Support NeoGAF

donny2112 · Apr 22, 2009

Omar Ismail said:
I think more interesting is the number of monthly software units sold per console.

Total Software as of Mar-09:
360 - 124m
Wii - 121m
PS3 - 49m

From jvm's December write-up:

Total Software as of Dec-08:
360 - ~113m
Wii - ~105m
PS3 - ~41m

=>

For Jan-Mar-09, the 360/PS3/Wii software totals are ...

Wii - ~16m
360 - ~11m
PS3 - ~8m

border · Apr 22, 2009

legend166 said:
Because that would be stupid. Just like saying that Wii Sports is not the most popular game of the generation would also be stupid. I don't understand why you're arguing this. It's self evident. It's a cultural sensation. It's this generation's Grand Theft Auto, or Super Mario Bros, or whatever other generation defining title you want to throw into that list.

Why are you arguing this? Which title do you believe is more popular?

I don't see it as self-evident at all, no. Of course I mostly get irked to see any kind of stupid crown authoritatively thrust upon the head of a popular game (GOTY, etc) so it's only further annoying to see new, more stupid and presumptive titles thrust upon a pack-in game ("Most Popular"...."GOTG!!!"). I don't have any pick for "most popular", though I think there would be better ways to measure it than just counting every Wii sold as a vote for Wii Sports (some combination of retail sales, hours logged by players, opinion polls, critical response, etc). "Most Popular" just seems like a cheesy way to elevate the status of a best-seller and use sales to imply love/affection rather than just sales.

Jocchan said:
If you start removing titles arbitrarily following any line of reasoning, you're changing factual data into something that isn't factual but a subjective idea of what's worth tracking (and it's not that useful, don't you agree?).

NPD already arbitrarily moves and removes stuff. Someone in this thread already mentioned changing status on Wii Zapper/Link Crossbow. They don't count game+console bundles, even if they are priced higher and are optional - I don't believe the 120 GB PS3 is added to the system's tie ratio (not that it'd help much anyway)....I doubt the games bundled with the 360 Pro/Elite models do either.

As long as standards are clear, I don't see the problem in making a distinction between games that are selling as standard games, and games that are mostly being purchased because they're bundled with essential hardware.

DNF · Apr 22, 2009

donny2112 said:
For Jan-Mar-09, the 360/PS3/Wii software totals are ...

Wii - ~16m
360 - ~11m
PS3 - ~8m

X360 PS3 WII
Jan-Mar 09 SW Top10 3.409.000 1.714.000 4.168.000
Jan-mar 09 SW Total w/o Top10 7.591.000 6.286.000 11.832.000
Jan-Mar 09 SW Total / Top10 in % 30,99 21,43 26,05

jvm · Apr 22, 2009

donny2112 said:
For Jan-Mar-09, the 360/PS3/Wii software totals are ...
Wii - ~16m
360 - ~11m
PS3 - ~8m

Excellent! Let's take it one tiny step further, perhaps.

Total 1Q 2009 software units: ~57 million

Breaks down to:
1Q 2009 units on Wii, Xbox 360, PS3: ~35 million
1Q 2009 units on PS2, PSP, NDS: ~22 million

Look right? (source)

Mrbob · Apr 22, 2009

We always knew the Wii sold games outside of the top 10, but I am a bit shocked to see the PS3s software ratio outside the top 10 much higher than expected.

Top 10 percentage of sales per platform for the quarter:

360 - 45 percent
PS3 - 27 percent
Wii - 35 percent

It is almost crazy to see the PS3 has the most software being sold outside the top 10 relative to its platform. Must be some decent long tails going on, and the main reason I hate only getting top 10 numbers.

X360 truly is still the play the flavor of the month, move to the next game console. Still the hardcore gamers console of choice.

We always say the 360 and PS3 are the "hardcore" gaming systems, but looking at the sales percentages perhaps the PS3 is a bit more casual than we first thought.

Also, software to hardware userbase relatively it looks like the PS3 is starting to outperform the 360 in the USA. No wonder 3rd parties want Sony to drop the price. Move more software overall.

Rhindle · Apr 22, 2009

Jocchan said:
No, it doesn't. Tie ratio is just software divided by hardware. That's it.
And this is what makes the tie ratio by itself almost useless now: it doesn't take into account ownership time, and high hardware sales tend to bring tie ratio down (newcomers will have less games than early adopters that owned the console for years).

Ever heard of Maths? Initial value is a constant offset throughout the whole graph of a function.

y = x
y = x + 2

These two functions have the same trajectory (with the same steepness, 1), but the second one - thanks to the addition of a higher initial value (the added 2) - will track higher. They will not converge, ever.

Look you're just wrong, and trying to insult people isn't going to change that.

The "initial value" in this function is NOT a constant, because the LTD tie ratio is a cumulative average over time. This is not a simple linear function, as you seem to be assuming. As the total user base expands, and you're averaging over a larger base, the contribution of the initial tie ratio (for the first month of sales) to the average declines to zero.

Run some numbers: If the initial 100 Xbox purchasers purchased 6 games apiece, and the initial 100 Wii and PS3 users purchase 2 games apiece in the first month, and the next 10 million purchasers for each console all purchased 3 games apiece per year, you're not honestly trying to tell me the Xbox will retain a constant +4 tie ratio due to the initial 100 purchasers??

Flachmatuch · Apr 22, 2009

Jocchan said:
Ever heard of Maths? Initial value is a constant offset throughout the whole graph of a function.

y = x
y = x + 2

These two functions have the same trajectory (with the same steepness, 1), but the second one - thanks to the addition of a higher initial value (the added 2) - will track higher. They will not converge, ever.

On the other hand, the tie ratio function does not look like
f(x) = c + g(x) but
f(x) = (c + g(x)) / h(x)

The initial bump is *not* a constant offset throughout the graph of the function (unlike with total number of software units sold).

Jocchan · Apr 22, 2009

Rhindle said:
Look you're just wrong, and trying to insult people isn't going to change that.

The "initial value" in this function is NOT a constant, because the LTD tie ratio is a cumulative average over time. This is not a simple linear function, as you seem to be assuming. As the total user base expands, and you're averaging over a larger base, the contribution of the initial tie ratio (for the first month of sales) to the average declines to zero.

Run some numbers: If the initial 100 Xbox purchasers purchased 6 games apiece, and the initial 100 Wii and PS3 users purchase 2 games apiece in the first month, and the next 10 million purchasers for each console all purchased 3 games apiece per year, you're not honestly trying to tell me the Xbox will retain a constant +4 tie ratio due to the initial 100 purchasers??

Huh. Actually, you're correct. My bad, then. Also, I didn't mean to offend you (sorry if I did), it did look really trivial to my eyes and now I know why :lol

Flachmatuch said:
On the other hand, the tie ratio function does not look like
f(x) = c + g(x) but
f(x) = (c + g(x)) / h(x)

The initial bump is *not* a constant offset throughout the graph of the function (unlike with total number of software units sold).

Yup. Sorry for the confusion.

EDIT: edited my post to prevent further derailing/misinformation.

poppabk · Apr 22, 2009

JoshuaJSlone said:
The way the tie ratio looks at the first month is really unimportant for any of those systems. X360 only sold about a third of a million hardware units that first month, so even with a tie ratio of 4, that month makes up 1% of its software sold overall. Whether its tie ratio had been 0 or 10 that month, it would change the current tie ratio by a very small fraction.

So what do the tie ratio graphs tell us, can a trend in tie ratio tell us anything meaningful? Other than the fact that they allow us to back calculate to the original data that they were derived from, I don't see what use tie ratios have.

JoshuaJSlone · Apr 22, 2009

Mrbob said:
We always knew the Wii sold games outside of the top 10, but I am a bit shocked to see the PS3s software ratio outside the top 10 much higher than expected.

A few months ago I made a much longer post on this point, but it's to be expected that a less successful console will generally be under-represented in any arbitrary "Top X" list, since fewer of its games will end up passing the threshold necessary to even make the list.

poppabk said:
So what do the tie ratio graphs tell us, can a trend in tie ratio tell us anything meaningful? Other than the fact that they allow us to back calculate to the original data that they were derived from, I don't see what use tie ratios have.

Alone I don't think it is very useful. We end up with a figure that says how many games have been sold per console, and theoretically it would let us see if one console userbase on average buys more games than another, but there are so many caveats it's not even very good at that. Is one console's userbase more recent-heavy, thus giving them less time to buy games than the owners of some other console? Are the market conditions Wii and PS3 faced in 2006-2009 similar enough to what X360 had in 2005-2008 or PS2 had in 2000-2003 to mean the results say something about the userbase rather than the time? If the larger userbase of console A has a lower tie ratio than console B, does it really mean most console A owners buy fewer games, or could it be that A has a B-sized portion of its base with buying habits just like the B console, but with an extra lesser-buying group added on?

Rhindle · Apr 22, 2009

poppabk said:
So what do the tie ratio graphs tell us, can a trend in tie ratio tell us anything meaningful? Other than the fact that they allow us to back calculate to the original data that they were derived from, I don't see what use tie ratios have.

Th trendline is somewhat meaningful - it tells you something about how the composition of the userbase is changing. The flattening 360 curve indicates that the userbase is becoming more casual and buying less games on average (it could also mean that early users are losing interest in the machine, but that seems unlikely). The Wii line seems to be following a similar trend.

The fact that the PS3 line is still somewhat linear could be read to show that early buyers included Blu-ray purchasers who did not buy many games, so the growing "casual effect" of the expanding user base is offset by the decline in the "Blu-ray purchaser effect."

donny2112 · Apr 22, 2009

jvm said:
Total 1Q 2009 software units: ~57 million

Breaks down to:
1Q 2009 units on Wii, Xbox 360, PS3: ~35 million
1Q 2009 units on PS2, PSP, NDS: ~22 million

Look right? (source)

Seems good for a general statement. NPD still tracks GBA, GCN, Xbox, PS1, DC, and anything else they can get their hands on, too, but those shouldn't make a big difference. I'd probably guess at the PS2/PSP/Other : DS breakout to be about 50/50, as well.

Rhindle said:
The flattening 360 curve indicates that the userbase is becoming more casual and buying less games on average (it could also mean that early users are losing interest in the machine, but that seems unlikely).

I'm pretty sure it's just an indication of the significant increase in hardware sales since the Sep-08 price drop.

Edit:
The increase in hardware sales may be driven by a more casual market, but I don't think you can reasonably deduce that based on just the tie ratio changes since Sep-08.

Rhindle · Apr 22, 2009

donny2112 said:
I'm pretty sure it's just an indication of the significant increase in hardware sales since the Sep-08 price drop.

Edit:
The increase in hardware sales may be driven by a more casual market, but I don't think you can reasonably deduce that based on just the tie ratio changes since Sep-08.

Agreed. An acceleration in hardware sales will suppress the tie ratio, at least temporarily.

Azih · Apr 22, 2009

Amount of Software sold in a month per Capita hardware units would be the best measure of how active a userbase is in buying games.

We have number of software units sold in March right? Divide that by total hardware units available (either by start of March or end of March, the difference is close to negligible by this point) and we'll get a good rough measure of how buy happy respctive console owners are.

Kenka · Apr 22, 2009

donny2112 said:
For Jan-Mar-09, the 360/PS3/Wii software totals are ...

Wii - ~16m
360 - ~11m
PS3 - ~8m

I like that ! Now, I am sorry to come with this but... can we sum up all the first-party software on Wii in the overall top 10 for the last three months ? Yes, I want to see how it compares to the overall volume of software sold on the console.

donny2112 · Apr 22, 2009

Kenka said:
can we sum up all the first-party software on Wii in the overall top 10 for the last three months ?

3.9m

Kenka · Apr 22, 2009

donny2112 said:
3.9m

So, 25% of the whole stuff are Nintendo big guns. Actually, the situation is pretty good but I wonder what Nintendo can do in order to push third-party sales on Wii at a 360-PS3 combined level.

Would it be safe to assume that third-parties sold equally good between Wii and 360 ? Have we got any argument to back this up ?

hc2 · Apr 22, 2009

Is the Wi Fit game counted if it is bundled with the Wii Board? Are the board's sales counted as game revenue or hardware revenue?

The Wii Fit package includes a Wii Balance Board and a Wii Fit game disk for the Wii console containing 48 fitness training-related games and activities.[6]

Kenka · Apr 22, 2009

hc2 said:
Is the Wi Fit game counted if it is bundled with the Wii Board? Are the board's sales counted as game revenue or hardware revenue?

Of course yes.

Chumly · Apr 22, 2009

Mrbob said:
We always knew the Wii sold games outside of the top 10, but I am a bit shocked to see the PS3s software ratio outside the top 10 much higher than expected.

Top 10 percentage of sales per platform for the quarter:

360 - 45 percent
PS3 - 27 percent
Wii - 35 percent

It is almost crazy to see the PS3 has the most software being sold outside the top 10 relative to its platform. Must be some decent long tails going on, and the main reason I hate only getting top 10 numbers.

X360 truly is still the play the flavor of the month, move to the next game console. Still the hardcore gamers console of choice.

We always say the 360 and PS3 are the "hardcore" gaming systems, but looking at the sales percentages perhaps the PS3 is a bit more casual than we first thought.

Also, software to hardware userbase relatively it looks like the PS3 is starting to outperform the 360 in the USA. No wonder 3rd parties want Sony to drop the price. Move more software overall.

???? So much wrong with this post

360 - 30.99 percent
PS3 - 21.43 percent
Wii - 26.05 percent

Rather significant change in percentages which make them much more similar. I see zero evidence that PS3 games have strong legs espcially since it has less games making the top 10 compared to the Wii and 360 (See January). If fact that top 10 selling PS3 games very likely make up a much more significant percentage than do 360/Wii games.

Support NeoGAF

Gamasutra's in depth tie-ratio analysis

Member

Member

Member

Gamasutra.

Member

Member

Member

á½ Î¼ÎµÎ¼Î²ÎµÏÎ¿Ï -Î¿Ï

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Member

Junior Member

Member

Member

Similar threads

á½ Î¼ÎµÎ¼Î²ÎµÏÎ¿Ï -Î¿Ï