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November 2010 NPD Article (Gamasutra)

J

jvm

Gamasutra.
Over the weekend I put together some thoughts about the latest sales results from the NPD Group. Gamasutra is graciously hosting the article:
Direct link to Gamasutra story about November 2010 NPD data.
Some stuff folks might be interested in:
  • Xbox Kinect and sales of CoD:BO put Microsoft in a position to dominate every segment of the market.
  • The PSP sold 288K for the month, down only slightly. On the other hand, PSP software sales were down 45% YOY.
  • Some graphs showing how much COD:BO accounted for units and revenue in November.
  • I estimated the Xbox 360 ASP at around $290, plus or minus about $5, as I recall. Last month it was $256.
  • PS2 dead. November sales were only around 80K.

An image from the article:
black-ops-effect.png


I'm sick today (and was sick all day yesterday while finishing the writing) so I'm not sure how much I'll be able to respond.

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. (Today will be exceptionally busy for me.) 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
 
Everybody loves Pac-Man, but the colors of those graphs made me think they were about PS3 and 360 before I stopped to read the titles.

Anyhow, keep up the good work!
 
jvm said:
[*]PS2 dead. November sales were only around 80K.
[/LIST]
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my question is where did they find 80K people that still needed PS2's? :lol

it's got to be running entirely on used software sales at this point. Still, impressive for a machine that's as old as it is.
 
kinect-top-5-nov-2010.png


Zumba is TERRIBLE from what I've read. A lot of people might think their Kinect camera is broken.

Also, surprisingly no JoyRide. It had a lot of commercials though.
 
Cheesemeister said:
Everybody loves Pac-Man, but the colors of those graphs made me think they were about PS3 and 360 before I stopped to read the titles.

Anyhow, keep up the good work!
Click to expand...
That's a good point. My repeated use of those colors was misleading in this graph. :(
 
Cosmonaut X said:
Credit to doicare - dunno who you sources are, but they were obviously correct!
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credit to you as well, cause I was gonna call that one to ya... :p
Even if I was in agreement with all the way.
 
2me8oxj.png


Wowzers. Anyhow, do you have the numbers on the SW side to update this YTD;



4jvn00.png


Perhaps more importantly for Microsoft, when comparing average weekly rates, November 2010 was the best month the system has ever had. The previous record was 288,000 units per week in December 2008; November's set the new high bar at 344,000 units per week.
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Totally forgot about weekly average so in that regard by far and away it's strongest month.

According to Wedbush's Pacter, PS3 titles with “Move” in the title have sold fewer than 200,000 units collectively. (That doesn't count games that have been retrofitted for Move compatibility.)
Click to expand...

Really surprised by that figure. I think in that regard Kinect has really had a better start with a near 1 attach rate.

Great read as usual. Also any hints on attach rate this month? Would be nice to get an updated LTD on each SW sales.
 
Jtyettis said:
Really surprised by that figure. I think in that regard Kinect has really had a better start with a near 1 attach rate.

Great read as usual. Also any hints on attach rate this month? Would be nice to get an updated LTD on each SW sales.
Click to expand...

Is that for november or in total? it's bad either way though.
 
According to Wedbush's Pacter, PS3 titles with “Move” in the title have sold fewer than 200,000 units collectively. (That doesn't count games that have been retrofitted for Move compatibility.)
Click to expand...
Would Sports Champions be one of those games? It doesn't have Move in the title. Is this one included? If yes... why is he not talking about games that require Move. if not... why would he even mention it? Isn't that like saying "X number of games with the letter Y in the title were sold". I'm confused.
 
snap0212 said:
Would Sports Champions be one of those games? It doesn't have Move in the title. Is this one included? If yes... why is he not talking about games that require Move. if not... why would he even mention it? Isn't that like saying "X number of games with the letter Y in the title were sold". I'm confused.
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It's what I got when I asked about Move software sales. I think it's ambiguous too, but I think it's also clear that Move-specific titles are not selling.
 
In her notes accompanying the release of the data, NPD Group analyst Anita Frazier commented that “new physical retail sales should come in between $18.8B-$19.6B” and that “gains in November offset a good portion of the year-to-date declines”. These are important points to keep in mind, especially the latter one.​
Frazier's implicit point is that the industry is not as unhealthy as before due to the November spike. And from a retail perspective, that's certainly true; they don't care who makes what they sell, as long as its selling. But I think it's noteworthy how concentrated the incremental sales were.

I'm not sure if NPD is willing to get into these kind of details, but I'm curious about how well distributed the software sales numbers are given the ongoing developer consolidation. Take the YTD software sales by company for the past, say, five years. How many companies made up the top 50% of revenue each year? What proportion of sales are being gobbled up by the top five?

Basically, I think it's misleading - or rather, inaccurate from a non-retail point of view - to look at big sales and say it's healthy for the industry. It's healthy for a couple of big players in the industry. The focus in the article on Black Ops and Kinect gets at this. But when the year is over, I'd love to see some analysis on how revenue is getting concentrated. If the industry was down overall YoY, and Black Ops helped make up for it, that means as a share of total sales companies like Activision are gobbling up more and more. And if that's happening at all the larger publishers, I think it's a sign of a decidedly unhealthy industry.

Shorter version: I'd love to see some market segment reporting by company - or even number of companies, if not specific ones - rather than platform. Though I'm guessing NPD keeps this held closely, as it's data they want to sell to subscribers only.
 
Microsoft's post E3 Xbox360 strategy has been masterful. It timed every release perfectly and has gone from strength to strength and it still has a price cut to keep up momentum next year.
 
Retrocide said:
Microsoft's post E3 Xbox360 strategy has been masterful. It timed every release perfectly and has gone from strength to strength and it still has a price cut to keep up momentum next year.
Click to expand...

If they do that, expect an explosive curve in 2011. I am not sure if they need to do that if Kinect keeps good sales.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Basically, I think it's misleading - or rather, in accurate from a non-retail point of view - to look at big sales and say it's healthy for the industry. It's healthy for a couple of big players in the industry. The focus in the article on Black Ops and Kinect gets at this. But when the year is over, I'd love to see some analysis on how revenue is getting concentrated. If the industry was down overall YoY, and Black Ops helped make up for it, that means as a share of total sales companies like Activision are gobbling up more and more share. And if that's happening at all the larger publishers, I think it's a sign of a decidedly unhealthy industry.
Click to expand...

Very sharp. I feel exactly the same way.

(it probably helps that I happen to really go for the little fish in the pond, personally)
 
Seems like Kinect is still selling as quickly as November as buzz is growing among the non-enthusiasts. Problem is that they're getting harder to come by and the gouging online is bound to turn people off. Very glad it's done well to start and, so far, MS' starting strategy of going with Kinect-dedicated software is the way to go. Sony's going to have to spend more energy getting Move to roll with a lot more momentum. I really can't understand how they could botch their software roll-out for Move so badly.
 
Interesting to see that the 360 sold more $299+ systems than the PS3 sold total systems. So price is not the problem for the PS3.
 
MightyHedgehog said:
Seems like Kinect is still selling as quickly as November as buzz is growing among the non-enthusiasts. Problem is that they're getting harder to come by and the gouging online is bound to turn people off. Very glad it's done well to start and, so far, MS' starting strategy of going with Kinect-dedicated software is the way to go. Sony's going to have to spend more energy getting Move to roll with a lot more momentum. I really can't understand how they could botch their software roll-out for Move so badly.
Click to expand...

I think they are going to be able to keep just enough in the channels to Christmas/month, but I think one question is will they have enough stock to supply post Dec.
 
GhaleonEB said:
Shorter version: I'd love to see some market segment reporting by company - or even number of companies, if not specific ones - rather than platform. Though I'm guessing NPD keeps this held closely, as it's data they want to sell to subscribers only.
Click to expand...
You get that data every 3 months from every company (worldwide). You can see how each company is doing. While 33% of software sales being COD means that Activision is the only true winner, THQ and EA commented recently that they (and supposedly other companies) are making big strides in digital space. NPD can't give you a full report anymore.
 
Karma said:
Interesting to see that the 360 sold more $299+ systems than the PS3 sold total systems. So price is not the problem for the PS3.
Click to expand...

Is that kinnect bundle? maybe the answer is that.
 
Karma said:
Interesting to see that the 360 sold more $299+ systems than the PS3 sold total systems. So price is not the problem for the PS3.
Click to expand...

I think a lot of that may be 4 gig Kinect bundles. So people are paying extra for it.
 
I may be wrong, but referring to hacking in regards to current PSP hardware sales is a contradiction, I think, because current PSP models cannot be hacked to play pirated software (the extent of hacking on a current firmware PSP-3000 or Go is the half-byte loader I believe)
 
OldJadedGamer said:
I think a lot of that may be 4 gig Kinect bundles. So people are paying extra for it.
Click to expand...

No question the 250gb bundles kept it up this month as well. Even the holiday bundle would have helped keep the ASP up.
 
360's control of the North American market during its sixth holiday season is insane.

Regardless of how everything shakes up at the end of the generation, the axiom from a few years ago about how 360 is just Xbox all over again is completely shattered.
 
see5harp said:
Hey jvn, quick question:

Your full name isn't Matthew Matthews is it? Cause that is fucking ridiculous.
Click to expand...
Actual name: John V. Matthews, III. Grandfather went by our shared middle name, father by our shared first name, and last name was shortened for my nickname.
 
GhaleonEB said:
And if that's happening at all the larger publishers, I think it's a sign of a decidedly unhealthy industry.
Click to expand...

Yup. Specifically, almost all dying (or at least sick) content industries see a similar pattern: movement from a broad low-enthusiasm purchaser base towards a narrow high-enthusiasm customer base, away from diversified sales towards huge mega-hits, away from success in unexpected areas and towards retrenchment in proven and well-understood, familiar hits.

This generation, most of the biggest companies noticed that most gaming customers weren't worth $60 a game (they were already feeling a bit skittish about $50) but that the chunk who would pay $60 for games were actually generally worth at least $20-30 on top of that if monetized correctly. They also realized that small publishers could easily compete in diverse and broad markets but couldn't really put much up against massive blockbusters with insane budgets and high entry costs.

Every unpleasant innovation this generation is based around this realization: Activision can make $80+ off of every one of those 9 million codblops sales, and simultaneously drive every publisher other than EA, 2K, and Ubisoft out of business.

Of course, the problem with this strategy is that like in high-stakes gambling, eventually the cards will fall the wrong way, Activision and their tiny cadre of competitors will all get wiped out, and there won't be a lower tier in the industry to step in because they all got wiped out by this terrible business model....
 
see5harp said:
Hey jvn, quick question:

Your full name isn't Matthew Matthews is it? Cause that is fucking ridiculous.
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way to be a bloody offencsve. How is a name ridiculous? I have a stupid name, but I would be offended if someone call my name redicolous..
 
faridmon said:
way to be a bloody offencsve. How is a name ridiculous? I have a stupid name, but I would be offended if someone call my name redicolous..
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You don't understand why having the same first and last name would be ridiculous? My comment was meant to be taken as a joke.
 
see5harp said:
You don't understand why having the same first and last name would be ridiculous? My comment was meant to be taken as a joke.
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apologies then. Having terrible times with my name :(
 
see5harp said:
Are you implying that he is somehow acting like a girl? If I were a girl I'd be downright offended.
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Well now you're implying only women can be offended, and as a man I think that's okay.
 
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