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NPD Sales Results for February 2011 [Update 4: PS3 Hardware, TONS Of Games]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
I think it goes to show that the idea of "you did not need to rebuy a system every couple years cause your warranty ran out and the system overheated/drive died" if anything is more like anecdotal evidence rather than an actual reason.Atomski said:
Noone denies the fact that Xbox 360s (especially launch units) were faulty or the disc-read errors of the PS3; and so on. But we live in a time that people run to their Twitters/Facebook/online forums to complain about problems (or anything), if it just something minimal or common; they describe it as if it's the end of the world.
Imagine if the internet was like it is right now, during the 80s/90s with the quality of ET on 2600, or the cartridge/blowing deal of NES games, or the Square RPGs costing around $80, or the SNES turning yellow-ish. Or the PSone issues with discs, or the PS2 models that didn't read blue discs; and so on. Heck, even the removal of the A/V ports from the original PSone models, or the removal of the expansion bay of the slim PS2s, to not install HDDs, making games like FFXI unplayabale on newer/slims PS2, among other things..didn't get as much coverage as the removal of OtherOS in the PS3.
If anything things are just normal, just get more exposure, even more than usual when many news-outlets and websites make news and headlines based on Twitter posts. So, the growing sales of hardware have no relation to people buying the same consoles all over again. There are no hard/accurate numbers right now, neither there were numbers decades ago.
AlteredBeast
Fork 'em, Sparky!
Meijimasha is being serious with that crap?
What Holiday season is he talking about? Right now it looks like 360 will still be on top come Holiday 2011. Things might change to where Wii bumps back up, but PS3 definitely isn't taking any crown from anybody.
What Holiday season is he talking about? Right now it looks like 360 will still be on top come Holiday 2011. Things might change to where Wii bumps back up, but PS3 definitely isn't taking any crown from anybody.
Watchtower
Banned
Meijimasha said:
The only part of your post I'm going to address is what's bolded because I think it needs to be said....the rest is just....LOL.
And Thank Fucking God! The worst, most uninspired announcement I have heard come out for Kinect so far is Gears of Wars Kinect. I don't want the same franchises and games I have been playing on every other console for the past 10 years.
Keep that crap away from Kinect.
Watchtower
Banned
BroHuffman said:
I say the more new games the better. Last thing I would want is for a developer to prove you can take GOW or Call of Duty and slap Kinect controls on it and sell 2 million units. That's going to stifle creativity on Kinect and set a precedent for everyone else to do the same. And presto, you have your shovelware.
The whole reason I'm exciting about Kinect is that it has the potential to introduce brand new games and brand new experiences to gaming.
V_Arnold said:
We don't have access to the daily or even weekly sales numbers, so we have to create a baseline somehow out of the numbers available. Is it flawed, sure, but it's not saying that Killzone 2/3 had a bigger launch than another title, and that's because we don't have those numbers.
You can't say that BC2 had a bigger launch than Killzone because we don't have a similar timeframe of comparison. You're trying to read tea leaves to say otherwise.
With some simple math (not even getting daily average sales) I think it's common sense to say that Killzone 2 probably had a better launch window than Bad Company 2 by getting:
70% of the sales that BC2 got in 25 days in the span of 2 days.
Games aren't that, and we can see that by looking at how Killzone 2's second month was almost as much in the second month as it sold in the first 48 hours (296,000). Killzone 2 also beat out Bad Company 2 in it's second month.
Here's Killzone 2's and Bad Company 2's PS3 sales for their first and second month.
Code:
[B]Bad Company 2[/B]
Month 1 451.2
Month 2 <100K
[B]Killzone 2[/B]
Month 1 323,000
Month 2 296,000Of course Killzone had an extremely short first month (2 days) and still almost equaled what Bad Company did with nearly an entire month. Argue that BC2 had a full month 1 and 2 for sales to cool and you're pointing out the need for forming some sort of baseline or interpretation of the data.
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/NPD_April_2010
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
Watchtower said:
Oh, they're coming, you can be certain of that, but there's no reason to fear brands themselves. Problems could arise if Microsoft was to shoehorn Kinect-only controls into traditional gameplay of those franchises, but as of now, there's nothing indicating that something like that is going to happen.
What Meijimasha can't seem to grasp - which is funny, because he basically answered his own question before even asking it - is that it's not core franchises that drove Wii's phenomenal success. Apart from Mario Kart and maybe a few more games with wide enough appeal (not Zelda, not Metroid and certainly not No More Heroes), those games were released first and foremost to appease Nintendo's traditional audience and core gamers who've gotten a Wii as their second or third console. Of course, if those people who own Kinect and consider themselves core gamers ever get bored of wide appeal titles such as Dance Central, they can always turn to traditional controller core games which are certainly not in short supply on Xbox 360.
Megadragon15
Member
With this meltdown post, this NPD thread for February 2011 is officially complete.Meijimasha said:
REMEMBER CITADEL said:
Exactly and i keep seeing it used as a point that if you have a Kinect you have no other games to play. Or you must play your Kinect everyday otherwise it's useless. That's the great thing about Kinect it's not the 360's core DNA it's an optional peripheral.
What is a Kinect plugged into thin air?
Or a machine with a very healthy retail and digital library.
Watchtower
Banned
REMEMBER CITADEL said:
That's exactly what scared me when they announced GOW Kinect. I know the whole point is to show Kinect will have "core" games. But that's the wrong direction. I don't need you to slap the GOW name on my game to tell me it's for the "core" audience. If the game's deep, fun to play and interesting, I'll be able to figure out on our own whether or not it can be considered a "core" game thank you very much.
They should spend their resources on making the "next" GOW, Halo for Kinect. If anything they should have confidence to do that because they replicated the Halo effect of last generation with GOW, a brand new IP, this current generation.
That's why I was happy to see Dance Central sell so well. That gives me hope. Really, even though the Kinect exclusives aren't that exciting save for Project Draco and some of the Horror games, I like that they are at least not only exclusive and being built from the ground up, but also brand new IP's. I want new IPs.
If they put 10 out there, some are bound to freaking stick and become mainstream. They just want to save on the marketing money and ride the name. Lazy!
highrider
Banned
DevilWillcry said:
on a singleplayer purchase, i would be inclined to agree, or at least understand that opinion. rfom and killzone 3 are excellent singleplayer games. killzone 2 and resistance 2 were just ok for me. i don't think the quality gap is the issue though. 360 shooters have a more complete package. co-op story, horde, saved films, forge.. these are crucial if you want to reach a larger audience of online gamers imo.
halo reach is a clinic in replayabilty. no shooter on ps3 comes close. imo rfom is still the best singleplayer fps on the ps3. killzone is really good, but they can't seem to put it all together in a cohesive package.
Watchtower
Banned
Dabanton said:
Thank you. I have no video game console at the moment and a work from home job(NPD & GAF's not good for it)
Honestly the way I view gaming, I feel the only two major shifts in the video game industry that actually brought out new experiences in the past 20 years was 2D to 3D and online gaming so Kinect's potential really excites me and got a lot to say about it.
REMEMBER CITADEL
Banned
Dabanton said:
True, it's been a good batch. You can already spot some duds as well, but they're just as precious for providing entertainment
I don't know why you excluded 360 versions from multiplatform examples. The sales are supposed to show franchise power and if people cared about Killzone, they would find a way to play it. Making a multiplatform game isn't much more expensive than making an exclusive game, advertising costs depend on amounts of air time (which KZ3 has had a lot of), not how many platform logos are visible at the end of its commercial. Sony clearly tried to make a big deal out of Killzone and failed. No two ways around it.Zen said:
Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing accounting for Sony and they know better how profitable these games are and since they keep greenlighting sequels, it must be commercially feasible. I think though that Sony should think about making more entries in genres were third party publishers have very weak presence. Does it really make sense to release three first person shooters (KZ3, R3 and SOCOM) in a year that also has a new COD, Crysis 2, Brink, Battlefield 3, Rage, Homefront, Duke Nukem Forever, Ghost Recon and possibly a few more I can't think of right now? Do these 3 titles really make much difference for people who do not have a current-gen console yet to choose PS3 over 360?
szaromir said:
/shrug @ bolded you can apply that to all sorts of franchises from all three companies; they were probably hoping for Uncharted level success, with Halo levels in their wildest dreams.
The point is that Killzone 3 is only available on a single platform, and if you want to look at its performance, it's fair to look at how it performs relative to the other franchises sales on that platform.
We've seen with many 'once exclusive later ported' titles that being on the 360 and PS3 doesn't guarantee x2 sales but we've also seen through the success of titles like Devil May Cry and multiplatform titles in general, that sales generally can't be argued to remain static or decrease by appearing on more than one platform. That's why Mass Effect is going multiplatform, even with some added costs associated. You can say 'that people will find a way to play it' but that ignores barrier to entry effecting sales. People aren't just going to plot down 200-300-400 dollars to play an exclusive on a platform if it will cost them 200-300-400 dollars. That's why getting a game on as many platforms as possible helps sales.
So we can say 'but only looking at the PS3 sales doesn't show the brand strength as a whole':
But what it does show is the brand strength of the demographic of gamers that are PS3 owners. To people that own PS3 and bought those games on their PS3 (with sales ratios going closer to 50/50 these days aside from cases where the franchise didn't start multiplatform like Mass Effect and Bioshock).
There's not alternative. Last year had Call of Duty, Halo, Bad Company 2, Medal of Honor, first party one like MAG and a few more FPSs.szaromir said:
Next year, will definitely have it share of "big" FPSs, might as well never release it if it was about not releasing similar games on the same genre. Killzone 3, Socom and Resitance 3 might be first person shooters and all released this year, but they each play quite different from each other too.
Some publishers seem to be more interested in expanding their portfolios, than on the actual sales. Of course, they'd love lots of sales. But to them, they seem to be satisfied with having LittleBigPlanet 2, DC Universe Online, Killzone 3, Move Heroes, Socom, Motorstorm, inFamous 2; in the first half of the year (nearly one game per month);and have more options for people to choose from, on top of the third party offerings; rather than being worried at which one is going to sell and how much.
szaromir said:
People choosing a current gen console arn't just going to choose because of a new game coming out (well they might if they really like an exclusive, probably new IP rather than a sequel) but the because of the current catalog of games. There are people out there waiting on a price drop, and I would be curious to know how the Socom 4/move/sharpshoot bundle does.
KZ3 and Socom 4 are move friendly and play well with move. Sony needs to sell move. It basically failed with the casual crowd, make it appealing to the shooter crowd. This could be a big point to having both these out this year. And Insomniac probably wants to be done with the R series and move on to there multiplat game. I don't think putting out all these games will hurt Sony, so why keep them for another time when there is the possibility to help them and maybe be the next killer app. I mean shooter.
I'd like to notice at this point that the brand strength of Killzone among PS3 owners is at the best comparable to Battlefield and way below Call of Duty, so there potentially was a lot of room for KZ3 to grow - but that didn't happen.Zen said:
Being multiplatform certainly helps sales, yes, that's why 3rd party publishers don't fool around with exclusives anymore.
I'm not arguing that Microsoft's way of very sparse release schedule (ie. nothing from January to September) is the right one, especially for a device as new as Kinect, but the titles you listed won't change things much (for system sales), if at all. And I'm pretty sure Sony execs are concerned about performance of individual games.
szaromir said:
Given the numbers it's easily hanging out with Bad Company, if not above it, even (tentatively) considering the lower initial performance of Killzone 3. Since we don't have PS3 numbers for Medal of Honor (And they, frankly, aren't at a level that greatly outstrips either BC2 or KZ2/3 if we assume a generous 50/50 split between platforms), Bad Company is pretty much the cream of the crop before the gaping chasm that is the performance between everything else and BLOPS.
That means that Killzone is shoulder to shoulder with the biggest shooters on the PS3 excluding the phenomenon of Call of Duty. Nothing bad about that, especially when Bad Company 2, Bioshock 1/2, Medal of Honor, are all considered successes and money making franchises.
What you are right about is how it is troubling that they didn't seem to grow the franchise between Killzone 2 and 3. We'll see how the second month numbers pan out.
szaromir said:
So should Sony just stop putting out FPS? I'm not sure what you would have them do. Maybe one of the games they release becomes a hit or maybe it becomes a cult favorite and has long legs. As long as they break even/small profit, they arn't hurting themselves to try and put out a game that could become big.
Meijimasha said:
All that watching the Wii and you never noticed how those evergreen wide audience titles tend to sell, for years, and years, and years? Kinect has made its move, and it was a good one. It will sell its software. Lets not try and resurrect the 'gimmick' talk please, it was annoying enough the first time.
Yeah, but you questioned why would they release 3 FPSs on a year with so many big ones, when 2010 was the same and 2012 will probably be the same. When would be "the right time" to release those games? If there's no right time, what would be ideal? 1 game per year?szaromir said:
They approved those games (and the respective budgets) knowing that they might release during the same year or close to it, so doubt they are actually worried about other games in the same genre cannibalizing sales from them. If anything, that's why they're not releasing those games the same month of Call of Duty.
And have they actually said they expect those games to "change things"?
Heck, of the 7 games I listed, only 2 are not sequels. Of those 2, one is an MMORPG, based on existing properties and requires a subscription fee; the other one is an adventure/minigame compilation featuring characters from 3 franchises and requires the Move controller (which requires a camera too). So from those 7 games, 5 are technically selling to current owners and 2 are selling to a selection of those current owners.
So unless it's a blind-mega-fanboy the one expecting those games to change things, noone with some common sense would expect that. Heck, SOE already talked about how surprised they were at the sales of DC Universe on PS3 and so did Media Molecule on LBP2, so things may not be as bad as many think; neither the games needed to "change things".
Yes, this is precisely my point. FPS genre is very saturated and chances of having the next big thing in it are really really low at this point (especially since their games are steamrolled feature-wise by the competition). They should pack upthe shop (at least part of it) and look for the next big thing elsewhere.BroHuffman said:
You're ignoring the fact that they generate majority of their revenues elsewhere.
szaromir said:
That's neither here nor there, We're talking about brand power, right?
The break even point on titles aren't that outlandish yet; and these numbers are for the American Market only. We can start pulling up quarterly revenue reports and how the PS3 and 360 are largely on equal footing these days for the bigger companies doing cross platform releases.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
lmao can I get a source for this (assuming it's not a photoshop)?Lebron said:
This has everything to do as they're successful/profitable based on their overall sales, not only PS3 or 360 or PC version. Bad Company 2 shipped 7M copies and it's success is judged on this number, not the PS3 sales only. Sony keeping extra $10 for themselves is a big difference, but not big enough to make up for "lost" sales on other platforms.Zen said:
edit: OK, I'm dropping out of conversation, as we'll start running in circles soon. I think Sony should commit resources elsewhere rather than doing sequels to moderately profitable games, as it won't get them anywhere in the longer run. If you disagree with my view, then great.
szaromir said:
Of course not, but why are you now suddenly saying that measuring Killzone's performance relative to other shooters on the platform means that cross platform titles have to perform as well on one platform as they do across several? Like I said, the budgets aren't that out of control yet, and you can't expect barrier to entry to go away; that's why multiplatform titles exist in the first place. Not only that, but the revenues that third parties are earning between the two platforms aren't that dramatically out of sync as long as their portfolio is balanced.
Alrus said:
I think it would have behooved them to have delayed Killzone 2 6 more months and taken a hard look at some of the aspects of it (online, controller response, etc). Killzone 2 is a flawed attempt at something special, Killzone 3 feels like a successful attempt at settling for being one in the crowd.
T.M. MacReady
NO ONE DENIES MEMBER
The insanity of the killzone bomb debate based on 6 days of sales has led me to purchase Killzone 3.
I didn't say that. I only said that Battlefield is considered very successful due to sales on 360+PS3+PC, not only on PS3. If we subtract 360 and PC sales, the PS3 version alone might not bring enough revenues to cover the cost of bringing the game to the market. Thus Battlefield on PS3 only as a measuring stick for Killzone is not adequate.Zen said:
szaromir said:
Might is the key word.
Successful relative to the performance of other shooters on the platform then. The 'financially successful' was a footnote to the core of my post. Again though, to say that drawing a comparison between PS3 platform versions of BC2 and and KZ isn't adequate means that you're ignoring barrier to entry.
Would Killzone 2/3 have sold more if it also came out on the 360/PC? Absolutely, but that's not the issue.
Version 3.0
Member
Glix said:
My anecdotal evidence cancels out yours, sorry. I have gone through several NES, SNES and Genesis consoles, not because they stopped working, but because I gave them to my nephews and nieces and other kids. I still have two of each that work, and there are so many millions working available for sale that they're dirt cheap to this day. They're invincible systems that never break. Let's see how it stands for the 360 in 30 years, shall we?
On the other hand, a "working" NES system is usually a struggle to power up thanks the the infinitely stupid design of the cartridge interface. Power up - nope - power down - click, click - power up - nope - power down - click, click...it's a unique problem, but so widespread that it's hard to find one without it unless it's a top-loader.
Randolph Freelander
Member
JJConrad said:
The American government is buying up consoles and shipping them overseas in exchange for cocaine and heroine that they are then selling to Americans in various forms in order to finance the upheaval in middle east, as well as other covert operations.
Call of Duty Black Ops, indeed.
Watchtower
Banned
JJConrad said:
I can only think of the fact that tax season is here and economy improving. People are spending money again. We tend to forget this generation was launched in recession and has been in a recession period the entire time.
While it may have not seemed like it affected video games as much, it had to have affected it to some degree, and this might be what the game industry may have looked like if it wasn't the case.
That's just speculation though. We'll get a better idea next month. I guess now that a lot of people lost their homes and had to downgrade, which sucks, also means the fact they're not paying $1500 gives them more monthly spending cash.
Arpharmd B
Banned
Killzone is just a AA game, not AAA. Like Infamous. It will sell ok, make a small profit, but enough to perhaps warrant a sequel. It's a lukewarm sales and nothing more. What else is there to say.
Kung Fu Grip
Banned
Thanks for the data.jvm said:
I think those are healthy numbers for all 3. Though nintendo and microsoft numbers do make that PS3 total look bad.
Even though theres a 10million hardware gap between the 3, i guess each console has a large enough user base in america that it's pretty much irrelevant at this point? As in developers don't have worry if a game will sell on whichever system?
You shouldn't post like this as a new born. Your setting yourself up for a bad future. =pMeijimasha said:
Im a PS3 guy but even i don't see this happening. MS handled kinect perfectly. Look how many people are buying it. I don't care for it personally but it is a success.
And it kinda rubs me the wrong way that MS has no problem selling a $400 system but sony did. =/
What the frack.
Stripper13
Member
I think it has a lot to do with the value proposition. I would say that (arguably) MS is offering more for $400 than Sony ever was.Kung Fu Grip said: