• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

September 2014 NPD (U.S. Hardware) Predictions - Closes October 14th

K

Kayant

Member
I guess we will get full MS PR this month after being in limbo for 5m+ now iirc. Wonder what the spin will be this time?Should be interesting looking follow to results.
 
W

wotta

Member
When we expecting this. Looking forward to the fall out when Xbox One wins the month (if that happens of course)
 
JohnnyFootball

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Abdiel said:
I scratched my head at his predictions. The free games promotion helped push the sales a bit, but as I said, it didn't overcome the ps4 at all. Not really close, either. We saw a pronounced difference in favor of Sony. The white model, and then the following word of mouth from people getting others to play with them, was pretty impressive.

The Xbox promotion just helped keep their pace a bit more consistent, more aggressive. Destiny was selling better for ps4, even standalone, but that didn't mean that the XB1 was sucking. It did really well, just... Not nearly as well as the ps4.
Click to expand...

Is this all but confirmation that the PS4 won again?
 
F

FonkyByNature

Member
I expect the PS4 to come out on top, easily.

Xbox One should have great sales but nothing like PS4, Destiny and that white bundle sure sold a lot judging from my circle of friends.

But nonetheless, it should be a very entertaining, if not legendary, NPD tonight !!!
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Question:

Very roughly, how good of an indication are Amazon's charts for software?

I ask because, while I understand that Driveclub has been buried by the mostly broken online and negative reviews, even Forza Horizon 2 is sitting at a very unimpressive sales rank for October :(

Forza's September: #71

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2014-09/videogames#4

Forza and Driveclub's October: #88 and #87

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2014-10/videogames#5


Where are the legs? Is this something to take as evidence (given that the rank is so low -- I understand that the ranks are always weak signals, but once a brand new release sinks into the 80's, is it safe to draw some inference?)


Thanks!
 
C

Cess007

Member
JohnnyFootball said:
That was my thought, yet people seem to keep this thread going.
Click to expand...

Well, this threads always (or as far as i can remember) keep going until we have the NPD thread. Then everyone jump to that one, and this one is left behind.

I, for one, can't wait to see this month sales :)
 
M

Mrbob

Member
hawk2025 said:
Question:

Very roughly, how good of an indication are Amazon's charts for software?

I ask because, while I understand that Driveclub has been buried by the mostly broken online and negative reviews, even Forza Horizon 2 is sitting at a very unimpressive sales rank for October :(

Forza's September: #71

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2014-09/videogames#4

Forza and Driveclub's October: #88 and #87

http://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2014-10/videogames#5


Where are the legs? Is this something to take as evidence (given that the rank is so low -- I understand that the ranks are always weak signals, but once a brand new release sinks into the 80's, is it safe to draw some inference?)


Thanks!
Click to expand...

Racing games outside of Mario Kart aren't big sellers anymore. Neither game is lighting up the charts.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Mrbob said:
Racing games outside of Mario Kart aren't big sellers anymore. Neither game is lighting up the charts.
Click to expand...


Right, but doesn't it seem lower than usual even for racers?

Forza 5 did respectably more, if I recall correctly, and Horizon 2's reveal came with great timing and great reviews, along with a healthy dose of anticipation. Perhaps I'm letting the GAF effect overemphasize the effect of the game, though. Unless the Amazon/market split is significantly different, the market seems to have received these games with a collective shrug.


Edit: I also wonder, then, if adding F2P-style 2x money multipliers and season passes to these games is the best idea. Are sales weak because of the business model, or is the business model this way because it's capitalizing on a small but more dedicated customer base?
 
B

BumRush

Member
hawk2025 said:
Question:

Very roughly, how good of an indication are Amazon's charts for software?


Thanks!
Click to expand...

Supposedly, Amazon only makes up 5% of video game sales with Gamestop and Walmart being the much larger players (although this may be more for consoles, not software)
 
J

JABEE

Member
Aquamarine said:
Probably (due to the relative weakness of other systems), but not on its own merits.

We've had many other instances in the past where the release of a huge game didn't really move the needle hardware-wise when it came out for a very-established system.

The 3DS is on its way out...it's reaching saturation point, at least until the New 3DS makes its way onto the shelves.

That's why I didn't predict much of a hardware bump from Smash.
Click to expand...

Is the new 3DS really going to be the next Nintendo handheld? I thought it was a one-off like the DSi.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
BumRush said:
Supposedly, Amazon only makes up 5% of video game sales with Gamestop and Walmart being the much larger players (although this may be more for consoles, not software)
Click to expand...



That doesn't mean much. A 5% sample can be way more than enough for proper inference, if the sample is representative. The question is how representative the sample is, then, rather than how large it is relative to the market.
 
RowdyReverb

RowdyReverb

Member
hawk2025 said:
That doesn't mean much. A 5% sample can be way more than enough for proper inference, if the sample is representative. The question is how representative the sample is, then, rather than how large it is relative to the market.
Click to expand...

This is true. Amazon's numbers are reflective of a market which does shopping online. I'm not sure whether or not trends are similar between that market and people who do their shopping B&M. I'm sure they are broadly similar, like if a game is #1 on Amazon, it's probably selling well elsewhere, but when we're talking about ranking game sales I think it might lose some accuracy.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
RowdyReverb said:
This is true. Amazon's numbers are reflective of a market which does shopping online. I'm not sure whether or not trends are similar between that market and people who do their shopping B&M.
Click to expand...



At some point I would love to scrape the rankings data for every Amazon month from the past few years, get the top 10 rankings from NPD (I believe that's all we get officially, right?) and actually have some true evidence of how well the rankings correlate to the real NPD data, once we remove things like the PSN and Xbox Live cards.

Could be interesting to actually have some statistical basis for the comparisons we make using Amazon data.
 
A

Aquamarine

Member
RowdyReverb said:
This is true. Amazon's numbers are reflective of a market which does shopping online. I'm not sure whether or not trends are similar between that market and people who do their shopping B&M. I'm sure they are broadly similar, like if a game is #1 on Amazon, it's probably selling well elsewhere, but when we're talking about ranking game sales I think it might lose some accuracy.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

For example, a niche game that sells well on Amazon (where there is plenty of stock + the niche fanbase loves to shop online) might do much worse at a Big Box retailer like Wal-Mart or GameStop.
 
H

hawk2025

Member
Aquamarine said:
Yeah.

For example, a niche game that sells well on Amazon (where there is plenty of stock + the niche fanbase loves to shop online) might do much worse at a Big Box retailer like Wal-Mart or GameStop.
Click to expand...



Which is something we can control for, having the full set of ranking data. We can use propensity score matching methods to scrape out particular niches from the rankings, and have a neat little model that has a better fit than just dumping all of Amazon's ranking data and trying to draw inference from that directly.

Clearly there's valuable information being revealed by Amazon every month -- the question is how to properly adjust the sample so we don't all say silly things based on it :p
 
H

Hugstable

Banned
IAmRandom31 said:
If he is right I will sign off the internet and only come back when I need help from Gamefaqs

Hell I dont even expect it to be close. Like, 150-200K difference type not even close.
Click to expand...

Why does it even matter? Why do people need reassurance like this? If you enjoy the console you enjoy it, who cares who sells better you already bought it.
 
T

teiresias

Member
hawk2025 said:
It's early still.

Am I the only one way more interested in the software sales?

I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) learning the Destiny splits and just how good Horizon 2's start was.
Click to expand...

Will you even be able to properly tell a Destiny split if a large amount of PS4 Destiny was through the bundle? I don't think bundles are counted in the software chart right?
 
H

hawk2025

Member
teiresias said:
Will you even be able to properly tell a Destiny split if a large amount of PS4 Destiny was through the bundle? I don't think bundles are counted in the software chart right?
Click to expand...


Sometimes we get numbers on the bundles as well, so if that happens this month we can just add them up :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Famitsu Sales: 10/3/22 – 10/9/22 | NieR: Automata for Switch opens at 30,218 retail sales (and consoles a bit ehh)
Sales-Age
18
2K
Rykan replied
Famitsu Sales: 9/26/22 – 10/2/22
Sales-Age
25
2K
Captain Toad replied
Cyberpunk 2077 2.0: Phantom Liberty | PC/Console Performance|Screenshots
10 11 12 13 14
673
52K
Gaiff replied
Famitsu Sales: 1/30/23 – 2/5/23 | PlayStation 5 sells 93,026 units.
2
89
5K
kazuyamishima replied
Famitsu Sales: 12/12/22 – 12/18/22 | Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion opens at 156,530 retail copies sold.
Sales-Age 2
56
5K
jroc74 replied
Top Bottom