Support NeoGAF

[Joseph Flemming]

Courtesy of Nintendo

European situation:

3DS doing much better than Vita even right before XL coming out: after that, many big weeks for 3DS (much better than last year's post price cut period), best selling console in August and good sales in September / early October, the slowest period for handheld sales. Vita, instead, in the last weeks went even under DS, dead console in Europe.

US situation:

October: 3DS did around 220-230k, Vita 35k
November: 3DS 540k despite a bad BF with no deals at all, Vita did around 220k with many, many, MANY deals during BF ( in fact, it did 160k during BF, 3x the sales during the first three weeks of the month)

Thanks for posting this, since western sales keeps coming up in here its good to actually have some stats to set the record straight. It should be evident at this point that its over for the Vita. I heard other people say that maybe it should be a packaged with the PS4, I think that is a very interesting proposition.

 

[Currygan]

The DS did near 600K one week back in 2005, at least.

597k in week 51 in 2005.

oh snap. Tremendous number, I wonder if MH4 will give the 3DS that boost

 

[Aostia]

Could Land+NewMario become the Sport/Play for the launch window of the Wii U? Aka, the sum of the two titles give us the HW weekly number?

 

[pixelbox]

Could someone list the prices of the consoles?

 

[zroid]

More proof of every Wii U selling profitably.

It's quite possible that it's already selling profitably in Japan, especially the Deluxe model (which doesn't even include a game). The US vs JP price is much closer to the actual exchange rate than it typically is, but it's still more expensive in Japan, and there are probably more costs involved in getting the hardware distributed in the US.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

I doubt the Playstation UK boss was talking about Japan.=?

True, but the UK numbers will be no better.

 

[tauroxd]

What do you reckon? Kirby? Jigglypuff? Birdo?

Tingle

 

[Smiles and Cries]

Could Land+NewMario become the Sport/Play for the launch window of the Wii U? Aka, the sum of the two titles give us the HW weekly number?

not strong enough but this is Japan who can say

 

[Claymores]

84% market share is scary.

 

[Aostia]

Is it really interest? Multiplatform titles desperately pushed by Sony, that are going to sell 1/10 if not less on Vita... I don't think so. It is true that sometimes one has to wait until the predecessor starts to fade, but Vita has been selling more than badly for a year, and 2013 doesn't look so hot as well.

Well, probably also some titles for Nintendo consoles is "pushed" by Nintendo. It's not something "wrong": it would be a Sony strategy. And I think that could give some result: having multi on Vita will not transform Vita in the best selling console in Japan, but will increase its weekly sales imho, especially if the rhythm will be constant and if there will be a pricecut. The recent One Piece and Jump announcments, with God Eater, with Tales of (exclusive remake) and some other exclusive title (as Soul Sacrifice) all concentrated in the same period with a possible price cut could of course give Vita a little breath.
And when PS4 will overlap PS3, I think that having continuosly on Vita other titles similar to the ones cited (that probably will not be developed for the 3DS, probably because some softco thinks that Sony's audience is better than Nintendo's one) could turn Vita's destiny in Japan.

Turning Vita destiny doesn't mean becoming the leading platform.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

84% market share is scary.

Pacmania.

 

[Castor Krieg]

Vita, instead, in the last weeks went even under DS, dead console in Europe.

You forgot the fact that with Christmas almost here a lot of savvy parents will be buying DSes for pennies and loading them with games on a flash card.

It should be evident at this point that its over for the Vita.

Scrap the project this size after one year on the market? Good God, I sure hope you are a businessman!

 

[Aostia]

not strong enough but this is Japan who can say

Just to clarify: I'm not thinking to them as titles as strong as Sport/Play, so I'm neither thinking at Wii U's HW numbers as strong as Wii's ones, but just a similarity in having the HW numbers as a results of the sales of two system sellers combined.

 

[mugurumakensei]

Did you expect anyone to buy a WiiU yet no games?

Every WiiU is sold at a loss, every game is sold at profit, nothing extraordinary about that, just the first time we got exact information about what software sales are needed to tip the balance into profit territory.

The PS3 had an attach rate of .8 in its first week so it has happened that a console was bought with no games.

 

[Mpl90]

You forgot the fact that with Christmas almost here a lot of savvy parents will be buying DSes for pennies and loading them with games on a flash card.



Scrap the project this size after one year on the market? Good God, I sure hope you are a businessman!

I was referring to the last weeks in the graph, which are from beginning of October.

 

[electroplankton]

Well, probably also some titles for Nintendo consoles is "pushed" by Nintendo. It's not something "wrong": it would be a Sony strategy. And I think that could give some result: having multi on Vita will not transform Vita in the best selling console in Japan, but will increase its weekly sales imho, especially if the rhythm will be constant and if there will be a pricecut. The recent One Piece and Jump announcments, with God Eater, with Tales of (exclusive remake) and some other exclusive title (as Soul Sacrifice) all concentrated in the same period with a possible price cut could of course give Vita a little breath.
And when PS4 will overlap PS3, I think that having continuosly on Vita other titles similar to the ones cited (that probably will not be developed for the 3DS, probably because some softco thinks that Sony's audience is better than Nintendo's one) could turn Vita's destiny in Japan.

Turning Vita destiny doesn't mean becoming the leading platform.

But having some games doesn't even bode for a reasonable future. Hell, even GameCube, Dreamcast and Xbox360 had a better offering in their first years. What Vita is having is a really poor effort from third parties; the announcements Vita has had lately are just something that should have happened sooner or later only on the fact that it's on the market; they're not the sign of an interest of third parties, also because they're all multiplatforms. Hell, Square, Capcom, Konami, Level-5, don't have anything for the platform.

 

[Aostia]

But having some games doesn't even bode for a reasonable future. Hell, even GameCube, Dreamcast and Xbox360 had a better offering in their first years. What Vita is having is a really poor effort from third parties; the announcements Vita has had lately are just something that should have happened sooner or later only on the fact that it's on the market; they're not the sign of an interest of third parties, also because they're all multiplatforms. Hell, Square, Capcom, Konami, Level-5, don't have anything for the platform.

I'm not sure.
Why develop Jump for Vita and not for 3DS, for example?
I mean, the previous two entries were on DS and sold well. Now they probably wanted to try the home market with PS3, and developing the title for PS3 they preferred to do it multi with Vita. Probably Sony pushing, ok, but that could continue exactly to lead Vita to become Sony's leading platform during the passage from PS3 to PS4

 

[Mpl90]

I'm not sure.
Why develop Jump for Vita and not for 3DS, for example?
I mean, the previous two entries were on DS and sold well. Now they probably wanted to try the home market with PS3, and developing the title for PS3 they preferred to do it multi with Vita. Probably Sony pushing, ok, but that could continue exactly to lead Vita to become Sony's leading platform during the passage from PS3 to PS4

The Jump case is different: the two DS titles were published directly by Nintendo.

 

[Joseph Flemming]

You forgot the fact that with Christmas almost here a lot of savvy parents will be buying DSes for pennies and loading them with games on a flash card.



Scrap the project this size after one year on the market? Good God, I sure hope you are a businessman!

What? I didn't say scrap anything, I even stated that maybe they can stuff the Vita into a PS4 combo box, but manufacturing and R&D is already paid for, if they have any merchandise sitting in warehouses beacuse retail doesn't need restock you just have inventory depreciating. Whatever stock they sold through to retail is retails problem, but don't act like killing this product now will incur that much more cost then to wait for a miracle. Hopefully they have been balancing manufacturing supply and demand and not paying overhead on storage.

 

[CronoShot]

Come on Vita. I just bought one

Spoiler

(granted, almost entirely for P4G)

, don't die on me now!

EDIT: Also noticed Professr Layton vs Ace Attorney is hanging in there. That's comforting at least.

 

[Devilgunman]

I hope Vita will have more use some how when PS4 and its cloud service launch. Sony can't let it die like this, can't they.

 

[stalker]

You forgot the fact that with Christmas almost here a lot of savvy parents will be buying DSes for pennies and loading them with games on a flash card.



Scrap the project this size after one year on the market? Good God, I sure hope you are a businessman!

At least in Spain DSes certainly do not cost pennies.

 

[eighty(one)]

Dat 3ds sales.

Vita below 20k in a holiday month. It's dead.

Wii U numbers dropped to - less than half of its opening sales - just a week later. Nice 3DS bump, slight increase for Vita...

 

[Castor Krieg]

but don't act like killing this product now will incur that much more cost then to wait for a miracle.

It will cause massive reputation damage to the company, I hope Sony is smart enough never to do it.

 

[liger05]

Wii U numbers dropped to - less than half of its opening sales - just a week later. Nice 3DS bump, slight increase for Vita...

Wii U was always going to drop 2nd week as does all hardware.

The Vita increase for a week before xmas is not even worth mentioning.

 

[Aostia]

The Jump case is different: the two DS titles were published directly by Nintendo.

Ok, but that means just that, if Sony pushes for multiplatform releases on Vita with PS3, could happen that third parties follow this path, especially if Nintendo doesn't push otherwise (like publishing on its own the title, in this case)

Wii U numbers dropped to - less than half of its opening sales - just a week later. Nice 3DS bump, slight increase for Vita...

There's nothing strange about that.

 

[liger05]

It will cause massive reputation damage to the company, I hope Sony is smart enough never to do it.

What was the deal when Nintendo killed the Virtual boy? Not saying Sony should kill the vita but thats an example of a company killing a product and it didnt do that much damage to there reputation.

 

[Doogdogg]

kinda amazing how much Capcom is able to get out of MH3

1M on wii
4M on PSP
Closing on 2M for 3DS
Probably around 200K on Wii U

Anyone know how much they milk RE4 for?

 

[zroid]

What was the deal when Nintendo killed the Virtual boy? Not saying Sony should kill the vita but thats an example of a company killing a product and it didnt do that much damage to there reputation.

It's hard to damage your reputation by killing a product which most people don't know exists

Spoiler

That applies to the Vita as well

 

[DeaconKnowledge]

What was the deal when Nintendo killed the Virtual boy? Not saying Sony should kill the vita but thats an example of a company killing a product and it didnt do that much damage to there reputation.

Not killing the Virtual Boy would have damaged Nintendo far more than killing it. That's why Nintendo did it. They had far more successful platforms to lean on.

Not sure the Vita is in the same boat. Sony's current cache is dwindling and they have nothing to invigor the market to their gaming output. The PS3 is 6 years old and its successor is presumably over a year away.

 

[electroplankton]

I'm not sure.
Why develop Jump for Vita and not for 3DS, for example?
I mean, the previous two entries were on DS and sold well. Now they probably wanted to try the home market with PS3, and developing the title for PS3 they preferred to do it multi with Vita. Probably Sony pushing, ok, but that could continue exactly to lead Vita to become Sony's leading platform during the passage from PS3 to PS4

Because Project Versus started as a PS3 project, where other anime / manga adaptations sold nicely?

Project Versus doesn't have a lot in common with Jump Superstars, which was produced by Nintendo and developed by Ganbarion.

What I want to say is that the support Vita is having is the minimum any platform should have just from the fact it's in the market. But it's not something promising at all.

Also: it's the market which decides what should the leading platform (or second leading platform, or third one). With such numbers, Vita is not going nowhere.

13.000 units in December.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

 

[electroplankton]

kinda amazing how much Capcom is able to get out of MH3

1M on wii
4M on PSP
Closing on 2M for 3DS
Probably around 200K on Wii U

Anyone know how much they milk RE4 for?

AFAIK, MHP3rd is not the same game as MH3.

 

[Joseph Flemming]

It will cause massive reputation damage to the company, I hope Sony is smart enough never to do it.

All joking aside, it's a tough situation to be sure. When I started posting in these threads, I went from being optimistic, to disbelief, to a realist. I didn't post being a troll, I even offered IMHO a potential solution. I wasn't Sony to survive, and get back to profitability, hell I want unique games to play on my system, and I don't want Nintendo to be the only player, because that leads to complacency.

That said, Sony doesn't seem to get it. When Nintendo slashed the price they also refocused on creating new small IP's on the eshop, Crashmo, Dillons rolling western, Sakura Samurai..they also partnered with small developers to get games up on the eshop. where is Sony's answer to that to tide people over? I couldn't go to IGN or 1up without seeing eshop commercials!

Scared Nintendo is trying is my point, they still have kinks to work out, but if they continue on this path, get Miiverse onto the 3DS quickly and advertise strongly it will become increasingly harder for Vita to come away even modestly looking good.

I submit that Vita has made Sony already look bad. Sometimes you have to know when to cut your losses. Repackage the Vita as a controller for PS4.

 

[LOCK]

Amazing.

 

[electroplankton]

All joking aside, it's a tough situation to be sure. When I started posting in these threads, I went from being optimistic, to disbelief, to a realist. I didn't post being a troll, I even offered IMHO a potential solution. I wasn't Sony to survive, and get back to profitability, hell I want unique games to play on my system, and I don't want Nintendo to be the only player, because that leads to complacency.

Even without Sony, Nintendo would have competition from mobile gaming.

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I am being sold on Sony's PR

someone tell this guy to save Vita

 

[guek]

I am being sold on Sony PR

that is wonderful XD

 

[Aostia]

Because Project Versus started as a PS3 project, where other anime / manga adaptations sold nicely?

Project Versus doesn't have a lot in common with Jump Superstars, which was produced by Nintendo and developed by Ganbarion.

What I want to say is that the support Vita is having is the minimum any platform should have just from the fact it's in the market. But it's not something promising at all.

Also: it's the market which decides what should the leading platform (or second leading platform, or third one). With such numbers, Vita is not going nowhere.

13.000 units in December.

I'm not sure that the market decides which is the leading platform at 100%, there are also other factors such as more viable working solutions for the softco or possible better results for a specific game on one specific platform (we are seeing the end of the "everybody wants a Wii but it doesn't matter, pal: we already developed all our tools for Ps360 becasuse nobody was able to forsee the Wii success, so, let's skip it!"

But, aside from that, I'm not saying that Vita will become the market leader by getting multiplatform titles with PS3, I'm saying something else. I'll not repeat it once again

About Jump VS, I know that started as a PS3 game, and then it was pushed probably by Sony to be multi with Vita. I'm exactly saying that this could happen for other games, probably a lot of games, considering how PS3 will be supported for the entire '13.

And abuot the minimum bar of support "due", just for being on the market, let's see how Wii U will be supported after its launch window. I'm starting to be afraid that it could see even less support than Vita also selling more thatn 10K (average week)

 

[Nightstick11]

Yeah it has happened before, it is still amazing to see it again.
Just remember that most of NeoGAF is expecting the Wii U to die at the hands of more powerful PS4/720. To be honest I don't really see how Nintendo could survive this time around. So this is just very interesting to witness how Nintendo makes it work.

I don't think any of NeoGAF is expecting the Wii U to die at the hands of Sony/Microsoft. Hoping, maybe, but I'm sure nobody has been deluded enough yet to actually expect this to happen.

The more salient question is which one of Sony or Microsoft is Nintendo going to knock out in the 8th generation.

 

[electroplankton]

I'm not sure that the market decides which is the leading platform at 100%, there are also other factors such as more viable working solutions for the softco or possible better results for a specific game on one specific platform (we are seeing the end of the "everybody wants a Wii but it doesn't matter, pal: we already developed all our tools for Ps360 becasuse nobody was able to forsee the Wii success, so, let's skip it!"

But, aside from that, I'm not saying that Vita will become the market leader by getting multiplatform titles with PS3, I'm saying something else. I'll not repeat it once again

About Jump VS, I know that started as a PS3 game, and then it was pushed probably by Sony to be multi with Vita. I'm exactly saying that this could happen for other games, probably a lot of games, considering how PS3 will be supported for the entire '13.

And abuot the minimum bar of support "due", just for being on the market, let's see how Wii U will be supported after its launch window. I'm starting to be afraid that it could see even less support than Vita also selling more thatn 10K (average week)

So far, we're not seeing really important games planned for PS3 landing on Vita. The two MGS, FF, Yakuza, RE6... It might happen for many other games? We'll see, so far, a whole year later after its launch, the situation is not promising, and it has to rely on 4 year-old ports and unproven IP. 13.000 units in December.

 

[VICI0US]

oh wow, a difference of over 60K units sold with media crate tracking only retail copies of Animal Crossing and Famitsu tracking Retail+Download Cards.

makes me wonder what kind of numbers the game is putting up in terms of e-shop downloads. maybe Nintendo will release some sales figures.

 

[guek]

I don't think any of NeoGAF is expecting the Wii U to die at the hands of Sony/Microsoft. Hoping, maybe, but I'm sure nobody has been deluded enough yet to actually expect this to happen.

thisisneogaf.gif?

It's really unfair to call things either way. Hindsight is always 20/20, as we learned all too well with the PS3 launch. Anything can happen.

 

[SmokyDave]

I don't think any of NeoGAF is expecting the Wii U to die at the hands of Sony/Microsoft. Hoping, maybe, but I'm sure nobody has been deluded enough yet to actually expect this to happen.

The more salient question is which one of Sony or Microsoft is Nintendo going to knock out in the 8th generation.

Are we talking about just Japan, or worldwide?

If you're only talking about Japan, I agree. If you're talking worldwide, I'd put my money on the 720 outselling the Wii-U for sure.

 

[ohlawd]

Are those good numbers for PL vs AA?

 

[Aostia]

Are we talking about just Japan, or worldwide?

If you're only talking about Japan, I agree. If you're talking worldwide, I'd put my money on the 720 outselling the Wii-U for sure.

It's not so sure, considering how poorly Xbox360 are still doing in Europe, except UK (that's not so big as it was as a PAL market), and considering how Japan can (I'm not saying that Wii U will be able to achieve this!) give 10/15 millions hardware units LTD also to the non-leading platform (as happened to PSP and Wii).

I really think that nextgen will be interesting in terms of global worldwide hardware sales.

 

[guek]

It's not so sure, considering how poorly Xbox360 are still doing in Europe, except UK (that's not so big as it was as a PAL market), and considering how Japan can (I'm not saying that Wii U will be able to achieve this!) give 10/15 millions hardware units LTD also to the non-leading platform (as happened to PSP and Wii).

I really think that nextgen will be interesting in terms of global worldwide hardware sales.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't console gaming as a whole on a sharp decline in Europe?

 

[grimshawish]

Are we talking about just Japan, or worldwide?

If you're only talking about Japan, I agree. If you're talking worldwide, I'd put my money on the 720 outselling the Wii-U for sure.

720? Can't even start that till we see it and PS4.
Then? Europe goes to Sony, who should be more competitive this time, likely 720 struggles more and UK becomes a serious battleground.

US likely to 720 but the other two should do alright.

Its very mixed and I doubt anyone will dominate enough for us to call it till the end.

 

[SmokyDave]

It's not so sure, considering how poorly Xbox360 are still doing in Europe, except UK (that's not so big as it was as a PAL market), and considering how Japan can (I'm not saying that Wii U will be able to achieve this!) give 10/15 millions hardware units LTD also to the non-leading platform (as happened to PSP and Wii).

I really think that nextgen will be interesting in terms of global worldwide hardware sales.

Yeah, perhaps 'for sure' was bad phrasing as I don't mean it'll be a whitewash, I just mean that's where I'd place my bet. Japan will go to Nintendo, The US to MS and Europe remains to be seen, depending on what Sony have to offer. That's my uneducated gut feeling anyway. It's certainly going to be a very interesting generation, no matter how the chips fall.

 

[AranhaHunter]

So does anybody still believe that Soul Sacrifice will be the hit Sony is looking for?

What is their expectation? IF they expect 500K+ then no. If they expect 200k, maybe, if they expect 100k, I think they can do that.

That's a lot crazier than trying to turn Vita around in Japan, frankly.

It's not just the historical antipathy of Western developers towards dedicated handhelds; it's that there's no evidence that Vita (or dedicated handhelds in general, as RE:R's sales suggest and Mirror of Fate will probably prove) is a commercially viable platform for the type of cinematic AAA experience that most of those developers are predominantly interested in making.

In Japan, you can at least throw out third-party hypotheticals, as implausible as they are (an exclusive MGS/MH/GE/FF/DQ) that would be almost certain to significantly boost Vita sales if they actually happened. In the West, there's no indication that even a high-quality Bioshock/Elder Scrolls/COD/GTA spinoff would have the same impact.

I'd say Japan was a totally lost cause for the Vita. Given that, it makes sense to focus on the west (assuming they don't kill it altogether). If they focused on the west, it'd make sense to try and secure the titles that the west care about. The GTA, GT & GoW games all sold pretty well on PSP so it's not guaranteed to end in utter failure. If it does, it's probably time to throw in the towel for Sony handhelds.

See, if the year were 2008, I might actually agree with you.

The sales of Ghost of Sparta (which bombed at launch and ended up crawling to a bit over a third of CoO's sales) and Peace Walker (which just bombed) in 2010 indicated that the market for such titles on handhelds was on a significant downturn even then. Out of the comparable titles that have released this year (U:GA, RE:R, ACIII:L, COD:BO), there isn't one whose sales suggest a reversal of that trend.

There's no point in trying to save the vita in its current form. Even the 3DS NPD numbers for november were not that great, especially compared to the DS' heydays. A high quality game of one of those you listed or a Gears or ME would move some units, but nothing major as it currently stands. Imagine though if Apple released an official attachable pad (like wikipad) and those games released on iOS? I might be wrong, but I think the market would eat that up. I would get an ipad myself.

IMO, unless it's a $99 handheld, the western market is mainly interested in tablets and smartphones. Nintendo can still get away with dedicate gaming machines for probably another generation, but not Sony. If Sony was to try to save the vita they would have to follow the market trend and try to to use psm to kick start their app store. The problem is psm is a bigger joke than the vita, Sony has no presence in the tablet space, and their financials can't take a risk this big.

IMO, the best course of action for Sony, given the situation they find themselves in, is to slowly let the vita die and focus on their xperia line up for phones and tablets.

Assassin's Creed is one of the biggest franchises in gaming right now. If a full entry in that series did nothing, it would be fruitless to continue pushing.

Well the game's quality was poor as well compared to the console versions, but yeah, that's a good point

Thanks for posting this, since western sales keeps coming up in here its good to actually have some stats to set the record straight. It should be evident at this point that its over for the Vita. I heard other people say that maybe it should be a packaged with the PS4, I think that is a very interesting proposition.

That's a horrible proposition.