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NPD Sales Results for September 2009

Bizzyb

Banned
The Steve said:
So only members from NeoGaf bought Dead Space: Extraction?

IGNers also bought it. It is a good game (esp on difficulties higher than the piss poor "normal") dunno why some people here will not accept that. Is $50 too high? Maybe, but is it a game worth playing at $40? most definitely.
 
Rush2thestart said:
How did Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 do?
Dragona Akehi said:
Accident said:
June 2008:
Ninja Gaiden II (X360) - 372.7K
Ugh, why did I buy this DAY ONE! I'm such a chump; I should have waited. Sigma 2 only managed to sell 10% of what NGII sold first month. This game will be in bargain bins before the year is out. :(

All my anecdotes panned out, though. Except GT Portable, but then again I did see three days of sales past its actual street date.
 
amtentori said:
My post from Dead space extraction thread...



The size of that audience is 9k. At most I would expect 20k.


Wii owners could not beat this test...

If it sold well, Wii owners love guided-FPS adventures! More on rails! see example: success of umbrella chronicles

If it fails, Wii owners don't want mature games!

Fuck these retarded tests.

will gladly buy extraction when it hits 20 bucks

Say wha??? Publisher tests are great, I personally love when Sega gives the west generation old Yakuza games as a test for demand for brand new Yakuza games!
 
AniHawk said:
That didn't help Klonoa or Excitebots or other mature Wii games this year.
I'm not trying to suggest DS:Ex is going to somehow skyrocket into blockbuster sales. It isn't. But I think it will perform in line with (and at a similar pace as) HoTD, Madworld and No More Heroe. My issue is more with our ability to write off something as a "failure" based on four days of sales in one geographic market.
 

FrankT

Member
KuwabaraTheMan said:
Difference between the two LTD is about 300,000. Last year the 360 version outsold the PS3 version by well over a million. The trend has definitely changed by quite a lot.

Totally false information here to be clear. Between Aug and Sept NPD 2008 the differnce on the low end is 423 and the max is 481. So we're talking a differnce YoY of 175k max and 117k min. Of course, none of that could have anything to do with new tripple owners post price cut no. Nowhere close to a million at this point in LTD differnce last year at this time.
 

Tutomos

Member
Beats on the PSP has stayed in top 10 PSP download games for a long time, maybe that's the area Sony should be looking into.
 
Opiate said:
I know Wii owners hate tests, but part of the reason huge publishers seem so enamored with the PS3 and particularly the 360 is that they are so gosh darn predictable. That's both a compliment and an insult.

It's a market with a highly concentrated target demographic (the last time I saw figures, the system was over 80% males. 80%!) with homogenized tastes. It's a highly predictable, easily servicable market segment.

To make it even more tasty, this market segment demands games with high production values. Why is that a good thing? Because it effectively eliminates anyone who can't spend millions of dollars making a game. On the iPhone, EA has to compete against Ubisoft/Take 2/Activision -- and any shmoe who has some time to spend and a good idea. On the 360, shmoes can't spend the millions needed to put together a legitimate competitor to CoD or Fifa.

By contrast, the Wii has sold itself specifically on the philosophy that high production values aren't a necessity for game quality, and has produced a varied, unpredictable demographic with more women, more kids, and more elderly consumers.

Huge production companies have got to loathe that. That may sound unfair, but that's easy for you to say when you aren't the one putting up hundreds of millions of dollars in investment capital. These are huge companies dealing with huge sums of money, and it isn't surprising that most of them are risk averse, particularly in this economy.

Heck, some have even publicly admitted to being risk averse. If a major company is willing to admit that openly, it shows how deep the conservatism goes.

100% Agreed.
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
That's the worst part about Sony and the PSP.

It's a good system, and lord knows Sony tries its best to get games it thinks the western audience will eat up and then they come out over here and do nothing.

They could restrict the library to just C grade RPGs, Madden, and God of War titles and do just as well in the west. It's a damn shame.
 
jett said:
Sad times for the PSP. It's pretty clear exactly what the owners of that thing are using it for. :p

Really though? I keep seeing that in this thread..

I've got a PSP - I've had one since launch. A lot of times I just don't have an interest in it. There was a brief moment when I happily used it to listen to audio books in my car - until I got an iPod. Boy was I glad, too. PSP is too "fragile" feeling for me to honestly like using it for something like that - even for listening while going to sleep. I'd hate for it to fall or for a raging canine to devour it. It would be unfortunate.

Let's start by saying I have CFW, have since around the time Virtua Tennis came out on PSP (sorry, random point of reference, but it's what is in my head). I have about 5 games for PSP. In contrast, I have about 60 games for Nintendo DS. I bought PSP games when I felt uncontrollable desire to do so - ie Crisis Core. In fact, Crisis Core was the last PSP game I bought.. Wait. Chains of Olympus. Not surprisingly, also games which people frequently have noted as receiving fairly well to do sales.

Do I think there aren't any games on PSP? No, I used to think that, but that was a long time ago. We're in a different world now and I can't say that's anywhere close to reality. Unfortunately, the reality is I don't much hear about the PSP software. Despite keeping up with a lot of information for games, PSP is somehow not even in my peripheral vision in regards to software releases.

As a general rule, I regretted my PSP purchase up until I purchased Crisis Core (and shortly thereafter, God of War). I then felt it was legitimized in some abstract fashion, but I still have odd feelings for it.

Honestly, the number 1 use for my PSP is surfing NeoGAF at work when I don't bring the laptop.

Dragona Akehi said:
And what would that be?


Like a viper, the image that came.
 
trying to catch up with the thread, was here for the first 8-9 pages, now trying to read through...from what I take away is:

Major Bombs:

Motorstorm: Artic Edge
Spyborgs(<1k, really?!?!)
DSE
GT PSP

Decent:

NGS2
Muramassa

Good:

KH's
Scribblenauts

how does a game sell <1k, thats unbelievable to me!
 

EXGN

Member
gkrykewy said:
That's incorrect. Just add 5 to 10 units to the npd numbers.

I think it's funny that GAF champions the direct download future so much and then we get posts like these :lol
 
Man God said:
That's the worst part about Sony and the PSP.

It's a good system, and lord knows Sony tries its best to get games it thinks the western audience will eat up and then they come out over here and do nothing.

They could restrict the library to just C grade RPGs, Madden, and God of War titles and do just as well in the west. It's a damn shame.

IMO I think this is due to the fact that the market they target can only expand so far. Western young males aren't too interested in seriously playing handheld games as they would far prefer the console experience.
 

jett

D-Member
Kureishima said:
Really though? I keep seeing that in this thread..

I've got a PSP - I've had one since launch. A lot of times I just don't have an interest in it. There was a brief moment when I happily used it to listen to audio books in my car - until I got an iPod. Boy was I glad, too. PSP is too "fragile" feeling for me to honestly like using it for something like that - even for listening while going to sleep. I'd hate for it to fall or for a raging canine to devour it. It would be unfortunate.

Let's start by saying I have CFW, have since around the time Virtua Tennis came out on PSP (sorry, random point of reference, but it's what is in my head). I have about 5 games for PSP. In contrast, I have about 60 games for Nintendo DS. I bought PSP games when I felt uncontrollable desire to do so - ie Crisis Core. In fact, Crisis Core was the last PSP game I bought.. Wait. Chains of Olympus. Not surprisingly, also games which people frequently have noted as receiving fairly well to do sales.

Do I think there aren't any games on PSP? No, I used to think that, but that was a long time ago. We're in a different world now and I can't say that's anywhere close to reality. Unfortunately, the reality is I don't much hear about the PSP software. Despite keeping up with a lot of information for games, PSP is somehow not even in my peripheral vision in regards to software releases.

As a general rule, I regretted my PSP purchase up until I purchased Crisis Core (and shortly thereafter, God of War). I then felt it was legitimized in some abstract fashion, but I still have odd feelings for it.

Honestly, the number 1 use for my PSP is surfing NeoGAF at work when I don't bring the laptop.




Like a viper, the image that came.

But when you bought your psp, you bought a game or two along with it didn't you? You're missing what I said, or I may have not been clear. This month we have nearly 200k new psp owners, and software sales are non-existent. It's plain weird to say the least.
 

Opiate

Member
I'm really surprised that people feel Sony hasn't tried with the PSP. There was a huge push at the system's launch, and even when the system faltered, Sony kept advertising, keeps producing big games (God of War, Ratchet and Clank, and recently Gran Turismo, their largest franchise by a wide margin), keeps spending money on re-engineering the thing -- new SKUs, redesigns, and so forth. And that's before we discuss their obvious recent attempts at resurgance with Resident Evil PSP, Assassin's Creed PSP, and the newest main entry of the Metal Gear series. I don't think it's crazy to suggest that Sony is still moneyhatting some of these games.

By this point, I'm quite sure that Nintendo would have simply put their head between their knees and caught their breath for next cycle.
 
Re: Dead Space

I have bought all of the "Mature" Sega three. I even enjoyed each one at the beginning.

I played through Madworld twice.

I really enjoyed Conduit. I sometimes play CoD4 on PS3, but I'll be honest, I hate dual analog. I'm not saying the controls suck for everyone, but, for me, I can only use dual analog in calm situations. Get me in an intense firefight, and I flail around like a moron. So Conduit, despite being cliche and predictable, was perfect for me.

I also liked HotD at first.

Even these titles, though, failed at being sufficiently polished. Conduit freezes annoyingly in online multiplayer, but even worse the game has been effectively ruined by hackers who become invincible and can fire a million rockets at once. I traded in HotD because the frame rate drops to about a 10 FPS and it becomes unplayable. Madworld, which occasionally freezes the Wii, holds up the strongest.

When Dead Space was announced, I was looking forward to it. Finally, RE4: Wii: Part II. It's everything those of us who like pointer-based aiming have been asking for. Then it was announced as an on-rails shooter.

I read the reviews. Apparently, it's a well-constructed on-rails shooter. And not even "on-rails" in a StarFox or Sin and Punishment way. It's a lightgun game. That's great that they polished it, and added ambiance and effects. But you can't polish something that I don't want and make me want it.

I can't speak for everyone. I can't speak for larger sales trends. I agree the Wii audience is not as strong a market for high-budget AAA M-rated titles. No argument there. Nonetheless, I can speak for myself as a part of whatever market is there.

Dead Space can have equal ambiance to the original. It can even have more story. But if I cared about ambiance and story, I wouldn't be asking for the game on Wii. As a Wii consumer, I want the gameplay that I want to play. That is a third-person action/adventure/shooter with IR-based aiming. Dead Space isn't that. So no buy.

That's my anecdote. I don't believe I'm alone. Even if the Wii market is not as large as the XBox360 market, publishers still have to appeal to the market that is there. Or they don't have to, but then I'll just go buy A Boy And His Blob instead.
 

Drensch

Member
The bottom line on games like Dead Space, Spyborgs, Cursed Mountain, Excite Bots, et al? No one knows they exist. I know it's a dead horse, but even halfassed marketing is worth something.
 

boiled goose

good with gravy
Man God said:
That's the worst part about Sony and the PSP.

It's a good system, and lord knows Sony tries its best to get games it thinks the western audience will eat up and then they come out over here and do nothing.

They could restrict the library to just C grade RPGs, Madden, and God of War titles and do just as well in the west. It's a damn shame.

yep.

That is why i am confused at the increased support. at least loyal psp owners are being rewarded
 
Drensch said:
The bottom line on games like Dead Space, Spyborgs, Cursed Mountain, Excite Bots, et al? No one knows they exist. I know it's a dead horse, but even halfassed marketing is worth something.

True, I had to look up which system Spyborgs was on when the conversation on here got to it, and when a hardcore, informed gamer, which I would call myself, hasn't heard of a game, then obviously mainstream people wouldn't either, they were for the most part just sent out to fail/die
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Wow, Mario and Luigi RPG 3 sold quite well IMO.

<23k

Definitely did what was expected.
Damn me if you will, but I don't want to pay more then $30 for it, and still get the soundtrack. I am hoping Atlus lowers the price to $29.99 before reprinting or stopping production. And I don't mind waiting for it to drop in price, I have more then enough to keep my occupied for now, and Amazon says its still in production and has over 1k units on hand.
 

AnIco

Member
Jtyettis said:
Are you on crack or something. Not only are they in 2nd place globally they have grown their lead by leaps in bounds in the last year post price cut. They likely will never leave that position either and especially so in the US. This 139k Sony just cut off the lead in the US is a drop in the bucket compared to the 2.2 million the 360 has added over the PS3 in the US in the last year alone.

What kind of logic is this.



Oh I see. Nevermind then. Carry on.

Keep the faith alive, Jtyettis. You're the same guy that said his game store in Alabama had shown that the PS3 slim wasn't going to be as big as many people expected, right? Same guy that said most of the big bump in PS3 sales would be accounted for in the August NPDs and that September wouldn't be as big as many had imagined. Same guy that thinks PS3 is going to see a repeat of 2007 performance levels. Same guy that believes that November and December will be back to normal for the PS3 in the US, right? Funny guy. Can't wait for the epic November and December tears that you will shed.

When I talked about Microsoft's third place position I was talking about ongoing sales worldwide. 360 had a huge price cut last fall and guess what? Global sales were roughly the same as the PS3. This is the best Microsoft could do with a $200 pricing advantage worldwide. So yeah, they haven't really grown 'leaps and bounds' since the price cut, at least not relative to the PS3. Now that the PS3 is within $100, expect rapid gains worldwide. I predict that worldwide, PS3 will never dip back to selling roughly "on par" with the 360 for the remainder of this generation, and if it does it will be short lived.

Sony will never overtake MS in the US, but Microsoft had to sell significantly more in the US just to keep even worldwide. I don't expect MS to sell significantly more in the US anytime soon, if ever. It's only a matter of time before Microsoft becomes third place globally in total install base and not just ongoing sales.
 

Opiate

Member
I'd say the same about the response to the 360's Holiday setup -- some have suggested that Microsoft is simply being complacent.

They dropped the price on the highest SKU, produced a new Halo game, a new Forza, are still aggressively advertising for third party games...

It's as if every year has to be a significant price drop with a new mainline Halo/Gears, or clearly Microsoft is just phoning it in. More realistically, I think it's reasonable to say that you can't do that every year, and sometimes, you've shot all your bullets and need to reload. If you can produce a new (spinoff) Halo and mainline Forza while you're reloading, I'd say that's pretty darn good.

A similar example would be the Wii's dearth of software from mid 08-early 09. Many suggested Nintendo handled it poorly -- and to some extent that may be true -- but one could also argue that the huge influx of major franchises in the Wii's early days was instrumental to its success. Nintendo was effectively selling the system all by themselves, and they needed to fire on all cylinders to do that: naturally, when you fire your bullets that rapidly, you're going to take a good while to reload. Nintendo fans should just be happy that Nintendo seems to have a 20-bullet cartridge, where MS and Sony seem to be stuck with 6 shooters. Or maybe even 3 shooters.
 

jett

D-Member
Dragona Akehi said:
<23k

Definitely did what was expected.

Do you have access to the full spreadsheet or something? :p Can you do me a favor if it's possible to check the LTD of Shadow of the Colossus? :p
 

RuGalz

Member
Opiate said:
I'm really surprised that people feel Sony hasn't tried with the PSP. There was a huge push at the system's launch, and even when the system faltered, Sony kept advertising, keeps producing big games (God of War, Ratchet and Clank, and recently Gran Turismo, their largest franchise by a wide margin), keeps spending money on re-engineering the thing -- new SKUs, redesigns, and so forth. And that's before we discuss their obvious recent attempts at resurgance with Resident Evil PSP, Assassin's Creed PSP, and the newest main entry of the Metal Gear series. I don't think it's crazy to suggest that Sony is still moneyhatting some of these games.

By this point, I'm quite sure that Nintendo would have simply put their head between their knees and caught their breath for next cycle.

This latest push is going to leave a huge scar if it fails, which seems more than likely to be the case. But I'm still not sure why companies continue to put console franchises on the system just because it can handle it. Most of the people would rather play console version at home if it's too similar. If you water down the handhold version of the game, people diss it. It's a no win situation yet they keep going at it from that angle.
 
Decent sales across the board. ODST only had a week of September to sale 360s. We will probably see 400K+ in sales for the 360 in October. PS3 will probably fall back down to reality in October. Good month for it because it had an entire month worth of a price drop.
 
Games with shots at the Top 10 for October imo...

Uncharted 2
Brutal Legend(only 360)
Borderlands
Demon's Souls(Dont think it will)
Wii Sports Resort
Tekken 6(Dont think it will)
FIFA 10
WWE SVR(360 only)
Forza 3
Ratchet and Clank
ODST

Just throwing diff games out there..

Regulus Tera reminded me about Wii Fit Plus, can't forget that!
 
Did we get a top ten games for each system by any chance?

Also: a large portion of the PSP numbers are Go users, their purchases are not reflected on NPD's reports...
 

Opiate

Member
RuGalz said:
This latest push is going to leave a huge scar if it fails, which seems more than likely to be the case. But I'm still not sure why companies continue to put console franchises on the system just because it can handle it. Most of the people would rather play console version at home if it's too similar. If you water down the handhold version of the game, people diss it. It's a no win situation yet they keep going at it from that angle.

I think many publishers really, really wanted the PSP to succeed. It had such strong support at the get go from third parties -- Tekken, Metal Gear, Grand Theft Auto: these are very major franchises. And now, even as the system fails, we're seeing Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed, and an even more mainline Metal Gear.

Frankly, I'd say this is more A-level support than the DS has gotten, even though the DS has sold more than twice as many systems, costs less to produce for, and sells vastly more software.

This isn't intended to diss the PSP: it's intended to show how strange it is that it keeps getting this level of support when it doesn't seem financially warranted. I think the reason is that most major publishers are more comfortable with home console support -- they know how to do it, and have been producing hit console games for a long, long time. The world would be a much nicer place for them if they could simply take their major home console franchises and make portable versions of them, so they'll keep trying as long as Sony seems willing to invest heavily in the platform.
 

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
Patriotsbball5460 said:
Games with shots at the Top 10 for October imo...

Uncharted 2
Brutal Legend(only 360)
Borderlands
Demon's Souls(?)
Wii Sports Resort
Tekken 6
FIFA 10
WWE SVR
Forza 3
Ratchet and Clank

In no order...
DJ Hero has a chance. It is a HUGE question mark, though. The game has a good chance of expanding the music game demographic, but the $120 pricetag for what is essentially a single player game is a big negative.
 
jett said:
But when you bought your psp, you bought a game or two along with it didn't you? You're missing what I said, or I may have not been clear. This month we have nearly 200k new psp owners, and software sales are non-existent. It's plain weird to say the least.

Well, I purchased Metal Gear Acid. But really only because it vaguely interested me. I'm not even sure why I purchased a PSP to be quite frank.

I do remember being quite angry when I purchased Virtua Tennis but could not play because I had CFW. I've just had a mixed experience and I'm not sure my reply really was in response to what you said.
 

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
Patriotsbball5460 said:
Games with shots at the Top 10 for October imo...

Uncharted 2
Brutal Legend(only 360)
Borderlands
Demon's Souls(Dont think it will)
Wii Sports Resort
Tekken 6(Dont think it will)
FIFA 10
WWE SVR(360 only)
Forza 3
Ratchet and Clank
ODST

Just throwing diff games out there..

You forgot Wii Fit Plus.
 
eastside49er said:
Decent sales across the board. ODST only had a week of September to sale 360s. We will probably see 400K+ in sales for the 360 in October. PS3 will probably fall back down to reality in October. Good month for it because it had an entire month worth of a price drop.


Halo fans have already bought their 360 by now. Don't expect a big hardware bump from it....
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Archie said:
DJ Hero has a chance. It is a HUGE question mark, though. The game has a good chance of expanding the music game demographic, but the $120 pricetag for what is essentially a single player game is a big negative.
I tried DJ Hero at a store demo today in Best Buy, to be honest I felt it wasn't that easy nor very fun. Though I did only play for 5 minutes in the easiest mode with the first song. But I didn't leave wanting to buy the game anymore then when I walked in.
 
Archie said:
DJ Hero has a chance. It is a HUGE question mark, though. The game has a good chance of expanding the music game demographic, but the $120 pricetag for what is essentially a single player game is a big negative.

Not sure when Band Hero comes out, but I would def. give that a better shot just because the guitar market is so big, and there being no turntable install base...heck even Lego Rock Band, whenever that comes out...

I think both DJ Hero and Tony Hawk Ride will bomb for activision, not really sure about Band Hero though, in the past non-numerical GH games haven't done all too well so...idk
 
outunderthestars said:
Halo fans have already bought their 260 by now. Don't expect a big hardware bump from it....

I'm expecting a big hardware bump for the 360 because of the games, price drop and the fact it is the 4th quarter, aka, holiday season. ODST is in that games category.
 

Archie

Second-rate Anihawk
Patriotsbball5460 said:
Not sure when Band Hero comes out, but I would def. give that a better shot just because the guitar market is so big, and there being no turntable install base...heck even Lego Rock Band, whenever that comes out...

I think both DJ Hero and Tony Hawk Ride will bomb for activision, not really sure about Band Hero though, in the past non-numerical GH games haven't done all too well so...idk
DJ Hero and Lego RB both come out on November 3 and I think we can safely assume that neither game will hit the top 10 that month for obvious reasons.

Like I said, DJH is a huge question mark. It could honestly go either way.
 

Evlar

Banned
Opiate said:
I'd say the same about the response to the 360's Holiday setup -- some have suggested that Microsoft is simply being complacent.

They dropped the price on the highest SKU, produced a new Halo game, a new Forza, are still aggressively advertising for third party games...

It's as if every year has to be a significant price drop with a new mainline Halo/Gears, or clearly Microsoft is just phoning it in. More realistically, I think it's reasonable to say that you can't do that every year, and sometimes, you've shot all your bullets and need to reload. If you can produce a new (spinoff) Halo and mainline Forza while you're reloading, I'd say that's pretty darn good.

A similar example would be the Wii's dearth of software from mid 08-early 09. Many suggested Nintendo handled it poorly -- and to some extent that may be true -- but one could also argue that the huge influx of major franchises in the Wii's early days was instrumental to its success. Nintendo was effectively selling the system all by themselves, and they needed to fire on all cylinders to do that: naturally, when you fire your bullets that rapidly, you're going to take a good while to reload. Nintendo fans should just be happy that Nintendo seems to have a 20-bullet cartridge, where MS and Sony seem to be stuck with 6 shooters. Or maybe even 3 shooters.
I enjoy this metaphor and wish to see its violent subtext expanded upon to the point of absurdity and beyond.
 
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