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NPD Sales Results for August 2014 [Up4: PS4 #1, XB1 last week sales 2x last Jul week]

Freeman

Banned
People bought Killzone to play on their PS4s (mainly because of delays for other stuff and pretty graphics), not the other way around. Killzone is too mediocre to ever be a system seller franchise.
The marketing budget for Killzone is too mediocre to ever make it a system seller. Lets not get things mixed up.

Didn't know the Destiny MC was so low. I do know that Destiny kicks the shit out of Killzone SF in every single way possible aside from visuals, so metacritic once again proves to be a useless website.

Though you can't seriously tell me Killzone SF would have received the same sales and reviews if it weren't a launch title. We were desperate to play something on our shiny new boxes.
If it wasn't a launch title it would likely be a better game. A game that is releasing one year after the console has hit the market has to be held to be held at higher standards.
 
Terry did you have a Sega Dreamcast comp graph too?I'm going to guestimaspeculate we're still somewhat in the afterglow of MK8. So we'll see weekly sales rates decline further until Smash which I forget the release date for. Then it depends on both how much of a holiday boost + Smash can do.
I expect marginally higher numbers for both Nov and Dec than last year. I only think they're going to net an extra 150-200k units between the two months over last year. Still going to be under some of GCN's lowest Holidays.
 

AniHawk

Member
Nintendo really needs to get the price of Wii U lowered somehow. It's going to be super awkward when the PS4 and Wii U are the same price.

if the ps4 is $300 before it's 2 years old i will be (pleasantly) surprised.

a price drop might be coming for the wii u next year. maybe they can stave it off with a super smash bros./amiibos bundle at some point. really though, i think while growing the userbase is normally a good thing, not losing more money might be key here.
 
if the ps4 is $300 before it's 2 years old i will be (pleasantly) surprised.

a price drop might be coming for the wii u next year. maybe they can stave it off with a super smash bros./amiibos bundle at some point. really though, i think while growing the userbase is normally a good thing, not losing more money might be key here.

Well no console has ever gone more than 2 years without a price cut other than the Wii. I fully expect PS4 to cost 299 around the time UC4 comes out. (Xbone probably too in time for Halo 5)

Nintendo should start thinking about unbundling the Gamepad.
 
Hmm Nintendo's in a awkward place with the Wii U I imagine, I would have to assume that poor sales of that magnitude at least partially disrupt economies of scales for such devices. Furthermore I'm not entirely convinced that the cost of producing gamepads will ever become significantly cheaper much like I wouldn't think the Kinect 2.0 due to its proprietary design would ever become significantly cheaper unless either company was able to produce it in such large quantities as to allow for savings from increased economies of scale.

I'm not necessarily advocating the removal of the gamepad from the Wii U but I really wonder if the Wii U will ever get to $200. I could see $250 at some point though

Despite what some people say, I think Wii u can still turn things around in the u.s.

What would "turning it around even mean"? Selling as much as the gamecube in the US?
 

jwhit28

Member
I don't really understand what Nintendo is doing with amiibo. I get that they want them to work with multiple games, but I think a game that requires them (a Skylanders knockoff) is needed too. They don't seem very important to Smash Bros and I don't see a way they can have a big impact on MK8.
 

Kayant

Member
Does anyone think we will get full PR from MS doing "momentum" season even if they lose? It's been quite a while, about 6 or so months iirc.
 

AniHawk

Member
Well no console has ever gone more than 2 years without a price cut other than the Wii. I fully expect PS4 to cost 299 around the time UC4 comes out. (Xbone probably too in time for Halo 5)

Nintendo should start thinking about unbundling the Gamepad.

really depends when the next system is planned for release. if it's 2016, then it probably doesn't make any sense in trying to expand the userbase for what will be only for a small selection of games. if it's 2017 or 2018 or some shit, then they would probably need to consider making it as affordable for themselves and customers as possible to drive adoption of software in that time.

the rumor is that there are 12 million gamepads that have been manufactured. if 2015 matches 2014 in hardware shipments, nintendo will have finally moved through all of that inventory and would have to come up with a way to either unbundle the gamepad for 2016 or just manufacture more. if they unbundle the gamepad, they might sell the nongamepad system with the same thing old 3ds systems will need to read in amiibos. plus there's associated costs with fixing certain games to not require the gamepad. might not be worth it honestly. but again, it depends on their time frame of things.
 
As long as the gamepad remains, Nintendo is stuck in a PS360 like scenario where they can't drop the price much.

I already made the hardware joke earlier
 
Does anyone think we will get full PR from MS doing "momentum" season even if they lose? It's been quite a while, about 6 or so months iirc.

I would be truly surprised if we don't get at least a paragraph of PR from MS in November with Halo MCC and COD:AW

Not sure if we'll get more than a quip in December
 

Welfare

Member
I've been wondering guys, how much sales has Metro Redux got?
Anecdotal, but probably not much. My Gamestop only got a little supply of them (less than 5), and the guy told me that the 3 stores around us got very little as well.

I was just a consumer trying to get the game launch day, and the guy behind the counter told me that. Just incase someone thinks I have numbers.
 
Well no console has ever gone more than 2 years without a price cut other than the Wii. I fully expect PS4 to cost 299 around the time UC4 comes out. (Xbone probably too in time for Halo 5)

Nintendo should start thinking about unbundling the Gamepad.

Pretty sure the PS3 and the 360 sat at $ 300 for 4 years (August 2009-2013)
 

jay

Member
I don't really understand what Nintendo is doing with amiibo. I get that they want them to work with multiple games, but I think a game that requires them (a Skylanders knockoff) is needed too. They don't seem very important to Smash Bros and I don't see a way they can have a big impact on MK8.

Not designing specific software to really make use of their new hardware ideas is Nintendo's strength.
 
there's associated costs with fixing certain games to not require the gamepad
They'd have to rework UX stuff probably, but for those games, they could probably simply slap a label on the box that says "Requires Wii U GamePad."

As for price drops for the other systems, I think it's entirely plausible we see a PS4 price drop by next holiday. The rate at which its selling has meant they're already profitable from hardware (although that may be overall due to regional price differences), they're also benefiting from advancements in memory size iirc. They'd be thinking about reduction in future costs as well, due to increased hardware adoption. Increased revenue from games, services, DLC.

I don't know whether Microsoft are benefiting in the same way though.

I suppose they could try and promote value through bundling software, but I think that typically is less effective than actual price cuts.

So we could end up in a scenario where the Wii U and PS4 are the same price... :/
 

donny2112

Member
I think a game that requires them (a Skylanders knockoff) is needed too.

Would imagine such an Amiibo-needed game would be eShop only. May even be episodic like NES Remix/Wii Sports U. In that case, they could do a retail release later, as for their big mainstream games, Nintendo usually caters to those who shop in retail stores.
 

DBT85

Member
What a generalization that is. I personally never thought it would be interesting perhaps other than the Titanfall month and I still thought that was iffy.

I think many were misguided in the assessment that every month will be interesting. The truth is the PS4 is a more powerful console than the XB1 and so far nearly every notable game on current gen has been multiplatform. Those games can be played in a "superior" fashion on PS4 usually. Why would the XB1 magically outsell the PS4 when there hasn't been a game in months on it that hasn't played better on the more popular system?

November easily has the most reason/factors since the console has been out. I haven't made my decision on what will occur in that month, but comparing it to any other month is silly.

But hey I'm sure you'll come up with a witty response about how this is just another thing on the checklist, right?

Really? I and others thought there were going to be several interesting months in the last 10 what with the last gen being so MS dominated in the NPD area and Titanfall and so on, we didn't know how a multitude of things were going to change things. Not every month maybe, but several times. I don't think I ever suspected the Xbone would outsell the PS4, but I thought it would be closer a few times than it's transpired to be.

November will be big for both with Black friday, GTA5, AssCreed, COD, LBP, Halo all coming out (assuming they still all do of course) and I don't know if Sony have the same marketing deal for GTA5 as they had on PS3 or not which will make a difference.

Personally the "interesting" went from "can the Xbone sell more this month" to "how will MS spin the story this month".

something something chalkboard?
 

Thorgal

Member
I might as well ask this here :

Is it remotely possible that by the end of it's life PS4 could cost as Little as 99$ ala PS2 ?
 
I'm curious, how much of a bump do you guys think the Xbox One will get from Destiny+all those deals everywhere (PS4 will kill it, but I'm talking about absolute numbers here).
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
So given BF4 finally appeared back in the top 10, and interestingly lead on last gen, I headed over to BF4stats and noticed they added a peak player count in last 24 hours feature.

This revealed a couple of interesting things.

1.) While the PS4 beating the Xbox One is not surprising, the PS3 notably topping the Xbox 360 suggests the series has a stronger userbase in Europe. Given EA's strength in Europe, this may not be shocking.
2.) The last gen versions are decidedly resilient in terms of active player count/engagement. If people were wondering why last-gen versions still exist, this is a good reason, as the people still playing the game are quite likely the ones also buying DLC.
3.) The timed DLC exclusives don't seem to be having much success in tilting the series toward Xbox. All three other platforms are notably stronger.

bf4mrxwx.png
 
So given BF4 finally appeared back in the top 10, and interestingly lead on last gen, I headed over to BF4stats and noticed they added a peak player count in last 24 hours feature.

This revealed a couple of interesting things.

1.) While the PS4 beating the Xbox One is not surprising, the PS3 notably topping the Xbox 360 suggests the series has a stronger userbase in Europe. Given EA's strength in Europe, this may not be shocking.
2.) The last gen versions are decidedly resilient in terms of active player count/engagement. If people were wondering why last-gen versions still exist, this is a good reason, as the people still playing the game are quite likely the ones also buying DLC.
3.) The timed DLC exclusives don't seem to be having much success in tilting the series toward Xbox. All three other platforms are notably stronger.

bf4mrxwx.png

I agree with this assessment, however I don't think that it's as stronger on PS as it would seem. The actual amount of people currently playing may be more, but that doesn't mean that more bought the PS3 version. The difference between the 360/PS3 is that the 360's userbase is much more spread out in the multiplayer games they are playing than the PS3.

Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo Reach, Titanfall, Forza series and the Gears games still have very strong multiplayer communities. There's also games like CoD which are more popular on 360 than PS3, but they're popular on both so I'll leave it there. Many who bought BF4 on 360 are probably just playing another game.

The PS franchises are generally geared towards more single player experiences so most users probably end up choosing between CoD/BF other than the The Last of Us at this point. Yes I'm sure there are some playing Killzone or Resistance, but they're no where as large as the above communities.

Also, if I'm not mistaken the exclusive Xbox content started with BF4 and before that it had on exclusive content on PS3 so it shouldn't be the same as a CoD in that respect at least not yet.

However, I agree that it does appear to be pretty popular in Europe although not necessarily most popular. Do we have any WW numbers for BF4 on 360/PS3? I really doubt that it sold better on PS3 although the numbers may be close. I think it's more the case that the 360 users are more spread out and playing other non-CoD/BF games due to more multiplayer centric exclusives.

As you stated for PS4/XB1 though, it's to be expected.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
I agree with this assessment, however I don't think that it's as stronger on PS as it would seem. The actual amount of people currently playing may be more, but that doesn't mean that more bought the PS3 version. The difference between the 360/PS3 is that the 360's userbase is much more spread out in the multiplayer games they are playing than the PS3.

Citation needed. Do we have any hard facts showing that the PS3 crowd is less spread out? There are planty of games on PS3 that has multiplayer, some exclusive to the console.
 
I love. Love. Love watch dogs. I never paid attention to any of the hype around it 2 years ago up until now. So I find it to be fantastic.
And the fact that it's from ubi soft we Can count on it every other year probably.

I just hope far cry 4 sells a truck load too so that it can continue showing up regularly as well.
 
So given BF4 finally appeared back in the top 10, and interestingly lead on last gen, I headed over to BF4stats and noticed they added a peak player count in last 24 hours feature.

You should update the OP to reflect Microsoft's updated PR statement:

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/a...-one-august-npd-sales-doubled-last-week-month

"Microsoft has clarified, stating that the doubling of Xbox One sales during August were for 'the last week of the month after Madden launched.' Basically, sales for the last week were a little less than twice that of the month prior, not the entire month’s sales."

So something like this:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x from July 6th - July 12th
August 10th - August 16th: 1x from July 13th - July 19th
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x from July 20th - July 26th
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x from July 27th - August 2nd

But they were apparently referencing hardware sales in their original post, not software revenue.

However, I have no doubt that Xbox One software revenue doubled in July as well.
 
Really? I and others thought there were going to be several interesting months in the last 10 what with the last gen being so MS dominated in the NPD area and Titanfall and so on, we didn't know how a multitude of things were going to change things. Not every month maybe, but several times. I don't think I ever suspected the Xbone would outsell the PS4, but I thought it would be closer a few times than it's transpired to be.

November will be big for both with Black friday, GTA5, AssCreed, COD, LBP, Halo all coming out (assuming they still all do of course) and I don't know if Sony have the same marketing deal for GTA5 as they had on PS3 or not which will make a difference.

Personally the "interesting" went from "can the Xbone sell more this month" to "how will MS spin the story this month".

something something chalkboard?

Well it seems that we agree on November then. There are many factors that will have to play out before we determine that month. I just have one thing to ask you though, other than the Titanfall month which was still unlikely due to an influx of new PS4 owners because of Infamous Second Som, what made you believe that the XB1 would outsell or be very near to the PS4 in sales? What notable games came out for the XB1 that would of swayed sales in its favor since Titanfall?

I don't want to hear about the 360's NA dominance. They are two different systems and we all know about the backlash it has received since release so of course that would be nullified until a reason to purchase the system came along.
 
Citation needed. Do we have any hard facts showing that the PS3 crowd is less spread out? There are planty of games on PS3 that has multiplayer, some exclusive to the console.

Are you really trying to suggest that there are as many playing the PS3 exclusives as people playing the 360's ones? The 360 multiplayer games are known for being played a long time, while the PS3's are generally not other than TLOU. Hell, even on PS4 Killzone's multiplayer has already died off. People joke on here all the time about how quickly Killzone/Resistance multiplayer died off. Are you trying to make it seem like there are as much people playing these games on PS3 as there are for the exclusive games on 360?

We both know that many of these games combined still probably wouldn't equal a single Halo game's current player base. It's impossible for that to be the case because the multiplayer centric games on PS3 have not sold anywhere near the ones on 360. The only notable one that they are likely playing is TLOU.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I agree with this assessment, however I don't think that it's as stronger on PS as it would seem. The actual amount of people currently playing may be more, but that doesn't mean that more bought the PS3 version. The difference between the 360/PS3 is that the 360's userbase is much more spread out in the multiplayer games they are playing than the PS3.

Halo 3, Halo 4, Halo Reach, Titanfall, Forza series and the Gears games still have very strong multiplayer communities. There's also games like CoD which are more popular on 360 than PS3, but they're popular on both so I'll leave it there. Many who bought BF4 on 360 are probably just playing another game.

The PS franchises are generally geared towards more single player experiences so most users probably end up choosing between CoD/BF other than the The Last of Us at this point. Yes I'm sure there are some playing Killzone or Resistance, but they're no where as large as the above communities.

Also, if I'm not mistaken the exclusive Xbox content started with BF4 and before that it had on exclusive content on PS3 so it shouldn't be the same as a CoD in that respect at least not yet.

However, I agree that it does appear to be pretty popular in Europe although not necessarily most popular. Do we have any WW numbers for BF4 on 360/PS3? I really doubt that it sold better on PS3 although the numbers may be close. I think it's more the case that the 360 users are more spread out and playing other non-CoD/BF games due to more multiplayer centric exclusives.

As you stated for PS4/XB1 though, it's to be expected.

This is very true. Battlefield has a lot more competition on Xbox.

You should update the OP to reflect Microsoft's updated PR statement:

http://www.craveonline.com/gaming/a...-one-august-npd-sales-doubled-last-week-month

"Microsoft has clarified, stating that the doubling of Xbox One sales during August were for 'the last week of the month after Madden launched.' Basically, sales for the last week were a little less than twice that of the month prior, not the entire month’s sales."

So something like this:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x
August 10th - August 16th: 1x
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x

But they were apparently referencing hardware sales in their original post, not software revenue.

However, I have no doubt that Xbox One software revenue doubled in July as well.

Will do.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Battlefield was slightly down from BF3 which shipped over 17 million copies.

I'd guess it's probably around 14-15 million unless it really picked up with next-gen adoption later.
 

Saty

Member
The BF data can still be accurate. They mention it only being people who have at least 1 MP match. So if the data is sound you can look at it as confirming that a lot of people still only buy these games for the campaign.
 

SapientWolf

Trucker Sexologist
This is obviously not accurate at all. There is simply no way that there has only been 7 million people total that have played BF4. I actually think that there might be 7 million buyers solely on 360 and perhaps PS3 as well. Battlefield is more popular than Elder Scrolls and even Skyrim sold 20 million+. This has to be a more recent figure.
There's some obscene percentage of players that never play CoD online, and I imagine that it holds for BF4 as well. Even though I don't want to imagine someone paying $60 for BF4's SP campaign.
 
Well no console has ever gone more than 2 years without a price cut other than the Wii. I fully expect PS4 to cost 299 around the time UC4 comes out. (Xbone probably too in time for Halo 5)

Nintendo should start thinking about unbundling the Gamepad.

No way that will happen, no way possible.

I expect the X1 to drop to $349 after the holidays, and maybe bundle some games in the fall. I don't expect the PS4's price to drop until either the fall, or maybe even spring 2016.

Considering how many good (hopefully good) exclusives the PS4 has coming next year, I wouldn't be surprised if Sony could get away with leaving it at $399, and just bundling free games like MS has been doing this year.
 
There's some obscene percentage of players that never play CoD online, and I imagine that it holds for BF4 as well. Even though I don't want to imagine someone paying $60 for BF4's SP campaign.

The BF data can still be accurate. They mention it only being people who have at least 1 MP match. So if the data is sound you can look at it as confirming that a lot of people still only buy these games for the campaign.

This would seem to be the case if the numbers do hold any merit. There might possibly be more players on PS3 than 360 playing multiplayer due to the XBLG restriction if this is true as well. I still have a hard time believing that only 7 million people have played it online though.

However, I agree BF4 single player was terrible. I couldn't stomach any more after just playing the first two levels. CoD campaigns aren't great, but they are at least much more enjoyable than Battlefield's.

That would be pretty high for Battlefield unless console online connection rates have tanked: http://kotaku.com/5883758/to-my-fellow-almost-offline-gamers-we-are-the-20

Very interesting
 
One more thing, Nirolak.

Microsoft's original PR statement was in relation to July's sales. They said:


"Xbox One sales are on a positive trajectory, nearly doubling sales in August in the U.S. compared to July due in part to strong demand for the Xbox One Madden NFL 15’bundle."



They then clarified their relative MOM August sales to only have "doubled" since the last week of July.


So when I said this:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x
August 10th - August 16th: 1x
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x



I meant:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x from July 6th - July 12th
August 10th - August 16th: 1x from July 13th - July 19th
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x from July 20th - July 26th
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x from July 27th - August 2nd

...because they're comparing equivalent weeks in the retail calendar.


So it wouldn't be "In the final week of August, Xbox One sales doubled the previous week" but rather "In the final week of August, Xbox One sales doubled compared to the equivalent week in July 2014."

I'm really sorry for the confusion.
 

AniHawk

Member
Not a chance in hell. The console is dead.

its future is dim, but it's not dead yet. the console's seeing year over year growth and should be able to sell at least sell two million more units than it has right now, and maybe even double its current sales. it's a lot better than other failed systems of the past.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
One more thing, Nirolak.

Microsoft's original PR statement was in relation to July's sales. They said:


"Xbox One sales are on a positive trajectory, nearly doubling sales in August in the U.S. compared to July due in part to strong demand for the Xbox One Madden NFL 15’bundle."



They then clarified their relative MOM August sales to only have "doubled" since the last week of July.


So when I said this:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x
August 10th - August 16th: 1x
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x



I meant:

August 3rd - August 9th: 1x from July 6th - July 12th
August 10th - August 16th: 1x from July 13th - July 19th
August 17th - August 23rd: 1x from July 20th - July 26th
August 24th - August 30th: Little less than 2x from July 27th - August 2nd

...because they're comparing equivalent weeks in the retail calendar.


So it wouldn't be "In the final week of August, Xbox One sales doubled the previous week" but rather "In the final week of August, Xbox One sales doubled compared to July 2014."

I'm really sorry for the confusion.
My bad.
 
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