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February 2011 NPD Article (Gamasutra)

J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Another month, another column on the latest NPD Group sales estimates. Gamasutra is graciously hosting my article:
Direct link to Gamasutra story about February 2011 NPD data.
Some stuff folks might be interested in:
  • Elaboration on the shifting situation for consoles. Starting from comments made by Doug Creutz of Cowen & Company, a look at the share of hardware and software share in two comparable 12-month periods.
  • MvC3 roughly 1:1 between Xbox 360 and PS3.
  • 44K Killzone 3 bundles.
  • Some info on attach rates for a variety of games (but not everything you'd want, so sorry). I already know y'all will yell at me because of the scales, but those were the limitations for the data I was given.
  • Points cards were $56.5 million in February 2011, up from $37.2 million a year ago. I believe these are the first hard values we've ever gotten for points cards.
  • Not in the article, but of interest perhaps: Killzone 2 LTD is 956K, presumably without hardware bundles. (There was a KZ2/PS3 bundle in the U.S. as I recall.)
  • Working on a firm NDS figure (esp. for the prediction thread). It's around 454K. PSP around 78K.
One image to perhaps catch your eye:
attach-rates-action-games.png

I'll be around some of day, so when you find mistakes, please let me know. I'll try to answer questions too, if there's something you think I got wrong or that would be worth chatting about.

As always, I'm up for corrections, comments, etc. Please don't take a lack of immediate response personally -- I may simply not be here. My overlordseditors will probably be watching the thread, so changes may happen without a direct response from me.

In case you'd like to review previous threads:
2007: Oct Nov Dec
2008: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2009: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2010: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2011: Jan
 
R

Rolf NB

Member
Page 3
"And, for the other extreme we have a third shooter, Medal of Honor (2010), also from EA which launched back in October 2010. Here the attach rate for the PS3 version is substantially different from the rate on the Xbox 360, and as a result we estimate that the Xbox 360 version sold approximately 150,000 units more than the PlayStation 3 version."

Looking at the picture, and seeing how you present this as a contrast, should this be "less", maybe?
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Rolf NB said:
Page 3
"And, for the other extreme we have a third shooter, Medal of Honor (2010), also from EA which launched back in October 2010. Here the attach rate for the PS3 version is substantially different from the rate on the Xbox 360, and as a result we estimate that the Xbox 360 version sold approximately 150,000 units more than the PlayStation 3 version."

Looking at the picture, and seeing how you present this as a contrast, should this be "less", maybe?
Click to expand...
The ratio between the attach rates isn't sufficiently large for the PS3 to have sold more than the Xbox 360 version. Given the scale of that game's sales, a differential of only 150K is quite good (as I recall, don't have figures in front of me).
 
R

Rolf NB

Member
jvm said:
The ratio between the attach rates isn't sufficiently large for the PS3 to have sold more than the Xbox 360 version. Given the scale of that game's sales, a differential of only 150K is quite good (as I recall, don't have figures in front of me).
Click to expand...
Ok. Due to the setup ("the other extreme"), it's not very clear IMO. Might I suggest a "only 150k more" or something to that extent?
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Rolf NB said:
Ok. Due to the setup ("the other extreme"), it's not very clear IMO. Might I suggest a "only 150k more" or something to that extent?
Click to expand...
Not a bad suggestion. Thanks!
 
D

Dedication Through Light

Member
jvm said:
Working on a firm NDS figure (esp. for the prediction thread). It's around 454K. PSP around 78K.
Click to expand...

Wow, and considering limited (is there even any) advertising and no more big games of note coming on the PSP, Im surprised its still even managing that much. I do love that companies are still bringing games out for it, its a lovely system.

They do?
Microsoft has successfully positioned its console with both developers and consumers and cultivated a reputation for having the best version of most cross-platform games. That advantage can't be eliminated easily.
Click to expand...
 
K

kswiston

Member
Dedication Through Light said:
Wow, and considering limited (is there even any) advertising and no more big games of note coming on the PSP, Im surprised its still even managing that much. I do love that companies are still bringing games out for it, its a lovely system.
Click to expand...

PSP development is being supported almost entirely by Japan and first party titles at this point. If PSP wasn't doing so well in Japan, I would imagine that the system's support would have been all but gone by this point.

Lathentar said:
It would be nice if you had a number other than 0% to show what kind of scale we're looking at.
Click to expand...

360 has sold approximately 1.65 times more consoles.

So a multiplatform title that sells to 1.2% of the 360 userbase, needs to sell to 2% of the PS3 userbase to have equal sales on both platforms.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
jvm;

When calculating software attach rate this late in the generation, it may make more sense to do software sales attached to monthly hardware sales or at the very least software sales attached to annual hardware sales.

As you note in the graph; at this point in time literally 100% of software released will have a <10% attach rate to lifetime hardware sales, so I think we can safely say that the purpose behind the graph is not to look at the absolute attach rate, but the relative attach rate between consoles. I think we can further agree that the purpose of the graph is not to show absolute sales, since we can see those from the raw numbers.

To give you a point of reference why my alternate schemes might be more useful, consider first month sales of Batman: Arkham Asylum. I mention that game because it had PS3 exclusive content and debuted the same month as the PS3 slim, which corresponding saw a massive monthly increase in PS3 sales. I don't think either of those two factors can be divorced from the process of determining why the PS3 SKU tied the 360 SKU.

So to me, for optimal cross-platform comparison, I'd do absolute sales to absolute sales, and as a secondary comparison, monthly attach rate to monthly attach rate.
 
D

Dedication Through Light

Member
Lathentar said:
It would be nice if you had a number other than 0% to show what kind of scale we're looking at.
Click to expand...

Or at least moved the "10%" from the caption and put it on the axis, as I didnt really understand what the graphic is trying to show. (or perhaps say % of XX number of [console name] units)
 
R

Retrocide

Member
On page 1 a small mistake
Despite those increases, total hardware unit sales were down, primarily due to software Nintendo DS sales. Yet higher hardware prices helped push hardware revenue up 9.5%, driven by bundling.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming you meant to say softer NDS sales.
 
K

Kusagari

Member
Lathentar said:
It would be nice if you had a number other than 0% to show what kind of scale we're looking at.
Click to expand...

The only thing to really read into that is that for some reason Assasssin's Creed is FAR bigger on 360 than PS3.
 
K

kswiston

Member
Kusagari said:
The only thing to really read into that is that for some reason Assasssin's Creed is FAR bigger on 360 than PS3.
Click to expand...

Assassin's Creed has always been far bigger in 360. Although, similarly to COD, I think the gap has been closing with subsequent releases. I know that the original game had well over 2 times the sales on 360 versus PS3. Maybe 3 times the sales. I don't remember exactly.

However, from the graph above, AC:Brotherhood sold about 1.8 times better on the 360 then it did on the PS3.
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Busy at home today. Regarding attach rates, trust me I'd love to put out the absolute LTDs. Those were specifically verboten, and I have to work within those rules. The agreement with NPD is a gentlemen's agreement, so to speak, and I intend to respect that. I'll try to say more later.
 
M

Meier

Member
I think a chart is at its best when you can look at it and understand it without reading the footnotes/explanation at the bottom. It'd be much more clear immediately if the 10% was shown on your scale right before the very end.
 
K

kswiston

Member
Meier said:
I think a chart is at its best when you can look at it and understand it without reading the footnotes/explanation at the bottom. It'd be much more clear immediately if the 10% was shown on your scale right before the very end.
Click to expand...


10% would not even be on the line shown. My best guess is that the chart ends at something like a 7% attach rate. 10% would be 1.6M units on the PS3 scale and 2.6M units on the 360 scale. None of the games listed are anywhere near that.
 
V

V_Arnold

Member
kswiston said:
10% would not even be on the line shown. My best guess is that the chart ends at something like a 7% attach rate. 10% would be 1.6M units on the PS3 scale and 2.6M units on the 360 scale. None of the games listed are anywhere near that.
Click to expand...

Assassin?
 
R

Ridley327

Member
Cosmonaut X said:
Wow. It's absolutely stone-cold in the West, isn't it?
Click to expand...
Squenix's burst of games within the next month here is likely to be the last gasp of air for the system. After that, it's going to be long wait until NGP as far as sales are concerned.
 
V

Version 3.0

Member
"Despite those increases, total hardware unit sales were down, primarily due to software Nintendo DS sales."

Shouldn't this say "softer Nintendo DS sales"?

edit: never mind, beaten.
 
K

kswiston

Member
V_Arnold said:
Assassin?
Click to expand...

Ya, you're right. I double checked the last few NPDs, and I think the number I had in my head for AC:Brotherhood was for Nov+Dec only (~2.5m total).

If you figure that the game sold another 500k or so in Jan+Feb, tie in for the 360 version would be AROUND 7%. So the scale does end pretty close to 10%. My mistake!
 
R

Road

Member
Meier said:
I think a chart is at its best when you can look at it and understand it without reading the footnotes/explanation at the bottom. It'd be much more clear immediately if the 10% was shown on your scale right before the very end.
Click to expand...
If he put the % on the actual lines it would be easy to estimate totals, which would go against what NPD requested.

I like those new graphs, though. Something different to talk about. And they are neat too.
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Ok, I think we got all the typos y'all found so far, and I cleaned up the "only 150,000", which was helpful.

As always, thanks.

Will be AFK for a while.
 
L

Lord_Byron28

Member
Beam said:
People are still buying NDS even though the 3DS almost there. Holly shit.
When in March does the 3DS hit the US and Europe?
Click to expand...
The GBA was still selling extremely well in the U.S. throughout the DS' first year. PS2 has also sold extremely well after the PS3 had released..
 
Z

Zen

Banned
jvm said:
Some stuff folks might be interested in:
[*]Not in the article, but of interest perhaps: Killzone 2 LTD is 956K, presumably without hardware bundles. (There was a KZ2/PS3 bundle in the U.S. as I recall.)

As always, I'm up for corrections, comments, etc. Please don't take a lack of immediate response personally -- I may simply not be here. My overlordseditors will probably be watching the thread, so changes may happen without a direct response from me.
Click to expand...


As always thanks for your great work.

Killzone 2 did not have a bundle in North America, actually.
http://www.psu.com/No-Killzone-2-bundle-planned-for-North-America--a0006084-p0.php
 
J

Jokeropia

Member
30SomethingGamer said:
wow look at the software sales for the PS3 and 360, the 360 winning, but the thing that gets me is the the Wii is getting crushed ...
Click to expand...
Where do you get that from? The EA only revenue data?

I know Wii was the #1 software system even in terms of revenue for January NPD, did we get numbers for February?
 
A

A Human Becoming

More than a Member
Thanks for looking into DS and PSP numbers. Did you ever find the estimated PSP sales for December 2010? I only saw 1.7 million PSPs sold for 2010 in your article, but not a specific number for the month.
 
W

Watchtower

Banned
More importantly, approximately 350,000 Xbox 360 systems sold last month were Kinect bundles, priced at between $300 and $400, according to comments made by Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities.
Click to expand...

So if that's bundles only, I wonder what Kinect's actual numbers combined with stand-alone units were for February.

It's probably safe to say Kinect is doing over 500k a month in the US alone, and that's just crazy. At that rate it would sell an additional at least 4 million before the holidays in the USA alone. It could sit at 22-25 million by the end of the year, half of the 360's current WW LTD user base in just one year(and outselling the original Xbox).
 
Z

Zen

Banned
Watchtower said:
So if that's bundles only, I wonder what Kinect's actually numbers combined with stand-alone units were combined for February.

It's probably safe to say Kinect is doing over 500k a month in the US alone, and that's just crazy. At that rate it would sell an additional at least 4 million before the holidays in the USA alone. It could sit at 22-25 million by the end of the year, half of the 360's current WW LTD user base in just one year(and outselling the original Xbox).
Click to expand...


Bundles are included in total hardware sales.

The ratio is spectacular though.
 
W

Watchtower

Banned
Zen said:
Bundles are included in total hardware sales.

The ratio is spectacular though.
Click to expand...


You missed it. That's statement also means there were 350,000 Kinects sold just as part of 360/Kinect bundles.

I'm talking about Kinect's hardware total(including single SKU), not the 360's.
 
T

Tylahedras

Banned
Fantastic Kinect sales, marketing works people.

I know at least 5 people at work who bought a 360 to have kinect and none of them were dissapointed with it FYI. These are all people who would have probably bought Wii otherwise so I assume it's cannibalizing.
 
3

30SomethingGamer

Banned
Jokeropia said:
Where do you get that from? The EA only revenue data?

I know Wii was the #1 software system even in terms of revenue for January NPD, did we get numbers for February?
Click to expand...

my bad i missed that it was EA, i was confused, sorry.
 
J

jvm

Gamasutra.
lunchwithyuzo said:
jvm, did you ever find out if the listed platforms per title were indeed in order of highest to lowest sales or not?
Click to expand...
I haven't asked, sorry, but I still haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise in the actual sales data provided to me. That is, no counterexample currently exists to prove that the listing is not the ranking.
 
R

Rad-

Member
Watchtower said:
So if that's bundles only, I wonder what Kinect's actual numbers combined with stand-alone units were for February.

It's probably safe to say Kinect is doing over 500k a month in the US alone, and that's just crazy. At that rate it would sell an additional at least 4 million before the holidays in the USA alone. It could sit at 22-25 million by the end of the year, half of the 360's current WW LTD user base in just one year(and outselling the original Xbox).
Click to expand...

Yep and holy shit.
 
M

Meier

Member
Road said:
If he put the % on the actual lines it would be easy to estimate totals, which would go against what NPD requested.

I like those new graphs, though. Something different to talk about. And they are neat too.
Click to expand...
He could simply add an endpoint and label it <10% then. Something to give it at least some sort of scale. As it stands, just looking at the graph without reading anything else, I was thinking it meant percentage sold on 360 versus PS3. In my case, due to the "connecting" lines -- the eye wanted to compare the two directly immediately rather than looking at the supplemental info.
 
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