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NPD Sales Results for October 2010 [Update 6: Rock Band 3]
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
teruterubozu
Member
Alright, my bad. So it ISN'T Kotick's fault then, it's us consumers (which are not represented in this forum, BTW). Gotcha.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
szaromir said:
True, I forgot about Sonic, that's another established brand that usually does very well, even when the games themselves are garbage.
Don't get me wrong, thanks to handhelds and the advent of downloadable game services, there's certainly room for platformers on today's market, and I'm thankful for that. But they're definitely not the force that they once were. Even with the already mentioned established franchises, big budget retail platformers are few and far between, especially on HD consoles.
Yes, there are many flops among shooters as well, but that's because there are loads of them being made (although, thankfully, they're not as prevalent as they used to be several years ago).
Oh, you meant those forum users who swore to boycott MW2 for not having dedicated servers and bought it anyway?teruterubozu said:
I thought you were talking about something serious, like average joes suddenly caring for the logo on the bottom of their box.
teruterubozu
Member
Jocchan said:
I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore. My initial point was possibly (and I did use the word "possibly") the deterioration of the corporate brand to some degree, but then somehow it turned into me equating GAF as the universe.
mikekennyb
Member
In this article from Reuters I read that according to NPD "software sales (in the US) rose 6 percent in October to $605m"
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Video-game-data-raises-rb-206632945.html?x=0&.v=1
I understand that a lot of GAF (and in particular, Japanese developed) favorites aren't selling well, but CoD just had the biggest software launch ever. Kinect has sold over 1m so far this fall, Gabe Newell was just written about in Forbes for how fantastic of a business Valve has created in Steam... The industry isn't about to collapse.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Video-game-data-raises-rb-206632945.html?x=0&.v=1
I understand that a lot of GAF (and in particular, Japanese developed) favorites aren't selling well, but CoD just had the biggest software launch ever. Kinect has sold over 1m so far this fall, Gabe Newell was just written about in Forbes for how fantastic of a business Valve has created in Steam... The industry isn't about to collapse.
Paracelsus
Member
mikekennyb said:
You cannot keep the market afloat with one game.
mikekennyb
Member
Paracelsus said:
If you follow the link, NPD sales were up in October. CoD came out in November. Black Ops isn't the only thing that the industry has going for it.
mikekennyb
Member
ymmv said:
While I wonder if the 10:1 ratio is a little high, absolutely there are more financial failures than success in games. It's been that way for a while though, and the industry is doing fine. Now looking at recent results, Japanese companies have been hurting, but that's to be expected with the shift of the market more and more towards the West.
Hopefully what comes out of these issues is a realization that just as not every movie is Avatar, not every game is CoD. If companies develop their games with a sound business model in mind, they can be profitable without being #1 on the sales chart. Look at the free to play MMO's, or Angry Birds, or all of the great indie/XBLA games that are doing so well on the download services. There is opportunity out there for gaming, just not every release can be expected to be AAA and a multimillion seller.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
mikekennyb said:
WiiFit+ (Which was only $20) was the only major release of October 2009 that was tracked in the NPD period for October 2009 where October 2010 had tons of major releases so it's really not that good.
EviLore said:
That's not terrible for a limited numbers of days.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
I thought Borderlands and Uncharted 2 had launched at the end of the month, my bad.
mikekennyb said:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/31081/THQ_Sales_Down_Losses_Up_But_Still_Meets_Guidance.php
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2010-11-15-losses-increase-at-ubisoft-despite-growing-sales
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/...ons_Closing_Losses_Despite_Sales_Declines.php
http://www.techdigest.tv/2010/07/nintendo_and_ca.html
But that will mean that the industry has to change dramatically. The number of big budget action titles and first person shooters will have to go down, since there doesn't seem to be an audience for so many titles. There'll be far less games like Vanquished and Enslaved in the future, and more cheap PSN / XBLA games untill that market becomes saturated (something that's already happening).
GitarooMan
Member
Any rough estimates on what Rock Band 2 did in its first month for comparison?
storybook77
Member
Archie said:
In 6 days too. With a better marketing push it would have probably sold even better but I'm pretty sure Viacom was already in sell mode by then even though it wasn't made public knowledge until recently.
Hopefully Harmonix will land on their feet with someone besides Activision.
butter_stick
Banned
Warriors of Rock had half the time, IIRC. 3 days last month. Not sure though.
Not that it really matters much either way. Both would be lucky to have much in the way of legs.
Not that it really matters much either way. Both would be lucky to have much in the way of legs.
GitarooMan said:
Rock Band 2 had an ass backwards launch. The 360 version came out September 14 and did 363k while the PS3 version came out in October and the Wii version came out in December.
Rock Band 3 came out October 26 for reference so while the numbers are still pretty shitty they aren't entirely doom and gloom.
storybook77
Member
butter_stick said:
Less games around that date though. Halo Reach was already out and MoH, CoD, Kinect, et al.
As you've said before though, how it trends over the next few months will tell the better tale.
The quality of the pro guitar and DLC will be the biggest influence on how well this sells in the future, IMO. Word of mouth could carry this game.
butter_stick
Banned
storybook77 said:
DLC and pro instruments aren't going to change shit, really. Pro instruments especially. It's not like RB3 is hurting for quality DLC either.
BTW I was wrong, apparently GH had till October 2nd, which is pretty much in the same ballpark as what RB had.
Sho_Nuff82
Member
The only thing this attitude accomplishes is that Activision will continue making CoD/WOW/Starcraft/Diablo, and fire everyone that you actually boycott. I don't know if you guys noticed or not over the last few years, but they're not in the business of using their moneymakers to subsidize flop series, they're in the business of making money. Personally, I believe Activisions scorched earth policy is where the AAA market should be heading - there are way too many 200-man teams out there putting out 100k flops. There needs to be more small studios making indie or lower priced games, or there simply needs to be less jobs than what we have right now. That's the reality, and the only thing that will bring most of these companies back to profitability.teruterubozu said:
storybook77
Member
butter_stick said:
No there's plenty of DLC but will they keep bringing in "new" bands, both classic and modern. Also title updates, and if they add anything with them could sway some people. I'm not saying it's going to do huge numbers or anything but enough to at least keep the rock band platform in tact.
ItWasMeantToBe19
Banned
Sho_Nuff82 said:
That's a terrible strategy long term. If a publisher only focus on one or two franchises and closes all the studios that don't work on those franchises (Activision with Call of Duty, Ubisoft with AC/Just Dance), then once those franchises decline, the publisher is left with nothing and is pretty much dead.
MetatronM said:
Like the UK sales:
"Rock Band 3's opening week saw only 7386 units sold, ranking 26th in the UK all formats chart. That's 5318 Xbox 360, 1555 PS3 and 295 Wii copies.
By comparison Activision's Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock did extremely better as it reportedly cleared 86k copies its opening week and landed 6th in the UK chart, before descending the ranks and falling out of the top 20. "
Sho_Nuff82
Member
Even without Steam and Unreal 3, Valve and Epic only work on a handful of franchises at any given time. Blizzard did so for years. Crytek has 3 ip at most in development. What a lot of the industry sees as "diversification" is really just publishers dumping their money into a large pile and setting it on fire.ItWasMeantToBe19 said:
The industry will contract to restore balance (as someone said above) long before it crashes.
Or was Activision supposed to finance half a dozen more Blurs hoping that Bizarre was eventually going to make that money back?
butter_stick
Banned
Yay, more stupid fucking posts.Sipowicz said:
soul creator
Member
since every other music game got mentioned, any Def Jam Rapstar numbers?
Cosmonaut X
Member
Sho_Nuff82 said:
No, of course not, but there has to be room for companies to experiment and release games that are possibly going to tank in the interests of coming up with the "next big thing", or even just developing something that could turn into a solid second-tier franchise. That's a matter of keeping budgets low enough to be covered if the game does tank so that you can afford your experimentation and managing your finances properly.
I'm sure you'll point at DD here, but there has to be room for the same kind of experimentation at retail too.
Sho_Nuff82 said:
I strongly agree with this.
Complaining about Activision, to me, is very much like complaining about Wal Mart. People don't like the practices, but both companies are the natural and ultimate evolution of how consumers have shaped the market place. Consumers, mind you.
In retail, most people (i.e. those that shop at Wal Mart) have little concern for decor or presentation or even the durability of their products: they want the products they want, right now, as cheaply as possible. The ultimate result of that consumer behavior: retail gradually evolves over the course of 100 years, culminating in the creation of Wal Mart, a gigantic company whose entire purpose is to present the products people want as cheaply as possible with no frills.
Similarly, "hardcore" gamers seem to want big, epic (and expensively produced) games. That's why the term "AAA" has gained such common use: because people tend to want event-style launches of major, critically acclaimed, "blockbuster" productions. The end result is companies like Activision, which focus exclusively on a few, major, "AAA" products and pare away all the rest.
Gaming isn't quite as evolved as retail is, now (Wal Mart is so highly evolved that I can't imagine them being superceded, but Activision still could be). But the same natural evolution of the production chain is clear: just as Wal Mart is what most American consumers ultimately wanted out of a retail chain, most "core" gamers want Activision. Both companies ruthlessly and relentlessly cater precisely to the wants of their consumers.
Don't like Wal Mart? Stop demanding everything be ridicously cheap and convenient, no matter the cost. Don't like Activision? Stop asking for big, extremely expensive "AAA" productions. Because both companies are mostly the end result of the consumer's values, not the other way around.