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NPD Sales Results for August 2017 [Up: Video From NPD]

Mr Piscatella:

First, thanks for taking time to answer questions and for being so informative.

Can you talk, in general terms, about the sales performance of Tekken 7, Injustice 2 and ARMS for this month? Out of the trio who is presenting a more consistent sales performance?
 

PSGames

Junior Member
GTA V on Switch when.

This is the version I'm waiting on before taking the jump.

GTA5 portable would be a monstrous get for Nintendo. If I were them I would be offering to port the game over myself. All Rockstar would need to do is sit back and collect the cash.
 
Don't forget that npd doesnt include the pubg sales on steam. so probably already up over 2016.

Probably.

The point I tried to make (and seemingly failed to make clear enough) is that we have very successful Racing, RPG and Adventure genres this year that are offsetting a decline in one of the biggest genres. And, once the big holiday Shooters and Destiny 2 hit, and we get back to growth in Shooters, the overall market should look really good, even despite having no PUBG, Nintendo and Battle.net digital sales in the tracking.

We're on our way to another record year of consumer spending in the video game category and almost everyone seems to be winning.

The idea of the zero sum game market needs to be thrown in a fire. Mobile/Tablet, PC and Console are all thriving because appealing content is coming to all these device types.

Can you talk, in general terms, about the sales performance of Tekken 7, Injustice 2 and ARMS for this month? Out of the trio who is presenting a more consistent sales performance?

Hey thanks! I'll take a look this week and post back.
 

Kill3r7

Member
Wow, didn't realize Andromeda was on the top 10 list this year. I'm sure it won't finish there though.

Correct. Likely anything from For Honor and below will not finish top 10 for the year. If I had to make an educated guess the following games are in shoe-ins: WWII, SWBF2, Destiny, Madden, NBA2K, Wildlands, BOTW, GTAV. Then you have ACO, Mario, FIFA and potentially GTS.
 

jrDev

Member
Jesus! All 3DS top ten is Nintendo, half the games have Mario in them. Mario is a giant IP if you haven't realized yet lol...
 
Mr Piscatella:

First, thanks for taking time to answer questions and for being so informative.

Can you talk, in general terms, about the sales performance of Tekken 7, Injustice 2 and ARMS for this month? Out of the trio who is presenting a more consistent sales performance?

Huh? All you have to look at is both Tekken 7 and Arms released after Injustice and are out of the charts while IJ2 is still in the top 20.

It's not even a contest Injustice 2 is by far performing the strongest
 

The Wart

Member
Interesting that Fire Emblem Echoes has already fallen below a bunch of old evergreens. Do we know anything about how it performed overall?
 
Just saw the NPD video. Did they just start doing this recently? It is really awesome to have an analyst from NPD itself breaks down info like that.
 
I'd also like to give a shout out to Mat for the video, and really for the great discussion he brings to these threads and insight.

Cheers!
 
Huh? All you have to look at is both Tekken 7 and Arms released after Injustice and are out of the charts while IJ2 is still in the top 20.

It's not even a contest Injustice 2 is by far performing the strongest

A more interesting question would be how Tekken 7 and Injustice 2 compare to Tekken 6 and Injustice 1 but I'm not sure if Mat can go into those details. I know we heard that Injustice 2 was flat with the first game in its first month (albeit with more monetization) but I feel like it's had much better legs since.
 

Seik

Banned
Still crazy to see this thread not hit 20 pages like back in the days.

Yeah, back then we had a lot more details, thanks to insiders.

But then some posters whined and took shit on said insiders and they decided not to come back, which is totally fine since they were taking risks by posting these numbers here. Now that's where we are, no concrete numbers, only positions. That's something at least, I guess.

The worst is that, IIRC, the whining originated because the last insider was using a 'quote to reveal' method, of all things that could make you spit on the hands that feed you. :lol

(EDIT: Yep, just checked, September 2014 NPD thread, we lost Aquamarine)
 

Humdinger

Member
There were numbers for both hardware and software to discuss. Also part of the potential discussion on Switch being #1 was in another thread.

Seems like discussion is more fragmented now. There is also the prediction thread, where we are waiting for results (and hints as to actual numbers). And the information comes out gradually over a couple of weeks, which fragments the discussion further. I imagine all of it would total 20 pages if put together.
 

Zedark

Member
Yeah, back then we had a lot more details, thanks to insiders.

But then some posters whined and took shit on said insiders and they decided not to come back, which is totally fine since they were taking risks by posting these numbers here. Now that's where we are, no concrete numbers, only positions. That's something at least, I guess.

The worst is that, IIRC, the whining originated because the last insider was using a 'quote to reveal' method, of all things that could make you spit on the hands that feed you. :lol

(EDIT: Yep, just checked, September 2014 NPD thread, we lost Aquamarine)
Damn, Human stupidity knows no bounds it seems :( Shame they pestered the insiders into leaving.
 
HW numbers and general recap of figures so far?

tenor.gif
 
I just wanted to let Mat know that for a first video, that was damn good. Gives quite a bit of context to the results that we're still gettin'.

At the very least i'll make sure to check out more videos of you decide to make 'em Mr. Piscatella.
 
I'm sorry more topline numbers like HW units aren't made available. There are many stakeholders and owners of the numbers. As such, there are many different perspectives on how they should be (or not be) communicated. I'm going to continue to try to expand on these things as much as I can.

I know it doesn't help much.

At the very least i'll make sure to check out more videos of you decide to make 'em

I really appreciate that! Actually, feedback I've gotten has far exceeded any expectations I had. My goal was a hundred views, and so far it's over 2k. Sure, that's like <1% of even a moderately popular streamer, but we're looking at charts and graphs on powerpoint. Not exactly stunning entertainment for the mass market.

I'm thrilled, and excited that so many people care as much about this nonsense as I do. It's awesome.

Will definitely be doing more, and will try to improve and expand while keeping them concise.

Also considering going to a streaming format for Q&A at the end.
 

sphinx

the piano man
I'm sorry more topline numbers like HW units aren't made available. There are many stakeholders and owners of the numbers. As such, there are many different perspectives on how they should be (or not be) communicated. I'm going to continue to try to expand on these things as much as I can.

I know it doesn't help much.

Can you talk in percentages? I mean, that wouldn't reveal anything, technically

"Switch took XX% of the total hardware sales" for example

(sorry if this has been asked)
 
Can you talk in percentages? I mean, that wouldn't reveal anything, technically

"Switch took XX% of the total hardware sales" for example

(sorry if this has been asked)

I can compare size of combined installed bases over time aligned historical gens to show how market has grown/contracted. I can't divulge sales, share or changes on individual platforms.
 
I can compare size of combined installed bases over time aligned historical gens to show how market has grown/contracted. I can't divulge sales, share or changes on individual platforms.

Understood, could you by any chance confirm the top 3 ranking (w/o any numbers or abs. or % gaps, as the official statement usually only confirmes the #1 platform)?

I mean, ok, this time it's kinda obvious and we actually can derive from your Interview which console came in second, but in the upcoming months the battle for 2nd place could be much closer, especially in November.
 

Welfare

Member
I can compare size of combined installed bases over time aligned historical gens to show how market has grown/contracted. I can't divulge sales, share or changes on individual platforms.
Then can you give a LTD update on PS4+XB1 versus 360+PS3?

And if possible, can you give July's LTD % increase as well? Last update on that was in May I think.
 

Unknown?

Member
More than likely you will see a pro with a couple of games bundled in for 399 or mayyyybbbbbeeee 349. Sony likes the profit these days
Not on Black Friday. So far they've been dropping the price by $50 a year and another $50 + incentives on BF.
 

Welfare

Member
July +27.5%
Aug +26.6%

Thanks as always, Mat.

We'll continue to see this drop as September will go up against Xbox 360 2009 and PS3 2010, both of which doing +300K each for a total of 665K. PS4 will hit +300K but XB1 will maybe just pass 200K.

October is also going to be in favor of 7th gen as both consoles sold 250K in 2009 and 2010. I see both PS4 and XB1 failing to hit that number.

November and December is when we will see gains for 8th gen. This is still when November was big, but not as big while December was a massive increase. In November 2009, 360 sold 820K while PS3 sold 530K in 2010, and December both sold 1310K and 1210K respectively. I expect November to be a massive boost for 8th gen and for both systems to slightly do better than 7th gen in December.

January on will be when 7th gen continues to gain on 8th gen. Q1 2010 for 360 and Q1 2011 for PS3 were great with both selling +1M.
 
Just thought I'd fill in the missing numbers from July and August, to the best of my ability using parametrics.

The Xbox One total for July seems to have been 123k. This is closely constrained, but does also require that the "leaked" numbers be slightly wrong, whether due to truncation of significant digits or intentional obfuscation on the poster's part. (Or individualized copyright traps by NPD.)

For August, my calculations show Switch at 215-216k (with lower being favored), PS4 at 190-194k (with the very bottom of the range more likely), and Xbox One at 115-116k (with higher being slightly favored). If I had to select specific numbers, it would be these:

SWI: 215k
PS4: 190k
XB1: 116k


Of course, these aren't based on any access to the actual NPD results, so they should in no way be taken as definitive. The totals do closely match the gen-over-gen percentages given by Mr. Piscatella above--to within a few hundredths of a percent--but that doesn't mean the component values are correct. (Especially since many months in both comparative periods are themselves based on rounded estimates. The apparent precision could be spurious.)

But if we presumptuously take them as given, here are a few conclusions we could derive. First, percentage changes from July, and versus last August.

Code:
[U][B]PERCENT CHANGE[/B][/U]
      [B] MoM       YoY   
SWI[/B]   -3.2%      ---
[B]PS4[/B]  -12.4%    +18.8%
[B]XB1[/B]   -5.7%    -57.8% [i](last year was launch of One S)[/i]

[U][B]CUMULATIVE SALES[/B][/U]
       [B]LTD       YTD   YTD vs 2016
SWI[/B]   2.01m     2.01m      ---     [i]March launch[/i]
[B]PS4[/B]  19.73m     2.19m    +15.1%
[B]XB1[/B]  17.08m     1.23m    -21.0%


As stated by NPD, Switch has won most months since its launch, but PS4 has sold more overall this year. This isn't just due to Sony's extra two months, but also to Nintendo's stock issues. After April they were up on PS4 by almost 600k units, but then gave back almost 200k during May and June as they couldn't keep shelves full. July and August have been relatively modest wins, but perhaps they're indication of increasing inventory levels. If we accept Nintendo's continuing conservative FY projection, though, a holiday surge passing the PS4 for the year wouldn't seem to be in the cards.

PS4 is having its best year in the US so far, and by a decent margin. They started the year mildly down versus 2016, but since March have been up every month but May. It seems hard to imagine how they might fall behind 2016, since that would require their second-worst holiday yet. But Sony's fiscal year projection does have them down worldwide, so either they're lagging in the rest of the world, or they expect tough competition from One X and/or Switch coming up.

Xbox One is having its worst year in the US so far, and by an even larger margin. This too has intensified recently, with early-year spotty up-and-down performance turning into consistent large drops versus 2016. The gap to PS4 is now over 2.6m, the highest it's ever been in absolute terms. More than that, even as a percentage of sales it's also going up, despite that the ratio gets harder to increase as LTD totals get bigger. PS4 is now ahead by 15.5% in the US, its biggest percentage advantage since October 2014.

Perhaps more worryingly for Microsoft, Xbox One is now consistently selling much more slowly than its predecessor, launch-aligned. In general this isn't particularly new, as exceeding Xbox 360 month-by-month has always been a challenge. But each year, Xbox One's giant holiday seasons have made up for losses. But as you can see, that effect has diminished over time, and the non-holiday shortfall became notably higher in 2017.

x1monthly2rxs0e.png


Of course, Microsoft is betting big on One X to provide a boost. And since Xbox 360 had a relatively poor holiday in 2009, Xbox One will definitely beat it. But in order to reverse the entire 2017 gap, One X would probably have to drive the best non-Kinect holiday in Xbox history. That would mean One X being 30% of all Xboxes sold, if One S were flat from last year. That seems very unlikely, given that we already seem to see One S being lowered by customers waiting on X. If it remains 20% down, then One X would have to sell 40% of all Xboxes. That would be the fourth-biggest console launch in US history, bigger than Wii.

Overall, the trajectory of each platform seems set for the holidays. There's some question as to exactly how well each will do, both absolutely and compared to their competitors. But nothing aside from unexpected record-breaking results would really revise the overall picture.
 
@ Liabe Brave

thanks for sharing your elaborate calculations and expectations.

May I ask, anyone of course, if it's precedented that a console manufacturer had supply issues the whole year (since launch) and was still able to build up stock for holiday season?
 

Mikey Jr.

Member
I honestly wonder if it's Xbox One X affecting sales of the Xbox One, or is the low sales something that was always going to happen regardless.
 

rudger

Member
@ Liabe Brave

thanks for sharing your elaborate calculations and expectations.

May I ask, anyone of course, if it's precedented that a console manufacturer had supply issues the whole year (since launch) and was still able to build up stock for holiday season?

If you check the Media Create threads you'll note Nintendo held back stock for a while for the buildup to Splatoon 2. Stock increased dramatically on release. But that's just one region for one big game. No clue how they plan to prepare for the holidays. Or how hard they even push if they don't think they can come close to meeting demands.

It still amazes me to think they haven't had a holiday yet.
 
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