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jvm · Dec 18, 2007

The monthly Next-Gen.biz column on monthly NPD numbers, this time for November 2007, is up this morning.

Full article here.

I'll try to put a few items here that you might find interesting.

I thought last month's discussion was productive and I always get interesting perspectives and tips from you guys. I'll try to throw some interesting bits below for the time-constrained reader. :^)

As expected, holiday shopping has pushed sales higher. Historically November sales are around 2.5 times what they are in October and it is instructive to apply that rule of thumb here.

Had PlayStation 3 sales performed according to this rule, the October rate would have led one to expect 75,600 systems per week in November. Clearly, Sony bested that rate by over 40,000 systems per week, most likely on the strength of its $400 model introduced on 2 November 2007. Even so, Sony is under pressure to further close the gap between its sales rate and that of the competition.

In November 2005, the entire industry generated $1.3 billion in sales across hardware, software, and accessories. During November 2007, the software revenue alone generated that same amount: $1.3 billion.

At a ratio of 3.53 Xbox 360 units for every PlayStation 3 unit, Call of Duty 4 it closest to the 3.22 hardware ratio of the two platforms. On the other hand, the Assassin's Creed ratio is significantly lower than 3.22 that means that PlayStation 3 owners showed greater interest in that title than did their Xbox 360 counterparts. Rock Band was clearly more popular on the Xbox 360 than it was on the PlayStation 3.

Surprisingly, Guitar Hero III sales were flat month-on-month only on the Xbox 360. (The actual change was down by about 3% from October.) On every other platform, sales increased measurably: up 20% on the PlayStation 3, 50% on the Wii, and 90% on the PlayStation 2.

Later some stuff on Xbox 360 sales and its price drop. I'd be interested in other folks' opinions there.

On the software side, the twin PlayStation 3 successes of Call of Duty 4 and Assassin's Creed are heartening. However, Sony's own first-party software appears to be struggling, and the results are extremely disappointing given the size of the investments.

Not sure what others will find interesting. Perhaps skim it and see.

There is also a nod to Sales-Age on NeoGAF in the acknowledgments. :^)

For reference, last month's thread.

Oneself · Dec 18, 2007

If you don't buy Uncharted, you're part of the problem.

Kosma · Dec 18, 2007

Uncharted really really REALLY deserves to sell better then Lair. Really. Hope it gets a similar bump as in the UK.

Aeris130 · Dec 18, 2007

Sony owns the LAIR ip? Or are they just Sony published titles?

Borys · Dec 18, 2007

For reference: CoD4 on PC sold 4 times as much as Crysis on PC (which sold 80K IIRC).

UT3 on PC is supposingly THE biggest bomb in PC FPS history.

Also: wasn't Resistance supposed to sell 2M copies? Wollan? SSX?

max-pain · Dec 18, 2007

WHAT? Resistance reached 500k in february or march (according to NPD)!

kay · Dec 18, 2007

Aeris130 said:
Sony owns the LAIR ip? Or are they just Sony published titles?

LAIR isn't trademarked, nobody owns it.

There's definitely a trend here, multiplayer M rated games > single player T rated games.
I think the difference in tie ratio between Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty 4 was because there was no beta for PS3.

starship · Dec 18, 2007

jvm said:
The monthly Next-Gen.biz column on monthly NPD numbers, this time for November 2007, is up this morning.

Full article here.

I'll try to put a few items here that you might find interesting.

I thought last month's discussion was productive and I always get interesting perspectives and tips from you guys. I'll try to throw some interesting bits below for the time-constrained reader. :^)

Later some stuff on Xbox 360 sales and its price drop. I'd be interested in other folks' opinions there.

Not sure what others will find interesting. Perhaps skim it and see.

There is also a nod to Sales-Age on NeoGAF in the acknowledgments. :^)

Very interesting, thanks.
And it seems Resistance will break 500k come next NPD.

ram · Dec 18, 2007

Oneself said:
If you don't buy Uncharted, you're part of the problem.

quoted for truth - the game has hair, colourful surroundings and is the best indiana jones game to date.

jvm · Dec 18, 2007

Borys said:
Also: wasn't Resistance supposed to sell 2M copies? Wollan? SSX?

I was surprised by that number myself, but that was the response I got from NPD when I requested the LTD number for Resistance: Fall of Man. Crazy, no?

Saitou · Dec 18, 2007

Aeris130 said:
Sony owns the LAIR ip? Or are they just Sony published titles?

I'd assume they do, they funded and published the title after all.

Sho_Nuff82 · Dec 18, 2007

Borys said:
Also: wasn't Resistance supposed to sell 2M copies? Wollan? SSX?

Unless the every PS3 owner in Europe bought one and a half copies at launch, Sony was blowing smoke up our asses. The game sold just over 120k in Japan.

RE: Guitar Hero 3, Activision has to be extremely disappointed with their inability to keep the game in stock, either at online retailers or in store. Since GH2 was such a slow burner they probably didn't anticipate such huge up front sales, and they probably had to manufacture a ton of new guitars for the Wii/PS3 first time out, but the game could've sold near the PS2 version at this point if it was available.

Kosma · Dec 18, 2007

Resistance is 2 million WW, thanks to bundling in Europe.

Stumpokapow · Dec 18, 2007

I have Resistance at more than that graph does using only its first four months of sales... so it's weird that NPD is giving the LTD at less than 500k. Admittedly, three of the four months I have "unofficial" data for, but all the rest of the data I have from the same source holds up so I'm not sure why I would be skeptical.

Heavenly Sword according to that graph did 50k in November (we have it at 139k for September and 34k in October using non-leaked numbers, and that graph looks to be around 220k)

Lair we know it did 46,500 in August, 57,787 in September. From the ve3d leaks we know it didn't make the top ten PS3 titles in October and thus did ~<15k. Obviously it similarly bombed in November given that it looks like it's around 130k or so in that graph.

max-pain said:
WHAT? Resistance reached 500k in february or march (according to NPD)!

I have it breaking 500k (just barely!) in February.

mr_bishiuk · Dec 18, 2007

oo Kosma oo said:
Resistance is 2 million WW, thanks to bundling in Europe.

Based on the LTD figures we have seen from France, Germany, Spain and Italy I cant see how the PS3 has sold 1.5m units in Europe in what 8 months?

captscience · Dec 18, 2007

jvm said:
Assasin's Creed tie ratio better on PS3 than 360

Interesting to hear. Result of one of Sony's few third party co-marketing deals?
Hopefully this will encourage them to push this front further.

Nolan. · Dec 18, 2007

Resistance's LTD isn't as high as I thought it was for some reason, and Uncharted will easilly pass lair.

jvm · Dec 18, 2007

Stumpokapow said:
I have Resistance at more than that graph does using only its first four months of sales... so it's weird that NPD is giving the LTD at less than 500k. Admittedly, three of the four months I have "unofficial" data for, but all the rest of the data I have from the same source holds up so I'm not sure why I would be skeptical.
<snip>

I have it breaking 500k (just barely!) in February.

Wish I had an answer here. I'm using NPD for my source.

max-pain · Dec 18, 2007

Stumpokapow said:
I have it breaking 500k (just barely!) in February.

Yeah, that's the one! So it's february, i didn't remembered exactly.

kay · Dec 18, 2007

jvm said:
Wish I had an answer here. I'm using NPD for my source.

I think we should ban NPD for inaccuracies like ********

Kosma · Dec 18, 2007

mr_bishiuk said:
Based on the LTD figures we have seen from France, Germany, Spain and Italy I cant see how the PS3 has sold 1.5m units in Europe in what 8 months?

What? The PS3 has sold way more then 1.5 million since launch in Europe.

Gadfly · Dec 18, 2007

What this article completely misses when it discusses the attach ratio for each title is the fact that 360 owners also bought 470K ME and 380K H3 while Ps3 owners didnt buy much anything else.

You can expect attach ratio for each multi-platform title to follow the installed base only if multi-platform titles are the only ones people buy.

Regarding GHIII on 360 not having as much leg as other platforms , there is a simple explanation for it (IMO). GHII for 360 came out almost 6 month ago. My kid loves GH series, he bought GHII and is not interested in buying GHIII right now. He wants rockband (spoiled kid, I know).

Stumpokapow · Dec 18, 2007

oo Kosma oo said:
What? The PS3 has sold way more then 1.5 million since launch in Europe.

Given that the PS3 has sold 2.44 million in the US since launch, I'd say 1.5-2.2 million is a fair estimate for Europe given that the European launch was 4-5 months later and Europe is generally a comparable but slightly smaller market than the US.

Personally if I had to guess I'd guess 2 million, which would mean that Europe was selling more briskly than North America pre-pricedrop, but North America had an early lead. I'd say both territories are selling similarly now post-pricedrop.

Maximilian E. · Dec 18, 2007

captscience said:
Interesting to hear. Result of one of Sony's few third party co-marketing deals?
Hopefully this will encourage them to push this front further.

I don´t think this has to do so much with any co-marketing deals than it has to games selection. There are a few more games to choose from in the 360 catalogue and therefore, some of the AC-sales that could have been, goes towards for these "exclusives".. (Mass effect, Bioshock, Halo3 to name a few)..

VOOK · Dec 18, 2007

Borys said:
UT3 on PC is supposingly THE biggest bomb in PC FPS history.

I bought UT3 for the PC but its very very like the same.. just with prettier graphics. Maybe it'll grow on me but if I could take it back I would. But yeah it just doesn't stand out from the crowd.

gofreak · Dec 18, 2007

Maximilian E. said:
I don´t think this has to do so much with any co-marketing deals than it has to games selection. There are a few more games to choose from in the 360 catalogue and therefore, some of the AC-sales that could have been, goes towards for these "exclusives".. (Mass effect, Bioshock, Halo3 to name a few)..

There was an amazing adventure game out on PS3 in the same month (Uncharted), which one might have thought would work against AC even more directly.

Buy Uncharted!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kosma · Dec 18, 2007

Stumpokapow said:
Given that the PS3 has sold 2.44 million in the US since launch, I'd say 1.5-2.2 million is a fair estimate for Europe given that the European launch was 4-5 months later and Europe is generally a comparable but slightly smaller market than the US.

Personally if I had to guess I'd guess 2 million, which would mean that Europe was selling more briskly than North America pre-pricedrop, but North America had an early lead. I'd say both territories are selling similarly now post-pricedrop.

I think in 2008 the European PS3 numbers will overtake the 360 here, and the US PS3 numbers as well.

tanod · Dec 18, 2007

gofreak said:
There was an amazing adventure game out on PS3 in the same month (Uncharted), which one might have thought would work against AC even more directly.

Buy Uncharted!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It probably did.

FFS, buy Uncharted.

cortland_andrus · Dec 18, 2007

"Resistance is 2 million WW, thanks to bundling in Europe."

Cool. So Wii Sports has sold like 11-12 million copies then?

starship · Dec 18, 2007

oo Kosma oo said:
Uncharted really really REALLY deserves to sell better then Lair. Really. Hope it gets a similar bump as in the UK.

Uncharted just released in November so it'll surpass Lair in next month without a doubt.

Borys said:
For reference: CoD4 on PC sold 4 times as much as Crysis on PC (which sold 80K IIRC).

UT3 on PC is supposingly THE biggest bomb in PC FPS history.

Also: wasn't Resistance supposed to sell 2M copies? Wollan? SSX?

2m for Resistance is too high but I guess it's at ~ 1.5m WW.

theBishop · Dec 18, 2007

In light of Uncharted's disappointing opening sales, Sony needs to figure the game more in their own branding. I'm talking about a big picture on the back of the PS3 system box, on the store kiosks, in the cases for other SCEA games, etc.

Anyone here bought a 40GB recently? Is there any kind of "Welcome to PS3" brochure with glossy pics from must-have PS3 titles? If there isn't, there fucking should be! There needs to be something that tells consumers: "Now that you have a PS3, these are the games you need." Obviously, Uncharted should be on the top of that list.

While we're at it, why not ship the system with the demos preinstalled: Resistance, Heavenly Sword, Ratchet, Uncharted, Motorstorm, FolkLore, F1, hell even Genji and Lair. It can't hurt, and it might keep the sales alive for some of these games especially if they drop the price on the older ones.

If Sony was really smart, they'd be using their other divisions. Why not advertise Playstation stuff with Bravias, Walkmen, eBooks, Blu-Ray movies, Vaios, Ericsson phones, etc. Uncharted trailers before Sony Pictures films. All these things should be advertising for eachother.

Confidence Man · Dec 18, 2007

How many months has Lair been out? That seems pretty horrible.

JoshuaJSlone · Dec 18, 2007

This bit related to your article came up in the other NPD thread, so I'll repaste here.

---

TheRipDizz said:
This little tid bit here I agree with and have seen coming from a mile away.

"The big question: Will Nintendo be able to supply another million or more systems to the market in time for Christmas? The situation is truly uncertain, and history offers almost no guidance. Purely speculating, we'll call it for 1.1 million, and probably lower."

That Nintendo has blown up so much has gone a little to Wii supporters heads. Somehow alot of them think there are millions of Wiis sitting in a wherehouse somewhere waiting to be released in December. Why?

Obviously they were stockpiling, or they wouldn't have been able to go from 100K/week to 125K/week to 250K/week so suddenly. Given that they're stockpiling, what's the purpose? To make November and December increases more like regular November and December increases. And if that is the goal, why would they split shipments so December is barely an increase over November, which would be highly irregular? In fact, 1.1 million or lower would actually be a decrease of the weekly rate from November.

Let's even say they wanted December sales to be basically flat from November. In November they claimed 350K the week of Thanksgiving, which would mean the other three weeks were 210K apiece. They also said they expected to hit a new single-week record in December. Let's say their high week of December merely matches that 350K and the other four weeks match the rest-of-November average of 210K. Even that sums up to 1.19 million.
---

I'm just going by what seem like the obvious choices. Certainly it's possible the reality isn't matching up with that.

Culex · Dec 18, 2007

The end of the article does bring up a good point. If Nintendo doesn't fix it's supply issues, the 360 could theoretically gain 1 million units over the Wii from December to January.

Borys · Dec 18, 2007

Confidence Man said:
How many months has Lair been out? That seems pretty horrible.

Pretty dire sales of 1st party Sony titles in the US. I wonder why - did Americans moved to 360 exclusively? Uncharted looks no worse and most of the time even better than Gears and was released also in November yet one sells 100K while the other 1M units.

Something is wrong with the US consumers.

Stumpokapow · Dec 18, 2007

Culex said:
The end of the article does bring up a good point. If Nintendo doesn't fix it's supply issues, the 360 could theoretically gain 1 million units over the Wii from December to January.

Well, last year the 360 beat the Wii by 562,000 units. This year until date, the Wii beat the 360 by 1,568,000 units). So if the 360 gains 1 million on the Wii, they'll still be tied from the Wii's launch until January.

Confidence Man said:
How many months has Lair been out? That seems pretty horrible.

Like I said in my earlier post, it was released in August:

Lair we know it did 46,500 in August, 57,787 in September. From the ve3d leaks we know it didn't make the top ten PS3 titles in October and thus did ~<15k. Obviously it similarly bombed in November given that it looks like it's around 130k or so in that graph.

jvm · Dec 18, 2007

theBishop said:
In light of Uncharted's disappointing opening sales, Sony needs to figure the game more in their own branding. I'm talking about a big picture on the back of the PS3 system box, on the store kiosks, in the cases for other SCEA games, etc.

I didn't put this in my article, because it is so anecdotal, but this is as good a place as any to mention it.

I have visited four local GameStop stores in my area in the past few weeks. Not a single one of them has Uncharted in a prominent spot in the PlayStation 3 section. In fact, I've found it on the shelf with the game box SPINE facing out, instead of the front of the box.

There is no in-store advertising, no demo running on the PS3 demo unit, nothing.

As far as I'm concerned, Sony's big TV advertising push has been ok, but it had to be backed by in-store displays. They need someone at the store level making sure that displays are attracting attention, that new games are prominently displayed, and so forth.

I've been in the store just as a Nintendo rep was leaving. She had come in to set up the demo running on the Wii demo unit. She had a Nintendo-branded work shirt and the manager at the time told me that someone from Nintendo comes around to set up the demos every few weeks or so.

Sony needs to be doing that, actively. They need cardboard displays, big posters, anything.

You could be excused for not knowing Uncharted existed if you visited the many stores I've visited. (And, yes, I know GameStop isn't the whole market, but it is one place that Sony is more welcome to set up targeted advertising than in, say, Wal-Mart or Target...)

Just my thoughts. I loved Uncharted and it makes me die a little inside to see it fare poorly. (FWIW, I hope my own preferences don't show too much in the articles I write. I try very hard to keep emotions out of it.)

jvm · Dec 18, 2007

JoshuaJSlone said:
This bit related to your article came up in the other NPD thread, so I'll repaste here.

Thank you. I saw it (because I've been reading the other NPD thread this morning) but others would have missed it.

I'd've posted my thread earlier, but Comcast decided I didn't actually need internet access this morning. *grumble*

Gadfly · Dec 18, 2007

jvm said:
I didn't put this in my article, because it is so anecdotal, but this is as good a place as any to mention it.

I have visited four local GameStop stores in my area in the past few weeks. Not a single one of them has Uncharted in a prominent spot in the PlayStation 3 section. In fact, I've found it on the shelf with the game box SPINE facing out, instead of the front of the box.

There is no in-store advertising, no demo running on the PS3 demo unit, nothing.

As far as I'm concerned, Sony's big TV advertising push has been ok, but it had to be backed by in-store displays. They need someone at the store level making sure that displays are attracting attention, that new games are prominently displayed, and so forth.

I've been in the store just as a Nintendo rep was leaving. She had come in to set up the demo running on the Wii demo unit. She had a Nintendo-branded work shirt and the manager at the time told me that someone from Nintendo comes around to set up the demos every few weeks or so.

Sony needs to be doing that, actively. They need cardboard displays, big posters, anything.

You could be excused for not knowing Uncharted existed if you visited the many stores I've visited. (And, yes, I know GameStop isn't the whole market, but it is one place that Sony is more welcome to set up targeted advertising than in, say, Wal-Mart or Target...)

Just my thoughts. I loved Uncharted and it makes me die a little inside to see it fare poorly. (FWIW, I hope my own preferences don't show too much in the articles I write. I try very hard to keep emotions out of it.)

In my opinion it somewhat does.

kay · Dec 18, 2007

Borys said:
Pretty dire sales of 1st party Sony titles in the US. I wonder why - did Americans moved to 360 exclusively? Uncharted looks no worse and most of the time even better than Gears and was released also in November yet one sells 100K while the other 1M units.

Something is wrong with the US consumers.

I'll say it again, no multiplayer equals a loss of a lot of sales. Even the amount of gore equals loss of sales, there were multiple comments about it on the playstation blog asking where the blood was, Heavenly Sword too. LAIR just got bombed with bad reviews and was very unappealing to most people from the start. I think Sony just has to learn the PS3 crowd right now mimics the 360 crowd, these games wouldn't have done much better on that system.

[Nintex] · Dec 18, 2007

JoshuaJSlone said:
Let's even say they wanted December sales to be basically flat from November. In November they claimed 350K the week of Thanksgiving, which would mean the other three weeks were 210K apiece. They also said they expected to hit a new single-week record in December. Let's say their high week of December merely matches that 350K and the other four weeks match the rest-of-November average of 210K. Even that sums up to 1.19 million.
---

I'm just going by what seem like the obvious choices. Certainly it's possible the reality isn't matching up with that.

I think that they'll have 1.5/1.7 million units this month, not nearly enough to meet the demand though. They're producing 1.8 million a month and I think Europe only gets a small piece of the pie and NoE is always stockpiling systems in their warehouses. Even at launch they held back a shipment :lol

And this is just terrible.

explodet · Dec 18, 2007

It is interesting to speculate why Microsoft resisted an earlier price drop. Microsoft worked hard to meet its targets announced during 2006, and shipped far more systems than retailers were able to sell. Given their focus on also making the Xbox 360 division profitable, a price cut might have been ruled out to avoid taking too much of a loss on the systems already in the channel. Microsoft may also have still been focused on the PlayStation 3 as its primary competition. The higher price and anemic sales of Sony's system may have given Microsoft cause to maintain its pricing structure. (Amusingly, when it did drop the price in August 2007, the company practically bragged that it had held its launch price longer than any system in recent memory. Given the ground it has lost to the Nintendo Wii, that bravado seems ill-placed.)

Interesting point - was Microsoft so concerned about beating Sony (and arguably succeeding) that it never saw the Wii coming?

jvm · Dec 18, 2007

Gadfly said:
In my opinion it somewhat does.

Ah well...only human, and all that. Do tell, though. Honest self-assessment without external observation is difficult.

mr_bishiuk · Dec 18, 2007

explodet said:
Interesting point - was Microsoft so concerned about beating Sony (and arguably succeeding) that it never saw the Wii coming?

No body saw the wii coming, the Wii is having a worse effect on Sony as it is eating into the casual and kids market normally reserved for PS consoles.

JoshuaJSlone · Dec 18, 2007

Culex said:
The end of the article does bring up a good point. If Nintendo doesn't fix it's supply issues, the 360 could theoretically gain 1 million units over the Wii from December to January.

That seems particularly unlikely. If December and January are as up from the year before as November was (and adjusting for 2007's five-week January), X360 would reach just over 2 million in those two months. To gain back a million on Wii, Wii would need to sell only about a million across those two months, averaging 111K/week. That'd basically be a return to the supply they had during summer.

Gadfly · Dec 18, 2007

jvm said:
Ah well...only human, and all that. Do tell, though. Honest self-assessment without external observation is difficult.

Please see my post above regarding AC tie-in ratio for 360 and PS3 and what I think you missed.

GHIII on 360 was also too close to GHII 360 and that (IMO) is affecting its sales.

In your analysis of 360 sales Nov/Oct ratio you completely missed the fact that 360 Oct numbers are inflated because of Halo3 effect.

The article seems to be positive on PS3 sales at the beginning but near the end when it has to go over last month prediction, it has to face reality. Not consistent.

BTW, I am not without my own bias. I am a Microsoft employee. (not working on 360 or any games though).

explodet · Dec 18, 2007

mr_bishiuk said:
No body saw the wii coming, the Wii is having a worse effect on Sony as it is eating into the casual and kids market normally reserved for PS consoles.

I'll give you that, the Wii was a big surprise. Sony's got to share some of the blame for releasing the monolithic PS3, though. Perhaps Sony was hoping that enough people would favor the PS2 as the casual console and not move on just yet. And they haven't totally moved on - Guitar Hero III PS2 was crazy big this month.

Dr. Kitty Muffins · Dec 18, 2007

Culex said:
The end of the article does bring up a good point. If Nintendo doesn't fix it's supply issues, the 360 could theoretically gain 1 million units over the Wii from December to January.

Given the 360's stronger software sales, this would be a big victory in terms of weathering the Wii craze.

Microsoft just has to keep selling more games and make their money that way as it is their ace in the hole this gen.

Son of Godzilla · Dec 18, 2007

Uh, that 2 million Resistance number has always been shipped. It's fairly old too, anyways.

_Xenon_ · Dec 18, 2007

Borys said:
For reference: CoD4 on PC sold 4 times as much as Crysis on PC (which sold 80K IIRC).

Damn that's terrible. I wonder if their engine license is doing good sales wise.

UT3 on PC is supposingly THE biggest bomb in PC FPS history.

Any LTD number available?

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