• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

NPD Sales Results for April 2014 [Up2: XB1/360 hardware, PS4 #1/XB1 #2 best selling]

Yeah. I mean not having it out for Watch Dogs seems like a gigantic mistake

Yes, it does.

But why announce it and essentially forfeit a good chunk of sales in May? Why not wait until E3 to announce it? This whole situation has been weird.

My only guess is that they're trying to give people a fair and honest warning. To avoid the influx of complaints we'd hear of they announced a $400 sku at E3. "I just bought one a month ago you assholes!" This way everyone gets a fair warning. If you want a $400 XB1, it's coming soon.
 
It's a failure as a system seller, which is what Microsoft bankrolled the game to do.

It failed to sell a $499 system much beyond its first month, but quite a few bought into X1 due, in part, to the pre-release anticipation. Once the system is down to $399, we'll see how many it can sell when the price is more competitive with the other next-gen console. So, June should be the month to see if TF has a bigger future with its debut release.
 
image.php



image.php
Lol
 

Kagari

Crystal Bearer
Yes, it does.



My only guess is that they're trying to give people a fair and honest warning. To avoid the influx of complaints we'd hear of they announced a $400 sku at E3. "I just bought one a month ago you assholes!" This way everyone gets a fair warning. If you want a $400 XB1, it's coming soon.

The price cut and pay wall stuff was originally an E3 announcement.
 
The 360 was a masterpiece though, I don't think we'll see something like it again for a long time.

What a strange thing to say. What leads you to that conclusion? The faulty hardware? It's 3rd-place global sales performance? It has its pros, to be sure, but "masterpiece" is laughable.
 

Eusis

Member
It's only the best selling when you separate SKUs and ignore all 360/PS3/etc software and just count next-gen.
It's why I hate how short these lists are (and am kind of glad they ARE lumped together because we could easily get situations where it's like 5 different CoDs and the other titles are also largely repeats, leaving effectively 3 titles on the list.)

EDIT: Though we got similar anyway with Lego eating up 3 slots. God damn it'd probably be Lego List with a random appearance of CoD if divided up by each SKU still.
 

Amir0x

Banned
The industry is becoming an ever more dangerous place. As I suggested in my debate thread about the the problematic times ahead for us gamers and the industry, there were many troubling trends even in January. There is a bit of an illusion due to the hasty start of the generation and how it exploded that this meant everything was OK. But the issue was there were unique qualities to the generational transition that created a one-of-a-kind pent up demand. Additionally, vast improvements in console manufacturing and the proliferation of online pre-ordering made access much simpler, and many took advantage of the opportunity to order earlier.

But it may be soon we realize that the most passionate people already brought in, and the middle road for this industry might just be much lower than we all thought. Which means there will have to be some serious re-evaluation of what makes sense as a business model to develop a game.
 
Overall I think it was a mediocre month for "next gen" consoles.

But it looks like Titanfall, though selling very well (but mostly on the 360), had little impact on console sales at all in the US. Which i think is the biggest takeaway here.
 

Daemul

Member
It's a failure in the fact that it's not pushing the amount of hardware like it was hyped to do.

I even bought a titanfall bundle and have already quit playing.

Lets be real here, it's a failure as an XBO seller not as a game itself, people need to separate the two because the game charting at number one for two months in a row makes people saying it's a failure look insane.
 
The XBO can only rely on so many temporary boosters. To be quite honest, I don't think the $399 Kinect-less SKU will do much at all. Titanfall did very little to stop the PS4's momentum and if the XBO keeps lagging like this, then it's going to track behind the 360 by the end of its first year in the market.

I also think i will track behind but because the 360 had great momentum going into it's first year. I think the sku will help a lot actually since the price matters more than any game. Even though the numbers arent so good now, i think it hangs around ok for a more expensive machine. Lets wait and see how June npds go.
 
So how big can the gap be for May? The price cut will no doubt slow X1 sales, and Sony has Watchdogs marketing + MLB (which I wouldn't say is a system seller, but it's something). Could it be 3 to 1?
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
It's why I hate how short these lists are (and am kind of glad they ARE lumped together because we could easily get situations where it's like 5 different CoDs and the other titles are also largely repeats, leaving effectively 3 titles on the list.)

I think that's why they merged them, along with this way showing the biggest sellers as multiplatform became the norm.
 
PS4 sales slowed down significantly as well. In a comparable time frame (April 2007), the previous market leader would have been ~150k more despite supply constraints.
 

Mrbob

Member
That reminds me, wasn't there that pricing mistake on the Microsoft store last month where the promotion code gave $100 off the $499 bundle?

Indeed there was and I got lucky to get in on it. I doubt many sales came from this pricing mistake though. Got shut down pretty fast.
 
It failed to sell a $499 system much beyond its first month, but quite a few bought into X1 due, in part, to the pre-release anticipation. Once the system is down to $399, we'll see how many it can sell when the price is more competitive with the other next-gen console. So, June should be the month to see if TF has a bigger future with its debut release.

Yes. This narrative that Titanfall didn't sell consoles is garbage. I bought my XB1 at launch mostly because I knew I was buying Titanfall day one. I'm sure I wasn't the only one.

The price cut and pay wall stuff was originally an E3 announcement.

Does that mean you're agreeing with me?
 

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.
The industry is becoming an ever more dangerous place. As I suggested in my debate thread about the the problematic times ahead for us gamers and the industry, there were many troubling trends even in January. There is a bit of an illusion due to the hasty start of the generation and how it exploded that this meant everything was OK. But the issue was there were unique qualities to the generational transition that created a one-of-a-kind pent up demand. Additionally, vast improvements in console manufacturing and the proliferation of online pre-ordering made access much simpler, and many took advantage of the opportunity to order earlier.

But it may be soon we realize that the most passionate people already brought in, and the middle road for this industry might just be much lower than we all thought. Which means there will have to be some serious re-evaluation of what makes sense as a business model to develop a game.

In short I think you are on to something. Things have changed. There is still a market- PS4 proves that- but IMO it has absolutely shrunk since 2005/2006 and the costs of making games that appeal to the market that still exists are only getting larger.

That is trouble.
 
So did they really "run out of time" to not include them? Or was it damage control for April NPD? Maybe even both?

Damage control is more likely. They already did it with their PR right now, pointing to the price cut as something that will increase sales. It's a good excuse for the bad performance they will have in April and May. It's really going to take some of the wind out of their E3 but they needed to announce it now.
 

Prelude.

Member
For a forum that promotes itself as being as smart as NeoGAF does, I'm surprised to see these "Kill Vita" comments. SCEA killed the platform on February 20th, 2013. Everything they've announced since then had a noticeable lack of money put behind it. SCEA hasn't advertised the platform since 2012. Remote Play and PlayStation Now are there to fill in the gaps caused by their software investment in the platform dwindling to just indie games and shoddily made ports. That's an exit strategy out of the handheld business, but they can't afford to just kill it off officially. If they do that, they stand to sour a userbase likely made out of their most loyal fans. Worse off, if they discontinue Vita they'll piss off a good amount of Japanese publishers as the platform is relevant over there. Given PS4 is currently underselling Wii U, Vita, and PS3 in Japan, Sony really can't afford to do that. So instead you'll see the hardware languish on store shelves until enough time has passed for Sony to pull the plug. Then they'll use their "consolation prize" of Remote Play and PlayStation Now as their mobile strategy.

Hah, you're really too jaded, Takao. After so many years Tretton, who is the most likely responsible for one the biggest mismanagement of the industry (PSP), finally left the company and the new guy seems to at least understand and know something about handhelds so have a little hope. He can't be worse than Tretton, that's for sure.
 

Into

Member
But why announce it and essentially forfeit a good chunk of sales in May? Why not wait until E3 to announce it? This whole situation has been weird.


Their PR spin: "We want to spend the time on games at E3 you guys!" - Because they do not have 22 seconds at E3 to announce the price cut.

The very likely reality: Retailers have put immense pressure on Microsoft to fix this problem, or they will simply order far less stock, hamper their production and effectively stop the XBox One dead in their tracks

The announcement is meant to send the signal to retailers that they are taking drastic measures to fix the problem. And this is their main market. The stores ive spoken to in Europe all say the XB1 sells as much as PS3, a even worse situation.


It will kill them during Watch Dogs month, but the pressure from outside sources must have been immense to have them throw this month under the bus just to save the product.
 
Lets be real here, it's a failure as an XBO seller not as a game itself, people need to separate the two because the game charting at number one for two months in a row makes people saying it's a failure look insane.
That's perfectly fair.

But even within that context, Titanfall's failure as an X1 seller is something to note. We all know what system the game was touted for. We all know how Microsoft themselves were calling it "the greatest game of our generation" and whatnot. The advertisement and hype was for the X1 version.

Sure, it's selling pretty good. But it's not lighting the world on fire (being #1 in March and April is like winning in Minor Leagues) and it certainly isn't doing anything for its "home" platform, the X1.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
In short I think you are on to something. Things have changed. There is still a market- PS4 proves that- but IMO it has absolutely shrunk since 2005/2006 and the costs of making games that appeal to the market that still exists are only getting larger.

That is trouble.

At this point the market has basically evolved into modern Hollywood.

There are astronomically huge hits, but they're only from a few companies and only in a few genres.

Then there's a lot of low budget stuff equivalent to indie and downloadable games.

The middle is gone now that the top is extremely selling extremely high, and there's a lot more at the bottom due to the ease of distribution.

Like Far Cry 3 and Borderlands 2 basically matching the best selling Final Fantasy game ever and not even being near the top of the heap is kind of insane when you think about it, and back in 2007 you could count the total notable indie games across the past ten years on two hands.

The market is so different now, but something had to die for it.
 

StoopKid

Member
Their PR spin: "We want to spend the time on games at E3 you guys!" - Because they do not have 22 seconds at E3 to announce the price cut.

The very likely reality: Retailers have put immense pressure on Microsoft to fix this problem, or they will simply order far less stock, hamper their production and effectively stop the XBox One dead in their tracks

The announcement is meant to send the signal to retailers that they are taking drastic measures to fix the problem. And this is their main market. The stores ive spoken to in Europe all say the XB1 sells as much as PS3, a even worse situation.


It will kill them during Watch Dogs month, but the pressure from outside sources must have been immense to have them throw this month under the bus just to save the product.

.
 

Buzzman

Banned
I thought the industry would be able to continue as normal for atleast this gen, but it looks like we might see a severe contraction in just a few years.
 

_woLf

Member
I don't know which is worse, the fact that the Xbox One sold absolutely terribly or the fact that the Xbox One sold absolutely terribly and still managed to sell more than the Wii U.
 
Top Bottom