• 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.

NPD Sales Numbers for November 2008

SuperBonk

Member
Shaheed79 said:
I'm not sure you understood what I was trying to say. The Madden userbase always took a few years to transfer to the next generations lead console and I was simply stating that since the Wii is this generations lead console (which means mostly casual and new gamers which was what the PS2 had and the PS1 before it) then it would be a few years before we saw the same number of Madden fans on the wii than the HD consoles which have a much higher percentage of core gamers.


There are differences between the Wii and PS2 differences just like there were differences between the PSX and Super NES userbase and differences between the PS2 and PSX userbase. The newer lead console always seem to drastically expand the gaming market. I would argue the new markets that the Wii is reaching out to is no more different than the new markets that the Sony consoles reached out too. The Wii just took the next logical step in expanding the market with the only difference between the Wii is a pure games machine.
Yes! Now we are getting somewhere. Both arguments you bring up are very good. And sorry for misunderstanding your earlier post.

I'll address the 2nd one first. You are perfectly right when you say the userbases for different market leaders are different from each other. Obviously the overwhelming majority of fans of Nintendo 1st party games stayed with the N64 and Gamecube. But I guess the crux of my argument lies in my belief that the Wii is doing this to a much larger degree. The difference between the SNES and PS1 userbase is smaller than the difference between the PS2 and Wii userbase. I say this for two reasons.

1) The Wii is the fastest selling console in history. A big reason for this is that it's appealing to a newer demographic. This newer demographic obviously has different software preferences than most seasoned video game players.

2) A significant portion of the PS2 userbase has transitioned to the 360. I suppose this just my personal belief so I can't blame you for disagreeing. I just think that there is something to be said for the fact that the 360 lands more games in the top spots of the NPD charts than any other recent 2nd place console. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable. Like you said, 360 sales tend to be very front-loaded and fizzle off while Wii software usually has amazing legs. But going back to the example of Madden (and this is where I address your first point), don't the 360 sales show that the majority of last gen Madden players already have transitioned to this gen?

I find the "Wii is not a traditional gaming machine" argument just as absurd as you do. But the mere fact that the argument exists is enough proof that this generation is very different. My entire point is that we cannot apply the logic of last gen to this one (e.g. Wii is this generation's PS2, developers should treat it as such). Giving the Wii the same level of support as PS2 will certainly help, but the situation is not perfectly applicable in this specific generation of consoles.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
SuperBonk said:
2) A significant portion of the PS2 userbase has transitioned to the 360. I suppose this just my personal belief so I can't blame you for disagreeing. I just think that there is something to be said for the fact that the 360 lands more games in the top spots of the NPD charts than any other recent 2nd place console. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable. Like you said, 360 sales tend to be very front-loaded and fizzle off while Wii software usually has amazing legs. But going back to the example of Madden (and this is where I address your first point), don't the 360 sales show that the majority of last gen Madden players already have transitioned to this gen?

I find the "Wii is not a traditional gaming machine" argument just as absurd as you do. But the mere fact that the argument exists is enough proof that this generation is very different. My entire point is that we cannot apply the logic of last gen to this one (e.g. Wii is this generation's PS2, developers should treat it as such). Giving the Wii the same level of support as PS2 will certainly help, but the situation is not perfectly applicable in this specific generation of consoles.

360 seems to have lot of the madden players already
the wii is definitely not the ps2 and devs cant do the same.. (which is not the same as having ps2 ports :p)
they have to appeal to the wiis userbase and create their own userbases
 
Narcosis said:
The "whatever reason" was the fact that Sega marketed the shit out of their own sports games and third party ones, and that's what people associated the system with. They also did a hell of a good job of marketing to the teen/young adult males who were interested in things like football and boxing.

Thanks, I didn't mean to gloss over what Sega accomplished there, it's just been so long that I honestly couldn't remember.

amtentori said:
360 seems to have lot of the madden players already
the wii is definitely not the ps2 and devs cant do the same.. (which is not the same as having ps2 ports :p)
they have to appeal to the wiis userbase and create their own userbases
As someone pointed out earlier (Shaheed?) there was a survey that showed that the majority of PS2 owners are migrating to the Wii. The 360 definately has the lion's share of Madden fans though due the brilliant marketing they had for it in '06.
 

SuperBonk

Member
amtentori said:
360 seems to have lot of the madden players already
the wii is definitely not the ps2 and devs cant do the same.. (which is not the same as having ps2 ports :p)
they have to appeal to the wiis userbase and create their own userbases
Well, they don't have to. They can also give it a high budget title and market it well like they do with the HD consoles.

Since we haven't seen them do either, it's hard to say what the better strategy is.

Shaheed79 said:
You do realize that the PS2 is still selling the most Madden games don't you?

Pretty sure you're wrong on this one. At least with regard to Madden 09.
 

Mgoblue201

Won't stop picking the right nation
Shaheed79 said:
Yeah the N64 ruled the roost at my college dorms too. It was the only multi-player concentrated console at the time however.
The N64 was making great strides in the US. Nintendo fell behind Sony and Sega with sports titles, but they were out in front with FPS games (thanks primarily to Rare), and they slowly began to catch up in the sports area. Acclaim titles were often buggy and were hardly great, but they had a presence on that system. The N64 also had a lot of awesome racers. Nintendo had a real chance to capitalize in these areas with the Gamecube, but they really screwed up the strategy from the start.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
SuperBonk said:
Yes! Now we are getting somewhere. Both arguments you bring up are very good. And sorry for misunderstanding your earlier post.
It's quite alright.
I'll address the 2nd one first. You are perfectly right when you say the userbases for different market leaders are different from each other. Obviously the overwhelming majority of fans of Nintendo 1st party games stayed with the N64 and Gamecube. But I guess the crux of my argument lies in my belief that the Wii is doing this to a much larger degree. The difference between the SNES and PS1 userbase is smaller than the difference between the PS2 and Wii userbase. I say this for two reasons.
I really don't agree but lets see.
1) The Wii is the fastest selling console in history. A big reason for this is that it's appealing to a newer demographic. This newer demographic obviously has different software preferences than most seasoned video game players.
The same exact thing could have been said about the PSX in 1997 and the PS2 in 2002.
2) A significant portion of the PS2 userbase has transitioned to the 360.
I highly disagree with this assessment. What do you consider a significant portion? The Wii had a higher percentage of PS2 owners in almost half the time it took 360 to garner slightly less with the PS3 having far far less than either. That tells me that the PS2 owners are migrating in mass and much faster to the Wii console.
I suppose this just my personal belief so I can't blame you for disagreeing. I just think that there is something to be said for the fact that the 360 lands more games in the top spots of the NPD charts than any other recent 2nd place console. Whether or not this is a good thing is debatable.
It lands those games because it receives those games and the Wii does not hence my whole little discussion about the matter.

Like you said, 360 sales tend to be very front-loaded and fizzle off while Wii software usually has amazing legs. But going back to the example of Madden (and this is where I address your first point), don't the 360 sales show that the majority of last gen Madden players already have transitioned to this gen?
Most definitely they have but you also have to look at the number of Madden sales that the original Xbox enjoyed and do your calculations based off of that. Madden sold very very well on the Xbox. I believe that the majority of 360 owners are Xbox owners because they have the exact same genre buying habits (Shooters, Racing, Sports, Western RPG's) and they were also notoriusly known to buy games when they first release with the original Halo being one of the few exceptions.
Now I'm not saying that no PS2 owners are buying 360's because that would be stupid but that number is far lower than most people think. I see 360 as Super Xbox when looking at it's consumer base and their buying habits.
I find the "Wii is not a traditional gaming machine" argument just as absurd as you do. But the mere fact that the argument exists is enough proof that this generation is very different. My entire point is that we cannot apply the logic of last gen to this one (e.g. Wii is this generation's PS2, developers should treat it as such). Giving the Wii the same level of support as PS2 will certainly help, but the situation is not perfectly applicable in this specific generation of consoles.
I'm glad we can at least agree on that first part but again I honestly believe that the new market of gamers that Wii is bringing to the table is no different than the new markets that the NES, Genesis/SNES, PSX and PS2 brought to the market. Every generation saw a huge influx of new gamers along with the continued interests of casual and core gamers. We may disagree on this but I did enjoy discussing this with you.
 

SuperBonk

Member
Ok, I'm perfectly willing to end the discussion there. After all, it was largely fueled by my personal opinion and is becoming rather cyclical. But yeah, it was a good argument.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
SuperBonk said:
Well, they don't have to. They can also give it a high budget title and market it well like they do with the HD consoles.

Since we haven't seen them do either, it's hard to say what the better strategy is.



Pretty sure you're wrong on this one. At least with regard to Madden 09.
I'm not. 06-08 sold best on PS2 even after the 360 version outsold the PS2 version in it's initial months. The PS2 userbase like the Wii userbase continues to buy games over long periods of time. Right now 09 is definitely higher on 360 but we would have to wait until mid next year until we find out whether or not the PS2 was able to hold onto its crown of King of Madden.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
SuperBonk said:
Ok, I'm perfectly willing to end the discussion there. After all, it was largely fueled by my personal opinion and is becoming rather cyclical. But yeah, it was a good argument.

good civil rational post NPD discussion guys... Its not always two people can engage in intelligent discussion in gaf...

i guess we will see how things end up throughout this gen
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
Mgoblue201 said:
The N64 was making great strides in the US. Nintendo fell behind Sony and Sega with sports titles, but they were out in front with FPS games (thanks primarily to Rare), and they slowly began to catch up in the sports area. Acclaim titles were often buggy and were hardly great, but they had a presence on that system. The N64 also had a lot of awesome racers. Nintendo had a real chance to capitalize in these areas with the Gamecube, but they really screwed up the strategy from the start.
I think MS saw what the N64 did in the US and said to themselves they could take the FPS crown from Nintendo quite easily and they did. Nintendo didn't even try to hold on to it. This was the smartest thing MS ever did to break into the games industry but the down side to this is the now much narrower gaming tastes of the Xbox and 360's userbase.

Ok, I'm perfectly willing to end the discussion there. After all, it was largely fueled by my personal opinion and is becoming rather cyclical. But yeah, it was a good argument.

Likewise. Time to watch some Ghost in the Shell.
 

Zhengi

Member
Originally Posted by Accident:

* Total third party sales for the Xbox 360 since launch is currently 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325 units.
* Third party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii and PS3 is 54,065,728 units, still almost double the Wii's 33,394,311 units.
* If you take the total number of units sold and divide that by the number of titles released since November 2006, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are selling more units per title on average than the Wii. This puts the Xbox 360 at 217,252 units per title, the PS3 at 156,065 units and the Wii at 132,517 units.


http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-a-pretty-one

---------------

Doesn't the second point seem a little disingenuous? If they are comparing Xbox 360 sales of third party games starting from the launch of the Wii and PS3 to today, wouldn't that make the 360 sales a lot higher since third parties were rolling with great games at that point? Wouldn't aligning the launches show a better comparison of third party sales between all three consoles?
 
Opiate said:
I think this definitely is some of what's happening, and it really is an unfortunate vicious circle for Wii owners. Using this logic -- which again, I think has some merit to it -- there is essentially no outcome that could produce better games for the Wii.

If the games they make sell well, they will continue to make relatively poor quality, low budget software for the Wii.

If the games they make sell poorly, then obviously they won't make anything at all.

At some point as the user base continues to grow, the absurdity of the Wii's situation has to break. Western publishers are losing too much money not to try something (and yes, almost all Western publishers are losing money).
You're judging the software market like it's restricted to the platforms. Like you said, most western publishers aren't making a lot of money regardless of platform they release on. It's obvious that the current business model needs remodelling, why would they leave out the Wii if they haven't found success there yet?

Omar Ismail said:
This is what I have been espoucing since the beginning, and started bringing in other theories to back it up. I apologize if I confused the matter in the process.

Anyway, you get the general gist of what I'm saying, and see how it will be proven/disproven.

Though I'd argue that decent-budget Wii games have been released...
Godfather Wii, Metal of Honor, Call of Duty. You can choose to avoid those examples, but I point to them as evidence. And so I'll probably be far less surprised than you if The Conduit and Mad World don't set the charts on fire.
:lol It's apparent you haven't played these games.

Omar Ismail said:
MC and GameRankings are the best we have, so we make do with what we have. And if you average it out across such a large number of titles, any individual bias gets smoothed out pretty well. Using MC to compare Game-A vs Game-B doesn't really work, but an en masse analysis like this should be statistically relevant.
Yes, GTAIV really is one of the best games ever.

brain_stew said:
There still plenty of markets (like Germany for example) where the PC retail market is much bigger than the console market, although that is changing with the Wii and NDS which are pulling insane numbers in every market they're released in.

The "PC gaming is dying" brigade tend to be completely oblivious to this fact and see the (comparatively) weak US retail market and presume the same is true everywhere else. Its not.
I don't have the numbers at hand but I think by overall revenue the combined console market tops out the PC market here in Germany. PC's market share is falling (although at a much slower rate than elsewhere). That doesn't mean it's dying though.

JudgeN said:
Mirror Edge was released on a 18.5M userbase, which is higher then the Wii's. The problem was it was crowded with a lot of high quality games, there are going to be failures at Christmas time. There always has been, even during the PS2. Publishers need to be smarter about releasing there games.
ME is a new IP that stars a lead which doesn't fit into current gaming teenage stereotypes and the gameplay doesn't involve lots of shooting stuff and big explosions. It will always be a tough sell on the userbase regardless of when you release it.
 
amtentori said:
this is a sales thread.. we are trying to understand why nintendo didnt release more games... not that gamers are happy that they didnt...
This. If there's a clear reason to do something I can accept it and move on; there's little use arguing with a sensible move. It's when we notice something that seems both counterproductive for them and disappointg to us that it becomes really puzzling. Not having something a bit more "traditionally gamey" (for lack of a better term) to go along with Wii Music and Animal Crossing this holiday, for example.
 

Shaheed79

dabbled in the jelly
JoshuaJSlone said:
This. If there's a clear reason to do something I can accept it and move on; there's little use arguing with a sensible move. It's when we notice something that seems both counterproductive for them and disappointg to us that it becomes really puzzling. Not having something a bit more "traditionally gamey" (for lack of a better term) to go along with Wii Music and Animal Crossing this holiday, for example.
Maybe they were tired of all the developers and forum fanboys whining about how they can never compete with Nintendo and decided to give them a chance to show their stuff? They showed their stuff and well.....we want Nintendo dominated holiday releases back because they clearly do not know how to act on the Wii lol.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
JoshuaJSlone said:
This. If there's a clear reason to do something I can accept it and move on; there's little use arguing with a sensible move. It's when we notice something that seems both counterproductive for them and disappointg to us that it becomes really puzzling. Not having something a bit more "traditionally gamey" (for lack of a better term) to go along with Wii Music and Animal Crossing this holiday, for example.

They focused their output in the first half of the year, previously you wouldn't see many releases early in the year but on the fall, that's really the big reason. It's a change in seasonal strategy, which has garnered them a bigger long term advantage over the year than the previous approach had. I think you'll see more of it actually, not less.

And with the economy the way it is they're staying a small company anyway, so they're definitely not gonna be turning into first party Sega anytime soon, it's just a different approach to market.
 

swerve

Member
onipex said:
Wait why would they make a game for motion + before it was cheap enough for them to release to the market so it would be used for the game?

Yeah, why would they make a game for a new platform before that platform is ready to be sold? They should only start making games when the hardware is already popular and sold to millions!

Wait, what?

Oh yeah, maybe they plan things and work towards those plans in advance of them being executable!

Nintendo will have many games behind the scenes which will never get released because the hardware they use is never going to get released. That's the nature of R&D.
 
JoshuaJSlone said:
This. If there's a clear reason to do something I can accept it and move on; there's little use arguing with a sensible move. It's when we notice something that seems both counterproductive for them and disappointg to us that it becomes really puzzling. Not having something a bit more "traditionally gamey" (for lack of a better term) to go along with Wii Music and Animal Crossing this holiday, for example.


I think I would agree with Shaheed here. I think Nintendo figured that by this point, there would be SOMETHING of quality from 3rd parties. Since 3rd parties ALWAYS complain about not being able to compete with Nintendo, they said hey lets leave this big window open for them, and none of them did anything about it.

I realize a good game takes 18 - 24 months to make on average. If you look back to when most people realized the Wii was going to be the dominant console, well that was about 18 months ago. If memory serves, and I could be wrong here, that was also when quite a few developers said they had missed the boat on Wii, and were going to be making changes on that. Now should have been the time when those games, should have been hitting. Instead it just proves that they were all talk and no action.

I mean as a developer you can't bitch that you can't compete with Nintendo and that they don't give you a window of opportunity to release games when they aren't, and then say well they didn't release anything in the later half of the year so we didn't know what to do.


Seriously, 2 million consoles sold this month, and it looks like some where in the range of 10 - 11 million units of software. If one of them had stepped up to the plate with something big, Red Steel 2, an actual quality version of one of the HDTwins releases, SOMETHING of substance that the mass market would grab on, it could have done gang busters.
 

DDayton

(more a nerd than a geek)
onipex said:
Those gamers that play on the PC are hard to the core gamers. They truly play games old school style. The way games were meant to be played and on what video games were first played on.

Hmm.

Video games were first playable by the public in 1972, with the Magnavox Odyssey. Home computers weren't really around until a few years later... I mean, the Altair 8800 wasn't available until 1975, and that's the earliest example of a home/personal computer I can think of.

Video games were, essentially, first playable on "video game consoles" -- not computers. Aside from university settings (and even in those cases, it was very, very rare, outside of a select field of study), "video games" didn't exist until the release of the (failed) Odyssey and the arcade release of Pong (after the failed Computer Space).
 
Shin Johnpv said:
I think I would agree with Shaheed here. I think Nintendo figured that by this point, there would be SOMETHING of quality from 3rd parties. Since 3rd parties ALWAYS complain about not being able to compete with Nintendo, they said hey lets leave this big window open for them, and none of them did anything about it.

I realize a good game takes 18 - 24 months to make on average. If you look back to when most people realized the Wii was going to be the dominant console, well that was about 18 months ago. If memory serves, and I could be wrong here, that was also when quite a few developers said they had missed the boat on Wii, and were going to be making changes on that. Now should have been the time when those games, should have been hitting. Instead it just proves that they were all talk and no action.

I mean as a developer you can't bitch that you can't compete with Nintendo and that they don't give you a window of opportunity to release games when they aren't, and then say well they didn't release anything in the later half of the year so we didn't know what to do.


Seriously, 2 million consoles sold this month, and it looks like some where in the range of 10 - 11 million units of software. If one of them had stepped up to the plate with something big, Red Steel 2, an actual quality version of one of the HDTwins releases, SOMETHING of substance that the mass market would grab on, it could have done gang busters.
At the same time, you can't really blame third parties for following Nintendo's lead, either. They're the ones who decided not to throw anything big this holiday and they're the ones who usually reap the benefits of this strategy.

For that matter, why haven't they supported the DS to any large degree at this time, anyway? There's no third party bitching there, but there's a number of games NOA could have released this winter, for both systems, and they simply didn't. I don't think it's a matter of giving third parties breathing room, it's just confusing.
 

AniHawk

Member
koam said:
Actually, I think i asked my original question poorly, i was wondering what the LTDs where for the GC + XBOX vs PS3 for the first 2 years.

Well the answer is several days old, and these were shamelessly stolen from somewhere else, but here's LTDs for November 2003:

PS2: 20.0 M
GBA: 17.1 M
Xbox: 6.6 M
GCN: 5.6 M

So the PS3 is smack-dab in the middle of the GC and Xbox. The real scary thing about the Wii is that it's less than 5m behind what the PS2 was 13 months ahead of it.
 

fresquito

Member
ShockingAlberto said:
At the same time, you can't really blame third parties for following Nintendo's lead, either. They're the ones who decided not to throw anything big this holiday and they're the ones who usually reap the benefits of this strategy.

For that matter, why haven't they supported the DS to any large degree at this time, anyway? There's no third party bitching there, but there's a number of games NOA could have released this winter, for both systems, and they simply didn't. I don't think it's a matter of giving third parties breathing room, it's just confusing.
Sorry, but your "argument" makes no sense.

Nintendo sells software to drive hardware. They knew they wouldn't need any big title for this holiday season to drive hardware. Any big title wouldn't have made the Wii to sell beyond what it's selling right now. They knew this and they knew they would better wait and work on their games and release them at a later time, to create new momentum.

On the other hand third parties don't sell software to move hardware. They dropped the ball big time, because any moderately big advertised and good quality title would have sold like crazy. They had nothing to offer and they gained nothing.

When this FY closes and you see third parties having loses, you'd have to start wondering how many heads will start rolling.
 
AniHawk said:
The real scary thing about the Wii is that it's less than 5m behind what the PS2 was 13 months ahead of it.
If we were to do a "Wii at X months is like PS2 at Y months." comparison, X and Y would look pretty similar, with both Wii and PS2 matched up at their third holidays. However, the comparison currently pushes PS2 to near the end of a big December, so Wii's multi-million December should easily cause it to eat up the rest of that December and many of the following year's months with ease.
 
So, I keep hearing that Valkyria Chronicles didn't do great...anyone got the #'s? This thread is impossible to sort through.

Kinda sad, though. I got my roommate into it (he says it's games like this that might make him get his own PS3) and my brother bought it as one of his first PS3 games.
 

AniHawk

Member
Freedom = $1.05 said:
So, I keep hearing that Valkyria Chronicles didn't do great...anyone got the #'s? This thread is impossible to sort through.

Kinda sad, though. I got my roommate into it (he says it's games like this that might make him get his own PS3) and my brother bought it as one of his first PS3 games.

33k.
 

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
Shin Johnpv said:
I don't know about the inclusion of Rock Band, mostly cause while it is a new name, it really is the next GH. Plus it seems to be pretty near a million on Wii so if it's included on 360 may need to include it on Wii also. What about Rabbids, I know they're from the Rayman world, but it's so different, and the style of game is so different.

Just food for thought, 360 was out a year longer, and the HD twins have had much more development time, money and marketing put into new IPs than the Wii. Yet they're only a few up on it here.



Also when did a game like Madden become considered a Hardcore game. I'm sorry but back in my day, it was shit like Madden, and all the FPS that were the casual centered titles ruining gaming. It was that casual mainstream crap that was driving away all the 2D fighters, and vertical shooters. Since when did the casual games of 10 - 15 years ago become the hardcore games?

Well, Rock Band is still a new franchise, even if it is he spiritual successor of GH (plus GH got new versions...). Also it debuted on the 360, not the Wii, so the only version that counts on the list there is the 360 one.
Raving Ravids as you said, is based on Rayman, so it doesn't count.

True.

Nowadays some people will claim that GTA is hardcore, I think it is the same people calling Avril Lavigne a "rock" star. They are using the "hardcore" name to try to feel grown up, but they really don't understand the meaning of the word. They think hardcore gamers are the ones that say like themselves: "lulz, my HD graphixx are teh hardcorezt". But they are just mainstream gamers buying the HD is hardcore publicity there is now.
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
Shin Johnpv said:
Also when did a game like Madden become considered a Hardcore game. I'm sorry but back in my day, it was shit like Madden, and all the FPS that were the casual centered titles ruining gaming. It was that casual mainstream crap that was driving away all the 2D fighters, and vertical shooters. Since when did the casual games of 10 - 15 years ago become the hardcore games?

When the 'casuals' of the Playstation generation become the 'hardcore' of the generation. I'm sure some PC games would like to add a few words on what a hardcore game is. Truthfully, hardcore gaming is such an abysmal term and we need to stop it.
 
Zhengi said:
Originally Posted by Accident:

* Total third party sales for the Xbox 360 since launch is currently 67,929,999 units, followed by the Wii at 33,394,311 units and the PlayStation 3 at 19,976,325 units.
* Third party sales for the Xbox 360 since the launch of the Wii and PS3 is 54,065,728 units, still almost double the Wii's 33,394,311 units.
* If you take the total number of units sold and divide that by the number of titles released since November 2006, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 are selling more units per title on average than the Wii. This puts the Xbox 360 at 217,252 units per title, the PS3 at 156,065 units and the Wii at 132,517 units.


http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-a-pretty-one

---------------

Doesn't the second point seem a little disingenuous? If they are comparing Xbox 360 sales of third party games starting from the launch of the Wii and PS3 to today, wouldn't that make the 360 sales a lot higher since third parties were rolling with great games at that point? Wouldn't aligning the launches show a better comparison of third party sales between all three consoles?

If we compared the data with those of GCN, XBOX and PS2, wouldn't the PS2 also have the lowest units per title as the PS2 has a bajillion of titles released?
 

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
fresquito said:
Sorry, but your "argument" makes no sense.

Nintendo sells software to drive hardware. They knew they wouldn't need any big title for this holiday season to drive hardware. Any big title wouldn't have made the Wii to sell beyond what it's selling right now. They knew this and they knew they would better wait and work on their games and release them at a later time, to create new momentum.

On the other hand third parties don't sell software to move hardware. They dropped the ball big time, because any moderately big advertised and good quality title would have sold like crazy. They had nothing to offer and they gained nothing.

When this FY closes and you see third parties having loses, you'd have to start wondering how many heads will start rolling.

Quoted for the fucking true. I think next holidays will be the same as this; Nintendo will have most of their hits released but then 3rd parties will have great games for that.

3rd parties missed a huge opportunity.
 

swerve

Member
Shin Johnpv said:
If you look back to when most people realized the Wii was going to be the dominant console, well that was about 18 months ago.

Honestly, I don't think they did. I expect, sometime in January '09, many publishers to actually start taking serious action regarding the shift in the marketplace. Throughout the industry there has been a tendency (and desire) to think of Wii as a 'fad', and that's only now, after 3 holidays, convincingly disprovable.

The money left on the table this year is going to make a lot of people (not just the GAF) very angry, and looking at how fragile a lot of franchises and publishers seem right now, they can't afford to let that happen again.

2009 looks to me like it could be one of the most interesting, surprising years in gaming history.
 

andthebeatgoeson

Junior Member
MrSardonic said:
what? damn.

is that the highest post-launch monthly sales ever?
Every 2 pages, this question comes up. This thread is a beast. This thread is hardcore. Anybody complete it yet?

Wow, JVM, you have 360 @ 6 million when their games in the top 10 nearly account for 3.5 million? Do they sell any games outside of the top 10? Is this some weird sheep mechanic? That just seems weird. I can't even get my head around that.
 

Neomoto

Member
jvm said:
Edit: I didn't put it into my article, but if we assume $500M of software revenue was Nintendo Wii (I believe this to be fairly close) and ASP for Wii software to be $45-$50, then that gives ... 10 to 11 million units of software for the Wii? Does that seem about right to y'all?

Also, looks like Xbox 360 sold around 6 million units. I don't recall the exact figure. The disparity between the Xbox 360 and the figure I estimated for the Wii seemed extreme ... but then look at the hardware figures. Oy.
Really? :O And here I thought Wii owners didn't play anything... according to some on GAF. ;-)

If true then these numbers are insane, considering the lack of quality titles compared to the amount of releases on Xbox360.

Btw, you mentioned software revenue.. so I take it those 2 million Wii Sports copies aren't counted in that 10 to 11 million software units? Holy hell.
 

Laguna

Banned
skinnyrattler said:
Every 2 pages, this question comes up. This thread is a beast. This thread is hardcore. Anybody complete it yet?

Wow, JVM, you have 360 @ 6 million when their games in the top 10 nearly account for 3.5 million? Do they sell any games outside of the top 10? Is this some weird sheep mechanic? That just seems weird. I can't even get my head around that.

The majority of so called "hardcore"gamers aren´t more than people following the mainstream, next hyped Shooter. So it isn´t that surprising.
 

AniHawk

Member
Neomoto said:
Really? :O And here I thought Wii owners didn't play anything... according to some on GAF. ;-)

If true then these numbers are insane, considering the lack of quality titles compared to the amount of releases on Xbox360.

Btw, you mentioned software revenue.. so I take it those 2 million Wii Sports copies aren't counted in that 10 to 11 million software units? Holy hell.

What's also kinda telling is that yes, while about 3 million of the Wii's 10-11 million is included in the top 10, and probably another 2 million or so is tied up in other first party games (though that's probably being a little generous), over half of the 360's month is represented in the top 10. The wealth probably isn't spread around as much.
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
skinnyrattler said:
Wow, JVM, you have 360 @ 6 million when their games in the top 10 nearly account for 3.5 million? Do they sell any games outside of the top 10? Is this some weird sheep mechanic? That just seems weird. I can't even get my head around that.
I knew I had 6.x written down somewhere, looks like I should have said 7 million, because I have 6.7 as my estimate. The range is between 6 and 8.

I'm sure the regulars around here likely have their own estimates. Maybe they'll let on.
 

Timber

Member
Laguna said:
The majority of so called "hardcore"gamers aren´t more than people following the mainstream, next hyped Shooter. So it isn´t that surprising.
how come it's always the people with jrpg names/avatar making these statements?

that was a rhetorical question
 
MrSardonic said:
what? damn.

is that the highest post-launch monthly sales ever?
There has been bigger in December.

Specifying "post-launch" doesn't do much, though. If a system can't top its launch supply/demand in the months of its second and third holidays, something's wrong. I don't think anything has hit a million in its first NPD month.
 
I think Nintendo has been doing a great job and although I would have liked for them to have a big 4Q title, it seems they left some room for the 3rd parties like Guitar Hero WT. I think that the last few years Nintendo had the market saturated with too many big 4Q titles for people to buy at one time. Maybe next year they should start bundling other titles with an extra Wii remote just like Wii Play. Xbox 360 continutes its dominance in the first person shooter/online war game genre.


1 GEARS OF WAR 2* (360) 1.56 million
2 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR* (360) 1.41 million
3 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE (WII) 796K
4 WII FIT (WII) 697K
5 MARIO KART (WII) 637K
6 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR (PS3) 597K
7 GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR* (WII) 475K
8 LEFT 4 DEAD (360) 410K
9 RESISTANCE 2* (PS3) 385K
10 WII MUSIC (WII) 297K
 

Neomoto

Member
AniHawk said:
What's also kinda telling is that yes, while about 3 million of the Wii's 10-11 million is included in the top 10, and probably another 2 million or so is tied up in other first party games (though that's probably being a little generous), over half of the 360's month is represented in the top 10. The wealth probably isn't spread around as much.
Indeed. And I agree that the number for the remaining first party games is generous.

Which means, that the Wii almost certainly sold more 3rd party games then Xbox360 did (note that Gears of War 2 alone takes 1.5 million of its total software sales). One could have mixed feelings about this situation of course, but the fact still stands that Wii is a software beast. Would be great to see more quality efforts on Wii from 3rd parties,.
 

manueldelalas

Time Traveler
Neomoto said:
Indeed. And I agree that the number for the remaining first party games is generous.

Which means, that the Wii almost certainly sold more 3rd party games then Xbox360 did (note that Gears of War 2 alone takes 1.5 million of its total software sales). One could have mixed feelings about this situation of course, but the fact still stands that Wii is a software beast. Would be great to see more quality efforts on Wii from 3rd parties,.

mm but Gears is published by Microsoft everywhere... I don't know if it should be considered first or third party... Sure, Epic owns the license but it's the same as saying that Resistance 2 is third party...
 
Top Bottom