Exactly. I hate how competition gets to set the standard of what is considered acceptable.
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NPD Sales Results for November 2013 [Up3: Zelda, Pokemon, Mario, 3DS, Wii U]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Exactly. I hate how competition gets to set the standard of what is considered acceptable.
SwiftDeath
Member
I'll preface this by saying MS is doing incredibly well in the US. Very very good numbers for a console competing against such a similar console 100 bucks cheaper
Now that being said the XB1 could in fact be doing much better in the US. They simply needed to send more stock to the US in November but decided not to. They instead chose to launch in 13 countries. Why?
Why would they not have a staggered launch and ensure themselves their home market of which they offer the best value prop to users compared to the XB1 in foreign markets and arguably run the highest profitability per user? I honestly believe MS was worried they could lose the US launch to Sony even if they had done a staggered release and focused solely on the US so instead decided to launch WW to ensure they'd have more impressive numbers to PR with.
So yes while MS has had a fantastic launch even or perhaps especially compared to Sony they could have in fact done better. It all depends on the qualifiers you use as these launch decisions are made for a reason.
Randolph Freelander
Member
No, sir, it's sales age, and sales age is serious business. Lives hang in the balance.
I'm actually quite calm. Caffeinated, but calm.
GuitarAtomik
Member
This is a way different situation than the Dreamcast for reasons mentioned above. If Nintendo wants to keep it on shelves for a few more years, they can do that and maybe even turn it around to a degree (especially if they can get it really cheap).
The real question I have is about timing. Does Nintendo try to ride the WiiU out for just a few years and release a successor "mid-gen", or do they try to wait it out aaalllll the way to next-next-gen? The only way I could see a mid-gen release being successful is if it's as disruptively different as the original Wii (like a console/hybrid or VR machine). But waiting another 6-10 years with under-performing hardware/software on the shelf might not be a great idea either unless they can sell it at a profit (which is do-able over time).
ultratruman
Banned
Better supply is a factor contributing to Sony's success, not sure why it discounts the fact that Sony won. They sold more to consumers in 24 hours than Microsoft managed in 9 days. Contextualize that with as much Nelsonomics as you want, there are more Americans out there with the new PlayStation than the new Xbox. Tell people that a year ago and they wouldn't believe you.
Dreams-Visions
Member
lolwut.
Sony caught up to and passed the 360 in the last couple years in sales. If anything, it's just a continuation of the way things have been going over the last year or so. Let's not get stupid and pretend that Microsoft shit on Sony for an entire generation. It didn't happen. Less hyperbole and more reality, please.
Randolph Freelander
Member
See, I won't even go there. These things are not competing, and the price difference does not matter. Yet. I submit that both of these systems could priced higher and be selling just as much. (I'd even say prices should be higher. The market would support it, go all out, make some money while you can.) Prices could flip, with Xbox 1 being $100 lower, and the results would be no different and still be just as meaningless. My only position is that when they stop selling out, that's when they'll actually be competing and that's when one side will definitively win (and I believe it won't be close).
Now, when I step back, I will admit that winning the early PR battle is not completely without merit, and getting a toehold in the market is obviously a good thing. But in the larger context, the PR of blitzing the competition in January, February, and deeper into next year will prove just as much if not more valuable over the long term.
Worldwide or in the USA? I thought the 360 was still on top of the PS3 here in America?
ultratruman
Banned
I'm just talking about the US here since this is an NPD thread, where it's not hyperbole at all. I should've been more specific though, sorry.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
You're correct about the Americas. It's something like 40m (360) vs. 25m (PS3) in the US. Worldwide though I think it's different. 9m PS3s in Japan where the 360 is at 1.7m there and PS3's lead in Europe definitely helps.
Basileus777
Member
No, you were fine. It's to be assumed that you are talking NPD in a NPD thread unless otherwise specified.
Version 3.0
Member
I think you have that backwards. All signs indicate that the PS4 can't keep up with demand, but the XB1 can and is.
If the XB1 had higher demand, it would definitely have sold more.
SwiftDeath
Member
Hmm I agree the 100 dollar price difference doesn't make much difference at launch or at least doesn't seem to be but from a business perspective it is fantastic to do almost as well as a competitor with a higher price point
I even agree that both consoles could be priced higher and do the same numbers to a point
If both consoles were 200 USD more expensive I'm not entirely sure they'd have sold out for November maybe they would have but 300 USD more and they wouldn't etc.
Same with supply if both companies had delivered 5 million consoles at launch I doubt they'd sell out so there is still supply and demand at work here and demand is not going to be infinite no matter what.
But yes with the qualifiers of MS's current production limits and launching simultaneously in 13 countries I doubt MS could've done much better.
Randolph Freelander
Member
I don't know why they wouldn't believe me, if they've been around for prior launches, they might know that such numbers are always supply constrained. The general public? Yeah, maybe they'd be surprised, or maybe they'd be surprised that Wii U wasn't selling the best given the Wii, or maybe they never knew PlayStation stopped being the top selling brand. At least, for those that don't still call all games "Nintendo."
The actual unbelievable thing here is Sony was able to make 1.1 million units and get them here for launch. If you told me that a year ago, I would have said you were dreaming. I never mean to take any credit away from Sony for what they've done here. But I just ultimately find arguing over supply to be quite less satisfying than arguments about actual demand. So far, we've seen demand for both products to be high enough to absorb everything thrown at it. Next year, we'll see what happens when it isn't.
hodayathink
Member
I think Pachter said it was 1.1 million behind for October, but 800k ahead for November, so it's about 300k below.
It's ridiculous how the media mindlessly repeats Microsofts lies.
Xbox One was not the fastest selling. PS4 sold more. It sold faster.
We can only hope Microsoft does horrible one of these months and they have nothing to spin.
As to why Sony didn't release numbers, I blame Vita. It would look bad for them to only tell us PS4 sales and not tell us PS3 or Vita. Maybe if each of their consoles is the best selling we'll get an actual NPD report each month.
Xbox One was not the fastest selling. PS4 sold more. It sold faster.
We can only hope Microsoft does horrible one of these months and they have nothing to spin.
As to why Sony didn't release numbers, I blame Vita. It would look bad for them to only tell us PS4 sales and not tell us PS3 or Vita. Maybe if each of their consoles is the best selling we'll get an actual NPD report each month.
They already did the 1 million in 24 hours announcement. It doesn't really help them to announce the Nov NPDs since they didn't sell many more than that. They'll probably wait for 3 million, probably after the Asia launch.
Randolph Freelander
Member
Remind me, where were you exactly during this past generation when Sony PR was the most hilarious thing around? It's PR, dude. Spin is what they do. If the media parrots it, then Major Nelson and friends did their jobs well.
SwiftDeath
Member
It's not a lie it's spin
There is certainly a difference. It simply depends on what qualifiers you put on the statement
If the question is what console sold more on a daily basis then XB1 did
If the question is what console sold more on a weekly basis then XB1 still did
It's spin at its finest but its not a lie.
If the question had been what console had sold the most in the same number of days well then that is obviously PS4
ultratruman
Banned
Is it hyperbole to say the NA this gen will be the most hotly contested console market ever?
Imperfected
Member
The easiest metric by which to measure success or failure is in terms of goals met. The goal of both companies is to have the best selling video game console of this generation. There will be one company that succeeds in that goal, and one company that fails. To the very specific standards of this context, there will be a "winner" and a "loser", in an entirely "binary" and in fact very simple fashion.
Both companies, being multimedia empires with diverse interests, have any number of other goals they are working toward. They may succeed or fail in these goals entirely independent of this primary goal; it's entirely possible for both Sony and Microsoft to succeed in all of their secondary and tertiary goals for this console generation, including but not limited to: increasing their year-to-year revenues, expanding their userbase into new demographics and markets, improving their software attach rates, creating a market segment to which they can serve advertisements or sell unrelated services, prevent erosion in their other markets through product synergy, etc.
There's not much way (outside of shareholder meetings) to ascertain what their secondary or primary goals are or how well they are succeeding in them, but one thing we can say for certain is that both companies set out with the goal of being the best selling home console manufacturer this generation, and whatever other successes or failures they may have are always going to be soured or ameliorated by their success or failure in that one singular endeavor, regardless.
So, I think it's a perfectly fair and reasonable way to measure things. Not everything has to be nuanced into (50 shades of) gray in this world.
Both companies, being multimedia empires with diverse interests, have any number of other goals they are working toward. They may succeed or fail in these goals entirely independent of this primary goal; it's entirely possible for both Sony and Microsoft to succeed in all of their secondary and tertiary goals for this console generation, including but not limited to: increasing their year-to-year revenues, expanding their userbase into new demographics and markets, improving their software attach rates, creating a market segment to which they can serve advertisements or sell unrelated services, prevent erosion in their other markets through product synergy, etc.
There's not much way (outside of shareholder meetings) to ascertain what their secondary or primary goals are or how well they are succeeding in them, but one thing we can say for certain is that both companies set out with the goal of being the best selling home console manufacturer this generation, and whatever other successes or failures they may have are always going to be soured or ameliorated by their success or failure in that one singular endeavor, regardless.
So, I think it's a perfectly fair and reasonable way to measure things. Not everything has to be nuanced into (50 shades of) gray in this world.
Probably the only contested market.
ultratruman
Banned
It's just spin, man. Nintendo's been doing it with the Wii U all year.
Expect to read a lot more about percentage increases, how fast something sold and year on year comparisons from all camps for a while.
No, that's the console warrior's goal for the generation. Profit is the biggest goal for both companies, and to a lesser extent, expansion of the brand ecosystem - both in terms of market penetration and its overall scope. Yes, both companies would love to be number one at the end of the generation, but only because it'll likely result in the obtaining of their actual goals.
Randolph Freelander
Member
I'd say it isn't hyperbole, but it might be presumptuous. We don't know that either one of them will be selling all that well come next year, let alone if they'll be close to one another. For all we know, this last generation might have been the tighter competition.
On the other hand, I'd say at least early on, there will be a lot of money flying between Microsoft and Sony. But it will have to be close for it to turn vicious.
Yes the goal is to win, and completely dominate the market. But at the end of the day it is about making money.
You can come in second and still be successful. Hell I think Nintendo came in third with the GameCube and still made some money off the thing.
Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, etc... Is number one the only successful company? Is Apple a complete loser because the PC market still dominates?
You were so reasonable throughout most of your post, but you missed the big picture. Just look at last gen, all three consoles were winners. The goal of all three was to be number 1. But did any of them really fail?
SwiftDeath
Member
Didn't Sony lose like 3.5 billion USD last gen? Not sure they made it all back
MS lost about a billion mostly due to RROD, but think they made it back
Nintendo was the real winner last gen and not by units sold but I guess they won that too
Randolph Freelander
Member
I'd argue that yes, at least 1 did, possibly 2.
Sony failed. They squandered the PS2 and lost revenue and profit potential because of it. Now, I will say that they spent the latter years of the generation mitigating that failure, and they'll very likely end up second (if not first in total shipments, if they support the system long enough), but they still put themselves in the bad position of having to work entirely too hard to end up doing worse overall no matter where it actually ends up. They sacrificed a lot. Was cell worth it? Did Blu-Ray need it? Hard to say. Since perhaps I don't know, I might ultimately have to give them a pass, since I don't have any idea what PS3 meant in the grand scheme of things to Blu-Ray or how that format might have contributed to Sony's bottom line.
The other failure I'd say is Nintendo, and this one might get me in trouble. "But wait, they dominated! They sold 100 million units! They made a lot of money!" Yes. Absolutely, that is completely true, and good on them. But they failed to find a way to hold on to it. Maybe they never had a chance, I don't know, but they stopped serving that market and seem to have not understood it will enough to transition those customers over to Wii U. So I don't know, it seems a failure, but whether you want to count it as a failure on them last time around or this time around I guess is up to your form of mental accounting, but it fell off a cliff long before Wii U released.
Microsoft succeeded, in that they very obviously expanded their market from Xbox, and they at least appear not to have lost it while leading up to Xbox One. Again, that's not to predict that they'll transition those consumers to the next console (I'm not following them, for example), but it's just to say the 360 and it's games didn't fall off the same cliff as Wii. They didn't make the same profit as Nintendo, not by a long shot, but the 360 has positioned them far better to compete for revenues this time around than what Nintendo is now doing.
airmangataosenai
Member
I've seen a ton of articles in the mainstream press using that PR line about it being a faster seller, so stupid. The difference isn't huge but it's not really negligible either and shouldn't be hidden or downplayed. Actually, I was thinking about it earlier and the difference between One and 4 this month is larger than all sales for the Wii U this entire month.
With the way that research and development, losses, and payouts are spread across various divisions of a company, there is no way to put it together into a meaningful picture. Plus when you look at a company like MS that has tens of billions of cash on hand..
Maybe an explanation is needed. MS, just like any other profitable company, has profits that are just floating out there each quarter. They can use that money to invest into stocks, mutual funds, or research for future products, or marketing or.... They can just let it linger.
Do you have to let it linger do you have to?
I really want to go into the depths of the market, but this shitty cracked IPad is a bitch to deal with.
I agree mostly, mostly with what you are aiming at.
Sony went from supreme domination to battling for number 2. From owning like 70% of the console market to battles for 33%.
But now that we are looking at the end of the generation, Sony is at 80 million, MS is at 80 million, and Nintendo is at 100 millionish. Yes Sony did a super face plant compared to last gen. But they still came out OK.
shinra-bansho
Member
Fun with Excel.
Jan-Nov hardware sales.
Microsoft did incredibly well growing the Xbox last gen.
The rise and fall of Nintendo is pretty stunning to look at.
Jan-Nov hardware sales.
Nintendo
PlayStation
Xbox
Microsoft did incredibly well growing the Xbox last gen.
The rise and fall of Nintendo is pretty stunning to look at.
SwiftDeath
Member
Why doesn't the numbers on the y-axis for the Playstation hardware sales have comas?
Clearly you're covering something up!!!
Codeblew
Member
Too bad. It is my favorite PS4 game.
Codeblew
Member
I don't disagree with your post as a whole just the part about it being hard work. NPD buys the sales data from retailers and then accumulate it and sell it to others. Nothing hard about that. The only reason my company gives them data is because they pay us.
Aquamarine
Member
They steal the data, modify it slightly, and reproduce it while claiming it as their own data without giving credit. And, it's a breach of every NPD contract.
Codeblew
Member
No, that is not what I meant. I don't disagree with you there. I was just arguing what NPD does is not hard work since all they do is just buy the data from retailers, massage it a bit and then resell it. I edited my post a bit to clarify.
This is great. I'd really like to see the handheld market (PSP over DS, transitioning into Vita over 3DS) since you have the numbers handy.
I bet that would be extremely telling.
To be fair, there were some very large NPD threads in 2006 and before, IIRC, that were deleted altogether with the NPD crackdown in Nov-2006. Don't recall specific sizes, but do recall them being massive with the various data that was posted in them (and that's why they were deleted). Since there are so many more members now than then, these were probably still bigger, but just wanted to mention the threads that are no longer with us. *moment of silence*
Thanks for putting the list together!
ReBurn
Gold Member
Wait. Is this just US posts? Or does it include worldwide post totals? Guys, this is important.
Aquamarine
Member
Oh okay. The amount of coordination that NPD performs in order to aggregate and analyze that data is impressive, though. It's not a small-scale operation.
Based on how you graded Nintendo, you are basically calling Sony a failure with PS2.
"But wait, they dominated! They sold 150 million units! They made a lot of money!" Yes. Absolutely, that is completely true, and good on them. But they failed to find a way to hold on to it. Maybe they never had a chance, I don't know, but they stopped serving that market and seem to have not understood it will enough to transition those customers over to PS3.
In same criteria for Microsoft, you are basically calling Sony succeeded with PS3.
they at least appear not to have lost it while leading up to PS4. Again, that's not to predict that they'll transition those consumers to the next console (I'm not following them, for example), but it's just to say the PS3 and it's games didn't fall off the same cliff as Wii. They didn't make the same profit as Nintendo, not by a long shot, but the PS3 has positioned them far better to compete for revenues this time around than what Nintendo is now doing.
You are not judging the performance by the generation and It's definitely not a "form of mental accounting" as you stated.
Codeblew
Member
Well that is true. If they don't get their file by Monday morning, I hear about it and have to figure out why they didn't get it through our automated process.
Randolph Freelander
Member
I don't find it particularly inconsistent, but I granted that it might be a tough sell right there in my post.
Wii died long before Wii U released. That's not true for the PS2 to PS3 transition, PS2 kept outselling PS3 and Xbox 360 for years. PS3's problems were its own. 360 has not died prior to Xbox One. If Xbox One has problems, they will also be its own. Wii U is a dead system, a lot of the blame is certainly on it, but the early (relatively speaking) death of Wii didn't do it any favors. Wii succeeded, and then it didn't. The audience was lost before they ever knew the successor existed. What can I say? It's something we've never seen before.
360 dramatically increased its audience, and has shown no signs of losing it by the end of the generation. I rule it a success, and it's up to Microsoft not to squander it. I don't think Wii can say that. It gained the world and then lost it all before Wii U ever came around. You're free to disagree, because in the end, Nintendo made a lot of money with it... right up until they didn't.
RealityPales
Member
Agreed. Shame people slept on NFS: Rivals.
But DAMN at those PS4 numbers equating to almost every other platform combined.
Imperfected
Member
I'm a bit perplexed as to why you would quote my post and then say, "No, you're wrong. Let me repeat back almost exactly what you said."
I said they can have other goals. I even gave examples of what those goals could be, including what you suggest and then some. I also said, quite clearly, that we are incapable of saying with any confidence what their exact goals in those fields are until they make them known at an investor call. To whit: we can reasonably guess that the general sales goal of both companies is 5,000,000 units shipped for the fiscal year.
That is the only sales target we currently have. The only other goal that we can say with absolute certainty they have and that we are able to measure is to be the market leader. Yes, they almost certainly want to improve their software (and in particular, services) attach ratio; we do not know what percentage of XBL or PS+ subscribers they would consider a success, or what attach rate for software they are presently targeting. Yes, they probably want to expand their sales to include new demographics and markets; we do not know what percentage of female or over-40's gamers they want to sell to, or what their sales goals currently are for the fiscal year in Portugal or China. Yes, they probably want to serve ads to their consumers via their services, and have some idea of what kind of engagement rate or click-through they want to hit for that - again, we don't really know what it is.
The one goal both have that we not only know beyond a shadow of a doubt but can also definitively measure as a success or failure without additional information is the goal of being the best-selling console. Therefore, that is the current metric by which we will measure success or failure.
This is entirely reasonable and logical, no matter how much people want the situation to be otherwise for whatever reason.
Version 3.0
Member
I went looking for Need for Speed for the PS4 4 times, once in Colorado and thrice in Nevada, and couldn't find it. I noticed they didn't have the XB1 version, either. They had the 360 and PS3 versions, though.
I finally saw it earlier this week, but now I'm playing other stuff, so maybe I'll pick it up later.
Wonder why it's still posted in the OP here of all places.
metalslimer
Member
This kind of thing is not good at all. Nintendo's hardware sales (and probably software sales) are declining to the point where they are actually in a worse position than the GC era overall since the 3DS is selling as fast as the GBA. With increasing production costs, you can tell why Iwata said that GC sales were not sustainable. What is amazing to me though is that despite the terrible Wii U hardware sales, I would have never thought Nintendo would be a crazy enough to launch a system selling at a loss and have it stay selling at a loss for so long, and at such a high price.
shinra-bansho
Member
Something like this?
Handhelds hardware, Jan-Nov.
I think I already wrote somewhere in the thread, December last year pushed handheld sales over 7M for 2012. I think this year it will only be slightly above 5M.