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[SwiftDeath]

Against the PS3 was the fact Bayonetta PS3 was outright broken, but For the PS3 was the bigger installbase and proven audience for character action games (Heavenly Sword, DMC, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, GoW, et al) so... I don't know if Bayonetta 2 beat estimates or not.

Well I also think that the PS3 results of Bayonetta 1 were seen as quite awful to be honest so assuming that was the case, Bayonetta 2 getting over that hurdle by like ~10% with no other platforms to also sell on is presumably worse in an absolute sense.

I think part of the problem with Bayo 1's performance was likely due to being moved into January from I think end of October 2009? So as not to compete with I think the COD of that year? It's been a while since then so my memory is hazy on it. And I do believe people tend to argue that Bayo 1 had a lot of advertising regardless so maybe it wasn't a factor.

In any case, I don't really think Bayo 2 sold anything but poorly regardless of the qualifications imposed. Although the PS3 version of Bayo 1 to me seemed to bomb harder in the US but I guess that's just my opinion.

 

[makingmusic476]

Against the PS3 was the fact Bayonetta PS3 was outright broken, but For the PS3 was the bigger installbase and proven audience for character action games (Heavenly Sword, DMC, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, GoW, et al) so... I don't know if Bayonetta 2 beat estimates or not.

It never made sense to me why the Bayonetta ps3 port was an after thought. All the other multiplat hack n' slash games sold better on ps3, especially the ones from Japan.

 

[Kai Dracon]

It never made sense to me why the Bayonetta ps3 port was an after thought. All the other multiplat hack n' slash games sold better on ps3, especially the ones from Japan.

Platinum said that at the time they didn't have PS3 experience and were uncertain they could deliver the port on time. They admitted it was their greatest error; Sega farmed the port out to a company that couldn't handle translating the 360 code without massive performance loss.

They said in hindsight they would have taken the challenge on rather than defer to a 3rd party porting team.

 

[ninjablade]

Against the PS3 was the fact Bayonetta PS3 was outright broken, but For the PS3 was the bigger installbase and proven audience for character action games (Heavenly Sword, DMC, Ninja Gaiden Sigma, GoW, et al) so... I don't know if Bayonetta 2 beat estimates or not.

you're kidding right? bayonetta 2, along with bayonetta port LTD might sell less then the original sold in japan alone on 360/ps3.

 

[jryi]

Last gen saw nearly 500 million hardware sales between 360, PS3, Wii, PSP and DS. I don't think this generation is going to manage even close to half that. Maybe about a third if we're lucky.

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but 500M consoles sold does not mean 500 million individual gamers. It's 500 million devices distributed among maybe, what, 300 million individuals? Remove handhelds and you are down to 150-200M(?).

The point here is that if the worry is that shrinking hardware sales means less business opportunities to game studios, I'd expect the opposite to happen. If PS4 sells 100M and Xbone and WiiU combined 50M, we could still be very close to the same amount of consumers with a console as before. We may have lost the soccer moms that only ever played Wii Sports, but they weren't contributing to the core games market anyway.

So, we would have 110M gamers, one predominant platform, and a bunch of publishers trying to make a buck. They could decide to minimize their risks with new IPs and only bring them to the most popular console, and if the gamble is successful, they port it to other platforms. In gen7 situation they would have to support at least two platforms, adding to their costs but not increasing revenue.

I don't know how well Pareto principle applies here, but from what I have understood, a small minority of gamers spend the vast majority of dough in this business. We can easily lose those "only buying that one LEGO game a year" audience, cutting the customer base to half, and games industry as a whole would not be at all worse off. Enthusiastic gamers are not going anywhere, and they are the ones carrying the industry.

 

[LosDaddie]

Oh you include handhelds. Makes more sense.

Even then though, its still very possible that the PS4 and XB1 see growth over their predecessors. Nintendo, who has actively segmented themselves from the rest of the market maybe decline but when they have had shoddy at best third party support for almost a decade now, how big of a loss is that? Will the studios and publishers who neglected to ship on the Wiis/DS' of the world really take any losses from those platforms contracting?


There's a very odd narrative being painted around this situation. Don't see too much cause for concern yet.

It's pretty obvious that Nintendo was/is going to lose at least half their installed base from the Wii (and that's being nice). I had some great times playing Wii, but there's just no way Wii U was ever going to even match the Wii's success, let alone exceed it. People can talk about 3rd party sales on Wii all they want, and it's a interesting point to make, but nearly all that was shovelware and little of it from major 3rd party publishers and their AAA games. If 3rd party sales were so amazing & lucrative on Wii, then it stands to reason that 3rd party pubs would've been lining up to put their games on Wii U.

The handheld market was never going to recover from its heyday once smartphones and tablets entered the market. I have 2 young kids, and rarely do I see handhelds when I take them out. It's all either iPhones or tablets. My wife loved, LOVED Brain Age and Picross 3D on her DS, played them a ton, but told me to not waste money on a 3DS for her because the iPad and iPhone were enough. The handheld market isn't coming back, and will remain niche.

The PS4 and X1 do have a good chance of exceeding PS360 sales, depending on how long the console cycle is. The PS4 moreso, but the X1 could easily hit 50-65M (and more) if MS stays aggressive. Sales for both consoles show there is still a significant market for "traditional" (console) gaming.

The gaming market is evolving, and won't stop doing so. So yes, while console & handheld gaming will contract from last gen, it's not the doom & gloom picture some would like to paint.

Is Sony gonna get a big Ps2 sized stranglehold on this generation?

It's possible, and many on GAF hope so, but I think it's unlikely to happen. The PS4 will have the most marketshare, but if MS stays aggressive with X1, then we could see a market split somewhere around 60/40.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

The 64K was for US, so it's install base was much smaller than 360, especially in 2010. Unless you mean smaller than WiiU?

Yeah. The topical Sales Age discussion boat on PS3 vs 360 multiplatform performance has long since sailed.

Well I also think that the PS3 results of Bayonetta 1 were seen as quite awful to be honest so assuming that was the case, Bayonetta 2 getting over that hurdle by like ~10% with no other platforms to also sell on is presumably worse in an absolute sense.

Sales on all platforms were bad, hence the sequal getting cancelled.
For a better comparison on what Nintendos expectations must have been though, its likely Bayonneta 2 outsold Mad World on a larger userbase, and its likely its lifetime sales will exceed W101s.

you're kidding right? bayonetta 2, along with bayonetta port LTD might sell less then the original sold in japan alone on 360/ps3.

I know its you so I'm not sure why I'm bothering, but yes, it's likely Bayonetta 2 will not sell as well as the prequel did on two platforms that had larger userbases and demographics more inclined to buying games like Bayonetta 2.
Well done.

 

[sörine]

Not sure if posted already but also from Aqua, we have January 2010 [first month] sales of Bayonetta 1 in the US for the 360 and PS3

[360] 102k
[PS3] 64k

So looks like Bayo 2 performed better than Bayo 1 on the PS3 at least, still not good numbers by any means though

Also worth keeping in mind;

Bayonetta: 4 weeks of sales
Bayonetta 2: 1 week of sales

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but 500M consoles sold does not mean 500 million individual gamers.

Well yes, you do sound like a broken record since that's exactly what I said in my next sentience you decided to cut off.

 

[theprodigy]

Is Sony gonna get a big Ps2 sized stranglehold on this generation?

nah at least not in the US, PS4 would need to start tripling XB1 (LOL)

Also worth keeping in mind;

Bayonetta: 4 weeks of sales
Bayonetta 2: 1 week of sales

it's 2 weeks of sales for Bayonetta 2, and we all know how little weeks 3 and 4 really matter

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Also worth keeping in mind;

Bayonetta: 4 weeks of sales
Bayonetta 2: 1 week of sales

Bayonetta isn't really the type of title you'd expect long-tail sales from though - I mean, I guess potentially it will get an uptick if the WiiU does well this holiday as its a very good game and 'core' gamers getting a WiiU as a second console for christmas could do a lot worse, but I'd suspect the sales differential between week 1 and weeks 2-4 is pretty negligible.

 

[unapersson]

Well, some people believe that losing ~100 million gamers between last gen and this gen doesn't matter because they weren't the right sort of gamer, this will be an 8 year gen and Japans just waiting for the right DQ / Musou / Dating Sim to appear before buying 30 million PS4s.

100 million gamers or 100 million console sales? Some people bought multiple consoles, some people bought the same console multiple times. So the 100 million as a figure in itself can be quite misleading. Combined with the overlap, where people who bought or rebought the PS2 during the PS3 era are counted towards the PS2 gen, you get quick a dodgy stack of statistics when it comes to an actual number of gamers. That's not even counting the fact that multiple people can use a single device.

How many of the "mom" gamers "lost" in the transition from Wii were actually just playing on the same console their kids were?

 

[sörine]

it's 2 weeks of sales for Bayonetta 2, and we all know how little weeks 3 and 4 really matter

Tracking period ends Nov 1st, no?

Jan 2010 NPD: Jan 03 - Jan 30 (Bayo released Jan 05, 26 days of coverage)
Oct 2014 NPD: Oct 05 - Nov 01 (Bayo 2 released Oct 24, 9 days of coverage)

I'll agree 1st week is most vital for these sorts of games though.

 

[Koobion]

This list is going to look crazy for November. It's great to see Nintendo hanging up top. They have extremely tough competition.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

100 million gamers or 100 million console sales?

From a sales perspective, does it actually matter?

 

[SerTapTap]

Glad to see Borderlands chart, actually a pretty sweet "inbetween" release. Those Cryo guns just gotta be in BL3.

Hope sunset did alright despite not charting. I know 9th by SKU, hopefully it was good enough. Sucks to not see it and DC on the charts, shaky times for new IPs this year. Lots of great sales on...iffy starts, and lots of poor sales on good (or iffy) starts.

From a sales perspective, does it actually matter?

Yes, because if a large amount of those Wii sales belonged to people who also had a PS3/360 they are probably not missing anything but a single console sale. If they are wii only users that are gone, they are a single console + game sales.

 

[SwiftDeath]

Sales on all platforms were bad, hence the sequal getting cancelled.
For a better comparison on what Nintendos expectations must have been though, its likely Bayonneta 2 outsold Mad World on a larger userbase, and its likely its lifetime sales will exceed W101s.

Trying to determine publisher expectations is a tricky thing. W101 was probably one of the worst bombs commercially of this generation so far granted we aren't far into it but I would have serious doubts that W101 sold anywhere near enough for Nintendo to have considered it close to a success commercially and thus don't really understand why it would be a good barometer for Nintendo's expectations of Bayonetta 2. Are we talking their expectations when they greenlite Bayo 2 initially, probably back in 2011 or 2012 a year before W101 came out? Their expectations after W101 bombed horribly last year and a year or two of development had already been put into Bayo 2?

I mean I assume that Nintendo okayed the project believing it to be a loss leader but even then I imagine there is some limit on what is acceptable loss. Bayo 2 is likely a 15M+ budget project that will sell maybe 300k WW when all is said and done, I suspect Nintendo will lose millions on the project and that doesn't even take into account opportunity cost of what that 15M could've been used for on say 3DS exclusives or what not.

I'm sure Bayonetta 2 sold around the expectations Nintendo had for it in the last 3 months or so considering they had pre-order info but I also am pretty sure it no way met the expectations besides critical success that originally allowed the project to be okayed.

 

[Nightengale]

Destiny and Watch_Dogs did awesome as far as new IPs go, so not really.

DC was always poised for a muted release in the States, even not taking into account the broken MP. Sunset... had potential to do better, but it's still somewhat less-familiar new IP on a smaller install base. Probably also too close to CoD AW.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Yes, because if a large amount of those Wii sales belonged to people who also had a PS3/360 they are probably not missing anything but a single console sale. If they are wii only users that are gone, they are a single console + game sales.

The Wii had a respectable software attach rate, so this hypothetical multi console owner either bought enough games for their Wii to maintain it as a viable console, or the Wii only owners were absolutely fucking mental on buying software.

Either way, 100 million consumers worth of purchasing power has now gone elsewhere.
People applauding that aren't people interested in the financial viability of console gaming.

Trying to determine publisher expectations is a tricky thing.

...

Are we talking their expectations when they greenlite Bayo 2 initially, probably back in 2011 or 2012 a year before W101 came out? Their expectations after W101 bombed horribly last year and a year or two of development had already been put into Bayo 2?

I would be amazed to discover that Bayonetta 2 was a game that took 2 years of development time to complete; its an iterative sequel and doesn't hugely deviate from the (sadly unsuccessful commercially) formula of the first game.

You're right, we can't fully second guess a publishers intentions, but NoA giving away the first game 'remaster' for free when they could just have easily released it as a seperate SKU doesn't speak volumes for the faith they had in its sales.

 

[theprodigy]

Tracking period ends Nov 1st, no?

Jan 2010 NPD: Jan 03 - Jan 30 (Bayo released Jan 05, 26 days of coverage)
Oct 2014 NPD: Oct 05 - Nov 01 (Bayo 2 released Oct 24, 9 days of coverage)

I'll agree 1st week is most vital for these sorts of games though.

yeah, 9 days is equivalent to 2 weeks on any weekly tracker (and 26 days=4 weeks), so it's effectively 2 weeks of coverage

 

[sörine]

yeah, 9 days is equivalent to 2 weeks on any weekly tracker (and 26 days=4 weeks), so it's effectively 2 weeks of coverage

I was simply rounding to the nearest week. Bayo 1 really had close to three times the coverage Bayo 2 did, not twice the coverage.

 

[SwiftDeath]

I would be amazed to discover that Bayonetta 2 was a game that took 2 years of development time to complete; its an iterative sequel and doesn't hugely deviate from the (sadly unsuccessful commercially) formula of the first game.

What examples of AAA games with decently large budgets take under 2 years? Even sequels? I'm sure there are some examples but they certainly don't spring to mind.

More importantly to this point though, I believe Platinum were developing a sequel to Bayonetta under Sega before the Nintendo relationship/revival but it was put on hold indefinitely within Sega. So that I suppose could be argument for it taking less time.

My general gist of Bayo's 2 development cost and time come from Nirolak's posts on it as I never followed closely enough so they are most certainly guesswork but I feel pretty safe assuming it was multiple years of effort on Platinum's part.

You're right, we can't fully second guess a publishers intentions, but NoA giving away the first game 'remaster' for free when they could just have easily released it as a seperate SKU doesn't speak volumes for the faith they had in its sales.

I read that more like when Bayo 2 was greenlite, Nintendo's strategy was trying to build that demographic on their consolebase thus making the first game available on their console allows consumers new to the Bayonetta series a way into the franchise.

 

[unapersson]

From a sales perspective, does it actually matter?

I'd say the numbers of replacements vs. new consoles vs. dead or inactive consoles does have an impact on how large the market for potential software sales is. If you merely add them all together you get a misleading idea about the size of the market.

 

[AniHawk]

The Wii had a respectable software attach rate, so this hypothetical multi console owner either bought enough games for their Wii to maintain it as a viable console, or the Wii only owners were absolutely fucking mental on buying software.

Either way, 100 million consumers worth of purchasing power has now gone elsewhere.
People applauding that aren't people interested in the financial viability of console gaming.

i mean software-wise, the system sold 900 million units to customers. even at $39.99 apiece, that's tens of billions of dollars not being spent on the traditional market, not even taking hardware sales into account. if you also consider the smaller core handheld market (essentially the psp and a chunk of what the ds appealed to), and the nearly gone wider handheld market, including software and hardware, that's close to or exceeding one hundred billion dollars that may not be spent on the traditional model. it's a staggering amount that's going to have major ramifications as publishers start chasing the money that's showing up elsewhere.

 

[IndoAssassin]

The 360 and PS3 combined for 160 million consoles sold. I don't ever recall a game selling 160 million copies. How about even a 100 mill copies? Ok how about even 50 million copies? The highest amount sold on these two consoles I recall is GTA5 at 34 million? The average sales of a AAA game is what 5-6 million shipped copies? So maybe 4-5% of the install base buys all the AAA games?

Only thing I see being affected is studios scaling back on budgets for their games to account for that small base rather than the potential customers. Which IMO is better considering majority of their budgets go into marketing to a potential market and teh graphics rather than catering to the market that buys every game.

The only companies that may be affected by the contracted market is Sony, MS, and Nintendo since this will result in less revenue from licensing fees.

But considering the consoles are now built with profiting on the hardware from the start, is a contracting market really that dire of a situation?

The PS2 alone had an install base of 150 million consoles. What was the average sales of AAA games then?

 

[Longsword]

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but 500M consoles sold does not mean 500 million individual gamers. It's 500 million devices distributed among maybe, what, 300 million individuals? Remove handhelds and you are down to 150-200M(?).

The point here is that if the worry is that shrinking hardware sales means less business opportunities to game studios, I'd expect the opposite to happen. If PS4 sells 100M and Xbone and WiiU combined 50M, we could still be very close to the same amount of consumers with a console as before. We may have lost the soccer moms that only ever played Wii Sports, but they weren't contributing to the core games market anyway.

So, we would have 110M gamers, one predominant platform, and a bunch of publishers trying to make a buck. They could decide to minimize their risks with new IPs and only bring them to the most popular console, and if the gamble is successful, they port it to other platforms. In gen7 situation they would have to support at least two platforms, adding to their costs but not increasing revenue.

I don't know how well Pareto principle applies here, but from what I have understood, a small minority of gamers spend the vast majority of dough in this business. We can easily lose those "only buying that one LEGO game a year" audience, cutting the customer base to half, and games industry as a whole would not be at all worse off. Enthusiastic gamers are not going anywhere, and they are the ones carrying the industry.

Good post. Looking at the number of copies AAA games have sold this year, we are not seeing any collapse. I am far more worried about the skyrocketing development costs.

 

[stryke]

Not really about sales but it appears Amazon is restricting console sales right now probably in the lead up to BF. They are limiting every console SKU to just 1 unit per customer except the Destiny bundle where they allow 3.

 

[AniHawk]

I feel like I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but 500M consoles sold does not mean 500 million individual gamers. It's 500 million devices distributed among maybe, what, 300 million individuals? Remove handhelds and you are down to 150-200M(?).

The point here is that if the worry is that shrinking hardware sales means less business opportunities to game studios, I'd expect the opposite to happen. If PS4 sells 100M and Xbone and WiiU combined 50M, we could still be very close to the same amount of consumers with a console as before. We may have lost the soccer moms that only ever played Wii Sports, but they weren't contributing to the core games market anyway.

So, we would have 110M gamers, one predominant platform, and a bunch of publishers trying to make a buck. They could decide to minimize their risks with new IPs and only bring them to the most popular console, and if the gamble is successful, they port it to other platforms. In gen7 situation they would have to support at least two platforms, adding to their costs but not increasing revenue.

I don't know how well Pareto principle applies here, but from what I have understood, a small minority of gamers spend the vast majority of dough in this business. We can easily lose those "only buying that one LEGO game a year" audience, cutting the customer base to half, and games industry as a whole would not be at all worse off. Enthusiastic gamers are not going anywhere, and they are the ones carrying the industry.

every generation there have been more people added to the traditional market, except for this one it appears. every generation development costs have risen, including this one. it's becoming increasingly difficult to profit from the traditional market. that's why games are $60 on consoles at launch. it's why dlc is so important. it's why subscriptions are so important. it's why season passes are so important. it's all about added more to a specific kind of game.

losing entire demographics, seeing less risk being taken and reaching fewer demographics is not a sign of a healthy industry. fortunately the industry is still growing, unfortunately if you only really like traditional dedicated gaming hardware, it is bad news for you.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

What examples of AAA games with decently large budgets take under 2 years? Even sequels? I'm sure there are some examples but they certainly don't spring to mind.

Well, bear in mind WiiU development isn't at the same cost level as PS4 / Xbone levels, its at the cost level of PS360 titles so the best comparable titles would be those from that era rather than today, but even having said that you can look at something like Travellers Tales output (primarily singleplayer, iterative gameplay upon an established formula) and see they manage to put out about a title a year, and on multiple platforms to boot.

If nothing else Platinum have proven themselves to be a reliable studio that can get a project done on time and on budget without fuss.

I'd say the numbers of replacements vs. new consoles vs. dead or inactive consoles does have an impact on how large the market for potential software sales is. If you merely add them all together you get a misleading idea about the size of the market.

But the numbers of actual people don't actually matter.
You can express the sales "force" of a console as attach rate; it doesn't matter from a sales perspective if a Wii owner was also a 360 owner, it just means this hypothetical owner spent so much that he managed to spend the equivalent of two normal single console owners - but who cares if that money is split equally between two or more platforms?

I mean, following your logic to its natural conclusion, GTAV remastered is a retarded thing to release, because the crossover rate between "people who own a PS4 or Xbone" and "people who owned a 360 or PS3" must be close to 100%.

Only thing I see being affected is studios scaling back on budgets for their games to account for that small base rather than the potential customers.

AAA can't scale back budgets. It's sort of the point of being AAA.
You can't have Kevin Spacey guest starring as a major character in a game, and then go back to mocapping the least ugly programmer for the sequel.

The only other side of the equation that can be moved is price per unit - expect to see ongoing strategies to make the individual SKU price of a AAA title go beyond $60.

 

[KooopaKid]

So we have Bayonetta 2 sales number? I missed them.

 

[gundamkyoukai]

every generation there have been more people added to the traditional market, except for this one it appears. every generation development costs have risen, including this one. it's becoming increasingly difficult to profit from the traditional market. that's why games are $60 on consoles at launch. it's why dlc is so important. it's why subscriptions are so important. it's why season passes are so important. it's all about added more to a specific kind of game.

losing entire demographics, seeing less risk being taken and reaching fewer demographics is not a sign of a healthy industry. fortunately the industry is still growing, unfortunately if you only really like traditional dedicated gaming hardware, it is bad news for you.

I would say this gen it's easier to make profit.
Yes development costs rise but you can make more money thanks to DD and porting cost should be cheaper.

AAA can't scale back budgets. It's sort of the point of being AAA.
You can't have Kevin Spacey guest starring as a major character in a game, and then go back to mocapping the least ugly programmer for the sequel.

The only other side of the equation that can be moved is price per unit - expect to see ongoing strategies to make the individual SKU price of a AAA title go beyond $60.

I think you can scale back AAA budgets games them self don't cost that much sometimes .
It's then when you have companies spending 3 to 4 times the game budget on advertisement that things get crazy .
Companies are going to have to learn to spend there advertisement dollars better .

 

[Game Guru]

every generation there have been more people added to the traditional market, except for this one it appears. every generation development costs have risen, including this one. it's becoming increasingly difficult to profit from the traditional market. that's why games are $60 on consoles at launch. it's why dlc is so important. it's why subscriptions are so important. it's why season passes are so important. it's all about added more to a specific kind of game.

losing entire demographics, seeing less risk being taken and reaching fewer demographics is not a sign of a healthy industry. fortunately the industry is still growing, unfortunately if you only really like traditional dedicated gaming hardware, it is bad news for you.

However, this depends on what one considers the traditional market. Wii was far from a traditional console with the traditional titles. For the most part, the Wii served as an additional revenue source for third-party publishers, a role that mobile and PC could easily serve in lieu of the Wii nowadays. The PS3 and Xbox 360 combined sold less than the PS2 and Xbox, but not by enough that it could not be explained by the fact neither console had reached $100. The biggest issues I see with the eighth generation is the collapse of the dedicated handheld market and by extension, the collapse of Japan as a viable market for consoles. This is because of mobile existing when it previously didn't. However Japan did jump to portable gaming with the DS, so Japan's shift from DS to mobile could be seen as part of the general shift from dedicated handhelds towards mobile devices, which again did not exist until recently.

As far as the AAA Market goes, I do think they are unsustainable, but this is because AAA games are ill suited to the general shift towards digital. They are 50GB games with 20GB patches that exist in a world of 250GB bandwidth caps and low download speeds. They cannot survive in an all-digital future without removing bandwidth caps and increasing download speeds.

 

[barneystuta83]

Did anyone manage to make a good educated guess at hardware sales numbers? If someone smarter than me had all the LTD's, plus the information in the OP, I am sure someone could take a go at it?

 

[Ty4on]

So we have Bayonetta 2 sales number? I missed them.

Not really. We just know they are 64k<B2<102k and probably closest to 64k.

Hardware

 

[rambis]

Dp

 

[rambis]

The Wii had a respectable software attach rate, so this hypothetical multi console owner either bought enough games for their Wii to maintain it as a viable console, or the Wii only owners were absolutely fucking mental on buying software.

Either way, 100 million consumers worth of purchasing power has now gone elsewhere.
People applauding that aren't people interested in the financial viability of console gaming.



I would be amazed to discover that Bayonetta 2 was a game that took 2 years of development time to complete; its an iterative sequel and doesn't hugely deviate from the (sadly unsuccessful commercially) formula of the first game.

You're right, we can't fully second guess a publishers intentions, but NoA giving away the first game 'remaster' for free when they could just have easily released it as a seperate SKU doesn't speak volumes for the faith they had in its sales.

I just find it incredibly disingenuous and stupid that people are already counting 100m consoles less when we've barely gotten a year from all 3 platforms. You have one console flatlining, one that sold respectively(although they needed price drops) and one that's selling gangbusters still at full launch price.

Its very fine to have predictions but this has blown into some wild fear mongering narrative that I'm not even sure is remotely true.

As far as financial viability, I'm not worried in the slightest about possibly losing all of Nintendo's customers. Publishers pulled the plug themselves on Wii support late into Wii's life. And it never really manifest end on WiiU. With that and the way the major publishers decried the performance of their Wii titles, the only logical conclusion is that there was little to no profit in those titles. Yet publishers feel just as comfortable to continue to launch AAA games with higher and higher budgets than the last. It doesn't really jive with this doom and gloom.

I'm of the opinion that this great decline is being supremely overstated at this point.

 

[unapersson]

But the numbers of actual people don't actually matter.
You can express the sales "force" of a console as attach rate; it doesn't matter from a sales perspective if a Wii owner was also a 360 owner, it just means this hypothetical owner spent so much that he managed to spend the equivalent of two normal single console owners - but who cares if that money is split equally between two or more platforms?

I mean, following your logic to its natural conclusion, GTAV remastered is a retarded thing to release, because the crossover rate between "people who own a PS4 or Xbone" and "people who owned a 360 or PS3" must be close to 100%.

You might think it is a retarded thing to release if you don't know your market. Whereas if you do know your market you'd know that a lot of new PS4 owners would rather play on their PS4 and will quite happily buy a new version to get an improved version of the game. You're ignoring the fact it's an improved version, if they released a version that was identical to the PS3 version and running at the same rez, then how many would bother with the upgrade?

Taking your hypothetical PS3/Wii owner, if a cross platform game comes out they're likely to buy one version not two. Simply because there is little benefit owning both vs just buying a different game.

With a multi-console owner there is no guarantee they'll buy more titles than a single platform owner. Both could buy 20 titles a year, but with one splitting their purchases across two platforms. The benefit of multiplatform releases is that you can hit more individual gamers, so Wii owners and PS3 owners. But if a person has both you're still likely to get just one sale from that gamer rather than two.

 

[KooopaKid]

Not really. We just know they are 64k<B2<102k and probably closest to 64k.

Hardware

Thanks. Hey not THAT bad. So every new Wii U owner bought Bayonetta 2 along with it?
Hopefully, the game sells well on Black Friday and people pick it up with Smash Bros.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I'm of the opinion that this great decline is being supremely overstated at this point.

Okay, then please explain your reasoning for the following factors;
- How will the PS4 reach PS3 level sales (let alone PS2 level) when it sells like it does in Japan? Or is chalkboard time?
- How will the Xbone reach 360 level sales when it sells like it does, well, everywhere in the world? Or is this also chalkboard time?
- Why are the PS4 and Xbone only doing "gangbusters" and "respectively(sic)" if you ignore monthly sales and choose to average from record launches? And exclude the market leader of last gen? And further when you make that comparison against one console that was supply constrained and another that was dead on arrival? When you need to fudge so much data to support your hypothesis, at what point are you willing to acknowledge that your hypothesis is wrong?
- Why are you ignoring the actual historical sales data of Wii software in favour of some hypothetical gut feelings about what publishers really want?
- In what industry ever is market contraction seen as a good thing because some customers don't like some other customers?
- In what industry ever is it considered a sound business practice to consolidate into fewer and fewer more expensive (and therefore inherently riskier) products, with each product taking longer and longer to bring to market, rather than diversifying to appeal to the largest possible consumer base, and striving for product turnaround in the fastest time possible?

Taking your hypothetical PS3/Wii owner, if a cross platform game comes out they're likely to buy one version not two. Simply because there is little benefit owning both vs just buying a different game.

Why are we pretending that we don't know what the software sales for the Wii actually were (we do) or that there was a huge overlap between titles released for the PS3 and the Wii (there wasn't)?
Or that there wasn't a qualitative difference between the Wii and the PS360 beyond just graphical capabilities?

 

[ninjablade]

Okay, then please explain your reasoning for the following factors;
- How will the PS4 reach PS3 level sales (let alone PS2 level) when it sells like it does in Japan? Or is chalkboard time?
- How will the Xbone reach 360 level sales when it sells like it does, well, everywhere in the world? Or is this also chalkboard time?
- Why are the PS4 and Xbone only doing "gangbusters" and "respectively(sic)" if you ignore monthly sales and choose to average from record launches? And exclude the market leader of last gen? And further when you make that comparison against one console that was supply constrained and another that was dead on arrival? When you need to fudge so much data to support your hypothesis, at what point are you willing to acknowledge that your hypothesis is wrong?
- Why are you ignoring the actual historical sales data of Wii software in favour of some hypothetical gut feelings about what publishers really want?
- In what industry ever is market contraction seen as a good thing because some customers don't like some other customers?
- In what industry ever is it considered a sound business practice to consolidate into fewer and fewer more expensive (and therefore inherently riskier) products, with each product taking longer and longer to bring to market, rather than diversifying to appeal to the largest possible consumer base, and striving for product turnaround in the fastest time possible?


?

The ps4 doesn't really need japan, it might reach 5 million sold through by the end of this gen there, and that's enough, that's only 5 million short of the ps3, not exactly a big deal when you consider it's destroying ps3 sales in the us and europe, by basically taking over XB market share.

there are also number of factors still holding back ps4/XB1, for example cross gen games, there is still a huge chunk of gamers of haven't upgraded cause of this, you can play most of your ps4 games on ps3., another thing is most nextgen exclusives have gotten average reviews, for example sony exclusives and AC unity. i think nextgen for both XB1 and ps4 will start in 2015, and i'm pretty amazed at how the ps4 is selling, the XB is selling alright as well, but it's obvious ps4 is taking it's market share.

 

[rambis]

Okay, then please explain your reasoning for the following factors;
- How will the PS4 reach PS3 level sales (let alone PS2 level) when it sells like it does in Japan? Or is chalkboard time?
- How will the Xbone reach 360 level sales when it sells like it does, well, everywhere in the world? Or is this also chalkboard time?
- Why are the PS4 and Xbone only doing "gangbusters" and "respectively(sic)" if you ignore monthly sales and choose to average from record launches? And exclude the market leader of last gen? And further when you make that comparison against one console that was supply constrained and another that was dead on arrival? When you need to fudge so much data to support your hypothesis, at what point are you willing to acknowledge that your hypothesis is wrong?
- Why are you ignoring the actual historical sales data of Wii software in favour of some hypothetical gut feelings about what publishers really want?
- In what industry ever is market contraction seen as a good thing because some customers don't like some other customers?
- In what industry ever is it considered a sound business practice to consolidate into fewer and fewer more expensive (and therefore inherently riskier) products, with each product taking longer and longer to bring to market, rather than diversifying to appeal to the largest possible consumer base, and striving for product turnaround in the fastest time possible?



Why are we pretending that we don't know what the software sales for the Wii actually were (we do) or that there was a huge overlap between titles released for the PS3 and the Wii (there wasn't)?
Or that there wasn't a qualitative difference between the Wii and the PS360 beyond just graphical capabilities?

-The gains in both the EU/US and other regions could possibly provide growth over the relatively meager Japan numbers.. Launch aligned this is already the case so...

- They just reached 10 million shipped with a lackluster price and no killer titles to speak of. I'm quite sure its possible that they correct both those factors. But if the answer you are seeking is me detailing the next 6-7 years of moves for MS then you'll be dissapointed because a) I think that's stupid to talk about with any certainty and b) I cant see into the future. I like my stance better than this "consoles are dead and that's all there is to it" shit you all are trumpeting.

- I'm not ignoring monthly sales, though. Its just that I understand the concept that if there is a rapid burst of sales upfront, then at some point the month to month sales will decline. Buts it's because of that burst that sales dropped as they normalize. You still end up with a higher net market base which is all that matters. And I'm not sure why the Wii is relevant to this discussion where we are specifically talking PS4/XB1. Please show me where I "fudged numbers"

- what I'm speaking is the actual history, please show where I falsified anything. There's no gut feelings. The likes of EA, UBI and Acti have all gone to the press with their sentiments. There was a 3-4 year period in the initial wii lifecycle where the console and most any random gimmicky throw away sold well. I remember this clearly. But what followed after that was one of the steepest declines I've ever seen. And what Nintendo did again is further segment itself away from the market. And publishers responded. Firstly by neglecting to shipping titles and then it evolved to now where they publicly have no qualms about shitting on the platform and it's mediocre oppurtunity cost. Don't know why people are being obtuse and ignoring this. Publishers made the decision to pull the plug in favor of pushing the HD twins.

Honestly since MS entered the fray the market has never really supported 3 consoles. It took Nintendo doing a complete 180 last generation in order for them to have a space and it didn't even last the entire cycle. And nothing changed with WiiU. Yet publishers are putting more money than ever into AAA games that won't see ninteno platforms. The last 5 or so years have been terrible for Nintendo third party, virtually nonexistent. Surely if there was repercussions to be had, they would've manifested by now, no? Other than a slightly slower ramp up into software development for next gen, what exactly has transpired with the loss of Nintendo? More gaming options in different avenues? The resurgence of the indie/smaller studio? Emergent technologies like VR and this AR stuff?

When will the fire spark and eat consoles?

 

[The Maverick]

Okay, then please explain your reasoning for the following factors;
- How will the PS4 reach PS3 level sales (let alone PS2 level) when it sells like it does in Japan? Or is chalkboard time?
- How will the Xbone reach 360 level sales when it sells like it does, well, everywhere in the world? Or is this also chalkboard time?
- Why are the PS4 and Xbone only doing "gangbusters" and "respectively(sic)" if you ignore monthly sales and choose to average from record launches? And exclude the market leader of last gen? And further when you make that comparison against one console that was supply constrained and another that was dead on arrival? When you need to fudge so much data to support your hypothesis, at what point are you willing to acknowledge that your hypothesis is wrong?
- Why are you ignoring the actual historical sales data of Wii software in favour of some hypothetical gut feelings about what publishers really want?
- In what industry ever is market contraction seen as a good thing because some customers don't like some other customers?
- In what industry ever is it considered a sound business practice to consolidate into fewer and fewer more expensive (and therefore inherently riskier) products, with each product taking longer and longer to bring to market, rather than diversifying to appeal to the largest possible consumer base, and striving for product turnaround in the fastest time possible?



Why are we pretending that we don't know what the software sales for the Wii actually were (we do) or that there was a huge overlap between titles released for the PS3 and the Wii (there wasn't)?
Or that there wasn't a qualitative difference between the Wii and the PS360 beyond just graphical capabilities?

1. The PS4 will make up enough ground in other territories for Japan to not prevent it from passing PS3 numbers.
2. The Xbox One will not hit 360 numbers.
3. I agree that people are extrapolating too much from these early numbers. It wasn't long ago that the Wii U was coming out of the gate with a historically large shipment. There needs to be more time before people start making conclusions based on the data we have.
4. Publishers (and Nintendo tbh) abandoned the Wii by choice. They disregarded the Wii U by choice. This isn't hypothetical, the largest publishers in the US had IP that they leveraged the Wii install base with, but outside of that, there was no/little support.
5. Customers are choosing to game where they find convenient. If that 100 million has moved on to mobile, then they adjust to that. Nobody is saying it's a good thing. Publishers are currently figuring out how to monetize the gamers they do have.
6. You're pretty much describing a lot of different industries with that one, I don't know if you see the irony there.

 

[ninjablade]

-The gains in both the EU/US and other regions could possibly provide growth over the relatively meager Japan numbers.. Launch aligned this is already the case so...

- They just reached 10 million shipped with a lackluster price and no killer titles to speak of. I'm quite sure its possible that they correct both those factors. But if the answer you are seeking is me detailing the next 6-7 years of moves for MS then you'll be dissapointed because a) I think that's stupid to talk about with any certainty and b) I cant see into the future. I like my stance better than this "consoles are dead and that's all there is to it" shit you all are trumpeting.

yup, if somebody told me both the 360 and ps3 would reach 84 million shipped after looking at both consoles first year sales WW, i would have told them they were crazy.

 

[QaaQer]

The 360 and PS3 combined for 160 million consoles sold. I don't ever recall a game selling 160 million copies. How about even a 100 mill copies? Ok how about even 50 million copies? The highest amount sold on these two consoles I recall is GTA5 at 34 million? The average sales of a AAA game is what 5-6 million shipped copies? So maybe 4-5% of the install base buys all the AAA games?

Only thing I see being affected is studios scaling back on budgets for their games to account for that small base rather than the potential customers. Which IMO is better considering majority of their budgets go into marketing to a potential market and teh graphics rather than catering to the market that buys every game.

The only companies that may be affected by the contracted market is Sony, MS, and Nintendo since this will result in less revenue from licensing fees.

But considering the consoles are now built with profiting on the hardware from the start, is a contracting market really that dire of a situation?

The PS2 alone had an install base of 150 million consoles. What was the average sales of AAA games then?

Does anyone have info on the active (i.e. retail game buying) install base on consoles? IIRC, there was someone who said it was 30 million in the US in 2012, but my memory may be faulty.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

The ps4 doesn't really need japan

-The gains in both the EU/US and other regions could possibly provide growth over the relatively meager Japan numbers.

The PS4 will make up enough ground in other territories for Japan to not prevent it from passing PS3 numbers.

Yeah, let's see how that goes.
We're not looking at an 8 year long generation.

EDIT:
I mean, let's put that into perspective; if the PS3 doesn't sell another unit, at its current rate it will take the PS4 19 years to match the PS3s sales in Japan

Surely if there was repercussions to be had, they would've manifested by now, no? Other than a slightly slower ramp up into software development for next gen, what exactly has transpired with the loss of Nintendo?

Are you kidding me?

 

[theprodigy]

Yeah, let's see how that goes.
We're not looking at an 8 year long generation.

ha it's a good thing the PS4 doesn't need that much time to outsell the PS3 then

 

[StevieP]

ha it's a good thing the PS4 doesn't need that much time to outsell the PS3 then

The ps4 may or may not outsell the PS3 in the 5 or so years it has. There are less people to sell consoles to, and we are missing at least1 major region to sell consoles well in. A region where much of the ps3's software support came from, may I add.

 

[BadWolf]

The ps4 may or may not outsell the PS3 in the 5 or so years it has. There are less people to sell consoles to, and we are missing at least1 major region to sell consoles well in

How so?

 

[gundamkyoukai]

Yeah, let's see how that goes.
We're not looking at an 8 year long generation.

EDIT:
I mean, let's put that into perspective; if the PS3 doesn't sell another unit, at its current rate it will take the PS4 19 years to match the PS3s sales in Japan



Are you kidding me?

This gen will not last 8 years but you can also bet that these consoles won't be $300 after 5 plus years on the market.

 

[rambis]

Yeah, let's see how that goes.
We're not looking at an 8 year long generation.



Are you kidding me?

I dont see how you can say that with any confidence. Extending the generation is seemingly paying dividends. Why would they go away from that?

And studio closures, are we sure this isn't a result of underperforming titles or is it specifically because we dont have a healthy Wii? Or is it because the market is only responding to certain games?

 

[theprodigy]

The ps4 may or may not outsell the PS3 in the 5 or so years it has. There are less people to sell consoles to, and we are missing at least1 major region to sell consoles well in. A region where much of the ps3's software support came from, may I add.

even if PS4 sells only 5 million units in Japan, this only represents a drop of 5 million from the PS3

Japan isn't nearly as relevant as you think it is for consoles any more, sorry