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NPD November 2011 Sales Results [Update 7: Skyrim, CoD Wii, PC Retail Sales Up 57%]
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cartman414
Member
Sony committed one major blunder already: premium-priced proprietary storage.
Zelda measured up pretty well given that it only had 10 days out in the open.
Nintendo always has an amazing software lineup in the first 2-3 years of a console's lifespan before it dries up to a trickle. I think that is the one downside to their evergreen model. The popularity of the Wii at least afforded us late Mario and Zelda sequels this time around.
Yep. Mostly cellphone tech that will be dirt cheap in 3 years. If Vita is starting as another loss-leader console, it won't take long before they are making a profit per unit.
I think they are hoping on the idea of capturing the ports from every Wii-U and iOS port they can get but I do not think Sony understands the danger of courting the mobile games business model as Nintendo does. Nintendo is trying to make hardware to differentiate itself while Sony is still hoping they can make the swiss army knife of games. You know about someone who can do everything...
bigtroyjon
Member
It's only safe if they are willing to let it be a niche device if sales start off like the 3DS. They can't afford to gamble and price cut quickly like Nintendo did.
7 unless I'm missing something. 20,21,22,23,24,25,26
Well, I said short-term. Who knows what they'll ultimately do with the PS4, but I think their current priorities are trying to establish the revenue stream in the portable space that they mostly failed to get with the PSP, and part of that is going to be trying to get a bigger piece of Apple's pie. Their next-gen transition will by necessity require some major risk, so I'm thinking that they want to take a page from Nintendo's book and have their portable market to cushion the blow if necessary.
Or I could be wrong and they're just throwing the Vita out there on the off-chance of a home run and are going all in on PS4 no matter what. Doesn't sound likely to me though.
cartman414
Member
Wuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut?
The cutoff date is 26?
Guess you learn something new every day.
Now bearing in mind that it came out mid-month, SM3D Land had a bit of a minor start.
Yet these 2 games are bombing according to some gaf experts
Those same experts will probably be saying the same thing when both games increase their numbers in December!
Thunder Monkey
Banned
They've already given up exclusivity on the only big mover their handheld had.
I think Sony is completely prepared to sell as little as half of their last handheld marketshare.
What game is that? Have not following the Vita.
Monster Hunter
Thought that was it.
I suspect Sony is banking on getting people to buy the Vita for the big sizzle games like Uncharted, and hoping to keep them around with smaller/cheaper mobile games.
Problem is, of course, those games play just as well on your smartphone.
Back when the 3DS launched, you intuitively knew it was going to thud at $250, regardless of games. Now that the price is more reasonable plus games, it's taking off.
What is Sony going to do when the Vita thuds at $250? Who wants to bet they don't have Nintendo's built-in gigantic profit margin that lets them do that? They certainly don't have Nintendo's compelling game franchises to fall back on. Sony's board should fire themselves if they signed off on yet another console that had $40+ taped to every box as it went out the door.
I remember it the other way around actually. MS beating the PS3 consistently during early 2010, and Sony claiming supply constrains.
Looking back at those NPDs, you're totally right and okenny is still crazy.
I take no blame, as I was operating under the assumption that he wasn't presenting a false premise.
AdventureRacing
Member
Massive month for the 360 and it's going to be a very interesting December. I think the fact that the 360 is stacking up so well against the PS3 without a price drop is very telling.
Hindsight bias at its finest. I'm not going to say no one saw this coming but most people thought it would sell anyway and some analysts (cough Pachter cough) thought nintneod were making a mistake selling it so cheap.
Hindsight bias at its finest. I'm not going to say no one saw this coming but most people thought it would sell anyway and some analysts (cough Pachter cough) thought nintneod were making a mistake selling it so cheap.
jeremy1456
Junior Member
Your major mistake is that you think Apple is a competitor. No serious gamer is going to use an Iphone as a primary handheld gaming system. It's casual gamers, not the kind that would buy a DS even for $120.
Although... Apple has the most rabid, downright insane fanbase. Perhaps they wouldn't buy a Vita or 3DS just because they want to support their corporation.
Anybody who thought the 3DS wasn't going to belly flop at $250 does not have small children, who are universally obsessed with iOS devices.
Randolph Freelander
Member
To be fair, "the industry standard for a product to be considered to be in an "in-stock" position for a store is 30 units per store," so PS3 could very well be supply constrained in any store that does not have a pyramid of PS3s in the gaming section. QED.
Will it be PSPgo-level shit that nobody will buy because the ghost of Apple past sliced it with an ax or something?
No, wait, it'll just be discontinued in short order HAHAHAHAHAH- oh wait that one was me
kame-sennin
Member
Nintendo produces games that launch their hardware into the stratosphere; Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Nintendogs, Brain Age, Mario Kart, NSMB. Those games also have small budgets and short development times. Nintendo can absolutely support a console on their own, even if it's not the best case scenario. The Wii proved that.
Not the NES or, to a lesser extent, the SNES. The difference between then and now is that Nintendo was more willing to make new IP then, and development time was shorter. But as I said above, Nintendo's biggest games this gen were developed very quickly, and half of them were new IP's. Nintendo's problem is that they aren't willing to focus on the software that drives their platforms. It should also be noted that Nintendo makes a conscious choice to abandon their platforms because they are preparing for the next hardware launch. They do this because they still believe in the 5 year cycle superstition. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy were Nintendo consoles loose momentum in their later years because Nintendo has already shifted focus to their new console.
bigtroyjon
Member
When I say niche I don't mean 35-40 million sales. I'm talking about half of the half. I'm not sure if they would be able to just say screw it and be content with eeking out a few bucks while moving on to the next thing. I really hope they have the doomsday situation all planned out so they aren't making a rushed decision that could seriously harm the company.
And just so we are clear before incinerated swine shows up, I'm not predicting that it will bomb. I'm just discussing what Sony's reaction would be.
BladeoftheImmortal
Member
It has more to do with what people thought the outcome of the NPDs would be. they were thinking Wii 2nd with PS3 a distant 3rd. They got effed up the A, though.
I was able to retire off all the money Jack Tretton sent me for spotting PS3s in stores.
gamergirly
Member
Wow on sales all around. Guess we can look forward to this again next December
planar1280
Banned
The biggest mistake Sony did was revel in the success of PS2 sales which resulted in PS3 getting a lackluster start. MS knows this and will still bring out a console early because they want to start 1st even if its selling blockbusters of consoles
Randolph Freelander
Member
Yeah, I took all that money, plowed it into real estate, and look at me now. Should have gone with the mayonnaise jar in the backyard.
Hindsight.
airmangataosenai
Member
Pretty much. Didn't UC2 premiere at only around 350k first month? This game more than doubling that is a pretty significant leap.
timetokill
Banned
Good question. Here's what I think:
Nintendo tends to make one installment of a franchise per system. Sometimes two like in the case of Mario Galaxy, but as a general rule they like to stick to 1. This makes sense in a lot of ways -- Nintendo would much prefer to have an evergreen title that keeps selling years after release than spend resources making similar games year after year. And it helps avoid diluting the brand.
The question for Nintendo becomes: would users really want to buy another copy of Mario Kart for the Wii? Can they do anything to make the new Mario Kart so different that it demands a new purchase?
The answer (to Nintendo) is no. Sure, they could make it use Wii Motion+, but I think it's obvious that Wii Motion+ is not enough to offer an appreciably new experience for Mario Kart. But the Wii U is dramatically different and allows them to offer a brand new experience to the consumer. And not only that, it offers that opportunity for all of Nintendo's core franchises, and also allows them space to create new ones (like Wii _____ on the Wii).
Nintendo is really in the business of making new experiences that people will love, and then packaging them in familiar brands so that people will give them a try. A new platform allows that a lot more than retaining the current one.
AdventureRacing
Member
Well i didn't see pretty much anyone saying this before the 3DS launched. That plus i'm still not convinced that the price was the only or even the major problem. I still believe that if they had actually launched with some big software instead of basically nothing for months they would have sold fine.
krameriffic
Member
Also Batman came out about halfway through October, so this is some extended sales performance.
crimzonflame
Member
No the biggest mistake was $599.
Battlefield 3 posted some respectable second month numbers considering MW3 launched 2 weeks later.
I agree with your general sentiment.
Personally I don't even see why people give a shit about how much each console is selling other outside of caring about the console manufacturers profit margins. Wii was absolutely decimating 360 and the PS3 combined yet that didn't make too much of a difference in terms of what consoles got what games.
Ya, game sales matter a lot more. If a genre of games don't sell on a system, publishers stop releasing them for that system. Look at Gamecube last gen.
Battlefield 3 doing well above a million it's second month is more impressive to me.
Good. Nintendo needs to wake up
charlequin
Banned
Probably because everyone at Nintendo knew that the Eternal Blue Ocean was the Permanent Republican Majority of game-console market-leadership: a good sound bite based on seemingly solid demographic trends but ultimately vulnerable to the more complex realities of the market.
On a basic level, when you're a game company and you're trying to sell products to people who aren't gamers, you're in a fundamentally precarious position. Nintendo discovered (and MS are currently discovering) that ultra-casual, expanded-market audiences have none of the brand-loyalty or forward-momentum of traditional markets and they respond very poorly to iteration. The only way to keep ahead of that is to put out a constant stream of completely innovative genius-level software, and even Nintendo weren't actually capable of that.
Ultimately, Apple drank Nintendo's milkshake on the ultra-casual market -- they sell a product for a higher price, with a bigger profit margin, that they refresh much more often, to a much larger crowd, and then pocket the software profits off of someone else's efforts. Focusing more on identified "gamers" is just Nintendo going back to their core competencies and into the area that bigger, better-equipped competitors won't win over without even trying.
(And, I mean, yes, Nintendo should've kept more Wii software flowing, but this is an institutional difficulty everyone has on gaming platforms and it's a large part of the reason that most companies try to develop third-party support.)
Nope, they can't.
This is, of course, the actual reason that console generations started happening in the first place (not increasing graphical prowess) and it's another place where Nintendo can't really compete with the way that Apple can constantly refresh their platform by selling brand-new hardware on its own merits each year.
but the gamecube did horrible hardware wise
GAF NPDs are so weak now. I can't quite get it up anymore without the gifs
Memories: http://neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=334751&page=4
Memories: http://neogaf.net/forum/showthread.php?t=334751&page=4
Not that much worse than the Xbox in the US. Yet the Xbox retained most of its third party support, while the Gamecube stopped getting ports. Some of it was due to the limitations of Gamecubes media, but horrible sales in genres like sports didn't help.
BruceLeeRoy
Banned
9 Million...America Fu#@ Yeah!
Ah yes, it's that time again. I always know I should be in bed when I start seeing the "LOL Americans" jokes.