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NPD Sales Results for April 2016 [Sony, MS, & Nintendo refuse to comment on hardware]

watdaeff4

Member
Just say "consoles are dead", no need to make it subtle to avoid negative replies.

The thing about it is that they aren't really dead, but just regressing back to what they were when they were just that......video game consoles.

The last two gens saw a lot of growth over gen 5 due to the increased sales of people wanting a DVD player then thinking that playing video games would give them good exercise or the "wow" factor of motion control. PS2, Wii and XBox360 all had something non-gaming related that wowed the casual crowd enough to buy

This gen didn't have any product that had a mass non-gaming related appeal. They are "just" game consoles and unless PSVR or something takes off, the sales will reflect that
 

NastyBook

Member
giphy.gif
Congrats, dude. Truly. Now remake Deadlocked. :DDD
 
Hardware at 23% down is truly depressing and it looks like the consoles aren't expanding and reaching a wider audience. I just hope all three will do what they can to turn this around.

Amazing how well Ratchet did though, and how poorly Quantum did.

Hardware revenue is down 23%, some of that is Xbox One and Wii U being down in sales, most of it is that all the consoles were cheaper this April than last April. PS4's hardware revenue is down despite flat hardware sales as a result. But in terms of hardware sales, we basically saw the same amount of hardware pushed between PS4 and XB1 this year than last year, with the Wii U taking its expected dump now that NX has been confirmed.

Xbox One though, it basically busting out Black Friday sales at this point and can't even stave off being down YoY. I do think we're at the point where PS4 is really going to start cannibalizing Xbox One sales, even with these sales, consumers continue to choose to pay more for PS4. I suspect we'll see solid growth on the PS4 side of things by the end of the year, once E3 passes and we know what's up with PS4 Neo, along with the inevitable PS4 slim using 14nm tech to help drop prices further.
 

Fady K

Member
One thing I'm shocked by utterly - Ratchet and Clank not only handily beating Quantum break, but being 2nd place? Crazy.

I'll never forget what Allan bh said: "No way R&C would outsell Quantum Break".
 

Javin98

Banned
Your judgement is way off, can we not have a mature discussion without overreaction? I don't believe consoles are dead at all, for me that would be the worst thing that could happen to gaming as I'm the definition of comfy couch gamer. I just worry that the console makers are not doing enough to reach a wider audience, especially a younger one. Console hardware is still 40% above this point last gen so it's far from doom and gloom.
Well, then, I'm sure you're aware that the 23% decrease is in revenue and not units? It shouldn't be surprising at all, the big two are selling for less than they were last year. Also, last gen hardware sales are continuing to decline. Yes, the XB1 has been down YoY so far, except for March, but the PS4 has been up YoY or at least, flat. I don't see why we should be concerned. Furthermore, April is a very slow month for sales and if previous months told us anything, it's that this gen, sales are getting increasingly diverted to the holiday season.

The thing about it is that they aren't really dead, but just regressing back to what they were when they were just that......video game consoles.

The last two gens saw a lot of growth over gen 5 due to the increased sales of people wanting a DVD player then thinking that playing video games would give them good exercise or the "wow" factor of motion control. PS2, Wii and XBox360 all had something non-gaming related that wowed the casual crowd enough to buy

This gen didn't have any product that had a mass non-gaming related appeal. They are "just" game consoles and unless PSVR or something takes off, the sales will reflect that
I'm sorry, but what's your point? The market today is very different from the market last gen.
 

RexNovis

Banned
We are probably saying the same thing but I don't think consumer appeal declined as much as was saturated (again meaning most who remotely thought of getting one has jumped onboard)

The gurus on here were saying for a long time that this gen's sales would be much more front-loaded than past ones and I think we are now seeing that with XB1 sales. (And let's be honest it will never overcome the initial ill-will it received)

I think with its software lineup, (deserved) hype and brand-name that the PS4 will still sell well until if/when the NEO comes out

Yea we're saying the same thing. There isn't much in the way of appeal for XB1 from new potential consumers. There are fewer customers who see it as a comparable value to the competing product. So essentially yes they are reaching a saturation point for their product in the current marketplace.
 

watdaeff4

Member
I'm sorry, but what's your point? The market today is very different from the market last gen.

While I quoted you, it's more in response to the "consoles are dead" notion.....I shouldn't have quoted you that way to avoid your snarky response

The point is a roundabout way of saying that console market isn't dead, it's about the same as it was 15-20 years ago. We saw a massive increase due to the PS2, Wii and Kinect appealing to people who bought it for a non-gaming related reason. The DVD player and then then "cool" motion controls.

This gen doesn't have anything like that. So we will likely see a regression of sales back to gen6 era give or take, the core market is still there.

Just my take and speculation, thanks for the open mind
 

Bluth54

Member
No, he was talking about console numbers. Alan Wake has sold over 4.5 million copies in total. Comparing those sales to The Order 1886 would make no sense.

Well it's pretty easy to take out Alan Wake's PC sales since you can get the approximate sales numbers for Alan Wake on Steam Spy

Alan Wake is also available on GOG but there is no way to track those numbers however it's likely the vast majority of Alan Wake's PC sales are on Steam, especially since the PC port wasn't on GOG on day one.


Alan Wake actually did pretty well on Steam for being a 2 year old port with about 1.6 million copies sold so far. Hopefully Microsoft will take pity on Remedy and allow them to release a Win 7/8/10 version of QB on Steam at some point down the line.
 

Javin98

Banned
While I quoted you, it's more in response to the "consoles are dead" notion.....I shouldn't have quoted you that way to avoid your snarky response

The point is a roundabout way of saying that console market isn't dead, it's about the same as it was 15-20 years ago. We saw a massive increase due to the PS2, Wii and Kinect appealing to people who bought it for a non-gaming related reason. The DVD player and then then "cool" motion controls.

This gen doesn't have anything like that. So we will likely see a regression of sales back to gen6 era give or take, the core market is still there.

Just my take and speculation, thanks for the open mind
Ah, I see. My bad, could have misinterpreted your post. In any case, yes, I agree. In addition to what you wrote, mobile is also eating into the casual gamer market.
 

Shin-chan

Member
I asked this question a while ago - what is the biggest bomb of the Gen so far? My candidates were The Order, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter V and now Quantum Break.

I have a strong feeling the latter is the biggest bomb. It had the longest dev time, and the highest production values, it's PC version is a joke and will have no long tail (unlike TR) and it has sold next to nothing WW. To top it off, it appears that it's the worst of the four in its debut NPD month by a large margin and it's console bundle did not move the needle.

The only thing that could save it is a strong digital attach rate which is plausible due to the windows 10 version coming with a pre order. I'd still argue that this is muted though because the number of people with both an Xbox and a capable PC must be a fairly small share of the overall Xbox userbase. That's just my speculation though, of course.
 

watdaeff4

Member
Ah, I see. My bad, could have misinterpreted your post. In any case, yes, I agree. In addition to what you wrote, mobile is also eating into the casual gamer market.


That is something that keeps getting said over and over and I'm not disagreeing with it, but I think it has currently only eaten into Nintendo's market, esp the handhelds to a significant extent. Granted it's possible to affect the overall market in the future as Its been thought that Nintendo systems are the "gateway drug" for the videogame business.

That's a discussion we can have in the May 2036 NPD thread
 

wapplew

Member
I asked this question a while ago - what is the biggest bomb of the Gen so far? My candidates were The Order, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter V and now Quantum Break.

I have a strong feeling the latter is the biggest bomb. It had the longest dev time, and the highest production values, it's PC version is a joke and will have no long tail (unlike TR) and it has sold next to nothing WW. To top it off, it appears that it's the worst of the four in its debut NPD month by a large margin and it's console bundle did not move the needle.

The only thing that could save it is a strong digital attach rate which is plausible due to the windows 10 version coming with a pre order. I'd still argue that this is muted though because the number of people with both an Xbox and a capable PC must be a fairly small share of the overall Xbox userbase. That's just my speculation though, of course.

The Order bomb on review, it actually did quite ok.
Tomb Raider didn't bomb sort of, it still have PS4 version not yet release.
SFV is bomb if we compare to SF4, but it's kinda game as service, so we have to judge it long term.
We don't have number on QB yet, it look a bomb on paper now, let's wait for the number. It was "biggest selling new MS IP on Xbox one" what ever that means.
 

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
We don't have number on QB yet, it look a bomb on paper now, let's wait for the number. It was "biggest selling new MS IP on Xbox one" what ever that means.

Ryse and Sunset Overdrive? Or, just Sunset?
 

vcc

Member
Hardware at 23% down is truly depressing and it looks like the consoles aren't expanding and reaching a wider audience. I just hope all three will do what they can to turn this around.

Amazing how well Ratchet did though, and how poorly Quantum did.

It might be hitting saturation at set price points faster because of the higher availability up front. The total audience might not be growing. Still we're at a random month. If the holidays are YoY down and also the total install base doesn't match up to last gen then there might be cause for concern.
 

Surface of Me

I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
I mean quantum break low than 200

bottom 5 low selling

Given that we know SF0 would be #5 on individual SKUs, QB would be ahead of its current place as well. Sounds like QB under performed and it was a bad month for sales. I mean MS still funded the title after AW, so there is still hope for Remedy getting funding on their next game. Im not sure who would fund them beyond MS at this point tho.
 

Saty

Member
Btw, looking at the archives, Alan Wake debuted with less than 190K. So what's the situation with Alan Wake vs. Quantum Break 1st NPD?
 

Cipherr

Member
The thing about it is that they aren't really dead, but just regressing back to what they were when they were just that......video game consoles.

The last two gens saw a lot of growth over gen 5 due to the increased sales of people wanting a DVD player then thinking that playing video games would give them good exercise or the "wow" factor of motion control. PS2, Wii and XBox360 all had something non-gaming related that wowed the casual crowd enough to buy

This gen didn't have any product that had a mass non-gaming related appeal. They are "just" game consoles and unless PSVR or something takes off, the sales will reflect that

That's a disturbing outlook IMO. For that many more people to have dipped their feet into the gaming industry and for so few of them to have decided to stay is worrying as fuck. As is the feeling that the very young crowd is somewhat underserved these days. The occasional Sony game, Nintendo and whatever the independent scene (Minecraft) puts out is all there is damn near. Meanwhile mobile does a much better job aiming games at that part of gamings spectrum. Sega is gone and Nintendo isn't as large as they once were.
 

watdaeff4

Member
That's a disturbing outlook IMO. For that many more people to have dipped their feet into the gaming industry and for so few of them to have decided to stay is worrying as fuck. As is the feeling that the very young crowd is somewhat underserved these days. The occasional Sony game, Nintendo and whatever the independent scene (Minecraft) puts out is all there is damn near. Meanwhile mobile does a much better job aiming games at that part of gamings spectrum. Sega is gone and Nintendo isn't as large as they once were.

Just my take, doesn't mean I'm correct.

And the thing is that those that we are taking about were never truly sold on gaming itself, it was the extras that got them to try, so it's not surprising they didn't hang around. I don't think that's the worrying part. Still enough money to be made off the core market that is still there.

I agree with your thoughts on the younger generation, that's the potentially damaging part. That's why even Sony execs have said the industry needs Nintendo to be healthy
 

jelly

Member
MS PR mentioning Windows more often than Xbox on an NPD statement.
Finally.

I wonder how much time Windows will get at E3 conference.

Windows 10 on everything as we know but they got to sell those Xbox Live subscriptions and they aren't doing that on PCs but I bet they would love to try again one day.

First things first, start to push Xbox One to the background as BC on a new console and refresh the whole brand worldwide. They need a pallet cleanser to move forward.
 
I'm surprised microsoft didn't use the Xbox family at number one for consoles line.


Anyone have star fox and Ratchet nmbers?? Dark and MLB would be nice too
 

Javin98

Banned
I couldn't find QB numbers, were they revealed guys?
Nope, not yet, which gives me a great idea. So, we know the winner for April, we have the software ranking, but we don't know how much the games sold. This allows us to still make bets. Yep, I went there. :p

I'm betting Quantum Break sold 120K or less. Anyone?
 

Fat4all

Banned
Nope, not yet, which gives me a great idea. So, we know the winner for April, we have the software ranking, but we don't know how much the games sold. This allows us to still make bets. Yep, I went there. :p

I'm betting Quantum Break sold 120K or less. Anyone?

Hmm, I'm gonna say it sold higher, though not much higher.
 
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