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NPD Sales Results for October 2014 [Up3: All of Nintendo's 3DS million sellers]

leobebes

Banned
Sony stopped pouring money into vanity projects. That's why there has been consolidation at WWS and a general de-risking of the portfolio. Can't say I blamed them. Market showed last gen no one gives a shit. Midtier gaming is pretty much toast, and Yoshida has said before you're either AAA or you're indie.

I think you nailed it. This is a trend I've seen across many forms of media consumption. I've seen it with books, film, music, and now games. Despite there being more information at our fingertips than ever before, consumers seem to be tuning out rather than tuning in, and refusing nuance and exceptionalism as criteria for their purchases.

Even though I'm enthralled with the direction the Xbox One has taken of late (except the MCC fiasco, of course), I feel it will never prove a worthy challenger, in terms of sales, for the PS4 because the general consumer just doesn't have the time nor wants to put forth the effort in regards to the "if's", "ands", or "buts".

In this day and age of decreased attention spans and a distressed and time crunched middle class, first impressions ARE EVERYTHING.
 
Sounds good!


So when do you guys think the first PS4 price cut will be and how much do you think they'll drop it to?

Will they leave it until like late next year then do a huge $100 drop or do you foresee a $50 coming soon?

I think dropping it $100 is the far more preferred route to go with price drops as you can be more efficient with your marketing instead of two separate $50 drops.

As per when? Maybe sometime next year? E3? I have no idea
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Because people pissed off Aqua to the point of her banning herself for a while. People weren't grateful for the numbers she shared.

Ya know though, it's not a game.
Obviously I'm not one to be giving advice with this, but this is sensitive, corporate owned info. It's not a toy. Some people choose to share information for discussion or whatever, and to me that's obviously fine, but some people seem to take actual pleasure and power from it. It's a line, that's all.
 

StormKing

Member
Sorry I don't think you understand fully what you mean by saying "current market" - I think you might mean the market environment, but in terms of market both Nintendo and S/M are selling too, it's largely different. They have overlap - imagine a ven diagram if you will - but no they "directly competing."

Nintendo targets MF 5 to 90 with their products, with their largest segment being kids like 7-13 and families. That's their largest demo and they overlap with m18-34, which is Sony and MS prime demo. So if you mean in that segment yes S/M have the majority market share and are "crushing" Nintendo for those dollars, but Nintendo still has the largest share in the rest of their market segmentation. It's barely a contest for the young side. All those dollars in the console segment are pretty much theirs.

There are lots of other companies and products Nintendo is competing against there,but your conception of the situation and recommendation for them to "give up" their hardware for M/S is ignoring their ownership of a lot of audience. Why would they cede that?

They need to refocus and remonetize what they have, not just give it to someone else haha

I had confidence that they owned that segment in the Wii/DS era. Now with games like Minecraft not being available on Nintendo hardware, I'm not so sure. In addition, Skylanders Trap Team sold best on 360.

Futhermore, I'm not sure that the market which you are referring to is enough to support a home console on their own. Especially when mobile gaming has vastly eroded it. Nintendo needs games like GTA, COD, BF, Madden etc. on their home console. Why should a parent buy a home console that can only play Nintendo games vs a home console that play every other game in the market.

I don't see a way for Nintendo to get those games on their system without competing directly with Microsoft and Sony. Not doing so will result in a low install base which in turn directly harms their ability to sell their first party software as well.
 

vpance

Member
Sony stopped pouring money into vanity projects. That's why there has been consolidation at WWS and a general de-risking of the portfolio. Can't say I blamed them. Market showed last gen no one gives a shit. Midtier gaming is pretty much toast, and Yoshida has said before you're either AAA or you're indie.

IMO Sony still makes games that are essentially mid tier, but AAA in presentation, like Infamous. I'd like to see them all team up to make bigger more ambitious games, TBH.
 

Tuck

Member
Sure it is. 1.2M copies shipped after a year of sales worldwide. That's pretty much the same range as Fire Emblem.

I think by Nintendo standards it's on the niche side. It's a largely unknown IP, just this side of Ice Climbers in terms of recognizability, and it came boxed with a peripheral. I don't know how it sold, though.

Sales figures for what basically amounts to a new IP aren't really evidence for a product being niche. Niche has to do with the targetted audience. A niche title would only appeal to a small audience. But uprising was a pretty high production value game in a fairly standard genre, though they fiddled with the gameplay a bit.
 

Effect

Member
Because people pissed off Aqua to the point of her banning herself for a while. People weren't grateful for the numbers she shared.

That really sucks. She didn't have to help the way she did and to get crap back for it is unacceptable. Damn ingrates.
 

e-gamer

Member
Whut.

Two years is like the minimum amount of time it takes to get a polished AAA title released nowadays. Even more if a new IP.

But I don't consider SO a polished AAA title. It's good, but it's not a masterpiece IMHO.

And here it is:

"Insomniac Games’ CEO and Founder, Ted Price revealed that the studio’s upcoming shooter, Sunset Overdrive, is being developed exclusively for the Xbox One due to the “quicker production cycles” the console offers."

http://www.vg247.com/2013/06/17/sun...e-exclusivity-due-to-quick-production-cycles/

Beside that, you can't count with 100 or 150 people working all the time. All development has it's cycle and iterations like project, design, programming, tests...
 
Yeah, and TLOU took 150-170 people. ( on top of 2 years of preproduction by a smaller team)

Games development isn't becoming more efficient on the AAA front. We're hearing developer count rise, not go down[/B].

That is true but some teams\companies still know how to mange resources better than others.
I think Insomniac Games like that .
For eg Infamous SS took only 120 people to make and that was at the final stage of the game.
 

SURGEdude

Member
Totally, especially when the Evil Within made it nicely. I don't think I heard any survival horror fans say it was better than Alien Isolation

Agreed. But TEW was a more wide-appealing game. But yeah, not sure how I feel about that being a horror fan and all.
 

NateDrake

Member
Ya know though, it's not a game.
Obviously I'm not one to be giving advice with this, but this is sensitive, corporate owned info. It's not a toy. Some people choose to share information for discussion or whatever, and to me that's obviously fine, but some people seem to take actual pleasure and power from it. It's a line, that's all.

I think some viewed it as though insiders dangled information in front of people for laughs. That wasn't the case here and any information shared was for discussion sake. It was a mess last month & really isn't worth revisiting.
 

C.Dark.DN

Banned
There were some hints they might be considering this between Miyamoto's software statements and an even older statement from Iwata about increasing the number of SKUs (hardware configurations), but essentially having them share a foundational platform base.

Now, this could mean common APIs that make porting between platforms easier, or it could mean they all use basically the same hardware a la iOS devices (especially last year, where the iPhone 5S, iPad Air, and iPad Mini 2 all used the same processor) and run all the same software despite being different form factors and products you can buy.

You can essentially sell people on the hardware configuration they like the most (or multiple if they want a home and portable version) and then just sell them games that work on any of the devices so you effectively only have to support one platform.
Unified Nintendo systems make more sense to me than a box that competes with Sony and MS on power level. I don't think they'll ever try to match the current AAA budgets, and there's so many good 3DS games that would be great in native 1080p on TV. We're seeing it in action right now with Monster Hunter and Smash. The gamepad would suddenly have it's usefulness skyrocket if every 3DS game worked through the Wii U.

They'd lose out on third party again, or would they? In the past 3rd party on lower powered hardware meant dumbed down, limited, and ugly cash grabs. Blizzard, MOBA, and indie devs proving that small development teams can pump out high quality money making games that aren't pushing hardware. Other devs should strive to do it as well. A COD game that looked like army men toys would be amazing.
 

CLEEK

Member
Wat!

You mean for years the numbers were down to the work of a poster and not the industry revealing the numbers itself?!

Yes. NPD don't want the number to be made public. It's their business to sell them, after all.

That's why Creamsugar and Aqua used to obfuscate the numbers somewhat, with graphs and shit. If they just dumped the NPD report, GAF would get a call from NPD's lawyers. NPD have been cracking down on sites/individuals in recent months, which is part of the reason Aqua left.
 

kswiston

Member
Sales figures for what basically amounts to a new IP aren't really evidence for a product being niche. Niche has to do with the targetted audience. A niche title would only appeal to a small audience. But uprising was a pretty high production value game in a fairly standard genre, though they fiddled with the gameplay a bit.

I am arguing that Kid Icarus Uprising does appeal to a small audience. It was an early 3DS game that got a lot of hype (for a handheld game) from enthusiast press and a decent amount of advertising (again for a handheld game) from Nintendo. I think it did about as well as it was going to do, similar to Fire Emblem Awakening. There aren't 5M people out there who are interested in the genres that Kid Icarus Uprising hybridized.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I had confidence that they owned that segment in the Wii/DS era. Now with games like Minecraft not being available on Nintendo hardware, I'm not so sure. In addition, Skylanders Trap Team sold best on 360.

Futhermore, I'm not sure that the market which you are referring to is enough to support a home console on their own. Especially when mobile gaming has vastly eroded it. Nintendo needs games like GTA, COD, BF, Madden etc. on their home console. Why should a parent buy a home console that can only play Nintendo games vs a home console that play every other game in the market.

I don't see a way for Nintendo to get those games on their system without competing directly with Microsoft and Sony. Not doing so will result in a low install base which in turn directly harms their ability to sell their first party software as well.

I don't disagree with what you're saying.
I simply offer a different perspective... They wholly own a huge portfolio of IP that is still immensely recognizable. They have the largest share of a lucrative market. One platform launch that isn't succesful does not mean surrendering that market is a good strategy. You see it in every tech field, Sony lost Betamax so did that mean the gave up the home entertainment market? Refocus, reinvest innovate and disrupt.

We as gamers think linearly in terms of hardware so you'd think "well, they better bust out a more powerful box and get COD to compete cause that's what people buy!" Just disregards what Nintendo has to play with and what their philosophy is. They want that content yes but they don't make that content themselves. I do not think "getting out or challenging head on" to try and compete with a "more lucratice" M18-34 segment that bigger players are killing themselves over now is the right answer, and they haven't publically indicated they have either.

Maybe it is a unified, cheaper alternative between hardware systems I.e combining a console and a handheld with crossbuy being a major hook that you can exclusively play Nintendo Ip at home and on the go, with one purcahse and one save file that follows you, at a low cost is the answer? I don't know yet, but I think they'd try and innovate and get their base hooked again and expand from ther in a few years before trying to be something they aren't
 

sense

Member
is cream going to save the day?

it was pointed out that he/she was joking with regards to him/her losing the source.
 

TomShoe

Banned
As much as I wanted the PSTV to succeed, the thing is ass.

- Not compatible with most games
- No Netflix (Are you kidding?)
- Still requires proprietary memory
- Can't even stream 1080p!

The thing is a good concept, just bad follow-up.

is cream going to save the day?

it was pointed out that he/she was joking with regards to him/her losing the source.

When was this?
 

e-gamer

Member
Yes. NPD don't want the number to be made public. It's their business to sell them, after all.

That's why Creamsugar and Aqua used to obfuscate the numbers somewhat, with graphs and shit. If they just dumped the NPD report, GAF would get a call from NPD's lawyers. NPD have been cracking down on sites/individuals in recent months, which is part of the reason Aqua left.

So the fun is completely over...

Golden years :(
 

NervousXtian

Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Shortly before BLOODBORNE is my guess.
So mid-march. Around $50.

I think you really overestimate the mass appeal of a game like Bloodborne. Dark Souls 1 & 2 did less than 3 million or so a piece? That's on both systems.. considering Last of Us did something like 7 million?

Bloodborne probably will push less than 2 million for sure. I know it's a GAF darling, but I'm not sure it's a system seller.
 

Mikey Jr.

Member
Yeah, without cream or aqua, this thread is a ghost town.

Wouldn't be surprised if we don't find out PS4/Xbox numbers for another week....

Fuck, ANY numbers I should say.
 

kswiston

Member
Nah, we got a third one whenever Zelda comes out. Then it's dead :p.

Zelda is so far out that it won't do shit for hardware sales. Wii U's install base will be plenty big enough in late 2015 to accommodate the 3-4M units a Zelda title ships in its lifetime.
 

BPoole

Member
Glad to see Drive Club flopping so hard. Games like that that are still broken a month past release don't deserve any of the sales they get
 

TomShoe

Banned
This really should be a ban. You made no point, offered nothing but flippantness, and were rude and condescending all at one. Achievement unlocked?

It's a joke. Don't pretend that horrible posts and meltdowns come out of NPD threads, even moreso now that our two sources of hard numbers are toast.
 
Unified Nintendo systems make more sense to me than a box that competes with Sony and MS on power level. I don't think they'll ever try to match the current AAA budgets, and there's so many good 3DS games that would be great in native 1080p on TV. We're seeing it in action right now with Monster Hunter and Smash. The gamepad would suddenly have it's usefulness skyrocket if every 3DS game worked through the Wii U.

They'd lose out on third party again, or would they? In the past 3rd party on lower powered hardware meant dumbed down, limited, and ugly cash grabs. Blizzard, MOBA, and indie devs proving that small development teams can pump out high quality money making games that aren't pushing hardware. Other devs should strive to do it as well. A COD game that looked like army men toys would be amazing.

Why would they develop those games for Nintendo's set top box instead of PC and mobile like they're doing right now? Nintendo has to come up with a good answer to that question, or their 3rd party woes will continue.

And there were Army Men games released for XBLA, they did quite well.
 
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