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NPD July 2011 Sales Results [Update 4: Wii And PS3 Hardware, 3DS/DS Relatives]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
JoshuaJSlone
Member
Of this year's 7 months, Wii was solidly ahead 4 times, essentially tied once (barely ahead), and solidly behind 2 times.DrForester said:
test_account said:
Most weren't even ending at 250 (Seem to remember 230-240 range). There was an occasional outlier at a little more. When you factor in the ebay/paypal/sales tax (if not bought online) and I don't see how a single person broke even on it. That's ignoring the very real threat somebody screws you over with a chargeback and you have to eat the 250.
test_account
XP-39C²
Thanks for the info1-D_FTW said:
That got to suck a bit, especially for those who bought multiply 3DS units.OldJadedGamer
Banned
kame-sennin said:
I think to the average consumer they just fade into all the other games on the shelves. I called a game store in the Midwest the other day asking for inFamous 2 and the guy seriously said "for what system?" to which I just hung up since I wasn't going to deal with someone who works at a gamestore too dumb to know about what first party game is on what system but shows that if this guy is clueless and he works there then how uninformed is the average consumer?
I think that only two first party games stand out on 360 and that is Halo because it was such a stand out on the original Xbox and Gears of War since to most people this was the first true "next gen" experience they had. Gran Turismo has the same effect on PS3. Other than that, for both the PS3 and 360 I think most don't care about first party exclusives and they just get lost in the shuffle. Also, the fact that MS has pulled most funding for them and first party games didn't help the N64 against the PSX at a time when Sony was the weakest in first party output and Nintendo was the strongest.
I stand by my thinking that first party output only matters at the beginning of the generation and this far in, the sequels to first party games are only selling to existing customers and not new potential buyers which is what NPD are reporting.
Syphon Filter
Member
OldJadedGamer said:
Good points but i think sequels to relevant first party titles can sell to new people. I used to think like you do until someone said a good point about sequels. something like Halo Reach which came out last year moved some consoles,not as much as Halo 3 but it was noticeable. Basically what this person said was kids from 3-4 years ago are older now and will want these popular titles. Watch when Halo 4 releases.
specialguy
Banned
kame-sennin said:
I dont think it's necessarily that the market doesn't want those PS3 exclusives, though I do believe Sony doesn't have two franchises with as much pull as Gears and Halo (Uncharted is obviously their biggest and maybe ranks third), too me it's sort of obvious that exclusives just dont have as much meaning and hype in the real world as they do on message boards. And that third party multiplatform games are king.
Uncharted 3 and Gears 3 will be big this fall, but not nearly as big as Skyrim, Rage, Madden, AC Revelations, Battlefield 3, and of course the biggest of them all MW3, when looked at collectively. IMO you can say the same about almost any slice of time you look at as far as multiplatform>exclusives. Even Halo has lost all dominance in it's field to Call of Duty.
test_account
XP-39C²
I think that Uncharted 3 and Gears 3 will be bigger than Rage, and perhaps Skyrim as well. Just wanted to say thatspecialguy said:
I just hope Sony never goes the route of MS and cuts back on their first party output. The PS3's exclusives are what has made the system so great to me this gen. I cannot wait to play the Last Guardian, though it'll probably tank at retail compared to the dudebro blockbusters.
Revolver said:
I feel the same way. I generally don't care if the PS3 ever sells more, but I am afraid that if Sony's sales are too bad, we could get a situation where they stop creating the really unique disc-based games.
While MS wins on innovation on the exclusive downloadable games, I don't think anyone can really honestly argue that MS is anywhere close to Sony as far as full disc-based games.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
My comedy hurts puritanical sensibilities.BroHuffman said:
Leon S. Kennedy
Member
see5harp said:
The wii one controlled better for whatever reason. Move should be better in movement controls, but maybe it was a quick and dirty port.
Four_Chamber
Member
I can't believe how the 360 continues to churn along without a major release in a while. The holidays are going to be interesting. Either way, the folks in Redmond must feel good.
I agree that they would lose money if they sold at 99$ but I don't think they currently lose money or break even at 199$. The technology in the 360 was conceived in 2003. That's almost 10 years ago. Pure guessing from my part, but I think they make a healthy profit on each system.StevieP said:
Regarding the Wii, how in the world did they sell so low last month? Wasn't there a price cut? I remember when Nintendo could sell millions by simply changing the colour of their hardware. The times they are a-changin.
ThisWreckage said:
The obvious explanation is that Sony has already lost so much money on the PS3 that postponing profits even further may mean the PS3 isn't consistently profitable ever in its entire lifetime.
However, I think Sony has shown fairly consistently that they're willing to continue losing money to keep the PS3 afloat. One of the advantages of being one of the world's largest media conglomerates is that you can funnel revenue from other markets to continue pushing a product even in the face of enormous losses; Sony must consider the Playstation 3 a particularly important product for their future.
As someone who owns neither console I'm glad to see that the big exclusives don't seem to be generating enough "pull" to put the system ahead. I would like to see a situation where Sony concludes that making games multi-platform is more profitable than making them exclusive.Revolver said:
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Raonak said:
Care to elaborate?
Cygnus X-1
Member
Amir0x said:
That's why I really hope Vita and 3DS will not fail. iOS games are driving videogaming quality to helldepths.
AranhaHunter
Banned
amdnv said:
So, in other words, you want them to go 3rd party.
Cygnus X-1 said:
How do overpriced games like Steel Diver fit in?
How about free flash games, why do people pay for stuff like that on ipods when much of it can be had for free?
Not to mention that boat loads of people still pay for quality on consoles at $60.
Tiny Wings cost a dollar, that's about what it's worth and it's quality.
If it was on the PSP or something chances are it would be overpriced, more than likely severely.
Games of any scope can make money, be they Doodle Jump or Skyrim, it's just a matter of pricing them, right.
Sounds to me like you are drinking Iwata's kool aid, blaming smart phone gaming for the industries woes.
Syphon Filter
Member
You're insane,Gears 3 will outsell skyrim on pc.Atomski said:
1st party games don't have to be exclusive. I just don't like the whole concept. There are a few exclusive games I'd like to play, but I won't buy a console for them.AranhaHunter said:
The only reason why exclusive games exist is because they are a way of luring people into buying a certain system. The effort of porting a game to other platforms is minimal compared to the additional revenue it brings in (for a bit more effort you triple your sales).
walking fiend
Member
I think both Skyrim and Gears will sell alot, and definitely both will sell A LOT more than Rage. Rage should have been out at most last year, this year is too packed with very high profile games to let games such as Rage and Deus Ex sell much, at least they won't on consoles.
OldJadedGamer said:
By "Sony was the weakest in first party output and Nintendo was the strongest", I assume you mean that Nintendo games were the main sellers on the N64, the main reason to get the system, and some (mostly Mario and Zelda) did very well compared to the best-selling games on the Playstation. Which is true I suppose.
However, if you mean that "quality and in this case I obviously mean consumer appeal and sales potential was at its highest at the time for Nintendo", then I have to disagree. It's so easy for people to be amazed at Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64, both being extremely well produced games and arguably among the most advanced 3D games (control/gameplay-wise) on home consoles, see the sales numbers, and go "well, Nintendo games couldn't possibly have been the reason why the N64 sold poorly." But games always, ALWAYS are the (main) reason. It's not just that the N64 didn't get enough games (see the Wii and its success despite the scarcity of good 3rd party games on it), it's that it didn't have the right games, and that the brands it had (e.g. Zelda, Mario) weren't leveraged properly. Super Mario 3D will never have Super Mario Bros.'s appeal. Zelda has been basically stagnating ever since Nintendo stuck to the OoT formula. And most aggravatingly, the 3DS currently was speculated to perform well once the remakes of SF64 and OoT would hit. It didn't, just like Super Mario 64 DS never helped the DS. Just like Twilight Princess and Super Mario Galaxy didn't create or reinforce the Wii phenomenon. Just like Super Mario Sunshine and Wind Waker did nothing for the Gamecube. Oh and Mario Kart? Well, Double Dash's innovations were so well-liked that it's the least-selling game in the series and Nintendo cut that gimmick out from then on, and MK64 was just not good enough I suppose. Not what people expected after MK on the SNES.
Nintendo's software arm doesn't depend on brands. It depends on how the brands are leveraged. Everytime Nintendo makes games the mass market doesn't care for, they fail. Stuff like cartridge support or less resources are nice excuses and shouldn't be dismissed entirely, but the reality is that it's about the games. The RIGHT games. I don't think I have seen a single gamer disagree with the notion that it's all about the games, and yet, so many gamers can't seem to accept the notion that sales ultimately come down to "it's all about the games". Probably because that would put their favorite games in a good light (as in "Game I and my friends think is the best in the world isn't that popular"). PS1 and PS2 succeeded because they got more games than any other system before them. The Wii was a social phenomenon because there was (and, sadly, is still) nothing like Wii Sports, Wii Fit, Mario Kart Wii and NSMB Wii. The 360 continues to sell because it got all the good third-parties and a couple exclusives early on.
The only thing I agree with is that sequels on the same hardware rarely sell systems on their own, because lightning rarely strikes twice. Some might if they're an incredible step up from the original (Mega Man 2, Street Fighter 2, GTA 3...).
Oh, and about that "first-party only matters at the beginning" line? Pokémon on the Gameboy. Heck, even NSMB Wii can be mentioned. 3 years and 10s of millions of hardware sales into the life of the system, and it single-handedly sold 4 million Wiis in one month in one market.
Kilrogg said:
Massive failure there, Kilrogg. As has been discussed before, there's a large category of consumers that only consider "big" purchases during the Christmas season. That was the first Christmas season for the Wii to have a price cut (plus however much Wal-Mart's $50 GC added on top of that). That was also the first Christmas season that you could actually walk into a store and find a Wii. Stick Super Mario Galaxy 2 into NSMB Wii's slot, and you'd still probably have well over 3m sold in the month. No way was the Christmas push, actual availability in December, and Wii's first price cut negligible, but NSMB Wii sold 4m on its own. smh
donny2112 said:
Price cut might very well work for systems that were massively overpriced (PS3), but $50 on a system that was already very cheap and incredibly successful as it was meaning the price was right for most people shouldn't get as much as credit as you think.
But you choose to believe what you think is more believable. Which after all, is normal, considering neither you or me can state for certain we know the right factors. We only have some data. I find it more believable that the first Super Mario Bros. game in 18 years with 4-player multiplayer is mainly responsible for breaking all previous hardware sales records for December. Not dismissing your points, just that I think they're less important. But it's a mix of the 3, I suppose. You choose to believe that NSMB is one of the weaker arguments, since you believe SMG2 in its place would have caused pretty much the same result. More importantly, I'm not sure how this undermines my original argument all that much. It's not like I mentioned other systems and games.
dragonelite
Member
Atomski said:
Didn't bethesda said something about pc contributing only 10% of their sales with oblivion or so. Or was it a different dev who said that?
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Kilrogg, I think you are using hindsight to over simplify far too much. The N64 and Gamecube had many failings, but to use Nintendo's software as a variable is dubious as that same Nintendo was pushing the Game Boy and GBA to new heights.
Both consoles had a dearth of games. Not a dearth of great games, but a dearth of shelf-filler. Everyone laments the notion of shovelware and Nintendo themselves pushes "quality over quantity", but the reality is that no successful console has ever persisted without hundreds of annual releases. The Wii may have lacked in AAA third party games for much of its life, but for a good chunk of 06-08 (if I'm not mistaken) it was getting more frequent releases than the PS3 or 360, and for a while was selling more 3rd party software by sheer volume.
A single game or a handful of games can sell millions of consoles, but everything eventually runs out of steam. A platform will only push decent numbers for as long as it receives decent support. Months and months with sporadic releases plays havoc on the faithfulness of an active userbase.
Both consoles had a dearth of games. Not a dearth of great games, but a dearth of shelf-filler. Everyone laments the notion of shovelware and Nintendo themselves pushes "quality over quantity", but the reality is that no successful console has ever persisted without hundreds of annual releases. The Wii may have lacked in AAA third party games for much of its life, but for a good chunk of 06-08 (if I'm not mistaken) it was getting more frequent releases than the PS3 or 360, and for a while was selling more 3rd party software by sheer volume.
A single game or a handful of games can sell millions of consoles, but everything eventually runs out of steam. A platform will only push decent numbers for as long as it receives decent support. Months and months with sporadic releases plays havoc on the faithfulness of an active userbase.
kame-sennin
Member
donny2112 said:
This theory is bananas. SMG2 is at what, 6 or 7 million WW? NSMBW is pushing 20 million. There's no way that switching those games would have a negligible effect. I agree that availability and the price cut are important, but Wii sales were slowing down before the release of NSMBW. Without that game, Wii would have sold gangbusters during the holiday, but it wouldn't have hit 4 million to become the all time record holder. It's true that a lot of people wait until the holiday to pick up a console, but they do so based on games. I understand where you're coming from, but you have to ask, even with a price cut and ready availability, why would anyone want to buy the console? They're buying it to get to the software. So yes, the price cut helped. Yes, availability helped. These things helped to remove the barrier between the customer and the software that they wanted. But what software (or combination of software) led to 4 million units sold? The massive ltd sales of NSMBW suggests it was leading that wave of demand.
Sho_Nuff82 said:
Yea, with vastly different software. The N64 had a vastly different software philosophy than the handheld line, which is why the handheld line remained strong while the console division stumbled. The NES, SNES, GB, GBA, and DS (after it's poor launch games) focused on accessible, arcade-style gameplay. The N64 and Gamecube were more about pushing the boundaries of 3D gameplay and 3D exploration. As innovative as that path was, it was not the direction the market wanted Nintendo to go. The Wii went back to the NES/GB/ect. philosophy (for the most part), and sales exploded. As Kilrogg said, games are always the answer. But it's not just games gaf likes, or high production value games, it's games the market responds to.
Sho_Nuff82 said:
But I never argued that every single game Nintendo made on every system at the time was "bad" and doomed to failure. I will say though that the GBA was basically king from the very beginning and had no competition whatsoever because the competitors were all basically incompetent and/or had no games (first or third party). Obviously they also had nowhere near the same amount of resources as Nintendo. The GBA got all the games by default. As for the Game Boy, isn't it true that the aging system was single-handedly revitalized by one game called Pokémon? The irony of it is that the release of the GBC couldn't even have had all that much to do with it considering Pokémon was a black and white game and its release coincided with that of the game in the US only. And there are no "huge" full color games that I know of. Well, there's Gold and Silver obviously, but they're sequels of that very game. Finally, the system itself had no real huge selling point beyond color. Well, I guess 2 batteries instead of 4 is nice I know I appreciated it , but I don't remember if the GB Pocket had it (personally went straight from the GB to the GBC), but it's just a bonus.
Before I go further, just so we're on the same page, "great games" here means "system-seller" potential, right? Anyway, I never denied that third party games have a role. See my comment about the PS1 and PS2. My point was that there are two kinds of "best-selling games". Those that are great enough to sell consoles and those that don't. The first kind are most of the time akin to social phenomena (see SMB, Tetris, GTA 3) and create such momentum that it just seems the system can even afford to ride the wave for months. The second kind sells to enthusiasts/avid customers. I believe SM64 in particular falls more into that second category on account of it selling so much less than previous Mario games (just like the following 3D Mario games) and being inherently much less accessible than its 2D counterparts. So while I agree with that it lacked 3rd party games (which, again, is part of my point, games), I also think that what was there wasn't that "great" if we're talking consumer appeal. The ridiculous price on games because of the cartridge support and royalties was just the cherry on the cake.
You're right that the Wii sold a considerable volume of third party games. Very few of them stood out, and I'm sure they helped sustain momentum in the Wii's later years, but it can't be a coincidence that the system basically exploded from the very beginning with crap support and a bundled Wii Sports, exploded even more when Wii Fit and Mario Kart got released, and suddenly started to slow down shortly after Animal Crossing City Folk and Wii Music were released, only to temporarily explode once again right when NSMB Wii got released, performing well beyond everyone's expectations.
It might not look like it, but I actually agree with you: ideally, you want great system-seller material and a steady flow of good games. When you've got that, you get PS2/DS numbers, perhaps even more I happen to think that the Wii would have sold roughly on par with PS2 by now had it had real third party support, maybe more. The thing with the N64 is that it got no steady flow of games AND the system-seller material wasn't great enough on its own. The PS1/PS2 got a lot of games, with a few system-sellers and many games that were good to very good. The Wii has had an unprecedented amount of mega-system-sellers like basically no other systems before it apart from the NES (SMB), GB (Tetris) and DS (NSMB, Nintendogs, Brain Age), and it counterbalanced the poorer-than-usual third party games. Those were still there, sure, but their overall quality wasn't on par with what previous "winners" had. And no, I'm not saying this because I like "gamers' games" or anything. Even the games for the expanded audience were mostly half-assed.
Right, and again, I don't see where we disagree on this. The Wii sells relatively poorly because it's got shit since NSMB Wii, or, if you're generous enough, DKCR (not saying it's shit, just that it sold way less, and probably mostly to an audience who already bought the system for NSMB Wii). And since third-parties won't pick up the ball, it only makes sense that the system slow down.
[EDIT] And once again, someone else is more to the point than I ever will be
. Thanks, kame-sennin.NemesisPrime
Banned
Atomski said:
Lol. What?
Gears 3 will probably do 5m+.
kame-sennin said:
The massive LTD sales of NSMB Wii suggests it was on that wave of demand. I agree that there was likely a significant nostalgia boost from NSMB Wii being available that contributed to the 3.91m sales in December 2009. I completely disagree that it was NSMB that
.Kilrogg said:
It doesn't take much historical perspective to see that December is huge for everyone. And it is undisputed fact that December 2009 was the first December in the U.S. where Wii was widely available without having to wait in line to get one. Price cut contributed. Actual availability of the hottest Christmas item for the previous three years was a huge factor, though. My point isn't that SMG2 would've had NSMB Wii LTD sales if it was in that slot. My point is that the December sales would've been huge in that circumstance almost regardless of the "big" game Nintendo put out in that period. Heck, the previous November the "big" game in November was Animal Crossing, and it sold 2m that month due to actually having stock in stores. So much so that when December came around and the stock was gone again, December actually dropped for Wii, due to those shortages.
Yes, NSMB Wii was a large contributor to December 2009's Wii sales in the U.S. No it was not the main reason for the majority of the 3.91m sales that month, much less the "single-handed" reason for the sales that month.
TheNatural
My Member!
I wonder what the big holiday moves/bundles for consoles are going to be. Even with 3DS' big drop, Nintendo still has to be counting on Wii's to sell. Maybe a drop to $100 soon, or at least a really major holiday bundle. Sony is always rumored to drop to $200, but I don't know if that will be the case. All I know is, the "budget" era of this generation sure hasn't come quickly at all. Stop being so greedy damnit.
kame-sennin
Member
donny2112 said:
Kilrogg's quote aside, I don't think anyone is suggesting that the Wii would have sold zero hardware unites in December '09. The issue is, the Wii broke the all time sales record. I think it broke that record primarily because of NSMBW. It's prior holiday's were driven by Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Mario Kart, but those games had already been out for some time and I imagine they had sold most of the systems they were going to sell. If you don't think NSMBW was mainly responsible for the record setting sales, which game/games was it?