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January 2016 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes February 9th

J

jryi

Senior Analyst, Fanboy Drivel Research Partners LLC
I thought I'd participate in the games this year, but then I realized that I can't cope with being wrong. So I'll just keep lurking.

This year will be... interesting.
 
S

slavesnyder

Member
serversurfer said:
Having multiple SKUs helps them at retail in a lot of ways. First, it helps them maintain shelf space. If PS4 is selling at twice the speed, it would normally get twice the shelf space, but with a dozen Bone SKUs, it probably gets double shelf space instead.
Click to expand...
I wonder if the guy who came up with the strategy worked in food marketing before. They treat the console as if it was yoghurt. 12 different flavours in order to push for shelf space with all might. It's a great way to gain awareness for fast-turning goods in the range of a few dollars, but for 400$ gaming consoles? I don't know.

I mean, n3ds with all the different cover plates makes sense, all those xbox bundles don't. I read your reasonings about MS's motives and I shares them. Nevertheless it's short-sightened of them. They seem to build a bigger and bigger wave of soon-to-come returns. Even worse, those bundles will not become hotter over time, be outdated and will have to be refurbished.

Also, I don't know if MS really gets more shelf space for free only because they have more different bundles. Normally you have to pay for additional presence I think.
Maybe Abdiel or someone could give us a hint here.
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
Abdiel said:
I was speculating on how it was odd you had no comment on my retail musings. Heh. Welcome to the thread sir.
Click to expand...
Thanks!

I read over what you said, and I expected this. Not only did MS ship a lot of consoles, they shipped a lot of different bundles on top of that, with no sign of stopping.

January had the RB6 bundle, February has the 500GB Pick your game bundle, March has the Division bundle, April will most likely have a QB bundle, and will possibly have a game bundled from Bethesda (Doom or Dishonored 2) if either of those hit their Spring launch date. MS will be about giving customers a lot of different "options" via game bundles.

Once those specific Holiday bundles leave, they will be replaced with a "bundle of the month".
 
A

Abdiel

Member
Welfare said:
Thanks!

I read over what you said, and I expected this. Not only did MS ship a lot of consoles, they shipped a lot of different bundles on top of that, with no sign of stopping.

January had the RB6 bundle, February has the 500GB Pick your game bundle, March has the Division bundle, April will most likely have a QB bundle, and will possibly have a game bundled from Bethesda (Doom or Dishonored 2) if either of those hit their Spring launch date. MS will be about giving customers a lot of different "options" via game bundles.

Once those specific Holiday bundles leave, they will be replaced with a "bundle of the month".
Click to expand...

The problem I see with this, as far as our stores go, is that the higher priced bundles have almost no momentum at all right now. It's the cheaper bundle that sells. The Gears of War bundle is the only one moving right now, and when we get those Name your Game bundles in, I'm sure those will take over for some of that momentum instead, because those are the only two at the cheaper price.

They're not doing themselves any favors on market branding with the perception. They have a ton of boxes on the floor with all these higher price points, and almost no customers bother to even express interest in them.
 
Welfare

Welfare

Member
Abdiel said:
The problem I see with this, as far as our stores go, is that the higher priced bundles have almost no momentum at all right now. It's the cheaper bundle that sells. The Gears of War bundle is the only one moving right now, and when we get those Name your Game bundles in, I'm sure those will take over for some of that momentum instead, because those are the only two at the cheaper price.

They're not doing themselves any favors on market branding with the perception. They have a ton of boxes on the floor with all these higher price points, and almost no customers bother to even express interest in them.
Click to expand...
I don't know much about the retail side of things, but maybe MS is thinking of having deals this Spring to try and move stock. Do consoles get good deals during Easter? Last year for instance, GamesStop had an almost month long deal for the Xbox One back in April where you could save $175(?) on the purchase, but I don't remember if Best Buy had a comparative deal in that time, or if that is even a common occurrence.

Basically it would be a way to get some extra cash from the people that will buy the Xbox One at $399, and then try to push more people to buy the console if it were discounted for a small window of time, artificially creating more interest in those bundles then there really is.

I don't know if this is actually helpful or not, but that is what I'm thinking on why MS is stuffing retail with 10 bundles.

Or who knows, maybe these retail managers love to look at all the different Xbox bundles. Like a box collection.
 
S

serversurfer

Member
slavesnyder said:
And please, always keep in mind these words:
A buyer's bonus structure trumps EVERYTHING ELSE.
Click to expand...
What does this mean?


Welfare said:
And then I forgot to subscribe to the thread!
Click to expand...
You don't even auto-subscribe? You're such a weirdo. :p


slavesnyder said:
They seem to build a bigger and bigger wave of soon-to-come returns. Even worse, those bundles will not become hotter over time, be outdated and will have to be refurbished.
Click to expand...
Oh, I dunno. They moved all of the AC bundles eventually, and they literally had thousands of those in the DCs. Sounds like there are a lot of new bundles coming, but they could ship comparatively small numbers of each, giving the impression things are staying fresh…

Abdiel said:
The problem I see with this, as far as our stores go, is that the higher priced bundles have almost no momentum at all right now. It's the cheaper bundle that sells. The Gears of War bundle is the only one moving right now, and when we get those Name your Game bundles in, I'm sure those will take over for some of that momentum instead, because those are the only two at the cheaper price.

They're not doing themselves any favors on market branding with the perception. They have a ton of boxes on the floor with all these higher price points, and almost no customers bother to even express interest in them.
Click to expand...
… or not. lol

Yeah, I guess the AC bundle was a good bit cheaper than these $400 bundles they've got now. Can you comment on stock levels at all? Just how many of these expensive bundles are you guys sitting on? Is it comparable to the AC stocks last year? How much of the January bundle did you get, and how much remains? Any idea how long current stocks would hold up, assuming no new bundle next month?

Is the overstock actually affecting perception? Have people commented on it, or what?
 
A

Abdiel

Member
Welfare said:
I don't know much about the retail side of things, but maybe MS is thinking of having deals this Spring to try and move stock. Do consoles get good deals during Easter? Last year for instance, GamesStop had an almost month long deal for the Xbox One back in April where you could save $175(?) on the purchase, but I don't remember if Best Buy had a comparative deal in that time, or if that is even a common occurrence.

Basically it would be a way to get some extra cash from the people that will buy the Xbox One at $399, and then try to push more people to buy the console if it were discounted for a small window of time, artificially creating more interest in those bundles then there really is.

I don't know if this is actually helpful or not, but that is what I'm thinking on why MS is stuffing retail with 10 bundles.

Or who knows, maybe these retail managers love to look at all the different Xbox bundles. Like a box collection.
Click to expand...

We're approaching tax return season, so people make their frivolous purchases on that sort of thing... But customers tend to try to stretch that to cover as many nice things as they can, and spending an extra $50 bucks doesn't really do much by comparison. And, also, put in perspective... The bundle that is selling the most is Gears of War Remaster, not a new, hit game.

Whereas with the PS4, their bundle is the fucking CoD BO3 bundle. Same price, different value perception, you know? It's not really a fair direct line comparison.

As to the comment on trade in offers, we do things like that too, but it's not something I could pin down, as those are corporate initiatives... And I'm not sure how much, if at all, MS comes into play on those kind of offers, as it's all acquisition of trade in. So technically it means Best Buy then has product to resell for profit margins, or to resell back to other companies that do repairs, etc. (That's what we do with most of our trade in cell phones, we sell them to a company that dismantles them for components).

Easter isn't really much of a 'gift' holiday. It's post-taxes, and we'll see ads capitalizing on the holiday mention, but it's not something that goads customers to put down more money.

Being stuffed with a metric fuck ton of SKUs for the hardware just tends to raise more eyebrows than anything when people see the pricing, and then they shrug and grab the cheapest one, and whatever game they actually wanted in conjunction.

serversurfer said:
Oh, I dunno. They moved all of the AC bundles eventually, and they literally had thousands of those in the DCs. Sounds like there are a lot of new bundles coming, but they could ship comparatively small numbers of each, giving the impression things are staying fresh…


… or not. lol

Yeah, I guess the AC bundle was a good bit cheaper than these $400 bundles they've got now. Can you comment on stock levels at all? Just how many of these expensive bundles are you guys sitting on? Is it comparable to the AC stocks last year? How much of the January bundle did you get, and how much remains? Any idea how long current stocks would hold up, assuming no new bundle next month?

Is the overstock actually affecting perception? Have people commented on it, or what?
Click to expand...

The more expensive bundles don't have anywhere near the overstock the AC bundles had, which was kind of depressing how long those stuck around for. But I mean, the Halo bundle? That wasn't in huge numbers anyway, and they just don't move at all. Put it in this perspective, with collector's editions of games, we eventually mark them down to the same price of the regular game to sell them so we can clear the floorspace, but we can't do that with the hardware, because it's a console. They don't have margin options for that.

So the Tomb Raider bundles, that kind of thing, they're not just sitting in huge piles in the back, endless numbers or anything. It's more just that they move at such a glacial level, the stock we do have is almost... toxic? I don't like that word, but it means that it is a SKU that will sit, and has sat, through the busiest time of the year with little to no consumer interest behind it, and now we're in the slowest months, meaning they aren't fucking going anywhere.

Customers ask us why we have so many different models on the floor sometimes, but most of the time they don't even bother and just go straight for the cheapest bundle and move along. Passing disinterest in the cost.
 
S

serversurfer

Member
Abdiel said:
The more expensive bundles don't have anywhere near the overstock the AC bundles had, which was kind of depressing how long those stuck around for. But I mean, the Halo bundle? That wasn't in huge numbers anyway, and they just don't move at all. Put it in this perspective, with collector's editions of games, we eventually mark them down to the same price of the regular game to sell them so we can clear the floorspace, but we can't do that with the hardware, because it's a console. They don't have margin options for that.

So the Tomb Raider bundles, that kind of thing, they're not just sitting in huge piles in the back, endless numbers or anything. It's more just that they move at such a glacial level, the stock we do have is almost... toxic? I don't like that word, but it means that it is a SKU that will sit, and has sat, through the busiest time of the year with little to no consumer interest behind it, and now we're in the slowest months, meaning they aren't fucking going anywhere.

Customers ask us why we have so many different models on the floor sometimes, but most of the time they don't even bother and just go straight for the cheapest bundle and move along. Passing disinterest in the cost.
Click to expand...
Thanks. <3 I was mostly wondering if all of the various bundles together neared the AC stocks, but regardless, it sounds like whatever you have isn't going to move without some kind of assistance. $400 is a lot for a Bone though. Anyone have any idea what the ASP actually is on a Bone these days?
 
R

Ryng_tolu

Banned
I wonder How fucking a lot Gears ultimate sold, since is almost the only XB1 bundle which sell. I think >3 million all considering is likely Worldwide.
 
S

slavesnyder

Member
serversurfer said:
What does this mean?
Click to expand...
I just quoted Queso from the December NPD results. I asked why there are so few releases in January, and basically it was this. Managers don't take new games in January to keep their inventory clean and get buyer's boni.
I liked the wording and it could be the official motto for January, together with "waiting for tax refunds".
 
A

allan-bh

Member
Microsoft is losing several opportunities for sell more hardware with these $399 bundles. I guess they are really trying to pursue profits.

It's better for the consumer when they don't have the marketing deal and make a free game offer to combat PS4 bundle.
 
D

DriftingSpirit

Member
Omnistalgic said:
Too far away to speculate . April is a whole nutha season for me. Well get back to you maybe next month because I'm interesting if SFV moves much ps4 hardware.
Click to expand...
You could have at least called it interesting!

Yeah, I want to see what SFV does (or doesn't) do as well. It comes out pretty soon but the hype doesn't seem to be aligned with it. That doesn't necessarily mean poor sales though.
 
O

Obliterator

Member
Yeah if anyone wants to go the consoles are doomed route this will probably be the month to indulge in it

DriftingSpirit said:
You could have at least called it interesting!

Yeah, I want to see what SFV does (or doesn't) do as well. It comes out pretty soon but the hype doesn't seem to be aligned with it. That doesn't necessarily mean poor sales though.
Click to expand...

Im thinking SFV opens substantially lower than MKX as of now. That could change but pretty certain it will be well under it
 
R

Ryng_tolu

Banned
Mortal Kombat X will outsell Street Fighter V by an abissal margin in USA, and they won't even be close worldwide...
Mortal Kombat X has shipped ~5 million by end of September 2015, it should not have Problem to Sell / ship >7 million LT...

This is just waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too Much for Street Fighter. I think it will do good anyway.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Much ado has been made about a possible marketing deal for Doom. How feel you all about this? I seriously doubt Doom will move much in the way of HW or hype for consoles. The previous console versions didn't fare too well critically or sales wise and I don't see this version changing that for the franchise.

That said what marketing deals do you see having the most potential to move HW? Personally I thought The Division would be but MS has hardly put any marketing muscle behind it at all and has priced the accompanying bundle over the established mass market price point. AFAIK there are no other marketing deals yet revealed that scream "oh boy hold onto your butts" this year except a repeat of deals forged previously (COD, Battlefield, etc). Am I missing something?
 
O

Obliterator

Member
RexNovis said:
Much ado has been made about a possible marketing deal for Doom. How feel you all about this? I seriously doubt Doom will move much in the way of HW or hype for consoles. The previous console versions didn't fare too well critically or sales wise and I don't see this version changing that for the franchise.

That said what marketing deals do you see having the most potential to move HW? Personally I thought The Division would be but MS has hardly put any marketing muscle behind it at all and has priced the accompanying bundle over the established mass market price point. AFAIK there are no other marketing deals yet revealed that scream "oh boy hold onto your butts" this year except a repeat of deals forged previously (COD, Battlefield, etc). Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Yeah DOOM shouldn't be a big hardware mover. Will probably do well enough for itself in terms of units sold but I just dont see it pushing consoles.

Honestly as of now I dont see much at all hitting this year that will push systems at a large scale as of now.
 
S

serversurfer

Member
slavesnyder said:
I just quoted Queso from the December NPD results. I asked why there are so few releases in January, and basically it was this. Managers don't take new games in January to keep their inventory clean and get buyer's boni.
I liked the wording and it could be the official motto for January, together with "waiting for tax refunds".
Click to expand...
For reference&#8230;
CosmicQueso said:
GTA would never do that, but sure GTA is the exception to every rule. And every other company pitching a game talks about how great their game is going to do and how it's going to exceed all benchmarks. So that never really flies.

And when a buyer's bonus is on the line in terms of carried inventory, you could come in arguing anything and be shown the door. A buyer's bonus structure trumps EVERYTHING ELSE.
Click to expand...
Interesting. So I'm guessing the buyer gets a bonus for not overbuying during the holidays, and the auditor comes by in January to see if they qualify? That makes good business sense. And it sounds like they actually get penalized for anything that arrived between Christmas and the auditor's visit, so the end result is the buyer works to ensure the store has nothing to sell in January. That makes good business sense? =/

Out of curiosity, how does Microsoft's tendency to overship during the holidays then affect these bonuses? Does the auditor just understand the buyer's hands are tied, or what? Edit: Seems like they'd also understand GTA just came out last week, but I guess R* aren't MS.
 
B

Boke1879

Member
RexNovis said:
Much ado has been made about a possible marketing deal for Doom. How feel you all about this? I seriously doubt Doom will move much in the way of HW or hype for consoles. The previous console versions didn't fare too well critically or sales wise and I don't see this version changing that for the franchise.

That said what marketing deals do you see having the most potential to move HW? Personally I thought The Division would be but MS has hardly put any marketing muscle behind it at all and has priced the accompanying bundle over the established mass market price point. AFAIK there are no other marketing deals yet revealed that scream "oh boy hold onto your butts" this year except a repeat of deals forged previously (COD, Battlefield, etc). Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

I honestly think the marketing deal for Doom is just for MS and Bethesda to show both companies have a partnership. It won't move and consoles and there is no promise it'll even sell better on The One.

That said I would have expected MS to push The Division more. It comes out soon and I think it has a bundle? I would suspect MS to push that as it has potential to move consoles. We'll see though. Other than that I don't see anything outside of exclusives that would push consoles. Maybe FF15? If Sony has that marketing deal I can see them doing an LE console here.
 
S

slavesnyder

Member
Boke1879 said:
Other than that I don't see anything outside of exclusives that would push consoles. Maybe FF15? If Sony has that marketing deal I can see them doing an LE console here.
Click to expand...
Is Mass Effect already pushed to 2017?
Apart from that maybe Mirror's Edge (won't sell many consoles).
FF15 has to go to Sony if there is a marketing deal. I can't imagine how an Xbox deal would play out.
There is a Euro World Cup coming, so in Europe a Fifa bundle would make sense. In NPD not so much.
Olympics are ignored, too. Sadly.

In the end it really seems to be the usual suspects and big first party/exclusive titles this year.
And VR of course.
 
B

Boke1879

Member
slavesnyder said:
Is Mass Effect already pushed to 2017?
Apart from that maybe Mirror's Edge (won't sell many consoles).
FF15 has to go to Sony if there is a marketing deal. I can't imagine how an Xbox deal would play out.
There is a Euro World Cup coming, so in Europe a Fifa bundle would make sense. In NPD not so much.
Olympics are ignored, too. Sadly.

In the end it really seems to be the usual suspects and big first party/exclusive titles this year.
And VR of course.
Click to expand...

Yea. I see it going Sony as well. They've been playing up that angle. So I can see there being a deal for that and we'll see if the FF name can still move HW.

I haven't heard anything about ME honestly.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Obliterator said:
Yeah DOOM shouldn't be a big hardware mover. Will probably do well enough for itself in terms of units sold but I just dont see it pushing consoles.

Honestly as of now I dont see much at all hitting this year that will push systems at a large scale as of now.
Click to expand...

Yep that's the impression I have as well. It is hard for an established franchise that is heavily associated with PC to do much in the way of pushing console HW imho.

As far as the rest of the year goes, I agree. The Division was the only title I saw pullinng some serious weight but the marketing deal for the game seems to have barely any push behind it. Outside of the usual annual staple games (CoD, Battlefield etc) theres not much else thats going to push consoles. The only ones I can think of off the top of my head are Deus Ex: Mankind Divided and Overwatch. I suppose VR might but I have serious doubts about the mass market palatability of VR. There are a few smaller games (sales wise) that I could potentially see selling some HW (FF15, Persona 5, No Man's Sky, The Last Guardian etc) but the biggest non annualized IPs with potential to move HW seem to be true blue console exclusives this year (Uncharted 4, Quantum Break, Gears of War 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Street Fighter 5 mayyyybe). Quite a bit different form the past few years where Multiplat releases have really driven sales. Although I have no doubt the juggernauts like CoD and Battlefield still will to some degree theres definitely a lot more interesting things happening on the exclusive front this time around.

Boke1879 said:
I honestly think the marketing deal for Doom is just for MS and Bethesda to show both companies have a partnership. It won't move and consoles and there is no promise it'll even sell better on The One.

That said I would have expected MS to push The Division more. It comes out soon and I think it has a bundle? I would suspect MS to push that as it has potential to move consoles. We'll see though. Other than that I don't see anything outside of exclusives that would push consoles. Maybe FF15? If Sony has that marketing deal I can see them doing an LE console here.
Click to expand...

Yea I agree Doom is likely a continuation of a markeitng partnership between MS and Bethesda. One that will possibly bare some fruit once the next Elder Scrolls game comes out provided MS brings their marketing A game for it.

Its bizarre to me how little MS has done to promote The Division given their marketing deal. It could have been their Destiny in the sense that it is a new IP that they could heavily associate with their brand but they have absolutely failed to do that. I think their third party marketing in general this gen has been awful all around. I mean look at their marketing for Rise of the Tomb Raider or Fallout 4 this past holiday season. To me it looks like they are just completely failing to capitalize on these marketing deals. Which is odd because in the past MS' advertising has been some of the best out there.

slavesnyder said:
Is Mass Effect already pushed to 2017?
Apart from that maybe Mirror's Edge (won't sell many consoles).
FF15 has to go to Sony if there is a marketing deal. I can't imagine how an Xbox deal would play out.
There is a Euro World Cup coming, so in Europe a Fifa bundle would make sense. In NPD not so much.
Olympics are ignored, too. Sadly.

In the end it really seems to be the usual suspects and big first party/exclusive titles this year.
And VR of course.
Click to expand...

Yea the EA quarterly financial brief basically said Mass Effect: Andromeda would release after Battlefield and "before the end of this fiscal year" which most construe as early 2017. I'd say that is 90% assured at this point. Sure theres a chance it is still coming this year but it is very slim.

The FIFA marketing deal has been such a colossal failure thus far. Its done very little to promote the brand in the EU. It seems like the Xbox marketing push behind it has been second rate at best especially when you consider that it is literally their one big selling point for the region. I doubt that will suddenly change this year. I suppose anything is possible though.
 
R

RexNovis

Banned
Oh and Snyder, as far as FFXV goes

slavesnyder said:
FF15 has to go to Sony if there is a marketing deal. I can't imagine how an Xbox deal would play out.
Click to expand...

Verendus says theres a limited edition PS4 sku coming for it

Verendus said:
Friend, the FFXV design is basically done, and I'm sorry to say that Destiny and MGS5 reign supreme. It isn't very good. Maybe you'll get something better next time with the Kingdom of the Hearts.

We in Nathaniel Drake's time now. The bestest of times. Bless this murderer.
Click to expand...

So yea I'd say there is likely a Sony marketing deal but I have serious doubts as to the HW selling potential non VII Remake mainline Final Fantasy might have these days. Time will tell.

Edit: Apologies for the double post. This thread is moving sooooooo slowly.
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
slavesnyder said:
Is Mass Effect already pushed to 2017?
Apart from that maybe Mirror's Edge (won't sell many consoles).
FF15 has to go to Sony if there is a marketing deal. I can't imagine how an Xbox deal would play out.
There is a Euro World Cup coming, so in Europe a Fifa bundle would make sense. In NPD not so much.
Olympics are ignored, too. Sadly.

In the end it really seems to be the usual suspects and big first party/exclusive titles this year.
And VR of course.
Click to expand...
How early should we expect a GTA 6? 2017/ 2018? That would be huge...

Seems that Publishers are more or less aligned this gen, aside from Ubisoft who keeps going back and forth:

MS: EA, Bethesda, CDPR
Sony: WBI, Rockstar/ T2 (cf GTA5 bundle), Activision, Disney (given the BF and DI deals)

Square is a big unknown, as tending to go with Sony (with Japanese titles), but they did do the ill fated TR deal with MS (which was probably pushed internally by CD)...
For the near future, I'd probably put them on the Sony side of things though, with Deus Ex's gameplay trailer reveal during the 2015 Sony E3 presser.
 
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