Support NeoGAF

[Frankfurter]

I seem to remember that someone posted how long the average owner of X360, PS3 and Wii has had the console by now, but can't find that post anymore. Would be nice if said person could repost it

 

[Agalloch]

Holy shizz.
This time Nintendo strategy was great for make money and return market leader.
But now i want HUGE sotware announcements for the core gamers,
and third party redeemed and come back with great games and apologyze to nintendo fans,
ah, the power of money :lol

 

[BishopLamont]

I seem to remember that someone posted how long the average owner of X360, PS3 and Wii has had the console by now, but can't find that post anymore. Would be nice if said person could repost it

That would be by JJSlone, he posted it already a couple pages back.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

Underwhelming it remains.

I don't think the numbers are bad at all, however they could be termed underwhelming if this really is a key title for Sony.

 

[John Dunbar]

I don't think the numbers are bad at all, however they could be termed underwhelming if this really is a key title for Sony.

What else would it be?

PS3 continues to be gamecubed. "Wait for..." claims another victim. But hey, let's just wait until the word of mouth for Home spreads..

 

[Jammy]

What else would it be?

PS3 continues to be gamecubed. "Wait for..." claims another victim. But hey, let's just wait until the word of mouth for Home spreads..

Isn't the word of mouth on Home generally negative? I don't see one person that likes Home characters over Avatars and especially Miis given how soulless and empty they look, and a lot of people just think the whole thing is a gigantic menu screen that's over-elaborated.

That thing isn't going to sell systems at all.

 

[John Dunbar]

Isn't the word of mouth on Home generally negative?

That's what I tried to imply. :/

Some months ago a lot of people seemed to think that LBP + Home combo would actually make PS3's sales something other than laughably pathetic. Personally I couldn't see them being anything but a quick jerk-off for some Sony fans and then be forgotten. Just reminds me of Nintendo fans during Gamecube era when "wait for.." was said for any next game that could sell more than seven copies.

 

[AnimeTheme]

I don't think the numbers are bad at all, however they could be termed underwhelming if this really is a key title for Sony.

No one expected it to have a huge start, but legs are what the fans and probably Sony are expecting. Judging from this month's number... it doesn't seem like it is going to happen.

 

[Opus Angelorum]

No one expected it to have a huge start...

Didn't someone from Sony say Little Big Planet was a key holiday title?

 

[norinrad21]

That's what I tried to imply. :/

Some months ago a lot of people seemed to think that LBP + Home combo would actually make PS3's sales something other than laughably pathetic. Personally I couldn't see them being anything but a quick jerk-off for some Sony fans and then be forgotten. Just reminds me of Nintendo fans during Gamecube era when "wait for.." was said for any next game that could sell more than seven copies.

Nintendo was making money even with the so called failed Gamecube

 

[karasu]

The traditional model says that increasing the visual fidelity and feature checklist for major franchises annually will net strong sales.

I don't understand why this is presumed to be true. Did the PSX or PS2 have the best graphics of their generation? I certainly didn't think so. I don't believe all of those developers who made millions on the PS2, despite the presence of the technically superior X-Box, are so deluded to believe that superior graphics are what grants strong sales. When was the last time that 'superior graphics' and 'generation leader' have walked hand in hand?

Instead, Nintendo is pushing player/software interaction and social interaction while downplaying the importance of visual fidelity.

Aren't all of them pushing that? Whether by providing immersion through more engrossing imagery and sound, or social interaction by building massive online communities.

I don't think this stuff comes down to consumers 'not giving a shit about HD or graphics' as much as it does to superior marketing and an attractive price point. Really, who goes out and buys a Wii because it's NOT HD or because its graphics are below par?

 

[AndresON777]

No one expected it to have a huge start, but legs are what the fans and probably Sony are expecting. Judging from this month's number... it doesn't seem like it is going to happen.

Problem I see with lbp having 'legs' is that the 360/ps3 owners are more likely to buy it used.

Seems like the wii owners, in particular the casuals, buy all the games new. I guess having new games priced at 50 helps

 

[Thunder Monkey]

Lay off chespace motherfuckers!

I love giving the guy crap as much as the next person, but mine tends to be friendly barbs.

I mean sure... I disagree with about everything the guy says... how he dresses, and even who his friends are... along with his face, but I still call him friend!

It's not like he can be wrong for holding an opinion. Sure smells like ass though.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

The game mechanics are no way near as as complicated as Viva, although I agree they should perhaps have down played the building aspects people just dont think they want to do that with their game time

My gripe exactly.. I downloaded the demo - thinking - hey - it's a sequel to Rare's Mario 64 clones, and the next thing I was doing was driving a cart around. Then I was deleting the demo.

 

[JavyOO7]

I expected Wii Music to hit a million right away, so I think its still disappointing even though it hit the top 10 this month. But I wonder if it will have legs like the "Wii __" titles before it. I'm still not sure, because at least with the original Brain Training for the DS, which it sold something like 36K for 9 straight weeks when it first released, I knew it'd be a hit. It sucks weeklies aren't released for the NPD.

 

[Eteric Rice]

My gripe exactly.. I downloaded the demo - thinking - hey - it's a sequel to Rare's Mario 64 clones, and the next thing I was doing was driving a cart around. Then I was deleting the demo.

Pretty much this.

 

[lowlylowlycook]

Didn't someone from Sony say Little Big Planet was a key holiday title?

"Our target audience is everyone," explained associate producer Eric Fong, speaking to GamesIndustry.biz last month at Comic-Con 2008 in San Diego, where the game was being demonstrated to the public.

Talking up the game's sales potential, he added: "It's going to be a hardware seller. Not only do you have the platforming experience that a lot of other games will have, you have this creativity that really is exclusive to LittleBigPlanet."

link

 

[thefro]

Holy shizz.
This time Nintendo strategy was great for make money and return market leader.
But now i want HUGE sotware announcements for the core gamers,
and third party redeemed and come back with great games and apologyze to nintendo fans,
ah, the power of money :lol

It's happening slowly, but it's happening with the Japanese companies. Monster Hunter 3 and Dragon Quest X.

The Unreal Engine 3 FPS developers probably won't ever come over, but I see support going forward from the Japanese game makers to be at least equal between Wii and 360/PS3.

 

[Flakster99]

Lay off chespace motherfuckers!

I love giving the guy crap as much as the next person, but mine tends to be friendly barbs.

I mean sure... I disagree with about everything the guy says... how he dresses, and even who his friends are... along with his face, but I still call him friend!

It's not like he can be wrong for holding an opinion. Sure smells like ass though.

*grins* I'd love me some Che right about now. che, where art thou?!?

 

[Cipherr]

I don't think this stuff comes down to consumers 'not giving a shit about HD or graphics' as much as it does to superior marketing and an attractive price point. Really, who goes out and buys a Wii because it's NOT HD or because its graphics are below par?

Its not because of price point. That really needs to die now. Wii cost > 360's cheapest SKU.

 

[vanguardian1]

Its not because of price point. That really needs to die now. Wii cost > 360's cheapest SKU.

The price point helps simply because it was an attractive price point from the get-go, countless people didn't have to wait for a price drop. *raises hand*

And being bundled with the most influential game of the generation also helps.

 

[GSG Flash]

Hopefully Sega realizes that this has a lot more to do with a lack of publicity and a release on a console with a piddly marketshare than the quality of the franchise.

(but I doubt they will)

I doubt it would have set the world on fire if it was on the 360 (or even the Wii) in terms of sales. The game just doesn't have mass appeal, it's a very niche game.

 

[gregor7777]

Its not because of price point. That really needs to die now. Wii cost > 360's cheapest SKU.

Price point helped. It's foolish to think it didn't.

The 360 gets a $199 price point, and bam, 800+k in November.

 

[yurinka]

Didn't someone from Sony say Little Big Planet was a key holiday title?

I think he wasn't talking about the holidays specificly. We still don't have numbers about the performance of the game in the PAL regions (we only have severall top10 of some European countries) and the bundled copies.

Remember MGS4 (4 millions worldwide) or Motorstorm (3 millions worldwide). They almost weren't in many sales ranking and performed very well. I think LBP will have good sales worldwide (mainly in PAL-land), with good legs but maybe won't reach the MGS4 numbers.

I think LBP won't be a bomba, but also won't be a huge system seller. As almost every main exclusive game for every console, will sell a bit of hardware but not a ton. This isn't the Tetris for Game Boy or Mario Bros for the NES.

 

[markatisu]

I expected Wii Music to hit a million right away, so I think its still disappointing even though it hit the top 10 this month. But I wonder if it will have legs like the "Wii __" titles before it. I'm still not sure, because at least with the original Brain Training for the DS, which it sold something like 36K for 9 straight weeks when it first released, I knew it'd be a hit. It sucks weeklies aren't released for the NPD.

That would have put Wii Music along the same lines as Mario Kart Wii, Super Smash Bros Brawl, and Mario Galaxy which is clearly was not in terms of advertising, retailer promotions, or audience (no midnight openings, etc)

But to go from 81k and "bomba" to almost 300k and still having the usually monstrous month of December to go is a pretty good indicator that it will at least do better than Brain Age Academy Wii which is more along the lines of its audience

I can easily see people begin to pick up Wii's with Wii Play, Wii Fit, and Wii Music as the requisite 3 titles they "assume" they should get and if that does turn out to be the case then the title will sell for a very long time

 

[karasu]

Its not because of price point. That really needs to die now. Wii cost > 360's cheapest SKU.

That's now. But the Wii built its momentum on that edge it previously held.

 

[-MB-]

Price point helped. It's foolish to think it didn't.

The 360 gets a $199 price point, and bam, 800+k in November.

Not when that 800k is barely more then last year in november, when they didn't have a pricecut.

 

[Bluemercury]

The failings of Nintendo this gen, more than any previous gen (although they were heading in this direction), is that they've ceased to create games that I and the majority of my friends want to play on the Wii.

Perhaps you should have bought more GC games that way that wouldnt have gone this route......:X

 

[GSG Flash]

Not when that 800k is barely more then last year in november, when they didn't have a pricecut.

Didn't you read all those articles about how Arcade sales went up significantly after the price drop?

The price drop was a significant move by MS in terms of increasing sales. All your argument proves is that if MS didn't cut the price, they would have sold less units than they did last year.

 

[lowlylowlycook]

Price point helped. It's foolish to think it didn't.

The 360 gets a $199 price point, and bam, 800+k in November.

Well the 360 and PS3 have got themselves into the position where the price is one of the main differentiators for a lot of people.

 

[donny2112]

 

[lowlylowlycook]

Nice graph donny2112!

I almost crapped my pants at the PS2 vs. PS3 comparison until I remembered that the PS2 had a year on the PS3 by that calculation.

Could you do a PS2 after the PS3 launch calculation real fast?

 

[Yes Boss!]

I expected Wii Music to hit a million right away, so I think its still disappointing even though it hit the top 10 this month. But I wonder if it will have legs like the "Wii __" titles before it. I'm still not sure, because at least with the original Brain Training for the DS, which it sold something like 36K for 9 straight weeks when it first released, I knew it'd be a hit. It sucks weeklies aren't released for the NPD.

It is tracking to hit about 2-3 million by the end of 2009. Yeah, it is not as big as the other Wii___ titles but I'm sure Nintendo's expectations for the title are not as huge. It is a tough sell, to be sure.

 

[Dr. Kitty Muffins]

I was kinda hoping that Left 4 Dead would hit just under a million in its first month. It deserves to be a top tier seller on the 360. It will still end up in the millionaire's club but it will sell amongst the likes of Dead Rising instead of Gears of War.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

So I realized something. I estimated earlier that the non-Black Friday weeks of November for Wii were about 413K each. If each of the December weeks was that "low", it would make for a 2.07 million December. Not that I think 2 million was in doubt since it just did that in November, but there's what I'd consider the absolute floor: a 53% increase over last year.

I was wondering about that 3rd party revenue stat in Microsoft's press release. Any educated guesses about how much longer before Microsoft drops the "combined" in comparing its 3rd party sales with Nintendo and Sony?

I haven't paid enough attention to software trends to set along this other data to make a good guess, but I doubt it will be much longer; the amount it will have to overcompensate for no longer having the hardware majority will keep increasing.

Looking at those ownership percents for the generation that I gave before (48.3% X360, 35.8% Wii, 16.0% PS3), this means X360 only needs to do 7% better than PS3/Wii in third party sales to match or exceed them. However, making some guesses as to what the next few months hold, it's possible that in three more months the split will be something more like 45.6% X360, 38.1% Wii, 16.3% PS3, at which time X360 will have to do 19% better than PS3/Wii in third party sales to match or exceed them. It will just keep getting more difficult.

This November was the 37th month of the generation, yes? So "most of this generation" would be 18.5+ months. The 19th month of this generation was May 07, when 360 still had over 50% marketshare.

I'm not looking at it as simply a time-based thing (in which case X360 had the hardware majority until November 2007), but by using the "ownership time" stat to help quantify how much a difference it makes. For instance, while X360 had a monopoly on this generation for the first 5 months of its life, it only had a userbase of 0 - 1.2 million at that time. However, at present it's 9 million behind the combined PS3/Wii, so it doesn't take many recent months to completely obliterate the X360's year of advantage.

I think this might be easier to put in an image.

There are two lines here: the green one representing X360's LTD, and the red one representing PS3+Wii LTD. The area I've filled in green shows the time where X360 had the advantage and was thus able to rack up a lead in various statistics. The area in red shows where the advantage has gone the other way. Blue is the area that's under both lines and equal, so we can mostly ignore. The important thing is that since the red area is bigger, through the course of the whole generation PS3+Wii have had more of a lead than X360 did. The red area isn't much bigger than the green one yet, though.

Gamespot's updated their November NPD article to include Top 11-20, no specific sales numbers though, just the rankings.

7) Guitar Hero World Tour (Wii) / Activision Blizzard / 475,000
10) Wii Music / Nintendo / 297,000
13) Rock Band (Wii) / MTV Games

15) Guitar Hero World Tour (Xbox 360) / Activision Blizzard
17) Guitar Hero World Tour (PS2) / Activision Blizzard

Safe to say Wii has become the music system?

 

[Stoney Mason]

I was kinda hoping that Left 4 Dead would hit just under a million in its first month. It deserves to be a top tier seller on the 360. It will still end up in the millionaire's club but it will sell amongst the likes of Dead Rising instead of Gears of War.

400k is very good for a title like l4d. Until I saw the Xbox Live Activity charts I thought it would flop on 360.

 

[Narcosis]

Safe to say Wii has become the music system?

I think it's safe to say the Wii has captured the idea of being the "go to" place for any well known local multiplayer type games. Part of the appeal of games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band is sharing the experience in your living room with other people and Nintendo markets that quite well with Wii in their advertising. I don't think I've seen a Wii commercial on TV yet that hasn't had scenes of groups of people together playing games, and music games fit this type of thing perhaps better than any other games on the market.

I was kinda hoping that Left 4 Dead would hit just under a million in its first month. It deserves to be a top tier seller on the 360. It will still end up in the millionaire's club but it will sell amongst the likes of Dead Rising instead of Gears of War.

Left 4 Dead 360 has to compete against not only the other shooter games on the platform that month (and Gears and Call of Duty are beasts), but it has to compete against itself and the fact that a good chunk of the fanbase of Valve games probably prefer PC over console.

This is one of those times access to the total sales numbers from Valve on both platforms would be really interesting.

 

[donny2112]

I didn't respond because I was out on a Friday night.

Excuses, excuses.

Spoiler

I haven't read all of this thread since I last posted but Kohler asked me which Gamecube games I purchased?

He wanted to know what Nintendo-published games you liked in the comparable timespan since the Wii's launch (i.e. 2001-2003) as a baseline for what you considered good core Nintendo support.

Here's a list of Gamecube games I have either owned or enjoyed (and were exclusive to the system). Note that I did not own all of the below, but probably most of it at one point or another.

F-Zero GX
Metroid Prime
Zelda: WW
Mario Sunshine
Pikmin

What was the point of this again?

I reduced your list to cover the intended timespan and publisher. Now compare that to Nintendo's first-party output in the first two years of the Wii's lifespan. Still want to claim that Nintendo's not putting out numbers comparable to GameCube for core games on the Wii?

Thanks for providing the list for comparison, by the way.

Could you do a PS2 after the PS3 launch calculation real fast?

I don't have access to the raw data, at the moment, but guesstimating by looking at the graph, I'd say about 8 million.

When was the last time that 'superior graphics' and 'generation leader' have walked hand in hand?

SNES, if you ignore the niche consoles like Jaguar and Neo-Geo. Up until the Wii, I think the generational leader was the most technically advance at its time of its release, though. The Wii had the control style as its draw, though.

 

[Sushen]

I don't think the numbers are bad at all, however they could be termed underwhelming if this really is a key title for Sony.

Are you kidding me? 1up made it sound like the best game ever in the history for months since late summer and got 95 meta score among professional reviews. One can't get any more hype than that! Sony went all in with this game this holiday season, no doubt.

 

[Sushen]

Safe to say Wii has become the music system?

:lol :lol :lol

 

[JavyOO7]

It is tracking to hit about 2-3 million by the end of 2009. Yeah, it is not as big as the other Wii___ titles but I'm sure Nintendo's expectations for the title are not as huge. It is a tough sell, to be sure.

Yeah, true. Then again, I just found out from my Sister she bought me this game as a Christmas gift, so I can't wait to play Wii Music. Woo!

 

[Accident]

Not when that 800k is barely more then last year in november, when they didn't have a pricecut.

There was a pricecut last year, just before Halo 3.

 

[markatisu]

I think when looking at LBP sales we also need to take into account advertising, that game was put on billboards, buses, and has a commercial running on many networks (the stupid french fry spaceship one that in no way explains wtf the game is about) constantly which has to cost $$$. Various retailers also offered gift cards and are trying to push the game as well.

Sony clearly positioned this to be THEIR game of the holidays, so I cannot believe that Sony did not expect more. At least for it to be around 700k-800k after two months which is not much when you compare it to other big games from its two competitors

Uncharted is not a fair example to compare it to because Uncharted was barely pushed, there was little to no advertising (much of it was combo advertising for the PS3 in general) and certainly no promotions tied into it

 

[titiklabingapat]

Are you kidding me? 1up made it sound like the best game ever in the history for months since late summer and got 95 meta score among professional reviews. One can't get any more hype than that! Sony went all in with this game this holiday season, no doubt.

I still remember the "Wait for March NPDs!" as a testament to how the fans/press anointed LBP, fairly or otherwise, as the second coming of christ for the PS3.

 

[HocusPocus]

I still remember the "Wait for March NPDs!" as a testament to how the fans/press anointed LBP, fairly or otherwise, as the second coming of christ for the PS3.

Yep. Now it's time to start hyping secret PS3 game, and repeat for next year. It's getting old.

 

[SLYspyda]

2.04 million sales is insane. The Wii hasn't had one price drop yet folks! It's scary.


Can someone please explain to me why COD Wii didn't do numbers? It's a good game, it had good marketing.

 

[Stoney Mason]

2.04 million sales is insane. The Wii hasn't had one price drop yet folks! It's scary.


Can someone please explain to me why COD Wii didn't do numbers? It's a good game, it had good marketing.

You can argue the traditional shooter market demo is more at home on the other two platforms.

 

[Sushen]

LBP didn't really have that big of a drop off, 200k last month and 141k this month. Who to say it doesn't do 125k next month? Hell if it does do over 100k next month it did better then uncharted did but then again that game bombed or at least that's what GAF told me.

1up podcast declared that 200k was because of only 3 days it was on sale in October. This is full 30 days of November. According to Shane this is one of those games that should sell 200k every month for years to come. It looks like it's no Mario Kart.

 

[timetokill]

2.04 million sales is insane. The Wii hasn't had one price drop yet folks! It's scary.


Can someone please explain to me why COD Wii didn't do numbers? It's a good game, it had good marketing.

- It's a shooter on Wii
- better versions on other consoles
- other versions are in HD
- target audience with large amounts of disposable income
- profile for target audience has HD sets and when buying a shooter wants top-tier graphics

 

[Gaborn]

1up podcast declared that 200k was because of only 3 days it was on sale in October. This is full 30 days of November. According to Shane this is one of those games that should sell 200k every month for years to come. It looks like it's no Mario Kart.

especially since it IS November. It's a holiday month, more people are buying more games than any point in the year (well, except December, but you know what I meant). If LBP isn't doing well in November then it's not getting the buzz and must have status that many people would expect.