whyamihere
Banned
I don't think it's a question that FE Switch would do much better than Radiant Dawn. The series has had a complete shift in popularity.
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NintendosBooger
Member
Nintendo is milking it just a tad too much for my liking. My opinion is if a franchise undergoes a successful turnaround it should be cultivated with care and restraint. Since 2012, we've had a three-piece sequel, a remake, and two spinoffs. For a series whose commercial fragility had nearly brought it to the brink, Nintendo is being overly aggressive with it, IMO.
Anyway, I'm hoping the next mainline game is a notch darker, much in the same way as Days of Ruin.
Stop being edgy lol. Being edgy is the main reason for FE decline there. Also being like Days of Ruin is a big big negative lol. That game flop so bad that it only come out in Japan from Club Nintendo promotion.
NintendosBooger
Member
Well, Fire Emblem takes place in a war-strained environment so I get disarmed by the occassional jovial and flippant mood expressed by the characters. Not asking for everyone to sulk but more stoicism would fit the context of the setting.
DecoReturns
Member
We need the Dunkirk of Fire Emblem.
To be fair. Fire Emblem 4-11 are like the games you want. I think they'll still working on the general tone for the series for future titles. The difference in tone between Awakening and Fates was pretty huge in my opinion.
DecoReturns
Member
Awakening was pretty dark if you think about it.
Children who lost their parents and surrounded by despair? Pretty sad future. Give me an Awakening game as the terrible future children.
Children who lost their parents and surrounded by despair? Pretty sad future. Give me an Awakening game as the terrible future children.
Bitch Pudding
Member
Basically, yes. Until MS decided not to announce sales anymore the global ratio compared to PS4 was ~1:2. We do, however know that this was mainly driven by the US market, which went from a ~1:1,1 ratio to also almost ~1:2 in the last couple of months.
So, with 62mn PS4 out there and a global sales ratio of ~1:2,2 we can asume that XBOX One is maybe just 1-2 million units away from the 30mn line.
IAmAnAgnostic
Member
Surely the N'sane success of Crash guarantees more remasters? I hope so!
Part of the problem is that Nintendo thinks it's catering to Starfox 64 fans, but it's actually not. SF64 fans don't want literal remakes but with bizarre mechanics that make it harder to play. They want a new game that uses the SF64 formula, while building on top of the core mechanics.
The problem with StarFox is it's the Sonic the Hedgehog of Nintendo, i.e. the people in charge of it don't actually understand what made the old games good and are afraid to go back to them.
Stilton Disco
Member
I definitely think 30m is the ceiling for overall XO sales so far. It's kind of depressing how quickly sales ground to a halt after a surprisingly buoyant launch, considering just how much shit MS we're trying to pull originally, and how many minor quality of life improvements they've made since. Just goes to show that no matter how attractive you make a system in every other way, if the games aren't there in the numbers and variety they are on a competing platform, people simply aren't going to buy it.
I'm very curios as to exactly how much the XOX will move the needle because of that, and how long that will last. I predicted 40m* lifetime sales for the XO at the start of this gen, and if the X sputters out like the XO S did, I can't see it even achieving that.
*I'm still sticking to 120m for PS4 though. I think PS2/DS sales are out of the question, but with momentum not slowing down, prices still having a lot of headroom to go lower and all those exclusive/brand associated heavy hitters still to come that'll maintain hype, there's no way it won't have some serious legs.
Switch I'm thinking 60-80m. It's had an astonishing first few months, and it's physically impossible for it to fail with Pokemon coming, but I'm still not convinced the handheld market is healthy enough, and that the lack of multiplats won't eventually hurt sales enough for it to significantly outsell the 3DS long term.
Razgriz-Specter
Member
They are still patching and adding supply drop weapons to BO3 nearly 2 years later.
Good for Sony and Nintendo.
Microsoft is having a surprisingly bad 2017 instead. Lack of exclusives is hurting them. Delays and lack of a strong japanese support aren't helping either.
I guess that they're focused on the holiday season and the launch of Scorpio but I don't think that the launch of a 500$ box aimed at dedicated fans who want to run games at 4K is the solution to their problems.
Microsoft is having a surprisingly bad 2017 instead. Lack of exclusives is hurting them. Delays and lack of a strong japanese support aren't helping either.
I guess that they're focused on the holiday season and the launch of Scorpio but I don't think that the launch of a 500$ box aimed at dedicated fans who want to run games at 4K is the solution to their problems.
Here's some shocking details about the extremely bad Xbox One 2017 sales trajectory.
PS4 had sold through to consumers 53.4 million as of January 1st, 2017.
PS4 had sold through to consumers 60.4 million as of June 11th, 2017.
So 7 million PS4 consoles sold through worldwide in the first 5 months and 11 days.
June 11th is a date that is a little difficult to get a perfect comparison out of but using the NPD leak from last month we can see for US alone that:
PS4 sold through to consumers 1,399,227 consoles in Jan-May or 1,780,426 consoles in Jan-Jun.
That roughly means US amounts to somewhere between 19.99% and 25.43% of the PS4's worldwide sales so far in 2017.
If we look at the same for Xbox One we see for US alone that:
XB1 sold through to consumers 835,557 consoles in Jan-May or 988,946 consoles in Jan-Jun.
All estimates put XB1's US sales to amount to ~50-60% of its total worldwide sales, let's go with 50% just to be nice and come up with the best case scenario 2017 numbers for it.
That would mean that it has sold through to consumers worldwide between 1,671,114 (Jan-May) and 1,977,892 (Jan-Jun) in the period where we know that PS4 did way above 7 million if we go for the end of June comparison.
Did I make some mistake somewhere or are we really looking at a 3.5:1, possibly close to 4:1, worldwide sales situation so far in 2017? Wow.
PS4 had sold through to consumers 53.4 million as of January 1st, 2017.
PS4 had sold through to consumers 60.4 million as of June 11th, 2017.
So 7 million PS4 consoles sold through worldwide in the first 5 months and 11 days.
June 11th is a date that is a little difficult to get a perfect comparison out of but using the NPD leak from last month we can see for US alone that:
PS4 sold through to consumers 1,399,227 consoles in Jan-May or 1,780,426 consoles in Jan-Jun.
That roughly means US amounts to somewhere between 19.99% and 25.43% of the PS4's worldwide sales so far in 2017.
If we look at the same for Xbox One we see for US alone that:
XB1 sold through to consumers 835,557 consoles in Jan-May or 988,946 consoles in Jan-Jun.
All estimates put XB1's US sales to amount to ~50-60% of its total worldwide sales, let's go with 50% just to be nice and come up with the best case scenario 2017 numbers for it.
That would mean that it has sold through to consumers worldwide between 1,671,114 (Jan-May) and 1,977,892 (Jan-Jun) in the period where we know that PS4 did way above 7 million if we go for the end of June comparison.
Did I make some mistake somewhere or are we really looking at a 3.5:1, possibly close to 4:1, worldwide sales situation so far in 2017? Wow.
Stilton Disco
Member
I think the heart of the matter, and the problem
Xbox has always struggled with, is that MS has never had a decent passion that created a secondary motive for being in the games industry.
Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all in it for the money first and foremost, there's no denying that, but with PlayStation being born as much out of Sony's music and entertainment arms as their tech manufacturing ones, and Nintendos background as toy makers, there's always been an underlying secondary objective with their products that MS simply lacks.
Sony wants to make entertainment and art, and is willing to make three failures for every fourth success because it understands that variety and a willingness to take risks for 'the next big thing' work just as well to sell an overall product as spending the same money on advertising, if not more so.
Nintendo knows the power of play, and that not every toy will sell as well as hoped, but that a toy that isn't fun to play with, just is not worth making. That simple feeling of joy carries them through a broader incompetence in many, many areas, that millions of people (myself included) are willing to forgive them for, because they really do, genuinely, want their customers to have fun and be happy.
Microsoft...Microsoft just wants your money. They want to sell you a product that will give them the most profit for their investment, and to keep you in their ecosystem, spending money there and not anywhere else. It's given us some incredibly quality of life improvements, I mean we wouldn't have online services that are as well implemented as we have today without MS, there's no denying that, but that really is all they care about.
And you see it in every facet of how they conduct business, from the games they choose to invest in, the deals they make, the trends they chase, the way they manage studios and develop games, and the way they market products to only the most wealthy, profitable and disposable income weilding markets and demographics. If it's not designed to make a profit, it's there to stop you giving money to someone else, and that's the extent of their ambitions.
Ironically though, that lack of passion and focus on money, just doesn't work in the entertainment business. It's the reason they consistently fail to make traction in the industry at large, see success only when direct competitors screw up, and end up sinking ungodly sums of money into investments that end up making them fall flat on their arses, because they simply don't have enough understanding of their potential audience to be able to accurately predict market trends.
They're not evil, they're not incompetent, and gods know Sony and Nintendo are just as capable of catastrophic misjudgements, but the fact is, Microsoft simply is not at home in the entertainment space, and it's really to their credit that they've stuck it out this long and had as much success as they had inspite of that.
But they are never going to be a perfect fit in the gaming industry, never have more wins than loses, and are never going to be able to truly understand and cater to the broader worldwide audiences that most game players are part of.
(Also, holy fuck did I just write a lot more than I initially expected to! Sorry for the wall of text there everyone!)
Nazgul_Hunter
Member
Ive always seems Microsofts ulterior motive for entering the console race that they wanted to become *the* living room machine.
Thats why they pushed hard for all the media, etc, in Xbox. They didnt set out to do a game machine because they wanted to get into gaming, they did it because it was the easiest way into peoples living rooms
Dark Cloud
Member
Yeah we'll see the growth of the game. The situation for this game is much better than the last two. Even when the first one came over it was GameStop exclusive I believe.
Katana_Strikes
Member
I know the WW figure is a best case scenario but if it's struggling hard to its "strong" territory, its probably going to be struggling harder everywhere else (although saying that I think it's up on last year in Japan somehow, though all very much moot there regardless).
mejin
Member
Great summarize.
Just an observation:
"So 7 million PS4 consoles sold through worldwide in the first 5 months and 11 days."
I think PS4 beat the mark in less than 5 months.
How so? The two dates for the two sales numbers are from press releases, if you look in the links I provided.
LordRaptor
Member
You are cross referencing sold to retailers and sold to consumers figures over a timeline to make your calculations; you shouldn't do that.
Sonys numbers are sold to retailers.
NPDs numbers are sold to consumers.
On a long enough timeline, sold to retailers becomes close enough to sold to consumers, because retailers don't continually buy products that don't sell, but you shouldn't mix these numbers together
mejin
Member
My mistake, sorry. I was thinking about when PS4 surpassed 7M LTD dunno why. You're right.
Those numbers are sold to consumers.
KillerMan91
Member
LordRaptor
Member
No, Sonys numbers are always sold to retailers; they then estimate sell through to consumers based on store resupply rates, but b&m stores don't use JIT supply chains - they have stock lying around on the shop floor when they are ordering resupplies, they don't wait until they're out.
They are sold through to consumers, so there's no problem with my comparisons.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...during-the-2016-holiday-season-300385860.html
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...ss-604-million-units-worldwide-300472781.html
LordRaptor
Member
They are estimated based on resupply rates;
NPD track actual sales made to consumers.
You shouldn't mix data sets that use different methodologies.
Astral Dog
Member
LOL you clearly don't know what you are talking about, it was not dark and edgy that made Fire Emblem popular but it was DoR that killed Advance Wars until now
KawabataSan
Member
Sony reports both shipped and sold through numbers.
The press releases above are sold through numbers.
NintendosBooger
Member
No, I do know what I'm talking about having played virtually all of these games. Days of Ruin had a weak storybase and roster that didn't correspond with the brooding tone it had set out to create. The series, much like Fire Emblem before Awakening rescued it, was on the way out regardless. Blame it on its niche qualities or classification or whatever. To blame its darker direction for its demise would be akin to me blaming the FE's tone for its own imminent collapse before Awakening reversed its fortune.
LordRaptor
Member
Sony have literally no tracking at point of sale, which is what NPD tracks.
They are two seperate datasets using two seperate tracking methodologies.
They shouldn't be merged or treated as the same.
Hydrargyrus
Member
Polygonal_Sprite
Member
Your prediction numbers fall in line with what I thought. The people predicting 20 million or even less sales than WiiU for Switch really were clueless about how popular handhelds still are in Japan. Switch will clear 10 million in Japan alone. There's no reason to think it won't at least sell what 3DS and WiiU sold combined especially with the wiggle room they have on price like PS4 and the various options they have on different form factors and more powerful docks (the recent data about most Western Switch owners using the system at home make this more likely to happen now to offer Switch owners a 4k experience should they want it).
It would also be crazy if Switch ended up outselling Xbox One by 2:1.
Jaded Alyx
Member
Mat said no portable system was in the top 3. So 3DS wasn't third.
I agree with this sentiment. Though Splatoon 2 is awesome and belongs there as well.
gundamkyoukai
Member
Sony has more tracking data than NPD does .
Plus even if that was the case they get data from all tracking services .
You think Sony does not know how many systems they ship or sold to people in the middle east for eg .
All companies track there own hardware \software .
Goalus
Member
And yet, Sony's gaming division's revenue of the last quarter was below double the amount of Microsoft's gaming division's revenue of that same quarter.
Even though
- Sony sells an SKU with a premium price tag and MS does not
- sells an expensive VR headset and MS does not
- sells four times as much PS4s as MS sells Xboxes
- has more than twice of Xbox's userbase
This certainly paints a rather unflattering picture of Sony's business affairs.
Are you serious or what?
It's dark if you think about the scenario, but the game itself was always super happy go lucky. I was actually very disappointed by how light hearted it was because I played the game immediately after finishing chapter 5 of Genealogy of the Holy War.
panda-zebra
Member
Surely Sony has what NPD has and uses these figures and whatever of their own data allows to provide accurate figures of sold to consumers, otherwise they'd be in trouble or have to have * ** *** **** qualifiers as we've seen at times from various platform holders.
* ah...
** but...
*** well...
**** excluding...
etc.
It seems reasonable to use the figures as bombshell did above, this is sold through, there's no lag or unevenness here with shipped figures. The only question mark would be extrapolating worldwide numbers based on old ratios we have no way of proving, but there's not much wrong in doing so to simply get a feel for what might be, it's probably a reasonable enough guess.
But that's not what's happened here.
Microsoft's Gaming Division, eh? You know how much business is wrapped up in those figures beyond just xbox? Clue: #metricfuckton
The revenue in Microsoft's gaming division in their financial reports includes much more than Xbox revenue.
The revenue in Sony's financial reports that you compare to is for the PlayStation business only.
Jarod McChicken
Member
¿qué?
For April-June 2017, Microsoft gaming revenue were $1,65 billion dollars. For the same period, Sony's Game & Network Services revenue were 3,18 billion dollars (348 billion yen).
Annual results were 9 billion dollars for Microsoft (July 16-June 17) and 16 billion dollars for Sony Interactive Entertainment (April 16-March 17).
BritBloke916
Member
Sony takes risks, both with its wide range of 1st-party titles and with pioneering hardware like PSVR. Perhaps it would be more profitable to simply stop making games and then squeeze that userbase for every last penny, Microsoft-style. But as a consumer I'm rather glad that they don't.
Bronetta
Ask me about the moon landing or the temperature at which jet fuel burns. You may be surprised at what you learn.
Revenue =/= profit