NDP_Mulcair
Banned
Hi there, theviolenthero.
Wii U October software sales (in revenue) is up 43% compared to October 2014.
Wii U October hardware sales (in units) are down -5% compared to October 2014.
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NPD Sales Results for October 2015 [Up1: Xbox #1]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Hi there, theviolenthero.
Wii U October software sales (in revenue) is up 43% compared to October 2014.
Wii U October hardware sales (in units) are down -5% compared to October 2014.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
No one is made to work on games. They get paid for it.
There is a huge difference in getting paid to do a job and getting paid to do something you love. You think the former Black Tusk developers are happy and motivated to work on Gears 4 after having started their own game and getting the plug pulled?
Even 343i must be a stressful place to work. They inherit Halo and they know the fans are super picky. They want to innovate and do their own thing, but then it changes the "formula" and pisses fans off. They are boxed in, trying to make something creative while not changing it. This is why Bungie bought their freedom, they cast off the shackles of Halo.
Who said they had to make a driving sim. They could just easily make a rally game or an arcade racer or hell they could just make sum game with drastically different progression mechanics, gameplay hooks and/or assets.
Of the MS franchise studios 343 dies seem to have the most leeway but much of their design changes seem driven by corporate mandates (make it more like CoD, make a moba like mode that can incorporate Microtransactions etc etc) now they may have freedom in how they execute those "suggestions" but I'd hardly argue they have the level of freedom afforded to treyarch.
And yes you are right we haven't seen a lot of gears but what we have seen seemed fairly by the book. But it remains tinge seen if that is the case by and large.
privitsan02
Member
Since when has Halo become rated T? I thought it was always rated M?
CosmicQueso
Member
That's IGN misinterpreting another press release.
The "over 40% over last October" is software revenues on Wii U. Not hardware.
EDIT: Beaten like a scrub.
Totally agree there. The whole revenue PR makes it seem that way.
Although, I'd be worried for the AAA market if it cost over $400mil to produce a game.
Megatron
Member
Lol. Dat hyperbole. Someone please save the poor Xbox one that only managed to finish in first place the same month the ps4 got it's first price drop!
RealityPales
Member
Halo 5 was the first in the series with a T rating by the ESRB I believe.
Bolivar687
Banned
Sorry, I was trying to distinguish Treyarch, who's had people working on Call of Duty from the beginning, in contrast to 343, who was assembled to pick up the baton once the original studio was ready to pass it off.
The alternative was not waiting 5 years to release a full-fledged Halo 4 starring Master Chief.
PhantomFear
Member
lol. I meant it was more exciting when the numbers were posted in cryptic manners and everyone had to figure out what everything meant.
Regardless, I saw the console sales chart George posted a few pages back now with the PS4 numbers.
Best thing for Halo is to stay out of the public for at least 2 years. We've been bombarded with so many Halo spin offs that it removed some of the anticipation. Between HAlo1 and 2, there was nothing, same with 2 and 3. Give it a rest after the new Halo RTS game.
MS are good of crafting new juggernauts, Halo with Xbox, Gears with 360 and TitanFall 2 will blow up due to their push with the original. Just need an incredible new game to go with it, which unlike previous gen's i cant see from their current offerings. I know games like Quantum Break and Scalebound will be amazing, but they dont have that hook imo.
Halo 5 is t.
Japanmanx3
Member
This thread should be lesson for you as to how this insider stuff goes down.
Its not a thread about halo till jack joins in
They preferred the shackles of Activision
Those shackles mean they're swimming in money too.
I, too, wish to express deeply felt gratitude and love for NPD_George. Thank you so much for providing some solid numbers for discussion as well as your continuing effort to couch those numbers in an appropriate context in an attempt to make them as well understood as possible!
Cthulhu_Steev
Member
Man, NPD_George. What an exciting thread downturn curveball. Everybody was 'Pie! PIE! Pie? Pie ... ...) and there was no pie, but there was George.
If he's legit from NPD, I guess there's some free advertising there with him throwing us some numbers, a lot of goodwill available, and an end to leakers that they need to spend time and money on to track down and murder
I love George, real or fake. He reminds me of the Artisan and his name sounds like 'Zhuge' in English but without the belligerent arrogance.
...) and there was no pie, but there was George.If he's legit from NPD, I guess there's some free advertising there with him throwing us some numbers, a lot of goodwill available, and an end to leakers that they need to spend time and money on to track down and murder
s
I love George, real or fake. He reminds me of the Artisan and his name sounds like 'Zhuge' in English but without the belligerent arrogance.
SEGAvangelist
Gold Member
Uh... the people at 343i took their jobs knowing they would work on Halo. They don't exactly need freedom. Also, Black Tusk chose to move to Gears. They were actually given that choice according to the Polygon Gears article some months back.
Japanmanx3
Member
Newbie serving you up fam. This dude has history stats on lock too! We are blessed and unworthy.
"Reversal"
Hi George, thank you for all of your helpful data! This is definitely a welcomed addition to the thread. Could you shine some light on the sales numbers for Rock Band 4 and/or Guitar Hero Live?
Bolivar687
Banned
Because the 170,000 sales were intentionally suppressed by Microsoft announcing the $349 promotion well in advance, causing everyone to hold off their purchase.
170,000 would have otherwise been abysmal sales in October. If this were any other year, a 81% increase would signal a return to normalcy. In Halo month, it's bad.
Or Scalebound. Honestly the single biggest reason I would consider picking up an XB1 for myself if I didn't already have access to one on a regular basis.
The problem is that MS views new IPs as such a risk that it seems incredibly rare for them to be afforded the AAA budget they deserve (see the Phantom Dust debacle). Luckily that seems to be changing in a big way what with Quantum Break, Scalebound and others in the horizon.
And about time, Halo has always been one of the softest Ms ever.
Steverulez
Member
I don't think MS are going to struggle to find games to publish, theres lots of developers they can turn to and have plenty of new IPs due next year: Quantum Break (with long-term partner Remedy), Recore with Armature/Comcept, Scalebound with Platinum and Sea of Thieves as you've said, only one of those is internally developed.
They also had plenty of success with State of Decay and Ori... Project Knoxville from Press Play, I think their line-up for new IPs is doing pretty good.
[Im assuming you meant new IP instead of new iOS]
You mention investing in new IP then list Phantom Dust... which isn't a new IP? If anything their issue with PD was likely giving a large budget to a game that didn't do very well when it did release (a Japanese game too which isn't exactly a strong market for them). Read anything on Quantum Break and its pretty clear that no expense is being spared to let Remedy make the game they want to, Inafune also said the positive fan reaction to Recore means they have the potential to make a bigger game now too
How much less, in total sales, did Halo 5 do, compared to Halo 4 in 2012 in terms of software retail sales, not including bundles. Or even compared to Master Chief Collection of last year. No bundles. Straight sales. I mean you had all those assassin's Creed black flag numbers readily on hand.
ethomaz
Banned
I guess a lot of Halo fans were indeed Bungie fans and moved to Destiny.
i343 did nothing to hold them too with poor decisions with Halo 4 and Halo 5... not forgetting the madness about MCC.
PS. While Bungie did a lot of big mistakes with Destiny the post support they are doing with game is really great... they are slow to fix but they listen almost all critics from the fans.
i343 did nothing to hold them too with poor decisions with Halo 4 and Halo 5... not forgetting the madness about MCC.
PS. While Bungie did a lot of big mistakes with Destiny the post support they are doing with game is really great... they are slow to fix but they listen almost all critics from the fans.
I remember having the argument with someone here that Halo wasn't big enough today to outsell Uncharted substantially. Think it was Miles, now that I saw him questioning Uncharted sales. Anyway, if I remember correctly, I said that Halo 5 would outsell Uncharted 4 by around 2 mill at the most. Now I'm not even sure if it will outsell it at all.
We'll have to see how front loaded those Halo 5 sales are though. Maybe there are some pretty strong legs hidden in those holiday deals.
We'll have to see how front loaded those Halo 5 sales are though. Maybe there are some pretty strong legs hidden in those holiday deals.
MiamiWesker
Member
I expected the fallout numbers when I saw how many copies my Best Buy had, I saw at least 300 copies of just the ps4 version and 200 copies of the one version. They are stuffing the channels, I told my friends that I expect a statement from Bethesda that they shipped 10 million a day later, I was a bit off.
psynergylover
Member
Man George dropped da bombs!!! Holy shit!!! What a month
R.I.P Assassin's Creed: gone and most likely forgotten
R.I.P Assassin's Creed: gone and most likely forgotten
Halo. God only knows.
Your personal problems with H5 is content (going by your post) which will be resolved easily. Apart form that i disagree with all your points, we'll see in November who's right though. WOM will be strong. MS/343i support path is impressive and its initiatives like this that keeps the community healthy and numerous. Also helps to have an impressive online infrastructure.
Poor decisions like lack of LAN and Co-op, you honestly feel this played a significant role in the decline of sales? And Bungie that made Destiny are not the same that made Halo either, so i doubt brand loyalty has got much to do with this.
I think Black Tusk/Coalition is like every developer. You go to work, and you hope to do what you love. The studio heads hope to keep the studio open and continue making good games, or at least, a profilt. Not every studio gets to make the games they want. In fact, most do not. They make games they can release, and make money on. There is a narrative that the Black Tusk guys were forced to make the new gears games, and no one wanted it. Has that actual comments from any of the employees there, anonymously? Lots of studios have projects that never get past various stages of development, and they end up making other games.
343i, more than any other developer had the worst position in recent memory. Make a new game in a franchise where the harshest critics were the fans themselves, and they resisted change. Even Bungie ran into hate when they made changes to Reach.
At least Nintendo can still push out software. That speaks for a good future if they can get any sort of acceptable install base. Now I'm curious as to how much % of all software sold they sold during their Wii/DS heights.
Now if only we could get something on 3DS...
You realize that last year the number was so low because they announced the November $349 ACU bundle in October right?
Now 300k would be quite good for a normal October month.
It wasn't (a normal one).
Aceofspades
Banned
Sony strategy of supporting and building various IPs is really paying off this gen. Look at MS situation now their three big IPs are suffering big declines and they have nothing else to help elevating the brand.
Sony experimented with lots of new IP during PS3 era, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, LBP, TLoU and kept supporting PS2 era games like GoW and Twisted Metal, Killzone...etc. This gen they have already released Bloodborne, Until Dawn, Driveclub, The Order, Knack some of those game have better success stories than others but you have to give it to Sony for taking risks and building an unmatched IP portfolio that can carry the division for years to come.
Sony experimented with lots of new IP during PS3 era, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, LBP, TLoU and kept supporting PS2 era games like GoW and Twisted Metal, Killzone...etc. This gen they have already released Bloodborne, Until Dawn, Driveclub, The Order, Knack some of those game have better success stories than others but you have to give it to Sony for taking risks and building an unmatched IP portfolio that can carry the division for years to come.
PanicFreak
Member
You have to consider the size of the team that made the game and the marketing budget before assessing it's success or failure. Halo sales at these levels, may not justify that budget. My thought is that if Halo continues its sales at these levels, or if sales continue to drop, then Microsoft would be better off taking 343i and having them work on something else. I don't think they would close the studio and build a "new IP" studio in its place.
Just think about it for a minute. If you set your budget assuming x number of sales and sales come back at one half of x, you're going to need to adjust your budget going forward. I don't know what number Microsoft has in its forecasts but I doubt it was this low.
I get where you are coming from but I think that Treyarch's "freedom" probably came from the fact that they were given some leeway to find ways to increase revenue during the "off year" for Call of Duty. Microsoft didn't have the same luxury when it came to Halo because Halo isn't an annual franchise in the same way as Call of Duty. The major thing you pointed to was a zombie mode and, well, 343i killed modes that Bungie made (insert BTB joke here) and added modes of their own.
The Gears demo looked like you had the same gameplay loop as previous Gears games. Treyarch didn't change the basic gameplay of Call of Duty either.
You do realize they didn't create any of these games right? These are all previously third party IPs they purchased exclusivity for. Hence the issue.
Nintendo needs good hardware sales to keep their software business top notch. Without hardware sales subsidizing their software, you're going to see pretty much all but their top IP's dry up, which you're already seeing in the HD Era where really only Mario, Link get any love.
Based on what we now know regarding Halo 5's initial sales, I think Uncharted 4 will outsell it, at least world wide.
Plus isn't Titanfall 2 guaranteed to be on the PS4?
tattooed_dwarf
Member
It should sell more, especially considering sales gap.
Xan Kriegor
Banned
The MCC issues suppressing Halo 5 sales is something I can't wrap my head around. MCC had connectivity issues. Surely people realize that 343 isn't dumb enough to make the same mistake? It's like when people were saying "I won't buy nextbox because of RRoD". Yeah, cause Microsoft is definitely making the same mistake that cost them billions.
Is it an issue? They were extremely succesful due to the path they took. MS can do that with the right IP, internally or externally. All thier games apart from Forza i believe have followed this formula. But i cant see anything in their current catalog with the same draw as those i mentioned.
It is, but i dont think anyone would deny MS playing a major role in its brand and scope. They provided Respawn with resources as if they were 1st party, overhauled part of their OS (yes it was quite clunky but the deadline was TF launch) and free access to thier servers.
Steverulez
Member
MS work with the studios on those games, the only difference between the MS ones and Sony ones is that MS let the developers keep the IPs in some cases (which they no longer do probably mostly due to Mass Effect), stuff like Gears, Crackdown, Fable, Mass Effect and more, obviously TF is a bit of an exception
Halo was also reworked a lot after MS bought Bungie, I don't think MS just generally handed over a cheque and that was it, they have teams working with studios and on games like other publishers
They bought the Gears IP around the X1 launch.