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Media Create Sales: Week 14, 2015 (Mar 30- Apr 05)

I'm sorry Media Create but I'm trusting pennywise in this one

?

It'd be nice to have a debate over what I said instead of calling me out of nowhere days later.

Being "sold-out" doesn't always mean that sales are lost. I was more specifically talking about Senran Kagura, but also Bloodborne might have been considered; now, MC states that supply was short of demand, which is completely fine: the situation about this game has been clarified; next weeks will be telling in this sense. What's your point about that?

By the way, talking about sold-out:

32./38. [3DS] Nanatsu no Taizai: The Seven Deadly Sins - Unjust Sin <ADV> (Bandai Namco Games) {2015.02.11} (¥6.145)
47./00. [3DS] Ansatsu Kyoushitsu: Korosensei Daihouimou!! <ACT> (Bandai Namco Games) {2015.03.12} (¥6.145)

They both increase with respect to previous weeks, at least this is what the ranking is showing (and sales-wise it's likely an increase, given all the new entries).
 
Bloodborne results probably come from a bit of shortage but also a bit of low demand.

I doubt a bigger shipment would have sold much more if second week sales haven't been better in anyway.

It had a -80% drop, which is normal, i don't see why stock problems is to blame

comparing persona dancing with other persona games is legit, since persona fanbase is pretty dedicated to the series
 

Fdkn

Member
?

It'd be nice to have a debate over what I said instead of calling me out of nowhere days later.

Being "sold-out" doesn't always mean that sales are lost. I was more specifically talking about Senran Kagura, but also Bloodborne might have been considered; now, MC states that supply was short of demand, which is completely fine: the situation about this game has been clarified; next weeks will be telling in this sense. What's your point about that?

I was just messing a bit with you because in both last week and this week threads while some people were talking about reportedly BB shortages you stated that the term "sold-out" is misunderstood and that in the vast majority of cases a high sell-through just means that demand is fully satisfied, and I don't think that was applicable here because there was a wide range of discrepancy on the expectations for the game.

It would be fantastic if Bloodborne suddenly showed nice legs next week but its obvious that when they needed the copies on the shelves was last week.

I think it's fair to think that now some people could have gone digital, some people could have gone used and even some people could probably have given up and decided to wait for discounted prices because they couldn't get it while it was new and now they don't mind waiting a bit more.

But we'll see after all.
 
I was just messing a bit with you because in both last week and this week threads while some people were talking about reportedly BB shortages you stated that the term "sold-out" is misunderstood and that in the vast majority of cases a high sell-through just means that demand is fully satisfied, and I don't think that was applicable here because there was a wide range of discrepancy on the expectations for the game.

It would be fantastic if Bloodborne suddenly showed nice legs next week but its obvious that when they needed the copies on the shelves was last week.

I think it's fair to think that now some people could have gone digital, some people could have gone used and even some people could probably have given up and decided to wait for discounted prices because they couldn't get it while it was new and now they don't mind waiting a bit more.

But we'll see after all.

My post was more about Senran Kagura; I do think Bloodborne had some unsatisfied demand (MC also stated that), but I also think it might have been negligible in the end. That is, it's not a DQM: Joker situation. Probably, it would have sold 10-15k more.
 
people are trying too hard to justify the BB bomba

it would have showed a drastic drop from the previous games either way and i think being ps4 only is partly to blame, if it does sell as much as its predecessors, it'll be up to ps4's performance from now on.
 
So final verdict is "did well, but could have done better. Should have no problem reaching its target in the upcoming weeks/months.

Curious about the potential impact of XCX, especially coupled with GW.

Unless you trust the other data which says 46%. In either case it is interesting for people to call Bloodborne, which had an 87% sell-through rate a bomba, but 46%/60% is "did well". It means there was no shortage of supply, it is on shelves everywhere, and the price will probably drop.

Of course I wouldn't call either a bomba. That is more accurately used to describe something like Chaos Rings Prequel Trilogy which was in the 30s.

There is also the issue of what Nintendo's expectations were. I was pretty close with my guess of a shipment of 100K, and the Wii version would have recommended that. But there were reasons to think expectations were at one point higher. Xenoblade 3DS was much higher profile, it was promoted prominently during the N3DS announcement, and Nintendo has been building up XCX as a major title, not something they are looking at selling sub-80K of. The install base is not that big of an issue. The N3DS has a much bigger one than the PS4, 1.75M to 1.3M, and Bloodborne outsold it 3-1.

It may well be a "symbolically" important title like Bayonetta 2, where Nintendo won a lot of media credit that was valuable outside of the title itself, or where that may have been the expectation. But I think that regardless of what expectations were a few weeks ago(where the preorder numbers should have dampened expectations), selling substantially less than the Wii original is probably a disappointment based on what Nintendo was hoping for when the project was green-lit.
 
nah it didn't bomb, it was just shortages, as 80% drop in second week is so out of the ordinary right?
I am talking more about the overall sales of BB. I think it has done pretty good for its sales so far on PS4. Judging from the initial shipment of the game, I am sure that the sales were within the expectation of Sony (in Japan), yet there are people who love to compare it to DaS and call these sales disappointing. No idea why.
 

Spiegel

Member
nah it didn't bomb, it was just shortages, as 80% drop in second week is so out of the ordinary right?

Bloodborne is not bombing. It can be a disappointment compared to other Souls games (although we'll have to see where it ends after the budget release is out) but bombas are things like DKC Wii -> DKC WiiU (from 1M to 100k) or vastly overshipped games.
 
Bloodborne is not bombing. It can be a disappointment compared to other Souls games (although we'll have to see where it ends after the budget release is out) but bombas are things like DKC Wii -> DKC WiiU (from 1M to 100k) or vastly overshipped games.
yes when i say bomba i mean relative to its predecessors, the sales itself is fine

any series showing such a drop when it isn't a huge franchise to begin with is considered bomba

dkc's case is more due to the platform (dkc ds sold far better, despite being a port), BB's case is probably also partly blamed by ps4 but to less of an extent.

take a game like nsmb2, even though it sold well, it is still a bomba imo, since the numbers are so much lower than nsmb1 and 3ds sales are big enough to support it.

whereas a game like animal crossing might be lower than its ds iteration but still performed remarkably.

I am talking more about the overall sales of BB. I think it has done pretty good for its sales so far on PS4. Judging from the initial shipment of the game, I am sure that the sales were within the expectation of Sony (in Japan), yet there are people who love to compare it to DaS and call these sales disappointing. No idea why.
after two games of showing similar results, there was no reason for this one to do these numbers fw, the ps4 can't be the only one to blame since the userbase is high enough to support a game like BB without being limited by the platform
 

Bebpo

Banned
Media Create Sales: Week 14, 2015 (Mar 30 - Apr 05)

01./00. [PSV] 3rd Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-Hen <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2015.04.02} (¥7.690) - 121.219 / NEW
02./00. [PS3] 3rd Super Robot Wars Z: Tengoku-Hen <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2015.04.02} (¥8.716) - 109.200 / NEW

Last year:
[PS3] 3rd Super Robot Wars Z: Jigoku-Hen <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2014.04.10} (¥8.715) &#8211; 142.433 / NEW
02./00. [PSV] 3rd Super Robot Wars Z: Jigoku-Hen <SLG> (Bandai Namco Games) {2014.04.10} (¥7.689) &#8211; 128.236 / NEW

PS3 version dropped pretty hard whereas Vita stayed about the same. Interesting. Overall part 2 (Tengoku) sold ~230k compared to the ~270k of part 1 (Jigoku).

First Weeks for mainline SRW
(2005) SRW @3 - ~470k
(2008) SRW Z - ~366k
(2011) SRW Z2-1 - ~280k
(2012) SRW Z2-2 - ~250k
(2014) SRW Z3-1 - ~270k
(2015) SRW Z3-2 - ~230k

Still a decline, but it's a slow decline and splitting the games into two is probably cost effective.
 

Pennywise

Member
I'm sorry Media Create but I'm trusting pennywise in this one

Thanks.

ConstantMetallicArkshell.gif
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
I was just messing a bit with you because in both last week and this week threads while some people were talking about reportedly BB shortages you stated that the term "sold-out" is misunderstood and that in the vast majority of cases a high sell-through just means that demand is fully satisfied, and I don't think that was applicable here because there was a wide range of discrepancy on the expectations for the game.

Since we talk for Media Create I wonder where exactly Media Create talked for BB shortage last week, because sell-through tells otherwise. And this talk for lost sales is overestimated. How many sales were lost? 10-15-20k? If demand is really there these sales will come next weeks. Tropical Freeze and PS4 had the same "problem" for one week but the big picture didn't change.
 
yes when i say bomba i mean relative to its predecessors, the sales itself is fine

Demon's Souls first week : 36,794 (Famitsu numbers)
PS3 sold before DeS release : 2,8mln (Famitsu numbers)


BloodBorne first week : 150,245 (Famitsu numbers)
PS4 sold before BB release : 1,2mln (Famitsu numbers)



more than half of the installed base and 4x software sales, I don't understand what you were expecting from a 1,2mln system...
 

Parakeetman

No one wants a throne you've been sitting on!
Demon's Souls first week : 36,794 (Famitsu numbers)
PS3 sold before DeS release : 2,8mln (Famitsu numbers)

BloodBorne first week : 150,245 (Famitsu numbers)
PS4 sold before BB release : 1,2mln (Famitsu numbers)

more than half of the installed base and 4x software sales, I don't understand what you were expecting from a 1,2mln system...

People just want to parrot stupid instead of actually fucking thinking which is getting beyond old at this point in the media create threads.
 
Demon's Souls first week : 36,794 (Famitsu numbers)
PS3 sold before DeS release : 2,8mln (Famitsu numbers)


BloodBorne first week : 150,245 (Famitsu numbers)
PS4 sold before BB release : 1,2mln (Famitsu numbers)



more than half of the installed base and 4x software sales, I don't understand what you were expecting from a 1,2mln system...

He is going to argue that BB now has brand recognition, From being far more famous before the release of DeS and that BB should have an attach rate of almost 30% in order to not being a bomba. Even though DaS had an attach rate of 4% on an install base of 7M. I mean over 10% attach ratio for BB is a bomba obviously since every single soul fan already has a PS4 or isn't tired of the franchise already or wasn't burn by a bad game and Sony and From obviously wanted to sell over 250K on first week and that is why it sell through is less than 60% currently with copies waiting for discounts in the next weeks.
 
Confirmed Bloodborne is the 1st game to be considered a bomb despite virtual sellouts of its initial shipments...

Come on now. A game is a bomb when it takes months or even a price drop to sell its initial shipments. BB clearly does not have this issue.
 

Fdkn

Member
Since we talk for Media Create I wonder where exactly Media Create talked for BB shortage last week, because sell-through tells otherwise. And this talk for lost sales is overestimated. How many sales were lost? 10-15-20k? If demand is really there these sales will come next weeks. Tropical Freeze and PS4 had the same "problem" for one week but the big picture didn't change.

I didn't say MC stated shortages for Bloodborne last week, I said there were talks of shortages in last week thread.

And 15-20k may not be a huge difference obviously but it would mean a ~10-15% increase over the actual sales and that's not negligible either when some people is trying to compare the performance of the game on a 1.3M install base vs past games on ps3.
 

OuterLimits

Member
Looks like SCE/retailers were conservative about Bloodborne's sales. Not surprising conisidering the market situation.



I think its at 30k right now. Might crawl its way to 50k LTD. Its bad. Western sales still need to accounted to get a full picture but we never get sales info :/ . I doubt the series is going to be abandoned by NIS though.



Yeah expect 10% or at the very most 15%.

Right, but can NIS survive as a company if one of its best known series is no longer selling? Or does it have other big selling franchises that I'm unaware of? Maybe they are foolish putting Disgaea 5 on consoles. Portable or mobile would perhaps do better. I give them props for sticking with the PS4, but it certainly isn't going to make them much money.

I'm not expecting Western sales to help it much unfortunately. I look forward to playing it though.
 
Bloodborne did fine, PS4 installed base is not big so Dark Souls' sales were obviously out of reach. It did not do spectacularly, though, being the first big PS4 exclusive and grealty advertised by Sony; some retailers were short of supply because preorders were not that hot, compared to previous entries in the Souls series.

Western markets were more receptive this time, and probably Sony is betting on them to look for further investments in the IP. If I'm not expecting anything good from The Order in the future, I can totally see a Bloodborne sequel greenlited before the year ends.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
I didn't say MC stated shortages for Bloodborne last week, I said there were talks of shortages in last week thread.

And 15-20k may not be a huge difference obviously but it would mean a ~10-15% increase over the actual sales and that's not negligible either when some people is trying to compare the performance of the game on a 1.3M install base vs past games on ps3.

Even if you really believe there are 15-20k lost sales last week majority of these will be replaced if there is actual demand now that stock has arrived. They are not gone forever. As for install base it's not a million seller franchise so that it plays so big part if there is an established and dedicated fanbase. When MGS4 came out PS3 had 3 times smaller install base comparing to PS2, yet it sold the same as MGS2 at first week.
 
I'm ready to bet with you that, in the long term, there'll be more sales for Rodea in the West than in Japan. Like W101, Sonic titles, etc.

Did you not read my post and what I was replying to?

Right, but can NIS survive as a company if one of its best known series is no longer selling? Or does it have other big selling franchises that I'm unaware of? Maybe they are foolish putting Disgaea 5 on consoles. Portable or mobile would perhaps do better. I give them props for sticking with the PS4, but it certainly isn't going to make them much money.

I'm not expecting Western sales to help it much unfortunately. I look forward to playing it though.

Well, its hard to predict but lets just say things don;t look good where they are right now and with Disgaea. About western sales all we know is that the series gets around half its total sales from overseas (100-150k).

Sorry but I think it's not hard for western sales to be higher than JPN ones when the latter combined sales is like ~5k.

Thats not what you said. Western sales are not going to amend this.
 

akitaone

Banned
Kind of depressing that Disgaea 5 didn't even make the top 30 this week. It sold what 22,000 during launch week? That series is dead or dying I'm guessing.

Yeah I was trying to be optimistic about it but wow an 83% drop is not good...one of the most steep drops on the chart! But I think the series has changed so little since Disgaea 4 (especially graphically) that people may be burnt out on it. I know I usually skip most Disgaeas to find the one I will just dump 200+ hours into. And they make the PSP/Vita versions to be so superior that people continue to hold out for the improved versions.

I also think they hurt the brand with D2...it was more of a fan service game that did little to push the series forward outside of the Cheat Shop.

Hopefully, somehow someway we will get an improved D6 with HD graphics, and maybe online multiplayer.
 
A strange proposition but... do you think Disgaea sales were hurt a bit by the exodus of staff from NIS to Compile Heart?

I don't know how common knowledge it is over there, but didn't most of the Disgaea 4 team leave? And that particularly entry seems to have survived the franchise fatigue alright from being re-released just over a year ago:

PSV Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited 29,904 / 57,731 Nippon Ichi Software 2014-01-30
 

akitaone

Banned
A strange proposition but... do you think Disgaea sales were hurt a bit by the exodus of staff from NIS to Compile Heart?

I don't know how common knowledge it is over there, but didn't most of the Disgaea 4 team leave? And that particularly entry seems to have survived the franchise fatigue alright from being re-released just over a year ago:

PSV Disgaea 4: A Promise Revisited 29,904 / 57,731 Nippon Ichi Software 2014-01-30

Again, that is the improved Vita version. I think people are getting used to waiting for the improved portable version or waiting for the price to drop. The main producer of the Disgaea series is still there and did D5...I don't think the gameplay itself was diminished at all.

I love the series, but lets face it...there are less changes between each game than there is between Madden releases...and at least Madden comes out every year, as opposed to the 2-3 year Disgaea window, not counting the Vita re-releases.

They need to embrace new platforms and add something new to the series that non-Disgaea fans can get excited about. I honestly think the graphics are what hurts the most...very difficult to find almost any PS3 game with worse graphics than D5.

But I think they will survive enough to make a D6...sales of Disgaea games have been dropping for awhile and they have lost the publishing rights to alot of the other games they used to release. They may have to close the NISA offices and let someone else publish it like the first Disgaea. All that being said, they still have a near-monopoly on SRPG games...but Project X Zone is not even 1% of the SRPG that Disgaea is, yet sells alot better. Maybe they could also use their SRPG "engine" on another publisher's IP, ala Marvel vs Capcom or that Pokemon-Tekken fighter.
 
Again, that is the improved Vita version. I think people are getting used to waiting for the improved portable version or waiting for the price to drop

The portable ports have been happening since 2007, though... that didn't hurt the sales of Disgaea 3 or 4 (Disgaea D2 has been down a bit, but it didn't debut much lower than D3).

In fact, Disgaea 4 is the highest selling in the series, and that released long after it became clear that portable ports were a thing (Disgaea 1 PSP; Disgaea 1 DS & Disgaea 2 PSP had released by this point).

and they have lost the publishing rights to alot of the other games they used to release. They may have to close the NISA offices and let someone else publish it like the first Disgaea.

That seems like an extreme over-reaction. I'd say the thing that hurt NISA most was losing all their staff to IFI when that opened up.

I've voiced my concern on NISA's forums that they've lost a number of series - first Atelier, then Neptunia, now all of Compile Heart's games it seems. But then they've replaced them with other series and other projects. DanganRonpa seems to have surpassed all their expectations. They now seem to have an extremely close relationship with Kadokawa (first Demon Gaze; then Natural Doctrine; now Rodea). They do a lot of distribution work in Europe for Atlus and Aksys.

I wouldn't expect NISA to be shut down any time soon, if anything it seems to be the more stable branch of the company. At most I could see it getting spun-off into a separate entity.
 

akitaone

Banned
The portable ports have been happening since 2007, though... that didn't hurt the sales of Disgaea 3 or 4 (Disgaea D2 has been down a bit, but it didn't debut much lower than D3).

In fact, Disgaea 4 is the highest selling in the series, and that released long after it became clear that portable ports were a thing (Disgaea 1 PSP; Disgaea 1 DS & Disgaea 2 PSP had released by this point).



That seems like an extreme over-reaction. I'd say the thing that hurt NISA most was losing all their staff to IFI when that opened up.

I've voiced my concern on NISA's forums that they've lost a number of series - first Atelier, then Neptunia, now all of Compile Heart's games it seems. But then they've replaced them with other series and other projects. DanganRonpa seems to have surpassed all their expectations. They now seem to have an extremely close relationship with Kadokawa (first Demon Gaze; then Natural Doctrine; now Rodea). They do a lot of distribution work in Europe for Atlus and Aksys.

I wouldn't expect NISA to be shut down any time soon, if anything it seems to be the more stable branch of the company. At most I could see it getting spun-off into a separate entity.

I hear ya...I was more or less throwing things out there as to why sales have declined. As I mentioned in the last Media Create thread, the install base for the PS4 is much lower than what it was when D4 came out, so that could be a reason as well.
 

Chris1964

Sales-Age Genius
I hear ya...I was more or less throwing things out there as to why sales have declined. As I mentioned in the last Media Create thread, the install base for the PS4 is much lower than what it was when D4 came out, so that could be a reason as well.

What about Disgaea 3 and PS3 install base.
 

akitaone

Banned
What about Disgaea 3 and PS3 install base.

Both D3 and D5 released about 15 months after system launch, so I think it may be because of fatigue with the game due to lack of innovation. Hard to compare since D3 and D4 were not digital titles, and with the link I included earlier in this thread, D5 was the second most downloaded game on PSN during its release week, but we don't have an actual sales number for it.
 
Even if you really believe there are 15-20k lost sales last week majority of these will be replaced if there is actual demand now that stock has arrived. They are not gone forever. As for install base it's not a million seller franchise so that it plays so big part if there is an established and dedicated fanbase. When MGS4 came out PS3 had 3 times smaller install base comparing to PS2, yet it sold the same as MGS2 at first week.

Doesn't low stock usually lead to higher used game sales and therefore the game might lose some sales even if the stock situation stabilizes following week ?
 
You sound so sure. Source? Proof?

in Japan used market is very strong, you can sell back a game in a week and shops give you around 80% of the amount you paid

so if you buy a digital game you can't sell it back, and I don't mean just in a week, but maybe in a month, the time it's needed to be completed. And you always get a reasonable price, it's not like gamestop which gives you $5 and then they sell it for $40

Last but not least lately digital sale numbers have been available and the ratio is about 10-15% about the total sales
consider that the too seller for digital is Animal Crossing (or some Monster Hunter) and they just sold a little more than 500k (iirc, can't check now) while retail sales are over 4mln
 

Kasper

Member
Though Disgaea 5 tanking naturally isn't a good thing, I doubt this will have too much of an effect on NIS as a whole, if I'm understanding the Bloomberg reports correctly. In 2014 their revenue was up by ¥1.2B compared to 2013, and their net income was up from a loss of ¥215.0M in 2013 to a gain of ¥481.0M in 2014.

So far in 2014 -> 2015 the quarterlies have been admittedly weak, but even so NIS should turn a decent profit by the looks of it. So far it's a plus of ¥104.0M. Naturally that's a big letdown going from ¥481.0M, but it's not exactly catastrophic when you compare it to a loss of ¥215.0M in 2013 and similar sized profits of ¥215.0M in 2012 and ¥230.0M in 2011.

If they continue to have clunkers of this magnitude naturally it will catch up with them in the end, but they're not about to hit rock bottom or anything straight away. Hopefully they'll bounce back soon!
 
Reading a few pages back, what's with the relentless intent on painting BB as a bomba in here? It's starting to look a bit petty. It didn't sell gangbusters, but it sold good for an exclusive game on a system with a 1.2m install base. This is more or less a Souls game, remember?
 
I also found this link on the NISA forums...apparently D5 did pretty well digitally:

https://twitter.com/SonyOfLastation/status/583263054802087938

It was noted before. 5k+ sales. Lets conveniently say its at 40k LTD then. It could get to around 60k lifetime.

Even when you factor in what is probably a low number of sales the game still did really bad.



For all we know that could be like 1k sales or something.

No. We know SKEV did 10k digital PS4+PSV. From my memory, PS4's digital ratio is one of the best, if not the best alongside PSV. We can make a decent guess that its a 6:4 split.
 
Again, that is the improved Vita version. I think people are getting used to waiting for the improved portable version or waiting for the price to drop. The main producer of the Disgaea series is still there and did D5...I don't think the gameplay itself was diminished at all.

I love the series, but lets face it...there are less changes between each game than there is between Madden releases...and at least Madden comes out every year, as opposed to the 2-3 year Disgaea window, not counting the Vita re-releases.

They need to embrace new platforms and add something new to the series that non-Disgaea fans can get excited about. I honestly think the graphics are what hurts the most...very difficult to find almost any PS3 game with worse graphics than D5.

But I think they will survive enough to make a D6...sales of Disgaea games have been dropping for awhile and they have lost the publishing rights to alot of the other games they used to release. They may have to close the NISA offices and let someone else publish it like the first Disgaea. All that being said, they still have a near-monopoly on SRPG games...but Project X Zone is not even 1% of the SRPG that Disgaea is, yet sells alot better. Maybe they could also use their SRPG "engine" on another publisher's IP, ala Marvel vs Capcom or that Pokemon-Tekken fighter.

Is FE a sRPG? Because if so, then NI doesn't have any "near-monopoly".

And even accounting for digital sales, D5 is an outright bomb.
 
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