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February 2017 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes Tuesday, March 7th

D

donny2112

Member
ITT, predict for the NPD February 2017 retail period (January 29-February 25, 2017) for U.S. hardware sales.

What is NPD?: NPD is one of the main retail tracking firms in the U.S., and also about the only one who specifically goes into detail on video games sales. This thread is to predict what the NPD hardware sales will be for the most recent month. NPD months are defined here, from jvm.
What do I win?: Bragging rights. We also keep track of predictions over the year and have an annual contest using "points." Still just bragging rights, but Sales-Agers have fun seeing how well we can do with it. See here for details on the point calculations.

Prediction entries must be in and finalized by 8 p.m. EST on Tuesday, March 7th. Format use is required if you want your entry counted.

NPD Coverage: January 29-February 25, 2017 (4 weeks, January was 4 weeks)
NPD Physical Release: Thursday, March 9th @ 4 p.m. EST (public thread with physical+digital posted 1 week later on March 16th ~6:30 p.m. EST)

Format:
Note: NSW will be added to the predictions in March with its launch.

[PS4]
[XB1]

Good/Bad Formatting
Code: 
Good              Bad
[XB1] 200K       [XB1] 200 thousand
[XB1] 200,000    [XB1] 200.000
[XB1] 200000     [XB1] 200000


Potential hardware impacting events in February:
Tax returns usually result in a HW bump


Prediction Format: (repeating to emphasize to use this format)

[PS4]
[XB1]

(January's results not public)
January's #1 predictor
BlackBuzzard said:
Skipped most of last year, but im in this year.

[PS4] 222k
[XB1] 157k
Click to expand...

January 2016 NPD thread
February 2016 NPD thread

NPD Prediction Thread Archive
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
[PS4] 395K
[XB1] 289K

Hello! This wall of numbers will be comparing the weekly average of January and February. This is a simple month to month comparison as both January and February have 4 weeks (except for the off year where January is 5 weeks) I have gathered high selling software and any hardware deals for February to help show how the month might be impacted. You can go to previous prediction threads for the previous month's potential impacts.

As I have stated last month, there will be no Nintendo comparison until after Switch launches.

Code: 
2011

Xbox 360 January: 381K / 4 = 95,250
Xbox 360 February: 535K / 4 = 133,750

Weekly average up 40%

PS3 January: 267K / 4 = 66,750
PS3 February: 403K / 4 = 100,750

Weekly average up 51%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Tax Returns

[u]PS3[/u]
Tax Returns

Killzone 3 [1 week] [279.9K]

Code: 
2012

Xbox 360 January: 270K / 4 = 67,500
Xbox 360 February: 426K / 4 = 106,500

Weekly average up 58%

PS3 January: 195K / 4 = 48,750
PS3 February: 347K / 4 = 86,750

Weekly average up 78%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Tax Returns

Final Fantasy XIII-2 [4 weeks]
SoulCalibur V [4 weeks]
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning [3 weeks]
UFC Undisputed 3 [2 weeks]

[u]PS3[/u]
Tax Returns

Twisted Metal [2 weeks] [221K]

Final Fantasy XIII-2 [4 weeks]
SoulCalibur V [4 weeks]
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning [3 weeks]
UFC Undisputed 3 [2 weeks]

Code: 
2013

Xbox 360 January: 281K / 5 = 56,200
Xbox 360 February: 302K / 4 = 75,500

Weekly average up 34%

PS3 January: 201K / 5 = 40,200
PS3 February: 262K / 4 = 65,500

Weekly average up 63%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Tax Returns

Dead Space 3 [4 weeks]
Aliens: Colonial Marines [3 weeks]
Crysis 3 [2 weeks]
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance [2 weeks] [>70k]

[u]PS3[/u]
Tax Returns

Dead Space 3 [4 weeks]
Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time [4 weeks]
Aliens: Colonial Marines [3 weeks]
Crysis 3 [2 weeks]
Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance [2 weeks] [>130k]

Code: 
2014

Xbox 360 January: 48K / 4 = 12,000
Xbox 360 February: 114K / 4 = 28,500

Weekly average up 138%

Xbox One January: 143K / 4 = 35,750
Xbox One February: 258K / 4 = 64,500

Weekly average up 80%

PS3 January: 54K / 4 = 13,500
PS3 February: 102K / 4 = 25,500

Weekly average up 89%

PS4 January: 271K / 4 = 67,750
PS4 February: 269K / 4 = 67,250

Weekly average down 1%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Tax Returns

The LEGO Movie Videogame [4 weeks]
Thief [1 week]

[u]PS4[/u]
Tax Returns

Supply constrained: Demand > Supply

The LEGO Movie Videogame [4 weeks]
Thief [1 week]

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Tax Returns

The LEGO Movie Videogame [4 weeks]
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII [3 weeks]
Thief [1 week]

[u]PS3[/u]
Tax Returns

The LEGO Movie Videogame [4 weeks]
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII [3 weeks]
Thief [1 week]

Code: 
2015

Xbox 360 January: 39K / 4 = 9,750
Xbox 360 February: 68K / 4 = 17,000

Weekly average up 74%

Xbox One January: 150K / 4 = 37,500
Xbox One February: 276K / 4 = 69,000

Weekly average up 84%

PS3 January: 34K / 4 = 8,500
PS3 February: 65K / 4 = 16,250

Weekly average up 91%

PS4 January: 189K / 4 = 47,250
PS4 February: 342K / 4 = 85,500

Weekly average up 81%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Tax Returns

Evolve [3 weeks]
Dragon Ball: Xenoverse [1 week]

[u]PS4[/u]
Tax Returns

Evolve [3 weeks]
Dragon Ball: Xenoverse [1 week]

[u]Xbox 360[/u]
Tax Returns

Dragon Ball: Xenoverse [1 week]

[u]PS3[/u]
Tax Returns

Dragon Ball: Xenoverse [1 week]

Code: 
2016

360/PS3 = Basically dead and no data leaked for January

Xbox One January: 132K / 4 = 33,000
Xbox One February: 248K / 4 = 62,000

Weekly average up 88%

PS4 January: 230K / 4 = 57,500
PS4 February: 405K / 4 = 101,250

Weekly average up 76%

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Tax Returns

Name Your Game 500GB Bundle $349 [Forza 6/Tomb Raider/Gears UE/Rare Replay] [3 weeks]

Far Cry Primal [1 week] [157K
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 [3 weeks] [<97K]]

[u]PS4[/u]
Tax Returns

Far Cry Primal 1TB bundle $399 [1 week]

Street Fighter V [2 weeks] [~207K]
Far Cry Primal [1 week] [206K]
Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 [3 weeks] [<193K]

Code: 
2017 January Weekly Averages (Calculated from here - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=231192291&postcount=58

PS4: 211K / 4 = 52,750
Xbox One: 157K / 4 = 39,250

Code: 
Notable Events in February

[u]Xbox One[/u]
Tax Returns

Price Cut $50 February 17th - February 25th [2 weeks / 9 days]

Forza Horizon 3 500GB bundle $299 [3 weeks]
Halo Wars 2: Ultimate Edition 1TB bundle $349 [2 weeks]

For Honor [2 weeks]
Halo Wars 2 [1 week]

[u]PS4[/u]
Tax Returns

PS4 Slim 500GB Price Cut $50 February 12th - February 25th [2 weeks / 14 days]

Call of Duty Infinite Warfare Deluxe Edition Glacier White 500GB Bundle $299 [Walmart] [3 weeks]

Nioh [3 weeks]
For Honor [2 weeks]

Notes:

From one of the slowest months of the year to the biggest non holiday month of the year, February is a massive improvement over January, almost doubling sales. This is mainly thanks to tax returns.

Xbox
The Xbox 360 rose an average of 69%, with a minimum of 34% (2013) and maximum of 138% (2014). Remove 2014 which appears to be an anomaly and the Xbox 360 rose an average of 52%.

The Xbox One has had strong surges in February compared to the massive drops in January from December. February 2014 showed a massive turnaround from the weak sales in January. 2015 benefited from a late January price cut back to $349, and 2016 had the launch of the Name Your Game bundle where you could choose either Forza 6, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War Ultimate Edition, or Rare Replay at $349. 2017 has the launch of the $299 Forza Horizon 3 and the $349 Halo Wars 2 bundles.

Last month I noted each January for the Xbox One had a worse drop than the last (besides this year), every February has seen a bigger jump than the last, averaging a raise of 84%, with a minimum of 80% (2014) and maximum of 88% (2016).

What I have found interesting is the percentage drop in January from December to the rise in February over the past few years.

2013 December to 2014 January drop: -80%
2014 January to 2014 February rise: +80%

2014 December to 2015 January drop: -86%
2015 January to 2015 February rise: +84%

2015 December to 2016 January drop: -88%
2016 January to 2016 February rise: +88%

Weird coincidence, or actual correlation?!

Playstation
The PS3 rose an average 74% with a minimum of 51% (2011) and maximum of 91% (2015).

PS4 has a pretty clear outlier in 2014 as there were stock shortages for holiday 2013 and early 2014. Sales actually fell in February 2014 compared to every other console seeing a boost. 2015 had a much more reasonable 81% increase and 2016 increased 76%.

This February is the first time the PS4 has received a temporary price drop and it is to $249. This should guarantee a massive boost in sales.

Recap

February is the third strongest selling month of the year behind November and December. A massive, almost doubling of sales from January.

The biggest February ever recorded back in the 7th was the Wii with 753,000 back in 2009. Second biggest? Xbox 360 with 535,000 in 2011.

The biggest February ever recorded in the 8th is the PS4 with 404,900 in 2016. Second biggest? PS4 again with 342,000 in 2015.
 
Unknown?

Unknown?

Member
Didn't know February was the third biggest! PS4 will do well riding January's strong software as well as big ones coming in February and March. Not to mention the price drop.
 
H

hanspampel

Banned
Xb1 up YoY
Ps4 down YoY
Ps4 ahead of Xb1 thanks to 1 week pricecut advantage.
Gap smaller than January. (not 100% sure about this. Could be wrong, tho)

Will post numbers later
 
O

Obliterator

Member
Some software predictions

Halo Wars less than 100k. Considering it launched at less than For Honors 2nd week in the UK which had already dropped 72% not feeling good about this one

For Honor I'll go ~500k

Oh yeah almost forgot

Ni-Oh ~300k
 
S

sense

Member
I wonder if the Xbox one s momentum has slowed down. I always had the feeling the first few months were mostly existing users upgrading but let's see how it goes in the following months.

MS is really pushing Xbox one s with some crazy deals. Dell has a deal where you can get 1tb halo wars 2 Xbox one s with 100$ gift card for 299.99 which effectively makes it 199.99.... so no wonder they keep reporting lower hardware revenue.

Sony is going to take the month most likely due to the amount of exclusive games released recently and additional pro sales coinciding with tax returns.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
[PS4] 393k
[XB1] 268k

I think tax refunds are going to a be a major boon for PS4 Pro sales in February as there would be lots of interest from current PS4 owners in trading up and trade ins + tax refund makes that easily affordable for a lot more people than it would have been prior. I expect to see more than 110k Pro units sold in February along with an upswing in Slim sales to accompany the price cut. I'm expecting a similar but slightly higher upswing in XB1S sales due to the price cut and the lack of a more powerful competing SKU despite the somewhat shorter time frame available. As a result of these two factors I think Xb1 will enjoy their best February sales to date and PS4 to perform at near peak sales levels for February despite the natural decline we would normally see at this point in the HW lifecycle

Obliterator said:
Some software predictions

Halo Wars less than 100k. Considering it launched at less than For Honors 2nd week in the UK which had already dropped 72% not feeling good about this one

For Honor I'll go ~500k

Oh yeah almost forgot

Ni-Oh ~300k
Click to expand...

I assume this is retail figures only? If so 300k seems a bit high for Nioh considering the retail stock situation combined with the recent 1 million WW announcement. I'm expecting somewhere around 250k at retail for Nioh and 130k for Halo Wars. For Honor is trickier. Could see it selling significantly better than 500k but I could also see the WoM about network issues impacting sales negatively as well.
 
O

Obliterator

Member
RexNovis said:
[PS4] 402k
[XB1] 279k

I assume this is retail figures only? If so 300k seems a bit high for Nioh considering the retail stock situation combined with the recent 1 million WW announcement. I'm expecting somewhere around 250k at retail for Nioh and 130k for Halo Wars. For Honor is trickier. Could see it selling significantly better than 500k but I could also see the WoM about network issues impacting sales negatively as well.
Click to expand...

For Honor could really go above 500k for sure but I just thought that's a pretty decent steady prediction. Especially as it only has 2 weeks of tracking so didn't wanna go too high.

Ni-Oh has a WW 1 million shipment but it's nearly selling through all of it considering its having stock issues. UK and Japan number don't seem overly huge so I figure a decent chunk must be coming from NA.

Halo Wars I'm not feeling good about at all. I hope it can pass 100k would be good news.

Not sure why I really do a lot of software predictions for NPD anymore though as a lot of those numbers we don't see anymore
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
hanspampel said:
Xb1 up YoY
Ps4 down YoY
Ps4 ahead of Xb1 thanks to 1 week pricecut advantage.
Gap smaller than January. (not 100% sure about this. Could be wrong, tho)

Will post numbers later
Click to expand...

The first two points are almost a given as last year's performance for XB1 was incredibly low and PS4s was its LTD best. Doesn't exactly take Nostradamus to make that prediction.

Attributing a win mostly to the fact that the price cut sale lasted a few days longer despite the evidence last month showing a gulf in demand seems unwise.

As far as your final point goes, the chances of the gap between both platforms being smaller this month on a per unit basis is incredibly slim due to the higher number of units sold. A gap of 50k or less would be a substantially smaller gap %age wise in February than in January so there would need to be a large increase in consumer interest for XB1 that for some reason did not also impact PS4 sales. What is it that you see causing such a shift in consumer interest exactly? As far as I can tell there is absolutely nothing to indicate such a shift will occur at all. The pricecut for XB1 was for the same amount and a shorter timeframe than was available for the competition. Neither were there any major changes in strategy or SW releases that occurred for the platform in February. That is unless you want to argue that Halo Wars 2 will somehow be pushing a non trivial amount of Xbox HW throughout the month which seems... unlikely.

Obliterator said:
For Honor could really go above 500k for sure but I just thought that's a pretty decent steady prediction. Especially as it only has 2 weeks of tracking so didn't wanna go too high.
Click to expand...

I would put the floor a bit higher personally (somewhere in the neighborhood of 600k) but I get your point about the limited time in tracking. However, I would argue that the betas/demo they did would have lead to a lot of prepurchasing that may not have occured otherwise. There were a lot of people spreading word about the game and getting their friends to try out the open beta and the reactions were mostly very positive. So, I could see this having a substantially larger share of day 1/ week 1 sales than what we would normally be the industry norm. But there is also the factor of the networking issues many experienced and the negative WOM that occurred as a result so I could see that impacting legs a bit as well. With all the factors involved and it being an online focused new IP its an interesting one to try and predict for sure.

Ni-Oh has a WW 1 million shipment but it's nearly selling through all of it considering its having stock issues. UK and Japan number don't seem overly huge so I figure a decent chunk must be coming from NA.
Click to expand...

Fair enough. It really depends on just how much stock they actually shipped. Im leaning more towards a high digital split as a result of disproportionately low retail availability personally. Seems like you are a bit more confident in the amount of stock they shipped out than I am is all.

Halo Wars I'm not feeling good about at all. I hope it can pass 100k would be good news.
Click to expand...

I imagine its going to be one of the best selling PC games on the Windows store as there seems to be a non trivial amount of interest form the PC community in the game and they are a bit more open to the sort of microtransaction implementations that are present in the game. But yea I'm probably being a bit optimistic for that one on Retail sales. I guess I just expect it to sell a bit more due to it being really the only exclusive title on the platform during what seems like a slew of exclusive releases on competing platforms. Its a bit of an odd correlation to make but I could see so many games releasing driving a desire for new content on the platform.

EDIT: Actually yea after looking a bit closer at the UK sales I think you're right. It will be lucky to break 100k in its debut month which is way worse than I had ever thought the title would perform. I'm sure this exacerbates whatever worries MS might have had about the Halo IP's decline.

Not sure why I really do a lot of software predictions for NPD anymore though as a lot of those numbers we don't see anymore
Click to expand...

Yea. Was actually about to say the same. Seems unlikely we will ever get any figures either way... Such a bummer.
 
S

sirronoh

Member
[PS4] 400K
[XB1] 310K

PS4 should easily take this month. What I'm interested to see though is the delta between PS4 and Xbox One as well as whether PS4 continues to be down YOY.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
sirronoh said:
[PS4] 400K
[XB1] 310K

PS4 should easily take this month. What I'm interested to see though is the delta between PS4 and Xbox One as well as whether PS4 continues to be down YOY.
Click to expand...

Last year was PS4's peak year. Its likely to be down YoY the majority of the months this year. I would be really surprised if it was not down YOY in February. Likely the only reason such a thing would occur is Tax Refunds pushed a much higher number of current owners to upgrade than previously predicted but again that seems unlikely IMO.
 
S

sirronoh

Member
RexNovis said:
Last year was PS4's peak year. Its likely to be down YoY the majority of the months this year. I would be really surprised if it was not down YOY in February. Likely the only reason such a thing would occur is Tax Refunds pushed a much higher number of current owners to upgrade than previously predicted but again that seems unlikely IMO.
Click to expand...

Yeah I agree. PS4 Pros are somewhat of a wildcard factor but like you said, it's likely PS4 is still down YOY.
 
B

blakep267

Member
[PS4] 370k
[XB1] 300k

Xbox continues to be up YoY and PS4 down, but PS4 still winning

For Honor: 500k
Nigh: 250k
Halo Wars: 105k
 
F

FinaruDensetsu

Member
A lot of deals making the Xbox One and games effectively the magic price point of $199.99. I think they are gonna pull out a win for February.
 
S

sirronoh

Member
N.Domixis said:
Xbox has had constant deals it's entire life, only a few times has it ever helped.
Click to expand...

This.

@FinaruDensetsu:
Not only has Xbox been having deals like that for years, the Xbox One S bump seems to have died down going into January. At this point, Xbox is going to need more than deals like the one you mentioned to top PS4 which is going to have a monster 2017 on the software side of things (plus third-party partnerships starting with Mass Effect).

I think the gap in January being as large as it was (estimated at 157k vs. 222k) suggests that we may be headed back to the normal pre-holiday dominance of the PS4.

The big question going into January NPD was would the Xbox momentum continue to keep them very close to PS4 even if they lose the month (like what happened in November and December). Even though Xbox had its best January ever, 157k is not close to 222k (and again, these are estimates). February NPD will show whether January was an anomaly or whether this is really the case though.

I am curious though, why do you think these deals matter now? What other factors do you think suggest Xbox would've been more compelling to consumers than PS4 for February?
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
I believe XB1 will be down this month... last month it was barely up... PS4 will be down too but the gap will be close to 100k.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
ethomaz said:
I believe XB1 will be down this month... last month it was barely up... PS4 will be down too but the gap will be close to 100k.
Click to expand...

January 2016 XB1: 132k
January 2017 XB1: ~160k

That's an increase of 28k units YoY or a 22% increase YoY if you prefer looking at it that way. How exactly is that "barely up?"
 
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