverse stance, we expect this to slow the growth rate of future mature rated titles on the DS."

As a comparison point, the EEDAR analyst noted: "Previous GTA titles on the PSP have sold in excess 1 million units lifetime... The performance on the DS highlights clearly the demographic differences between the two platforms in the handheld market."

But with the actual game sales even lower than Divnich expected -- and massively lower than the estimates of Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter, who suggested that Chinatown Wars might sell as many as 450,000 units for the five-week month of March -- this may be considered a disappointing result for high-quality M-rated titles for Nintendo's handheld platform.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23246

hehe

 

[markatisu]

The result was slightly less than 17%. That is, sales outside the monthly top ten has made up roughly 83% of all sales so far this year. (Through September.)

I hope this will stop people from trying to draw conclusions about the overall state of software sales on a particular platform based only on the monthly charts we get from NPD.

This should be placed in the OP of every single NPD thread

ttp://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/new...hp?story=23246

That's great :lol

 

[careksims]

Im not surprise as ALL for Demon's Souls. I knew it was incredibly popular considering word of mouth when it was just an import. Kudos~! Now bring Dot Heroes over here asap!

 

[Ihya]

Could someone list/chart a year to date NPD sales for all 3 consoles? I want to see if PS3 or 360 will have the most sales.

 

[Opiate]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23246

hehe

In some cases, I'd be willing to chalk up the disparity to the game being a late port. Late ports tend to sell worse.

But sub 10k? No. A disparity that large is not simply a porting issue -- this game was just rejected by the marketplace.

 

[cress2000]

One day we'll get the updated Persona 4 numbers that I wish for :'(

And updated Tales of Vesperia/Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World numbers...

 

[WinFonda]

People always use the price excuse, but the 360 was $399 too when Gears of War sold a million copies in it's first month on sale. The PS3 version of GTAIV also sold a million in it's first month at $400 so clearly it's possible to have a million-seller debut on the PS3. It's just that Sony first party hasn't done that yet (nor have they come anywhere close).

There aren't many games that will break 1 million in their debut month, regardless of whether or not Sony is publishing, as you kind of pointed out. The standard of comparing exceptionally high volume titles (1m+ debut) to others as a means of defining sales success is somewhat backwards. It's like saying, well, none of you are as strong as Superman, so everyone below Superman is a waste of time. Including you, Batman. Sony doesn't have a GTA in their stable. And they don't have anything that resonates with the hardcore audience like Gears or Halo. I'm sure they'd like to, but it doesn't change the fact they've seemingly done well for themselves in spite of it.

 

[kswiston]

Christ, puts it all in perspective a bit, really.

Twilight Princess sold 412k units on November 2006 on a 476k Wii install base. That's an 87% attach rate. GTA San Andreas debuted at 2.1M in Oct 2004 on a ~25M install base. That's an attach rate of less than 10%. From this I conclude that Twilight Princess was clearly more popular than GTA San Andreas.

Seriously, the fact that Gears 2 debuted only 57% higher than Gears 1, despite the Nov 2008 360 install base being 3.6x larger than it was in Nov 2006 says a lot about the nature of attach rates.

Also, as I said earlier, unless GT3 broke 1 million in it's first month, I can't think of a single first party game that ever broke 1M on the PS2. And that is with an LTD of over 40M. It's possible that Sony has never had a single 1 million unit debut (in the US) in their history as a publisher. If they have, then it has only been 1 or 2 games in 14 years. With that in mind, Uncharted 2 hitting 530k in its first month is pretty good. I am sure that it will have long legs.

 

[schuelma]

Also, as I said earlier, unless GT3 broke 1 million in it's first month, I can't think of a single first party game that ever broke 1M on the PS2. And that is with an LTD of over 40M. It's possible that Sony has never had a single 1 million unit debut (in the US) in their history as a publisher. If they have, then it has only been 1 or 2 games in 14 years. With that in mind, Uncharted 2 hitting 530k in its first month is pretty good. I am sure that it will have long legs.

I thought GoW2 did.

 

[Rice-Eater]

I thought GoW2 did.

That did around 800k

That is a interesting point though, that Sony has never had a title break 1 million+ in its debut month according to the NPD. Pretty surprising since it goes back to the days of the Playstation and they've had several multi million selling titles. I guess none of them were front loaded though.

 

[zero_suit]

I thought GoW2 did.

That did 890k in its launch month.

 

[Bizzyb]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23246

hehe

I've come to the conclusion that No one ever knows what they talking about in this industry, and when they do, they just got lucky.

 

[perfectchaos007]

Ouch @ DJ hero. And I'm glad Chinatown Wars bombed harder on PSP than DS. It obviously didn't fail at first because it was on a Nintendo system. But I guess lack of Advertising for the PSP version could have had an effect on that too.

 

[grandjedi6]

In some cases, I'd be willing to chalk up the disparity to the game being a late port. Late ports tend to sell worse.

But sub 10k? No. A disparity that large is not simply a porting issue -- this game was just rejected by the marketplace.

Indeed, I'd go as far as to say that this retroactively reverses the orignal analysis of Chinatown Wars' DS release.

And updated Tales of Vesperia/Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World numbers...

Basically what we need is another leak like we got in March :'(

 

[Clear]

The funny thing is that due to its distribution model, the PSPgo is incapable of contributing towards the software side of the NPD figures. In a parallel dimension (!) the go could be a huge hit with millions sold and there still would be an absence of PSP software in the top10 list.

You could even argue that Sony's move to distributing a large roster of PSP software digitally is having a negative effect on any PSP titles NPD figures as obviously any title sold online represents one that would otherwise pass through bricks-and-mortar retailers.

Looking to the overall health of the platform, I'd assume that an online sale is very likely more profitable to both the publisher and platform holder than a boxed copy, meaning that they don't need to shift as many units to break even. Lastly you need to ask yourself what the cost is of developing a PSP game versus a PS360 title and what that means in terms of required sales.

I honestly think the PSP is always going to be a bit of an unsung hero for Sony. It might not be a challenger to Nintendo's supremacy, or as flashy and cool as the iPhone, but its got some quality titles and is actually a nice bit of hardware.

 

[Shiggy]

The funny thing is that due to its distribution model, the PSPgo is incapable of contributing towards the software side of the NPD figures. In a parallel dimension (!) the go could be a huge hit with millions sold and there still would be an absence of PSP software in the top10 list.

You could even argue that Sony's move to distributing a large roster of PSP software digitally is having a negative effect on any PSP titles NPD figures as obviously any title sold online represents one that would otherwise pass through bricks-and-mortar retailers.

You know what the sales of the PSPgo platform were?

 

[nextgeneration]

for a game that is receiving accolades left and right, it's disappointing that uncharted didn't have a higher total for the month. i was curious to see how uncharted fared against other AAA titles that were released before uncharted, and came up with this:


title units days installed base release date
halo 3 (360) 3,300,000 12 6.7 mil 9/25/07
grand theft auto iv (ps3) 1,000,000 5 4.2 mil 4/29/08
madden 2010 (ps3) 665,000 16 8.2 mil 8/14/09
resident evil 5 (ps3) 585,000 23 7.5 mil 3/13/09
uncharted 2 (ps3) 537,000 19 9.0 mil 10/13/09

 

[gkryhewy]

I've come to the conclusion that No one ever knows what they talking about in this industry, and when they do, they just got lucky.

I would agree with this.

 

[teh_J0kerer]

Just curious, but when you play Demon's Souls, doesn't it seem to have had a relatively large budget?

The graphics are absolutely top notch, and for example, it seems money wasn't spared on hiring quality English voice actors, etc.

Do people still figure the budget was much smaller than something like Tekken 6?

I ask because it seems people have way lower requirements on considering the sales of DS to be a success than they have for Tekken, say.

Presumably the advertising budget for Tekken was a lot bigger than for DS, but otherwise, wouldnt they have had comparable development costs, and then have needed similar sales to do well?

I guess what am asking is, do these kinds of sales of Demon's Souls mean it actually makes a bigger profit than Tekken, or is it just that people had lower expectations for how much profit it could bring in?

 

[chubigans]

for a game that is receiving accolades left and right, it's disappointing that uncharted didn't have a higher total for the month. i was curious to see how uncharted fared against other AAA titles that were released before uncharted, and came up with this:


title units days installed base release date
halo 3 (360) 3,300,000 12 6.7 mil 9/25/07
grand theft auto iv (ps3) 1,000,000 5 4.2 mil 4/29/08
madden 2010 (ps3) 665,000 16 8.2 mil 8/14/09
resident evil 4 (ps3) 585,000 23 7.5 mil 3/13/09
uncharted 2 (ps3) 537,000 19 9.0 mil 10/13/09

There is nooooooooooo way the Uncharted franchise is a match for Halo, GTA, Madden, or Resident Evil in terms of awareness. None. That's a fairly bad comparison.

 

[speculawyer]

Ouch @ DJ hero. And I'm glad Chinatown Wars bombed harder on PSP than DS. It obviously didn't fail at first because it was on a Nintendo system. But I guess lack of Advertising for the PSP version could have had an effect on that too.

Very late port, 2D game, no advertising, and piracy pretty much determined that this game was set out to die.

I'm very interested to see how it will do on the iPhone though. Totally different audience there.

 

[Byakuya769]

Chinatown Wars - for the psp owner, why would they "downgrade" their gameplay experience from lbs and vcs to play a late ds port? Graphics and presentation matters, especially for psp owners.

On the other hand, Chinatown Wars was the first GTA offering for DS owners... not that complicated.

 

[yankeehater]

for a game that is receiving accolades left and right, it's disappointing that uncharted didn't have a higher total for the month. i was curious to see how uncharted fared against other AAA titles that were released before uncharted, and came up with this:


title units days installed base release date
halo 3 (360) 3,300,000 12 6.7 mil 9/25/07
grand theft auto iv (ps3) 1,000,000 5 4.2 mil 4/29/08
madden 2010 (ps3) 665,000 16 8.2 mil 8/14/09
resident evil 4 (ps3) 585,000 23 7.5 mil 3/13/09
uncharted 2 (ps3) 537,000 19 9.0 mil 10/13/09

I think you meant to say RE5. I am surprised that U2 sold almost as well as Re5 in about the same amount of time.

 

[cr_blah_blah]

There is nooooooooooo way the Uncharted franchise is a match for Halo, GTA, Madden, or Resident Evil in terms of awareness. None. That's a fairly bad comparison.

Bioshock did 491k on 360 in August 07 with a LTD of 6.3 million. That's a more fair comparison, I suppose. Uncharted 2 is amazing, and PS3 users just don't come out in droves like they should for certain deserving games.

edit: took out multiplatform part, I forgot it didn't release until later

 

[nextgeneration]

I think you meant to say RE5. I am surprised that U2 sold almost as well as Re5 in about the same amount of time.

Oops, typo. Fixed now.

There is nooooooooooo way the Uncharted franchise is a match for Halo, GTA, Madden, or Resident Evil in terms of awareness. None. That's a fairly bad comparison.

Yeah, true, but these are all AAA titles, which is why I made the comparison (albeit bad one, as you and others may think it is).

 

[Johann]

so here's the list again, with more nebulous ranges:

1) UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES (PS3) 537,000
2) WII FIT PLUS (WII) 441,000
3) BORDERLANDS (360) 418,000
4) WII SPORTS RESORT (WII) 314,000
5) NBA 2K10 (360) 311,000
6) HALO 3: ODST (360) 271,000
7) NBA 2K10 (PS3) 213,000
8) FORZA MOTORSPORT 3 (360) 175,000
9) KINGDOM HEARTS 358/2 DAYS (NDS) 169,000
10) FIFA SOCCER 10 (360) 156,000
11) DEMONS SOULS (PS3) 150,000 — 156,000
12) BRUTAL LEGEND (360) 150,000
13) FIFA SOCCER 10 (PS3) 113,000 — 150,000
14) MARIO & LUIGI: BOWSER'S INS. STORY (NDS) 113,000 — 150,000
15) WWE SMACKDOWN VS. RAW 2010 (360) 113,000 — 150,000
16) TEKKEN 6 (PS3) 113,000 — 150,000
17) BORDERLANDS (PS3) 113,000
18) MADDEN NFL 10 (360) 85,000 — 113,000
19) POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: EOS (NDS) 85,000 — 113,000
20) MARIO KART W/ WHEEL (WII) 85,000 — 113,000
RATCHET AND CLANK (PS3) 85,000 — 113,000
TEKKEN 6 (360) 50,000 — 85,000
BRUTAL LEGEND (PS3) 66,000
DJ HERO (360) 62,000
GTA: EPISODES FROM LIBERTY CITY (360) 57,000
DJ HERO (PS3) 39,000
DJ HERO (WII) 19,000
BORDERLANDS (PC) 15,000
GTA CHINATOWN WARS (PSP) <10,000
A BOY AND HIS BLOB (WII) <10,000 (less than GTA)
DJ HERO (PS2) 3,300


other random data:

GUITAR HERO 5 (360, PS3, WII, PS2) 81,000
NBA 2K10 (PS2, PSP, WII, PC) 51,000

To add to that, NBA Live 10 sold 141,000. It wasn't specified if the number was composed of 360+PS3 sales (to compare with NBA 2K10 sales on those consoles) or the full 360+PS3+PSP sales for the game.

Also, as I said earlier, unless GT3 broke 1 million in it's first month, I can't think of a single first party game that ever broke 1M on the PS2. And that is with an LTD of over 40M. It's possible that Sony has never had a single 1 million unit debut (in the US) in their history as a publisher. If they have, then it has only been 1 or 2 games in 14 years. With that in mind, Uncharted 2 hitting 530k in its first month is pretty good. I am sure that it will have long legs.

I don't know about GT3 but GT4 sold about half a million during its February debut. It ended up selling 1.5 million by the end of the year. I remember Sony provided the February sales data during the March NPD since that was a very good month for them with GT4 (second month) and God of War performing well.

 

[Yoboman]

Uncharted 2 outsold Left 4 Dead and Fallout 3 in their first months

 

[DeadGzuz]

If you sum the 360 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~915k
If you sum PS3 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~900k.

So did the PS3 version of Borderlands sell poorly for mystical reasons, or were the PS3 owners just buying other games?

 

[thestopsign]

Bioshock did 491k on 360 in August 07 with a LTD of 6.3 million. That's a more fair comparison, I suppose. Uncharted 2 is amazing, and PS3 users just don't come out in droves like they should for certain deserving games.

edit: took out multiplatform part, I forgot it didn't release until later

You guys are all failing to look at what the original did in its first month. The game failed to chart in the Top 10 and it was one of the cornerstone releases for the PS3 that holiday season. This is a huge improvement no matter how you look at it. The game sales are anything but disappointing.

 

[Grecco]

Very late port, 2D game, no advertising, and piracy pretty much determined that this game was set out to die.

I'm very interested to see how it will do on the iPhone though. Totally different audience there.

Ive seen TV ads for Chinatown wars on PSP. I dont buy the 'no advertising" thing.

 

[Danthrax]

To add to that, NBA Live 10 sold 141,000. It wasn't specified if the number was composed of 360+PS3 sales (to compare with NBA 2K10 sales on those consoles) or the full 360+PS3+PSP sales for the game.

Thanks. From the context of the sentence, it appears they're talking about PS3+360 only.

 

[Clear]

You know what the sales of the PSPgo platform were?

No idea, I assume its folded into the overall total for PSP platform but until Sony give up their numbers its unknown.

I was just making a comment about the sales of PSP software and the overall health of the platform generally.

I admit I don't use my PSP much, but I always feel that its a better device than people give it credit for. And I don't mean that in any kind of "system war" way, just as someone who likes games and gaming devices. Its the platform you rarely hear anybody say a positive thing about... its just an underdog thing I guess

 

[kay]

If you sum the 360 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~915k
If you sum PS3 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~900k.

So did the PS3 version of Borderlands sell poorly for mystical reasons, or were the PS3 owners just buying other games?

Shooters sell much less on the system (SCEA can't realize this and keeps publishing more). Actually, western games that aren't sports titles usually sell a lot less in comparison, the audiences seem slightly different.

 

[p_xavier]

Yeah but the number of GTA games shouldn't really effect the main franchise. Most of the people that bought GTA IV never played Liberty City Stories, or Vice City Stories, or Chinatown wars. For a lot of people GTA IV was the first real GTA game in three and a half years after San Andreas came out.

I think they just mishandled the episodes. If I had known they would be out on disc prior to Lost and Damned coming out I would have waited. It reminds me of the PSP games. People will wait when they know it is coming on PS2. I think some of the people that bought Lost and Damned as DLC would have waited if they knew what was going to happen.

I got burnt by GTAIV. I loved the PS2 incarnations, couldn't stand the gameplay mechanics. With atrocious sales of the latest versions, I guess it might be a sign.

 

[Dr Bad Dude PHD]

If you sum the 360 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~915k
If you sum PS3 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~900k.

So did the PS3 version of Borderlands sell poorly for mystical reasons, or were the PS3 owners just buying other games?

Maybe this is a really good examples of the differences in mentality between 360 owners and ps3 owners brought about by the fact that 360 owners have to pay for their online gaming. So a 360 owner may think that because they are paying to play online, they want to get all they can out of it so they are going to buy this new game that is focussed towards online play, whereas this thought doesn't even cross the ps3 owners mind or influence their decision making in any way when buying games.

I'm just throwing this out there, I haven't really put any thought into it and I'm not going to hang around to argue it because I'm going to work.

 

[Opiate]

Shooters sell much less on the system (SCEA can't realize this and keeps publishing more). Actually, western games that aren't sports titles usually sell a lot less in comparison, the audiences seem slightly different.

"Much less" isn't fair: they sell well on the system.

I think Sony has made such a profound effort to capture this market precisely because they could see that it was the next big genre for Western "hardcore" gamers, and they didn't want to lose it.

But frankly, by the time SCEA got there, it was already too late. The kings of the genre had already been crowned, and dethroning them would take a miracle. They threw as much money at the problem as they could, but it simply didn't stick.

This is the reverse of the problem Microsoft ran in to with Forza. Despite pumping good money in to Turn 10, Gran Turismo is clearly still the dominant racing sim.

Please keep in mind that I'm not suggesting that Forza or Killzone or Resistance or PGR aren't good games. I'm suggesting that -- as a genre grows, then matures -- it becomes increasingly difficult to pull customers away from the handful of biggest titles. This is also especially clear with FF/DQ in Japan, with no other JRPG coming particularly close to their sales, despite many quality JRPG releases.

 

[Clear]

Great point, Opiate.

Brand loyalty is a powerful thing.

 

[Kusagari]

Ive seen TV ads for Chinatown wars on PSP. I dont buy the 'no advertising" thing.

There's ads for it on t.v.? I've seen absolutely zero. I just see the Gay Tony ad a million times.

 

[Otheradam]

I think PS3 owners were buying Uncharted and Demon's Souls. I know I was. But I'm also the type of person who buys most of his games on 360 unless they are PS3 exclusive or have something special to the PS3 version.

 

[DMeisterJ]

If you sum the 360 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~915k
If you sum PS3 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~900k.

So did the PS3 version of Borderlands sell poorly for mystical reasons, or were the PS3 owners just buying other games?

Not surprising. There is a finite amount of dollars to be spent no matter what system you own, and exclusives are higher priority than multi-plat. So gamers will expend all their money on the high-rated exclusives then the multi-plat games.

That's my theory though.

 

[Grecco]

There's ads for it on t.v.? I've seen absolutely zero. I just see the Gay Tony ad a million times.

Funny enough i havent seen a Gay tony add. I have seen ads for the Liberty city stories pack which is bizarre.

 

[expy]

I think PS3 owners were buying Uncharted and Demon's Souls. I know I was. But I'm also the type of person who buys most of his games on 360 unless they are PS3 exclusive or have something special to the PS3 version.

This. Both great games and time hoggers.

 

[Omar Ismail]

If you sum the 360 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~915k
If you sum PS3 exclusives + Borderlands you get ~900k.

So did the PS3 version of Borderlands sell poorly for mystical reasons, or were the PS3 owners just buying other games?

Is this total from the top 20? or for ALL units sold in October. If it's for just the top 20 then... ya. There's absolutely nothing you can draw from these numbers. It's like trying to tell what the color of the fish's crap is that's sticking to the bottom of an iceberg by look at the tip.