Support NeoGAF

DriftingSpirit · Jan 3, 2017

Welfare said:
For the past two years the gap between the PS4/XB1 has shrunk in December compared to November.

2014
November Gap: 400K
December Gap: 232K

2015
November Gap: 243K
December Gap: 206K

2016
November Gap: 100K

PS4 Pro is still a factor in December as it adds sales but the gap is going to shrink again in December. Something like a 50K PS4 win in December is still a question as you would have to guess how much of a non factor Pro will be outside of the holidays. Right now the trend is XB1 > PS4 > Pro.

I'm not sure I can follow with that.

If we assume the Pro did anywhere between 200K-400K for November sales, that would be a ~100K-300K gap between X1S and PS4 Slim. Even if we allow room for the usual shrinking gap in December, the X1S should still take December comfortably. This is following your notion of the X1S being the more desirable product anyway.

A PS4 win would, for me, suggest what occurred with the X1S during the latter half of last year was another stretch of X1S momentum rather than an overall swing of the pendulum from PS4 to X1 in US.

allan-bh · Jan 3, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
Undoubtedly some people will buy PS4s for Horizon. But even if it hits a crazy level of quality and mass appeal on the level of TLOU it's unlikely new IP will increase hardware sales greatly.

I agree. Horizon probably will not have much impact on HW sales. The game itself should sell well because there's a hype for it in PS4 base.

FinaruDensetsu · Jan 3, 2017

allan-bh said:
I agree. Horizon probably will not have much impact on HW sales. The game itself should sell well because there's a hype for it in PS4 base.

Yup. By and large the general public does not invest $200-300 because of an unknown quantity.

Obliterator · Jan 3, 2017

Halo Wars 2 is going to see a substantial drop from the 1st game, without a doubt. That said I really hope it finds a nice place for itself. Its a damn miracle this game even exists and was one of the games I most wanted to see happen that I thought was impossible

labaronx · Jan 3, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
I don't think the souls games even sell a mil on a single platform at launch. On top of that this is a souls-like that's new IP. That's the definition of niche.

Have you looked at their lifetime sales, pretty sure bloodborne did a million in its first month?

And this will mark the 4th souls like game in 3 years on ps4 bloodborne, dark souls 3, the game by ubisoft, 5th if you count dark souls 2 remaster.... i wouldn't consider that niche

But to get back on topic... do companies lose significant amounts of money when they bundle games

viHuGi · Jan 3, 2017

January sales are always slow, February is better.

But for December here are my predictions:

[3DS] 600K
[PS4] 1600K
[WIU] 50K
[XB1] 1500K

Darth Smurf X · Jan 3, 2017

Obliterator said:
Halo Wars 2 is going to see a substantial drop from the 1st game, without a doubt. That said I really hope it finds a nice place for itself. Its a damn miracle this game even exists and was one of the games I most wanted to see happen that I thought was impossible

As an owner and fan of the original, they lost my purchase at least. I'd buy it if I had an XBO, but... that's not happening any time soon.

Obliterator · Jan 3, 2017

Darth Smurf X said:
As an owner and fan of the original, they lost my purchase at least. I'd buy it if I had an XBO, but... that's not happening any time soon.

Yeah I don't own an Xbone anymore either. That said luckily I have a good PC so I'll be picking it up on there.

Primethius · Jan 3, 2017

labaronx said:
Have you looked at their lifetime sales, pretty sure bloodborne did a million in its first month?

And this will mark the 4th souls like game in 3 years on ps4 bloodborne, dark souls 3, the game by ubisoft, 5th if you count dark souls 2 remaster.... i wouldn't consider that niche

But to get back on topic... do companies lose significant amounts of money when they bundle games

Thats usually WW, not in the U.S. (Souls selling > 1 mil).

labaronx · Jan 3, 2017

Primethius said:
Thats usually WW, not in the U.S. (Souls selling > 1 mil).

Right i get that too, my pet peeve is the misuse or rather loose meaning of what the word niche refers too...

sirronoh · Jan 3, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
Yes I'm not saying zero consoles will be sold because of the software but my point is they are unlikely to register as anything much more than the regular fluctuations of monthly sales.

The biggest piece of software is Horizon but that's a new IP. Let's take a look at the biggest new IP in recent history, the Last of Us. In its launch month of June 2013 the PS3 was still outsold by the 360 according to NPD.

Undoubtedly some people will buy PS4s for Horizon. But even if it hits a crazy level of quality and mass appeal on the level of TLOU it's unlikely new IP will increase hardware sales greatly.

Agreed regarding smaller titles. Also agreed regarding Horizon to some extent. The thing with trying to measure system sellers for a given month is that it assumes fluctuations off the baseline in hardware sales are largely due to the most expensive/anticipated game(s) that launched in that month. I certainly think this happens as some non-PS4 owners interested in Horizon will no doubt wait until February to buy the system. But I also think people's buying habits are more varied than that.

The game that convinced me to finally buy a PS4 was Kingdom Hearts 3's reveal. Because I committed to buying the system in anticipation of that game releasing, I started buying other games in the PS4 ecosystem I might like. Since buying the system, I now have 20+ games and Kingdom Hearts 3 still doesn't have a release date. Whenever it does launch, my PS4 purchase won't register as a system mover for that month. I wonder how many months (and years) other people buy systems in advance of the 1 game that pushed them over the edge (in addition to other factors like price of course). With the holidays in particular, how many people bought a system in October, November, or December when it was cheap in anticipation of a game they really want to buy this spring?

This is very hard to know and if I could easily do it, I'm sure I'd be paid well. But my point is, I don't think increases in hardware sales just comes down to what big game is released each month. It's a factor for sure but I think buying habits are more complicated than that. That's why I'm very curious to see how the next few months play out.

allan-bh · Jan 3, 2017

Obliterator said:
Halo Wars 2 is going to see a substantial drop from the 1st game, without a doubt. That said I really hope it finds a nice place for itself. Its a damn miracle this game even exists and was one of the games I most wanted to see happen that I thought was impossible

I think sales will be poor.

Welfare · Jan 3, 2017

DriftingSpirit said:
I'm not sure I can follow with that.

If we assume the Pro did anywhere between 200K-400K for November sales, that would be a ~100K-300K gap between X1S and PS4 Slim. Even if we allow room for the usual shrinking gap in December, the X1S should still take December comfortably. This is following your notion of the X1S being the more desirable product anyway.

A PS4 win would, for me, suggest what occurred with the X1S during the latter half of last year was another stretch of X1S momentum rather than an overall swing of the pendulum from PS4 to X1 in US.

I should just power through the weekly average comparison now, but unless the Pro completely craters the PS4 can still win December, but like I said, by a much smaller result than November. Depending on how Pro performs will determine if PS4 sells more, and then how hard Pro drops post holiday will determine if PS4 can continue to outsell the XB1S. I would bet that in December we will see XB1 > PS4 > Pro, but whether or not PS4 + Pro is > or < than XB1 will have to be seen.

gtj1092 · Jan 3, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
I see a lot of people talking about the first quarter of 2017 like it'll be huge for PS4 because of some sort of torrent of software but let's call a spade a spade. There's essentially some extremely niche games coming and an untested new IP. These are unlikely to register as a blip in the big picture of driving console sales.

So X1 should win those months easily then since it has all the same big 3rd party titles as ps4 and is more desirable.

jroc74 · Jan 3, 2017

5Twist said:
I looked through the numbers and the 2016 gap is about 300K as of November, so the XBO has to outsell the PS4 by over 300K to win the year.

Ok, this might make for a more interesting prediction and result thread with this.

December really would be.....interesting.....

FinaruDensetsu · Jan 3, 2017

sirronoh said:
Agreed regarding smaller titles. Also agreed regarding Horizon to some extent. The thing with trying to measure system sellers for a given month is that it assumes fluctuations off the baseline in hardware sales are largely due to the most expensive/anticipated game(s) that launched in that month. I certainly think this happens as some non-PS4 owners interested in Horizon will no doubt wait until February to buy the system. But I also think people's buying habits are more varied than that.

The game that convinced me to finally buy a PS4 was Kingdom Hearts 3's reveal. Because I committed to buying the system in anticipation of that game releasing, I started buying other games in the PS4 ecosystem I might like. Since buying the system, I now have 20+ games and Kingdom Hearts 3 still doesn't have a release date. Whenever it does launch, my PS4 purchase won't register as a system mover for that month. I wonder how many months (and years) other people buy systems in advance of the 1 game that pushed them over the edge (in addition to other factors like price of course). With the holidays in particular, how many people bought a system in October, November, or December when it was cheap in anticipation of a game they really want to buy this spring?

This is very hard to know and if I could easily do it, I'm sure I'd be paid well. But my point is, I don't think increases in hardware sales just comes down to what big game is released each month. It's a factor for sure but I think buying habits are more complicated than that. That's why I'm very curious to see how the next few months play out.

Ah I see where you're coming from. Yeah agreed that just looking at the launch month increase isn't a fair way to look at it because people do buy hardware in anticipation and the decision to buy hardware is based on multiple factors and not just one game.

I admit I was oversimplifying it. I guess I'm comparing it to big known quantities like the Pokemons and Halos of the world where we do see a noticeable increase in console sales in conjunction with the game's launch. While the PS4 games in Q1 2017 will have an effect on sales, no doubt, they won't have anywhere near the effect of a huge AAA established IP.

Chaostar · Jan 3, 2017

jroc74 said:
Ok, this might make for a more interesting prediction and result thread with this.

December really would be.....interesting.....

I was hoping it was closer when I asked about it just so I could add some interesting to the thread. However, it seems like even though the win could go either way, a 300k gap in Xbox favour would take a miracle/disaster.

Elandyll · Jan 3, 2017

Obviously we're in theory craft land and basing estimates/ predictions on somewhat similar situations that happened in the past, but while I have always said that imo not any 1 title is ever likely to ever move hardware with very few exceptions (like a FF7, Halo 2 or Zelda OoT level exclusive), a slew of releases (as in multiple titles) can imo decide potential buyers as in somewhat "unlocking" a certain level of "Exclusive library treshold needed to make the platform appealing".
That, combined with some 3rd party MP titles widely regarded as "linked" to the platform (like FF XV recently) can, in my opinion, absolutely make hardware move, in conjunction with the correct pricing.

If we look at the upcoming weeks, here is what we are looking at (console exclusives afaik, except where * indicating strong platform pref and marketing deal):
Hatsune Miku: Project Future Star - 1/10
Fate / Extella - 1/17
Gravity Rush 2 - 1/18
Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 - 1/24
Yakuza 0 - 1/24
Tales of Berseria - 1/24
*Resident Evil 7 - 1/24
Digimon World NO - 1/31
Nioh - 2/7
Berserk and the band of the Hawk - 2/21
Ys Origin 2/21
Horizon Zero Dawn 2/28
Nier - 3/7
Akiba's Beat - 3/14
KH 1.5+2.5 HD - 3/28
MLB the show 17 - 3/28
*Tekken7 - 3/31
Danganronpa 1-2 - 3/31
Zero Escape Nonary Games - 3/31
Persona 5 - 4/4
Dragon Quest Heroes 2 - 4/25
That's for the first 4 months of 2017, and is probably not exhaustive (also, baring delays).

By that I mean, if you are looking at the PS4 ecosystem for exclusives, but not any -1- would convince you, early 2017 will make a pretty good argument even if only for the more "known" titles (Persona5, Horizon, getting into KH, Nioh, Nier...).

Welfare · Jan 3, 2017

Hello! This wall of numbers will be comparing the weekly average of November and December. This is where comparing weekly averages is better than simple month to month because December is a 5 week month while November is only 4. I have gathered high selling software and any hardware deals for December to help show how the month might be impacted. You can go to previous prediction threads for the previous month's potential impacts.

Code:

2010

Xbox 360 November: 1.374M / 4 = 343,500
Xbox 360 December: 1.86M / 5 = 372,000

Weekly average up 8%

PS3 November: 530K / 4 = 132,500
PS3 December: 1.21M / 5 = 242,000

Weekly average up 83%

Wii November: 1.27M / 4 = 317,500
Wii December: 2.36M / 5 = 472,000

Weekly average up 49%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS3[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2011

Xbox 360 November: 1.688M / 4 = 422,000
Xbox 360 December: 1.73M / 5 = 346,000

Weekly average down 18%

PS3 November: 894K / 4 = 223,500
PS3 December: 950K / 5 = 190,000

Weekly average down 15%

Wii November: 863K / 4 = 215,750
Wii December: 1.06M / 5 = 212,000

Weekly average down 2%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS3[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2012

Xbox 360 November: 1.259M / 4 = 314,750
Xbox 360 December: 1.4M / 5 = 280,000

Weekly average down 11%

PS3 November: 762K / 4 = 190,500
PS3 December: 635K / 5 = 127,000

Weekly average down 37%

Wii November: 420K / 4 = 105,000
Wii December: 475K / 5 = 95,000

Weekly average down 10%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS3[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2013

Xbox 360 November: 647K / 4 = 161,750
Xbox 360 December: 643K / 5 = 128,600

Weekly average down 20%

PS3 November: 407K / 4 = 101,750
PS3 December: 299K / 5 = 59,800

Weekly average down 41%

Wii November: 68K / 4 = 17,000
Wii December: 150K / 5 = 30,000

Weekly average up 76%

Wii U November: 223K / 4 = 55,750
Wii U December: 481K / 5 = 96,200

Weekly average up 73%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
First full month of Xbox One launch
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS3[/u]
First full month of PS4 launch
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii U[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2014

Xbox 360 November: 306K / 4 = 76,500
Xbox 360 December: 309K / 5 = 61,800

Weekly average down 19%

Xbox One November: 1,230,500 / 4 = 307,625
Xbox One December: 1.297M / 5 = 259,400

Weekly average down 16%

PS3 November: 89K / 4 = 22,250
PS3 December: 174K / 5 = 34,800

Weekly average up 56%

PS4 November: 831K  / 4 = 207,750
PS4 December: 1.065M / 5 = 213,000

Weekly average up 3%

Wii November: 25K / 4 = 6,250
Wii December: 29K / 5 = 5,800

Weekly average down 7%

Wii U November: 240K / 4 = 60,000
Wii U December: 575K / 5 = 115,000

Weekly average up 92%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS3[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS4[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Wii U[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2015

Wii = Basically dead

Xbox 360 November: 72K / 4 = 18,000
Xbox 360 December: 139K / 5 = 27,800

Weekly average up 54%

Xbox One November: 1.296M / 4 = 324,000
Xbox One December: 1.376M / 5 = 275,200

Weekly average down 15%

PS3 November: 23K / 4 = 5,750
PS3 December: 29K / 5 = 5,800

Weekly average up 1%

PS4 November: 1.539M  / 4 = 384,750
PS4 December: 1.582M / 5 = 316,400

Weekly average down 18%

Wii U November: 240K / 4 = 60,000
Wii U December: 463K / 4 = 92,600

Weekly average up 54%

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

$50 price drop on all models [3 weeks] December 9 - December 26 

[u]PS3[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

[u]PS4[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

$50 price drop on 500GB model [2 weeks] December 6 - December 19

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 500GB Bundle $349 [3 weeks]

[u]Wii U[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

Code:

2016 November Weekly Averages

PS4: 1.1M / 4 = 275,000
Xbox One: 1M / 4 = 250,000

Code:

Notable Events in December

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

$50 price drop on all models [2 weeks] December 11 - December 24 

Final Fantasy XV

[u]PS4[/u]
Numerous Monthly Deals

$50 price drop on 500GB model [3 weeks] December 11 - December 31

Final Fantasy XV Luna Black 1TB Bundle $449 [Gamestop] [5 weeks]
Call of Duty Infinite Warfare Deluxe Edition 500GB Bundle $299 [1 week]

Final Fantasy XV

Notes:

The biggest month of the year in terms of absolute sales. However, December has fallen from November in terms of weekly average as sales concentrate more towards Black Friday in recent years. December has two massive sales days, Cyber Monday (Monday after Thanksgiving) and Super Saturday (Saturday before Christmas). After Super Saturday, holiday spending is over, so there are 4 weeks of holiday sales and 1 post holiday week.

Looking at the available data, Ill be removing 2010 averages as that was the last year where December was an actual improvement over November. There is also Wii 2013, PS3 2014, and 360 2015 that I will be removing for the following averages as those results are pretty much outliers.

Xbox
The Xbox 360 dropped by an average of 17%, with a minimum of -11% (2012) and maximum of -20% (2013).

For the Xbox One, it has only been out for two Decembers worth of data. For both, XB1 had price cut deals that ended either at the end or near the end of the month. 2014 lasted until the end of the month and saw of drop of 16%. 2015 had a $50 price drop and dropped 15%. Consistent to slightly better with how the 360 performed. This December also had a $50 drop but only lasted 2 weeks, those are the final 2 weeks of holiday spending though. The 2015 price drop had 3 holiday weeks for comparison.

Playstation
The PS3 dropped by an average 22% with an increase of 1% (2015) and maximum of -41% (2013).

PS4 in 2014 actually saw a small increase of 3%, but in 2015 had a drop of 18% despite dropping the price $50 for 2 weeks thanks to hardware bundle launches in November. PS4 in 2016 had the PS4 Pro launch in November but had a $50 price drop for 3 weeks. The last two holiday weeks and the post holiday week.

Nintendo

The Wii dropped an average of 6% with a minimum of -2% (2011) and maximum of -10% (2012).

The Wii U has actually performed amazingly (relatively) in December compared to Xbox One and PS4. It has seen an increase every year it has been out (besides launch). It has average an increase of 73%, with a minimum of 54% (2015) and maximum of 92% (2014). 2014 did have Smash Wii U launch in the final week of November so hardware would have been moving thanks to that as well.

Recap

December sees increases in total sales from November, but it seems like Wii U is the only console seeing weekly average increases as well.

The biggest December ever recorded between the 7th and 8th gen was the Wii with 3,810,000 back in 2009. Second biggest? Wii again with 2,360,000 in 2010.

slavesnyder · Jan 3, 2017

meanwhile in germany

VectorVictor · Jan 3, 2017

[3DS] 385K
[PS4] 975K
[WIU] 75K
[XB1] 1100K

Don't think WiiU sold even 100k personally since Nintendo pulled the system from store shelves. And without the Pro bump, I don't think Sony pulls it out two months in a row, especially since the $249 PS4 Slim deal was countered by various XB1S deals that, on a strict dollar-to-dollar comparison, provided more benefit for the consumer when all was said and done.

Regardless, it's been a hell of a year for video games. One of the few positives in an otherwise epic dumpster fire of a year.

RexNovis · Jan 3, 2017

One thing to keep in mind for December is that Cyber Monday was absolutely massive this year and is said to have exceeded the spending of Black Friday. Since Cyber Monday and the sales tail of the deals on days following cyber Monday all fall within the December NPD I expect that to be a fairly sizable bump this year given that total spend is said to been up 12% more than the already sizeable YoY increase most predicted.

Welfare said:
Wall O' useful data

As per usual thanks for taking the time to compile all this Welfare. Much appreciated.

FinaruDensetsu said:
The biggest piece of software is Horizon but that's a new IP. Let's take a look at the biggest new IP in recent history, the Last of Us. In its launch month of June 2013 the PS3 was still outsold by the 360 according to NPD.

The biggest new IP in recent history was Destiny and it sold a metric fuckton of PS4s. While I assume you meant new 1st party exclusive IP that's being a bit too semantic in your analysis imo.

To be clear I'm not expecting Horizon to push anywhere near as many consoles as Destiny but seeing as how well it's resonated with both the fan base and the mass market thus far and how it's an open world game and they tend to do really well I fully expect to see it result in a much larger bump in sales than was seen with TLoU.

People forget that in the lead up to release people were incredibly skeptical of TLoU as "another zombie game" and it wasn't until after the influx of fantastic reviews and WOM that the game went on to sell as well as it did hence why it had such long legs.

Compare that to Horizon where the majority of the market (myself not included as I'm incredibly skeptical of their open world design) is fairly excited and it's garnered a lot of positive WOM pre release both from the strength of its concept/art design and praise for its gameplay from various demos that were available to the public and/or the press.

So yea given all of the above and the more mass market appeal of the genre in general I'd say Horizon outsells TLoU in SW debut and also sees a significant higher attach rate and higher boost to HW sold the month of its release.

FinaruDensetsu said:
I don't think the souls games even sell a mil on a single platform at launch. On top of that this is a souls-like that's new IP. That's the definition of niche.

Saying HW is niche and then bringing up a game like Nioh is kinda strange.

Also I'm not using niche to refer to genre but rather the larger picture of software sales and brand recognition.

I think HW2 will either sell equal to or less than what NioH sells in their respective debut months on NPD. The Halo name isn't what it used to be and with it being in such a completely different genre than the mainline Halo games let alone a genre that has never seen much appeal on consoles then also keeping in mind that there is some negative WOM around the "early access" release of the previous game which would have been provided to that limited audience that is excited about the prospect of that niche genre appearing on console again and I can't possibly see it selling particularly well.

Nioh on the other hand is being pitched as a souls like set in Japan and Souls games generally put out reliable solid numbers in their debut month. The question here will be did the marketing do a good enough job of attracting the Souls fan base and is Japan as a setting a compelling one for that audience. I'm unsure of the former but I do think the latter is very much true so I tend to be bullish on its chances at appeal. The incredibly positive WOM following the Alpha and Beta certainly doesn't hurt either.

FinaruDensetsu said:
Yup. By and large the general public does not invest $200-300 because of an unknown quantity.

This is completely inaccurate. Some of the biggest HW boosts we've seen thus far this gen have been due to SKUs attached to new IPs (Destiny, Watch Dogs, Titanfall etc). If anything new IPs tend to sell the most HW when looking at SKUs outside of the biggest AAA franchises like CoD.

slavesnyder said:
meanwhile in germany

Yeah I find the lack of varied holiday SKU offerings from SIEA to be really baffling especially when compared to the variety of bundles seen in European markets. No doubt in my kind that had a much bigger impact on Slim sales this holiday than most seem to think. UC4 is just not a particularly compelling pack in to the US mass market imo. What Slim sold it sold more on the strength of the PS4 brand than the game it was packaged with especially in the face of the more mass market appealing bundles for the XB1s like Minecraft and BF1.

freefornow · Jan 4, 2017

[XB1] 997K
[PS4] 925K
[3DS] 490K
[WIU] 49k

donny2112 · Jan 4, 2017

RexNovis said:
One thing to keep in mind for December is that Cyber Monday was absolutely massive this year and is said to have exceeded the spending of Black Friday.

But did it exceed the spending of Brown Thursday + Black Friday? Typically, those comparisons are about actually on Black Friday, which for the last several years has amounted to being whatever's left on the shelf after the sales start on Thursday.

Chobel · Jan 4, 2017

FinaruDensetsu said:
Yup. I mean third party software usually drives hardware sales anyway but the first half of 2017 is truly lacking in exclusive games that can really motivate hardware sales.

It's got Halo in the title. That automatically makes it the biggest exclusive title in Q1 2017.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

slavesnyder · Jan 4, 2017

Recently, gaf experts stated that current releases in old, established IP don't sell because of franchise fatigue.
Now, new IPs won't sell because they are new.

RexNovis · Jan 4, 2017

donny2112 said:
But did it exceed the spending of Brown Thursday + Black Friday? Typically, those comparisons are about actually on Black Friday, which for the last several years has amounted to being whatever's left on the shelf after the sales start on Thursday.

Good point. I would assume it's a comparison to BF itself but even still the big increase on spending for Cyber Monday YoY is pretty impressive regardless.

FinaruDensetsu · Jan 4, 2017

RexNovis said:
The biggest new IP in recent history was Destiny and it sold a metric fuckton of PS4s. While I assume you meant new 1st party exclusive IP that's being a bit too semantic in your analysis imo.

To be clear I'm not expecting Horizon to push anywhere near as many consoles as Destiny but seeing as how well it's resonated with both the fan base and the mass market thus far and how it's an open world game and they tend to do really well I fully expect to see it result in a much larger bump in sales than was seen with TLoU.

People forget that in the lead up to release people were incredibly skeptical of TLoU as "another zombie game" and it wasn't until after the influx of fantastic reviews and WOM that the game went on to sell as well as it did hence why it had such long legs.

Compare that to Horizon where the majority of the market (myself not included as I'm incredibly skeptical of their open world design) is fairly excited and it's garnered a lot of positive WOM pre release both from the strength of its concept/art design and praise for its gameplay from various demos that were available to the public and/or the press.

So yea given all of the above and the more mass market appeal of the genre in general I'd say Horizon outsells TLoU in SW debut and also sees a significant higher attach rate and higher boost to HW sold the month of its release.

You are right, I was talking about exclusive new IP. I wasn't being too semanic as you'll see that my original response to the other poster was discussing exclusives and not just new IP in general.

If you look way back the debate started because people were saying how great the Q1 2017 exclusive slate looked for PS4 pertaining to hardware sales. My opinion was that these Q1 exclusives, while possibly good or even great critically, would likely not have much effect on hardware sales.

RexNovis said:
I think HW2 will either sell equal to or less than what NioH sells in their respective debut months on NPD. The Halo name isn't what it used to be and with it being in such a completely different genre than the mainline Halo games let alone a genre that has never seen much appeal on consoles then also keeping in mind that there is some negative WOM around the "early access" release of the previous game which would have been provided to that limited audience that is excited about the prospect of that niche genre appearing on console again and I can't possibly see it selling particularly well.

Nioh on the other hand is being pitched as a souls like set in Japan and Souls games generally put out reliable solid numbers in their debut month. The question here will be did the marketing do a good enough job of attracting the Souls fan base and is Japan as a setting a compelling one for that audience. I'm unsure of the former but I do think the latter is very much true so I tend to be bullish on its chances at appeal. The incredibly positive WOM following the Alpha and Beta certainly doesn't hurt either.

Just to make sure we are on the same page, we are just talking about NPD I assume as this is an NPD thread. The importance of that is because the PS4 and XB1 installed base is close. If you were referring to worldwide, than I don't think HW2 selling approximately the same as Nioh is saying much as the PS4 is ahead by 20-25 million units.

Assuming NPD only, I just don't see how Nioh will sell as much or even more than HW2 as you suggested. I guess we'll see.

RexNovis said:
This is completely inaccurate. Some of the biggest HW boosts we've seen thus far this gen have been due to SKUs attached to new IPs (Destiny, Watch Dogs, Titanfall etc). If anything new IPs tend to sell the most HW when looking at SKUs outside of the biggest AAA franchises like CoD.

Yeah I find the lack of varied holiday SKU offerings from SIEA to be really baffling especially when compared to the variety of bundles seen in European markets. No doubt in my kind that had a much bigger impact on Slim sales this holiday than most seem to think. UC4 is just not a particularly compelling pack in to the US mass market imo. What Slim sold it sold more on the strength of the PS4 brand than the game it was packaged with especially in the face of the more mass market appealing bundles for the XB1s like Minecraft and BF1.

Again, I think because you jumped in mid conversation you've not understood my whole point and the conversation I was having. We were discussing exclusives and not just new IP in general. With the exception of Titanfall, you've listed all 3rd party multi-plat new IP which generally get way more marketing and are focus tested to appeal to as broad an audience as possible.

Let's look at Titanfall, the only exclusive new IP you listed. If I remember correctly one of the big discussion points on GAF was how disappointing the XB1 had sold in the month of Titanfall's release (remember all the "Have you seen Titanfall" mocking). If I'm not remembering wrong, the XB1 didn't even outsell the PS4 in Titanfall month.

So, with the very rare exception, exclusive new IP rarely sells consoles in a way we can easily see. They obviously have some effect on people who buy a console in anticipation and also possibly a lasting effect on hardware sales for exclusive new IP like TLOU that have long legs, but we rarely see a huge boost in hardware sales due to any exclusive new IP.

Trust me. I'm a PhD · Jan 4, 2017

[3DS] 650K
[PS4] 1200K
[WIU] 210K
[XB1] 1100K

First draft. Awaiting retail musings as always.

Opt1kon_ · Jan 4, 2017

[PS4] 1200K
[XB1] 1150K
[3DS] 847K
[WIU] 133K

currently awaiting retail musings from the one and only =]

anothertech · Jan 4, 2017

[3DS] 700K
[PS4] 1100K
[WIU] 50K
[XB1] 900K

Javin98 · Jan 4, 2017

So glad nothing important happened when I was "away"!

slavesnyder · Jan 4, 2017

Javin98 said:
So glad nothing important happened when I was "away"!

You wouldn't have missed anything until switch release.
Welcome back.

Hydrargyrus · Jan 4, 2017

[3DS] 750K
[PS4] 1000K
[WIU] 75K
[XB1] 850K

Javin98 · Jan 4, 2017

slavesnyder said:
You wouldn't have missed anything until switch release.
Welcome back.

Heh, true. But November numbers haven't been officially confirmed either AFAIK!

Thanks!

ethomaz · Jan 4, 2017

Anybody expect sales update from Sony at CES? Last year they announced 35.9m with 5.7m for holidays period.

I can hope.. it is today.

CES 2014: 4.2m
CES 2015: 18.5m
CES 2016: 35.9m
CES 2017: ??

viHuGi said:
Most likely, they have been doing it those last years, today it should be no different.

Sales update on HW and SW, probably some milestone on some game or important games coming out.

Yeap... I updated this post with the historical data

viHuGi · Jan 4, 2017

ethomaz said:
Anybody expect sales update from Sony at CES? Last year they announced 35.9m with 5.7m for holidays period.

I can hope.. it is today.

Most likely, they have been doing it those last years, today it should be no different.

Sales update on HW and SW, probably some milestone on some game or important games coming out.

Welfare · Jan 4, 2017

Any idea when Sony is presenting at CES?

ethomaz · Jan 4, 2017

Welfare said:
Any idea when Sony is presenting at CES?

5pm PST by this thread http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1330483

Unknown? · Jan 4, 2017

gtj1092 said:
So X1 should win those months easily then since it has all the same big 3rd party titles as ps4 and is more desirable.

Hmmm yeah having less games is more desirable. Why? Because goal posts.

ethomaz said:
Anybody expect sales update from Sony at CES? Last year they announced 35.9m with 5.7m for holidays period.

I can hope.. it is today.

CES 2014: 4.2m
CES 2015: 18.5m
CES 2016: 35.9m
CES 2017: ??

Yeap... I updated this post with the historical data

53 million? Q3 9 million? Last year it was 8.6M for Q3, right?

Welfare · Jan 4, 2017

ethomaz said:
5pm PST by this thread http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1330483

Just saw the thread after I posted that. Thanks.

ethomaz · Jan 4, 2017

NeoMetallix said:
53 million? Q3 9 million? Last year it was 8.6M for Q3, right?

Depends if you expect PS4 selling less or more than last year.

53.3m is it selling the same than last year.

I expect it to be close to 55m because Sony forecast for the fiscal year is bigger than last year.

gundamkyoukai · Jan 4, 2017

RexNovis said:
People forget that in the lead up to release people were incredibly skeptical of TLoU as "another zombie game" and it wasn't until after the influx of fantastic reviews and WOM that the game went on to sell as well as it did hence why it had such long legs.

Compare that to Horizon where the majority of the market (myself not included as I'm incredibly skeptical of their open world design) is fairly excited and it's garnered a lot of positive WOM pre release both from the strength of its concept/art design and praise for its gameplay from various demos that were available to the public and/or the press.

So yea given all of the above and the more mass market appeal of the genre in general I'd say Horizon outsells TLoU in SW debut and also sees a significant higher attach rate and higher boost to HW sold the month of its release.

Rex if you think a zombie TPS is not as mass market as you can get you are crazy .
Plus TLOU was coming off UC2 and UC3 so it had that going for it .
Yes some people were skeptical but that was small amount and the norm on GAF .
If i remember right TLOU sold near a million in the first month and i don't see that happening with Horizon .
First it's coming out in Feb and second it only going to have 2 days of tracking compare to TLOU which had 2 weeks .

Unknown? · Jan 4, 2017

ethomaz said:
Depends if you expect PS4 selling less or more than last year.

53.3m is it selling the same than last year.

I expect it to be close to 55m because Sony forecast for the fiscal year is bigger than last year.

I definitely expect more because they did say they had their best BF ever. They will easily get that 20M but how much more for Q3 I wonder?

Birgitte2004 · Jan 4, 2017

I'm questioning the idea that the S is more desired, as opposed to the software.

Isn't it possible that the Xbox One lineup of exclusives is why the Xbox One is doing so well in the last few months, instead of an innate desire of people to have the Xbox brand? GoW 4 is certainly higher profile than any exclusive the PS4 had during the last few months.

Maybe I'm missing something that definitively proves the software was not the reason.

DriftingSpirit · Jan 4, 2017

Birgitte2004 said:
I'm questioning the idea that the S is more desired, as opposed to the software.

Isn't it possible that the Xbox One lineup of exclusives is why the Xbox One is doing so well in the last few months, instead of an innate desire of people to have the Xbox brand? GoW 4 is certainly higher profile than any exclusive the PS4 had during the last few months.

Maybe I'm missing something that definitively proves the software was not the reason.

I think it definitely played a part. CoD wasn't hot this year so BF1 got the attention. Gears may have underperformed but it was still a notable exclusive for the period.

I don't want to attribute all of it to software but it plays a role that I'm not sure we can pinpoint yet.

gtj1092 · Jan 4, 2017

I think they will be at 54 million sold with 9 to 9.5 million shipped for the quarter.

Looking at how the release schedule is shaking out they may be less dependent on Q3 sales than I previously anticipated and can probably ship close to 4 million Ps4s in the Q4 to reach 60 million.

chaosmaster(1) · Jan 4, 2017

DriftingSpirit said:
I think it definitely played a part. CoD wasn't hot this year so BF1 got the attention. Gears may have underperformed but it was still a notable exclusive for the period.

I don't want to attribute all of it to software but it plays a role that I'm not sure we can pinpoint yet.

I guess we'll see how things go now that Sony has a Cod bundle. I'm interested in seeing how the Xb1 performs post holiday season.

Welfare · Jan 4, 2017

Birgitte2004 said:
I'm questioning the idea that the S is more desired, as opposed to the software.

Isn't it possible that the Xbox One lineup of exclusives is why the Xbox One is doing so well in the last few months, instead of an innate desire of people to have the Xbox brand? GoW 4 is certainly higher profile than any exclusive the PS4 had during the last few months.

Maybe I'm missing something that definitively proves the software was not the reason.

Exclusives are not the reason as Gears 4 did poorly and we have no info on how Horizon 3 performed after launch.

You could say having a big third party game like BF1 bundled in helped, but with the info we had back in October, those bundles only did 42K out of a total 329K. I think this is simple. Xbox One S is seen as the more appealing product right now. Whether or not the PS4 family can outsell the S after the Pro launched is something that needs to be seen. Also the post holiday crash for both XB1S and PS4.

Primethius · Jan 4, 2017

Birgitte2004 said:
I'm questioning the idea that the S is more desired, as opposed to the software.

Isn't it possible that the Xbox One lineup of exclusives is why the Xbox One is doing so well in the last few months, instead of an innate desire of people to have the Xbox brand? GoW 4 is certainly higher profile than any exclusive the PS4 had during the last few months.

Maybe I'm missing something that definitively proves the software was not the reason.

Don't think it's the exclusive software so much as the packaged bundles. Gears itself didn't perform that well relative to past games so I doubt it had much of a impact.

A Battlefield 1 bundle on the other hand? Or a Minecraft bundle? Or a variety of other bundles adding up to the whole?

As I said before, January/February will be very telling of XB1S' actual new baseline.

Support NeoGAF

December 2016 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes Tuesday, January 10th

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Banned

Banned

Banned

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Banned

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Banned

Similar threads