No problem i give sony rewards big props because it lets me earn psn credit for things no video game related,like sneakers and sony pictures movies, And even my xbox one brought from gamestop had a 5x multiplier last October... used everything i earned last year on blops3 and fallout 4 psn... it can add up to a lot and fast...
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NPD Sales Results for February 2016 [Up1: Fire Emblem]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
No problem i give sony rewards big props because it lets me earn psn credit for things no video game related,like sneakers and sony pictures movies, And even my xbox one brought from gamestop had a 5x multiplier last October... used everything i earned last year on blops3 and fallout 4 psn... it can add up to a lot and fast...
Uncharted 4 is going to do some good number WW.
Yeah U4 had lot of hype since the E3 2014 reveal (almost 2 years ago damn...).
meanspartan
Member
Gotta love how NBA 2k is sorta quietly perhaps the best selling game of the year lol. It starts out at #2 or #3, drops to the middle of the pack, and then stays there until the next year's game starts out at #2 or #3.
slavesnyder
Member
It really is a dark horse. Never prominently mentioned, no headlines, but always there somehow. I can imagine it makes nice, rock solid profit. On top, it's annual and consistent. Very delicious bread and butter.
The game is very popular and the NBA sports season is long so the game stays relevant for months unlike sports games like Madden.
Welfare
Member
Either the $100 Gamestop trade off incentive towards an XB1 is stealing massive sales from Amazon, or.. the XB1 is cratering hardcore.
QB is nowhere (relatively speaking), the system is falling fast in ranks... All in spite of the biggest 1H AAA exclusive coming to XB1 in 2 weeks and an advertised $50 price drop (which was already actually in effect since Feb) on the front gaming page of Amazon...
Wonder if Abdiel could possibly give us an update about the state of things for him?
April 2015 was when the Gamestop deal for $125 off happened, and that lasted 3 weeks. Then there was a Best Buy deal for $175 off in the final week of April. XB1 weekly sales average in April was only down 1% from March.
Over at Amazon, for the month of April, the highest XB1 sku was #42, second biggest #52. No other sku was in the Top 100.
As of this month on Amazon, the highest XB1 is #49. No other sku is in the Top 100 as of now.
Right now, the cheapest XB1 sku on Amazon is $292, and that's the 500GB Gears bundle. Over at Gamestop, you can get a 1TB XB1 with Division for $249 if you use the trade in.
Gamestop holds the majority of market share in the video game section, so if something big happens there, expect sales to have a good impact overall, and sales to be "taken away" from smaller video game sellers. If we look to Amazon positioning to determine who won a month, the PS4 was ahead of the XB1 on Amazon in April 2015, but lost the month overall because better deals were happening at the bigger businesses.
If you are buying an XB1 now, why not go to Gamestop? It is the cheapest option.
In April 2015, the highest PS4 SKU was at #41, exactly one place above the Xbox One SKU.
This month the highest PS4 SKU sits at #20 while the highest Xbox One sku is at #49. For Amazon, that's a much larger gap than April 2015.
Welfare
Member
We aren't discussing if the XB1 will outsell the PS4 this month. It's whether XB1 is seeing no positive effect on sales after the $50 price cut or if better deals at other company's are "taking away" Amazon sales.
Also, Amazon placing really doesn't make sense in hindsight, because in March 2015, the highest PS4 sku was #6. Should we expect the PS4 to be down YoY? No.
Fair enough. You mentioned that PS4 "but lost the month overall" so I had thought that was part of the point you were making.
I agree with you that when other retailers have big specials they affect Amazon sales rankings.
Either the $100 Gamestop trade off incentive towards an XB1 is stealing massive sales from Amazon, or.. the XB1 is cratering hardcore.
QB is nowhere (relatively speaking), the system is falling fast in ranks... All in spite of the biggest 1H AAA exclusive coming to XB1 in 2 weeks and an advertised $50 price drop (which was already actually in effect since Feb) on the front gaming page of Amazon...
Wonder if Abdiel could possibly give us an update about the state of things for him?
I honestly think all this talk of iterative hardware and PC releases might've damaged XB1s consumer confidence a lot more than I (or most) would've thought it would. There's almost no talk or excitement around the existing SKUs anymore. To put it bluntly it just feels like PS4 with the official announcement of PSVR and Nintendo with speculation around the NX are dominating consumer mindshare right now. It stands to reason that this would be reflected at least somewhat in sales
These are both really encouraging
I sincerely hope they both perform well. Would be nice to see games I'm really excited/enthusiastic about see some well deserved success.
Sony reward system works fine... I have about 10k points.
The only issue for me is that they block the checkout for people outside US... even my account being US I can't get my rewards.
Yep same here. Super frustrating. Especially for such a global brand.
Honestly it's clunky and counterintuitive. It's just or user friendly at all. Could stand to be better integrated into the store and be substantially less obtuse. Not really a great solution at the moment in my opinion.
Amazon monthly chart, March 2016
#50 Xbox one
#58 PlayStation VR
Amazon hourly chart
#2 PlayStation VR
#66 Xbox one
... PS VR > XB1 by end of this month?
That would be INSANE if it happens. I honesty doubted the market demand for a head mounted display unit but it seems like people are really buy into it so far. Will be interesting to see if this extends from the core users into the mass market as time goes on.
Welfare
Member
I will never understand this. No one except for us hardcore gamers gives a fuck about Quantum Break going to Windows 10. This extends to all Xbox One exclusives.
The average joe hears "Microsoft game goes to Microsoft OS, still available on Xbox One" and will crack a joke that MS are just now releasing games on their own OS. What average joe is going to go shopping for a PC to get the latest games when they can buy $300 plug and play machines and know from the start that the machine will run all games made for it?
That doesn't happen now when massive third party games release on PC, and it won't happen when MS starts to put their games on Windows 10.
I thought we learned this gen that exclusives actually don't matter. It's third party that rules.
Also iterative hardware has no effect on XB1 sales until MS say outright this E3 and start to advertise so everyone and their mother see's that they are actually doing this and will release this holiday.
Don't look to Amazon to determine if sales are bad, because right now you can get an XB1 for as low as $199 at Gamestop, and that lasts all the way to April 30th. Lowest on Amazon is $292. Shit, at Gamestop you can get the 1TB Division bundle for $249! Why would someone buy the XB1 at Amazon when Gamestop has insane deals like that?
Remember, Gamestop practically kept the XB1's weekly average steady in April 2015 from March 2015 (With a final push with a $175 off deal at BB, but that was for one week, unlike GS's 3 week deal).
This exact same argument was made about the XB1 reveal and how it was only the hardcore people that would know/care. I think mass market mindshare has become more and more responsive to new information thanks to the advent of things like twitter where news spreads rapidly. I agree that PC releases are likely to be less of a concern for the average consumer but the prospect of buying hardware that will soon become obsolete is not hence why I put that first.
There's also no doubt the gamestop deal will play a part in the sales on amazon but that doesnt change the mindshare domination that we see going on with PSVR and NX speculation. That much has been evident going by the mass media coverage alone where the small amount of coverage for MS and XB1 that does exist is seen as, for the most part, pretty negative for potential new XB1 owners.
Two completely different situations. One is about making it harder for a large group of people to play games, the other is simply about games being on another platform.
I don't see how the latter can negatively impact things considering that multiplatform games make up a large portion of the best selling games this gen. The Division (a multiplatform game) will more than likely be the biggest "console seller" game for March considering how well it did.
I can't see it hurting sales any more than "PS4.5" news hurting sales. If anything it would probably make more sense to say the "PS4.5" news is hurting sales considering there are more sites really going deep into it with more information. I doubt any ".5" news is really hurting sales though considering there's no official confirmation plus the majority of console gamers more than likely don't know about it.
If you are buying a console outside of the Holiday season, then you are more than likely doing it for a recently released game and/or deal. Not for the possibility of there being a better deal in the future (i.e.: during the Holiday season).
I don't get how NX speculation hurts any other console except for the Wii U considering how poorly the Wii U is already selling. How could there be "mindshare domination" about an Nintendo platform that will be a successor to one of the worst selling consoles of all time from a major gaming company?
PS VR is getting a lot of buzz thanks to it being a new device coming to console gaming. VR in itself gets a lot of "tech buzz" anyway. Since the device is being targeted to PS4 owners that are both old and new (instead of just the latter), I don't see why the possibility of it selling more than a console during a non-Holiday month should be that shocking. Heck, if I remember correctly, the Kinect sold over 2.5 Million during its launch month -- definitely a higher number than what the PS3 or 360 sold during the early months of their respective relevant years.
Third party games give buzz to the platforms that they are on. Most of the popular third party games are on Xbox and Playstation. While Quantum Break isn't being as hyped as previous current gen releases, the game is still getting buzz and it will increase as the weeks go by. While I agree that the Playstation brand gets more buzz (thanks to the brand being more popular overall/worldwide), Nintendo more than likely wishes it could get the same amount of buzz that the Xbox One is getting.
slavesnyder
Member
I am torn between your view and what Rex (welcome back) said.
Of course average joe doesn't know/care about all the little details we discuss about with fanatical motivation. Most couldn't even spell incremental.
But I still believe that many tiny pieces of information put together become a storie, and many stories put together become a momentum.
People don't know the details, but they smell the momentum. They talk to people who have more info, passively consume media and so on. Exclusives will not sell consoles alone, platform politics, VR capability, difference in power might not, but it adds up and fuels multipliers. And multipliers are very important in this social-mediatised world.
No wonder a media agency (without any knowledge by microsoft) tried to bribe Youtubers to get them talking nice about Xbox.
For example I had no clue about rice-cookers, but thanks to the trustworthy competence of NeoGaf experts I now know what's hot and what's not in the amasing world of rice-cookers.
Steverulez
Member
I think there is a big difference between policies that can significantly affect how you do things on your console (which have a big knock on effect) vs where games release. Im sure some consumers will be aware Microsoft are putting their games on Windows 10 but I don't really see why they would look at that and really care if they play on console.
All the big third-party games with the exception being pretty much only Madden and Destiny launch on PC... if you're a console gamer they will look at "is this game on Xbox One and PS4, or only on one of them" in which case i'd say being exclusive to Xbox One on consoles is probably just as useful as it ever was even with a PC version.
Iterative hardware is a different matter but so far it is all talk, E3 will more than likely give us the answers to that but MS havent been able to overcome the issues they had after the announcement in 2013 as much as they would have liked which I think is why new hardware along with a renewed vision and effort in some markets is more important than it would have been otherwise.
Also I don't think outside of Gaf and Reddit (internet forums) NX talk is really dominating anything after the WiiU, that is something consumers at large are unlikely to know about given how little everyone else knows. PSVR seems like something the loud internet crowd we are part of would talk a lot about too compared to the general market
Y'all are both breaking these things down as single concerns but that's not at all my point. My point is about the coverage as a whole. Mainly that the coverage in media has been increasingly dominated by other platforms and that the stories that do gain any semblance of traction for the device are more negatively skewed. My point was about mind share and its effect on consumer confidence. By and large XB1 seems to be getting less coverage leading to less mindshare and what little coverage they do get has leaned far more towards negative than positive recently which then also leads to a drop in consumer confidence.
Regardless of consumers knowledge of specific details the mass market is very good at reading and interpreting trends and, recently, those trends haven't been kind to the platform. It's basically been drowning in mostly negative sentiment and coverage. Consumers will notice both the decrease in coverage as well as a change in the general mood of coverage/conversation around the product. So yes I see that impacting sales of the product in question.
Im really not seeing what is so controversial or objectionable about my theory. No where have claimed it as fact. I'm just saying I think this is potentially playing a role and could lead to lower sales such as we've seen with the YoY decline both months thus far this year for XB1.
Oh man A+ for the rice cooker reference haha! Can always count on you for a good chuckle
Thanks for understanding what I meant. Guess my explanation wasn't clear enough. Oh and cheers for the welcome. Good to be back o(^▽^)o
The media coverage has been dominated mostly by multiplats which are on Xbox and Playstation so I still don't understand exactly where you are coming from in terms of "other platforms" (I may be missing the point though).
I don't see this; Xbox One coverage isn't getting "less and less" at all. It's getting its first major 2016 exclusive soon and the multiplats keep on coming.
Exactly what negative coverage though? That's what I'm asking. The "replacement console spotlight" is currently on the PS4 and the PC news isn't going cause a major impact on sales vs. if people thought the exclusives would stay Xbox console-only.
Again -- what decrease in media coverage? Decrease now in comparison to when? I'm not seeing it.
It's not that it's controversial -- it's more that many here don't know where you are coming from. The coverage the system has been getting hasn't really decreased in any way. It has a marketing deal with the best selling Ubisoft game (The Division) and it's getting one of the first major 2016 exclusives in a few weeks. I don't see that as a "decrease".
slavesnyder
Member
All this incremental stuff was a huge mistake to talk about. If I remember correctly, it was Spencer on MS's side and some 3rd party rumour on Sony's.
No matter if and when it happens, it results in rumours like: there will be a console update that plays games better.
Noone should be interested to have this kind of gossip about his product.
@Bgamer: Quantum Break and Division bundle are good news for XboxOne. The news for Ps4 are just bigger and more at the moment and for the upcoming weeks. But that's just my impression.
No matter if and when it happens, it results in rumours like: there will be a console update that plays games better.
Noone should be interested to have this kind of gossip about his product.
@Bgamer: Quantum Break and Division bundle are good news for XboxOne. The news for Ps4 are just bigger and more at the moment and for the upcoming weeks. But that's just my impression.
Welfare
Member
You are trying to connect dots that are on completely different planes of existence. NX news would only logically affect Wii U sales, as that is the next Nintendo product, and in NA, Nintendo is sorta not a player when it comes to mindshare. It's just MS and Sony.
PS4.5 news would also not hurt XB1 sales right now, it would be current PS4 sales. PSVR has nothing to do with XB1, and shouldn't even be considered when talking about affecting console sales because we know absolutely nothing about how the mass market will react to it. Assuming the worst is silly.
And YoY decline is easy to explain. It hasn't gotten a price drop in over a year. Less people are willing to buy XB1's at a minimum of $349, so less consoles are sold.
But I want to tackle this point.
Leaned negative to who? The people on message boards?
Is 2006 really 10 years ago? It seems like yesterday when everyone bitched about RROD, and guess what, 360 chugged along.
Why was the PS2 embarrassing the 360 and PS3 in 2006 and 2007? Why was it still selling 10's of millions post 2006 all the way to 2012? 360, PS3, and Wii had all the mindshare, so explain how that could possibly happen.
Speculation of next gen hardware does not affect current sales as much as you or others think. Millions were buying 360's and PS3's when rumors of Orbis and Durango started popping up, and continued to sell even after they were officially announced and released. Consumers do not care about the future, only the now.
I definitely agree, but I don't think it will hurt sales that much.
Oh no, the PS4 is definitely getting more buzz. I don't disagree with that at all. I just don't see how it's a change (or how the NX is eating into the Xbox One) -- things are basically the same for the Xbox One in "buzz" as they were for most of 2015, if not better since there are less 360/PS3 games.
slavesnyder
Member
À propos Quantum Break. Release is in about 10 days.
So to the ones living in NPD-land: how's marketing so far? What do we expect about the size of the campaign? Online only? TV or cinema ads?
Just want to know because I still haven't figured out in what league this title plays.
So to the ones living in NPD-land: how's marketing so far? What do we expect about the size of the campaign? Online only? TV or cinema ads?
Just want to know because I still haven't figured out in what league this title plays.
mejin
Member
Amazon monthly chart, March 2016
#50 Xbox one
#58 PlayStation VR
Amazon hourly chart
#2 PlayStation VR
#66 Xbox one
... PS VR > XB1 by end of this month?
Exclusives do matter in the end.
It's a Microsoft ip. No one knows.
CosmicQueso
Member
I don't get it either. A peripheral is bought by people with a console (millions).
A console's monthly sales being close and/or better would more than likely mean that the peripheral isn't gaining much interest.
So PSVR has little interest then. I don't see the connection here wouldn't that also mean overall X1 then has little interest.
A peripheral's sales are limited by the number of consoles sold. A consoles sales are limited by population or rather people who can afford a console. One of these is bigger than the other.
??? -- I don't understand what you are saying. I never said the PS VR has little interest.
My point is that the PS VR is directed towards the millions of people with a PS4 already. A console's sales during a non-Holiday month shouldn't compete with that. If it does/did then that would mean that the add-on/peripheral probably isn't creating much buzz.
The comparison makes as much sense as comparing the sales of a hyped game to the sales of a console within a certain month; This comparison would be a product for an existing user base vs. the number of new people being added to a user base within a month. It's a bit silly in my opinion.
slavesnyder
Member
Comparing PSVR to Xbox1 sales is weak.
The real fight is between the Xbox One Play and Charge Kit at #52 and the LEGO Dimensions DC Aquaman Fun Pack just one spot behind.
The real fight is between the Xbox One Play and Charge Kit at #52 and the LEGO Dimensions DC Aquaman Fun Pack just one spot behind.
mejin
Member
Sucess!
I do believe exclusives create value to a platform. But that's a diferent story.
SneakersSO
Member
I've seen enough marketing in Gamestop (most Gamestops have its poster as the walk-in sign) to know that MS is at least trying more-so than with some of their other properties. I haven't seen enough online to know if they've cranked up their online presence. They should tho - 10 days out from launch and no one is really talking about it. Review embargo is up this upcoming week, so that should give it a boost, especially if it reviews really well..
EdReedFan20
Member
I wonder, since next week is the end of the Fiscal Year, if Sony will give a PS4 cumulative sales update. I'm curious to see if it's close to 40 million.
DriftingSpirit
Member
I think they usually give a report by the end of the next month after the quarter (or in this case fiscal year as well) ends.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Ok, this one made me crack up, lol.
This month the media coverage has been largely dominated by VR (something that does not apply to the XB1 console) and iterative hardware speculation of which any PS4.5 coverage also highlights Phil Sopncers hints at a similar direction for Xbox. Personally I put a hell of a lot more weight in the vision statements of the head of the department than I do the vague hearsay reported via anonymous sources. But that's not really relevant to the point. The point is that the coverage recently has been dominated by the names of the competing platforms.
There are far less Xbox focused stories the past few months. The marketing deal with "The Division" received little to no coverage and aside from Games with Gold coverage there just hasn't been much of anything getting reported for the platform. The info push for Quantum Break seemed to fade really fast and was muted by stories covering it's simultaneous release on PC and potential low resolution on XB1. Then we had the whole kerfluffle about UWP that happened and had far more mass reaching media coverage than most games media these days. The coverage for MS has been increasingly focused on their plans in PC instead of their console platform which has led to what I've perceived as a drop off in XB1 coverage.
Quantum Break resolution and simultaneous PC release. Articles quoting Phil Spencer talking about hardware upgrades which has, in most of the market, seen a negative reaction thus far (this applies to PS4.5 as well). The UWP coverage that actually spread far beyond gaming enthusiast media. The stories regarding poor performance in backwards compatible games. The articles about significantly lower performance in multiplat games (see Dark Souls 3). The articles about poor performance and technical issues with Xbox games in Win 10. It's basically been a torrent of bad news for MS lately with a brief respite thanks to their brilliantly handled cross platform play announcement coverage.
Compare the coverage the other platforms are seeing currently thanks to PSVR, PS4.5 and NX to the coverage XB1 is seeing. It's share of coverage in media is at, as far as I can tell, an all time low. When the stories about your competition are dominating the coverage at large that's a problem.
Look at the coverage and advertising that marketing deal received though. It was almost non existent. The game itself was advertised heavily and successfully but as far as marketing deals go it didn't seem to get much in the way of brand affiliation for XB1 apart from the one off stories covering the 30 day DLC Windows. At least not from the coverage I've seen. Division coverage has been entirely focused on the game itself with little to no traction given to the marketing deal. Compare the brand affiliation in advertising and coverage for The Division with what we saw with Destiny and it's a night and day difference so I'm really not seeing how this marketing deal has been a boon for the platform.
Again this is about trends in coverage not about the specific stories that have seen coverage. PS4 and NX are seeing a massive share of the current media coverage and much of what little coverage MS is seeing isn't painting a positive picture. You're focusing on the impact of specific stories on sales whereas I'm looking at coverage trends and saying those trends could impact sales. I feel like there is a fundamental misunderstanding of my point and I'm sorry if I'm not explaining it properly.
It's leaned negative to the people who read these stories. The same people who prospective buyers often turn to as experts or advisors prior to purchase. The sane people who have proliferated the performance gap as a primary sales driving force. The same people that spread the word about DRM concerns prior to XB1s release. No none of these stories have been remotely as damaging as the DRM bit they certainly have seen a lot of negativity and that adds up to negative sentiment with core users which then leads to drops in consumer confidence.
Pricing alone makes PSVR more comparable to a platform than a random AAA game or pretty much any other peripheral device. Regardless my statements about it being "insane" were more in response to my doubts about PSVR's market appeal than they were about the sales of XB1. I still have a hard time beleiving a head mounted device is going to resonate with consumers thus current trends to the contrary are surprising to me.
Welfare
Member
PS4 is getting a surge in media coverage? What, the rumor of an upgrade/"next gen" console? Why is this seen as negative news for Xbox when it should be for PS, since you said yourself,
Can't have it one way and not the other.
Also, NX is nothing. Literally, the only talk was on 2 "leaks" of the controller. Just because GAF freaked out about it doesn't mean that everyone noticed it.
Honestly, the current news for everyone should be seen as negative. "Oh god, my PS4 could be inferior to another product this year!" "Oh no, MS is thinking of making an upgraded Xbox!" "Oh no, the NX controller looks so sh... oh wait it's fake. Oh yeah, Wii U will be dead this year."
Just because MS is seeing "less" coverage does mean it is negative, and just because there is a bump (barely) in coverage for the competition, that doesn't mean it is good coverage.
Also when have these trends ever impacted sales?
Power has never ever ever determined where consumers go. PS4 being #1 and the most powerful this gen is a coincidence.
Also, what would these "experts" tell potentials buyers about Xbox news? "Hey, Xbox games are starting to go to Windows 10." Average joe doesn't care about that. "Hey, MS is planning on making a suped Xbox One." Alright, that might affect something, but all it would do is either prolong a potential XB1 purchaser into getting a XB1.5, or them not caring and getting an XB1 anyway.
The "core gamer" making a fucking stink about recent news for Xbox still is lost on me. This news isn't bad, but unfortunately is being spun as negative for some reason.
Microsoft and Sony both have data pointing otherwise. The fact that the PS4 is 50% more powerful was definitely a factor in 2013.
Welfare
Member
Where and what is this data? The Wii automatically destroys that. So does the PS2 winning by a huge ass landslide in the 6th gen.
At the time of PS2 launch it bested Dreamcast and was most powerful. Xbox came last and cut the lifespan short.
The Playstation brand's worldwide popularity, Xbox One's DRM policies before launch, and its initial price played a far greater role than power. I definitely believe that the PS4 would still be in the top spot if the specs of both consoles were switched.
I think last gen backs this up pretty well -- PS3 caught up to the 360 in overall sales even though it had the worse multiplats and launched a year later at a more expensive price.
_______________________________
Majority of PS2's sales were after 2001. The system's game library and DVD features played a far greater role than its power vs. the other systems of its respective gen.
gundamkyoukai
Member
When the PS2 came out it was the most powerful system .
Hell a huge part of the marketing was about how powerful it was .
Which is something that help kill DC before PS2 even came out .
Yes most of it sales were later on but it being the most powerful help early on to make it become the system to get .
Definitely -- the leap that gen vs. the previous gen was huge. I just feel that both brand's positions during the gen before that played a far greater role. PS2 was coming right off of the huge success of the PS1. Sega wasn't in the same position. Its lack of third party support from some companies also hurt it.
Welfare
Member
Amazon is not going to be an accurate representation of how well the XB1 is doing for the next month while Gamestop is having the $100 trade in deal.
DriftingSpirit
Member
It is still odd to see it sinking down that far.
Oh, and I think R&C will outdo QB in NPD. I guess that is my "wild" prediction for what Rex started.
Oh, and I think R&C will outdo QB in NPD. I guess that is my "wild" prediction for what Rex started.
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
Whoa!? As much as i would love that(love r&c) thats not happening
ethomaz
Banned
While I don't believe r&c will sell more than QB... I believe QB will do bad in NPD like TR did.
DriftingSpirit
Member
You got to go big or go home! That is what I'm doing. So long as R&C performs well, I don't really care if it isn't able to outperform QB.
Blackleg-sanji1
Banned
Yea i dont see it doing much either. Dark soul's will likely lead april i assume?