Thank you for this post. It was really informative. Is this information easily available from other publishers?
Not really, but thanks for reminding me I forgot to link my source.
lol
Certainly something of interest to me and really does make sense. Where as last gen the Wii/PS3/360 were evenly matched with fluctuations towards all 3, this gen has seen one clear leader and a clear second place console. Whilst one publisher won't be representative of all publishers, it's clear that software sales worldwide are higher on PS4 due to the higher install base.
While the splits the others are seeing may not be identical, Ubi are a pretty big publisher, so apart from one-off deals like the AC bundling, I see no particular reason to think their sales aren't fairly representative of the industry as a whole.
I can only see US Centric games selling better on Xbox where as titles with a worldwide audience will certainly ship more on PS4.
Apart from Madden, what would even fit that description? Apart from sports games, I don't see a lot of regional distinctions within the West. I can see an argument for an East/West "divide," but it seems like anything that appeals to US gamers appeals equally to EU gamers, and vice versa. Are there any notable exceptions? FakeEdit: Oh, driving games don't do very well here, I think, but that's kinda the opposite example anyway.
I don't think so. I know Konami do but that's about it.
Cool, I didn't know Konami did splits too. Thanks!
2. To the people that think sony has a 10 million unit lead, people shouldn't forget that the xbone didn't launch in nearly as many regions as PS4 on launch. I think its closer to a 6 or 7 million lead at this point.
Frankly, as I was just explaining, it wouldn't matter if the Bone were 6-7M units
ahead, because developers only care where
their money is coming from. No matter what the actual platform split is today, it doesn't change the fact that
Ubi's PS4 audience is more than twice the size of their XBone audience. When it's time to showcase your latest multi-million dollar gaming extravaganza, do you want to demonstrate it to 70% of your customers, or to 30% of your customers and with worse graphics? If you're taking a risk on a new IP and you want to reduce your risk by testing the waters with an easy-to-make exclusive, do you release it on the weaker platform that's a pain to code, or the powerful, easy-to-use platform that has more than twice as many users?
Whether they realize it or not, market share only matters to gamers insofar as it "dictates" platform support. Developers are going to follow the users, because that's where the money is. With more than double the audience of the nearest competitor, developers will eagerly queue to get on to Sony's stage so they can get their product in front of those eyeballs, and they won't leave until Sony turn them away. Rather than platform holders competing to buy the most commercials like we had last generation, we'll have developers competing with each other to demonstrate why
they deserve a slot on the "big stage."
Q4 2014 is interesting because Microsoft had a huge exclusive marketing campaign for Assassins Creed. There were bundles etc. Only a 10% gain though which says a lot. Ubisoft were making bank on that marketing deal and then on every bundled copy of Assassins Creed. Really surprised they didn't make more of a dent.
Keep in mind, the bump came from the bundles, and not the marketing deal itself. We're charting Ubi's "sales" here, which would include their sales to Walmart, and their sales to Microsoft. MS purchased millions of copies of AC to include in their bundles, and they paid Ubi for them, just like Walmart would. We don't know how much MS paid for those copies, but we can see that Ubi's XBone sales were about 68M higher than one might've expected compared to the normal holiday bump. Also, since new XBone buyers were already getting Ubi's two biggest games, including the new hotness, the bundling actually would've lowered Ubi's normal sales to retail; Walmart don't need many copies of Parity for the Bone because "all" the new owners are getting a copy for free, plus a copy of Blag Flag to boot. So it's likely MS paid more like 80-100M directly to Ubi last Christmas, and Ubi sold another 100-80M worth to retail. So roughly half of Ubi's Bone revenue for the holiday quarter probably came directly out of Microsoft's pocket. Compare this to the 275.3M worth of PS4 software that retailers ordered entirely on their own.
The money for the marketing wouldn't be reflected under Sales though. I think marketing is usually grouped under Cost of Revenue, and the ad campaign would just have the effect of reducing Ubi's CoR; they don't need to run commercials for Parity because MS are already running them using their own marketing budget.
God i feel so dumb well atleast i did not post it in off topic.