slavesnyder
Member
WiiU peaked in 1st year
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NPD Sales Results For March 2017 [Up2: Year to date charts, platform specific charts]
WiiU peaked in 1st year
WiiU was Nintendo 8th gen console and it flopped.
Kazuma Kiryu
Member
The gap will continue to grow until at least Scorpio launches, and it's not like the PS4/Pro will stop selling after that.
2M gap, now, pretty much guarantees that PS4 will continue being the US market leader, short to mid term timeframe.
I don't think we have enough data points to make that kind of a generalization, much less a prediction.
Jeez, with all the doom and gloom, this is a truly eye opening percentage.
I assume this is based on the respective launch dates of PS3 and Xbox 360? I mean, they launched a year apart.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
That was because of Kinect which was a major driver of growth
it lacks context. ps4 and xb1 opened far stronger than their predecessors, and their predecessors weren't the market leaders. while ps4 is going to beat ps3, xb1 will very likely not surpass the 360.
I think we've gone down this road before, but I don't believe that Wii audience is relevant in this discussion. It was an anomaly that doesn't tell anything meaningful about the health or lack of it of video games business.
the story of the 7th generation was how all hardware makers were selling more hardware than ever. the anomaly might be more or less the insane increase of hardware sales that occurred versus growth from previous periods. this growth continued out of the traditional market and into a new market with generalized hardware, which wound up affecting the performance of the traditional market in the long run. context is super important.
the wii was super important because it and the ds were both created with the mindset that more affordable games would be beneficial to the growth of the industry by allowing developers platforms to make cheaper games and for consumers to have more affordable options as well. that, and the software that could be created wouldn't need to be what was traditionally thought of as video games. both platforms were traditional however, in that they received support from traditional third-parties, had software sold at retail channels, and functioned the same as other traditional gaming hardware. the same is true of the success with kinect and microsoft's rebranding of the 360 as a family-friendly platform and i don't think anyone would begrudge the 360 from its status as a traditional platform even though the majority of its sales came from this era.
every generation experienced some level of growth by reaching a bigger audience. the 2nd gen had cartridges, giving more value to the home console. the nes made innovations like save states and games with multiple levels standard. the genesis brought arcade-level experiences into the home. playstation made games more cinematic and seemingly grander than ever before. playstation 2 was the first gaming device to have value outside of being just a gaming platform. wii, kinect, and ds attracted new audiences with novel software driven by at-the-time (currently, standard) unconventional control methods. regarding growth in the 8th gen, it comes from mobile devices and the idea that you don't need a games machine to play high-quality games.
ethomaz
Banned
Why consoles sales are not relevant in a discussion about console sales? Wii made a lot of money for the industry and that indeed shows how health the video games business was.
Look at the numbers... Switch launch made it a bit better for hardware and accessories but software took a big hit from last generation.
March 2009
Total sales: $1.43 billion
Hardware sales: $455.55 million
Software sales: $792.83 million
Accessories: $185.67 million
March 2010
Total Sales – $1.52 billion
Hardware Sales – $440.5 million
Software Sales – $875.3 million
Accessory Sales – $206.8 million
March 2017
Total Sales – $1.36 billion
Hardware Sales – $485 million
Software Sales – $612 million
Accessory Sales – $263 million
The actual situation looks to be better with Switch than it was with Wii U... so yes... the industry needs a Wii (or any 3rd console with good sales) to be health and Wii U was not that. Without Switch February 2017 made $724 million overall while February 2009 and 2010 were both around $1.3 billion... that almost twice money being made by retail, publishers, developers and related.
There is no way to talk about health of the gaming industry without Wii, Wii U, Switch, etc.
PS4 alone can't cover all the difference.
Further to that point March 2017 software sales mask the gap because it was an outlier with respect to software due to the Switch launch and 4 major AAA releases which is practically unheard of for the month.
ethomaz
Banned
Yeap... without Switch and Zelda March 2017 could be at half of the revenue it had... about the same of Feb 2017 ($700ish).
I just find amusing some guys says Wii was not part of the gaming business health lol when it generated revenue, employed more people, made money to publishers/dev/retail/related... it was a big part of the gaming business health of last generation.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
Pretty much, a lot of people like to ignore deemphasize the Wii's impact, but the 360 wouldn't have been as big as it later in it's life was without Kinect and move likely had an impact also. Large volume of hardware were sold directly or indirectly due to it's impact and there was substantial market growth. Currently the market seems to be a consolidation phase, PS4 is no doubt deriving a lot of it's growth off of the XB1's inability to reacquire the audience they had with the Xbox 360. The Switch is currently consolidating 3DS and wii u's userbase (or at least that's the plan. Microsoft is expanding out of consoles entirely and pushing more of a set up box approach. Interesting times ahead. Biggest potential avenues for growth would be developing countries for the PS4 (but that depends at wat price Sony can feasibly lower the console to) and the switches attempt fight back the market share lost after the ds. (good luck).
9th generation. The 3DS was part of the 8th generation.
ethomaz
Banned
I'm almost sure Switch is this generation for NPD... 8th.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Why would anybody discredit the Wii?
Yeah I think I've read that WiiU was relegated back to 7th gen alongside Wii for NPD.
switch is a bit weird in that there is no direct competition for it. no other handhelds will come for it, and it stands apart from other consoles given its portable nature.
i think that as time goes on, it'll be considered more in line with ps5 and scorpio.
Aaronrules380
Member
Taking out Japan is disingenuous and only fudges the numbers for non xbox brands to fit your own narrative. The fact that Xbox is a non presence in one of the biggest single country markets in the world is support for the narrative that Xbox has trouble outside the US. I might as well do similar figures while cutting out the UK (Xbox's biggest non US market by far) to support the opposite narrative. Also, selling more in the US than the rest of the world is a problem because while the US is the biggest market for video games individually, it does not really come close to being even half of the entire gaming market. It makes far more sense for this type of issue to look at what percent of the market each console holds worldwide and in individual countries/regions than it does to look at percent of consoles sold worldwide vs USyes? i took that 6M outside of the US as being correct without my own research. thanks for the correction
seems like you don't get my post at all. IF Xbox is only selling in the US, pretty much every console is doing the same was the statement. but neither is true.
it just shows how big the US market is and all consoles sell most of their units there
take Japan out. a region, where the Xbox brand is non existent and the different becomes close to negligible in the grand schem of things
US : WW ratio without Japan
Xb360 55% US vs 45% ROTW
Ps3 35% US vs 65% ROTW
Wii 50% US vs 50% ROTW
Xb1 60% US vs 40% ROTW
Switch 45% US vs 55% ROTW
Ps4 36% US vs 64% ROTW
you can check those numbers for legacy console, too
have a guess what kind of picture you'll get
the Playstation brand is the outliner, that is skewed towards ROTW and doing only half of what Xbox One is doing in the US
60% for Xbox One is nothing extraordinary.
anything below 75 or 80 is not "pretty much only selling in the US"
I love how in 2017 we still have people believing or stating that the Wii should be discredited.
So switch has the potential to be the best selling console of it's generation? Has a console ever had a 3 year head start to a gen?
hanspampel
Banned
what narrative? it's really impossible to talk about sales stuff on Neogaf without this nonsense
Xbox does not sell outside the US and UK, it's 2 biggest markets
Nintendo consoles don't sell outside the US and JP, its 2 biggest markets
Sega consoles didn't sell outside the US and JP, it's 2 biggest markets
fucking ridiculous statement, but all are tue or false the same way
and i also said, that Xbox is skewed towards the US, more than any other Console
also Xbox has (real) troubles in Japan, not outside the US
over 55% of all Iphone sales for Apple are US + CN
does the Iphone no sell outside of those markes? does it have a problems selling in the rest of the World?
KillerMan91
Member
I would say handheld market completely collapsing has had bigger impact to those numbers than home console market missing third wheel.
MatPiscatella
Member
Nope.
NPD has abandoned the numbered console generation naming convention as it is archaic and no longer reflects the market in a meaningful way.
The Switch, PS4 and Xone comprise what is called the "Current Consoles" group, Wii U, X360 and PS3 "Legacy Consoles" and all other consoles are bucketed as "Historical Consoles".
Unit sales were down in 2016 vs 2015, so we potentially hit the peak for both PS4 and Xone in the third calendar year (2015). Same thing happened with Wii and PS2.
Last gen had the Dance/Music craze followed by motion control gaming which made calendar year 7 the peak year for X360 and calendar year 6 the peak year for PS3. I don't expect that to happen again.
Liabe Brave
Member
Now that Mr. Piscatella has provided the comparison with last generation, we have an at least slightly constrained field of possibility for Sony and Microsoft this month.
Here are the calculated hardware sales for March NPD*:
229k < X1 < 270k
395k < PS4 < 436k
Total: 665k
Essentially, there's 41k in uncertainty to split between the consoles. If we average the range of possible sales ratios, that would apportion 24.5k to PS4 and 16.5k to Xbox One. So the naive estimate for final March numbers would be:
PS4: 419.5k
X1: 245.5k
The real situation is unlikely to be so evenhanded, of course. But there are conclusions that can be drawn even without narrowing the ranges to specific numbers:
- The overall gap in the U.S. is above two million units (March gap between 125k and 207k)
- Xbox One Q1 is up less than 6% YoY (could be lower, or even down by ~1%)
- PS4 Q1 is up by at least 4.5% YoY (could be as much as 8.8%)
- In 2016 Q1 the sales ratio was 1.55; in 2017 Q1 the sales ratio is between 1.53 and 1.70 (March sales ratio between 1.46 and 1.90)
*These estimates crucially rely on numbers for last gen. If what I have is inaccurate, that would throw off the results. Here's what I used, in case anyone has different numbers.
360 41 months - 14,918,000
PS3 41 months - 12,077,000
Welfare
Member
Interesting, your 360 number is a bit higher than my 14,885,000. If you could, could you send me your archive for the 360's first 41 months? I'm more willing to go with your number as mine looks to be outdated.
Your totals give 35,040,000 while my total (14,885,400 + 12,075,200) gives me 34,995,000 which is a big difference for determining monthly sales.
Primethius
Banned
Great work on the breakdown Liabe. Always appreciated!
OrbitalBeard
Member
I like this.
Square2015
Member
I just don't quite understand the removal of the Wii in the legacy group, considering it launched alongside the PS3...
OrbitalBeard
Member
Yeah, that's odd.
Unlike the others it's also still currently being sold at retail...
Graphics Horse
Member
NPD has abandoned the numbered console generation naming convention as it is archaic and no longer reflects the market in a meaningful way.
Wii is Switch's granddaddy, that's why. If you just want to measure it against what it came out alongside you'd keep the numbering system
Welfare
Member
Wii was selling double digit units in March 2016 and has been discontinued for over a year. That's historical data. PS3 was/is still selling units with the 360 so those are legacy consoles. Relevant consoles are current.
LegendofLex
Member
I mean, a key part of that context is that the number of games being released on Switch so far is smaller than the numbers on Wii/DS in 2009 and 2010 (fewer games = fewer game sales) + handhelds are in dire straits with 2/3 of their install base from last gen just completely evaporating.
MatPiscatella
Member
Pretty much this.
The market has changed, and generational breaks based on chronology and/or tech are no longer useful or meaningful.
Yep. And sure, there's nothing stopping anyone from breaking down comps in any way they like.
I'm just not going to waste my time doing that because it doesn't mean anything in 2017 and beyond.
I don't agree with this. Post-fitting what's a generation by what's still selling doesn't really work. By that reasoning, PS2 was still a current console in 2010/2011 and not part of the XBX/GCN legacy generation. If you want to say it was part of both current and legacy due to its longevity, then that's fine. Stratifying a console in one or another based on when it was selling (vs. what were its contemporaries in the main part of its life) is replete with logical holes.
Edit:
I would lean more toward Wii U being Nintendo's last generational console (PS4/XB1 generation). Switch is more like an island than part of a traditional generation.
Edit2:
Mat,
If you want to group stuff into fewer buckets, I'd suggest two. Current consoles (what's still selling and relevant to the marketplace, and historical for everything else. Excluding Wii from PS360's gen is beyond ridiculous. Better to avoid the question and loop everything together that's not current.
Welfare
Member
It's not redefining a generation but rather making it clearer what are the main sellers as of now, which is Xbox One, PS4, and Switch. Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii U (until next year where it will probably go to historical) sell enough to not be dead dead yet, but are far away from the general purchasing decisions of the current 3 that lumping them together would skew current trends. Then you have hardware that has been discontinued and don't sell anymore whose main purpose now is to look back and see how healthy the industry is now in the historical bracket.
PS2 could be considered current hardware up to 2010 because the last year of sales over 1M was 2009 and 2010 was when it started to sell under 100K. It was still a console that had selling power even at the height of the 7th gen so why couldn't PS2 be considered "current", then later be defined as a legacy console?
However, legacy will soon be empty as 360, PS3, and Wii U are more than likely going into historical next year, so there is really only a certain amount of time a console will even be "legacy" to begin with.
Okay, "legacy" being a wayfaring place where consoles move in and out of it for current analysis purposes works. That means that at one point, Wii, PS3, and 360 would've all been in "legacy" gen. With Wii U's demise last year, it would've been moved into that "legacy" area even before Switch released, then. "Current" would've been PS4+XB1 for most of last year in home consoles, in that case, and Switch just would've joined them this year.
Not useful for discussing gens in an open forum, but useful for discussing gens in a market analysis, if what's in current/legacy gen is defined with the article.
Not useful for discussing gens in an open forum, but useful for discussing gens in a market analysis, if what's in current/legacy gen is defined with the article.
I understand in terms of current relevance...
But then again PS3 and 360 sales, in the western markets at the very least, are also largely irrelevant nowadays.
This being said, for historical analysis, it messes things up quite a bit, and all that because Nintendo cried "Do Over!".
(That's a /jk btw)
ethomaz
Banned
Ohhhh nice to know... thanks.
slavesnyder
Member
It's a good decision from NPD to ignore the generation conflics.
Xbox and PS released new consoles back to back (+/- a few months) because they had to. And I guess this will go on as they are so similar in power, target group and gaming portfolio depending on 3rd party AAA. It might not only be a decision from sony and microsoft, but also a wish from the big publishers to develop their huge budget games for both platforms on the same level.
call it generations or incremental updates, but those two will still walk through the dark and frightening forest of the dying console industry hand in hand, united in a sibling love-hate relationship, whistling their tune of cultural relevance until they reach the gingerbread connected home where the old google-eyed witch just waits to burn them alive in a cloud-shped oven.
nintendo is a little out of this loop as they are different in concept, power and with a lower dependency on 3rd party. it's difficult on the one hand to get enough compelling software, but on the other hand it gives them a lot of freedom to leave the generations rat race and do their own thing, pulling real USP bulletpoints out of their arsenal of creative ideas, hoping that someone out there still cares.
Xbox and PS released new consoles back to back (+/- a few months) because they had to. And I guess this will go on as they are so similar in power, target group and gaming portfolio depending on 3rd party AAA. It might not only be a decision from sony and microsoft, but also a wish from the big publishers to develop their huge budget games for both platforms on the same level.
call it generations or incremental updates, but those two will still walk through the dark and frightening forest of the dying console industry hand in hand, united in a sibling love-hate relationship, whistling their tune of cultural relevance until they reach the gingerbread connected home where the old google-eyed witch just waits to burn them alive in a cloud-shped oven.
nintendo is a little out of this loop as they are different in concept, power and with a lower dependency on 3rd party. it's difficult on the one hand to get enough compelling software, but on the other hand it gives them a lot of freedom to leave the generations rat race and do their own thing, pulling real USP bulletpoints out of their arsenal of creative ideas, hoping that someone out there still cares.
Liabe Brave
Member
Your version does not appear to be quite possible. Using your 360/PS3 total would require the March 2017 Microsoft+Sony to be lower than my minimums combined. But the minimums come from the PL parametric, and should be very solid.
Your data does somewhat suggest that both consoles may fall toward the bottom of the ranges I gave, though, rather than in the middle. Splitting the difference with my naive apportioning would put the results (with a healthy dose of spurious precision) at:
PS4: 407k
X1: 238k
No problem. My calculations for February showed PS4 at ~400k and Xbox One at ~230k. There's a little bit of variability there (unlike my January numbers), but not a whole lot.Thank you for doing all this
Do we have enough to project Feb or Apr?
April NPD has not been released yet, so I've got nothing on that!
UnlovedJew
Member
I genuinely can't believe how well Wildlands is doing.
Welfare
Member
I wasn't suggesting to use my data. That's why I asked for your data set as mine looked to be outdated and yours much closer to where the numbers should be.
WHY? It's the only newer MP shooter out at the moment. It's a very popular genre. I wouldn't be surprised if Ubi also drops a more co-op MP focused Far Cry 5 next Feb-Mar
Liabe Brave
Member
In terms of total U.S. sales, it will probably take longer than that for Xbox One to fall behind. The Xbox 360 had the worst launch holiday of any console in gens 6/7/8, whereas Xbox One had almost the best; its first two months were higher than Wii's first four, or PS2's first five. That initial jump start has carried them for years, and isn't likely to be eroded in the next 12 or even 18 months (especially given Scorpio).
But in terms of month-by-month sales, Xbox One already has issues keeping up with Xbox 360. It's down for most of each year, then climbs way back up during the holidays. It's an interesting pattern, but doesn't seem to be sustainable. The holiday bump has been decreasing, and Q1 2017 is the worst sustained period (compared to 360) since the first price drop with removal of Kinect.
Obliterator
Member
Ubi are becoming the kings of Q1. For Honor, Wildlands, Division, and Far Cry Primal are all games in recent years from them that found great footholds / success at the beginning of the year. I certainly don't expect them to abandon that model anytime soon.
Welfare
Member
They even scheduled South Park for Q1 this year but got delayed. Are we expecting that to release this year or is it being given enough time to be a big Q1 2018 title?