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December 2016 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes Tuesday, January 10th

D

donny2112

Member
ITT, predict for the NPD December 2016 retail period (November 27-December 31, 2016) 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, January 10th. Format use is required if you want your entry counted.

NPD Coverage: November 27-December 31, 2016 (5 weeks, November was 4 weeks)
NPD Physical Release: Thursday, January 12th @ 4 p.m. EST (public thread with physical+digital posted 1 week later on January 19th ~6:30 p.m. EST)

Format:
Note: WIU will only be counted for unit results and cardinal order bonus. It is not included for point results directly.

[3DS]
[PS4]
[WIU]
[XB1]

Good/Bad Formatting
Code: 
Good              Bad
[XB1] 1200K       [XB1] 1.2 million
[XB1] 1,200,000   [XB1] 1.200.000
[XB1] 1200000     [XB1] - 1200000


Potential hardware impacting events in December:
Christmas shopping
PS4 Slim bundle $250 Dec. 11-31 (21 days)
Various other hardware sales during the month


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

[3DS]
[PS4]
[WIU]
[XB1]

November's Results
XB1 - 1.0m
PS4 - 1.1m
3DS - ~555K
WIU - (probably statistical noise)

November 2015 NPD thread
December 2015 NPD thread

NPD Prediction Thread Archive
 
B

blakep267

Member
[PS4] 900k
[XB1] 1000k

Went back and forth with my PS4 prediction, anywhere from 850- 1 million. Settled in between
 
S

sirronoh

Member
[3DS] 500K
[PS4] 1100K
[WIU] 200K
[XB1] 1000K

Totally guessing here but I think December will look similar to November.
 
P

perfectchaos007

Member
[3DS] 900K
[PS4] 1200K
[WIU] 150K
[XB1] 1000K

NES CLASSIC MINI 175K


3DS is a mystery. I think they sold almost everything that Nintendo shipped, but I don't think Nintendo shipped as many 3DS's as they should have
 
Chobel

Chobel

Member
[3DS] 444K
[PS4] 888K
[WIU] 66K
[XB1] 999K

PS4 is gonna be significantly below 1M. XB1 may be above 1M, but by not much.
 
B

blakep267

Member
novabolt said:
How come?
Click to expand...
Presumably because it doesn't have pro preorders to bolster it. For example if 300k pros were sold in November due to pre orders, that'd mean that you have 800k slims and other bundles. That pro number is going to drop massively since it's the holidays and price matters. So what drives the PS4 back up to a million? The slim is doing worse than the S. So any December boost for the slim would likely happen for the Xbox as well
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
Right now, I guess I could just say that December is usually a small increase over November. So unless this holiday just wants to be bad, everything should do at least what it did last month. Only question marks are PS4 and 3DS. PS4 because of Pro and 3DS because of stock.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Welfare said:
Thanks to the holidays, I haven't done much on my weekly average comparison post for December. That should be up later this week.
Click to expand...

Cool. Yea I think most everyone in sales GAF is gonna be a bit slow on the draw this month what with the holidays and all.

I think the big story for December is going to be the impressive legs on certain titles due to discounting, solid WOM or a combination of both. I'm thinking we will see a particlarly solid month for TF2 when considering its debut numbers which will show the sales power positive WOM has this gen yet again.

blakep267 said:
Presumably because it doesn't have pro preorders to bolster it. For example if 300k pros were sold in November due to pre orders, that'd mean that you have 800k slims and other bundles. That pro number is going to drop massively since it's the holidays and price matters. So what drives the PS4 back up to a million? The slim is doing worse than the S. So any December boost for the slim would likely happen for the Xbox as well
Click to expand...

While I agree that Pro numbers will drop there's also the pricing cut to account for in what is again the most price sensitive time of the year. It will all hinge on how big of a selling point that discount managed to be in December. Personally, I think we will see a decline vs November but it'll be less than many seem to think
 
E

Elios83

Member
blakep267 said:
Presumably because it doesn't have pro preorders to bolster it. For example if 300k pros were sold in November due to pre orders, that'd mean that you have 800k slims and other bundles. That pro number is going to drop massively since it's the holidays and price matters. So what drives the PS4 back up to a million? The slim is doing worse than the S. So any December boost for the slim would likely happen for the Xbox as well
Click to expand...

It's not like that.
You're assuming that the 800k PS4 Slim sales were stable and evenly spaced throughout November and the Pro just gave a boost that won't happen this month.
But the situation is pretty different because the Pro drove sales for the the first 2-3 weeks of the month and then there was a huge spike of the Slim during BF week thanks to the 249$ price.
We already have indicators that PS4 sold more on cyber monday for example, then there was the launch of FFXV (which is going to be the best selling or second best selling game of the month) with an exclusive PS4 bundle that definetly boosted sales, then they had a 249$ promotion for three weeks plus gift cards or even further price cuts to 230$.
Assuming that PS4 Slim sales will be comparable to whatever it did in November with a single weekend at 249$ and the rest of the month being mainly PS4 Pro sales is a clear mistake. Also PS4 Pro hasn't stopped selling of course, expecting it to be a total nonfactor is an other mistake, even if it sold ''just'' 150-200k over the 5 weeks it's still a good boost.
PS4 will win the month IMO, only doubt is the gap, people predicting XB ahead are going to do the same mistake some did in November. But we'll find out in the next weeks :p
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Elios83 said:
It's not like that.
You're assuming that the 800k PS4 Slim sales were stable and evenly spaced throughout November and the Pro just gave a boost that won't happen this month.
But the situation is pretty different because the Pro drove sales for the the first 2-3 weeks of the month and then there was a huge spike of the Slim during BF week thanks to the 249$ price.
Click to expand...

Uh source? AFAIK we have no weekly breakdown of sales available so...
 
E

Elios83

Member
RexNovis said:
Uh source? AFAIK we have no weekly breakdown of sales available so...
Click to expand...

Obviously no definitive proof but indicators like sales of the PS4 Slim before BF relatively to the Pro and the jump it made on the monthly chart and even on the yearly chart on Amazon thanks just to the BF week bump.
There is a clear indication that Slim sold less than Pro in the first part of the month and the bulk of its monthly sales were made over the BF week, ending up far surpassing total Pro sales for the month.
No definitive proof but again it's still better than the absolute nothing supporting other scenarios. The logic of flat Slim sales and zero Pro sales over December is a total misreading of the market IMO. But who knows, we're here to guess afterall :p
 
D

Deleted member 471617

Unconfirmed Member
It would be hilarious if Xbox One wins by 1 simply because I purchased an Xbox One Slim Battlefield 1 bundle with a $50 GC and free controller from Best Buy this past Friday. Fourth time im buying an Xbox One. Two for the base console and now, twice for the Slim. Jeez...im nuts. Oh well. LOL.
 
F

fbutron

Member
daniel77733 said:
It would be hilarious if Xbox One wins by 1 simply because I purchased an Xbox One Slim Battlefield 1 bundle with a $50 GC and free controller from Best Buy this past Friday. Fourth time im buying an Xbox One. Two for the base console and now, twice for the Slim. Jeez...im nuts. Oh well. LOL.
Click to expand...

Dont worry, I purchased a second Pro in best buy to cover for that je je replaced my launch unit due to reduced noise
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Elios83 said:
Obviously no definitive proof but indicators like sales of the PS4 Slim before BF relatively to the Pro and the jump it made on the monthly chart and even on the yearly chart on Amazon thanks just to the BF week bump.
There is a clear indication that Slim sold less than Pro in the first part of the month and the bulk of its monthly sales were made over the BF week, ending up far surpassing total Pro sales for the month.
No definitive proof but again it's still better than the absolute nothing supporting other scenarios. The logic of flat Slim sales and zero Pro sales over December is a total misreading of the market IMO. But who knows, we're here to guess afterall :p
Click to expand...

If you don't have a definite source for your info then don't state it as if its fact. Especially if your only info is Amazon hourly charts. there is certainly no reason why you should say "based on Amazon hourly charts" so that everyone else can rightly treat the following comment with the amount of skepticism as it deserves given the source of the data.

It's fine to say "I think based upon ... that ..." I do that all the time and it's what most of the discussion in these threads are based around but it is absolutely not okay to make statements as fact without any actual data to back it up.

As far as your theory goes I think it's specious at best. There's absolutely no evidence to back up this assertion that slim was not a sales driver prior to the week in question especially given the estimates we have on Pro sales as a % of total sales for the month. In fact I'd posit that's far more likely the Pro received the vast vast majority of its sales in its initial release window and that the majority of sales throughout the month were always slim outside of that short burst upon release. This is the sort of trajectory that would line up with the somewhat low debut sales theory is said to have had. Quite simply your conclusions don't really line up with the little data we do have at all and while we don't have the data to prove otherwise we know enough to see that such a sales pattern would be incredibly unlikely.
 
H

hanspampel

Banned
[3DS] 600k +/- 100k
[PS4] 1100k +/- 150k
[WIU] 100k +/- 50k
[XB1] 1200k +/- 150k

In general whoever takes November also takes December npd. This was true 2014 with xbox one, 2015 with ps4 and also the majority of last gen.
However this year, ps4 had a major new hardware release in november and this December ps4 family won't have 2 months of ps4 pro preorders and launch sales, so xbox one could edge it out.



Top 10 best selling games of 2016 (revenue based in no particular order)

Shooter:
#1 call of duty: Infinity warfare
#2 battlefield 1 (without origin sales, otherwise it should be > cod this year)
#3 the division
#4 overwatch (no battle.net sales)
#5 call of duty: Black ops III

Sport games:
#1 nba2k17
#2 madden 17
#3 fifa 17 (no origin sales)
#4 nba2k16

Open world / action games:
#1 grand theft auto V (no rockstar social club sales)

Rpgs:
#1 Pokémon: Sun (no digital sales)
#2 Pokémon: Moon (no digital sales)

Won't make the list for the first time in 4 years thanks to the new format:
#1 Minecraft (no digital sales)
 
K

Kysen

Member
If Sony barely won November with the pro I cant see them taking December. They have to be disappointed with the weak slim and pro sales. Meanwhile the X1 S is such a better proposition over the crap launch model.
 
E

Elios83

Member
RexNovis said:
If you don't have a definite source for your info then don't state it as if its fact. Especially if your only info is Amazon hourly charts. there is certainly no reason why you should say "based on Amazon hourly charts" so that everyone else can rightly treat the following comment with the amount of skepticism as it deserves given the source of the data.

It's fine to say "I think based upon ... that ..." I do that all the time and it's what most of the discussion in these threads are based around but it is absolutely not okay to make statements as fact without any actual data to back it up.

As far as your theory goes I think it's specious at best. There's absolutely no evidence to back up this assertion that slim was not a sales driver prior to the week in question especially given the estimates we have on Pro sales as a % of total sales for the month. In fact I'd posit that's far more likely the Pro received the vast vast majority of its sales in its initial release window and that the majority of sales throughout the month were always slim outside of that short burst upon release. This is the sort of trajectory that would line up with the somewhat low debut sales theory is said to have had. Quite simply your conclusions don't really line up with the little data we do have at all and while we don't have the data to prove otherwise we know enough to see that such a sales pattern would be incredibly unlikely.
Click to expand...

Lol this is just a prediction aka guess thread :D
You're taking the whole thing wayyyyy too seriously with this post.
Amazon charts ( and not hourly but the progressive updates on the the monthly and yearly charts btw) are a fact, limited to Amazon sure, but a fact.
Free to disagree, just make your prediction then and we'll find out.
Peace and have a good day ;)
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Elios83 said:
Lol this is just a prediction aka guess thread :D
You're taking the whole thing wayyyyy too seriously with this post.
Amazon charts ( and not hourly but the progressive updates on the the monthly and yearly charts btw) are a fact, limited to Amazon sure, but a fact.
Free to disagree, just make your prediction then and we'll find out.
Peace and have a good day ;)
Click to expand...

These are sales discussion and analysis threads not just prediction threads and they always have been. The problem is not you using Amazon charts to inform your theory it's not citing a source and stating your theory as of it's a certainty. Sales GAF deals in facts, estimates and theories so it is absolutely paramount that people are explicit with what their posts are to avoid confusion and misinformation as it tends to rapidly snowball out of control. It's fine if you place more weight in the validity of Amazon charts than I do as a reliable metric of sales but regardless of our differing opinions on the matter it's important that you cite that as your source of that is your source in order to avoidi the potential damage misinformation can cause to meaningful sales discussion and analysis. And yes sales GAF tends to take accuracy of data, trends and sales analysis seriously as it's the very thing the community was built off of.
 
I

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
Kysen said:
If Sony barely won November with the pro I cant see them taking December. They have to be disappointed with the weak slim and pro sales. Meanwhile the X1 S is such a better proposition over the crap launch model.
Click to expand...

Even though Sony is a global company, i can see them regretting having invested what they did into the Pro over an S like upgrade with HDR, 4KBR, output support or 4K30/60, 4K media apps and calling it a day.

With the introduction of the Pro(especially compared to the XB1S), it feels like they lost momentum with the base PS4 in America and the Pro hasn't yet shown it can pick up the slack to even reach parity with that.

I still believe they would be in a much better position sales wise, and could have rode out the rest of this gen without the pro if they had not introduced the Pro machine.
 
jmaine_ph

jmaine_ph

Member
Kysen said:
If Sony barely won November with the pro I cant see them taking December. They have to be disappointed with the weak slim and pro sales. Meanwhile the X1 S is such a better proposition over the crap launch model.
Click to expand...

Weak Slim and Pro sales? Care to explain this?
 
G

gtj1092

Member
RexNovis said:
These are sales discussion and analysis threads not just prediction threads and they always have been. The problem is not you using Amazon charts to inform your theory it's not citing a source and stating your theory as of it's a certainty. Sales GAF deals in facts, estimates and theories so it is absolutely paramount that people are explicit with what their posts are to avoid confusion and misinformation as it tends to rapidly snowball out of control. It's fine if you place more weight in the validity of Amazon charts than I do as a reliable metric of sales but regardless of our differing opinions on the matter it's important that you cite that as your source of that is your source in order to avoidi the potential damage misinformation can cause to meaningful sales discussion and analysis. And yes sales GAF tends to take accuracy of data, trends and sales analysis seriously as it's the very thing the community was built off of.
Click to expand...

Are you really arguing against the idea that the bulk of ps4 slim sales took place during BF week in November?
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
gtj1092 said:
Are you really arguing against the idea that the bulk of ps4 slim sales took place during BF week in November?
Click to expand...

No. I'm arguing the Pro did not make up the majority of the sales prior to BF week. The person I was responding to was arguing that Pro made up the majority of sales outside of Black Friday week in the month of November as seen here

Elios83 said:
It's not like that.
You're assuming that the 800k PS4 Slim sales were stable and evenly spaced throughout November and the Pro just gave a boost that won't happen this month.
But the situation is pretty different because the Pro drove sales for the the first 2-3 weeks of the month and then there was a huge spike of the Slim during BF week thanks to the 249$ price.
Click to expand...

I was pointing out that the evidence doesn't really support that conclusion at all.
 
P

Primethius

Banned
[3DS] 500K
[PS4] 1000K
[WIU] 225K
[XB1] 1125K

Might change some numbers around to increase the PS4/XB1 gap but not really seeing how PS4 wins this month given that it's the second Pro month. It would be shocking to me actually if it did.

Unless interest in the XB1S drops compared to prior months (not sure why it would now as opposed to say, January) I just don't see the PS4 winning.

Don't really care for the Wii U or 3DS numbers. Switch will add a interesting third product for prediction purposes.

--

Software wise:

FFXV: 800/200k PS4/XB1
TLG: Just under 180k
Dead Rising 4: 240-250k
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
Can somebody post a YTD comparison with 2015 up to November??? I want to base my prediction in how much it is up/down yoy.

I know Japan and UK have PS4 up and Xbone down but I think US will be down for both (more for Xbone than PS4).
 
H

hanspampel

Banned
ethomaz said:
Can somebody post a YTD comparison with 2015 up to November??? I want to base my prediction in how much it is up/down yoy.

I know Japan and UK have PS4 up and Xbone down but I think US will be down for both (more for Xbone than PS4).
Click to expand...

UK ps4 hardware is down
Just software is up
 
P

pixellated_man

Member
Elios83 said:
It's not like that.
You're assuming that the 800k PS4 Slim sales were stable and evenly spaced throughout November and the Pro just gave a boost that won't happen this month.
But the situation is pretty different because the Pro drove sales for the the first 2-3 weeks of the month and then there was a huge spike of the Slim during BF week thanks to the 249$ price.
We already have indicators that PS4 sold more on cyber monday for example, then there was the launch of FFXV (which is going to be the best selling or second best selling game of the month) with an exclusive PS4 bundle that definetly boosted sales, then they had a 249$ promotion for three weeks plus gift cards or even further price cuts to 230$.
Assuming that PS4 Slim sales will be comparable to whatever it did in November with a single weekend at 249$ and the rest of the month being mainly PS4 Pro sales is a clear mistake. Also PS4 Pro hasn't stopped selling of course, expecting it to be a total nonfactor is an other mistake, even if it sold ''just'' 150-200k over the 5 weeks it's still a good boost.
PS4 will win the month IMO, only doubt is the gap, people predicting XB ahead are going to do the same mistake some did in November. But we'll find out in the next weeks :p
Click to expand...

RexNovis may disapprove, but the hypothesis you put forward is pretty much why I also predict ps4 is going to take December.
 
K

Kill3r7

Member
[3DS] 500k
[PS4] 1115k
[WIU] 50k
[XB1] 1100k

Predictions
  • FFXV will sell less than a 1M at retail ~750k (75/25 split).
  • 3DS should have sold more units but Nintendo forgot to produce more of it.
  • HW will be down again YOY and MOM
  • TLG - 175k
  • DR4 - 200k
.
 
C

cakely

Member
Kysen said:
If Sony barely won November with the pro I cant see them taking December. They have to be disappointed with the weak slim and pro sales. Meanwhile the X1 S is such a better proposition over the crap launch model.
Click to expand...

Sony is crushed that they "barely won" November NPDs.

I can't think of single worse position for them to be in, honestly. Nope.
 
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