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[Steroyd]

Thanks!

To all of you people whom raised a ruckus over the XBO plan. Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really don't like the gaming community sometimes. So adverse to change. Plans were in place for something that everyone wanted, and people would still be able to trade in games or buy physical and yet here we are.

Maybe someday soon we will get something nice.

Here's the thing, for people who didn't like Microsoft's sticks without carrots, they could just get a PS4... Problem is it was damn near unanimous that EVERYONE was going to buy a PS4, so Microsoft backtracked, if anything blame MS for not having the balls to go through and being scared of with what would have probably been a greater flop than the WiiU, than seeing their all digital future realised.

Oh, and the communication. The communication was terrible from the first moment they talked about it.

Their communication was horrible but I don't think it would have covered up their policies not being attractive in the slightest.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Nintendo has to launch their next home console to market where they have basically zero mindshare.

I have never seen any compelling evidence that a previous generations "mindshare" has any merit at all to mass market success in consoles.

 

[gtj1092]

Where are people getting the notion XB1 software outsold Ps4 software? There are more games for sale than the ones in the top ten. If MS sold more software in total we would know if they are willing to state XB1 had a record breaking Janurary. And if John Harker is correct and the tie ratios are some where around for 4.0 for X1 and 3.8 for Ps4 that 0.2 games is not going to make up the difference in hardware sales. They both seem to be right in line with eachother with the faster selling console have a slighter lower attach rate.

 

[borghe]

I think the Holiday season is anyone's game -- PS4 should get a price drop but I'm expecting the XB1 to have one too alongside bundles and crazy deals again.

this is REALLY optimistic. I don't think it was anyone's game this holiday either? Bottom line is that MS hit a desirable price point with one of the winter's hottest games, while sony was $50 more with amazing but "year old" games. The fact was that Sony had NOTHING else to bundle that was more "valuable" than those titles. Point MS.

However MS won't get a second chance. Sony will have enough of a war chest over the course of this year that they will be able to compete against a (likely) Halo 5 bundle. So the Halo 5 bundle will do amazing for MS.. but probably not enough against a UC4 bundle to take the holiday.

 

[allan-bh]

Toad had surprising sales in december, a big drop was more than expected.

 

[Opiate]

Was thinking about this more last night... So the top-tier talent you mention. These people are, like you say, the best at what they do. As such, they do have a lot of power in determining what they develop, outside of some general direction (ie it's an Assassin's Creed game).

Yes,

Infinity Ward, for example, were the drivers behind taking COD4 into modern day. Activision management wanted COD4 to continue in the WW2 setting. But, because IW was so good at what they did, and had such influence, they determined what they were actually going to make, which was Modern Warfare. And I don't see, in any way, how someone like IW could have been forced to make a Wii game unless they really wanted to.

Keeping top tier development talent happy is not easy. And if that top tier talent really wanted to work on the Wii, I think they would have been able to. It's not just a question of deploying resources when you're talking about the top tier dev talent.

As to the metacritic question, it's really tough. I did a big writeup on launch window MC scores, but the trend held. Wii games were scored lower than PS3/X360, with a lower average, and lower incidence rate of 80+ scores.

1,193 third party physical games were released on the Wii, compared with 1,027 PS3 games and 1,180 Xbox 360 games. Sample size alone would lead one to believe that some hits would come out of 1,193 titles beyond Just Dance, Guitar Hero, Epic Mickey and the LEGO games. It just didn't work out that way. The best-selling "core" title was Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, which ranked only in the top 30 3rd party games.

If you want to say that 3rd parties proved incompetent in figuring out the Wii more traditional games market, I'd agree. And while I'll concede that the best of the best talent wise may not have been applied to Wii development, I'd argue that doing so would have been very difficult. While "doing all they could do" seems to be a sticking point definition, perhaps I'd change that to say 3rd parties made a reasonable attempt to succeed in that market. They just, for the most part, failed.

Yes, I definitely agree that this is another part of it.

I think we can talk more generally than just the Wii and talk about "casual" or "non traditional" platforms broadly. While Infinity Ward is/was excellent at making dudebro shooters, I am very skeptical that they'd be able to shift over to iOS and make very popular games there. They have a specific, narrow set of expertise, and that expertise wouldn't translate over to iOS any more than Supercell could make a game on PS4 and suddenly expect to have as much success as they've had with Clash of Clans.

It's why I think of companies like Rockstar or Ubisoft as de facto second parties for the PS/Xbox ecosystem. It's not that they are literally Sony or Microsoft fanboys, but at this point these companies have become specialized in making a particular type of game for a particular type of controller for a particular audience. If Samsung were to make an Xbox clone next generation, I'm sure they'd support that, too -- their loyalty isn't to a specific company, but to a specific type of ecosystem that they've spent decades catering to and developing for.

So I think another reason that publishers didn't try as hard as they could on the Wii is that they didn't know how to. Today's big publishers have a narrow set of competencies, and making "casual" games or motion control games are not among them. For that, you'd need a whole new set of publishers built from scratch which specialize in that sort of development, and at least on iOS, we're getting exactly that; new, major publishers are growing as we speak, including Supercell and Gungho, who specialize in making the sorts of games that can do well on iOS.

 

[Luke_Wal]

It's interesting to me that GTA V sold better on Xbone. Wasn't it marketed alongside PS4? Could this be a sign that 360 gamers aren't jumping ship like previously thought?

 

[AmaterasuOni]

OK, but I think the same would go for MS.

The % of digital vs. retail should approximately be the same for both consoles.

A bit late answer, but no, Sony's digital sales have really skyrocketed while MS have them going uphill. The numbers were announced in their last reports.

 

[cakely]

It's interesting to me that GTA V sold better on Xbone. Wasn't it marketed alongside PS4? Could this be a sign that 360 gamers aren't jumping ship like previously thought?

GTA V copies that were sold in Playstation 4 bundles weren't counted towards NPD.

 

[AmaterasuOni]

It's interesting to me that GTA V sold better on Xbone. Wasn't it marketed alongside PS4? Could this be a sign that 360 gamers aren't jumping ship like previously thought?

It's most sold digital game on PSN at least in Europe. NPD doesn't track digital sales.

 

[allan-bh]

GTA V copies that were sold in Playstation 4 bundles weren't counted towards NPD.

PS4 Black Friday Bundle remain being sold?

 

[borghe]

It's interesting to me that GTA V sold better on Xbone. Wasn't it marketed alongside PS4? Could this be a sign that 360 gamers aren't jumping ship like previously thought?

it's a two month old game on top of being bundled with PS4 (and some of those still being around into Dec and possibly Jan)

I think if you pared out total sales of the game across both platforms, nothing at all would be interesting.

another problem with NPD is it doesn't track digital sales. GTA V was number 3 in january on PSN only behind Both of January's big new releases (RE:RE and Dying Light)

 

[BigDug13]

PS4 Black Friday Bundle remain being sold?

In January? Probably.

NPD isn't current. This is a report from a period that started 1.5 months ago.

 

[cakely]

PS4 Black Friday Bundle remain being sold?

Assuming you're not being sarcastic ... no, those bundles weren't being sold in January.

Many new Playstations sold over the holidays came with GTA V bundled, and people that got the bundle didn't need to buy a retail disc come January.

 

[CosmicQueso]

So I think another reason that publishers didn't try very hard on the Wii is that they didn't know how to proceed. They have a narrow set of competencies, and making "casual" games or motion games are not among them. For that, you'd need a whole new set of publishers built from scratch which specialize in that sort of development, and at least on iOS, we're getting exactly that; new, major publishers are growing as we speak, including Supercell and Gungho, who specialize in making the sorts of games that flourish on more casual platforms.

Didn't know how to proceed is a good way to put it.

The emergence of iOS and STEAM does mean we have 3 pretty distinct development funnels though, doesn't it? Different skill sets, different team sizes, different levels of optimal scale. Seems as though the opportunities for developing great games are far wider ranging now than they were say 10 years ago?

 

[Percy]

Thanks!

To all of you people whom raised a ruckus over the XBO plan. Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really don't like the gaming community sometimes. So adverse to change. Plans were in place for something that everyone wanted, and people would still be able to trade in games or buy physical and yet here we are.

Maybe someday soon we will get something nice.

lmao

 

[illmatic22]

Thanks!

To all of you people whom raised a ruckus over the XBO plan. Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really don't like the gaming community sometimes. So adverse to change. Plans were in place for something that everyone wanted, and people would still be able to trade in games or buy physical and yet here we are.

Maybe someday soon we will get something nice.

You're welcome

 

[Opiate]

Didn't know how to proceed is a good way to put it.

The emergence of iOS and STEAM does mean we have 3 pretty distinct development funnels though, doesn't it? Different skill sets, different team sizes, different levels of optimal scale. Seems as though the opportunities for developing great games are far wider ranging now than they were say 10 years ago?

I definitely think so, yes.

Having had this conversation in the past, I've often argued that Nintendo's greatest failure with the Wii was not losing EA/Activision/Ubisoft -- who I think are just a poor fit for Nintendo's market -- but rather, their failure to get a grass roots development movement started. That's how iOS has grown, that's how Steam has grown; they built their own ecosystems with a host of developers built from the ground up around that style of development and that style of game design.

I think Nintendo would have been far more successful in developing their own "ecosystem" from scratch than they were trying to force a company like EA to figure out how to make games for a platform with a very different ethos than they are used to. Of course, we'll never know, because Nintendo was so desperate to get the big four publishers back on their platform that they gave grass roots / indie development very little consideration.

 

[Mpl90]

I definitely think so, yes.

Having had this conversation in the past, I've often argued that Nintendo's greatest failure with the Wii was not losing EA/Activision/Ubisoft, but not getting grass roots development on board.

I think they would have been far more successful in developing their own "ecosystem" from scratch than they were trying to force a company like EA to figure out how to make games for a platform with a very different ethos. Of course, we'll never know, because Nintendo was so desperate to get the big four publishers back on their platform that they gave grass roots / indie development very little consideration.

And what happend with those big four publishers (i.e. #unprecedentedpartnership) is what caused the recent "Nindie love" (don't look at me that way, it's November Direct's fault, I swear), between free Unity, free dev kits, more people publishing games on the console (Wii U especially, due to compatible tools). Heck, seemingly Terraria is coming to Nintendo platforms, finally.

 

[Bgamer90]

this is REALLY optimistic. I don't think it was anyone's game this holiday either? Bottom line is that MS hit a desirable price point with one of the winter's hottest games, while sony was $50 more with amazing but "year old" games. The fact was that Sony had NOTHING else to bundle that was more "valuable" than those titles. Point MS.

However MS won't get a second chance. Sony will have enough of a war chest over the course of this year that they will be able to compete against a (likely) Halo 5 bundle. So the Halo 5 bundle will do amazing for MS.. but probably not enough against a UC4 bundle to take the holiday.

I think the Holiday season will be PS4 with a price drop and an Uncharted 4 bundle vs. XB1 with a price drop, a Halo bundle, a COD bundle, and a TR bundle.

Still think that period will be a toss up as of right now -- that's just based on my assumptions though.

 

[SEGAvangelist]

this is REALLY optimistic. I don't think it was anyone's game this holiday either? Bottom line is that MS hit a desirable price point with one of the winter's hottest games, while sony was $50 more with amazing but "year old" games. The fact was that Sony had NOTHING else to bundle that was more "valuable" than those titles. Point MS.

However MS won't get a second chance. Sony will have enough of a war chest over the course of this year that they will be able to compete against a (likely) Halo 5 bundle. So the Halo 5 bundle will do amazing for MS.. but probably not enough against a UC4 bundle to take the holiday.

Halo 5 plus big holiday deals will do incredibly well. I don't see why it's overly optimistic at all to think MS could have a bigger holiday than Sony again.

 

[BigDug13]

I definitely think so, yes.

Having had this conversation in the past, I've often argued that Nintendo's greatest failure with the Wii was not losing EA/Activision/Ubisoft -- who I think are just a poor fit for Nintendo's market -- but rather, their failure to get a grass roots development movement started. That's how iOS has grown, that's how Steam has grown; they built their own ecosystems with a host of developers built from the ground up around that style of development and that style of game design.

I think Nintendo would have been far more successful in developing their own "ecosystem" from scratch than they were trying to force a company like EA to figure out how to make games for a platform with a very different ethos than they are used to. Of course, we'll never know, because Nintendo was so desperate to get the big four publishers back on their platform that they gave grass roots / indie development very little consideration.

The difference is that iOS games and Steam games are riding on top of hardware that is being sold in droves. It's a chicken and egg thing. iPhones and Pc's don't get sold because of there being a ton of game development, they sell because hey also do other shit. It's also hard to get those game developer things started if your hardware doesn't sell. And for a platform that does nothing BUT gaming like Nintendo's platform, the hardware becomes a much more difficult sell which the iPhone/ipad/PC doesn't have to contend with. Those platforms do other things and they also play games.

 

[CosmicQueso]

PS4 SW>Xone SW, but gap is <5%. Neck and neck.

 

[Opiate]

To emphasize, an important implicit understanding in my frame of reference here is that I'm arguing that publishers -- even massive publishers like Ubisoft -- are not capable of just making "great games" of any type for anyone.

Every company specializes. I don't think Ubisoft could wake up tomorrow and suddenly create a big, highly successful iOS hit. I think some people view iOS as basically "C" tier gaming, so of course any team that is talented enough to make Assassin's Creed would be talented enough to create a huge casual hit.

I think that's explicitly wrong. The big iOS publishers are not better or worse, they're just different. The AC team has a specific set of talents, and SuperCell has a different set. While it would be possible for either one to "cross over," it would take a whole load of work and restructuring -- in other words, they'd have to more or less reinvent their company. Sega is sort of doing this right now; they're transitioning away from console retail and towards mobile/PC digital development, and that process is expensive, slow, and fraught with job losses.

Seeing the world this way makes a lot of things make more sense. You could maaaaybe explain away the relative lack of interest in the Wii market, but how do you explain Ubisoft's/Take 2's/etc. disinterest in iOS? The market is already huge, it's still growing, it can be enormously profitable, and literally 100% of all software sales are third party, a claim that even Sony and Microsoft cannot make.

The answer isn't that they don't care about money, or that they're happy to let new publishers grow and blossom into legitimate competitors. The answer isn't that they're too good for iOS development, or some naïve notion that they have too much integrity, or something. The answer is that they can't make those games. They don't know how to. If they could, they would; there are literally billions being made by the top game publishers on iOS.

 

[BigDug13]

PS4 SW>Xone SW, but gap is <5%. Neck and neck.

For sales of retail physical games, yes this seems to be correct. We don't know overall sales across all game types of digital.

 

[GamerJM]

Toad had surprising sales in december, a big drop was more than expected.

Eh, not really, it makes sense that a somewhat niche Nintendo title's sales would be frontloaded, especially when it released around holiday season.

 

[A Human Becoming]

okay one leak and then i have to stay quiet.

check both places (both npd threads) if you're interested in why.



non-jumping mushroom: <30k

Hey how about this: If I divided Vita's January sales by how much in sold in April 2014, what whole number would I get (rounded)?

 

[The Shogun]

Tell you what The Order is getting quite a push here late. Seeing interest spike quite a bit.

If it reviews well / Good word of mouth Sony could have a very solid launch for a brand new IP. Alot of consumers are on the fence and seeing how it pans out. I really hope the game is quality because if so we may have a new franchise on our hands.

 

[Darth Smurf X]

You're genuinely welcome. If Microsoft announces similar DRM plans for it's next console I'll be happy to "raise a ruckus" again.

I'll join you.

But MS could have fixed this easily. Their problem was treating physical as digital WITH the always online requirement. Which, essentially meant, if you bought a physical disc, but have an internet outage >24 hours... you have a beer coaster instead. And no game loaning. Or rentals. And they control the resell market.

Instead of pushing THAT model on everyone, they could have gone with:
Physical = physical (no change)
Digital = NEW digital plan (where you can family share, trade-in at select retailers, pre-load, pull from the cloud, etc)

Suddenly, buying digital seems WAAAAY better. But... nope.

I never want my entire catalogue of games dependent on a stable internet connection, but especially not the ones I can hold in my hands.

 

[Aquamarine]

Hey how about this: If I divided Vita's January sales by how much in sold in April 2014, what whole number would I get (rounded)?

you're not checking both places

 

[KillerMan91]

I have never seen any compelling evidence that a previous generations "mindshare" has any merit at all to mass market success in consoles.

Of course it's kinda hard to determine the effects of mindshare to the success of consoles but I would guess PSP is the best example. It sold during it early years simply because it was Playstation. PS3 in Europe could fit here too. Sony tried to screw europeans as hard as they can but the mindshare that they had gained by PS1 and PS2 allowed he console still succeed even early on when it was struggling elsewhere.

 

[BrokenIcarus]

Of course it's kinda hard to determine the effects of mindshare to the success of consoles but I would guess PSP is the best example. It sold during it early years simply because it was Playstation. PS3 in Europe could fit here too. Sony tried to screw europeans as hard as they can but the mindshare that they had gained by PS1 and PS2 allowed he console still succeed even early on when it was struggling elsewhere.

How did they screw them as hard as they can?

 

[KillerMan91]

How did they screw them as hard as they can?

Launched 6 months after US and Japanese launches despite promising ww launch, removed the full PS2 BC from the EU model and didn't even launch the cheaper 20 gb model. Also prices were insane in some countries compared to US and Japan but I am not sure was that Sony or just local distributor getting greedy (PS3 launched with 699&#8364; price tag here in Finland...)

 

[A Human Becoming]

you're not checking both places

I see. Too bad I'm not involved with that.

 

[Aquamarine]

I see. Too bad I'm not involved with that.

i'll make an exception

you're a good guy

 

[Biker19]

I think it's a foregone conclusion that this generation will be smaller than the last, which everyone seems to shrug off for some reason but would be the first time ever for that to occur. Consoles have been growing their audience steadily for as long as most of us have been alive, but that trend has now reversed. All of this, of course, while development costs continue to rise.

But to your observation, this generation may also end up being smaller than the PS2 generation. That's not nearly as clear cut -- we may get more than 200M consoles this gen -- but it's possible. Xbox One is a much better second place than Xbox was, but Wii U is a much worse third place, and PS4 is unlikely to be as shining a first place, either.

I agree. IMO, if anything, the only console that has the best chance to reach total sales of PS3 & 360, at the very least, is PS4 (if Sony manages to play their cards right).

Xbox One? It will not reach, let alone surpass worldwide numbers of PS3 & 360. I'm sorry, but that's reality. Microsoft managed to get about 48+ million 360 owners in the America regions, & the other 37+ million just happens to come from outside of the America regions, which is the biggest reason why 360 got to about 84+ million owners to begin with.

It's something which will be very hard for them to obtain, let alone retain the same amount of owners for Xbox One in the America regions like they did with the 360 (in which it took Microsoft 9 years to do so). And there's absolutely no way that they can depend on the American regions alone to reach the total 360/PS3 numbers.

 

[ninjablade]

I have never seen any compelling evidence that a previous generations "mindshare" has any merit at all to mass market success in consoles.

PlayStation consoles has been the dominate console in Europe every single gen, thanks to mind share. make no mistake PlayStation 3 would have easily won lastgen if it was priced at 399.99$, mind share plays a huge role on consoles.all sony has to do is release a more powerful console at a good price and it will sell thanks to there mindshare, nintendo on the other hand needs to come with lighting in a bottle for there consoles to sell.

 

[John Harker]

The real story here .... is that Bayo 2 is back in the top 10 wii u games for the month

 

[allan-bh]

The real story here .... is that Bayo 2 is back in the top 10 wii u games for the month

Probably very low sales, but... better than nothing.

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

What's really interesting to me on the digital front, is that if we use physical sales for the cards and an indicator (lol), amazon's current top sellers are Xbox Live Gold (membership), and Playstation gift cards in the form of $10 (4), $20 (5), and $50 (6). The actual Playstation Plus membership is hovering around position 20.

So just at a glance at some meaningless information, digital currency is being bought up much faster on playstation than it is on the xbox. It really makes me wonder what's happening internally with the digital push.

 

[CosmicQueso]

The real story here .... is that Bayo 2 is back in the top 10 wii u games for the month

Are you saying Bayonetta.... has legs?

You made me look up what units make a top 10 on Wii U in January. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

 

[theprodigy]

What's really interesting to me on the digital front, is that if we use physical sales for the cards and an indicator (lol), amazon's current top sellers are Xbox Live Gold (membership), and Playstation gift cards in the form of $10 (4), $20 (5), and $50 (6). The actual Playstation Plus membership is hovering around position 20.

So just at a glance at some meaningless information, digital currency is being bought up much faster on playstation than it is on the xbox. It really makes me wonder what's happening internally with the digital push.

Imports, that's what is happening

The real story here .... is that Bayo 2 is back in the top 10 wii u games for the month

....what is the cutoff for top 10 Wii U software?

 

[perfectchaos007]

Buying marketshare can lead to future profitability though. Sony did this with PS3 and MS is now trying it with Xbox One. Sony kept PS3 competitive by throwing money at it and kept it in minds of consumers. PS4 would never have been as succesfull as it's now if Sony had just rode the PS3 out like Nintendo is currently doing with WiiU. Nintendo has to launch their next home console to market where they have basically zero mindshare. Of course the situations differ greatly so maybe Nintendo is doing correct decision with not investing more to WiiU. We shall see.

"Nintendo" as a video game company still has just as much mindshare if not more than Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo should name their next gen console what parents and grandparents have been calling every gaming system for years "The Nintendo"

 

[ChronotriggerJM]

Imports, that's what is happening

....what is the cutoff for top 10 Wii U software?

hmmmm never really considered that. So you think the Worldwide success of the Playstation is contributing to the US's spur in digital currency? Is there a benefit to buying it here versus anywhere else?

"Nintendo" as a video game company still has just as much mindshare if not more than Microsoft or Sony. Nintendo should name their next gen console what parents and grandparents have been calling every gaming system for years "The Nintendo"

I'm not sure how much impact that actually has these days. Everyone and their mother knows the term Playstation and Xbox as well. There are some pretty heavy lines in the sand regarding brand recognition I feel.

 

[Pezus]

Are you saying Bayonetta.... has legs?

You made me look up what units make a top 10 on Wii U in January. Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesh.

Can you tell us the cutoff? We know the top seller did <90k (retail)

 

[Aquamarine]

The real story here .... is that Bayo 2 is back in the top 10 wii u games for the month

The REAL story is how OUYA is dominanting the USA market~

 

[Opiate]

The REAL story is how OUYA is dominanting the USA market~

OUYA is one of the top 10 best selling consoles of the month.

 

[John Harker]

Can you tell us the cutoff? We know the top seller did <90k (retail)

10,000! which, if you believe it or not, if I'm recalling correctly, slightly above-average for a non-holiday month

 

[Ty4on]

Not that bad for WiiU. Some of the stuff lately (collapse of handheld market, Wii, last gen, Japanese market...) has really made me desensitised to poor sales
I mean 10k would be good SW sales for the Vita.

 

[theprodigy]

OUYA is one of the top 10 best selling consoles of the month.

The funny thing is if you told me PSP beat it to knock it out of 10th I wouldn't be surprised.

lol