Overall:
October retail game sales are up 6% year over year.
Hardware was down 20% year over year.
Console and Handheld game sales were up 31% year over year.
Physical and Steam PC software sales were up 172% year over year.
Software:
** Does not include EA Origin sales on PC.
Hardware:
XB1: #1 Console
Notes:
- - “Unit sales for the Xbox One brand of hardware grew by 8 percent compared to last October,” said Naji. “Average pricing for the Xbox One hardware fell by 17 percent due primarily to the release of the lower-priced 500GB Xbox One S Minecraft Bundle.”
- “The 3DS experienced its fifth straight month of year-on-year growth,” said Naji. “Both unit sales and consumer spending for October grew 12 percent as average pricing was flat year on year. It is likely that continued consumer interest in the Pokémon franchise and Monster Hunter: Generations has driven this growth.”
- “The PS4 Slim 500 GB Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End bundle was the month’s best-selling hardware across the category, accounting for 17 percent of total hardware units sold in the month,” said Naji. [Note: As an individual SKU. Xbox Ones sold more overall, but split between more bundles.]
Other Info:
We now have an NPD analyst who posts on GAF:
October retail game sales are up 6% year over year.
Hardware was down 20% year over year.
Console and Handheld game sales were up 31% year over year.
Physical and Steam PC software sales were up 172% year over year.
Software:
- Battlefield 1 **
- Mafia III
- Gears of War 4 *
- FIFA 17
- NBA 2K17
- The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim *
- WWE 2K17
- Civilization VI
- Titanfall 2 **
- Madden NFL 17
** Does not include EA Origin sales on PC.
Hardware:
XB1: #1 Console
Notes:
- - “Unit sales for the Xbox One brand of hardware grew by 8 percent compared to last October,” said Naji. “Average pricing for the Xbox One hardware fell by 17 percent due primarily to the release of the lower-priced 500GB Xbox One S Minecraft Bundle.”
- “The 3DS experienced its fifth straight month of year-on-year growth,” said Naji. “Both unit sales and consumer spending for October grew 12 percent as average pricing was flat year on year. It is likely that continued consumer interest in the Pokémon franchise and Monster Hunter: Generations has driven this growth.”
- “The PS4 Slim 500 GB Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End bundle was the month’s best-selling hardware across the category, accounting for 17 percent of total hardware units sold in the month,” said Naji. [Note: As an individual SKU. Xbox Ones sold more overall, but split between more bundles.]
Other Info:
We now have an NPD analyst who posts on GAF:
So yeah, great month for software overall. Battlefield 1 setting a new bar. The lower pricing for Xbox One was not promotionally driven but rather bundle mix driven, and the lower priced Minecraft bundle should continue to do very well through the remainder of Q4. 3DS' recent strength is continuing, likely to get even better in November. Solid month overall.
Those digital shares are inching up now. The 30% number Mr. Jorgensen [EA's CFO] put out there still a good baseline, but we're now seeing titles come in even stronger digitally.
Play early, digital bundles are all working very well. Raising digital shares and average pricing compared to physical. You're going to see much more of these tactics in the future.
Well keep in mind [Titanfall 2] only had a couple days in market. Not really apples:apples to the rest of the market.
I've looked at 24 months of sales (actual or projected) correlated to gameranking.com score on an individual platform basis (to remove discrepancies due to platform mix) a number of times over the years.
The last time I looked at this I did see a slight drop in the correlation. Ballpark, around 28-35% or so of the variability of sales between games released on the same platform can be explained by changes in quality score, depending on genre, etc. This is down a couple points from when I looked at it back in 2012. Not a huge drop, it's slight, but yeah.
From the math I've done, I see review scores being slightly less predictive on forecast ultimate sales of a title than they used to be.
Quality/Sales correlation is one of the things I've always been very interested in.
M rated RPGs show the most quality:sales correlation, btw. It's very high.
Family games, not surprisingly, are the lowest.
[Original Xbox One] bundles were not a primary driver of performance or pricing in October.