MrNyarlathotep said:Does it really?
Company A has been fairly clear that it doesn't expect their product to set the world afire saleswise out of the gate, and is considering it to be a slow burner / long tail type of deal.
Convsersely, someone else has been on a huge PR offensive as to how their new addon is going to outsell the most successful consumer electronics launch in recent memory and be the hottest thing since sliced electronic jesus.
Which company of those two would be embarassed more by public sales figures should they not live up to expectations?
I do not think Microsoft gives a shit. If Kinect bombs, it will be obvious.
If Kinect completely and totally bombs, we will see the third Xbox in 2012 instead of 2013/14.
I really think the major third party publishers have more to lose than the hardware vendors with these public NPD numbers, because the timeline for sales is shorter by an order of magnitude. There is just so much money to be made in DLC today, early/mid term unit sales are critical. When NPD drops and your game bombs, who is going to buy the DLC?