Aaron Strife
Banned
A valid analogy. There's also the matter that some games seem fine at first glance (Sonic, Red Steel etc.) but aren't so good when you actually play them.jetjevons said:
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NPD Sales Results for March 2009
- Thread starter EviLore
- Start date
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
Dabanton said:
Sounds like they did a good job of selling...ALL UNITS!
Ah ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha
hah...hm
mentalfloss
Banned
Just as an anecdotal aside for the KZ2 marketing argument.. I live in Toronto, alongside the busiest street in the city. This street, called Yonge Street, is also apparently one of the longest streets in the world and also the most prominent street people use to enter the city. On this street, people can see in plain view, a big ass billboard with a stoned-eyed Killzone 2 Helghast and the single quote: "5 out of 5 stars" or something to that effect. It's been up there since the KZ2 launch, and is still up there now, at least a month after launch.
Now, I know this is Canada, but I've never seen anything of that nature before in terms of mass marketing. Maybe it's Sony Canada who has their finger on the gaming pulse of the city, but I'm pretty sure the advertising campaign in the U.S. can't be much less overt.
Now, I know this is Canada, but I've never seen anything of that nature before in terms of mass marketing. Maybe it's Sony Canada who has their finger on the gaming pulse of the city, but I'm pretty sure the advertising campaign in the U.S. can't be much less overt.
jjasper said:
I would really, really like to know the sales of MLB2k9 on the PS3. This would offer an immediate sense of how a first party can stifle a third: two games released near simultaneously in the same genre with exactly the same pitch of "realistic sim." If MLB2k9 sold about 100k on the PS3, then it would seem there is no stifling at all. If MBL2k9 sold 50k on the PS3, then Sony's first party is indeed stifling third parties.
BenjaminBirdie
Banned
RSTEIN said:
ZING!
:lol
While it's not unusual for March sales to be lower than February sales despite the extra week, these numbers are lower than you'd expect pretty much across the board. Maybe Nintendo will finally be able to stock up enough Wiis for December this year?
NMH is a success because the publisher and developer were very pleased with it's performance. It's really not complicated.Zachack said:
Eteric Rice
Member
Threi said:He pays a german midget to change the avatar everytime a GAFer refreshes the page
Actually I don't like Madworld that muchThe visual style is amazing, but everything else has been eh :/
Why that game fails to sell? You could say demographics, but you have to be more specific, as with everyone in this thread. I remember posting a couple pages back asking where I stand if I don't like ultraviolent games geared towards teenage males or soccer moms. The point I was trying to make is that the market isn't that easy to segment, and there are many other (an almost infinite amount) of factors that can differentiate who buys what games. I guess you can put it like this: Adding components to a game that makes it more "hardcore" for lack of a better word, you are increasing potential sales for that particular portion of the market, but the appeal of markets similar to that one get decreased. My theory of the Wii userbase is that there is no clear demographic that dominates the console, but instead a very wide spread of different demographics that overlap when you describe them loosely (e.g. Casuals). Because of this I don't think any game that has a narrow appeal will sell well on the Wii, core or casual. And that is why games with at least a loose appeal to the different demographics are mega hits (e.g. Mario Kart, Wii Sports).
Would Madworld sell on PS3/360? Well maybe, but MadWorld would not have been MadWorld if it was on the PS3/360 so it's not really worth debating a hypothetical.
Would MadWorld be better on PS3/360? The gameplay is kind of shallow even with waggle, it would be the most boring shit on earth to play with a gamepad (IMO) :lol
(food analogy will be posted later)
I'm not sure if MadWorld would have done much better on the 360 or PS3 either, really. While MadWorld is violent, it's a very artsy game. It seems 360 owners like realistic games.
PS3, it's hard to say.
Regarding Madworld, Wii games are supposedly able to sell over time, but Madworld had a big advertising push, so you'd expect there would be some degree of front-loadedness...
Are there concrete sources for its sales, anyway? I'm seeing people talk about a definite 66k figure, but all I've seen is a somewhat mysterious "madworld <77000" post.
Are there concrete sources for its sales, anyway? I'm seeing people talk about a definite 66k figure, but all I've seen is a somewhat mysterious "madworld <77000" post.
I always found the argument of "established IPs selling on Wii don't count" pretty funny, considering that for the most part, all we ever see really selling well on the HD twins are established IPs (or new IPs with blockbuster ad campaigns)markatisu said:
You are amazing (not sarcasm)borghe said:
Absolutely. If there is one thing Microsoft does right, it's getting the word out. Never fails to amaze me how educated their user base is.Mrbob said:
http://gamasutra.com/news?story=23255ZAK said:
Yeah Killzone 2 as it exists would sell more on 360, there are more units out there. But that line of logic only goes so far. The game would never have been given the budget and development time it had if it were not intended to move hardware and as a result help other first party titles sell (all of which Sony hampers with their hardware pricing, but I'm not taping together a broken record). Would it have generated any interest if it they only had 18 months to make it, couldn't develop their own engine technology, and had to divide their resources among two systems? For every COD4 you've got a Blacksite, TimeShift, and a Legendary The Box.
As for Madworld, I'm not even entirely sure what constitutes good or bad sales for it. It doesn't seem like it could have had an insanely large budget.
GTA on the other hand... wow. One of the most recognizable brands in games, excellent reviews, a huge user base and... kaput? It should definitely sell more in the coming months but I think it goes to show the responsiveness and interest exhibited by a user base matters more than a large number of people that are indifferent to your product.
As for Madworld, I'm not even entirely sure what constitutes good or bad sales for it. It doesn't seem like it could have had an insanely large budget.
GTA on the other hand... wow. One of the most recognizable brands in games, excellent reviews, a huge user base and... kaput? It should definitely sell more in the coming months but I think it goes to show the responsiveness and interest exhibited by a user base matters more than a large number of people that are indifferent to your product.
I'm a Wii owner but I really don't understand other Wii owners. There is definitively a hardcore user but most of these people are complaining about lack of core games. But they don't want core games. There are a lot of great games on Wii - not only for casual gamers. But the so called "hardcore faction" always finds a reason why to not buy these games - especially not on day 1.
Next victim: Little King's Story. The game will be available next friday in Europe and it isn't a "casual" game. But I'm sure that most people won't buy this, at least not now.
Next victim: Little King's Story. The game will be available next friday in Europe and it isn't a "casual" game. But I'm sure that most people won't buy this, at least not now.
Threi said:He pays a german midget to change the avatar everytime a GAFer refreshes the page
Actually I don't like Madworld that much
Why that game fails to sell? You could say demographics, but you have to be more specific, as with everyone in this thread. I remember posting a couple pages back asking where I stand if I don't like ultraviolent games geared towards teenage males or soccer moms. The point I was trying to make is that the market isn't that easy to segment, and there are many other (an almost infinite amount) of factors that can differentiate who buys what games. I guess you can put it like this: Adding components to a game that makes it more "hardcore" for lack of a better word, you are increasing potential sales for that particular portion of the market, but the appeal of markets similar to that one get decreased. My theory of the Wii userbase is that there is no clear demographic that dominates the console, but instead a very wide spread of different demographics that overlap when you describe them loosely (e.g. Casuals). Because of this I don't think any game that has a narrow appeal will sell well on the Wii, core or casual. And that is why games with at least a loose appeal to the different demographics are mega hits (e.g. Mario Kart, Wii Sports).
Would Madworld sell on PS3/360? Well maybe, but MadWorld would not have been MadWorld if it was on the PS3/360 so it's not really worth debating a hypothetical.
Would MadWorld be better on PS3/360? The gameplay is kind of shallow even with waggle, it would be the most boring shit on earth to play with a gamepad (IMO) :lol
(food analogy will be posted later)
Are you cribbing from me, Threi? You had accused me of taking a ladder/rung analogy from you (which was a coincidence, I promise), and now this looks eerily similar to a post I made a few months back.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=13981478#post13981478
I went back and looked. That one.
Kunan said:
Yep. If the marketplace ad's don't get you your friends list will.
I turn on my 360 and see 6 friends playing lets say for this week Outrun i'm going to want to get the game as my friends are playing it,and that has been a constant thing for every big release. See friends playing the game on thursday evening next day i go out and get it.:lol
GC|Simon said:
People on forums such as this one are not like the majority of people people buying Wii and DS. The sooner people accept that, the less upset they will be. I own a 360 and I don't understand why bugged out turds from Ubisoft continue to sell, but whatever. It is pretty well defined what works on each system this gen and what does not.
Mooreberg said:
I think a more fairer thing would be to make a full 3D GTA game for DS from talking to people they didn't know or "appreciate" the angle the game was set at, they thought it was going to be like the PSP GTA games so they found it confusing. Now for us old school GTA players it's not a problem i love the game, but i would expect that top down angle could have had a big effect on some people's outlook on the game and lack of sales.
Cosmonaut X
Member
Mooreberg said:
I still wonder how much the relatively archaic look of the game (i.e., the "classic" GTA look instead of the "modern" look of GTAIII etc.) had an impact, not to mention the general feeling among gamers that it was going to be a shoddy cash-in.
When even the official thread on GAF is full of people expressing amazement that it's actually any good after playing it, or saying they'd decided not to pick it up but were going to now they'd heard the good word-of-mouth, you really have to wonder how much that initial cynicism about the title may have affected its chances.
Alcibiades
Member
It could be that it would have done even worse without it?ZAK said:
Boom Blox had EA's TV marketing behind it and it sold less than MadWorld in the first month out. HOTD: Overkill had a push probably around the level MadWorld got and it only sold 40k or so...
People are definitely freaking out unnecessarily... let's wait a few months to see whether the game is taken out of circulation or whether like other games is able to stay on shelves and slowly build up sales.
It's not like MadWorld was a high-budget, lengthy blockbuster-type game. It comes from a development house specializing in niche productions - which is something to be kept in mind when wondering about how much better it would do on another system. Okami didn't set the world on fire on either the PS2 or the Wii, yet GTA3 sold really well so it's not like "core" games wouldn't sell on PS2, it's just that many of the ones that did were huge games with big budgets.
MadWorld not doing great down the line isn't going to change the fact that Call of Duty 3 and World at War were top-selling 3rd party games during the holiday seasons they were released... in other words "core" games have already proven themselves to sell really well on Wii (sometimes more than their PS3 counterparts).
Let's keep Boom Blox and de Blob in mind (slow starts, great long-term sellers outside the Top 10) before deciding the fate of MadWorld though.
poppabk
Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Wouldn't that also be rides that are based on non-Disney properties like the Indiana Jones Ride etc. Ie big properties that can stand against Disney's IP. So what you are saying is that on the Wii the properties that stand a chance of succeeding are the major ones - COD, RE, GH, DMC, SF. The analogy actually holds for the ones that have been released on Wii, how many major videogame IP's that have appeared on the Wii have outright failed? Madden, Tomb Raider, SSX, MOH ...?sfog said:
lawblob said:But did they REALLY know it was an RTS? I doubt it...
This is the most bizarre meme in the whole thread. Funny how it doesn't work in reverse - trillions of copies of GTA Chinatown Wars sold because casuals thought it was an Asian cooking sim...
poppabk said:
Madden did not fail, not if you count almost 900k and growing each year over the last fail.
SSX and MOHH2 are probably good examples, then again MOHH2 on PSP did not sell well either, and Tomb Raider bombed the whole world round regardless of systems
If we are going to comment on Wii specific bombs SSX Blur is a good example, shame too because it was excellent but seriously could be done much better now with the Balance Board and M+ to draw the tricks
Cosmonaut X said:
Yeah maybe people were expecting far less to begin with, but expectation comes out of interest. I don't think all the DS owners who didn't go out and buy it had expectations one way or the other, they just know it isn't the type of game they bought the system for. It's not like they were logging on to Gamerankings and expressing disbelief at the review scores.
Revelations
Banned
BenjaminBirdie said:
Yup all million+ it seems...
Kenka said:
I am not using VG numbers, I will have to find it but I am pretty sure both EA and IGN confirmed that Madden 09 had rebounded from a bad first two months and was nearing 700-800k before the holidays.
We do know for a fact how much Madden 07 had sold and I am pretty sure again we know concrete what 08 sold as well
EDIT: Here is the Gamasutra article about Madden 07 and 08
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20434
Mooreberg said:
Nintendo sold nearly 50 million Wii systems. A lot of people who bought one are casual gamers. But there also hardcore gamer. There is Nintendos hardcore fan audience, there are a lot of GameCube fans. RE4 Wiimake and REUC sold both over a million copies. Sonic and the Secret Rings sold over two million copies. Metroid Prime 3 sold over a million copies. Red Steel, CoD3 and CoD W@W sold also over a million copies. Do you think this people are casual gamers?
DeaconKnowledge
Member
Vinci said:
Vinci, you are quickly becoming my favorite poster.
Buy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time for DS
Cosmonaut X
Member
Mooreberg said:
Well, the point I'm making is that perhaps the subset of DS owners who would be interested in a title like GTA were put off entirely by the "old-school" presentation or were wary of the change of style from the PS2/PSP versions and held off early purchases.
I think next month's figures will be interesting though.
Liabe Brave
Member
Wouldn't it be more parsimonious to assume merely that better games stifle worse ones, regardless of their source? "Better" and "worse" don't even have to possess objective truth here, just correspond to the audience's view of the matter. It's a pretty wide consensus among gamers that The Show is a superior product.Opiate said:
I'd argue that the effect you'd see isn't any different than the one driving the comparative sales of Call of Duty: WaW and Killzone 2. The latter game has received lots of attention and hype, yes, but backlash as well. It's also a late followup to an underwhelming predecessor, whereas its primary competitor is a timely (spiritual) sequel to the most well-regarded FPS of the last several years. In this case, first-party origin is granting no clear advantage in audience perception.
Oh, and also, a few pages back you said:
I wouldn't classify a 25% smaller installed base--over two million units' difference--as "similar". And while your further point about attach rates is valid in one sphere(publishers are interested in total numbers, not ratios), it's not germane to arguments about demographic splits or typical user behavior.Opiate said:
Liabe Brave said:
Absolutely, I'd completely agree with this, Liabe.
But this isn't the purpose of my post. I'm sure you've noticed that 1st party games are often given some sort of magical power: as if their games sell better just because, and not as a consequence of superior design. If we can agree that MLB the Show sells better because it's the superior game, and not because 1st party games are magically different than 3rd party ones -- as if consumers consciously differentiate between the two, which seems highly unlikely to me -- then we are in complete agreement.
We've had this discussion before, Liabe, and I concur. Since this is an NPD thread, we can assume this is the former discussion, not the latter.
GC|Simon said:
Maybe? Resident Evil and Call of Duty aren't exactly obscure brands. And not everyone buying Call of Duty on 360 is a prestige mode junky either. The "hardcore" and "casual" labels get thrown around too much. GTA isn't a franchise relegated to "hardcore" people. It is basically a pop culture staple at this point.
Cosmonaut X said:
It will probably be a game that ends up being a quiet success but I don't know if "holding off" is any more accurate than saying it is a "demographic mismatch." Maybe the number of DS owners that would buy it isn't as big as people had imagined. I don't really know what game on the system would be a good basis for comparison sales wise.
MWS Natural
Member
Rhazer Fusion said:
Don't stop spinning that shit dawg.
MWS Natural
Member
Stoney Mason said:
Ok? RE5 could have sold just as much it did with NO demo or even more. I don't know one person outside of GAF that played that demo then went and out and bought the game, bad controls being the major deterrent. Does that mean RE5 won't sell at all? No, just means instead of selling 1million it could have sold 1.5 million. The demo turned me from a day 1 purchase to a day 1 rental, I have no doubt in my mind that if the RE5 controls weren't shit it would have sold better in the US.