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NPD Sales Results for October 2015 [Up1: Xbox #1]

d2
70k
50k
d1
d4
40k
d5
dd2

d5's numbers don't tell the full story though (no digital sales or nisa's online store sales). neither do d4's (no nisa's online store sales). couldn't find d3's numbers either.
Does this include Vita?

Disgaea also sold higher digitally than ToZ and DQH. It is worth pointing out that the game had a price error making it 50 dollars before launch.
 
d2
70k
50k
d1
d4
40k
d5
dd2

d5's numbers don't tell the full story though (no digital sales or nisa's online store sales). neither do d4's (no nisa's online store sales). couldn't find d3's numbers either.

Thanks!. Low but not disastrous, with uncounted sales. ToZ and D5 both charted on the psn best sellers, Dragon Quest too, but barely.
 
Oh I agree that it makes sense to hit $299 for BF, we just have to wait for Nov numbers to see if indeed some sales might have been delayed from Oct to Nov (we will never know for sure obviously, but we could have an idea).

Well, anything else is unthinkable.
2 very attactive bundles building up pre-sales for November
Everyone knows Black Friday is coming, and whoever is not in urgence holds off for a few weeks.

The estimation game for November will be absolutely nuts.
 
So now JRPGs on PS4 are doomed, because ToZ and D5 did not sell well ? Is this the new narrative we are going with?

Well, someone is still convinced 3DS is not a platform with a sizeable jRPG userbase after Bravely Default (200k first month NA), Fire Emblem Awakening (180k first month NA), Shin Megami Tensei IV (best debut in the series in NA), Project X Zone (Western sales exceeded 10 times NB expectations), Rune Factory 4 (best selling XSeed game in NA), and so on... So some narratives might be weird.

Any JRPG title will live or die by its sales in Japan. The West won't support anything outside Final Fantasy.series.

I'm pretty sure Bravely and Fire Emblem's Western sales had something to say for the existence of new entries in the series.
 
Well, someone is still convinced 3DS is not a platform with a sizeable jRPG userbase after Bravely Default (200k first month NA), Fire Emblem Awakening (180k first month NA), Shin Megami Tensei IV (best debut in the series in NA), Project X Zone (Western sales exceeded 10 times NB expectations), Rune Factory 4 (best selling XSeed game in NA), and so on... So some narratives might be weird.

In fairness to you on this, some of those numbers are not far off the Vita debuts in NPD. I believe Persona 4 Golden was 33K and FFXHD was 73K.
 
In fairness to you on this, some of those numbers are not far off the Vita debuts in NPD. I believe Persona 4 Golden was 33K and FFXHD was 73K.

Persona 4 Golden sold well in the West, and imo Atlus was silly in not developing Persona 5 on PSV+PS3 - it should have also been a 2013 game, with a PS4 "Golden" version in 2015. Final Fantasy X HD did well for what it was - SMTIV did similar numbers in the first month, but it was an exclusive.
 
Well, someone is still convinced 3DS is not a platform with a sizeable jRPG userbase after Bravely Default (200k first month NA), Fire Emblem Awakening (180k first month NA), Shin Megami Tensei IV (best debut in the series in NA), Project X Zone (Western sales exceeded 10 times NB expectations), Rune Factory 4 (best selling XSeed game in NA), and so on... So some narratives might be weird.
3Ds will enjoy its last year and is on its way to be replaced so it is irrevelant like vita.

PS4 is here to stay till 2019 and beyond and nx still has to struggle in a market that is moving away from handhelds.
 
People have a distorted view of piracy. Studies have shown that for film, TV, and music piracy helps small and mid-sized productions and hurts large scale ones only in a minor way. It gets the products in front of people and creates fans. That is why you see companies like HBO not caring about Game of Thrones torrents. I think the misunderstanding comes from the propaganda and the collapse in music sales. Music $ declined because of the death of the CD, which had nothing to do with piracy.

That may be true of piracy generally, but DS piracy, and to a lesser extent PSP piracy were unique for a couple reasons.

1. No need for modification - This is key. Any seven year old with a flashcard could use it.
2. No loss of features - Equally important. Anyone who wants to pirate on the 360 or PS3 has to in effect chose to have either two systems, or to give up online multiplayer. That is a huge obstacle for a casual audience, at least in the West, and has probably done more than anything else to contain piracy in the game industry.
3. Manageable file sizes - You can fit 60+ games on a flashcard, or have a friend, sibling, or parent do it for you. By contrast, finding 360/PS3 games basically requires torrenting, risking viruses, and is much more time intensive.

Piracy on the DS was so easy that it functioned like any other game. Kids saw a friend with a flashcard, asked their parents for one, then got it as a gift. Stores that never would carry CFW PS3s would sell flashcards with the DS.
 
Persona 4 Golden sold well in the West, and imo Atlus was silly in not developing Persona 5 on PSV+PS3 - it should have also been a 2013 game, with a PS4 "Golden" version in 2015. Final Fantasy X HD did well for what it was - SMTIV did similar numbers in the first month, but it was an exclusive.

Golden had fairly long legs. We know at the end of 2013 it had sold 700K+, and more than half of that was from the West. It has continued to sell digitally as well. Given these numbers, it was probably an act of madness not to develop a Vita version. At this point in time it might well be one of the few games that would have done as well if not better with the Vita SKU.
 

QaaQer

Member
That may be true of piracy generally, but DS piracy, and to a lesser extent PSP piracy were unique for a couple reasons.

1. No need for modification - This is key. Any seven year old with a flashcard could use it.
2. No loss of features - Equally important. Anyone who wants to pirate on the 360 or PS3 has to in effect chose to have either two systems, or to give up online multiplayer. That is a huge obstacle for a casual audience, at least in the West, and has probably done more than anything else to contain piracy in the game industry.
3. Manageable file sizes - You can fit 60+ games on a flashcard, or have a friend, sibling, or parent do it for you. By contrast, finding 360/PS3 games basically requires torrenting, risking viruses, and is much more time intensive.

Piracy on the DS was so easy that it functioned like any other game. Kids saw a friend with a flashcard, asked their parents for one, then got it as a gift. Stores that never would carry CFW PS3s would sell flashcards with the DS.

Torrenting music, film, and TV is even easier; and, like I said, the net outcomes are either positive or a small negative. I don't see why the same would not hold true in gaming. Mindshare is the hardest thing to comeby today, and piracy helps with that. It is a silly bugbear for media companies.
 
I would have thought Sony coming that ahead of Microsoft this gen will somehow improve Japanese games performance in the West. Turns out that it only double down on AAA Western titles, with them selling record-breaking sales for each iterations.

These days, for the health of Japanese developers, I will heartily advocate Asia, PC and generally multiplatform releases.

PS4 doing well is not going to save games that were niche to begin with .
For eg tales is not going to sell much more if the PS4 sells 10 million or 40 million .
 
3Ds will enjoy its last year and is on its way to be replaced so it is irrevelant like vita.

PS4 is here to stay till 2019 and beyond and nx still has to struggle in a market that is moving away from handhelds.

Good luck to sell 200k+ units first month for a third party game on PSV.

Also, the fact that PS4 is "here to stay" doesn't mean it will automatically have all types of audiences. We have seen how incredibly popular platforms lack some users that were instead elsewhere.
 
PS4 doing well is not going to save games that were niche to begin with .
For eg tales is not going to sell much more if the PS4 sells 10 million or 40 million .

Steam is what will save them. Any smaller Japanese developer who is betting on the PS4 without developing a PC version as a backup, and yet somehow expects the West to save them is delusional.
 
Torrenting music, film, and TV is even easier; and, like I said, the net outcomes are either positive or a small negative. I don't see why the same would not hold true in gaming. Mindshare is the hardest thing to comeby today, and piracy helps with that. It is a silly bugbear for media companies.


Notice I did not say gaming generally. I said the DS was a unique example even within gaming, because the tradeoffs one normally has to make in gaming piracy did not exist.

It is a real problem if you cannot play your games online for the typical user. Especially if the system is a family or household one. As such, CFW PS3s are a luxury that can only accrue to those who can afford a second system or don't care about the most popular games in the West.
 

Inuhanyou

Believes Dragon Quest is a franchise managed by Sony
I don't think Disgaea, Tales, or DQH represent the performance of a JRPG with a lot of hype and a lot of good worth of mouth behind it. All of these titles have their own baggage

Disgaea has never had HUGE pull regardless of the platform, Tales as well has only sold about twice as much on its highest selling iteration on a platform several times the size, and DQH is apart of DQ series, also apart of the warriors franchise.

Something like Persona 5, which has widespread critical acclaim as a series, will be the true test IMO of staying power of AA JRPG's on the console on the west. Star Ocean 5 is also a maybe.
 
Good luck to sell 200k+ units first month for a third party game on PSV.

Also, the fact that PS4 is "here to stay" doesn't mean it will automatically have all types of audiences. We have seen how incredibly popular platforms lack some users that were instead elsewhere.
Persona 4: Golden has already done that, even if not in the first month. Secondly, Nintendo always combine Digital + Retail numbers so the Bravely Default 200k+ numbers? They are digital + retail. Same goes for Fire Emblem. We never had the same luxury for the Vita and PS4 sales.

Pretty sure FFX|X-2 HD is also closer to 200k. Danganronpa series passed 200k in West alone the last time we heard about it and these might be divided among two games but these two games were released as a single collection in Japan. Just for context, Danganronpa 1 sold 13.5k and I think D2 did a bit better but still they managed to sell 200k thanks to digital + NISA store.

It just shows the retail numbers in NPD are rather irrelevant when it comes to such niche games.
 
Another thing,
can any of the excel wizzards tell me how many the consoles have to sell to match 2014?
So, 2014 total of XboxOne, PS4 and WiiU and 2015 YTD from those, too.

Thanks.
 

Usobuko

Banned
PS4 doing well is not going to save games that were niche to begin with. For eg tales is not going to sell much more if the PS4 sells 10 million or 40 million .

You spoke as if I am expecting unreasonable numbers, what I want to see is relatively better performance.

Also, it's not just PS4, I have no horse in the Nintendo vs Sony trivial contest.

Steam is what will save them. Any smaller Japanese developer who is betting on the PS4 without developing a PC version as a backup, and yet somehow expects the West to save them is delusional.

Going multiplatform is necessary but PC ( Western ) /Steam still won't save them from being niche status.

Better to learn from the Koreans how to tackle the China market. The biggest upside to this is at least the aesthetics are not unfavourably look upon.
 

sörine

Banned
disgaea usually launches worse in america and generally sells worse in america until really late in the generation on some entries. this is the first time the american launch month beats out the japanese launch month.

we'll have to see how disgaea does on steam next to see if they can find a new second home (since vita is going to fade away soon).
I think you're mixing up 1st week in Japan (23k) versus first month in America (26k).
 

jroc74

Phone reception is more important to me than human rights
So it's really difficult to quantify a "shrinking market".

I agree with alot of whats in this post. Some good post on this subject by you and AniHawk...I dont wanna fill up the thread with it now but still some good discussions. AniHawk, I agreed with some of the things in your massive post too.

This is basically unreadable.

It may be hard to read but its worth a read IMO.

wEXacf3.png

Welcome back, we missed you there for a minute... your pies are always delicious and appreciated.

Halo5 bundle < Uncharted bundle

My god....

And ppl are talking about Halo 5 vs Uncharted 4...

I'm getting the exact same numbers that NPD_George gave.

What do other Musous games usually sell? Guessing DQH isn't up to that tier.

Nothing like Cream and Pies. Thanks.

EDIT:



And that would put the Halo Bundle somewhere around/under 150k. Seeing as how UC sold below Yoshi's 165k but is over 300k with bundles.

Halo 5 is probably under 800k then.

Wow........ MS better hope for some decent legs on Halo 5..either that or ppl by much more Halo 5 hardware...

And I think its safe to say this has been a memorable NPD thread. Anytime the prediction thread was that big..
 
Going multiplatform is necessary but PC/Steam still won't save them from being niche status.

Better to learn from the Koreans how to tackle the China's market. The biggest upside to this is at least the aesthetics are not unfavourably look upon.

well most japanese releases are niche relatively speaking to the big franchises in the west, it's not like these games (disgaea, tales, dragon quest in the west, smt, persona, etrian oddesey,etc ) have big budgets and bring in like 200k+ debuts, (the only really big japanese franchises are final fantasy, pokemon, mario kart, smash, resident evil, kinda lost on what else to include), they will just be more of the same really, just expanded on more platforms for profit not necessarily exposure
 

StevieP

Banned
What has change so much in the market that makes the PS4 won't have the variety the PS2 have ?
Unless we not counting DD games .
Of course some genre games type going to be less on PS4 because they get replace by others .
For eg PS2 hardly had open world games while this gen going to be full of them .

EDIT Also i find it funny all of sudden certain games are now big sellers after we see there sales.

Indies are great, but they don't replace the massive amounts of flourishing retail and market segments that have entirely vanished. What's left in the traditional console market is currently almost entirely focused on young males. Things will likely never, ever be like they were for the ps2 and ds, and as a result we may never see sales that high either.

The platforms that are flourishing to a similar degree that those 2 platforms did are both currently extremely healthy, and both squeezing the traditional market from all sides
 
well most japanese releases are niche relatively speaking to the big franchises in the west, it's not like these games (disgaea, tales, dragon quest in the west, smt, persona, etrian oddesey,etc ) have big budgets and bring in like 200k+ debuts, (the only really big japanese franchises are final fantasy, pokemon, mario kart, smash, resident evil, kinda lost on what else to include), they will just be more of the same really, just expanded on more platforms for profit not necessarily exposure
Speaking of Japanese games, I am sure majority of them are already profitable from the sales in Japan and the Western sales are just cherry on top of the Japan sales. It is a different story altogether when a game flops in Japan and repeats the same in West. Disgaea 5 didn't do well in Japan but it sold rather decent in US and it is highly likely the Western sales will surpass Japan making it atleast profitable for them.
 

SparkTR

Member
well most japanese releases are niche relatively speaking to the big franchises in the west, (the only really big japanese franchises are final fantasy, pokemon, mario kart, smash, resident evil, kinda lost on what else to include), they will just be more of the same really, just expanded on more platforms for profit not necessarily exposure

This is the best option. I remember reading how back in the PS2 days, around 80% of gamers played on the PS2 leaving the rest for PC/Xbox/GC. Back then gaming was so limited is how people could engage with it, if a developer wanted to capture an audience they literally just had to look in one place on one platform to find it. These days it's dramatically more fragmaneted, anecdotally if I think back to my friends who only owned PS2's back in the day, some now own PS4's, a fair amount game exclusively on Steam, some have an Xbox, some only use mobiles or their Vita. There's no single platform that funneled the same amount of dedicated gamers these days as the PS2 did. That same audience who bought these games during the PS2 generation and early last generation are still here, there just fragmented across a variety of different places and platforms, meanwhile a lot of these smaller Japanese developers haven't expanded alongside their drifting audience like the rest of the industry has.
 

Asd202

Member
sörine;185628635 said:
Symphonia did half a million in the US and Wii got two DQ spinoffs (Swords and Fortune Street). Or did you only mean PlayStation consoles?

Wasn't Symphonia like the only rpg on the console?
 

dolemite

Member
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?
 

crinale

Member
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?

I thought many people are predicting close game. And there are some who are predicting XB1 victory by quite a margin too.

Meanwhile Idea/Compile Heart games hit oil on Steam, with little to no competition in the JRPG deparment their games have sold good to decently despite their games being barely decent.

http://steamspy.com/dev/Idea+Factory
Hey what's the problem with Compile Hearts games :(
I do get what you mean.
 

Majmun

Member
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?

Cod and Star Wars bundles.
 

ZoddGutts

Member
To be fair Idea/Compile Heart games have done great ports of their games to Steam according to Durante. JRPG devs need to take note.
 

Cassovia

Member
toz ~ 58k
d5 ~ 26k
dq ~ 31k

Tales of Zestiria - could be better, but there are other factors that we should consider. Hopefully we will get a press release from Namco, commenting the sales in America, EU and RotW.

Dragon Quest - what can we say? Zestiria and DQ deserve more attention from Sony at big events like E3, Paris, Gamescom (even 30 second trailer could help). I think a lot of potential buyers don't even know about these games.

At least I did my part.
 

Boke1879

Member
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?

Star Wars and COD bundles, high profile games being released in November. COD, SW, FALLOUT. $299 price point on BF, while still having all those bundles available on Black Friday.

Going to be a big month for both consoles
 

BokehKing

Banned
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?

You do realize the Star Wars and call of duty bundles that were on sale for the past month or so don't count until November right?


That same logic is what makes the Microsoft victory so hollow here, because # wise it wasn't impressive at all
 

AniHawk

Member
sörine;185656367 said:
I think you're mixing up 1st week in Japan (23k) versus first month in America (26k).

the first week of d5 in japan was its first month in japan.

the first month of d5 in america wasn't its first full month in the us.
 

sörine

Banned
DQIX was outsold by DQVIII, which was released on PS2.
Yes and no. DQIX had a much higher first month (132k versus under 100k) and early window sales (and that was summer versus holidays), although Anihawk mentioned DQVIII ended up with the higher US ltd sales. In the west overall IX sold slightly more though.

Wasn't Symphonia like the only rpg on the console?
No. It wasn't even the best RPG on the console.
 

Asd202

Member
I don't think DQH performance will have an impact on whether DQ XI PS4 will come to the West. Also if SE didn't want to localize it why are they even making a PS4 version? 3DS version would and will be far more sucessful in Japan. I really think PS4 version exist mainly for localization and it will come after FF XV, SO V, Persona 5 so the JRPG base should be there to support it.

sörine;185658359 said:
No. It wasn't even the best RPG on the console.

Can you list some examples? I always felt like the game never had any competition and it dropped in dry season were the reasons it sold well. Also how did the sequel performed on the Wii?
 
I don't understand why people in here are already projecting a PS4 mega victory for November. The 350 price point didn't do jack shit nothing, are people counting on a single day at $300 price point to carry the sales?

The price cut did work in October. PS4 would have sold a lot less without it, but more importantly a lot of PS4 sales have gone into COD and Battlefront pre-orders since September.

As for November, the PS4 is already by far in the lead, going by Amazon charts (which have been very accurate all Gen 8). That's not even taking into account the aforementioned pre-ordered bundles.

Why is PS4 selling a lot more this Holiday? Because it's at price parity or better with XB1, and it has almost always sold better than XB1 at a higher price. It also has COD and Battlefront bundles, with an excellent Battlefront marketing campaign that coincides with The Force Awakens hype. And we now have more evidence than ever that big third party titles like these sell more hardware than exclusives.

As for Black Friday, the PS4 will be $100 cheaper than last year, while the XB1 will be at about the same price. People love discounts above all else.
 
Persona 4: Golden has already done that, even if not in the first month. Secondly, Nintendo always combine Digital + Retail numbers so the Bravely Default 200k+ numbers? They are digital + retail. Same goes for Fire Emblem. We never had the same luxury for the Vita and PS4 sales.

Pretty sure FFX|X-2 HD is also closer to 200k. Danganronpa series passed 200k in West alone the last time we heard about it and these might be divided among two games but these two games were released as a single collection in Japan. Just for context, Danganronpa 1 sold 13.5k and I think D2 did a bit better but still they managed to sell 200k thanks to digital + NISA store.

It just shows the retail numbers in NPD are rather irrelevant when it comes to such niche games.

First month NPD sales (retail):
P4G: 34k
BD: 160k
FEA: 117k
SMTIV: 75k

FEA sold 1m+ in the West alone, BD around 600k.
 

AniHawk

Member
I don't think DQH performance will have an impact on whether DQ XI PS4 will come to the West. Also if SE didn't want to localize it why are they even making a PS4 version? 3DS version would and will be far more sucessful in Japan. I really think PS4 version exist mainly for localization and it will come after FF XV, SO V, Persona 5 so the JRPG base should be there to support it.



Can you list some examples? I always felt like the game never had any competition and it dropped in dry season were the reason it sold well.

there weren't many, but there was baten kaitos and baten kaitos origins, paper mario 2, fire emblem, final fantasy crystal chronicles, skies of arcadia legends, phantasy star online, and lost kingdoms i and ii. of those, ffcc and paper mario did notably well. and, arguably, pso did as well.
 

Usobuko

Banned
well most japanese releases are niche relatively speaking to the big franchises in the west, it's not like these games (disgaea, tales, dragon quest in the west, smt, persona, etrian oddesey,etc ) have big budgets and bring in like 200k+ debuts, (the only really big japanese franchises are final fantasy, pokemon, mario kart, smash, resident evil, kinda lost on what else to include), they will just be more of the same really, just expanded on more platforms for profit not necessarily exposure

Mario Kart and Smash are kinda depended on Nintendo hardware sales though. Budget is but only one of the factor and relies on their assessment of the market conditions. Whether they have the skills & tools to develop games Western audience like currently ( Open World, First Person View, Shooters, Multiplayer etc. ) and whether Japanese story-telling and aesthetic nuances are embrace here is another thing.

Anyway, my point being those days of new Japan franchises able to be big in the West ( compared to actual AAA Western games ) are over. It's either non-existent or incredibly slim. The West is on its path to become Hollywood 2.0 and it is only wise for its long-term goal to seek pastures elsewhere.
 

Elandyll

Banned
Another thing,
can any of the excel wizzards tell me how many the consoles have to sell to match 2014?
So, 2014 total of XboxOne, PS4 and WiiU and 2015 YTD from those, too.

Thanks.

Funny, it's about 2.1m on either side at this point, to just match what they sold in all of 2014 over the next 2 months (Nov/ Dec). More exactly 2.11m for XB1 and 2.08 for PS4.
 
Speaking of Japanese games, I am sure majority of them are already profitable from the sales in Japan and the Western sales are just cherry on top of the Japan sales. It is a different story altogether when a game flops in Japan and repeats the same in West. Disgaea 5 didn't do well in Japan but it sold rather decent in US and it is highly likely the Western sales will surpass Japan making it atleast profitable for them.

yeah, on top of that the ps4 in itself isn't necessarily a good platform for japanese titles but it is a good portal for them to reach new markets, asia, middle east and the great secondary consequence, easier to port to steam
 

Escalario

Banned
So for the last few pages I saw people trying to justify shitty sales of DQH. Hillarious. Good thing that whole "Future localization will depend on DQH performance" was horseshit (like always with this kind of statements). Tho there's always the possibility that SE was referring to Sony platforms, meanwhile DQ7 and DQ8 on 3DS are the "trial" for Nintendo's platforms.
 
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