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NPD Sales Results for November 2015 [Up3: Combined Hardware For PS4 + XB1 + Wii U]

jryi

Senior Analyst, Fanboy Drivel Research Partners LLC
Not a very specific request but I'll oblige:
K8gTXUQ.png
Great graph, very insightful. Based on this we can clearly see that Sony will loosen December. Which is good because it was getting too tight already.

Man, December NPDs can't come fast enough.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
KEVIN'S RETAIL MUSINGS FROM THE BEST BUY:

1. there are so many copies of star wars battlefront, its like ridiculously insane
2. I saw one person holding a CODBLOPS3 bundle
3. ps4 software is wiped out. like legit no games (LOL NO GAMES) left
4. bone had like maybe seven hundred billion copies of forza 6. no1curr.
5. The wiiu section is five games: splattoon, captain toad, wooly word, XCX, mario kart, lego some shit.
6. The 3ds section is ONLY nintendo games + yokai watch, which had a lot of copies. some kid walked past it and said, i kid you not, "looks stupid". sammy samusu crying
7. the vita section is exclusively disgusting pervo games + god of war remaster. I went for Trails of Cold Steel and it wasn't there. The clerk said WUT when I asked.

UP7dm5N.jpg


abdiel please explain why you don't have trails of cold steel but have pervo games.
 

hawk2025

Member
"Correlation is not causation" is the most overused "nugget" out there. The whole point of correlation is to determine if there's a possibility that a resonable relationship between two data points exist.

When you look at something like Nate Silver's example of Super Bowl winners and the stock market, starting at 7:46, this is a case where correlation is not causation is completely appropriate. Two unrelated variables correlate, but it is unreasonable to assume that any real relationship exists. There is no real connection between the stock market and the winner of the Super Bowl.

However, in this case, there is a direct and reasonable relationship between the number of products made available for sale, and the sales of those items.

Take Soda. There are hundreds of flavors of soda out there. Why? Because soda companies know that if they increase the variety of sodas available, overall sales will increase. It's why brand and line extensions exist.

Same story with games. If the number of products are limited, then sales will also be limited. There is no zero sum game here. There isn't a pool of $10B that will be spent on games every year, spread across the games available. Rather, individual games generate sales, which then aggregate to total demand.

Calculating correlation is a very useful and meaningful exercise, and for some reason correlation =/= causation has taken hold of people where the correlations are rejected out of hand, even when perfectly reasonable relationships exist.



All you can really see here is that 96% of the change in Physical SW spend can be explained by changes in Physical Title Count.



I'll also list the raw values.


I'll have to push back on this.

There is clear and obvious endogeneity in regressing two quantity variables on each other. Regressing total sales on number of releases has a gigantic endogeneity problem, and it is absolutely NOT an overused nugget to point it out. Any and all market unobservables that determine both sales and number of releases will bias the coefficient upwards, so the interpretation is clearly skewed. Useful, nonetheless, but it should always, always follow with the endogeneity caveat. Scratch that, it's not a caveat -- it's a central point.

You capture some of this with your post (it essentially boils down to "the correlation is so high because supply and demand work together to create this positive correlation", if I understood you correctly.) -- but the interpretation that was posted above by someone else, that this indicates that the market is currently underserved of games, is what's faulty here and a direct result of interpreting strong correlation as a causal relationship.

The reasonable relationship exists. However, you cannot make economic inferences based on a quantity-quantity regression without instrumenting for the supply correctly, no matter how tempting it may be.
 
but the interpretation that was posted above, that this indicates that the market is currently underserved of games, is what's faulty here.

I have never said that this small data set unequivocally supports the idea that the market is underserved. I have said that it was one possibility. And it is. A hypothesis.

But to state that there is no reasonable relationship between the number of games available for sale and the sales of those games in total and therefore any correlative data should be discarded? Come on.

The whole point is that there are alternative possibilities to what's going on in the market than "everyone's going digital" or "everyone's gone to mobile".
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I wanted Uguu Warrior: Trails of Cold Uguu and I can't find it anywhere. Truly these are dark times for anyone who doesn't want an unsold copy of a Microsoft annual franchise or Star Wars.

edit: they didn't even have nathan drake collection!!!
 

hawk2025

Member
I have never said that this small data set unequivocally supports the idea that the market is underserved. I have said that it was one possibility. And it is. A hypothesis.

But to state that there is no reasonable relationship between the number of games available for sale and the sales of those games in total and therefore any correlative data should be discarded? Come on.

The whole point is that there are alternative possibilities to what's going on in the market than "everyone's going digital" or "everyone's gone to mobile".


The data shouldn't be discarded -- but based on a hypothesis, we should start thinking about how to enrich the analysis to make it more precise, especially when the hypothesis is looking only at the supply side.

Saying something is endogenous doesn't dismiss the hypothesis, it asks for additional work to show that the hypothesis is robust.
 
7. the vita section is exclusively disgusting pervo games + god of war remaster. I went for Trails of Cold Steel and it wasn't there. The clerk said WUT when I asked.

abdiel please explain why you don't have trails of cold steel but have pervo games.

LEGO: Jurassic World is a pervo game? ;) Dat brick fetish.
 

Donos

Member
what is happening in here...

Btw. Kev is it already ok to start worrying about TLG again? Is there a fresh thread where i can sit (or lay) down?
 

Rymuth

Member
the vita section is exclusively disgusting pervo games + god of war remaster. I went for Trails of Cold Steel and it wasn't there. The clerk said WUT when I asked.
Try living somewhere where they barely speak English. Not the first or the last time I flush when I spell out the names of those games. Came back today and not a single copy of Cold Steel in the wild steel. Apparently, no one cares to import RPGs any more...

Gonna have to order a physical copy from Amazon...again...
 

Joni

Member
I wanted Uguu Warrior: Trails of Cold Uguu and I can't find it anywhere. Truly these are dark times for anyone who doesn't want an unsold copy of a Microsoft annual franchise or Star Wars.

edit: they didn't even have nathan drake collection!!!

Just buy Bird Watcher 4, it is the next best thing.
 

twinturbo2

butthurt Heat fan
Two things depress me at the moment.

1.Forza 6 bombing the way it did, which Y2Kev joked about on this page or so. It's a great game, and I don't think franchise burnout is a problem since it alternates every year with Forza Horizon.

2. That I still have no clue if Tekken 7 is multiplatform or PS4 exclusive. Xbox as a whole is bleeding Japanese franchises that appeared on previous Xbox consoles this generation- Street Fighter, Shenmue, King of Fighters, Ace Combat. I sure hope there's an Xbox One port of Tekken 7, I don't want to buy a PS4 just for that one game, and that I have no idea what the hell is going on is dispiriting.
 

Dynedom

Member
2. That I still have no clue if Tekken 7 is multiplatform or PS4 exclusive. Xbox as a whole is bleeding Japanese franchises that appeared on previous Xbox consoles this generation- Street Fighter, Shenmue, King of Fighters, Ace Combat. I sure hope there's an Xbox One port of Tekken 7, I don't want to buy a PS4 just for that one game, and that I have no idea what the hell is going on is dispiriting.

There is absolutely nothing to indicate that Tekken 7 is PS4 exclusive. No need to worry.
 

twinturbo2

butthurt Heat fan
There is absolutely nothing to indicate that Tekken 7 is PS4 exclusive. No need to worry.

I'd like some official confirmation from Namco, at least. I know the press release they put out at Paris Games Week mentioned that it's coming to "gaming consoles", but they don't specifically mention the PS4 and/or X1.

All I have to go on is that press release.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Forza was never big. And we all know the best way to make something big that isn't big is to make 6 versions of it in 10 years!
 

Rymuth

Member
All we know about Tekken 7 is that it will have PS4 exclusive content (Akuma exclusive to the PS4 version maybe?) - but other than that, it's very likely it's multi platform.
 

rpg_fan

Member
Two things depress me at the moment.

1.Forza 6 bombing the way it did, which Y2Kev joked about on this page or so. It's a great game, and I don't think franchise burnout is a problem since it alternates every year with Forza Horizon.

For the buying masses, the difference between Forza and Forza Horizon is as close to zero as you can get. Being a different kind of racing game with the same name doesn't change that. It's still Forza, it's still racing. It's an annual franchise.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Why would anyone think Forza 6 would perform any better than it did? The last game in the series performed roughly the same and it's an iterative sequel in a genre that is struggling with the market in question. Nothing about that equation or the game in question screams change of fortune or massive success to me.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Yeah, but on top of that this gen, Europe is basically not interested in Xbox as a thing at all so the market where the genre IS big is completely lost.

Forza Horizon 3 should be 2017 and Forza 7 should be 2019. Instead Forza like 8 will be 2019.

edit: I guess if you can't refocus the studio on something else, that just increases the cost of each game. I guess you could reduce the number of employees so it stays neutral. Actually I don't know what you do with them! Maybe make them make banjo kazooie.
 

EGM1966

Member
Two things depress me at the moment.

1.Forza 6 bombing the way it did, which Y2Kev joked about on this page or so. It's a great game, and I don't think franchise burnout is a problem since it alternates every year with Forza Horizon.

2. That I still have no clue if Tekken 7 is multiplatform or PS4 exclusive. Xbox as a whole is bleeding Japanese franchises that appeared on previous Xbox consoles this generation- Street Fighter, Shenmue, King of Fighters, Ace Combat. I sure hope there's an Xbox One port of Tekken 7, I don't want to buy a PS4 just for that one game, and that I have no idea what the hell is going on is dispiriting.
I'll be amazed if Tekken doesn't hit XB1 but I guess you'll have to wait for official confirmation.

Foza though is definitely suffering from being over pushed in terms of frequency of release. With little to differentiate it to the average consumer F6 is simply suffering the same fate as GT6. The franchise has never pushed huge numbers on its own (I.e. Bundling is what inflates it numbers) and MS is simply saturating the core market for it. It doesn't help NFS and other car games release around it either.

That said Fotza will survive so long as MS need a GT competitor of their own.
 

Joni

Member
1.Forza 6 bombing the way it did, which Y2Kev joked about on this page or so. It's a great game, and I don't think franchise burnout is a problem since it alternates every year with Forza Horizon.

Isn't that like saying Call of Duty burnout can't happen because it alternates between studios? There are three major racing franchises. Two of them only release every couple of years on a single platform with them remaining very hot, the third releases yearly on all platforms and that is going down. Clearly, the latters solution is not what Forza should copy.
 

stryke

Member
I'd like some official confirmation from Namco, at least. I know the press release they put out at Paris Games Week mentioned that it's coming to "gaming consoles", but they don't specifically mention the PS4 and/or X1.

All I have to go on is that press release.

What, you think they're talking about NX instead? Stop worrying.
 
I wonder if Forza 6 suffered due to the negative word of mouth Forza 5 got due to perceptions of lack of content and overbearing microtransactions. Or if that didn't matter and it was always going to only sell a minimum number of copies due to the size of the Xbox One install base and its enthusiasm for racing games.

Isn't that like saying Call of Duty burnout can't happen because it alternates between studios? There are three major racing franchises. Two of them only release every couple of years on a single platform with them remaining very hot, the third releases yearly on all platforms and that is going down. Clearly, the latters solution is not what Forza should copy.
Including Horizon, Forza is effectively an annual franchise now.
 
I wonder if Forza 6 suffered due to the negative word of mouth Forza 5 got due to perceptions of lack of content and overbearing microtransactions. Or if that didn't matter and it was always going to only sell a minimum number of copies due to the size of the Xbox One install base and its enthusiasm for racing games.

Negative word of mouth propagated by PS4 owners is to blame.
 
All we know about Tekken 7 is that it will have PS4 exclusive content (Akuma exclusive to the PS4 version maybe?) - but other than that, it's very likely it's multi platform.

I thought it was hinted that Akuma was part of the Canon? It so then you can't really omit him from the game?
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Y2Kev nailed it. How we all laughed it up in NPD about the abysmal Driveclub numbers. It was forewarning about the relative lack of interest in racing in the US where you have to make some right turns once in a while.

Need for Speed still got good sales because of the brand recognition. That surely isn't going to sustain due to the lack of quality in the most recent release and how that usually affects the subsequent entries.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Y2Kev nailed it. How we all laughed it up in NPD about the abysmal Driveclub numbers. It was forewarning about the relative lack of interest in racing in the US where you have to make some right turns once in a while.

Need for Speed still got good sales because of the brand recognition. That surely isn't going to sustain due to the lack of quality.

Driveclub had its own special problems on release. Let's not forget about that. No doubt they played a significant part in that game's launch performance.

As far as Need For Speed goes. Yea that seems to have done a lot better than anyone thought it would and that's despite being always online required too. It did seem to get discounted incredibly quickly though. It's already at a 35% digital discount in the flash sales today. Could be an indication that legs were not particularly impressive.
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
I don't think Driveclub was ever going to do well honestly. But I also enjoy the core fans shitting on Sony for closing Liverpool after like six straight wipeout bombs. Nobody buys their stuff! It's sad!
 

RexNovis

Banned
I don't think Driveclub was ever going to do well honestly. But I also enjoy the core fans shitting on Sony for closing Liverpool after like six straight wipeout bombs. Nobody buys their stuff! It's sad!

Or zipper studios after consecutive Socom bombs (granted the last one was horribly timed). Ive noticed many seem unable to notice that their favorite games are actually niche or unprofitable.
 

NOLA_Gaffer

Banned
KEVIN'S RETAIL MUSINGS FROM THE BEST BUY:

1. there are so many copies of star wars battlefront, its like ridiculously insane
2. I saw one person holding a CODBLOPS3 bundle
3. ps4 software is wiped out. like legit no games (LOL NO GAMES) left
4. bone had like maybe seven hundred billion copies of forza 6. no1curr.
5. The wiiu section is five games: splattoon, captain toad, wooly word, XCX, mario kart, lego some shit.
6. The 3ds section is ONLY nintendo games + yokai watch, which had a lot of copies. some kid walked past it and said, i kid you not, "looks stupid". sammy samusu crying
7. the vita section is exclusively disgusting pervo games + god of war remaster. I went for Trails of Cold Steel and it wasn't there. The clerk said WUT when I asked.

UP7dm5N.jpg


abdiel please explain why you don't have trails of cold steel but have pervo games.

I'm sorry...does that game say "Birdwatcher 4"?
 

Y2Kev

TLG Fan Caretaker Est. 2009
Yes it's a parody game.

WebImage._0002s_0001_PP.DVDSleeve.3DBirdwatcher.BS4.Front.png_1024x1024.jpg


I thought about buying it and then giving it to a random vitamuffin of my choosing!
 

onken

Member
I don't think Driveclub was ever going to do well honestly. But I also enjoy the core fans shitting on Sony for closing Liverpool after like six straight wipeout bombs. Nobody buys their stuff! It's sad!

But Wipeout HD was so good :(
 
Yes it's a parody game.

WebImage._0002s_0001_PP.DVDSleeve.3DBirdwatcher.BS4.Front.png_1024x1024.jpg


I thought about buying it and then giving it to a random vitamuffin of my choosing!

We got my brother one of those from the same company, but it wasn't a fake game. It was a spoof of Google Glass called Froogle Glass. It was basically supposed to be Google Glass if it was a throwaway camera.
 
Off topic but

Rex i dont know if you are keeping up with Star Wars' box office but $1 billion domestic is actually into question and $850M+ is guaranteed basically (which destroys Avatar's 760M record). Its looking like it will do $170M on its second weekend (which would almost make it on top 5 of opening weekends) and its legs are completely and utterly insane so far doing $40M on weekdays. Basically Avatar type legs in terms of percentage drops but double the actual gross. Im just saying this because you posted you were doubtful Star Wars would resonate with the public since it didn't with you but it seems like you are a minority after all?
 

RexNovis

Banned
Off topic but

Rex i dont know if you are keeping up with Star Wars' box office but $1 billion domestic is actually into question and $850M+ is guaranteed basically (which destroys Avatar's 760M record). Its looking like it will do $170M on its second weekend (which would almost make it on top 5 of opening weekends) and its legs are completely and utterly insane so far doing $40M on weekdays. Basically Avatar type legs in terms of percentage drops but double the actual gross. Im just saying this because you posted you were doubtful Star Wars would resonate with the public since it didn't with you but it seems like you are a minority after all?

Oh yeah I had acknowledged I was in the minority already but my comments were more along the lines of whether or not it will resonate long term.

At this point it seems like a sure thing that PS4 will lead the pack. The only question is by how much. I personally was pretty unimpressed with the new Star Wars movie so I was skeptical of the impact it would have on the HW sales but apparently I'm in the small minority when it comes to the movie. Most seem to have loved it and it does seem to have had a very large impact on sales when coupled with the promotional price drop.

I'm curious to see how many still feel the same way about the film after the hype and nostalgia begins to fade. I don't think it will be remembered as fondly as the response would lead many to believe but I digress. In conclusion nostalgia is a helluva drug and clearly I underestimated its sway.

Basically I was skeptical it will have the cultural impact and longevity that the original movies had. Just seemed to have a lot of problems to me. I could very well be wrong on all accounts though. It certainly seems to have done wonders for the Battlefront bundles so I was definitely wrong about that.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
I don't know how much this attributable to any bundles or if this is a general trend in multiplayer but Battlefront average over a day multiplayer numbers are on a one month high.

(I only have access to public numbers and relatively vague private numbers for competing games. But they followed mostly the same downwards trends since launch.)
 

RexNovis

Banned
I don't know how much this attributable to any bundles or if this is a general trend in multiplayer but Battlefront average over a day multiplayer numbers are on a one month high.

(I only have access to public numbers and very vague private numbers for competing games. But they followed mostly the same downwards trends since launch.)

No doubt it's the movie that's fanning the fires. By all accounts it seems to have proven successful by most every measure. I, myself, was pretty disappointed with it. It just felt like there were a lot of truly odd plot and characterization decisions that impeded my enjoyment of the film as a whole. But maybe I was just being unreasonable with my expectations.
 

Joni

Member
I don't know how much this attributable to any bundles or if this is a general trend in multiplayer but Battlefront average over a day multiplayer numbers are on a one month high.

(I only have access to public numbers and relatively vague private numbers for competing games. But they followed mostly the same downwards trends since launch.)

I'm guessing it is related to the holidays. Everyone is home today.
 
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