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Media Create Sales: Dec 6-13, 2009
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
schuelma said:
Interesting, so if NSMB went slightly up to 500k from last week, then FFXIII should be at around 1,5m.
But their numbers or based on what? Retailers orders for the week? So it's more about shipped numbers? In that case there's not clear correlation to actual sales, especially for a launch week, as in the FFXIII case.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
I would just like to thank all of you for making these thread some of the most interesting to read on GAF. Keep it up guys.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
ethelred said:
41!?
I have 1-12 (excluding 11 but including X2) in their first US releases plus the four gba games plus the three tactics games plus 2 psp and the first wiiware. Besides the three CC games and the four GB games what am I missing?
Quite a few actually: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Final_Fantasy_games#Video_gamesStumpokapow said:
BlazingDarkness
Member
I have more FF games than i do for any individual home console/handheld :lolethelred said:
Elios83 said:
Umm..not quite sure what you're getting at, but Comgnet has 2 relevant charts. One top 20 is for what I assume are preorders, and the game is off the list on the last day before release (I think FF13 had 2201 or something close to that). The second chart is for what I assume are actual orders for the week which is updated once a week (this is the chart which has FF13 at 2782).
BlazingDarkness
Member
How many hours from now can we expect some numbers?
Sorry for asking, i'm useless with different time zones etc
Sorry for asking, i'm useless with different time zones etc
charlequin said:
I pretty strongly disagree with this, for a very specific reason: third party affairs, while partially controllable by first parties, are still mostly outside their control. Third parties are separate entities which may choose to operate contrary to your interests even if you work very hard to cajole them. By contrast, all first party efforts are absolutely, 100% within your control, and thus any failure of said games are absolutely, 100% your fault.
Not at all to take away from Nintendo's struggles with third parties. Clearly they share a good deal of blame for that.
Elios83 said:
It is actual sales only from the Comgnet chain of stores. They are not trying to track nationwide sales, and despite efforts in the past to extrapolate that one chain of stores' sales to Japan-wide numbers by Square2005 and others, it usually doesn't work out too well. Think of it as a general measurement rather than exact ratios.
PSP and Wii:
PSP software from my database through November excluding Monster Hunter:
2005: 2.23m
2006: 3.52m
2007: 4.32m
2008: 7.01m
2009: 6.51m
Wii software from my database through November excluding Nintendo and Pokemon:
2007: 1.94m
2008: 1.42m <- LOL. Third-parties are so stupid on Wii!
2009: 2.66m
Edit:
GBA software from my database through November excluding Nintendo and Pokemon:
2002: 3.45m
2003: 4.17m
2004: 3.07m
2005: 2.12m
NDS software from my database through November excluding Nintendo and Pokemon:
2005: 1.52m
2006: 5.22m
2007: 12.4m
2008: 9.32m
2009: 11.4m
charlequin
Banned
Dalthien said:
Honestly, I'd much rather argue about the PSP than the Wii at this point too.
ethelred said:
I have... eight. :lol
Opiate said:
Right, but you're carefully eliding your underlying assumption here which is that Sony first-party titles not becoming massive blockbusters are therefore failing in what they are intended to do, which in turn carries the implication that the intent of first-party titles is to be huge blockbusters, which again in turn carries the implication that one's platform strategy should revolve around driving success through huge blockbuster first-party titles, and I don't agree that any of that is true as a broad rule.
On a completely unrelated topic to FF13 sales:
It has been announced that Dragon Quest 9 has become the most shipped entry in the series. It has currently shipped 4.15 million copies.
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1230693_1124.html
The previous record holder was Dragon Quest 7 on PS.
It has been announced that Dragon Quest 9 has become the most shipped entry in the series. It has currently shipped 4.15 million copies.
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1230693_1124.html
The previous record holder was Dragon Quest 7 on PS.
Nirolak said:
I would say they tend to be the opposite: they typically pick games in very safe, well understood genres. Spyro/Crash, then later Ratchet. Killzone. Uncharted. Resistance. Motorstorm. God of War. And of course, Gran Turismo. These are Sony's headliners, and they were all fairly prototypical entries in genres that were well established (although GT was brought in when racing sims were still quite new on consoles).
They do experiment on occasion (Eyetoy was their most successful of these, but Ico and I believe Little Big Planet also qualify) but Sony tends to play it very safe. Diverse, but safe. Which is the opposite of what you're suggesting, effectively.
Yeah, I agree with you here.Opiate said:
I think the reason they're playing it so safe is because they honestly want their games to be huge blockbusters that push tons of hardware.
There were even reports that Sony was expecting Metal Gear Solid 4 or better sales for Killzone 2, which would put it at 4+ million copies. Ultimately they failed to reach that goal by a large margin though. The last report I had heard was that they had sold over 1 million copies, but I couldn't find anything on google where they announced two million sales, so it seems it never passed that mark.
A few reasons:Opiate said:
1. To make money.. where there's demand for something, it only makes sense to fulfil it. This is the reason why Nintendo still produces games which are not Wii Fit, Wii Sports and Mario. The idea that for every Demon's Souls Sony has produced they could have a GT instead is a misnomer.
2. To provide a well rounded output for your console. Sure, everyone may want to buy PS3 for Final Fantasy. But there may be people more inclined if they can buy a PS3, Final Fantasy, Hot Shots Golf and Ape Escape. There's a group who'd like a PS3, Final Fantasy, Demon's Souls and The Last Guardian. etc..
3. Diversification. It might've looked silly to finance a studio which only develops quiz games just a few years ago when everyone was looking to have the next GTA, but at this point you can bet MS wishes they hadn't put all their 360 first party hopes in the PS2 demographic basket.
charlequin
Banned
Opiate said:
Given a magical dial that says "lukewarm sales" on one side and "great sales, rise to heaven!!!" on the other, yes, obviously.
Given a situation in which a variety of different factors are balanced by virtue of obtaining in reality where resources are finite and strategies inherently based on the allocation of said finite resources, there are a lot of reasons to accept and plan around something other than maximal sales for first-party games. Assuming a third-party-focused strategy (which I think is pretty self-evidently not an innately foolish choice, given Sony's decade of dominant success with it) first-party games might not either be filling the tentpole slots in your release schedule or serving as the primary umbrella for certain genres to unfold. As a result, you are freed up to use first-party development to achieve other goals: earning "prestige" with low-budget "art" games (Oscar-fodder, basically) like Ico/SotC, filling odd gaps in your genre coverage, hitting up demographics (like, say, kids) that aren't being focused on by third-parties, tentatively exploring expanded-market opportunities (like with SingStar), bringing in a predictable profit through series with frequent iterations and predictable performance, etc.
In situations where you've "got it" -- as is the case with GT, unquestionably the king of its genre -- it does indeed make sense to "flaunt it" and earn as high a rate of sales as possible, but I don't think failing to develop a first-party stable of guaranteed blockbusters represents an innate strategic failure on Sony's part.
test_account
XP-39C²
Regarding "Sony sales", do you mean software or hardware?ReyBrujo said:
I agree with this assessment in a few ways, but I disagree with it in a few others.charlequin said:
1.) While price is a factor, the real driving force behind Nintendo's and Microsoft's success this generation is their first party blockbusters. When third parties started going heavily multiplatform, Sony had no real first party exclusives to fall back on and help save their hardware sales. It's worth noting that Sony's success with the third party model in previous generations also heavily relied on many of those third party titles being exclusive, which in a way made them act like first party titles in terms of selling the hardware.
2.) Sony has lost almost $5 billion this generation. While this was largely caused by hardware, having even 1 or 2 more major blockbuster series could help to offset that and give them extra money to spend on even more niche titles.
While I think that exploring these other business avenues are a good idea for the reasons you stated, I feel that ultimately Sony swung far too heavily in that direction, and was left without the blockbusters it really needed to help it in this generation. While I think Sony is still doing a good job filling niche roles, I feel they are failing as a whole because they only completed half of their objectives as a first party publisher, and that doing so has cost them a lot of success. I also feel that these niche roles are best served when supported by these major blockbusters, as it increases the general amount of people who own the console, and thus these niche titles can be even more successful in their goals. If no one buys the consoles in the first place, the niche can never get going, and we can actually see the effects of this in both the number of titles produced and the sales of Sony's casual titles this generation versus the last.
Grampa Simpson
Banned
JoshuaJSlone said:
If I were in charge, every year would have 52 weeks, broken into 13 months of exactly 28 days each. Every year would have an extra day (two during leap years) tacked onto the end that would constitute new years eve. That (those) day(s) would not be (a) day(s) of any week. The 13th month would come between August and September, and would have a name derived from the number six - possibly reviving the name 'Sextillis'. This would greatly simplify things. Holidays (birthdays, anniversaries) would always fall on the same day of the week.
Now you know what I think about when I can't sleep.
ReyBrujo
Member
Software, of course. Looks like he dismissed all the million sellers from the PSP list, and all the first party from the DS. However, there are huge third party sellers in the DS list (DQIX, for example), so it would be better if we stop making the difference between "PSP third party" and "Monster Hunter", as if it were a special case. So, personally, it is better to dismiss first party sales and include MH for PSP.test_account said:
test_account
XP-39C²
Ah ok. I first wondered if you ment that the "Sony sales" were about the PSP hardware sales, that the PSP hardware sales were too low to greatly modify the 3rd party sales.ReyBrujo said:
I then wanted to say that i personally think that both the PSP and the DS has a big enough installbase for 3rd party games to sell good (maybe the DS has a bigger chance compared to the PSP since the DS installbase is several of millions larger compared to the PSP), but that it depends on which 3rd party game that is being released, since some 3rd party games has a bigger chance to sell more copies compared to other 3rd party games, like Dragon Quest IX for the DS would most likely have a bigger chance to sell more copies compared to for example Persona 3 Portable for the PSP. But if you ment the software sales, then i didnt needed to say this
I just wanted to ask to be sure that i understood what you ment Yes, that is true, Dragon Quest IX alone has sold over 4 million copies. I also think that the Monster Hunter games might be included if for example Dragon Quest IX is included, since both are 3rd party games that has sold a lot
EDIT: I added some text.
charlequin said:
The suggestion, here, is that Sony is sacrificing significant resources in their first party development to fund third party relations. From what I can tell, this hardly seems to be the case: the last I saw, Sony spent more on first party development than either Nintendo or Microsoft.
Put differently, I'm not suggesting that a third party focus is necessarily bad. What I am suggesting instead is that whatever resources Sony does spend on first party (and again, I actually believe this is more than either Microsoft or Nintendo), should be spent wisely, funding highly successful software. That doesn't seem to have been the case to me.
charlequin
Banned
Nirolak said:
Sure. And last generation, Sony was the absolute unrivalled king of all home gaming while Microsoft and Nintendo's (still dramatically more powerful) first-party lineups were speedbumps, entirely pointless in terms of trends in the broader console space.
That's my point. When you look at the difference from last generation to this generation, you see essentially no change in Sony's relative position in terms of first-party development relative to, say, Nintendo, yet a complete reversal of fortunes between the two companies -- that suggests that the overall balance of first vs. third party support is not really a vital characteristic of success compared to the other factors that actually make the difference between a successful console and a failure.
(And yes, I do think this is a bit of an asymmetric issue -- Nintendo is suffering far more for being a victor with poor third-party support than Sony did from having a mediocre first-party when they were on top, I would argue because being first-party reliant introduces too much of a single-point-of-failure into your system so it's easier to screw up than a successful third-party ecosystem is.)
pseudocaesar
Member
At least I have FFXIII numbers to look forward to after work... do I? When does Hardware leak?
test_account
XP-39C²
The hardware numbers usually leak on Wedensdays, but i hope that when/if Famitsu writes how much that FFXIII sold in it's first week that they also mention how much PS3 hardware that was soldpseudocaesar said:
What we do see though is a significant different in Sony's exclusive line-up. Sony's first party never had to make blockbusters because Sony convinced third parties to do make blockbusters exclusive to their system.charlequin said:
Since Sony no longer seems to be able to do this, I feel that their first party has to be able to pick up the slack. If Sony could convince third parties to make blockbuster titles for them exclusively, then I would agree with you that they would no longer need their first party to do so, but this just doesn't seem to be the reality of the market any longer.
To look at this from another perspective, while I agree that the cost of the hardware was a very large part of Sony's failure this generation, I don't feel that we can blame all their problems entirely upon it, so on some level, Sony must have failed from a software perspective.
I guess I don't see why this seems to be set up as an either-or scenario: either you're first party reliant or third party reliant.
Why can't you be "reliant" on both? In effect, this should be the most fail safe system of all: even if all third parties happen to fail simultaneously, you still have your first party to fall back on. Why can't you have huge blockbusters of your own, coupled with huge third party blockbusters?
The "limited resources" argument would be far more persuasive if Sony wasn't spending so much gosh darn money on their first party studios. They're spending more than Nintendo and even more than EA -- at least law I saw. "Limited spending" simply hasn't been Sony's problem. They have always spent hugely on practically everything: hardware, software, R&D.
Why can't you be "reliant" on both? In effect, this should be the most fail safe system of all: even if all third parties happen to fail simultaneously, you still have your first party to fall back on. Why can't you have huge blockbusters of your own, coupled with huge third party blockbusters?
The "limited resources" argument would be far more persuasive if Sony wasn't spending so much gosh darn money on their first party studios. They're spending more than Nintendo and even more than EA -- at least law I saw. "Limited spending" simply hasn't been Sony's problem. They have always spent hugely on practically everything: hardware, software, R&D.
I think that would probably be the most successful approach.Opiate said:
It is also sort of the approach Microsoft is using. They have quite a few blockbusters of their own, but they also buy some exclusives (or at least their DLC) from third parties and also market other third party titles to try and associate them with the Xbox 360 despite them being multiplatform.
Then they're also making some niche titles as well with studios like Rare, BigPark and Natal. These might not all be astoundingly successful, but they are at least trying to fulfill all fronts.
Though on the same note Sony is failing on the blockbuster front, you could easily argue that Microsoft is failing on the casual front.
I agree, that's closer. I'm not sure I'd say Microsoft has a huge bevy of blockbusters yet though: it's basically Halo and (Gears), which could in theory become third party whenever Epic so chose. Then they have a host of upper-mid tier franchises like Fable and Forza, which sell 2-3m (i.e. half of Gears, or 1/3 of Halo).
However, they've managed to create that list in about 1/2 the amount of time that Sony's had. So, the fact that Microsoft already has a larger list of blockbusters than Sony does is rather impressive. It's just that their both so far behind Nintendo in this regard that they seem comparatively closer to each other. I think Halo is about as big as 3D-Mario now: both Halo 3 and Galaxy sold 8-9 million, last I saw. Halo is by far Microsoft's biggest franchise, while I'm not even sure 3D Mario is even in Nintendo's top 5 anymore (Nintendogs, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Brain Age, Pokemon. And others. So yeah, not even in the top 5).
However, they've managed to create that list in about 1/2 the amount of time that Sony's had. So, the fact that Microsoft already has a larger list of blockbusters than Sony does is rather impressive. It's just that their both so far behind Nintendo in this regard that they seem comparatively closer to each other. I think Halo is about as big as 3D-Mario now: both Halo 3 and Galaxy sold 8-9 million, last I saw. Halo is by far Microsoft's biggest franchise, while I'm not even sure 3D Mario is even in Nintendo's top 5 anymore (Nintendogs, Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Brain Age, Pokemon. And others. So yeah, not even in the top 5).
Microsoft's a company that learns fast. They don't often move rapidly, but they also rarely ever take steps backward, and that's been true in gaming as well. I don't feel like they've catapulted forward in to stardom like Nintendo or Sony have done (NES, PS1, Wii), but they've gradually improved in virtually every category: first party sales, third party sales, hardware sales, revenue, profit. And then smaller "categories," like number of blockbusters. Sony's been stuck on one for over a decade, and Microsoft's already up to two.
Microsoft always seems... relentless to me. In any industry I've followed them in. They learn fast and rarely make the same mistake twice.
Microsoft always seems... relentless to me. In any industry I've followed them in. They learn fast and rarely make the same mistake twice.
AranhaHunter
Banned
Opiate said:
Opiate said:
As you said it yourself, Gears is not a MS 1st party franchise, so I don't know why you listed that.....and I don't wanna create a list wars but SCE has a lot more upper-mid tier franchises than MS, I don't think it's even close in that aspect IMO (unless if you possibly include exclusive 3rd party games like you did Gears?).
In terms of blockbusters, I see it as Sony having 2 (GOW, GT) and MS has 1 (Halo), considering how long they've been in the games industry that seems rather small on both sides (since '94 for SCE and 2001 for MS IIRC) and they both look rather insignificant compared to Nintendo's list of blockbuster titles.
LINK.AGE76
Member
Thanks Donny for the numbers, GBA wasn't great when it came to third party games. Donny do you have the third party numbers for the PS2 for it's first 4 years.
JoshuaJSlone said:
Code:
year fam mc
1995 52
1996 52
1997 52
1998 52
1999 52
2000 53
2001 52
2002 52 52
2003 52 53
2004 52 52
2005 52 52
2006 53 52
2007 52 52
2008 52 52Famitsu will have 52 weeks for 2009 and there is a possibility that Media Create will have 53 weeks. geimin.net also has 52 weeks for famitsu at their 2009 preview.
http://www.famitsu.com/game/news/1230693_1124.html
S-E announces that DQIX has shipped 4.15 million as of 21st Dec 2009. This makes it the most successful DQ game in history, in terms of shipment numbers.
S-E announces that DQIX has shipped 4.15 million as of 21st Dec 2009. This makes it the most successful DQ game in history, in terms of shipment numbers.
LINK.AGE76
Member
duckroll said:
Old news
(see 20 so posts above u).