i think MS found that price cut is the only option for survival, otherwise they are going to get annihelated again
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NPD Sales Results for December 2014 [Up2: Nintendo Sales Notes]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
i think MS found that price cut is the only option for survival, otherwise they are going to get annihelated again
Uh... Un the EU thats bot true
You know, looking at this... Wii U's not doing that bad. It has done a little more than half of what XB1 has sold in the US. The way people talked about the Wii U before, you would think of it as being utterly, utterly dead, instead of having a little more than half the US sales of the XB1 in its home region. Think about the possible implications of that. The Wii U is not going to outsell the GameCube without a miracle, but it does have a little more than half the sales of the XB1 in the only region that XB1 has a real foot in. If this sort of sales ratio continues for the three systems, XB1 will only have twice the lifetime sales of Wii U, which means that if Wii U has the likely lifetime sales of 15 million, then XB1 may only end up with 30 million sales with would be three million less than the N64. This, of course, assumes that I read the chart right and that that sort of ratio between the systems in the US continues.
Again, I wish to reiterate, Skyward Sword was the fastest selling Zelda game up to that point according to Nintendo.
So that immediately cuts your theory down a bit.
These are the factors that actually matter from an analysis perspective:
1. Size of the Wii U userbase (do I even need to touch how bad this is?)
2. Amount of said Userbase who is likely to be a Zelda fan (likely quite high as a ratio)
3. The amount of months it will be out in the US before the end of 2015 (November is probably the earliest we're likely to see it, so let's go with two).
4. The high end the series reached previously on other consoles in their debut months (Twilight Princess sold something like 3.5 million worldwide in its first quarter of sales; Skyward Sword sold a tad more than that in its first quarter of sales. 600k debut month was considered very fast to Nintendo, and that happened on a system with like one zillion units more sales than the Wii U has).
So, given the trends, I don't think Zelda U is going to be some special performer relative to the rest of the series, and while I do think donny is right that it's likely to retain sales better than some other series that hit the Wii U, I can't imagine it topping 700k in North America for 2015 unless it releases earlier than November. We'll see
nelsonroyale
Member
Interested to know what MS are making on each XBone with the price cut? I would guess they are making a loss. Seems like price cut plus more solid exclusives overall worked out pretty well in 2014. It will be interesting to see how 2015 pans out. So far PS4 looks to have the stronger line up.
Is Mario maker a retail game? That might add another 300-500k depending on how it's marketed. I forgot about that game.
cw_sasuke said:
It's fine if you just care about games and not sales. But sales wise... not fine
Regret Upon Approval
Member
Cutting the price helps with demand, nothing to really test.
Bayonetta 2 at around 135k at retail? Considering digital sales in the first month (7k) and assuming it sold other 3k digitally between November and December (it's not an insane estimate, isnt it?), that would put it at around 145,000. So, going by Anihawk's comparison, it's almost as much as PS3 version in 18 months, and not that distant from 360. Didn't expect that.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
It's only going to grow. Keep in mind the Wii U's LTD entirely relies on Decembers (except for launch November)....
of the 3.7M or so, we have:
Nov 2012 + Dec 2012 + Dec 2013 + Dec 2014 = 1.929M. More than half is just there. Probably is the rest of the months (460K more with Nov 2013/2014) is just miserable... 1.3M for the console outside of holidays in 2 whole years...
Again, I wish to reiterate, Skyward Sword was the fastest selling Zelda game up to that point according to Nintendo.
So that immediately cuts your theory down a bit.
These are the factors that actually matter from an analysis perspective:
....
So, given the trends, I don't think Zelda U is going to be some special performer relative to the rest of the series, and while I do think donny is right that it's likely to retain sales better than some other series that hit the Wii U, I can't imagine it topping 700k in North America for 2015 unless it releases earlier than November. We'll see
"Nintendo has revealed that The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword is the fastest-selling Zelda game of all time. Since launch, 535,000 copies of the game have been sold in the United States alone." - This was after Black Friday, so in 8 days it sold 535K. I'm sure it easily broke 1M by the end of that year. I don't think Zelda U will do that well in the same timeframe, but 700K doesn't seem completely unreasonable if the game is super well-received. A Wii U pricecut could help too. I'd say that thanks to Hyrule #s, it's pretty much guaranteed to tap into that audience of 370K + digital (so 400K) fairly quickly.
Nov/dec- it also came with 2 free games and 50 gift card and in some places wasnt it going for 329? It wasnt just the 349 price alone that made it sell so good. We'll know the effect of the price in the febuary npd results.
shinra-bansho
Member
Don't really need to use angles for PS4 and XBO, they were posted by Dent, and the PS4 number essentially matches Aqua's (not sure if you rounded Aqua, or if you both just have different numbers.)
3DS being down as per usual is somewhat broad. Excluding Pokemon month, the system has been down between 5% and 35% Y/Y.
Most frequently though it's been down about 30%.
3DS being down as per usual is somewhat broad. Excluding Pokemon month, the system has been down between 5% and 35% Y/Y.
Most frequently though it's been down about 30%.
Fine just doesn't strike as a good adjective to use to describe the Wii U's sales performance.
I.e. it assumes a likely false assumption.
BlowoverKing
Banned
Sooo going back to that handheld pie chart, if nearly 18% of handheld hardware sold in December go to the Vita/PSTV then could that mean that the Vita/PSTV did somewhere between 100k-140k? Wouldn't that put it up from 2013?
Which probably means, outside of launch, that the Wii U is on many Christmas list but not affordable throughout the rest of the year.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
I'm not sure, good question.
I think maybe it's going to launch as a downloadable game at 19.99$ & 29.99$ at retail much like Luigi U
Ninty will be fine, since you'll be purchasing a Ness amiibo soon
And for the people claiming there will be a price drop for Wii U: nope.
Nintendo's all about maintaining the status quo and getting those balance sheets up.
lifeexpectancy
Member
Is anyone surprised by this? Who thought they were going to keep the price increase back at $399 for very long? Come on now, you know who you are, lol.
Minecraft though... fucking juggernaut.
It's also been on the market a year longer hasn't it? So selling 1/2 as much in twice as much time means it's only sellnig at 25% the rate of the XB1, give or take. That is actually pretty abysmal.
theprodigy
Member
lol, Wii U's share will only go down even more as time goes on and that one year head start means even less
ChronotriggerJM
Member
Man oh man that's troubling. Yeah I have a feeling Microsoft is not happy with that lead. The price cut is wise. I could only imagine if they kept the 399 without heavy bundling.
Again, I wish to reiterate, Skyward Sword was the fastest selling Zelda game up to that point according to Nintendo.
So that immediately cuts your theory down a bit.
These are the factors that actually matter from an analysis perspective:
1. Size of the Wii U userbase (do I even need to touch how bad this is?)
2. Amount of said Userbase who is likely to be a Zelda fan (likely quite high as a ratio)
3. The amount of months it will be out in the US before the end of 2015 (November is probably the earliest we're likely to see it, so let's go with two).
4. The high end the series reached previously on other consoles in their debut months (Twilight Princess sold something like 3.5 million worldwide in its first quarter of sales; Skyward Sword sold a tad more than that in its first quarter of sales. 600k debut month was considered very fast to Nintendo, and that happened on a system with like one zillion units more sales than the Wii U has).
So, given the trends, I don't think Zelda U is going to be some special performer relative to the rest of the series, and while I do think donny is right that it's likely to retain sales better than some other series that hit the Wii U, I can't imagine it topping 700k in North America for 2015 unless it releases earlier than November. We'll see
Ah yes, sorry I was talking more broadly like LTD numbers historicaly speaking for the franchise not just first 2 months, should have made that clear. I think your 700k prediction might be spot on, but who knows with this Zelda having all the right factors going for it as I attempted to highlight, it could ride a big hype wave and surprise!
metalslimer
Member
The Wii U is doing terribly lol. I guess maybe in the sense that software sales aren't as bad as they could be an Amiibo is a decent success.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
I didn't type the current-gen #s although I have them b/c it'd be summarizing, but yes, I used Aqua's PS4 # and the angles.
Well I have the 3DS b/w 830K and 955K assuming last-gen total = 500K. That puts the Vita + TV b/w 178K to 204K.... which is double last year's absolutely miserable December # of 95K... were there big sales or something?
MS has caught up a lot to Sony in the US, so I wouldn't think it'd be too troubling. They cut the price by $50, and if anything, I think it shows the two consoles at the moment are seen as interchangeable.
CosmicQueso
Member
Yeah, like Shinra says, not sure it's "fine".
On the positive side, NIN does show year on year SW sales growth and the Wii U did just have its best month. Amiibos add to the picture as well. So, better than last year that's for sure.
On the other hand, the dedicated handheld market is dwindling, and the vast majority of SW sales on NIN platforms are first party, so they're not getting a ton of 3rd party royalties coming in.
The toughest days may be behind them in the US packaged space, but they still have a long road to recovery ahead. And I don't believe they are matching the other guys in terms of growing digital distribution.
metalslimer
Member
Something has to be wrong with those Vita sales.
In what sense? Both the XBO and PS4 performed very well this holiday.
Hidden One
Member
Theres no way Hardline will be as bugged as BF4 was on release especially since DICE launched the CTE.
shinra-bansho
Member
I don't really know where you're deriving that from...
I think they've had some info in earnings releases about their digital ecosystem, so there may be some new info on this in the near future. From memory jvm did some articles on Gamasutra though, and their digital growth stalled a bit recently.
the system's best year will be 2014 in the us. it's possible that with a price drop and continued release of software that 2015 may surpass it, but i think it's rather doubtful. the wii u did 900k in 2012, 1217k in 2013, and 1570k in 2014. i don't think january will be very telling regarding its outlook on 2015, but by march we'll have months where it was up yoy compared to 2013 (in 2014).
at best, the wii u is flat in 2015, and that brings things to about 5.2m in the us. i see nothing that elevates the platform to the 4m a year it would need in order to reach 15m in 2018 or 2019. the system won't even last that long.
Regret Upon Approval
Member
Considering they actually let it be delayed by a fair bit I'd be willing to be more optimistic.
ChronotriggerJM
Member
Hmmm. 1.2m for Nov+Dec of Skyward Sword. High userbase but most of the general core gamers had left years before, so it was mostly just Nintendo core users left on the system still buying a game like Zelda. Twilight Princess did 1.5m on WII+GCN in Nov+Dec 2006. Wind Waker did just under 1m in March+April in 2003. Yeah over 700K seems extremely likely. I still expect over 1m in Nov+Dec, but I can see a good argument for not quite getting that high.
Same with Sony, they did what they had to Do to win: price the PS4 lower than the Xbox One, release it earlier (and on more territories as well, etc.). It's just business
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
the 500K is just a guess. I took last year's last gen Dec sales and just cut it by half.
It was like 360 = 643K
PS3 = 299K
Wii = ?K last year right?
That's close to 1M for last-gen last December. Thus I just guessed it went down by 50%, which may or may not be correct.
Then XB1 + 360 > Wii U + 3DS + Wii > PS4 + PS3 + Vita
ProvenDeadly
Member
I don't even know if the Wii U would get to 15 million if they gave it away for free.
Dragonborn
Member
I've no idea what's you're problem is dude, but you're taking this too personally and I don't like it (I'm not the one that soudns like a crazy person).
Anyways, PAL charts say differently. As others have said, dead wasn't the right word so let's go with "on life support"
Wind Waker was > 800K in its first NPD month, but based on the article you linked referencing 535K (i.e. not the full month), they were probably going off some daily rate.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Yeah. Digital growth have kinda stalled on Nintendo platforms.
There's a lot of inconsistencies though, with a quarter having over 600k of digital sales from Animal Crossing in Japan - to nothing of the sort the next year.
theprodigy
Member
Microsoft PR before Microsoft did it
Yeah I mean I think a 700k number is reasonable on the high end. But like you, I think they really need to be aggressive for the Holiday sales for it to be a shot. Like, they need a price cut or some real genuine deals this season. Nintendo's Black Friday moves were... flaccid, to say the least
It's very possible that they still don't cut the price. From Nintendo's perspective, i think they believe it's about cost loss at this point, which is that they want to squeeze as much money from every unit they do sell as possible. They may have made a calculation that the system is unlikely to do sufficiently enough numbers @ whatever the reduced price is to make it worth the price reduction. That's a real bad spot to be in if they have decided that.
I'm not sure, good question.
I think maybe it's going to launch as a downloadable game at 19.99$ & 29.99$ at retail much like Luigi U
Ninty will be fine, since you'll be purchasing a Ness amiibo soon
And for the people claiming there will be a price drop for Wii U: nope.
Nintendo's all about maintaining the status quo and getting those balance sheets up.
Ness Amiibo <3 I'm so glad it's happening.
I gotta read up on Mario Maker, that's a real interesting title sales wise. Could be a fun one to watch.
And to be clear, within a week I will have created a Mario game better than any Nintendo has made. JUDGMENT DAY PLATFORMING FANS.
I hope so. I always like my Zelda games, one of my favorite franchises. Still a little apprehensive that they're emphasizing how big the world was, wherein i'm more interested in how tightly designed the dungeons, puzzles and bosses will be... but zelda games usually turn out well, even when I do have issues with things like that. Only Skyward Sword and the DS Zelda games really disappointed me severely in the pantheon of Zelda games.
Just through this FY. For next FY, there should be a price cut/redesign with a lower price/something to reduce the entry cost for Wii U in the U.S.
shinra-bansho
Member
The bolded is plausible but is there a basis for it?
Meanwhile, the numbers you're speculating for 3DS seem way too high if the Y/Y is in line with most months of 2014. Which in turn will inflate any extrapolated Vita number.
3DS did around 1.1M last December. A decline of like 33% would put it at like 725K, which would put Vita at like 150K, which while still weirdly up over last year seems more plausible than doubling last December.
You're expecting a really tight, nearly 1:1 retention of sales here though. You think it's gonna hold that strongly with the Wii U userbase where it is? Where was GCN's hardware sales at the time Wind Waker released?
Twilight Princess was two consoles, so I think the 1.5million number is clearly not one that we can compare reasonably in that sense. Did it sell 1 million on Wii in Nov+Dec and 500k on GCN, or was the breakdown something else? I am still struggling to see how you are so confident it does more than 700k in two months on Wii U to be honest, but I love fun little bets like this.
You're on donny! Loser has to tell the other poster they're totally the winner. Ho ho ho!
Pancakes R Us
Member
You, my friend, are wildly optimistic optimistic*
*if you are saying Wii U lifetime sales in the US will reach 15m. It'll struggle to hit that worldwide.
vinnygambini
Why are strippers at the U.N. bad when they're great at strip clubs???
Ness Amiibo <3 I'm so glad it's happening.
I gotta read up on Mario Maker, that's a real interesting title sales wise. Could be a fun one to watch.
And to be clear, within a week I will have created a Mario game better than any Nintendo has made. JUDGMENT DAY PLATFORMING FANS.
teheheheeh
Maybe an entry cost a la 2DS for the Wii U console but I don't see it happening, personally.
But current Wii U will remain 299$ FY16 - like I mentioned, all about staying the course and getting those balance sheets up (it's the lowest they've been since the Gamecube days - they don't like it).
I mean hasn't the 3DS price stayed the same since it's initial price cut?