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NPD Sales Results for February 2016 [Up1: Fire Emblem]

What have the last few R&C games done sales wise?

I'm not expecting the new one to do big numbers but that's not really based on anything and I'm not really familiar with the series recent sales history.
 

Welfare

Member
What have the last few R&C games done sales wise?

I'm not expecting the new one to do big numbers but that's not really based on anything and I'm not really familiar with the series recent sales history.

Crack in Time did ~100k back in October 09.

Every game since then has been what some might say, a "bomb", at least in the launch NPD.
 
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 don't think many people get how much a console purchase can be a sort of "spur of the moment" thing for the average joe. Like, not totally because of the price, but the average joe is still pretty unsure what they want when they leave the house. Gamestop word-of-mouth and deals are a huge part of which way they go with Sony and MS because those two consoles are really similar. Certainly w.r.t. the games that most people play, which are all 3rd party. It's literally a matter of them going into the store with at-most an idea of what their friends have and asking the clerk, "How much do I need to pay to play CoD/Destiny/AC this year?" and getting an answer that depends on the current sales.
 
Just checked the PS2 titles, and it looks like Up Your Arsenal did over 2m in the US LTD. Don't know what 1 and Going Commando did.
Yeah, R&C was fairly big before. It wasn't until the more recent titles did things start to fall off. Hopefully, this one will be a return to form.
 

T-0800

Member
Yeah, R&C was fairly big before. It wasn't until the more recent titles did things start to fall off. Hopefully, this one will be a return to form.

I doubt it. Franchise fatigue for lack of a better term perhaps. I have the PS3 games and PS2 games and enjoyed them but I have no interest in a new one. That may change though.

I hope for IG sake that it is a big success.
 

RexNovis

Banned
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.

That is indeed a bold prediction! :D
Thanks for carrying it on. We should probably do them along with our predictions in the prediction thread though.

That reminds me I should probably dig my predictions up and go through them to see which ones were right.
 

Javin98

Banned
Amazon US hourly chart, 2:03 am in Italy.

#17 PS4
#70 XB1

JESUS.
So, I know Amazon is not the best indication for sales this month due to the offers in other retailers, but does anyone still think that the XB1 will win March?

P.S. Unless my memory is failing me and no one thought that in the first place. :p
 
Sometimes the simpliest answers are best.


Xbox is slowing down because the previous hoildays deals have brought more people into the ecosystem faster than they were initially planning.

If you like Microsofts exclusives and want a next gen platform, outside of plain not being able to afford it, why would you not have one?

It already has 2 Halo titles, it has Gears, it has 3 forza titles, It has new IPs, it has BC, Its cheap, it has multiple coluors etc.

The PS4s success is much more loosely tied to Playstation as a brand.

The things the Xbox one has sold on are things that are very distinctly Microsoft.

Not to mention Microsoft has spent the last 2 years teaching its fanbase that only the hoilday season matters. These are the consquences of that.
 

Welfare

Member
So, I know Amazon is not the best indication for sales this month due to the offers in other retailers, but does anyone still think that the XB1 will win March?

P.S. Unless my memory is failing me and no one thought that in the first place. :p

April is the maybe. Xbox won't win March.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Found my predictions! Lets take a look

Let's start a new SalesGAF tradition! I think we SalesGAF regulars should submit 3 or more bold predictions in order to hopefully spark some discussion and debate. I think it will help liven up these pre season sales threads and foster some good sales discussions in the process.

Here I'll start us off

RexNovis' Bold Predictions Feb 2016:


1. Digimon Stories Cyber Sleuth will chart.
In a just world it would anyway... Let me dream!

This one was unfortunately wrong but the game did sell relatively well so... all is not lost!


2. SFV will sell 300k or more

*Sigh* Wrong again. This one really hurts. Hopefully it will defy the odds and go on to sell well following the promised support.


3. One Fire Emblem Fates SKU will rank and will rank higher than SFV (T_T) which will also rank

Wrong! One Fire Emblem SKU did rank but it failed to outrank SFV which is fairly surprising given how poorly the latter performed.


4. Far Cry Primal will sell the most on XB1 in NPD

Wrong again. Primal appears to have sold better on PS4 albeit I'd wager by a smaller margin than the HW gap would imply thanks to it being in a genre and franchise that has historically done well on Xbox.


5. PS4 will outsell XB1 by at least 150k.

Correct. PS4 managed to outsell XB1 by a whopping 157k units in February. This was actually one of the predictions I was most worried about. I thought 150k was really high balling it.


6. PS4 will sell more than 7x the number of WiiUs sold.

Wrong. WiiU actually performed a lot better than I anticipated in February. Even still PS4 managed to sell almost 6x the number of units as the WiiU this month.


7. GTAV will rank #3 or higher on the software chart

Nailed it. GTAV ranked in at #3 this month proving once again that it is an absolute sales monster.


8. Seige will rank in at 8 or higher and continue to sell the most on XB1

Wrong again. Siege was not ranked in February NPD which given the low sales bar kinda surprises me to be honest. Find myself wondering how close it was.


9. Minecraft will sell more than Fire Emblem

Correct. Minecraft was exactly one rank higher than Fire Emblem in February NPD. It was actually much closer than I thought it would be.


So it looks like I'm sitting at 4 out of 9 with my bold predictions. Not exactly the best batting average but hey it wouldnt be fun if it wasnt risky!
 

Melchiah

Member
I don't think many people get how much a console purchase can be a sort of "spur of the moment" thing for the average joe. Like, not totally because of the price, but the average joe is still pretty unsure what they want when they leave the house. Gamestop word-of-mouth and deals are a huge part of which way they go with Sony and MS because those two consoles are really similar. Certainly w.r.t. the games that most people play, which are all 3rd party. It's literally a matter of them going into the store with at-most an idea of what their friends have and asking the clerk, "How much do I need to pay to play CoD/Destiny/AC this year?" and getting an answer that depends on the current sales.

I can personally agree with that. I had been out of gaming for five years back in 1998, and was about to buy a VCR for my birthday, but ended up buying a PS1 with RE1 in a spur of the moment. One the best decisions I've ever made.
 

RexNovis

Banned
I think there will be a quite split between PS4 and Xbone version. Maybe like MGS V.

I'd imagine the unintentional 3 week early digital release will heavily skew XB1 towards digital Dark Souls 3 sales instead of retail. Since digital will not be counted by NPD yea I'd say it's likely to be a very large retail split in favor of PS4.
 

Conduit

Banned
I'd imagine the unintentional 3 week early digital release will heavily skew XB1 towards digital Dark Souls 3 sales instead of retail. Since digital will not be counted by NPD yea I'd say it's likely to be a very large retail split in favor of PS4.

Isn't PS4 version also released unintentionaly?
 

Rymuth

Member
I'd imagine the unintentional 3 week early digital release will heavily skew XB1 towards digital Dark Souls 3 sales instead of retail. Since digital will not be counted by NPD yea I'd say it's likely to be a very large retail split in favor of PS4.
I'm surprised MS didn't jump on this chance and called it 'timed exclusivity' or something.
 
The X1 GoW bundle is out of stock. I wonder if it has been out of stock the majority of this time. That would definitely explain the big drop.

That is indeed a bold prediction! :D
Thanks for carrying it on. We should probably do them along with our predictions in the prediction thread though.

That reminds me I should probably dig my predictions up and go through them to see which ones were right.
Yeah, I'm just a little antsy. :p
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
One thing to take a slight consideration about R&C, it is retailing for only $40. That will help a bit, and the new trailer got over 1 million views very quickly on YouTube. I think people are itching for a nice welcoming change in genres after being so loaded with Action/RPG's/FPS games.
 
One thing to take a slight consideration about R&C, it is retailing for only $40. That will help a bit, and the new trailer got over 1 million views very quickly on YouTube. I think people are itching for a nice welcoming change in genres after being so loaded with Action/RPG's/FPS games.
Yeah, the story trailer is sitting at 2.2M after 4 days. I think there is pent up demand for this and it will do surprisingly well. I think the focus on kids for the movie will add to the demand as well.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Isn't PS4 version also released unintentionaly?

Only the Japanese language version is available via PSN. The XB1 store version is actually able to be converted to English version of the game. English support is definitely a big deal. It's not likely that most looking to buy souls would be willing to play in Japanese.

I'm surprised MS didn't jump on this chance and called it 'timed exclusivity' or something.

What they did is not address it at all and allow the exploit to continue. If they acknowledged it they would have had to address it or risk pissing off Bandai Namco even more than they likely already have.


I mean the quoted part was surprise due to the much lower than anticipated (for me personally) SFV sales. Fates sold really well and had I known the ballpark for the SFV sales prior I would've definitely put my money on Fates outranking it.
 

Shin-chan

Member
Only the Japanese language version is available via PSN. The XB1 store version is actually able to be converted to English version of the game. English support is definitely a big deal. It's not likely that most looking to buy souls would be willing to play in Japanese.



What they did is not address it at all and allow the exploit to continue. If they acknowledged it they would have had to address it or rush pudding of Bandai Namco even more than they likely already have.



I mean the quoted part was surprise due to the much lower than anticipated SFV sales. Gates sold really well and had I known the ballpark for the SFV sakes prior I would've definitely put my lonely on Fates outranking it.

As soon as the exploit was discovered I knew we'd be seeing these rationalisations for low Xbox sales of Dark Souls 3. What was the split for previous entries on MS hardware? (DS, DS2 and SotFS). I think it's going to be low anyway. Japanese game, big Playstation fanbase with prior exclusive this gen. The impact of this digital release will be next to negligible I think.
 

RexNovis

Banned
One thing to take a slight consideration about R&C, it is retailing for only $40. That will help a bit, and the new trailer got over 1 million views very quickly on YouTube. I think people are itching for a nice welcoming change in genres after being so loaded with Action/RPG's/FPS games.

Yeah, the story trailer is sitting at 2.2M after 4 days. I think there is pent up demand for this and it will do surprisingly well. I think the focus on kids for the movie will add to the demand as well.

That's fantastic news! Also hoping the movie is able to give sales a nice little boost as well. It would be great to see Rachet and Clank become an active franchise again. Really looking forward to playing the new game when it releases.
 
Yeah, the split was always going to be big between PS4 and X1 retail. I think the digital situation would just be accentuating what was going to naturally occur.
 

RexNovis

Banned
As soon as the exploit was discovered I knew we'd be seeing these rationalisations for low Xbox sales of Dark Souls 3. What was the split for previous entries on MS hardware? (DS, DS2 and SotFS). I think it's going to be low anyway. Japanese game, big Playstation fanbase with prior exclusive this gen. The impact of this digital release will be next to negligible I think.

Uhh rationalizations? If by that you mean rationally concluding the exploit will lead to more digital sales than would have existed otherwise I guess I'm guilty as charged. Nobody was saying it was going to outsell the PS4 version it's just the exploit will make the split that much more in favor of PS4 at retail. There is absolutely nothing unreasonable or illogical about that. In fact, if anything were to be irrational I'd say it would be to deny the exploit impact the results.
 

Shin-chan

Member
Uhh rationalizations? If by that you mean rationally concluding the exploit will lead to more digital sales than would have existed otherwise I guess I'm guilty as charged. Nobody was saying it was going to outsell the PS4 version it's just the exploit will make the split that much more in favor of PS4 at retail. There is absolutely nothing unreasonable or illogical about that. In fact, if anything were to be irrational I'd say it would be to deny the exploit impact the results.

I'm not pointing at you specifically, even though I quoted you. I just think when the X1 version does poorly vs the PS4 SKU at retail we will see lots of "I guess Xbox users bought digitally in March instead of waiting!" when I think the actual amount of lost sales this will cause will be insubstantial.

That's why I'm curious of previous ratios, so we can gauge what is normal for the series.
 

RexNovis

Banned
I'm not pointing at you specifically, even though I quoted you. I just think when the X1 version does poorly vs the PS4 SKU at retail we will see lots of "I guess Xbox users bought digitally in March instead of waiting!" when I think the actual amount of lost sales this will cause will be insubstantial.

That's why I'm curious of previous ratios, so we can gauge what is normal for the series.

I think it's just as bad to assume the impact will be "insubstantial." Rest assured there will be an impact. Think about it this way: If I am already planning to buy the game for XB1 would I rather wait 3 whole weeks while the Internet plays and dissects the game or would I just buy the early released version via the exploit? Pretty much the only people who would not buy digital are those who are either unaware (which is pretty unlikely given how quickly and ubiquitously information on the exploit spread) or people who insist on buying physical discs which with the increasing the digital adoption rate is a clearly a dwindling segment of the core gamer demographic.

Hell there are likely people who weren't planning to buy the game on XB1 at all that used the exploit just so they could play the game earlier in English. Especially when we are talking about a series like Dark Souls that resonates very well with the enthusiast gaming demographic.

So yea I'd say proclaiming the impact to be insubstantial is just as absurd as the people that would imply the XB1 sales would've led over PS4 if not for the exploit.
 

Shin-chan

Member
I think it's just as bad to assume the impact will be "insubstantial." Rest assured there will be an impact. Think about it this way: If I am already planning to buy the game for XB1 would I rather wait 3 whole weeks while the Internet plays and dissects the game or would I just buy the early released version via the exploit? Pretty much the only people who would not buy digital are those who are either unaware (which is pretty unlikely given how quickly and ubiquitously information on the exploit spread) or people who insist on buying physical discs which with the increasing the digital adoption rate is a clearly a dwindling segment of the core gamer demographic.

Hell there are likely people who weren't planning to buy the game on XB1 at all that used the exploit just so they could play the game earlier in English. Especially when we are talking about a series like Dark Souls that resonates very well with the enthusiast gaming demographic.

So yea I'd say proclaiming the impact to be insubstantial is just as absurd as the people implying the XB1 sales would've led over PS4 if not for the exploit.

I can see your point, but I think the exploit is a lot less ubiquitous than you do. For example I don't think region swapping is a much used feature even ordinarily, but that's just my speculation (if it was MS would face the same issues Steam has with gifting). Either way it's not like we will ever find out who is correct, so I don't want to get into an argument about it.

Also for the record I don't think anyone (sane at least) will try to argue that the sales would surpass the PS4 SKU but for the digital exploit. I just mean that I think it will be an excuse if the split is vastly in favour of Playstation.
 

Ryng_tolu

Banned
I mean the quoted part was surprise due to the much lower than anticipated (for me personally) SFV sales. Fates sold really well and had I known the ballpark for the SFV sales prior I would've definitely put my money on Fates outranking it.

But i mean, we talk about only one of the 3 Fire Emblem SKUs... Lot of guys thought was CRAZY expect Fates all version combined to outsell Street Fighter, and now we call surprised Street Fighter outsold one SKU... i believe this really expain how well Fates did.

Also, another important part is how well conquest and the special edition sold.

In Japan if i remember correctly birthright outsold conquest by almost 1.5:1, me and like me many guys expect something like this, but in the end the gap was very small.

129,000 VS 139,000.
 

Unknown?

Member
XB1 is down to 88 on the monthly chart! It has never dropped that low before, I've only seen it in the 50's before. Maybe this is because Amazon isn't the only one selling it at $299 anymore? Amazon's price had been $299 or $292 like a month or more before the spring sale, maybe people would just rather pick one up elsewhere at price parity?
 

Welfare

Member
XB1 is down to 88 on the monthly chart! It has never dropped that low before, I've only seen it in the 50's before. Maybe this is because Amazon isn't the only one selling it at $299 anymore? Amazon's price had been $299 or $292 like a month or more before the spring sale, maybe people would just rather pick one up elsewhere at price parity?

At Gamestop, there is a trade in deal where if you give them a 360 or PS3 slim, you get $100 towards an Xbox One. That means you can get a 500GB model for $199 or a 1TB model for $249.

No one is going to buy an Xbox One at Amazon for a while, since the trade in deal lasts until the April 24th.
 

Unknown?

Member
At Gamestop, there is a trade in deal where if you give them a 360 or PS3 slim, you get $100 towards an Xbox One. That means you can get a 500GB model for $199 or a 1TB model for $249.

No one is going to buy an Xbox One at Amazon for a while, since the trade in deal lasts until the April 24th.

That makes a lot of sense actually and I guess most other retailers will see a drop then as well.
 

ethomaz

Banned
At Gamestop, there is a trade in deal where if you give them a 360 or PS3 slim, you get $100 towards an Xbox One. That means you can get a 500GB model for $199 or a 1TB model for $249.

No one is going to buy an Xbox One at Amazon for a while, since the trade in deal lasts until the April 24th.
While that is true I don't believe Xbone will be up yoy... the opposite it will have a big drop compared with last year.

PS4 will be up again.

My prediction will be fun again when the thread get up.
 
XB1 is down to 88 on the monthly chart! It has never dropped that low before, I've only seen it in the 50's before. Maybe this is because Amazon isn't the only one selling it at $299 anymore? Amazon's price had been $299 or $292 like a month or more before the spring sale, maybe people would just rather pick one up elsewhere at price parity?
The GoW bundle is also out of stock. The Gamestop situation wouldn't cause the Amazon bundle to plummet like that. There have been deals before that have not impacted Amazon to that extent.
 

Welfare

Member
While that is true I don't believe Xbone will be up yoy... the opposite it will have a big drop compared with last year.

PS4 will be up again.

My prediction will be fun again when the thread get up.

Why would XB1 have a big drop from last year? Essentially a $150 price drop for 2 weeks in March, with the Division launch, and it would be down from March 2015?

That's... insane.

The GoW bundle is also out of stock. The Gamestop situation wouldn't cause the Amazon bundle to plummet like that. There have been deals before that have not impacted Amazon to that extent.

Other bundles would've taken over. It looks like the Name Your Game bundle will be doing that, but right now it is only #99 in the hourly chart.
 

ethomaz

Banned
Why would XB1 have a big drop from last year? Essentially a $150 price drop for 2 weeks in March, with the Division launch, and it would be down from March 2015?

That's... insane.
The same trade in deal happened last year in March.

You could get Xbone for $175 with the best trade in deal.
 

Welfare

Member
The same trade in deal happened last year in March.

You could get Xbone for $175 with the best trade in deal.

That was in April, not March, and that $175 deal was done at Best Buy for one week. Gamestop had a $125 deal that was 3 weeks in April.
 

ethomaz

Banned
That was in April, not March, and that $175 deal was done at Best Buy for one week. Gamestop had a $125 deal that was 3 weeks in April.
Ohhhhh it has the chance to be flat but I still go with down in my prediction.

April will be down without trade deal.
 
Hey so I need some help.

I'm really having a hard time understanding if something is just some kind of meme or if people actually believe it.

So, looking at all the PS4K threads, the line that Sony is trying to get ahead in order to compete with the NX is everywhere.

Is this something people actually think or is it just one big in-joke?
 
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