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NPD Sales Results for October 2015 [Up1: Xbox #1]

BokehKing

Banned
Can we all agree a $50 price cut by Sony really isn't going to make that much of a difference? In the grand scheme of things, what is $50 when you're about to spend almost $400 anyway
 
I wonder who are the most delusional, those who thought Halo 5 would do similar numbers to the past games (even after the fan reception of Halo 4 and the MCC debacle) or those who think that everything is fine in Haloland? :p

But Halo got to no.1, nothing else matters. That means it did amazing. It's a blockbuster, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Sales numbers mean nothing when you're no.1 man.
 

Hoo-doo

Banned
I wish these npd threads updated the first post better.

Give 2 sections.

Section 1
-official numbers. These are 100% fact.

Section 2
-what gaf was able to extrapolate, get from insiders, etc. State that these should be taken with a grain of salt. Put it behind spoiler tags.


Instead, someone has to scour 5000 replies to get numbers.

You're either buckled up for the ride from the starting line or you miss out on all the fun. That's how it works now.

I agree with that it's a bit silly to arbitrarily obscure numbers that have been verified by multiple sources though. And I guess many would want to see gaming side burn with a headline that includes the Halo 5 sales numbers.
But I wonder, did creamsugar's data ever get included in the OP's 'official data' before? Because haven't we already vetted NPD_George the same way about now?
 

Alo0oy

Banned
This is a US thread, no?

The original point was that exclusives don't sell in the holidays, why would the region matter? Fact of the matter is that the best selling exclusives released in the holidays, in fact, every single exclusive 10 million seller last gen released in the holidays.
 

EagleEyes

Member
Can we all agree a $50 price cut by Sony really isn't going to make that much of a difference? In the grand scheme of things, what is $50 when you're about to spend almost $400 anyway
I'm shocked that so much of the discussion is on Halo when the PS4, the market leader, got its first price cut and it did absolutely nothing for it.
 

kswiston

Member
And? Your comment about GT5 continue to be out of subject.

The original thread of conversation started with exclusives not ruling the holidays. Someone tried to counter that by saying the best selling exclusives released during the holidays and others don't sell as well (which is easy enough to prove wrong on Sony's side of things since God of War 2-3, The Last of Us, The two best selling Gran Turismos, etc were all first half of the year games).

I pointed out that the large majority of sales for Sony's big first party titles came after the holiday. Perhaps large majority is pushing it for GT5, but the final shipment in North America was 2.8M. Given NPD numbers (and extrapolating for smaller markets), around half of that came after the holidays.

During the holidays, GT5 barely charted. So that original statement about exclusives not ruling the holidays is still correct for everything outside of Halo (and Gears to a lesser extent).
 
I'm shocked that so much of the discussion is on Halo when the PS4, the market leader, got its first price cut and it did absolutely nothing for it.
A month before Black Friday with not many big new games? Why buy a PS4 then when you can get it even cheaper with stuff like Fallout and Black Ops on top?
 
The 81% increase was due to MS announcing their November price cut half way through October last year. Had it been more in line with other slow months during the year the increase would've been far less (<25%) which is pretty small given the boosts Halo has provided to HW sales.

I think most everyone thought the HW sakes would be significantly higher in October. Now that said these sales could very well have migrated to November but that doesn't change the fact that they are significantly lower than most were expecting. The GAF predictions are proof of that.

I do not think it is any sort of indication of "consoles are dead" or "OMG sales were front loaded" but merely an outlier to be proven as much by the sales this holiday.

Just my 2 cents anyway.

Oh I hear ya bro. I'm just saying I think people's expectations the month before holiday season sales starts were unrealistic. And I agree: both consoles are gonna knock it outta the park this season, to the point where October will be instantly forgotten.
 

ironcreed

Banned
How did the thread go from Xbox One winning hardware and software for the month to Halo being a failure? No, it is not as popular as it used to be. That is obvious. Yet it still managed to win the month with only 5 days to show for it and Xbox One led in hardware as well.

Ah well, Xbox is doomed (again), I guess. They lose even when they win.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
The original thread of conversation started with exclusives not ruling the holidays. Someone tried to counter that by saying the best selling exclusives released during the holidays and others don't sell as well (which is easy enough to prove wrong on Sony's side of things since God of War 2-3, The Last of Us, The two best selling Gran Turismos, etc were all first half of the year games).

I pointed out that the large majority of sales for Sony's big first party titles came after the holiday. Perhaps large majority is pushing it for GT5, but the final shipment in North America was 2.8M. Given NPD numbers, around half of that came after the holidays.

During the holidays, GT5 barely charted. So that original statement about exclusives not ruling the holidays is still correct for everything outside of Halo (and Gears to a lesser extent).

You continue using NPD numbers to prove your point, is the US the only country in the world that has holidays?
 
Just an update to the AC sales from George's posts:

Assassin's Creed - 1,357,000
Assassin's Creed 2 - 1,243,000
Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood - 1,143,000
Assassin's Creed: Revelation - 1,200,000
Assassin's Creed 3 - 2,900,000
Assassin's Creed IV Black Flag - 1,820,000 (620K from PS3/360 and 1.2m from PS4/X1)
Assassin's Creed Unity - No numbers, but we know it did better than Syndicate
Assassin's Creed Syndicate - 391,000

Needless to say, the situation is looking pretty dire.
 
A month before Black Friday with not many big new games? Why buy a PS4 then when you can get it even cheaper with stuff like Fallout and Black Ops on top?

Agreed. Here's a copy/paste of my earlier thoughts on the matter.

"Eh. I gotta disagree respectfully on HW sales (still love ya buddy!). 304k is excellent for an October, and I just can't picture a scenario where an 81% YoY is disappointing, especially considering the Halo bundle was a $499 (!) console in the month before Black Friday. Far as PS4 sales go, again, 275k is completely within the norm for October. A 50 dollar price drop is fine, but why spend 350 on the Nathan Drake bundle when you can wait a month and get the Star Wars bundle? Even without THAT, I didn't expect it to have much impact a month before systems are available for 299 with additional games.
"
 
No, all the best selling exclusives last gen released in the holidays (Halo, GT5, and UC3), the other exclusives that released at a different time didn't sell anywhere near as well. Keep in mind that those games went against CoD and Battlefield in their prime.

This whole "competition from third parties" thing has absolutely no evidence, the evidence we have actually suggests otherwise.

3 games over the span of 8 plus years is nothing .
What pushes hardware during the holidays has been 3rd party games in fact they are what push the most hardware overall.
I am not saying that 1st party games can't sell during the holidays but we know what push hardware be it holidays or over all .
 

QaaQer

Member
Even more so when the last AC that came out was a broken mess .
When you bring out games yearly it rather easy for people to remember stuff like that .

They have shit on their biggest fans. 3 lessons can be taken:

1-Releasing full price, premium games that are broken and not fixed for 2 or 3 months fucks over your most ardent fans, you know the day 1/preorder folks who also buy the seasons pass. Sure, a marketing deal with MS is important, but the people who actually buy the games should be more important.

2-Destroying lore and replacing it with something that mocks said fans is a bad idea, even if it makes it easier to pump the games out.

3-dont fire Patrice Desilets
 

ethomaz

Banned
The original thread of conversation started with exclusives not ruling the holidays. Someone tried to counter that by saying the best selling exclusives released during the holidays and others don't sell as well (which is easy enough to prove wrong on Sony's side of things since God of War 2-3, The Last of Us, The two best selling Gran Turismos, etc were all first half of the year games).

I pointed out that the large majority of sales for Sony's big first party titles came after the holiday. Perhaps large majority is pushing it for GT5, but the final shipment in North America was 2.8M. Given NPD numbers, around half of that came after the holidays.

During the holidays, GT5 barely charted. So that original statement about exclusives not ruling the holidays is still correct for everything outside of Halo (and Gears to a lesser extent).
That is because GT5 didn't sell that all in US...
~50% of GT5 sales were from the first holiday month... it in fact goes against your point.

A better comparison is if a GT did less than 1m in EU at launch month.
That is what happened to Halo 5 in US.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
3 games over the span of 8 plus years is nothing .
What pushes hardware during the holidays has been 3rd party games in fact they are what push the most hardware overall.
I am not saying that 1st party games can't sell during the holidays but we know what push hardware be it holidays or over all .

Those 3 games were also the only 10 million sellers on PS360. Coincidentally, they all released in the holidays.
 

Ryng_tolu

Banned
NOVEMBER 2015 AMAZON

#14 / PS4 Call of Duty: Black Ops III
#20 / PS4 Uncharted: The Nathan Drake collection
#23 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront LE
#24 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront
#29 / XB1 Fallout 4
#37 / XB1 Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
#55 / XB1 3 games holidays bundle
#57 / XB1 Madden NFL 16
#98 / XB1 Halo 5 LE

Also...

#1 / Fallout (PS4)
#2 / Fallout 4 (XB1)

Dat Fallout. D:
 

QaaQer

Member
It was a terrible month for everyone and everything. Both HW and SW. Especially Halo and AC. Anyone saying otherwise is spinning shit into silk so to speak.

This is the holiday season so we don't have the full hardware pic yet. Software is easier to judge as it is always front loaded. So yeah, halo sold terribly and asscreed was series-ending-ubisoft-in-trouble bad. Hardware is still¯_(&#12484;)_/¯
 

Alo0oy

Banned
NOVEMBER 2015 AMAZON

#14 / PS4 Call of Duty: Black Ops III
#20 / PS4 Uncharted: The Nathan Drake collection
#23 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront LE
#24 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront
#29 / XB1 Fallout 4
#37 / XB1 Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
#55 / XB1 3 games holidays bundle
#57 / XB1 Madden NFL 16
#98 / XB1 Halo 5 LE

Also...

#1 / Fallout (PS4)
#2 / Fallout 4 (XB1)

Dat Fallout. D:

Amazon is dead to me.
 

BokehKing

Banned
How did the thread go from Xbox One winning hardware and software for the month to Halo being a failure? No, it is not as popular as it used to be. That is obvious. Yet it still managed to win the month with only 5 days to show for it and Xbox One led in hardware as well.

Ah well, Xbox is doomed (again), I guess. They lose even when they win.
Bigger picture, sometimes a win is not as monumental as you think
 
Those 3 games were also the only 10 million sellers on PS360. Coincidentally, they all released in the holidays.

And 2 COD games sell more of them combine .
3 AC games sell as much as them combine
And they come out every year which just goes back to prove my point .
Also and price .
 
But Halo got to no.1, nothing else matters. That means it did amazing. It's a blockbuster, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Sales numbers mean nothing when you're no.1 man.

zeT3X1Q.gif
 

ironcreed

Banned
Bigger picture, sometimes a win is not as monumental as you think

I never said it was monumental, but they still won the month. Which means PS4 did even worse for the month, even after a price drop.

At any rate, I expect November and December to pick up for both, regardless of who wins. People are obviously waiting for the holidays.
 

RexNovis

Banned
NOVEMBER 2015 AMAZON

#14 / PS4 Call of Duty: Black Ops III
#20 / PS4 Uncharted: The Nathan Drake collection
#23 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront LE
#24 / PS4 Star Wars: Battlefront
#29 / XB1 Fallout 4
#37 / XB1 Gears of War: Ultimate Edition
#55 / XB1 3 games holidays bundle
#57 / XB1 Madden NFL 16
#98 / XB1 Halo 5 LE

Also...

#1 / Fallout (PS4)
#2 / Fallout 4 (XB1)

Dat Fallout. D:

I am still blown away by how many bundles XB1 has this holiday. There are 5 in the top 100 alone and that's not even all of them. It's crazy. I just don't understand it.
 
Amazon is dead to me.

We all knew the those Halo pre-orders could help Xbox get a close win and it did. This month Sony has the extra units being counted.

Based on what I see PS4 will dominate most of the month and Xbox will have to really bring it on Black Friday...which is definitely possible.
 
X1 selling more than PS4 is expected, the thing is both X1 and PS4 sold below expectations. The major shock here is Halo numbers going down from selling 3m to only 937k with bundles.

PS4 low sales this month can be explained by BF, CoD bundles which were available early to preorder BUT both are not counted in October, Nov shall give us the whole story abot those sales.

This summarizes the month well. As I said earlier it is obvious November bundles had a big impact on PS4 sales because Month to Month saw a big decline from September even. That and people aren't dumb they know if they wait a month they will get these consoles even cheaper.

Conditioning people with yearly sales in November is also the reason I think Syndicate will have a very small drop and may actually do better this month.
 
You're moving the goalpost.

Exclusives sell best in the holidays, & we have evidence of this.

I am not moving any goal post .
You seem to be missing my point .
I was always talking about pushing hardware not software sales.

EDIT and even then 3rd party stuff still sells more during that time.
 
I think most everyone thought the HW sakes would be significantly higher in October. Now that said these sales could very well have migrated to November but that doesn't change the fact that they are significantly lower than most were expecting. The GAF predictions are proof of that.

That is the problem with predictions, reality catches up with them soon enough. If people put their orders in last month, but they have to wait until this month for them to be fulfilled, is that really the sale migrating? It's not as though the pre-orders weren't charting quite highly.
 

Purest 78

Member
yeah nooooo i am pretty sure you were talking about how the game would get people to get xbox ones in a lot of posts. 360 owners, ps4 owners, halo fans etc... not only did the game disappoint(way less then what you would have expected since you did say it won't perform like previous entries)) but also the amount of hardware it moved. i guess you could say halo won them the month and pushed hardware but that would be a weak argument looking at actual numbers imo


does it look like you were talking about halo(the game) or halo (the system seller) in these posts?



You even compared the effect halo 5 would have to mgs4 !!!

In this thread Bgamer Questioned when I said halo5 was supposed to change the tide. Yet those post of his show exactly what I meant. Also numerous times he said halo fans were waiting for Halo5 to buy a x1. Yet with Uc4 people who want it will likely own ps4 already. He needs to step away from the keyboard at this point.
 
Now I want Knack to be on PS+ just so I can play it myself and see how good (LOL) it really is.
All jokes aside I actually thought it was pretty good. I played the whole thing co-op with my wife and we had a great time. It is surprisingly a pretty hard core, difficult game despite the presentation. The story could have been better though.

I'd pick Knack 2 over Halo 6 any day of the week. At least the last Knack game I played didn't wipe out my save halfway through the game.
 
Can we all agree a $50 price cut by Sony really isn't going to make that much of a difference? In the grand scheme of things, what is $50 when you're about to spend almost $400 anyway

I can agree with that for sure. Hindsight is always 20/20 but they should have stuck to $399. Then the BF $299 deal would have looked insane value and do a permanent $100 cut at E3
 

Sydle

Member
my idea is that the MCC MP debacle may have had consequences and we are seeing them now.

Halo 5 may be a great game but it's clear something is making (former) fans not buy it.

what is it? my bet is lack of confidence in the product.

series fatigue? come on, we have yearly Call of duty games speaking against that.

It's why I haven't bought it yet despite everyone saying it's great, and I used to be a day-one buyer of the series. Halo MCC was the last time that's happening until I see some consistent quality from 343. I'm definitely getting Halo 5, but I'm going to finish Tomb Raider first.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
I am not moving any goal post .
You seem to be missing my point .
I was always talking about pushing hardware not software sales.

Big exclusive games do push hardware though, we've seen that for almost every console since inception, just because people use niche games as evidence to the contrary doesn't mean they don't sell hardware, Bloodborne or Forza aren't supposed to push hardware, they're niche games, Gran Turismo pushes hardware, Halo (used to) push hardware, Metal Gear Solid pushes hardware...etc.
 

CoG

Member
Because XB1 won this month?

Don't forget the XB1 pre orders in August...

Exactly. People don't know how to correctly interpret the Amazon best sellers lists. Pre-orders need to be taken into consideration. Other than that it's an excellent barometer for where NPD is going to net out.
 

kswiston

Member
You continue using NPD numbers to prove your point, is the US the only country in the world that has holidays?

Obviously other countries have holidays, but I really don't see how that is relevant in an NPD thread. When someone makes a general statement in this thread (like the person you are replying to), you should generally assume they mean the US or North American market no?

Even if we look at the global market, Gran Turismo 5 is literally one data point. GT6 sold like shit, and the previous two titles sold just as well or better in July and Feb/Mar. I can't find the relevant shipment data, but I am almost certain that Uncharted 3 wasn't all that much higher than The Last of Us after its first 12-14 months. I don't see any real evidence that exclusives sell best during the Holidays, other than the fact that all of the Halo games have launched in Sept-Nov.

Certainly, no one has refuted the fact that exclusives don't rule the holidays. Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3 each outsold the entire Uncharted series combined as of our last shipment report. If you want to just look at Holiday 2011 (Nov + Dec sales), Modern Warfare 3 on PS3 alone was well over Uncharted 3 (US or Global). Skyrim PS3 was probably under, but not drastically so. I don't remember what the breakdown of Battlefield 3 was.
 

QaaQer

Member
The last few pages are weird.

I wish I could have the optimism for anything like some do on Halo. I also wish I still believed in Santa Claus, that I could play in the majors and that I could be an astronaut. Sadly, reality is a harsh mistress.



I get what you're saying, and I appreciate it. But after having looked at some other boards yesterday and seen the things that were being said about people posting, well, without official NPD numbers from official sources, the conversation would likely devolve and not be about the numbers but rather about where the numbers came from. I can't imagine the end result would be what you'd want it to be. Some people would just rather not know. Those that are here, generally, do want to know and can (for the most part) talk about this stuff rationally and dispassionately. The general community though? Not sure.

If IGN or some major site did a story? Then sure, my opinion would be that a thread would be justified. But right now? No, I don't think the sources are solid enough for the public to accept. Know what I mean?

Very sensible. Posting a [rumour] thread, even one based on the right honourable Thomas Mulcair, would end badly...at least for halo. Asscreed might be OK as ubi has killed most of their fanboys.
 
I can agree with that for sure. Hindsight is always 20/20 but they should have stuck to $399. Then the BF $299 deal would have looked insane value and do a permanent $100 cut at E3

This. I was a bit bemused at everyone thinking this would result in a massive uptick in sales. At any other time of the year? Hell yes, you bet. Right before the holiday deals explode? Nope. Having said that, November PS4 will be in beast mode.
 
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