Imru al-Qays
Banned
Is there any reason Gaf should continue to uphold our end of the bargain if NPD aren't upholding theirs?
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
NPD Sales Results for May 2014 [Up1: Wii U Hardware]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Imru’ al-Qays;117727040 said:
GAF hasn't upheld their end of the bargain for years.
I mean, leaks still happen, just not in the same quantity as before. The change in the leak format is not because GAF decided so, it's because of NPD threats got harsher and harsher. If it was only for GAF, any subscriber would have gone to any other site and posted all the list with hundreds, thousands of games the same way as before.
Melchiah
Member
Aquamarine
Member
GAF hasn't upheld their end of the bargain for years.
I mean, leaks still happen, just not in the same quantity as before. The change in the leak format is not because GAF decided so, it's because of NPD threats got harsher and harsher. If it was only for GAF, any subscriber would have gone to any other site and posted all the list with hundreds, thousands of games the same way as before.
I mean really, a couple of sales leaks won't hurt NPD Group's business. Hardware leaks are especially harmless as they've been happening on GAF since at least 2004 and they haven't received any reduction in their business because of it. They're trivia for a bunch of gamers. I wish NPD Group would still provide them directly instead of giving us the finger, but whatever.
As long as the software leaks stay unreliable and random...NPD Group never has to worry about them. Now, if GAF consistently leaked a comprehensive set of EA's software sales + revenue figures for every title every month consistently (I believe GAF used to do this in like 2005 or so), a publisher / developer / retailer might decide to just rely on GAF leaks instead of paying for the data.
But nowadays? With the software leaks being so sporadic, vague, and random? They're harmless. And nobody on GAF ever leaks revenue figures for specific software titles anymore. But those revenue figures are important to businesses who pay for NPD.
terrisus
Member
Yeah, if I remember correctly, when the NPD crackdown happened, he was supposed to be able to, through collective GAF requests, request data from them on specific games or series or such. I think that might have happened once or twice, and then it was just kind of "Here are the Top 10 All-Systems Software and the Hardware sales." And then eventually just the software, with having to wait for leaks and guesses on the hardware. And while we still get leaks on software (creamsugar and such), it's not anywhere close to what we used to get, with big lists of individual games and such.
Melchiah
Member
Not in Europe. It was 500 at launch over here. It didn't hinder the sales though.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
Yes.
PS4 is not doing amazingly like the PS2 or Wii but also not doing badly like the PS3 or XBO.
Its doing well, staying ahead of 360, and producing decent monthly totals.
Whether it will do 40 million in the US is something that we can't say accurately right now.
Jinfash
needs 2 extra inches
Alt account confirmed.
Aquamarine
Member
Are you reading this thread, NPD Group?
Something like this would go a long way towards minimising leaks / making GAF happy without having any material impact on your business:
Something like this would go a long way towards minimising leaks / making GAF happy without having any material impact on your business:
Aaron Strife
Banned
So 300k for June everyone?
SwiftDeath
Member
That's just like your opinion, man
Be crazy if those days still existed, remember looking around the early NPD threads and seeing all the game sales down to 3 digit sales for a month was pretty crazy to read over.
This. So much this. The real danger of the contracting hardware/software market for consoles is that it needs to support games with astronomically growing development and marketing budgets, meaning that each title is a huge risk and has to sell very high numbers indeed just to break even.
Without growth, we will reach a point where even very high sales cannot get to break-even point. That would break the back of the industry.
Some things like massive taxpayer incentives in Quebec help, but building your business on government help is a dangerous proposition, as the taxpayer can withdraw their support when a new government is elected in.
Wish I had a cookie-cutter solution to this.
Yep. Bottom tier stuff.
terrisus
Member
Nah, I just lurked here for like 6 years before actually registering.
Are you reading this thread, NPD Group?
Something like this would go a long way towards minimising leaks / making GAF happy without having any material impact on your business:
And that was even after the NPD "lockdown."
It's sad how far things have fallen =(
The PS4 will do great in the US.How great it will do I really don't know.I can see the ps4 selling 5-7 million every year in the US until about 2018 or 2019 most likely.
unapersson
Member
I think it was £299 in the UK. I know I waited a few years until it was cheaper, but it was much more of a mainstream price than the PS3 at launch.
Interesting that the euro price was so high, but I guess it was a new currency and everything was being marked up at the timw.
pieatorium
Member
I wasn't trying to argue that they were the standard, poor wording on my part, what I was arguing against was the comments of massive decline and substandard
Imru al-Qays
Banned
We will never reach a point where very high sales cannot get to a break-even point. Developers and publishers will simply scale back budgets and the rate of graphical improvement will slow.
Melchiah
Member
2995FIM (503,7) here in Finland, which is not that far from the PS3's price. I actually paid 539 for the PS3 in November 2007, due to xmas sales bonus. The PS2 I bought at launch.
The euro was introduced here in 2002, over a year after the PS2 launch.
Imru al-Qays;117748670 said:
Problem is, the demographic pigeonhole that these major publishers are focusing the majority of their attention on (and rely on heavily) doesn't really accept that. Game "journalists" included. This is why outside demographics are important and why people are understating the contraction and how/where it really affects the market at large IMO.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Imru al-Qays;117748670 said:
The problem here is that publishers are locked into an escalating arms race with each other in the same genres for the same audiences iterating on the same formulas.
They can't risk gameplay innovations - they literally cannot risk alienating that target demographic by doing much different - so the only thing they have to compete against each other on is production costs; elaborate setpieces, overloading titles with content, getting bigname hollywood stars to guest star, cameos from other popular IP, etc.
grimlock442
Banned
For the very same reason Ryse, which was as fun as "dialing phone numbers" according to one reviewer, and scored overall in the 'meh' range, is beloved. Because you gotta love the one you're with.
I liked it quite a bit. It's fun in an RPG-Lite sort of way. They weren't bad games on their own merits if you completely ignored every word out of Molyneux's mouth. Sure, they were never really AAA quality, but they were fun little B-tier games.
Or maybe I'm just a freak, since I like pretty much every RPG I've ever played, even Time & Eternity.
biggersmaller
Banned
Now that we have some updated Square-Enix figures we can update our ALL-TIME Square-Enix RPG USA graph. Color coded for console.
click to enlarge
Titles are in chronological order by system
* = last updated Feb 2009 so those figures are out of date
If anyone can help fill in the gaps please tell...I may have missed some updates.
Funny how FFVII 'only' sold 2.75 million copies and was considered an unbridled success that ushered in a new golden era of JRPGs.
Now 3.4 million copies sold in four weeks is considered a failure for Square Enix (read: Tomb Raider).
well 3.4m is worldwide sales. ffvii did something in excess of 7m units (i think it was 9m?)
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
you onyl have to look at that chart to see how much of an unprecedented success FF7 was to not only SE but jrpgs as well.
Fallout-with-swords
Banned
I don't really understand why NPD isn't public, I understand why all the publishers and hardware makers wouldn't want it to be. It just seems so lame that we will only know exact numbers for games when they do really well via press releases. And wouldn't the publishers of those game already know how much they sold?
So NPD is just informing those willing to pay for the service? I know movie studios would like it the same way but I feel their layer of transparency adds legitimacy. I'm not sure if I can properly explain it but in IMO it makes the games industry seem rather juvenile.
So NPD is just informing those willing to pay for the service? I know movie studios would like it the same way but I feel their layer of transparency adds legitimacy. I'm not sure if I can properly explain it but in IMO it makes the games industry seem rather juvenile.
James Sawyer Ford
Gold Member
What in the world are you talking about? The PS4 should not be expected to sell 400k next month at all. It should be expected to sell around the same, if not less on a weekly basis, as it did the prior month, given the lack of major releases.
The proximity to launch is only relevant in the face of restricted supply. PS4 had substantially more supply than any previous console in history, and a lot of the sales were more upfront. Now that supply has exceeded demand, we already have an established baseline for demand...and in no way does that suggest it should sell 400K in a summer month.
It sounds like you're simply setting expectations for the PS4 next month up for failure so you can prove your delusional point that the PS4's numbers are somehow terrible.
Don't listen to anything dire says. He claimed that TLOU did not make Sony any money without any fucking evidence.
sonycowboy
Member
Man, NPD threads must have been awesome back in the day. I wish we could go back to that
Ahhhh... The good old days. A whole 'nother lifetime ago...
And for those who don't remember, this is almost what single handedly caused the lockdown.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=128218
(That is the youtube video which I can no longer find anywhere).
SwiftDeath
Member
Hmm aren't you the individual who was supposed to be giving Gaf the NPD info that NPD agreed to after the lockdown?
Why did the official information from NPD stop coming?
disastermouse
Banned
Right, but that's with established platforms. The journey from hype->save money->buy takes a bit longer for a console than for a game.
SwiftDeath
Member
Post 3396
terrisus
Member
A bit odd that SonyCowboy shows up on the same page they are mentioned, when SonyCowboy hasn't made a post at all in 20 days, let alone any posts in this thread. I wonder who you are in this lifetime, SonyCowboy.
terrisus
Member
Maitiú;117788027 said:A bit odd that SonyCowboy shows up on the same page they are mentioned, when SonyCowboy hasn't made a post at all in 20 days, let alone any posts in this thread. I wonder who you are in this lifetime, SonyCowboy.
Some people periodically search for instances of their username.
Other than this thread, his username has only been mentioned in 3 other threads this year.
Karsticles
Member
I liked the first one at first because the spellcasting was fun. Then it got shallow and repetitive.
SwiftDeath
Member
Updated. Also interesting to note that this thread appears to have the highest amount of lurking [views/post] out of the Top 10 NPD threads. Curious if there's a correlation there with perhaps lack of PR announcements
shinra-bansho
Member
NPD's watchful eye is why it's preferable that people don't pull the numbers from the thread and post them on twitter.
The PS4 falls somewhere in between right now, as you note. Which shouldn't be a massive surprise, as it's more expensive than the latter by a fair amount but being adopted more quickly than the former partly due to supply. Outside of launch the XBO has performed something like the PS3, although slightly better. Which again shouldn't be a massive surprise as it's a fair bit less expensive.
But yes, it will be a long while before we can gain any concrete feel on where they'll end up. Something disruptive could come along in 6 months and doom us all. It's just interesting to discuss. Will there be a late cycle adoption, if people think not, then why not?
It's worth noting that the 360's late market upswing actually began with the introduction of the 360S and then was elevated much further because of a repositioning of the entire system towards families.
I'm not sure how unbundling a feature now, materially impacts whether the late adopting market will come back in 2-3 years time, (on the false premise that a bundle doesn't exist) at a compelling price point later. Does one take that the only thing that can hold these consumers attention is swinging their arms, was the EyeToy what the late market PS2 adopters were buying the system for?
I don't think the 360 is the standard, it's just another point of reference. The PS2 is also a point of reference.
The PS4 falls somewhere in between right now, as you note. Which shouldn't be a massive surprise, as it's more expensive than the latter by a fair amount but being adopted more quickly than the former partly due to supply. Outside of launch the XBO has performed something like the PS3, although slightly better. Which again shouldn't be a massive surprise as it's a fair bit less expensive.
But yes, it will be a long while before we can gain any concrete feel on where they'll end up. Something disruptive could come along in 6 months and doom us all. It's just interesting to discuss. Will there be a late cycle adoption, if people think not, then why not?
This is under the premise that the back-end of the 360's cycle was because of a motion control camera entirely in and of itself, as opposed to because of a value proposition more in tune with that segment of the market, which included Kinect and relevant software, and the creation of a more family friendly brand. Kinect and Kinect 2.0 in themselves aren't value, they're just features.
It's worth noting that the 360's late market upswing actually began with the introduction of the 360S and then was elevated much further because of a repositioning of the entire system towards families.
I'm not sure how unbundling a feature now, materially impacts whether the late adopting market will come back in 2-3 years time, (on the false premise that a bundle doesn't exist) at a compelling price point later. Does one take that the only thing that can hold these consumers attention is swinging their arms, was the EyeToy what the late market PS2 adopters were buying the system for?
Kinect was an important part of their strategy with Xbox and Microsoft gave it a big push. It got a fair bit of mainstream exposure. With weak X1 sales and now unbundling Kinect, Microsoft are basically admitting Kinect is a failure and they are admitting they are giving up on it. No one's going to take it seriously, developers won't target it and the media are not going to give serious coverage to anything Kinect. I don't see them getting momentum with Kinect again on X1.
It doesn't make it impossible to get that late adopting market but it does make it more difficult. Another point though is that if Microsoft don't cater to that late adopting audience because they are busy targeting the core audience with X1 they could lose that audience. They might lose some of it to tablets anyway. Combine that with less SKUs because of higher development costs and there's a lot of challenges to getting that late adopting market to jump in again with the X1. Sony might have a better shot at it this gen but again they face those same challenges.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Let's not forget that Kinect came with a half a billion dollars marketing campaign.
If you're spending that much money on marketing, you'd better believe you want to see an uptick on sales.
The thing that frustrates me here is that you have all the tools you need to verify or refute my statement at your disposal. I make a lot of comments that actually require thinking, critical analysis and more than a first level analysis. This ain't one of 'em. Seriously click on that neogaf symbol, click the sales archive button, click NPD and then start checking out standard seasonal trends - particularly May-June trends. It would have taken you less time to verify that I am correct than it did to write your post exposing your self willed ignorance!
The system seller isn't exactly a myth since a few franchises do tend to result in an uptick in sales, but they're so rare as to be practically irrelevant. Historical trends on the other hand absolutely drive the standard of sales. Now I'm sure this is obvious to you if we were talking about the holiday uptick, yet you somehow think it's reasonable to then treat the other 9 months of the year as completely random and more or less equal? Of course not.
June is invariably a big month where 50-100% gains are typical regardless of what the big-thing-of-the-month happens to be. The reason I'd speculate for the uptick is that it's the end of the school year in many US schools. It should help start to give the first taste of data on the health of the console industry outside that's going to be driven primarily by people outside of early adopter/enthusiast types.