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NPD Sales Results for July 2014 [Up1: 3DS LTDs, Wii U LTDs, Tomodachi]

Hmm, I'm actually kind of curious why the first parties haven't at least attempted annualisation to try an emulate AC and COD style success. Is it just internal resources are insufficient, is it a fear of franchise depreciation due to overexposure.

I'd say MS is definitely trying with Halo, and they're there with Forza already.

But in terms of Sony... how could they unless they massively restructure every studio? Practically every Sony studio has their own internal studio culture, ( ND's studio structure isn't cut across all Sony studios ), and all of them run their own in-house engines.

Even with significant technology sharing, it's clear that WWS are isolated from one another in terms of 'we do our own stuff, you do your own stuff.'

It'll probably do more harm than good. I could see it being worked in some fashion ( Bend as ND's franchise farm or Cambridge as GG's franchise farm ), but as a massive network of studios working on annual franchises? Super risky.
 

StormKing

Member
Imru’ al-Qays;125622266 said:
The Wii was completely sui generis. We can't just compare seventh generation to eighth generation and declare the market has shrunk. Add sixth generation to the mix and the situation becomes clearer, IMO.

The sixth generation represents the pre-Wii norm: core gamers and a shrinking "Nintendo core." The seventh generation represents the pre-Wii norm with an anomalous influx of non-gamers who then disappeared because really it didn't make sense for them to be buying dedicated gaming computers in the first place. The eighth generation is back to the pre-Wii norm, either larger or smaller than it was during the sixth generation (at the moment it seems larger).

So I take issue with the idea that the PS4 is selling well "for the current climate of the industry." The industry is fine (at least in terms of sales, obviously not in terms of development costs). That's why the PS4 is selling well. The disappearance of the Wii's audience doesn't mean the market has shrunk because the Wii's audience was basically a separate market all along.

The eighth generation to me looks a lot healthier than the seventh was at this stage in the cycle: the PS4 and Xbone have both sold extremely well by historical standards (helped along by lack of supply constraints, of course, but I'm not sure that's enough to explain away their performance). The Nintendo core that began shrinking with the N64 is almost gone, as someone would have predicted looking at the state of the market in the sixth generation - it's almost like the Wii never happened.

The PS4 seems to be selling worse than both the PS2 and Wii in NA and Japan at this point in its life. The majority of Sony's sales seem to be in Europe + ROTW. Since we primarily get reports of numbers in Japan and NA, it does give the appearance that the console market has shrunk in these areas.
 
This doesn't makes sense and never will. The Wii wasn't some magical outsider to the industry as some would like to pretend. It did pick up an expanded audience, but the core was mixed in there too.

What do you think happened to the millions of "core" gamers that Accounted for over ten million worth of sales for games like Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros or the players of the 20 -30 million copies of New Super Mario Bros or Mario Kart Wii?

My guess is that after 7+ years they probably picked up other platforms too and are still part of the gaming ecosystem in some way or another.

Of course the Wii wasn't all non-gamers. It was some combination of the Nintendo core, non-gamers, and probably a few core gamers who bought the system because it was cheap in order to supplement their HD twin. It was the non-gamers who made it into a sales success, though, as opposed to a step on Nintendo's downward march into irrelevance.

I think a lot of the sales for games like NSMB and Mario Kart Wii were in fact from the same non-gamer audience who bought the Wii to play Wii Sports etc.

The PS4 seems to be selling worse than both the PS2 and Wii in NA and Japan at this point in its life. The majority of Sony's sales seem to be in Europe + ROTW. Since we primarily get reports of numbers in Japan and NA, it does give the appearance that the console market has shrunk in these areas.

The console market has shrunk drastically in Japan. I'm not sure the market has shrunk in NA, though - it's just that Microsoft has taken over a larger share of the market here than in Europe/rotw. PS4+Xbone+Wii U is still way ahead of PS2+Xbox+GameCube because the Xbone is actually selling quite well for a not-first-place console.
 

Reallink

Member
What the educated guess on Xbone's WW total at this point? Obviously we know PS4 is 10 million, but I have no idea at all where Xbone stands--5 million, 8 million? What about Wii U? I know some of you guys got charts tabulated on these.
 

Verendus

Banned
What the educated guess on Xbone's WW total at this point? Obviously we know PS4 is 10 million, but I have no idea at all where Xbone stands--5 million, 8 million? What about Wii U? I know some of you guys got charts tabulated on these.
Top of my head, they had 3 million at the end of 2013, and they've done about a million in NPD until now. I don't think they're going to be selling more in the rest of the world. I'd say about 5 million, probably less.

Wii U died.
 

jnWake

Member
I was looking at c***z (I know, but I was a bit bored) and it put W101 above 100K in USA. That's probably fake though, right? It'd be kind of amusing if it managed to reach 100K.
 
Top of my head, they had 3 million at the end of 2013, and they've done about a million in NPD until now. I don't think they're going to be selling more in the rest of the world. I'd say about 5 million, probably less.

Wii U died.

actually it's more like 1.23 million this year so far

I was looking at c***z (I know, but I was a bit bored) and it put W101 above 100K in USA. That's probably fake though, right? It'd be kind of amusing if it managed to reach 100K.

if it includes the Mario Kart 8 promotion, then probably, otherwise I doubt it
but more importantly why are you going there even if you are bored, there are better things to do
 

StormKing

Member
I was looking at c***z (I know, but I was a bit bored) and it put W101 above 100K in USA. That's probably fake though, right? It'd be kind of amusing if it managed to reach 100K.

It got boosted up the charts in Amazon after Mario Kart 8 launched. I guess it is possible.
 
What the educated guess on Xbone's WW total at this point? Obviously we know PS4 is 10 million, but I have no idea at all where Xbone stands--5 million, 8 million? What about Wii U? I know some of you guys got charts tabulated on these.

I don't really feel comfortable qualifying it as an educated guess as that almost seems a step too far

But if we look at the only sold through to consumer WW numbers we have for the XB1

3M WW as of Dec. 31st, 2013

And try to determine a US|WW Sales ratio baseline for XB1 from that

XB1 US 2013 YTD = 1.817M

Thus XB1 US|WW Ratio as of Dec. 31st, 2013 was ~60.6% [1.817/3]

XB1's US 2014 YTD through August 2nd = 1.230M

Thus 1.23/(.606) = 2.031

XB1 WW 2014 YTD ~ 2.031M

Thus XB1 WW LTD ~ 5.031M

It's not going to be that accurate I would imagine but it's one approach I suppose
 

Bgamer90

Banned
I don't really feel comfortable qualifying it as an educated guess as that almost seems a step too far

But if we look at the only sold through to consumer WW numbers we have for the XB1

3M WW as of Dec. 31st, 2013

And try to determine a US|WW Sales ratio baseline for XB1 from that

XB1 US 2013 YTD = 1.817M

Thus XB1 US|WW Ratio as of Dec. 31st, 2013 was ~60.6% [1.817/3]

XB1's US 2014 YTD through August 2nd = 1.230M

Thus 1.23/(.606) = 2.031

XB1 WW 2014 YTD ~ 2.031M

Thus XB1 WW LTD ~ 5.031M

It's not going to be that accurate I would imagine but it's one approach I suppose

Good way of making a prediction I guess. I was also going to say a little bit over 5 Million.
 
This doesn't makes sense and never will. The Wii wasn't some magical outsider to the industry as some would like to pretend. It did pick up an expanded audience, but the core was mixed in there too.

What do you think happened to the millions of "core" gamers that Accounted for over ten million worth of sales for games like Mario Galaxy and Smash Bros or the players of the 20 -30 million copies of New Super Mario Bros or Mario Kart Wii?

My guess is that after 7+ years they probably picked up other platforms too and are still part of the gaming ecosystem in some way or another.

Of course there were plenty of core gamers on the Wii. The question is, how many? And the follow-up question would be, did many/most of them move on to another same-gen system?

And, of course, there were millions of casual gamers who owned a Wii and didn't move on to another console...but the same is true of every market leading system since the 2600. Were there more of them on the Wii? Its reputation says there were, but again, how many?

In any case, there's little doubt that, when looking at simple unit sales over the course of each generation, the Wii is an anomaly that's distorting the estimation of total industry size. But we'll never know how much of a distortion. Any multi-console purchase distorts an industry size estimation based on unit sales. If Wii owners moved on to another console as you suspect, that's another distortion, and another question: was multi-console ownership higher last gen than other gens? I suspect it was, both due to the Wii's early collapse and the length of the generation.

Oh, by the way, the NSMB and Mario Kart Wii customers have likely, by and large, moved on to phones and tablets, or moved on from games entirely. The sales figures of those games guarantee that most customers were not core gamers. They were parents/children and bandwagoners. Don't confuse those games' customers as a whole with core gamers just because those games are also core favorites. There's plenty of room for crossover. The same is true of Call of Duty, Madden/FIFA and other large franchises.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
No 3DS # =(.


Btw Harker, out of curiosity did Black Ops 2 Wii U or Ghosts Wii U sell more? And did either (or both) clear 100K LTD US?
 

Square2015

Member
Alright guys you are in for a treat. I extended this graph for the full second year into the next Christmas, so we now are comparing 2014 with 1998, 2003, and 2008 (and 1993). So now we can see Nintendo's performance in their second full year.
It's alotta work getting those best seller titles lined up properly.
H9ahcYL.png

*click to enlarge
 
I don't really feel comfortable qualifying it as an educated guess as that almost seems a step too far

But if we look at the only sold through to consumer WW numbers we have for the XB1

3M WW as of Dec. 31st, 2013

And try to determine a US|WW Sales ratio baseline for XB1 from that

XB1 US 2013 YTD = 1.817M

Thus XB1 US|WW Ratio as of Dec. 31st, 2013 was ~60.6% [1.817/3]

XB1's US 2014 YTD through August 2nd = 1.230M

Thus 1.23/(.606) = 2.031

XB1 WW 2014 YTD ~ 2.031M

Thus XB1 WW LTD ~ 5.031M

It's not going to be that accurate I would imagine but it's one approach I suppose

I think given what little data we have on Europe, it's likely the WW ratio has risen in favor of US. I don't think it's as low as it was during launch time (60ish). Something like 65 is more likely, maybe even 70. I don't think it's hit 5 million yet (very much doubt it) but it's a good way of estimating.
 
Alright guys you are in for a treat. I extended this graph for the full second year into the next Christmas, so we now are comparing 2014 with 1998, 2003, and 2008 (and 1993). So now we can see Nintendo's performance in their second full year.
It's alotta work getting those best seller titles lined up properly lol
H9ahcYL.png

*click to enlarge

I don't understand the best seller titles. What makes a title qualify? It seems you are only putting first-party titles for Wii U, and yet other systems get third-party titles. Why isn't Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 (Yes, it will likely not do amazing, but it should do good enough to be on the Wii U list) on there for Wii U?
 

Square2015

Member
I don't understand the best seller titles. What makes a title qualify? It seems you are only putting first-party titles for Wii U, and yet other systems get third-party titles. Why isn't Lego City Undercover and Bayonetta 2 (Yes, it will likely not do amazing, but it should do good enough to be on the Wii U list) on there for Wii U?

For the most part it's titles that debuted strong, aka 100k or more whether first or third party, and in the top sales for the month. There are a few exceptions for highly anticipated first party that didn't debut so strongly ie. F-Zero GX, MG: toadstool tour but were considered significant enough releases to generate interest in the console. WiiU has struggled to have many charting hits.
 
I think given what little data we have on Europe, it's likely the WW ratio has risen in favor of US. I don't think it's as low as it was during launch time (60ish). Something like 65 is more likely, maybe even 70. I don't think it's hit 5 million yet (very much doubt it) but it's a good way of estimating.

Hmm I've had this conversation before and while I actually conceded at that time that something like an uptick to 65% was likely the german results funny enough suggest it probably hasn't changed in that direction too much

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=866924&highlight=

In the US XB1 sold 1817k in 2013 YTD, 1099k in 2014 YTD through June

In Germany XB1 sold 100k in 2013 YTD, 70k in 2014 YTD through June

In the US, 2013 YTD represented 62.3% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 37.7%

In Germany, 2013 YTD represented ~59% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 41.2%

Thus that suggests some ROTW countries actually sold better for XB1 in 2014 compared to the US sale ratio in the same time, doubly interesting because Germany is where XB1 has pretty much cratered
 
more characters in Timedogggggggggggggggggggg g gggg g ggg g g g ggggg ggggg ggggggg ggggggggg ggggggggg than NPD Wii U sales this month in thousands #pointlesscomparisons
 
Still no TLoU RM numbers? I've always been impressed with Gafs ability to get close to an actual number. The Titanfall calculations were phenomenal.
Seems like the trail has gone cold.
Creamsugar gave us >100k, but there has been no other number put foreward. Only an analyst who claims that it was 50k below his expectations (what number that was, who knows)

TLoU would be over 200k, as cs said both Minecrafts were 100k+ each, and TLoU was 1 and Minecraft at 2 in the software chart.
 
Hmm I've had this conversation before and while I actually conceded at that time that something like an uptick to 65% was likely the german results funny enough suggest it probably hasn't changed in that direction too much

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=866924&highlight=

In the US XB1 sold 1817k in 2013 YTD, 1099k in 2014 YTD through June

In Germany XB1 sold 100k in 2013 YTD, 70k in 2014 YTD through June

In the US, 2013 YTD represented 62.3% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 37.7%

In Germany, 2013 YTD represented ~59% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 41.2%

Thus that suggests some ROTW countries actually sold better for XB1 in 2014 compared to the US sale ratio in the same time, doubly interesting because Germany is where XB1 has pretty much cratered

Ah I see, well that's certainly interesting. So 5 million give or take a couple hundred k is probably the best guess.
 
For the most part it's titles that debuted strong, aka 100k or more whether first or third party, and in the top sales for the month. There are a few exceptions for highly anticipated first party that didn't debut so strongly ie. F-Zero GX, MG: toadstool tour but were considered significant enough releases to generate interest in the console. WiiU has struggled to have many charting hits.

Lego City Undercover debuted over 100k, but didn't chart. Do they have to chart to get on your chart?
 
Hmm I've had this conversation before and while I actually conceded at that time that something like an uptick to 65% was likely the german results funny enough suggest it probably hasn't changed in that direction too much

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=866924&highlight=

In the US XB1 sold 1817k in 2013 YTD, 1099k in 2014 YTD through June

In Germany XB1 sold 100k in 2013 YTD, 70k in 2014 YTD through June

In the US, 2013 YTD represented 62.3% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 37.7%

In Germany, 2013 YTD represented ~59% of XB1's LTD, 2014 YTD through June represented 41.2%

Thus that suggests some ROTW countries actually sold better for XB1 in 2014 compared to the US sale ratio in the same time, doubly interesting because Germany is where XB1 has pretty much cratered

IT wouldn't surprise me that rotw was doing better than us in the first half of the year. Some really good deals with retailer price cuts and bundles as well as ps4 supply being sketchy for longer.
 

GamerJM

Banned
I'm pretty late but here's my thoughts on this month:

-Xbox One did better this month than I expected. Perhaps the Kinect drop will have a somewhat lasting effect? The numbers still aren't great but eh.
-PS4 doing sub-200k has me worried. Not about the PS4 (though the gap between it and the Xbox One is surprising considering it had a clear software advantage this month with TLOU Remastered), I expect PS4>Xbox One>Wii U to remain consistent every month this gen except for maybe some outlier months and when new hardware gets introduced. Just about the industry in general. It's been said time and time again but it's clear that the launches were very front-loaded this time around, and the fact that the console that's the market leader by a substantial amount did sub-200k in any month is worrying. Though I know July is not known for good numbers, just looking at July sales figures from early seventh gen has me worried.
-Wii U did about as I expected. The console is still a lost cause in terms of sales, though I admire the fact that Nintendo is still supporting the console with a decent amount of software. I think that if anything they're doing a good job at retaining their current fanbase. Hopefully they'll make a comeback during ninth gen, but yeah the Wii U is dead.
-The lack of numbers we currently have is saddening. I guess the NPD Ninja threats are real.
 

donny2112

Member
I've been told Smash Bros launching this month and selling 2.7 Million copies had no effect on system sells...

March-2008 - Wii sold what it shipped
April-2008 - Wii sold what it shipped
May-2008 - Wii sold what it shipped

Why the difference in sales? Nintendo shipped more to support a big launch. They did the same thing in Japan when DS was sold out for over a year. They'd ship more on a week of a big game, but they were still sold out all the time. If Smash had not come out, would it have sold the same amount with the same amount shipped? All signs point to "yes."
 

tuna_love

Banned
I don't necessarily think it's in Sony's best interests to try and produce yearly titles like the major third party publishers do. Sony is trying to push hardware sales by having a diverse lineup. Third parties provide some level of diversity, but many of them are rather conservative with the AAA approach.

Sony receives revenue from third party royalties, PS+, and media from the Playstation store, so in order to be a successful platform they don't need their first parties to be hugely profitable with massive teams that churn out safe multi-million sellers.

Their studios are much smaller in comparison, take longer to develop their titles, but also tend to (in my view) be of higher quality when they do release, and provide something different from what the third parties offer. In this respect, their games are differentiators that attract people to the platform.

That being said, having a Naughty Dog game release every two years that goes on to sell 5+ million seems to be the ideal sales target and schedule cycle for their bigger first party studios. Not all of them will be able to achieve it, due to being smaller studios, but they should aim to emulate their success on a smaller level with studios like Sucker Punch and Guerrilla Games.
They got that baseball game don't they?
 

Game Guru

Member
They got that baseball game don't they?

Yeah, and if MLB: The Show didn't exist, there wouldn't be a MLB game because 2K Sports killed other third-party MLB games with their exclusive license, and then killed their own MLB series. Sports games have been parred down to Sony's Baseball game, 2K's Basketball game, Konami's Soccer game, and what's left of the EA Sports library.
 

ZSaberLink

Media Create Maven
Hey Aqua, any chance you have the US LTDs of the top 5-10 games on GC? Also, did Zelda: WW on GC hit 5m Worldwide originally? Just wondering.

Out of curiosity, did Wii Sports Club even hit 4 digits of sales here? I doubt it hit 5... Just curious...
 
Of course it will be Nintendo's worse performing console ever. We're just talking about whether it can end up ahead of Vita, though, so that's not relevant. Speaking of Smash, there is a 1-2 month impact in 2014 for Smash. Smash will be out for all of 2015. Nintendo games make their impact in the long run better than most other games out there. Would also expect Nintendo to drop the price next year and maybe even all the way to $200. Zelda may be in decline (is it even?), but it's still Zelda.

Sony's abandoned Vita. Indies aren't going to resurrect it any more than they will resurrect Wii U. Its future isn't bright outside of PSTV taking off. There is reason to expect Wii U improvement, though. Improvement =/= Good sales. Again, we're just talking about whether it'll end up above Vita or not. In the big picture, it doesn't matter, though, as Wii U and Vita are both still failures in terms of sales. Which one ends up dead last isn't really an important distinction. I think Wii U will end up above Vita (unless PSTV etc.). You think Vita will end up above Wii U. Both will be at the bottom by a large distance.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Late reply gooo

Sony's efforts with Vita have always been kinda shit after launch. But it has been still beating Wii U despite 2D & 3D Mario even. Why? Because Vita has sliightly more games than Wii U in form of 3rd party Indie games. I think people have been under estimating 3rd party importance. Its literally the ony thing keeping Vita ... as a zombie?

Eeeeh it doesnt matter. We just have to see which will fail more, Wii U or Vita. Who knows what will happen in 3 years? :p

...I want some justice to both Wii U & Vita, so sometimes I wonder, what if XB1 fails in same manner? I mean XB1 is toxified in RotW. There is no hope there. And even USA has been toxified. What if XB1 gets 20m in USA LTD + 5m RotW? That would be 25m which would be actually close to 15-20m that Vita + Wii U does.
 

OuterLimits

Member
Not very good numbers really. Sub 200k for a leading console is concerning. Hopefully they do well during the holidays. If sales are lackluster during Nov and Dec, then things will be much more alarming. The market may continue to get smaller as more young kids are often content playing games on a tablet or phone. Kids and teenagers need to replace the adults that stop playing consoles(or games entirely). Of course I plan on gaming most of my life, but obviously many gamers eventually "outgrow" the hobby.

The hardcore console gamer rushed out and bought the new systems early. The previous generation lasted so long, this really isn't surprising.

We really need the casuals to eventually jump on board. Certainly some will, but how many will be satisfied with mobiles or even something like FireTV, which would be a cheap way to play games and enjoy other features?

Sales for PS3 and 360 are falling off the cliff. Games are still coming to those systems and they both have great libraries but sales are terrible. Perhaps they need to lower the price more or are they close to saturation?

My apologies for this long post and my ramblings. Hopefully my fears are unfounded and this generation has fantastic sales.
 
I think Shadow Fall and Second Son will both end up being the best selling entries in their franchises. I agree in regards to the IP getting bigger being questionable simply because these games came where they did because it would benefit them most (and because they'd realistically be the ones ready on time). I don't think another Killzone is going to do better than Shadow Fall for example. I'm quite confident it probably wouldn't.

It doesn't matter that much anyway since pretty much every studio is getting a shot at a new property. So we're back to the beginning in a way with the chance of some games hitting it big, some maybe not. The real problem now is delays everywhere. Some of these games may be hurt by that, others may not. Probably the main game that benefits from its historic delay is The Last Guardian. That's going to do a hell of a lot better than it would have on the PS3.

Think of it like this, Naughty Dog, Polyphony, SSM and even Ready At Dawn have all had setbacks. TLG is doing fine right now. Most of SCEJA is really. That's one positive for you.


I'm gonna have to refer to my Square Enix gifted handbook on this one Amir0x. None of the options presented seem to fit though.

But give it time. Yakuza PS4 will happen.

Its nice to hear TLG development is doing fine.......maybe one day I will see that beloved game.
 

SMOK3Y

Generous Member
PS4 has a 2.7 software attach, while XBox has 3.2,
PS4 has around 670000 units or so higher software sold.

I wouldn't go by the attach rate unless these are DD aswell as I will never buy a disc for my PS4 unless I have to. (also only used your post for figures)
 

ascii42

Member
TLoU would be over 200k, as cs said both Minecrafts were 100k+ each, and TLoU was 1 and Minecraft at 2 in the software chart.
Since TLOU combines the sales of both the PS3 and PS4 versions, it is possible that Remastered sold less than 200k, depending on the sales of the PS3 version.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Since TLOU combines the sales of both the PS3 and PS4 versions, it is possible that Remastered sold less than 200k, depending on the sales of the PS3 version.
Possible if we don't consider what was actually posted in this thread.

The answer of how much the remastered version sold was ~270.
 
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