Next year will be interesting, since GBA's 4th full fiscal year moved 50.8M units of software.
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NPD Sales Results for February 2014 [Up2: PS4/XB1/Wii U/360 Hardware, BD/Poke/DK]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Next year will be interesting, since GBA's 4th full fiscal year moved 50.8M units of software.
LegendofLex
Member
3DS is a nice barometer for the rest of the industry.
It tells us two things:
1) Powerhouse gaming devices will never succeed in today's Japan.
2) Outpacing your predecessor in the first year does not mean you will be successful in the long run. Only continued software momentum can do that.
Weekly gaps in the U.S. are most definitely closing. And since lifetime sales are decided by sales over time...
It tells us two things:
1) Powerhouse gaming devices will never succeed in today's Japan.
2) Outpacing your predecessor in the first year does not mean you will be successful in the long run. Only continued software momentum can do that.
Sky Chief said:
Weekly gaps in the U.S. are most definitely closing. And since lifetime sales are decided by sales over time...
Math is hard.
Honestly, Microsoft SHOULD easily win March. If they don't, then it's time for the panic siren to sound up in the MS offices. If the gap grows when a title like Titanfall hits, I don't think there's a better indicator than that showing that gamers have just moved back Sony's way after taking a spending a generation with MS.
I don't think the difference at the moment is that noticable to normal people, unless perhaps you put them side by side. And nobody does that in real life.
But, people will be told that PS4 is 'better'. They don't need to know 720/1080 whatever, they just keep being told 'better'. And that sinks in eventually and the xbox becomes 'the one that isn't as good as the playstation'. Basically the reverse of last gen.
It's way too early to say anything definite. XB1 went from winning December, to being outsold almost 2:1 in Jan, to coming within 10% of the PS4 in Feb. There is no pattern, and there probably won't be until both systems have steady stock and software releases.
...and yet the lifetime gap continues to increase in the US and would be bigger if more stock were available (and the gap is massive worldwide)
darkside31337
Tomodachi wa Mahou
Math is hard.
Honestly, Microsoft SHOULD easily win March. If they don't, then it's time for the panic siren to sound up in the MS offices. If the gap grows when a title like Titanfall hits, I don't think there's a better indicator than that showing that gamers have just moved back Sony's way after taking a spending a generation with MS.
Whether or not they win March doesn't really mean much.
What actually matters is the increase in sales. They could "win" and outsell the PS4 but if that number isn't much higher than what February was then its still a disaster. And they could lose but if they more than doubled their sales for this month then its hardly a loss.
They can't really control how much supply Sony is putting out there basically.
I had a buddy come over to see the two system. We played on the XB1 for a couple of hours before jumping over to the PS4. I hadn't said a thing about resolutions or framerates and he noticed the disparity immediately. He said, "whoa, things look way clearer on the PS4."
The only game we played on both consoles was BF4, but either way, he noticed the difference between performance without me saying a thing, and he's not really a technically minded person.
He texted me yesterday that he picked up a PS4.
sure, but that's pretty much showing them side by side - not a usual situation is it?
I was more mentioning in the rate by year of software growth. For example, GBA software growth from FY 2002 to 2003 was 31% year over year growth and FY 2003 to 2004 was 38% year over year growth.
3DS software FY growth from 2012 to 2013 would be 28%, and FY 2013 to 2014 would be 22% growth. It is troubling to me that the 3DS software growth rate is slowing.
Cornbread78
Member
I have been really surprised that the Titanfall bundles at my local Wal-Mart did not sell well this week. The game sold pretty well, but not the bundles. I figured they would sell out rather quickly, however, they only sold 1 on Mon night, before the actual game release (non-bundle) since he had no interest in the game, he wanted the system for multimedia services.
The problem is for Sony, and will continually be, that there are very little PS4's on most retail shelves. It's income tax season when people spend a little extra money, but there is none to sell. My store got 6 total in the past 6 weeks or so and sold them within 24 hours. (During that same time frame we've still sold less XB1s) The bad part is we are getting less and less calls each day about PS4 availibility. Interest appears to be dropping slightly and the system still isn't availible; that is a bad prediciment for Sony to be in, they need to restock, ASAP. Without stock Mar NPD will definately belong to MS because as Sony keeps puching games back, MS keeps releasomg new ones and making sure everyone knows it. Good on them
anexanhume
Member
Ignore the hard data! I shall cast doubt about a metric no one tracks in this territory to support my conclusion.
rokkerkory
Member
Hold on there horsey just a bit. 2 to 1? I would say 1.2:1 maybe.
Killing_Joke
Member
Wow, can't believe all those promotions worked. Plus a nice tax return bump. Guess they have decent chance winning March.
Thanks for getting these. Absolutely shocking software numbers here, no wonder third parties are abandoning handhelds so quickly, hardware sales are chugging along but the software sales have just completely collapsed.
As for the hardware numbers, the DS itself had quite a bit of criticism when it launched as it didn't really get going in the US until the DS Lite came out. When Nintendo unveiled the DS it was sort of described as an added platform and separate to the Gameboy brand in case it failed, at the time people said Nintendo were foolish to shift focus away from the Gameboy so early when it was doing so well.
Perhaps Nintendos new fitness line will adopt a similar approach, new name and brand and slow phasing out of the existing product (3DS). Don't quite know how the WiiU fits into all that though.
theprodigy
Member
eh, but GBA was going up YoY while 3DS is going down YoY by hardware
so the 3DS's software situation is really just a reflection of the hardware doing bad (especially because 3DS probably won't make it halfway to GBA's LTD in America)
LegendofLex
Member
"If more stock were available, it would have sold better" is a nice (and very plausible) hypothetical scenario. But reality comes from actual scenarios.
It doesn't matter if PS4 "would have sold better" had there been more stock. What matters is how much stock there actually is, and how many units are actually sold. It's very feasible that Xbox could outsell PS4 in March in the U.S.
...
The LTD sales gap between the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One [in North America increased in February.
Also, you think the Xbox One will sell ~ 550k units in March? That seems incredibly optimistic.
spookyfish
Member
Math is hard.
Honestly, Microsoft SHOULD easily win March. If they don't, then it's time for the panic siren to sound up in the MS offices. If the gap grows when a title like Titanfall hits, I don't think there's a better indicator than that showing that gamers have just moved back Sony's way after taking a spending a generation with MS.
I would think so, too. But where's the press release stating how many a) TitanFall bundles were sold Day 1 and how many b) TitanFall games sold Day 1/players are online?
All of these companies love them some press releases. I guess I would have expected one by now. (If I missed it, apologies.)
You claim the weekly gaps are closing. Yet, the only data we have shows the PS4 on top of the XB1 3 out of the 4 months they have both been on sale, and the month XB1 was on top was month 2. XB1 could win next month, sure. But there is no pattern of closing sales. There's not much of a pattern at all. Two data points (Jan and Feb) do not make a pattern.
LegendofLex
Member
I never used the word "pattern." I simply said that sales are closing. The month of Feb is usually down. But this Feb it was up for both Xbox and PS4, and Xbox actually saw a jump that put it much closer to PS4's sales despite the PS4 increase.
This isn't a pattern, and it's too unusual to really get a good read on, but the fact remains that last month, the weekly sales gap was closing. So it's entirely plausible that the weekly sales gap will continue to close, even if the PS4 stock situation improves.
This isn't even really a prediction. It isn't a criticism of Sony's current situation, or praise for Microsoft's. It's just an observation. I certainly didn't expect that Xbox One would be able to sell more units while PS4 was also selling more units. I would have thought the added PS4 units would erode Xbox One sales since they're direct competitors. But that's not what happened. So naturally I have to admit that it's very possible that demand for Xbox One could keep going up at a rate that outpaces the increase in PS4 demand.
Feb is usually up for hardware sales I believe. XB1's increase was definitely larger than I expected though.
Chobel
Member
It's entirely plausible that the weekly sales gap will continue to close, even if the PS4 stock situation improves. Sure, anything is possible.
But... This "non pattern" probably happened because PS4 was supply constrained.
LegendofLex
Member
Looking at the last generational transition, hardware was down in Feb from Jan (except for DS):
NPD January '07
Nintendo DS - 239,000
Nintendo Wii - 435,503
Sony PS2 - 299,352
Microsoft Xbox 360 - 294,000
Sony PSP - 211,000
Nintendo GBA - 179,000
Sony PS3 - 243,554
Nintendo GameCube - 24,000
NPD February '07
Nintendo DS - 485K
Nintendo Wii - 335K
Sony PS2 - 295K
Microsoft Xbox 360 - 228K
Sony PSP - 176K
Nintendo GBA - 136K
Sony PS3 - 127K
Nintendo GameCube - 24K
Saying it happened because of supply constraints doesn't make PS4 magically sell better (or Xbox sell worse), though (except overseas).
I could say Wii U isn't selling because Nintendo's distributed their development teams too much across 3DS and Wii U. That doesn't mean Wii U isn't tanking.
Chobel
Member
What I'm saying is: You can't conclude that the weekly gap decrease will continue in the future based on your observations, because what happened in Jan and Feb was the result of PS4 low supply.
rokkerkory
Member
True but to play the devil's advocate, who's fault is that?
LegendofLex
Member
I don't know why it happened. I can only speculate.
But if PS4 is really such a hot item, and Xbox is only catching up because it is sold out, that still leaves a couple questions.
Why are so many people settling for Xbox when PS4 is out of stock? (They did not buy Xboxes and PS3s when Wii was out of stock.) Why is there more software demand on Xbox than PS4? (A direct repeat of last gen in the U.S. Note also that this question is related to the first one.)
I think the narrative is much more complicated than it appears to be. I don't think PS4 necessarily has the U.S. wrapped up like many people seem to think.
CosmicQueso
Member
Not exactly, the gap between PS4 & Xbox One has actually increased.
While TitanFall will most likely have a lot of copies sold, it's not going to move a lot of Xbox One consoles like you may think, because most of the ones who got a Xbox One at the beginning for this game are the early adopters.
I was watching basketball the other day and observed that in the first quarter Team PS outscored Team MS 20 to 10 but in the second quarter Team PS only outscored Team MS 25 to 20. Way to go closing the gap Team MS, surely you have a chance to win now (even though you are now losing by more points)!
DeejayKnight
Member
I get the feeling if Sony doesn't start putting PS4s out there in a decent quantity soon, people may shift to Xbox Ones because they're readily available just about everywhere.
One thing Microsoft got right is to have product in the retail channels. Sony did a decent job of it, but the demand seems to be in their favor because they don't stay in stores very long. Retail should be getting LOADED with PS4s, lol.
One thing Microsoft got right is to have product in the retail channels. Sony did a decent job of it, but the demand seems to be in their favor because they don't stay in stores very long. Retail should be getting LOADED with PS4s, lol.
Chobel
Member
Not sure what you mean? Can you explain what you mean by "fault"?
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Wow. Nintendo not only has to face irrelevance in the console indusrty but also a severely declining handheld industry. 3DS has sold more in Japan than NA.
Can we have a PSP comparison?
But a load of people just bought the console in February when only the beta was out. There's no way the March number isn't going to improve on the February number.
Amentallica
Unconfirmed Member
Our fault for buying the systems? They can't magically make as many systems as they'd like. There is a threshold. And it seems to be getting better.
Metallix87
Member
Again, in Japan, the system at least has a steady stream of releases. Here in the West, several weeks can go by without a major release, and sometimes even months.
LegendofLex
Member
There are something like 60 more quarters to go. Sony had better step up its game, because if MS keeps up its performance gains without any major plays from Sony, they're going to claw their way back.
SwiftDeath
Member
So what I find an interesting comparison
Average Percentage Change MOM is +68% up from January, median is also +68% oddly enough
What in gods name happened in January? The numbers make it look like sales collapsed only for that month at this point. It's really odd.
Code:
Platform: Jan Results -> Feb Results | Percentage Change MOM
PS4: 271K -> ~269K | [-.7%]
XB1: 141K -> 258K | [+83%]
3DS: ~97K -> ~151K - 156K | [+56% - +61%]
PS3: ~53.5K -> ~103K | [+92.5%]
Wii U: 49K -> 82.5K | [+68%]
360: ~48.5K -> 114K | [+135%]
Vita: <17K -> ~24K | [+41%]Average Percentage Change MOM is +68% up from January, median is also +68% oddly enough
What in gods name happened in January? The numbers make it look like sales collapsed only for that month at this point. It's really odd.
I'm running the risk of creating another 'heat wave' meme, but anyhow -
This winter has been really bad in the US; lots of record cold temperatures and record snowall totals. We had several days where the local university was closed because it was 'too cold' which I don't believe has ever happened before. Maybe everyone stayed home?
TL;DR: Polar Vortex.
LegendofLex
Member
Feb numbers might be a result of pent-up demand from Jan + extra-weak buying power immediately following the holidays due to the economy/lots of people buying health insurance. Plus those winter storms.
Exactly. I even felt that Nintendo was dumb enough to have region locking on 3DS in the first place. Think of all of the great games that we could've been playing.
Heck, Sony wised up on that after PS1 & PS2 & made PS3, PS4, PSP, & PS Vita region free.
theprodigy
Member
to be honest, all that weather closing everything down several times over probably did affect January
Obamacare ruins everything, even video game sales!
Chobel
Member
I'll repeat what I said before: just because the weekly gap has decreased in Feb doesn't mean we can conclude with some degree of certainty that gap will continue decreasing in March, because PS4 was supply constrained, so that skew that conclusion now that PS4 supply will be better than March.
Now if you use other valid metrics to get to that conclusion, sure it makes your prediction more probable.
1) Because these people wanted Xbox One?
2) PS4 has PS+ free games and F2P games and those don't get counted in NPD.
You mean like me? lol
I'm just discussing predictions that I believe are not that probable (based on available observations).
TheDrowningMan
Member
It's not something that Microsoft "got right" at all. I think that's a faulty assessment, unless it's something they "got right" by aiming to sell 2m+ units fewer than Sony. If the goal was to ensure that Xbox One wasn't in nearly as much demand at PS4, they've succeeded handsomely. I don't know, maybe that's Microsoft's goal.
LegendofLex
Member
Let me stop you right there.
Plausible =/= probable. I am not saying "Xbox One will continue to close the weekly gap." I am just saying that it is possible because we have already seen it happen.
I didn't think it would see nearly the jump it did in Feb back in Jan, but watching the month play out made it seem more and more likely. So I would not be surprised if that trend continues, given that Titanfall is likely to be a more significant exclusive than anything on the platform so far.
1) Sure, but I think it's safe to say that if PS4 is seeing growth this generation, it is because of cannibalized sales from Xbox due to the horrendous missteps MS took last year. So it's interesting that the demand isn't more slanted (or, to put it another way, that consumers don't really appear to be that anti-Xbox/dedicated to getting a PS4 instead).
2) Including free games would actually mask the actual software demand (true "demand" requires "sales"). Even if a bunch of PS4 users are playing free/F2P PS4 games, how many dollars are they spending on those games? Probably not as much as Xbox One owners are spending on their games. At the end of the day, dollar spending is more important than unit volume.
Thats the problem that Nintendo faces now though. Increase cost of software development but less overall sales on the platform. Whats the give point? I dont pretend to understand what that would be, but it is a very real worry for Nintendo in their strongest market.
