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NPD Sales Results for May 2016

if we want to evaluate how big of a boost a platform enjoyed from a set of circumstances behind it, the question to be addressed is the following:

'How many new users bought a PS4 beyond the norm due to conditions XYZ being present?'

Sure. Understanding the incremental lift over baseline demand is the best way to do this. Agreed.

To address this question you'd need to have a baseline estimate for comparison, which we do (May 2015). Not all data nor all manipulations of data are relevant for addressing the posed question. I'd imagine everyone agrees with me up to this point and assume we are on the same page.

Well here is a bit of an issue. In order to compare baseline vs incremental demand in the period being examined (May 2016) one would also have to strip the incremental from the baseline in the preceding periods that are being compared. That's what makes this kind of analysis exceptionally tricky/impossible, especially when we're looking at monthly aggregate extrapolated data.

An estimate of how many new users bought PS4 specifically due to those conditions XYZ should focus on the difference between the control (May 2015) and the experimental (May 2016) data.

Yeah, problem is May 2015 isn't really comparable, until you strip out incremental and then adjust for cyclicality. It's a real tough comparison to try and do.

Conclusion: Percentages aren't the best measures of how significant a boost in hardware sales is. They obscure the much more relevant data point (difference between result and baseline).

I think I'd agree with you that the % isn't a great measure in this case, but really, I'd extend to the actual unit difference as well. The variance from the expectation isn't significantly higher, it's not outside what an expected range of error would capture.

Opinions can vary on what constitutes a 'big/medium/small' boost. My opinion is that I would have expected a much larger difference than just 50k given the 3 or 4 very major conditions promoting PS4 sales in May.

Yes, agree with you on the big/medium/small and assigning qualitative measures (impressive/not impressive) without quantitative framing is frustrating/pointless. As for the number itself, coming in over 200k was a good result, but I wasn't thinking that it was exceptionally so. More in the range of, "yeah, okay, that's alright". I don't know. I don't do qualitative assessments very well lol.

If someone wants to argue that the relevant metric for quantifying a boost is not difference in sales compared to baseline but instead is an entirely multiplicative factor, that's fine and would make the pure % difference meaningful if compelling, but I have yet to see any such argument.

I think both % and unit changes are important and meaningful, but I think they're only truly meaningful when placed in context with each other. And I very much prefer the baseline/incremental demand methodology for measuring sales of consumer goods. It's just that the data we have to work with is such absolute shit for doing anything but the most rudimentary analytics that it makes the exercise laughable in practice.
 

RexNovis

Banned
No, it actually is what your posts suggests. You may not like when I take your logic to the extremes to show its absurdity, but that is an issue with your logic, not mine. Someone told you about the number of weeks being radically different and you replied saying that it was unimportant despite the number of weeks being required for measuring sales pace at a game launch. Once you take away the sales rate there is no basis for time related comparisons.You told that other person that the weeks at market were not relevant. :/

Ok so not only are accusing me of not understanding basic math which just wow. Anyone who knows me or regularly participates in sales GAF knows I'm well aware of the basic concepts of math so forgive me for laughing. But you also completely fabricate words on my behalf. Here let's look at what I said shall we? I said

There's a lot more context to consider with these numbers than just the number of weeks. Please see my post above summarizing all the relevant info.

Nowhere in this post did it say number of days on sale is unimportant it says "there is more context to consider than just number of weeks" meaning the number of days on sale is not the only factor to look to when comparing sales between these titles. At no point did I say or imply that length of time on sale should be disregarded. You are literally making up things I never actually said and then telling me how flawed my logic is because of those things. Congratulations on making yourself look like an absolute fool.
 
A little disappointed in U4 numbers but still a huge success. And again it has the whole world to sell to so its gonna fly off shelves.

Good PS4 sales. XBones numbers are terrible. Just horrendous. This best line up ever none sense is causing people to not buy the system and the rivals instead. Something doesn't add up there...
 
Ok so not only are accusing me of not understanding basic math which just wow. Anyone who knows me or regularly participates in sales GAF knows I'm well aware of the basic concepts of math so forgive me for laughing.

Neat...but you still aren't grasping the meaning of the mathematical statements I supplied. That's a shame if it offends you and all, but you simply cannot claim there is any truth to the notion that measuring 'how many more units were sold as a result?' is a question about percentages and NOT a question about an absolute unit difference. It is the latter.

Go back to your comment and see what you replied to. Someone said it was a 3 vs. 1 week comparison. You did not include nor reference that fact in your original set of qualifications for the comparison you made. Upon seeing him point that out you replied with the following:

There's a lot more context to consider with these numbers than just the number of weeks. Please see my post above summarizing all the relevant info.

^^^That bolded part suggests that, according to you, you had already accounted for 'all relevant info' (which did not include a reference to number of weeks at market). You could have replied to him with something like 'well yeah, of course that dramatically skews the comparison and should be accounted for...' yet you instead decided to suggest you had already laid out the relevant info in the post below:
UC4 released in what is historically the single slowest month of the entire year and still managed to get within spitting distance of Halo 5 which released in October which is among the higher sales months of the year. This is not an apples to apples comparison.

There's also the matter of Uncjarted being a very successful IP WW as opposed to Halo's very heavy US and UK split. When US accounts for something around 30% of one and something around 60% of the other it's kind of obtuse to proclaim the later selling marginally more in that region on a much busier sales month as buzz worthy.

Even still there's also each IPs historical sales per entry to consider. Uncharted 4 marks the best debut for that IP in the US whereas Halo 5 marks the series lowest debut with a drop of more than 40% from the closed numbered entry. In the end, given all of the relevant context, it's a rather Pyrrhic victory.

Nowhere in this post, which according to you 'contains all the relevant info' is there any reference to the number of days each title was on sale during the months you are using for comparison. When you make a post like this, then someone says the time at market was radically different and should be considered, then you reply to that person with a dismissive tone by saying something to the effect of 'well look, it's all really complicated, but see this post here for all the stuff that actually matters'...I dunno what conclusion you expect folks to draw from this sequence of posts if not one that suggests you don't think time at market is relevant. It's not like you made a post saying 'behold! all the relevant stuff is here!', but then forgot something and when prompted added it in afterwards. You dismissed his reply and doubled down that you had already addressed 'all the relevant info'.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Neat...but you still aren't grasping the meaning of the mathematical statements I supplied. That's a shame if it offends you and all, but you simply cannot claim there is any truth to the notion that measuring 'how many more units were sold as a result?' is a question about percentages and NOT a question about an absolute unit difference. It is the latter.

Go back to your comment and see what you replied to. Someone said it was a 3 vs. 1 week comparison. You did not include nor reference that fact in your original set of qualifications for the comparison you made. Upon seeing him point that out you replied with the following:



^^^That bolded part suggests that, according to you, you had already accounted for 'all relevant info' (which did not include a reference to number of weeks at market). You could have replied to him with something like 'well yeah, of course that dramatically skews the comparison and should be accounted for...' yet you instead decided to suggest you had already laid out the relevant info.

"All the relevant info" is clearly in reference to the "more context" I previously alluded to. So it is all the relevant info regarding the aforementioned additional context. In other words nope. While I could have thrown an "additional" in there to be clearer the implied meaning is pretty obvious and I still never said the words you literally claim I did.

you replied saying that it was unimportant despite the number of weeks being required for measuring sales pace at a game launch.

You told that other person that the weeks at market were not relevant.

Neither of these things happened. You attributed statements to me that were never made.
 

Crawl

Member
how did doom do compared to wolfenstein reboot's first month sales? Wolfenstein got a sequel hopefully doom sales will earn it a sequel as well.
 
"All the relevant info" is clearly in reference to the "more context" I previously alluded to. So it is all the relevant info regarding the aforementioned additional context. In other words nope. While I could have thrown an "additional" in there to be clearer the implied meaning is pretty obvious and I still never said the words you literally claim I did.

Read my edit for more info on how your post(s) there come off. I expanded my impression and why your post strikes me as a dismissive effort to double down in my edit.
 
how did doom do compared to wolfenstein reboot's first month sales? Wolfenstein got a sequel hopefully doom sales will earn it a sequel as well.

Hey this is a good question.

Doom had a significantly bigger launch.

I agree, the more Doom and Wolf the better the world it is.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Read my edit for more info on how your post(s) there come off. I expanded my impression and why your post strikes me as a dismissive effort to double down in my edit.

then you reply to that person with a dismissive tone by saying something to the effect of 'well look, it's all really complicated, but see this post here for all the stuff that actually matters'...I dunno what conclusion you expect folks to draw from this sequence of posts if not one that suggests you don't think time at market is relevant. It's not like you made a post saying 'behold! all the relevant stuff is here!', but then forgot something and when prompted added it in afterwards. You dismissed his reply and doubled down that you had already addressed 'all the relevant info'.

Again you are attributing things to me that were never stated. In no way is my post dismissive. It is informative. I simply stated there is more context to consider than just the number of days each title was on sale for and directed them to my earlier Post breaking down those additional points of context. You are manufacturing and assigning intent that was not present in my post or my words. You are informing me that my post which had no dismissive, insulting or demeaning rhetoric whatsoever is somehow dismissive and therefore means something I never stated.

But I'm done sidetracking this thread with this nonsense. Should you want to continue this conversation feel free to do so over PM but I will no longer be engaging you or this topic in this thread.
 

Unknown?

Member
A little disappointed in U4 numbers but still a huge success. And again it has the whole world to sell to so its gonna fly off shelves.

Good PS4 sales. XBones numbers are terrible. Just horrendous. This best line up ever none sense is causing people to not buy the system and the rivals instead. Something doesn't add up there...

People can see through the best line up ever non sense. That PR is just making them look worse.
 

CCIE

Banned
I would argue that although it may have been closer, it didn't really matter what MS did. It's more in the line of Sony NOT screwing up the PS4. The PS2 simply ruled the market before the PS3 ever came along (all of which are well known), and the PS4 was going to win eventually simply because Sony has a better first party focus, and certainly more marketing power worldwide.

It wouldn't have been the absolute beating that it currently is, though.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Hey this is a good question.

Doom had a significantly bigger launch.

I agree, the more Doom and Wolf the better the world it is.

I think the positive WOM surrounding Wolfenstein helped Doom out a lot. People were more willing to consider purchasing after all the positive reviews given the surprise success of a previous rebooted classic FOS from the same publisher. I fully expect Wolfenstein 2 to debut even better still.
 
I think the positive WOM surrounding Wolfenstein helped Doom out a lot. People were more willing to consider purchasing after all the positive reviews given the surprise success of a previous rebooted classic FOS from the same publisher. I fully expect Wolfenstein 2 to debut even better still.

Probably. TNO is such a great game, once you get past the intro level lol.
 
It's no surprise Xbone sales have plummeted.

It was outdated less than 1 year after release:

1.3 TF GPU, 8GB DDR3 memory. Jaguar CPU.

Then why has the PS4 been so successful? PS4 isn't drastically that much more powerful than bone, and it was also "outdated" by off the shelf PC hardware before it even released. Yet it's halfway to 360/PS3 lifetime numbers 2.5 years after release.
 

RexNovis

Banned
Probably. TNO is such a great game, once you get past the intro level lol.

Yep. Best Single player FPS I'd played in years. Really came out of nowhere. I don't think anyone had really expected much from it. Kinda similar to how Shadow of Mordor came out of nowhere and blew everyone's expectations out of water. I'm curious how SoM2 will fair as well.
 
Damn, that's bad. Well... at least we won't have to hear "It's still outperforming the 360!" anymore.

I must be missing something, LTD, XOne's still ahead of 360. Or are we just comparing one month from gen to gen?

UC4 2nd best selling game after UC3 lunch or throughout the years?

No.

Xbone is performing at less than PS3 numbers now in NA. That is astonishing

Huh?

did it fall behind 360 launch aligned yet?

No.
 
Software:

Minecraft (PS4, Xbox One, 360, PS3)

Well, that might explain why MS is dissatisfied with the performance of Minecraft. PC, smartphones, consoles, the game sells best on platforms MS doesn't own / has to pay royalties. That sucks given the size of the investment and effort they made.
 

MANUELF

Banned
Amazing for Uncharted 4 but this just shows how strong EU and ROW is for the franchise since in its 1st week it sold 2.7m alone WW.

That numbers means one of two things, either the digital sales are spectacular or 2 million copies were sold first week outside the US
 

maxiell

Member
I think a few things hurt Uncharted sales:

- franchise fatigue was present for the last entry, and while it was a well-received game, all the games are now cheap and quite fulfilling on their own. I think releasing the collection didn't help matters, although it made all the sense in the world to do so regardless of whether it hurt UC4 or not

- the marketing was very generic and non-specific, same for the title

- the multiplayer is great, but most people are buying to play through the single player and the market has learned you don't need to pay $60 to do so unless there is a particular zeitgeist. I didn't feel that for the game.

I doubt Sony brings the series back for a long time whereas a more positive result could have changed that.
 

Its just this month in particular, but at the same point in their lifespan the Xbone is less than PS3 in this NPD

I'm not saying total, its just still crazy to see a month where its less than the PS3 was. If you had told me prior to this gen starting we would see months like this I would have laughed.
 

joecanada

Member
But I thought the Xbox ecosystem and putting everything on PC would make things better for Xbox one ?

did anyone say this? It definitely doesn't seem like it wouldn't make it better for xbox hardware..... windows users sure, but not xbox hardware.

if you look at the "should I buy an xbox with a capable pc" thread, there's a pretty shrinking population who feel you need both.
 
Well here is a bit of an issue. In order to compare baseline vs incremental demand in the period being examined (May 2016) one would also have to strip the incremental from the baseline in the preceding periods that are being compared. That's what makes this kind of analysis exceptionally tricky/impossible, especially when we're looking at monthly aggregate extrapolated data.

I'm not sure what you mean specifically here. Maybe explain the methodology you are thinking about a bit more. It sounds like you are saying we should take the incrementally boosts figure and subtract from it the baseline figure (which is what I was advocating), so I must not be understanding your diction here unless you mean to agree with me, heh.

Yeah, problem is May 2015 isn't really comparable, until you strip out incremental and then adjust for cyclicality. It's a real tough comparison to try and do.

Again, not sure what you mean here. And *anything* is comparable. I can compare any two months to one another and draw conclusions from them. The set of rigorous conclusions I derive may not be very interesting, but conclusions can certainly be drawn regardless. Lemme try this again, this time by posing a question:

I want to know how large a unit increase PS4 got thanks to conditions XYZ. How would you address answering this query?

Are you saying that we should look somewhere else other than YoY comparisons here to address the above question? If so, that's fine. But it also changes the question I was using to frame the analysis earlier in the thread, which is what I was debating. I would agree that we can debate/discuss different strategies for deciding on 'where PS4 would have been without conditions XYZ present' and that is a critical consideration to be made fwiw.

I think I'd agree with you that the % isn't a great measure in this case, but really, I'd extend to the actual unit difference as well. The variance from the expectation isn't significantly higher, it's not outside what an expected range of error would capture.

I didn't note anything about standard deviations or confidence levels, etc in my posed example. Assume the standard deviation is 1 unit for the sake of my extreme example. You may find that extreme, but the example is supposed to carrying his logic out to its extremes so that shouldn't be problematic.
Yes, agree with you on the big/medium/small and assigning qualitative measures (impressive/not impressive) without quantitative framing is frustrating/pointless. As for the number itself, coming in over 200k was a good result, but I wasn't thinking that it was exceptionally so. More in the range of, "yeah, okay, that's alright". I don't know. I don't do qualitative assessments very well lol.

I'd add that I agree 200k is a great result for PS4 sales. I just don't find a 50k boost to be impressive for those particular conditions all working hard to favor PS4 sales.
I think both % and unit changes are important and meaningful, but I think they're only truly meaningful when placed in context with each other.

I'd say % is only meaningful iff partnered with the unit increase (or a way to calculate the unit increase). I'd also say the unit difference is the penultimate metric for addressing the question I posed, which seems to me a perfectly valid question to pose when trying to quantify a boost, let alone judge it. So some slight disagreement here.

And I very much prefer the baseline/incremental demand methodology for measuring sales of consumer goods. It's just that the data we have to work with is such absolute shit for doing anything but the most rudimentary analytics that it makes the exercise laughable in practice.

Sure, but I'm not sure asking about what kind of boost PS4 enjoyed relative to last May requires anything beyond rudimentary analytics.
 

RexNovis

Banned
?

This is PS4's best May in its lifespan and is on track for its biggest year ever

It's also worth mentioning that the last time a console sold more than 200k units in May was 360 back in 2011 shortly after the release of the Kinect so it's a fairly rare feat. I certainly wouldn't consider it disappointing.
 
Its just this month in particular, but at the same point in their lifespan the Xbone is less than PS3 in this NPD

May 2009 PS3 vs May 2016 Xone? So the month 31 of life comparison? It still has a significant lead over PS3 time aligned. A bit of a weird blip of data, but sure, it's an odd thing to see.

Probably doesn't matter at all, but May 2009 was inFamous launch month.
 
It's also worth mentioning that the last time a console sold more than 200k units in May was 360 back in 2011 shortly after the release of the Kinect so it's a fairly rare feat. I certainly wouldn't consider it disappointing.

Yeah not at all. The PS4's performance here really shouldn't be underplayed its doing phenomenal. 2015 was already a fantastic year and 2016 is tracking to be a nice deal larger
 
May 2009 PS3 vs May 2016 Xone? So the month 31 of life comparison? It still has a significant lead over PS3 time aligned. A bit of a weird blip of data, but sure.

Exactly. I'm not saying its going to perform sub PS3 or anything its just pretty crazy to see a month where its under where the PS3 was at the same point in there lives when that wasn't even a major PS3 release month. Its a random blip of data but still kind of a strange thing to see
 

RexNovis

Banned
May 2009 PS3 vs May 2016 Xone? So the month 31 of life comparison? It still has a significant lead over PS3 time aligned. A bit of a weird blip of data, but sure.

Translation
"Don't read too much into it."

Yea it seems like an odd fluke. Unless we see this continue to happen Id just chalk it up to the temporary end to the XB1 promotional discount in May more so than a sign of things to come.
 
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