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NPD Sales Results for January 2016

bud23

Member
For other users who show bias towards the same thing month in month out for well over a year, then their bias is crystal clear. Such users know who they are :)

And? Everyone is biased in some way, you included. His bias is not the problem, the problem is that he's biased towards the X1.

And for some reason, and that's the real problem, that seems to upset some people here...
 
I find it amusing that first, when MS announces far too high bundle pricepoints some people applauded. "they want to make profit their priority cool idea, they will be fine, Phil found the masterplan."
And now, when no one finally buys this overpriced stuff we act surprised. MS has taught consumers how much an XboxOne bundle should cost, 300$ or even less. There is no turning back here.
I see their rock / hard place dilemma. Either selling many units without profit. Or making profit on the units but selling nothing.
Maybe it's different people, you know?
 

onQ123

Member
You mean next RDR? :D

RDR could get the Rise of the Tomb Raider treatment & it wouldn't change the tides. I'm talking big waves here
mexican_troll_face_by_mariodude12312-d5mtl9z.png
 

Fady K

Member
And? Everyone is biased in some way, you included. His bias is not the problem, the problem is that he's biased towards the X1.

And for some reason, and that's the real problem, that seems to upset some people here...

If you read my post, i mentioned platform preference is normal, most of us, if not all of us have it. It's normal. We all have different tastes so surely some platforms appeal to us more than others.

No, his Xbox bias is not a problem, it falls in line with what I said above. It's a fantastic platform that has a great variety of exclusives and is selling better than the very successful Xbox 360 for a reason.

The problem is when he lets his bias suggest that the PS4's success is mostly based on the Xbox One's screw ups (which ironically were mostly fixed before the launch of the system). Hard to take someone's sales opinion seriously when time and time again the bias is part of their sales opinion.
 

Fady K

Member
next month will be interesting with street fighter v, although i feel that game will sell a lot digitally

I think the problem with SF5 is that it may be a bit light on content during release, and i wonder if this will give it less than stellar sales.
 
What does Mario 64 on N64 & Halo on Xbox have to do with people buying PlayStation for the games I mentioned?

Your right, it's irrelevant. Just as irrelevant as you mentioning random titles like Tekken Tag and Crash as the reason why PS1 & PS2 separated itself from the competition. The market had already been established long before these games were released for various reasons nothing to do with any of the titles you mentioned in your previous post.
it's still the same point you can remember people buying Xbox for Halo & N64 for Mario 64 & Mario Kart 64 & so on. these games set the consoles apart from the completion & it's easy to remember that. the competition having a different game that people bought don't change that.

Now your moving the goal post. First you argued specific titles for the PS1 & PS2 as the reason that for they they both "hit the ground running away from the competition" with sales and when I refuted that flawed point now the other consoles that got dominated during those generations also have several titles that set the consoles apart. Which would makes your original point invalid.

And what does people knowing who published a game have to do with anything that we are talking about?

Go back and read your posts again if your that confused with your own flawed logic. You're amazed that the Sony is "beating the competition by 3:1 & 2:1 & on the way to 40 million without a big selling exclusive" when in reality exclusives themselves to the general consumer is irrelevant and overall an insignificant factor on why a console is a big success compared to its peers.
 

Welfare

Member
Alright, now to compare the weekly average of January and February. Both months are 4 weeks long.

Code:
2010

Xbox 360 January: 333K / 4 = 83,250
Xbox 360 February: 422K / 4 = 105,500

Weekly average up 27%

PS3 January: 277K / 4 = 69,250
PS3 February: 360K / 4 = 90,000

Weekly average up 30%

Wii January: 466K / 4 = 116,500
Wii February: 398K / 4 = 99,500

Weekly average down 15%

Code:
2011

Xbox 360 January: 381K / 4 = 95,250
Xbox 360 February: 535K / 4 = 133,750

Weekly average up 40%

PS3 January: 267K / 4 = 66,750
PS3 February: 403K / 4 = 100,750

Weekly average up 51%

Wii January: 319K / 4 = 79,750
Wii February: 455K / 4 = 113,750

Weekly average up 43%

Code:
2012

Xbox 360 January: 270K / 4 = 67,500
Xbox 360 February: 426K / 4 = 106,500

Weekly average up 58%

PS3 January: 195K / 4 = 48,750
PS3 February: 347K / 4 = 86,750

Weekly average up 78%

Wii January: 152K / 4 = 38,000
Wii February: 224K / 4 = 56,000

Weekly average up 47%

Code:
2013 (January 2013 is a 5 week month. Only happens once in awhile)

Xbox 360 January: 281K / 5 = 56,200
Xbox 360 February: 302K / 4 = 75,500

Weekly average up 34%

PS3 January: 200K / 5 = 40,000
PS3 February: 262K / 4 = 65,500

Weekly average up 64%

Wii January: 100K / 5 = 20,000
Wii February: 99K / 4 = 24,750

Weekly average up 24%

Wii U January: 57K / 5 = 11,400
Wii U February: 66K / 4 = 16,500

Weekly average up 45%

Code:
2014

Xbox 360 January: 48K / 4 = 12,000
Xbox 360 February: 114K / 4 = 28,500

Weekly average up 138%

Xbox One January: 141K / 4 = 35,250
Xbox One February: 258K / 4 = 64,500

Weekly average up 83%

PS3 January: 53K / 4 = 13,250
PS3 February: 102K / 4 = 25,500

Weekly average up 92%

PS4 January: 271K / 4 = 67,750
PS4 February: 269K / 4 = 67,250

Weekly average down 1%

Wii January: 10K / 4 = 2,500
Wii February: 30K / 4 = 7,500

Weekly average up 200%

Wii U January: 49K / 4 = 12,250
Wii U February: 82K / 4 = 20,500

Weekly average up 67%

Code:
2015

Xbox 360/PS3/Wii = Basically dead (and no numbers were leaked for Feb-Oct) 

Xbox One January: 150K / 4 = 37,500
Xbox One February: 276K / 4 = 69,000

Weekly average up 84%

PS4 January: 189K / 4 = 47,250
PS4 February: 342K / 4 = 85,500

Weekly average up 81%

Wii U January: 63K / 4 = 15,750
Wii U February: 95K / 4 = 23,750

Weekly average up 51%

2016 January Weekly averages

Xbox One: 132K / 4 = 33,000
PS4: 230K / 4 = 57,500
Wii U: 40K / 4 = 10,000

Some notes:

- February is tax returns month! -Parties- That is why there is a huge increase in sales seen this month, and in fact, February is either one of or THE biggest month in the pre season.

- Always expect the weekly average to go up (At least 40% is a safe bet). There were only 2 instances in the past 6 years where this was not the case. Subject 1 is the Wii in 2010, which just came off of the biggest December ever recorded (3.81m) and sales in January were still feeling the effect of Wii's being restocked (?) back in December. Subject 2 is the PS4 in 2014, and that was because of stock issues.

- The highest February ever recorded between the 7th and 8th gen was the Wii with 753k back in 2009. Second biggest? The 360 with 535k back in 2011.
 

Ryng_tolu

Banned
February is The Third bigger month of The year, only November and December Are bigger.

Don't be conservate, february is gonna be huge!
 

DeepEnigma

Gold Member
Oh yeah good point. Actually stunned with how much battlefront sold with such little content (based on what people say, haven't played it myself)

It was my GOTY last year. I have a lot of fun with it.

Plays great, amazing graphics/sound, and the most immersive Star Wars experience to date with all the fan service "little things".
 

Intrigue

Banned
Well, that's possible.


My theory is that Rockstar and Sony traded Agent exclusivity against marketing deals for the next couple of games...

I am convinced Agent will never happen as an exclusive, not sure it matter tho, the marketing deals are probably more valuable to Sony anyway. Especially tripple-a games like rdr/gta from Rockstar.
 
Yeah, cause that really hurt Battlefront's sales...

SF is not SW .
It also not riding the wave of a movie that was going to be one of the biggest of all time .

Oh yeah good point. Actually stunned with how much battlefront sold with such little content (based on what people say, haven't played it myself)

To me it was more shocking that people thought SW BF was not going to sell millions .
Light content or not the game had so much going for it and beta was huge .
 
I dont see why anybody in their right mind thought star wars wasn't going to sell huge.

But you see, it was going to bomb because reasons.

I think the problem with SF5 is that it may be a bit light on content during release, and i wonder if this will give it less than stellar sales.

Are the type of people that are going to buy SF5 at launch the ones that are going to care about things like that? While I'm guessing there might be a percentage of people that care a lot about story mode, it seems like the core audience mostly has what they want out of the launch product.
 
The type of people buying SF5 at launch are the ones who care about playing the game against other people and all the important bits for that are already there. Those interested in single player content are likely the ones who would wait a few months for a discount anyway, by which point the single player content will be in the game.

As a fighting game player myself, I never trust reviews for fighting games anyway, as general games reviewers aren't the type of people who play enough FG's to really understand what makes a FG good. Game could get hit on the reviews and it would pretty much do nothing for initial sales, as the people interested already formulated their opinions on beta or will formulate opinions based on streams from prominent FG players.
 

Elandyll

Banned
And stuff like this is the reason why people with access to data have been leaving these forums. ::shakes head::

No...

It wasn't the case for Zhuge (afaik), wasn't for Aqua, wasn't for George either... and Queso, Cream and John Harker are still here (I think ;) ).

BUT

There is 0 reason for accusations of bias and a witch hunt when people having data like Queso just state facts. The attach ratio -is- a fact.

What people need to be very careful (and Jeff wasn't imo with a very click bait title to his article) is about the conclusions drawn from said facts, and make sure the context and details are taken in account.
 
SF is not SW .
It also not riding the wave of a movie that was going to be one of the biggest of all time .



To me it was more shocking that people thought SW BF was not going to sell millions .
Light content or not the game had so much going for it and beta was huge .

My point is IF SFV underperformes, a supposed lack of content will not be one of the reasons why.
 
My point is IF SFV underperformes, a supposed lack of content will not be one of the reasons why.

Of course it will be one of the reasons.
Less content means less day 1 buyers .
Also sometimes as time pass people lose interest or other things take up there time .

Saying SW did it so SF can do it also makes no sense , the IPs and brand are not equal in power.
 

onQ123

Member
Your right, it's irrelevant. Just as irrelevant as you mentioning random titles like Tekken Tag and Crash as the reason why PS1 & PS2 separated itself from the competition. The market had already been established long before these games were released for various reasons nothing to do with any of the titles you mentioned in your previous post.


Now your moving the goal post. First you argued specific titles for the PS1 & PS2 as the reason that for they they both "hit the ground running away from the competition" with sales and when I refuted that flawed point now the other consoles that got dominated during those generations also have several titles that set the consoles apart. Which would makes your original point invalid.

Go back and read your posts again if your that confused with your own flawed logic. You're amazed that the Sony is "beating the competition by 3:1 & 2:1 & on the way to 40 million without a big selling exclusive" when in reality exclusives themselves to the general consumer is irrelevant and overall an insignificant factor on why a console is a big success compared to its peers.

How was the market already established long before these games were released when PlayStation was new to the market & these games made PlayStation what it was back then? People didn't just decide to buy PlayStation over Sega Saturn & Nintendo 64 just because it was PlayStation. it was the game line up that pushed PS1 & with the PS2 it was the same way.

I'm not amazed that PS4 is selling so well without a big exclusive I knew it would sell well I just think it's amazing that it's at 40 million already & the big guns haven't even came out yet.

Xbox 360 & PS3 ended around 80 million after years of going hard for market share & PS4 is already at 40 million after just over 2 years with only a $50 price drop & the big games haven't even come out yet.
you don't think that's amazing?
At the end of this year PS4 could be at 60 million this type of success can not come from Microsoft making a few mistakes before launch.
 
Of course it will be one of the reasons.
Less content means less day 1 buyers .
Also sometimes as time pass people lose interest or other things take up there time .

Saying SW did it so SF can do it also makes no sense , the IPs and brand are not equal in power.
"Lack of content"(which differs from person to person so idky we use it to determine sales) didnt stop evolve(new ip) and titanfall(new ip) from selling millions. It's a new sf on a popular console and pc, previews have been positive, hype is up i dont see sfv doing bad at all.
 
"Lack of content"(which differs from person to person so idky we use it to determine sales) didnt stop evolve(new ip) and titanfall(new ip) from selling millions. It's a new sf on a popular console and pc, previews have been positive, hype is up i dont see sfv doing bad at all.

I never said it would do badly .
Just that one IP getting away with something don't mean another one can.
The same thing can be said for genres notice all 3 of those games are FPS.
Which have a much higher sales roof.
 

Alo0oy

Banned
How can be easy 3 million?

It sold 1 million the firsts 2 weeks, and has passed 2 million by end of September, which mean in 5 months after launch it sold "only" 1 million.

How can sold "easy" another million in 3 months? Ok, they are holidays months, that's true, but honestly, looking at NPD, PAL charts, and Media Create thread BloodBorne legs were always bad.

Not saying is impossible, but i highly doubt it sold 3 million, let alone say is "easy" over that.

The 2 million was in September, at the time there was already about ~800k unaccounted for from non-tracked markets or digital sales.
 
You're right, so they can take it or leave it :)
You have access to the total digital sales for each platform? Because that's what's necessary to say he's right.

Obviously retail attach rate is slightly higher for Xbox, and it seems for certain titles you both have seen that DLC and/or digital purchases are slightly higher as well. But there is a very large gap in the number of digital-only titles available on the two platforms. (Last number I remember seeing was about 70 titles more for PS4, and that was months ago.)

Granted, these lower-priced games tip the scales more slowly than the DLC for a blockbuster hit. But there are so many of them, I think they could accumulate to a very large effect. That's why a complete overview of the entire range of digital offerings is needed before we can confidently conclude total Xbox ARPU is higher.
 
Obviously retail attach rate is slightly higher for Xbox, and it seems for certain titles you both have seen that DLC and/or digital purchases are slightly higher as well. But there is a very large gap in the number of digital-only titles available on the two platforms. (Last number I remember seeing was about 70 titles more for PS4, and that was months ago.)

Granted, these lower-priced games tip the scales more slowly than the DLC for a blockbuster hit. But there are so many of them, I think they could accumulate to a very large effect. That's why a complete overview of the entire range of digital offerings is needed before we can confidently conclude total Xbox ARPU is higher.

But it's only logical that ARPU for XboxOne is higher and it's no contradiction to PS4 being the market leader. Tout au contraire.
A market leader attracts the mainstream more than the competition. Those users buy less titles than hardcore gamers. On average this results in less titles bought per console. That does not mean that PS4 has less titles or is less attractive, only that a huge amount of few-buyers lower the average.

Simple example:

XboxOne: 10 Hardcore à 10 games, 20 Mainstream à 4 games = 30 users with 180 games
Makes 6 games/user
Playstation4: 15 Hardcore à 10 games, 40 Mainstream à 4 games = 55 users with 310 games
Makes 5.6 games/user

So PS4 has lower ARPU and can be happy nevertheless.
 

LifEndz

Member
Consensus seems to be that the X1 had a bad month. Just wondering what the baseline number would need to be for them to have had a good/acceptable month? Obviously this number is going to get higher as we exit "pre-season" or when a big IP is released, but what's the minimum they should've sold last month for it not be considered a poor month.
 

Welfare

Member
The major thing someone should take away from the VB article is that the XB1 is still a viable platform for Ubisoft games, and can be reasonably guessed that the same applies to the other western 3rd party pubs.
 

Dazza

Member
Consensus seems to be that the X1 had a bad month. Just wondering what the baseline number would need to be for them to have had a good/acceptable month? Obviously this number is going to get higher as we exit "pre-season" or when a big IP is released, but what's the minimum they should've sold last month for it not be considered a poor month.

This was posted by RED_RING in this thread

Update.

Assuming XB1 is at ~130,000, which should not be that difference from the real numbers, this is the #3 worst month ever for XB1. (or #4, but i use 130K)

1) 77,000 (May 2014)
2) 115,000 (Apr 2014)
3) 130,000 (Jan 2016)
4) 131,000 (July 2014)
5) 139,000 (May 2015)
6) 141,000 (Jan 2014)
7) 150,000 (Jan 2015)
8) 160,000 (Aug 2014)
9) 168,000 (Oct 2014)
10) 187,000 (Apr 2015)

Gonna post as well the TOP TEN of worst months for PS4.

1) 152,000 (May 2015)
2) 174,000 (April 2015)
3) 187,000 (July 2014)
4) 189,000 (Jan 2015)
5) 190,000 (Aug 2014)
6) 197,000 (May 2014)
7) 199,000 (April 2014)
8) 209,000 (Aug 2015)
9) 218,000 (July 2015)
10) 268,000 (Feb 2014)
 
But it's only logical that ARPU for XboxOne is higher and it's no contradiction to PS4 being the market leader.
I am well aware of this. My point was that we can't make a definite conclusion based on just one large publisher. It's better to base it on the results for several major publishers, as it seems CosmicQueso and John Harker have. But even that's still not certain, considering the ever-expanding roster of digital-only (or near) publishers. As fas I know, no one has access to those revenue numbers for both platforms.

And though core gamers may be a greater percentage on Xbox, we know PS4 has far more digital games available to buy. This is exactly how they're trying to monetize their naturally more diverse users! Whether that balances Xbox or not is unknown.

In short, just because certain market segments see higher ARPU on Xbox, that doesn't mean the entire market does (though it might).
 
I am well aware of this. My point was that we can't make a definite conclusion based on just one large publisher. It's better to base it on the results for several major publishers, as it seems CosmicQueso and John Harker have. But even that's still not certain, considering the ever-expanding roster of digital-only (or near) publishers. As fas I know, no one has access to those revenue numbers for both platforms.

And though core gamers may be a greater percentage on Xbox, we know PS4 has far more digital games available to buy. This is exactly how they're trying to monetize their naturally more diverse users! Whether that balances Xbox or not is unknown.

In short, just because certain market segments see higher ARPU on Xbox, that doesn't mean the entire market does (though it might).
Ah, NOW I get it. You are right I guess. It's a shame digital sales numbers are locked and buried. This industry really is paranoid.
I wonder what would happen if there came up something like steamspy for consoles.
 
Consensus seems to be that the X1 had a bad month. Just wondering what the baseline number would need to be for them to have had a good/acceptable month? Obviously this number is going to get higher as we exit "pre-season" or when a big IP is released, but what's the minimum they should've sold last month for it not be considered a poor month.

Since it was cheaper two weeks longer this year than last, being at least flat year over year would have been expected.
 
It seems like we're getting to the point where releasing digital games at retail doesn't really do much. Is it worth selling 30K of Resident Evil for Capcom? I'm pretty much physical only and even I can't stand the constant whining that makes pubs like Sony release games destined to sell 3k at retail.

I think PS4 will accelerate this year as all market leading consoles do.

I'm actually wondering when publishers go the boutique route with CE only physical for everything but the monster titles. We'll see, I guess.
 
Ah, NOW I get it. You are right I guess. It's a shame digital sales numbers are locked and buried. This industry really is paranoid.
I wonder what would happen if there came up something like steamspy for consoles.
It is very shame that gaming industry isn't more like movie industry, where you get better sense of how well movies are doing both on theaters and on retail. And it's getting even more secretive when all the major publishers have stopped to share sales numbers at all.
 

Welfare

Member
Since it was cheaper two weeks longer this year than last, being at least flat year over year would have been expected.

Remember that this marked the 15th month that the Xbox One was available for $349. It sold ~7.5m units already at this price point, with 5.2m of which being sold in the holidays (where the price dropped even further for certain periods of time).

It needs a price cut because the amount of people that would've bought an Xbox One for $349 has pretty much been sapped now.

Even then, January isn't the best month to determine the health of a console. The 360 got its first price cut in August 07, and January 2008 was down from Jan 07 (-22%), but then went on to be up YoY for every month in 2008 except for August (price cut month) and September (was Halo 3 month)

Expect the XB1 to be down YoY until the next price drop.
 

Elandyll

Banned
Would be a win for Rockstar and not such a bad deal for Sony. You can make worse friends than Rockstar/Take2 in the industry.

Also makes sense to go that way that after the relation they had on GTA V... it would continue with GTA VI and/or RDR2 (specially given the status of the PS4 WW, it would probably be a lot different if the PS4 wasn't selling so well).

Agent would be a big deal in a way, but also an unknown quantity. Trading Agent for Marketing on what would be likely 2 of the biggest games of the entire gen would indeed be a win win situation imo.
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
You have access to the total digital sales for each platform? Because that's what's necessary to say he's right.

Obviously retail attach rate is slightly higher for Xbox, and it seems for certain titles you both have seen that DLC and/or digital purchases are slightly higher as well. But there is a very large gap in the number of digital-only titles available on the two platforms. (Last number I remember seeing was about 70 titles more for PS4, and that was months ago.)

Granted, these lower-priced games tip the scales more slowly than the DLC for a blockbuster hit. But there are so many of them, I think they could accumulate to a very large effect. That's why a complete overview of the entire range of digital offerings is needed before we can confidently conclude total Xbox ARPU is higher.

For some games, of course. Lots of people here have access to that.

That said, it's an NPD thread.
Digital only titles that aren't also at retail aren't what was being discussed, when I jumped in anyway.

So moving the goal posts don't count :)
 
How was the market already established long before these games were released when PlayStation was new to the market & these games made PlayStation what it was back then? People didn't just decide to buy PlayStation over Sega Saturn & Nintendo 64 just because it was PlayStation. it was the game line up that pushed PS1 & with the PS2 it was the same way.

I'm not amazed that PS4 is selling so well without a big exclusive I knew it would sell well I just think it's amazing that it's at 40 million already & the big guns haven't even came out yet.

Xbox 360 & PS3 ended around 80 million after years of going hard for market share & PS4 is already at 40 million after just over 2 years with only a $50 price drop & the big games haven't even come out yet.
you don't think that's amazing?
At the end of this year PS4 could be at 60 million this type of success can not come from Microsoft making a few mistakes before launch.

many of the big guns are out though. core gaming market has expanded because online gaming took off, just compare ps2 games sales which has a similar user base to xbox 360/ps3 combined in 2014, you can see a big difference in games sales. i'm not surprised that both consoles nearly sold 60 million combined, i'm just surprised how much ps4 is dominating i expected it to win the gen by 20-30 million, not by double.

ps4 reaching 60 million of course is not by microsoft making a few mistakes, but of course it helps when you're competition messes up, just like it helped the 360 tremendously. sony is biggest console brand in gaming as long as they don't fuck up in a big way like ps3, they will continue to dominate .
 
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