-
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]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
I actually agree. Particularly with smart Gamepad integration. Nintendo should *still* be begging Notch or looking for their own take on the genre.
I keep hearing about how Nintendo is just swimming in money and they could go 5 generations of bad consoles and be just fine. If this is the case then they can man up and take a loss on the WiiU to try and make it relevant. If they don't they might as well forget about being relevant next gen as well. The price of this console is killing it.
shinra-bansho
Member
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
The XB1 is a very small part of that equation, less than 80k.
I know Xbox One version sold ~77k.
I don't know if 360 version sold ~560k or 560k minus 77k.
1st Course
Member
PS2/GCN/XBOX 2000-2010 NPD sales
http://forum.everyeye.it/invision/index.php/topic/339671-dati-hardware-usa-npd/
I don't think it includes it, wasn't it mentioned earlier in the thread that 360 TF> ISS for the first month respectively?
So basically, the 3DS is doing worse than the PSP in NA+EU launched aligned. Given the fact that we are just reaching the point in the PSP's lifespan where Monster Hunter took off in Japan, that worldwide comparison will probably not get much better going forward.
Yes, but we don't know the precise sales for Infamous first month (only that sold less than 500k).
ethomaz
Banned
In the past I guessed Sony didn't give PS3 because they were bad compared with 360 but now eve PS4 selling close to 2:1 they didn't give numbers.
So it just the company policies.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Seems like a trivial difference. I thought you might be thinking the XB1 and 360 split the 560k or something.
Nothing they can do will make the Wii U relevant. I don't mean "nothing they're willing to do", I mean they literally have no options that will result in Wii U being, say, sales-competitive with XB1 over its lifetime. The design is too utterly unappealing, the hardware is too expensive to build, and the relationships with third parties are too awful.
Their best move is to use these next 18-24 months to figure out how the Nintendo corporation can compete in a world where handhelds are on the way out and the home console market is shrinking. I think in the long term that means shutting down/spinning off their hardware business. However, management will not do that until their backs are against the wall, and that is at least a full generation off.
Aquamarine
Member
It really shows how the GameCube's failure was a shock to Nintendo's system back then.
They shut down production of hardware, dropped the price to super-low levels, etc.
It makes Nintendo's relative silence to the Wii U even more eerie despite Wii U dramatically underperforming GameCube everywhere except Japan.
All it takes is one game
Aquamarine
Member
“I think the biggest problem we were having was that thinking (that) one single software can make a great change on [GameCube] hardware sales. But we have come to realize by now that the circumstances have changed. No single software can do it, but rather, Nintendo, or more specifically GameCube, does need a great variety of different software which must be put into the market at appropriate intervals. Nintendo has to concentrate on something which is really unique to Nintendo.”
- Satoru Iwata, 2003
"One game has the power to change everything."
- Satoru Iwata, 2013
"The fate of a video game system is often influenced greatly by the introduction of a single title."
- Satoru Iwata, 2014
wait...
prag16
Banned
To be fair, while the 2013 version came across as pretty dumb even in context, the 2014 one is fairly out of context in terms of the entirety of what he said in response to the question.
In all fairness that first quote was given by Iwata on opposite day. They totally just need one game
Some Nobody
Junior Member
lol. Telling of what? These numbers are garbage because I can't think of a single major title that released in April. These are what your sales look like when the biggest titles coming out are Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Octodad: The Dadliest Catch.
Destiny's going to move some consoles--PS4 and Xbox One alike. And that's before Broketober and November hit and tap every gamers pockets for hundreds of dollars.
Liabe Brave
Member
Well, here's my answer to that: your test also went badly.Ehi, it's you! My method worked quite well, see? The test went well
As before, I want to be perfectly clear: your attempts to bring stringent method to sales prediction are not useless or stupid. They're laudable. But my contention is, and always has been, that it's not reliable. You predicted PS4 well, but you failed on 3DS. And that sort of variability will always be the case.
Averaging historical trends and using them on a projective basis is often the best we can do, and the resulting estimates are eminently reasonable. Problem is, the world is often unreasonable. Just on last gen home consoles, your calculated 40-45% drop from March to April would fail to predict Xbox 360 in 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2013; PS3 in 2008, 2012, and 2013; and Wii in 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012. So out of 22 prediction events, the test would fail 11. You might as well have flipped a coin.
It's important to note that this no-better-than-chance success rate is happening on elements of the very same data pool where you got your percentage factor! In other words, when data are highly variable, an average value captures very little information about the members of the set. And video game sales are variable enough that they're not even amenable to analysis by more complex and sophisticated functions.
if you look into the recent past, the only comparable scenario is exemplified by sega. who was, ironically, nintendos old rival. if things play out in a similar fashion we would wind up with a bunch of mario (sonic) racing games. maybe a TV series. for sure their would be a bunch of cheap plastic mario toys. so not that different from what we've got currently.
Aquamarine
Member
BoboBrazil
Member
This guy is driving Nintendo right off a cliff.
Heh, wow.
TheExecutive
Member
There is no reason to. Monthly sales are quite dependant on many factors and don't do much for trending which is what matters.
360 only which is horrible considering the hype and marketing and much larger install base.
Mass Effect
Member
Not really considering all that hype and marketing was for the X1 version.
They pretended like the 360 version didn't even exist, so I'd say that number is pretty good.
Yeah, I was honestly going to say "what marketing"?
they're probably incapable of such a large drop of the price. they went into actual panic mode with the 3ds, but didn't react much to the wii u. i think they essentially could not. the next nintendo platforms will either be incredibly affordable from the start, or there will be a lot of room to drop the price.
I don't really see any scenario in which Nintendo sells 20 million WiiU. You're supposing sales could actually accelerate after this year where nintendo is projecting about 3 million Wii Us shipped.
Edit: its possible Nintendo finds that one big game, of course.
shinra-bansho
Member
I think that caveat is generally assumed in these discussions. Nintendo could find that big game for the Wii U to recover to more viable sales levels. Or to return the 3DS to growth. Sony could save the Vita with one big game. Microsoft could surge ahead globally if they find that one big game for the XBO. Or one big game outside their ecosystems could send them all tumbling down. It's hard to account for serendipity though.
Assuming another three FYs for the Wii U it would need a pretty unusual sales curve to reach 20M.
Assuming another three FYs for the Wii U it would need a pretty unusual sales curve to reach 20M.
Because of install base I expected more from 360 version too, but all marketing focused on Xbox One affected sales on 360. In addition, software sales for last gen is dropping fast.
Considering all that, 560k first month for Titanfall 360 is a respectable number.
i think 12m is the safe bet if they do reach their current forecasts. maybe 15m at the high end. 20m or more and that would mean that either nintendo is having a fire ... sale and/or somehow everyone really just needed nintendo-specific figurines and the console games to play them with.
The only thing that'd work I think is a SLEW of those "One Big Games" which is really more a Big Game Storm. Which is exactly why Nintendo pulled to get the 3DS relevant and to help make the Wii U relevant.
But the 3DS ultimately was propped up by third parties and the raw power of Pokemon, and I don't think similar can work on Wii U when third parties are largely abandoning it, Japanese ones would rather focus on handhelds and non-Japanese ones... let's be honest, when they're doing multiplatform games Wii U's usually the least desirable. It always seems to be the platform that runs worst, and with PS4/XB1 on the stage it's hard to imagine any game preferable at all unless you either lack the other systems period (including a capable PC) or it legit IS the best version. And usually only indies will make me go Wii U over others at this point.
It's a significant number because that is 560k users that did not want to buy an Xbox One for the game or any games that are currently out.
ethomaz
Banned
I did some maths....
PS4 Nov > 1.14m (US) to 2.1m (WW) = 54%
PS4 Dec > 2.00m (US) to 4.2m (WW) = 48%
PS4 Jan > 2.27m (US) to 5.3m (WW) = 43%
PS4 Feb > 2.54m (US) to 6.0m (WW) = 42%
PS4 Mar > 2.91m (US) to 7.0m (WW) = 41%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.4m (WW) * using 42%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.6m (WW) * using 41%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.8m (WW) * using 40%
PS4 Nov > 1.14m (US) to 2.1m (WW) = 54%
PS4 Dec > 2.00m (US) to 4.2m (WW) = 48%
PS4 Jan > 2.27m (US) to 5.3m (WW) = 43%
PS4 Feb > 2.54m (US) to 6.0m (WW) = 42%
PS4 Mar > 2.91m (US) to 7.0m (WW) = 41%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.4m (WW) * using 42%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.6m (WW) * using 41%
PS4 Apr: 3.11m (US) to 7.8m (WW) * using 40%
Brad Grenz
Member
Yeah, I was doing some napkin calculations the other day and it pretty obvious that irrespective of how Xbox One is selling in the US, it is getting demolished elsewhere. Even if you generously assume the 1.2M shipped number from Q1 equates to sales, you would calculate sales outside of the US equates to about 60% of NPD. If you believe it was realistically closer to 1M over that period that figure drops to only 30%.
When you put it all together, outside the US the Xbox One in April was outsold by at least 3.5:1, and it could possibly be as high as 20:1. Choosing the midpoint of the ranges for both Xbox One and PS4 the worldwide sales for April including the US would be right about 4:1 in PS4's favor (8:1 outside the States).
michaelius
Banned
One game to save insert console name here is such a stupid theory.
Games rarely sell to more than 10% of owners of each console that's why you need frequent stream of good games releasing frequently so people can find game which interests them every few months.
That's what I meant dude...
Looking at the figures above and the fact that IF we get an updated WW figure from Sony at E3 (which will be before the May NPD results are known), are we looking at 9m by E3 for PS4 and >4.5m for xbone? I can't see May's number being huge for MS as they have basically killed sales for May with the announcement of the price cut, and not selling well outside the US?
michaelius
Banned
8 to 8,5 milions seems more realistic expectasion
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Just wooow. Board ratings can't come soon enough.
dragonfart28
Banned
Holy wow is the industry going downhill.
How long until we hit Japan numbers?
How long until we hit Japan numbers?
Brad Grenz
Member
Yeah, it will probably be just a bit short of PS4 officially having sold twice as much as the Xbox One by E3. Not outside the realm of possibility depending on how low Xbox One bottoms out for May and if PS4 gets a sizable boost from The Show and Watch_Dogs.
I stand corrected I guess. But at April 2011 when PSP hit 70M software sales were 298M which is a tie-ratio of around 4.25 which isn't that high. I don't know what the final count is. But the problem for Vita I would say was the multimedia features being redundant in the smartphone world and not the quality of games. Price is probably an issue as well but the target audience is not conducive to portable gaming.
The reason Nintendo can go 5 generations(maybe 10 generations) of bad consoles and be just fine is because they don't 'man up' and take losses. Taking big losses would mean they might only be able to survive 2 or 3 generations. It's better to pick your battles and there'd be a better payoff taking risks with the new hardware than taking risks with big pricecuts on the Wii U.
Nintendo are projecting 9M Wii Us by next April which would be 2.5 years after launch or halfway through the lifecycle. Double that gets you to over 18M. The planned lifecycle might also have been 6 years. Iwata has stated that they are not going to abandon the Wii U and they'll be busy launching QOL in 2015. I think it's fair to assume that they'll provide at least reasonable support for the system in 2016.
Currently Wii U is at 6M. If you have the following:
2014: 3.8M
2015: 3.8M
2016: 2M
That would take it to 15.6M. Wii U sales in the west have already accelerated this year and currently it only has 1 big game. Towards the end of this year it will have least 3 big games. It might be able to get to 20M even without Nintendo doing anything too dramatic. If they have a new hit IP or two then that could push it to 25-30M. Existing IPs should be enough for them to get past 15M.