NPD September 2002 [Archive]

zurich

19-Oct-2002, 07:28

intersting... here's an article about how the steal-of-a-Sega-Xbox-bundle spells bad things for the companie(s).

While consumers rejoiced at the news earlier this week regarding Microsoft's plans to bundle the Xbox console with two Sega games, Japanese investors have been far less enthusiastic. More aptly, shares of the company have fallen in recent days following the announcement. In fact, a Deutsche Securities analyst described the software bundle plan as a 'troubling pattern' for both companies, suggesting both Sega and Microsoft were having problems selling their products separately. In a similar move, Nikko Solomon Smith Barney has cut its price target on Sega shares from 3,100 to 2,100 yen

http://www.xengamers.com/sections/news/8932/

While I really can't see this as anything but an act of desperation / using MSs resources to go for the jugular (see it as you will), hopefully it'll move some hardware and make way for the rather strong Q1 2003 Xbox lineup (Brute Force, Panzer Dragoon, Crimson Skies)

zurich

Mr. Angry Pants

19-Oct-2002, 07:56

While GT 2002's inclusion in the bundle could be considered troubeling since it's only been out for a month, JSRF went out of production a long time ago.

Analysts like to bring attention to their firms and the way they do it is by sensationalizing. Either very positively or very negatively. Microsoft is in 2nd place in the US. They have to fight an uphill battle against years of Sony mindshare. I don't see how these 'experts' expect them to do that with out giving customers incentive to take notice.

Teasy

19-Oct-2002, 10:36

Just wait until Christmas ;)

Nice to see that Mario is selling well, it must be at around 700,000 in the U.S now. I wonder what its latest Jap and Euro sales are now? It could be close to 2 million world wide already.

Its quite wierd that XBox sold around the same as GameCube in September yet not one XBox game found its way into the top 10 sold games in September. Three Nintendo first party games were in the top 10 list and PS2 filled allot of 10 ten spots of course.

Anyone have any idea why XBox is selling well while its games aren't?

Mr. Angry Pants

19-Oct-2002, 11:00

--Because a game doesn't need to be in the top 10 for it to be selling well.

--Because the Xbox's image sells itself in the US

There's only a 4% difference now in hardware sales between the Gamecube and the Xbox. Lets see how October turns out... Microsoft is going to own November, IMO.

wazoo

19-Oct-2002, 11:06

Just wait until Christmas ;)

Nice to see that Mario is selling well, it must be at around 700,000 in the U.S now. I wonder what its latest Jap and Euro sales are now? It could be close to 2 million world wide already.

300k in 9 days in Europe, 600+k in Japan, so you are over 1.5M of reported sales (cf Ben posts ;) )

Its quite wierd that XBox sold around the same as GameCube in September yet not one XBox game found its way into the top 10 sold games in September. Three Nintendo first party games were in the top 10 list and PS2 filled allot of 10 ten spots of course.

Anyone have any idea why XBox is selling well while its games aren't?

So basically, GC and xbox are selling ~ on par in US, the xbox is sold at loss and the GC not, Nintendo puts 3 of its first party games in the top 10, and MS zero (and zero 3rd parties as well).

question : which is the winner ??

Ozymandis

19-Oct-2002, 12:06

So basically, GC and xbox are selling ~ on par in US

There's where your wrong. Xbox and Gamecube aren't selling on par in the United States. Xbox has a significant (~500,000 by my count) lead. It's just this one month that Cube, with the help of its biggest game, was able to even approach Xbox's monthly sales.

Keep spinning it, and maybe you'll be able to make something positive out of the fact that nothing Nintendo has been able to bring on the console so far has been enough to start Cube to catching up to Xbox 8)

Edit: That said, I'm also confused at XBox's continued hardware sales dominance. Since May, Gamecube's software offering has been FAR superior to Xbox's. What are all these people getting with their Xbox? Halo? :P

Teasy

19-Oct-2002, 12:52

There's where your wrong. Xbox and Gamecube aren't selling on par in the United States. Xbox has a significant (~500,000 by my count) lead. It's just this one month that Cube, with the help of its biggest game, was able to even approach Xbox's monthly sales.

He said selling not sold. Also no its not just this month, since July GameCube has been selling the same as XBox, that's the last 3 months.

As for the gap between them in total U.S sales. Well XBox has sold 17.9% more then GameCube, around 500,000. But for the last few months GameCube has been selling equal to XBox. As you've admited GameCube's game lineup is far superior to XBox's and that's only going to improve with games like Metroid Prime and Res Evil 0 come out before Christmas, also Nintendo are planning a big ad campaign for Christmas, they really haven't done any advertising yet. IMO Christmas will be the time when GameCube sells more then XBox in the U.S. And Christmas is easily the best time to sell more then your rivals because of the sheer ammount sold at Christmas vs the rest of the year.

Lets say we see sales of:

XBox - 1.2 million
GameCube - 1.5 million

At Christmas in the U.S that would basically put GameCube right back on level terms with XBox. A 200,000 sales difference when both consoles already have 3.6 million and 3.8 million sold is not worth mentioning, its only a 5% difference.

IMO those numbers are conservative as well, I think GameCube will sell more then 25% better then XBox in the U.S at Christmas.

But I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

Mr. Angry Pants

19-Oct-2002, 13:24

:roll:

I heard all of this on usenet in the mid-90's. Just replace 'GC' with 'N64'.

Nintendo fans have become a broken record. "Just wait until... Just wait until... Just wait until... Just wait until..."

As for the GC's library being superior to the Xbox, software preference is relative. I had almost as much fun with my 3DO as I did with my PSX. :wink: Although that was due almost entirely to Star Control 2...

Halo + PGR + Quantum Redshift + Blinx (just got it--great game after you reach world 3) + Morrowind + Dead to Rights + SEGA GT

>

GC library.

But of course that's all in my opinion.

Blade

19-Oct-2002, 15:48

Ozy: You know that it's a case of consumer awareness, right?

Nintendo screwed themselves (or MS screwed them) by making them the "other" guys with an unjustly given kiddy image.

Geeforcer: Psst, f**k you. :) I'm pretty sure that NPD numbers (that Ozy is quoting) include Wal-Mart. It's Boston Credit Suisse that doesn't.. and Wal-Mart is one of Nintendo's biggest retailers. It's not a fanboy excuse, it's a means of keeping things fair.

Johnny Awesome

19-Oct-2002, 16:18

Interesting stuff.

According to Ben (and I agree with his line of reasoning) NPD tracks only about 60% of sales. I think it's more like 70%, but it's a minor quibble. :)

At 65% (let's take the average), the true US userbase totals look more like this:

PS2 - 17.4 million (69%)
Xbox - 4.3 million (17.1%)
GCN - 3.5 million (13.9%)

On a run-rate basis for September:

PS2 - 769,000 (59.3%)
Xbox - 269,000 (20.8%)
GCN - 258,000 (19.9%)

wazoo

19-Oct-2002, 16:39

He said selling not sold. Also no its not just this month, since July GameCube has been selling the same as XBox, that's the last 3 months.

of course, nobody here denies the 500k lead from Ms over Nintendo. The fact is that even with this lead, no xbox games are in the top 10.

As you've admited GameCube's game lineup is far superior to XBox's and that's only going to improve with games like Metroid Prime and Res Evil 0 come out before Christmas, also Nintendo are planning a big ad campaign for Christmas, they really haven't done any advertising yet. IMO Christmas will be the time when GameCube sells more then XBox in the U.S.

Sales have nothing to do with a quality lineup, juste hype and marketing.

And Christmas is easily the best time to sell more then your rivals because of the sheer ammount sold at Christmas vs the rest of the year.

It is also the best time of the year, when you are the kiddie machine :)

As for the GC's library being superior to the Xbox, software preference is relative. I had almost as much fun with my 3DO as I did with my PSX. Although that was due almost entirely to Star Control 2...

Star control 2 on 3do was hilarious, except it was a bit too hard to understand. I would like them to put subtitles too :(

Geeforcer

19-Oct-2002, 16:49

GF- Read Ben's posts.

Which one?

Ozymandis

19-Oct-2002, 17:04

It is also the best time of the year, when you are the kiddie machine :)

Ah. That's why Gamecube absolutely OWNED hardware and software charts last holiday then.

Oh, wait... :lol:

wazoo

19-Oct-2002, 17:11

It is also the best time of the year, when you are the kiddie machine :)

Ah. That's why Gamecube absolutely OWNED hardware and software charts last holiday then.

Oh, wait... :lol:

Last year, they had the excuse of supply shortages. If they do not sell more this year, it will have proven something, GC is not kiddy ;)

Seriously, we have one big market with the ps2, and two small equivalent markets with the xbox and the GC. Do not expect the mass market to choose somethig different from the ps2, unless you have very good reasons. As for now, both the xbox and GC are behind (I know, Ben will arrive in a few seconds) and both disappoint for different reasons. the Gc has too few worthy exclusive titles, and the xbox does not sell that much better despite heavy marketing and heavy discount.

Geeforcer

19-Oct-2002, 17:13

I might as well explain myself:

As you all know, "Wal-Mart factor" is often use in attempt to discredit published sales number, something along the lines of "Wal-Mart is (one of) the biggest retailer(s), and it does not report its numbers, hence the reported sales numbers are irrelevant."

There are many problems with that line of reasoning. Wal-Mart may very well be the biggest of Nintendo's retailers, although I have yet to see them report what percentage of their sales is done through Wal-Mart. Is it 15%, 50% or X%? But either way, Wal-Mart is THE biggest retailer, period so Duh- I would not be surprised if its MS’ and Sony's biggest retailer as well. What some people tend to forget is that those crazy Walmartians sell ...drum roll... other consoles as well. Unless someone can prove that for some reason a Wal-Mart shopper is more likely to buy a GC over Xbox over PSX2 then someone who shops elsewhere, the "Wal-Mart factor" is ...a non-factor. In other words, an exclusion of Wal-Mart cause an underreport in absolute numbers, but will should not alter the ratio between them. Now if WM was a Nintendo/MS/Sony exclusive outlet, then the sales ratios might be skewed, but its obviously not.

duffer

19-Oct-2002, 17:38

The most beliveable explanation I've heard for why Mario Sunshine's success hasn't translated into much of an increase in GameCube sales is that many of the people who wanted to play it had already bought a GameCube in anticipation.

We'll have to see how Metriod Prime does -- since it's not a traditional Nintendo-style game, it might attract new customers.

iscariot

19-Oct-2002, 18:30

Hey, I thought that PS2 M2003 sold around 800 000 copies

in August it sold around 950,000. With these Sept sales of 375,000 and I'm sure Oct sales doing well, its well above 1.5 million total.

Teasy

19-Oct-2002, 19:03

Mr. Angry Pants

Nintendo fans have become a broken record. "Just wait until... Just wait until... Just wait until... Just wait until..."

I don't recall ever saying anything about "just wait until" for the N64, so keep your generalizations to yourself. Waiting until Christmas before judging which consoles is going to come out on top is the sensible thing to do. GameCube and XBox's first U.S Christmas was only just after release and they didn't have a good lineup. This is there first U.S Christmas since getting a good lineup behind them. So obviously this Christmas is incredibly important for both of them.

As for the GC's library being superior to the Xbox, software preference is relative.

I was only saying that in his own opinion GameCube's lineup is better so surely he must think, especially with the edition of MP and Zelda, that it has a real chance of selling more then XBox at Christmas.

Also how good a game is is only relative to a degree. Any game can be liked by some people even if overall its not that good, but overall you get some games that just are better then others.

The best way to see the real quality of a game IMO is to look at gamerankings.com and see its average score, as long as the game has at least 10 reviews.

wazoo

Sales have nothing to do with a quality lineup, juste hype and marketing.

I disagree, of course game quality has something to do with hardware sales. It may not be the be all and end all, its deffinately not as PSX vs N64 and DC vs PS2 proved IMO, but it certainly has something to do with it. Also what if you have two consoles with equal hype and equal advertising, then the games alone will decide which console sells more.

Duffer

The most beliveable explanation I've heard for why Mario Sunshine's success hasn't translated into much of an increase in GameCube sales is that many of the people who wanted to play it had already bought a GameCube in anticipation.

Also allot of people who haven't yet got a GameCube but want SMS will not get a GameCube in late August to September, its too close to Christmas, so they'll wait and get a GameCube + SMS bundle at Christmas.

wazoo

19-Oct-2002, 19:06

wazoo

Sales have nothing to do with a quality lineup, juste hype and marketing.

I disagree, of course game quality has something to do with hardware sales. It may not be the be all and end all, its deffinately not as PSX vs N64 and DC vs PS2 proved IMO, but it certainly has something to do with it. Also what if you have two consoles with equal hype and equal advertising, then the games alone will decide which console sells more.

But you need to "have two consoles with equal hype and equal advertising", which is clearly not the case for xbox/Gc comparison.

Teasy

19-Oct-2002, 21:12

But you need to "have two consoles with equal hype and equal advertising", which is clearly not the case for xbox/Gc comparison.

That was just an example of a case were the game lineup would be the only deciding factor. Even with consoles that have differing hype and ad quality the games still matter. The importance of the quality of the games does lessen the better the ads and the more one console it hyped of course. For instance PS2 vs DC, but XBox vs GameCube is a very different matter, they will be a hell of allot closer on hype/advertising this christmas.

In the end games do matter, there not all important sadely, but they do matter.

If you just mean that a console with loads of advertising/hype and only good games will sell more consoles then a console with little advertising/hype and great games, then yeah I agree, its a sad fact but true.

Goldni

20-Oct-2002, 01:32

Eminem

20-Oct-2002, 01:38

Last year, they had the excuse of supply shortages. If they do not sell more this year, it will have proven something, GC is not kiddy
Somewhat flawed logic considering kids don't neccesarily have to like a product that is kiddy.

We could say that GC isn't apealing to its presumed target audience, however this statement, and yours, is under the presumption that more kids (6-12) receive or buy a game console than teens (13-18) do.

Glonk

20-Oct-2002, 02:09

Interestingsales for sure. XB and GC seem almost tied together with a chain the past few months. When one goes up they both do and vice versa. IMO Oct will see the Cube just nudge ahead in sales for the first time since April. The reason is the SMS bundle that just sen on sale Oct 14th and the Platinum GCN that comes out Mon the 21st of Oct. Also with any advertising at all the GCN will be ahead Oct Nov and Dec. By Jan the two machines will be about 200,000 units apart with the XB in the slight lead going into 2003. IMO of course!
The SMS bundle will sell for $179.99, will it not? And in today's mass-market gaming industry, Mario isn't all that appealing to most people. As said before, most people who cared for Mario already had a Gamecube.

Nintendo's Gamecube + SMS bundle for $179.99 isn't much competition for the Xbox + SegaGT + JSRF bundle for $199.99, especially when the parents buying it for their kids are told that the Xbox ships with the harddrive and ethernet that are "coming soon" for more money on the Gamecube...

2 games, less hardware addons in the future == more sales in the eyes of parents.

Blade

20-Oct-2002, 02:40

Glonk: Nevermind the extra controller that the Xbox bundle comes with. :)

BenSkywalker

20-Oct-2002, 02:53

I'm pretty sure that NPD numbers (that Ozy is quoting) include Wal-Mart. It's Boston Credit Suisse that doesn't.. and Wal-Mart is one of Nintendo's biggest retailers.

CSFB and Reuters both use NPD numbers, Wal-Mart doesn't report their gaming sales to anyone.

The biggest surprise I see with these numbers is the edge that Sony holds. The numbers we will see for October are going to be screwed up, with the dock lock out on the west coast in the US it should favor Sony heavily although I wouldn't be surprised if they ran into supply issues also(Sony tends to have two to three times the amount of consoles in the pipe which should have isolated them a bit better from the short term issues).

November is where the major spikes should occur for all platforms(this is the norm any year, the dock lock out could amplify it this year however). XBox's bundle offer should make it a very enticing offering for those picking up a console for a gift, including two free games one of which is widely considered the best racing title on the XBox should help them out. Nintendo's bundle with Mario and a memory card for $179 doesn't stack up well against MS's, but it should certainly appear to be quite a bit better value then the PS2 barring a Sony announcement of a bundle. November should be a very interesting month. Of course, Sony has GTA Vice coming which could help boost them(speaking hardware), although from a hardware sales perspective it remains to be seen how many of those interested in the title don't already own a PS2 w/GTA3.

As of right now the XBox should have ~800K lead in the US over the Cube with the PS2 far in front of both of course(it should be right around ten million ahead of the GC+XB in the US). The most interesting thing from my perspective this holiday season is if Sony is going to hold the majority of sales or if they will drop to plurality(I think it will be close either way, although the two bundle packages they are facing this year has me leaning towards falling to plurality by end of December).

Glonk

20-Oct-2002, 03:06

Glonk: Nevermind the extra controller that the Xbox bundle comes with. :)
It comes with an extra controller?

I thought they just replaced the regular controller with Controller-S?

zurich

20-Oct-2002, 03:36

THey did

marconelly!

20-Oct-2002, 08:04

I thought they just replaced the regular controller with Controller-S?

I believe that's what they are doing. No extra controller, just the big one replaced with the smaller one.

Teasy

20-Oct-2002, 13:46

The SMS bundle will sell for $179.99, will it not? And in today's mass-market gaming industry, Mario isn't all that appealing to most people. As said before, most people who cared for Mario already had a Gamecube.

How can you have made up your mind on that already? Allot of people waiting for SMS to get a GameCube won't be able to get it in Setptember because its to close to Christmas.

Take kids for instance, they can't just buy this for themselves. Also they can't just say to their parents "hey, buy me a GameCube and SMS" in September, if they want something at this time on the year its bought for them at Christmas.

Also not just kids either, how many people will go out and buy something for $199 (GameCube and SMS) a few months before Christmas, even adults wanting it would likely buy it for themselves at Christmas, likely waiting for the SMS+GameCube bundle.

Nintendo's Gamecube + SMS bundle for $179.99 isn't much competition for the Xbox + SegaGT + JSRF bundle for $199.99

I wouldn't bet on it, Sega GT and JSRF are two good games but not AAA games and certainly not known by parents or wanted by kids. They're pretty much nameless brands appart from the Sega in Sega GT. Mario is a big famous brand and one a parent can be sure will satisfy his/her kids.

especially when the parents buying it for their kids are told that the Xbox ships with the harddrive and ethernet that are "coming soon" for more money on the Gamecube...

Parents buying a console for there kids don't care about hard drives and ethernet... they want something that plays fun games, that's it.

Ben

As of right now the XBox should have ~800K lead in the US over the Cube

Hmm, where do you get that number? I thought everyone agreed it was 500,000, since then both XBox and GameCube have sold the same in the U.S so I'd assume its still 500,000.

Mr. Angry Pants

20-Oct-2002, 14:04

Adults will not wait 3 months to buy themselves a game as a Christmas gift if they can get it right now...

You don't work, do you? Yeah. You see that's one of the perks of having a job that pays you cash money which you can spend on whatever you want whenever you want.

If there are a couple million kids chomping at the bit to have Mario this Christmas, great. But I believe the best of Mario's stand-alone sales have already passed us.

Teasy

20-Oct-2002, 14:52

Adults will not wait 3 months to buy themselves a game as a Christmas gift if they can get it right now...

You obviously didn't really read my post at all.

I said:

Allot of people waiting for SMS to get a GameCube won't be able to get it in Setptember because its to close to Christmas

I'm not talking about buying the game by itself. Of course any adult can afford that, I'm not even working at the moment (at college) and even I could afford to buy the game this close to Christmas.

I'm talking about people who were waiting for Mario to buy a GameCube. As in Mario's effect on console sales.

Even someone who works won't usually go out and spend $220 or so for a GameCube + SMS + mem card (that's what it would cost now since the bundle isn't out yet) just a few months before Christmas. Most people would buy it for themselves for Christmas.

Mr. Angry Pants

20-Oct-2002, 15:03

$250 isn't much to ask of anyone who hasn't bogged themselves down in debt.

Teasy

20-Oct-2002, 15:10

$250 isn't much to ask of anyone who hasn't bogged themselves down in debt.

Some people will be able to buy a GameCube + SMS in late August to early September yeah. But most of those people will already have gotten the console because they can spend money willy nilly anyway. Allot of people don't have that much money even if there working, for whatever reason.

Maybe they're in debt, they'll get themselves something nice for Christmas because its Christmas but they just can't justify spending that sort of money at this time of the year. Maybe there parents themselves and have the problem of buying loads of presents for the kids looming, again they've budgeted for a present for themselves/each other for Christmas and if they spend it now they'll have nothing at Christmas, so they'll wait until Christmas to get there GameCube + SMS bundle.

I just think that SMS will sell more consoles at Christmas. But then I suppose its going to be hard to know if it sells consoles or not as sales will sky rocket for Christmas anyway and there will be allot of great games out there at Christmas to sell consoles (Metroid Prime and Zelda for instance).

Lets sit back and watch what happens at Christmas anyway, it should be interesting.

BenSkywalker

20-Oct-2002, 15:46

Darren-

NPD only reports ~60% of total sales. They are trailing by ~500K looking at only 60% of sales so they are likely trailing by ~800K in absolute numbers. Look at Johnny's adjusted numbers, they should be pretty close to what the market looked like at the end of September in the US.

Teasy

20-Oct-2002, 17:03

Ben

Oh right I see, not 100% accurate of course but fair enough. So the current U.S market share looks like this (assumeing that the official numbers are only 65% of the true numbers).

PS2 = 69%
XBox = 17%
GameCube = 14%

It'll be interesting to compare those figures after Christmas and see how they change.

wazoo

20-Oct-2002, 18:36

Nintendo's Gamecube + SMS bundle for $179.99 isn't much competition for the Xbox + SegaGT + JSRF bundle for $199.99, especially when the parents buying it for their kids are told that the Xbox ships with the harddrive and ethernet that are "coming soon" for more money on the Gamecube...

2 games, less hardware addons in the future == more sales in the eyes of parents.

history of Sega bundles (Saturn + VF2/SR and DC + JSR/VT/SA) does not tell the same story. Each time, you see fans saying that this kind of bundles will wipe out the competition. As for the ethernet addon, i do not know for the US, but in Europe it is totally useless, especially for a kid console. Even in the US, you should say to those parents,that they will need broadband access (and put the PC near the console if they want their home to look like a big mess of cables).

marconelly!

20-Oct-2002, 20:57

Besides that, I always thought that the 'network access out of the box' statement was very deceiveing in the case of the Xbox. It's not like you can just plug it and play like you could with Dreamcast. You still have to pay $50 for the actual access for one year, although the hardware is there.

Mark Cicero

20-Oct-2002, 21:26

I'm fairly wary of saying that this holiday season is going to show the full effect since MS has pushed everything non-live to Q1 2003 both for quality (thank god!) and for marketing. Not to mention that Zelda, Skies of Arcadia Legends, and even Devil May Cry 2 are not showing up until after the holiday market. I'd say Valentine's Day is where the dust will finally settle and an accurate assessment of the winter market.

Johnny Awesome

21-Oct-2002, 00:54

Good point.

I think MS and Nintendo will have done very well in the US if they can manage a 50/25/25 split (Sony/MS/Nintendo). If they can hold Sony to a 50% run-rate, then MS and Nintendo should be able to do even better in 2003 and 2004.

I figure Sony should be able to sell 4 million units this holiday in the US and there's definitely a decent chance that MS and Nintendo will each sell 2 million. Time is not really on Sony's side. Just compare MS 2003 lineup with Sony's.

I think analysts are clearly wrong about the Xbox bundle being a desperation move (just like I figure that MS only loses $50 per unit). The whole idea for MS is marketshare as early as possible. Each gamer will purchase about 3 games per year, which is about 3*($30*.33+$7*.67)= $45 in software revenue to MS. Therefore, it's worth it to lose an extra $45 per unit to get that gamer onboard a year earlier. It's safe to say that MS didn't pay Sega $45/Xbox for the bundle.

Personally, I think Microsoft should lower the Xbox to $149 in March. Why wait until the tail end of the generation to nab those users? Also, I just realized that signing up for Xbox Live effectively doubles Microsoft's annual average take from a consumer. Hmm...

Glonk

21-Oct-2002, 01:05

How can you have made up your mind on that already? Allot of people waiting for SMS to get a GameCube won't be able to get it in Setptember because its to close to Christmas.
At which point will you stop saying "Just wait, just wait, just wait" and wake up and realize Mario isn't the mass-market mascot anymore. :)

He's not considered cool, regardless of how great Mario games are. It may be a shame, but that's how it is.

I wouldn't bet on it, Sega GT and JSRF are two good games but not AAA games and certainly not known by parents or wanted by kids. They're pretty much nameless brands appart from the Sega in Sega GT. Mario is a big famous brand and one a parent can be sure will satisfy his/her kids.
I wouldn't bet on that, either. If the parents saw the absolutely horrible SMS ads, they'd think the game is pretty damn boring. The parents are more concerned with value for their money than they are with what character stars in the game. They'll see Xbox for $199 with 2 games, harddrive, ethernet, and hear that it's more powerful from the salesman. The Gamecube for $179 with SMS and harddrive for extra $, ethernet for extra $, and slightly less powerful isn't any more enticing. Throw in the fact that their kids can have a $20 DVD player if they want on the Xbox (or free if the buy before Nov 1st), and it's a LOT more appealing from a parent's point of view in general.

Parents buying a console for there kids don't care about hard drives and ethernet... they want something that plays fun games, that's it.
I really disagree. Parents are going to be more concerned with future costs. Do they REALLY want their kid whining about a new hardware add-on for more money every month, or do they want to get the console that ships with all that stuff? Not to mention the parental controls on the Xbox...

zurich

21-Oct-2002, 01:27

Not to mention that Xbox is American. You'd be suprised at how many (North) American parents want to support (North) America. I know back in the day, my mom didn't like buying me Sega and Nintendo stuff, simply because it was Japanese. Unfortunately, there wasn't much a choice back then...

zurich

Teasy

21-Oct-2002, 11:15

At which point will you stop saying "Just wait, just wait, just wait" and wake up and realize Mario isn't the mass-market mascot anymore.

Well I've now said wait all of.. what?.... once, wow that's excessive eh :roll:

So far Mario is selling extremely well, it should be given until after Christmas to make a real difference to console sales for the reasons I've already given.

He's not considered cool, regardless of how great Mario games are. It may be a shame, but that's how it is.

Was Mario even considered cool with N64? Not AFAICS, all the "cool" people (read immature people who like to think there cool, the sort of people who smoke to be cool) had a PSX and thought Mario was "gay". Mario still sold what was it?.. 15 million copies or something like that?

I wouldn't bet on that, either. If the parents saw the absolutely horrible SMS ads, they'd think the game is pretty damn boring.

I don't know what ads your refering to since you must get different ads then the ones over here. But most parents don't care about ads, they don't even know nor think they know what is boring or exciting in a game (with the exception of game playing parents) all they trust is past success at pleasing there children, something Mario and Nintendo never fail to do.

The parents are more concerned with value for their money than they are with what character stars in the game. They'll see Xbox for $199 with 2 games, harddrive, ethernet, and hear that it's more powerful from the salesman.

Again most parents don't know what a hard drive or ethernet is, they just want what they think will be most fun for there kids. They don't know what value for money is for consoles. You really think parents who know nothing about games are stupid enough to think "duh.. two games vs one game.. duh two games must always be better even if I've never heard of those two and the other is a massive brand name famous for being extremely popular with kids", I don't think so.

I really disagree. Parents are going to be more concerned with future costs. Do they REALLY want their kid whining about a new hardware add-on for more money every month, or do they want to get the console that ships with all that stuff? Not to mention the parental controls on the Xbox...

Once again Glonk were dealing with the average parent here. They don't know what addons may be needed in the future. They're just buying a console for there kids, a toy to them, something fun from someone proven for prividing there kids with fun games. Not a multi-functional PC/entertainment center from a company known fo buggy PC software and dodgy monopoly trials :)

You'll get some that may know what there talking about and may see XBox as a better deal, otherwise its just clueless parents buying a games machine (not a DVD, not a PC with HDD and ethernet) with the most fun games for there kids.

I mean yeah you could argue that the American vs Japanese bit could help XBox, but are people in the U.S really so zenophobic that they'd base there buying decisions on something as pathetic as that? No really, I'm asking.

You think XBox will sell more at Christmas, I think GameCube will, we could both be wrong, all we can do is wait and see.

Goldni

21-Oct-2002, 14:03

Both bundles are good deals. I'd give anything to see PS2 brought down a bit. Sony has been the leader for too long now. They've gotten a big head (alot bigger than Nintendo's head back in the early 90's).

I really dont see any reason why both MS and NOA can't sell around 10 to 12 million units by March '03 (globally). If they can that would be pretty nice for both. Again Sep saw the Cube pull almost even with XB despite hardly no advertising (save for SMS and SFA). It's almost scary to think if NOA would ever decide to promote the Cube with at least 50% of the effort MS has the XB, then it would pull in some great numbers. NOA has NO print ads for ANY of thier big games ala Metroid, SMS, AC, MP4, Wario, etc. NO print ads for the Cube at all. They've recently started up more with commercials but NOTHING compared to XB. I just dont see how and why the Gamecube is'nt just getting clobbered in sales. And yet it really is hanging in there with almost 0 effort coming from NOA's pitiful marketing.

Tagrineth

21-Oct-2002, 15:22

Mr. Angry Pants

21-Oct-2002, 15:28

Teasy

21-Oct-2002, 15:30

Aren't Nintendo supposed to be starting a big ad campaign soon though?.. as a lead up to Christmas. Something like $150 million for ads or something, I realise that's not as much as MS's $250 million for XBox ads, but at least its over half way there :)

Also I wonder how big this big announcement will be?

Mr. Angry Pants

21-Oct-2002, 15:38

Nintendo to purchase Microsoft! Beyond3D EXCLUSIVE!!!

marconelly!

21-Oct-2002, 15:53

On Canadian TV, Starfox ads are airing more than any game I've ever seen. All the MS and Sony ads combined don't come close to the airing time of SF. I've really grown tired of it, even though I don't even watch the TV a lot.

bryanb

21-Oct-2002, 16:10

I've seen way more advertisements for Gamecube than Xbox these past couple of months. Mario, Starfox--I've seen commercials for Animal Crossing alone 7 times in the past two weeks.

If any company is sitting on its hands advertising-wise, it's Microsoft. I'm actually amazed the Xbox has retained a lead after the AC/Starfox/Mario onslaught with no AAA calibur games.

Microsoft has been forced to sit on its hands because they don't have any big name, high selling exclusives out there.

Sure they could run general XBox ads, but the real market value of those has begun to fade away. There isn't much reward from simply pushing the XBox brand at this stage simply because it has already been established.

What they would like to do but cannot is push big name exclusives. They need to build brand names for XBox exclusives. That has always been the foundation of the gaming market. With XBox exclusive flops like Blinx, their hands are tied. They don't have any XBox exclusive brands to push.

However, the real saving grace of the XBox in September was of course Madden 2003. That game is why XBox stayed even with GC and Mario. Madden outsells Mario. The real strength of the XBox market is sports games.

Its also possible that for the XBox to control 25% of the US market, it doesn't need big name exclusives. It will maintain this control based on:

(1) Hardcore gamers favoring it for multiplatform games. Especially sports games.
(2) Large number of "good enough but not great" games. Examples: Dead to Rights, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
(3) Microsoft's subsidizing the billion dollar a year loss product that is the XBox. Example: free XBoxes to all EB, Babbages managers. Free product tie ins.

We are really seeing a new lifeform in the gaming market that won't go away simply cause it doesn't have great games.

The only long term weakness that I see is the bad word of mouth spreading about the XBox. Eventually will its user base tire of paying 50 bucks for its exclusive titles that are just "good enough but not great"?

mkillio

21-Oct-2002, 23:59

Blade

22-Oct-2002, 00:18

Yeah, Toonami gave SMS a 10/10. It only took 2 months for them to review that game.. meh. :)

I don't think it makes much of a difference though. They rewarded Morrowind with a positive 8/10 on Toonami, and it generally tanked in the sales charts. You might see a handful of people get inspired to buy after Tom's review of SMS.. maybe.

Name brand = everything.

Johnny Awesome

22-Oct-2002, 00:55

It's interesting to see some people put their "spin" on these numbers.

Considering that MS first party titles are rated higher than Sony's by the gaming media, it's a little ridiculous to claim that "there are no good exclusive games on Xbox". Buffy, Sega GT 2002, Blinx, and Quantum Redshift are examples of good exclusives. Upcoming there is Shenmue 2, Toejam & Earl, Splinter Cell, Mech Assault, and Unreal Championship. That's a very good holiday lineup.

These aren't "big name" and that's a drawback for MS, but remember that Halo was relatively unknown as well when the Xbox first hit the scene. Advertising can be wonderful. :)

Also, where did the notion of Xbox as a "sports console" come from. The top 5 selling games on Xbox are Halo, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham, Oddworld, and Amped. Only one of these is a sports game. Sports are just as big a part of the PS2 lineup as they are for Xbox.

Morrowind was hardly a failure. It sold 300,000 copies in the US alone. It'll probably hit 500,000 world-wide when all is said and done. That's a huge success.

It's also interesting to note that the Xbox has sold more in the US in 10 months than the Dreamcast did in 17 months. That's pretty good going into the holiday shopping season, considering that cash-strapped Sega was still debating the Dreamcast's fate given what it considered to be decent US numbers.

bryanb

22-Oct-2002, 05:31

Considering that MS first party titles are rated higher than Sony's by the gaming media, it's a little ridiculous to claim that "there are no good exclusive games on Xbox". Buffy, Sega GT 2002, Blinx, and Quantum Redshift are examples of good exclusives. Upcoming there is Shenmue 2, Toejam & Earl, Splinter Cell, Mech Assault, and Unreal Championship. That's a very good holiday lineup.

Some of those games are good but none are GREAT games that you can build a brand around. Quantum Redshit isn't selling well at all. Its typical of many Xbox games: great graphics and bland gameplay. And including a critical (and mostly likely a commercial) flop like Blinx is just ridiculous.

Buffy and Sega GT are decent but neither are good enough to appeal widely. Sega GT only moved 40K units in September. No wonder Sega decided to allow MS to include it in the bundle. They need to recup development costs and the game's lackluster sales are doing it.

bryanb

22-Oct-2002, 05:55

Also, where did the notion of Xbox as a "sports console" come from. The top 5 selling games on Xbox are Halo, Dead or Alive 3, Project Gotham, Oddworld, and Amped. Only one of these is a sports game. Sports are just as big a part of the PS2 lineup as they are for Xbox.

The notion came from the actual sales numbers. Where do you notions come from? You can find the July NPD numbers for GC, XBox and PS2 on this board.

They clearly indicate that sports games are a major component of total XBox sales.

Oddworld and Amped as 2 of the 5 top selling XBox games?

Here are some facts for you:

Madden 2002 sold 395K.
NFL Fever 2002 sold 514K.

And a non sports game that sold more than Odd World and Amped on XBox: Max Payne at 450K.

What kind of crack are you smoking?

aaaaa00

22-Oct-2002, 08:45

What kind of crack are you smoking?

September NPD data, lifetime to date.

xbox top 20, I count 7 sports titles: NFL Fever, Madden, Amped, THPS2X, NBA Live 2002, WWF RAW, Inside Drive 2002. The average attach rate for a sports game in the top 20 was 10.2%.

PS2 top 20, I count 7 sports titles: Madden 2002, THPS3, Madden 2001, NBA Street, WWF Smackdown. NBA Live 2002, NCAA Football 2002. The average attach rate for a sports game in the top 20 was 8.9%.

GC top 20, I count 7 sports titles: THPS3, Madden 2002, WWE WrestleMania X8, SSX Tricky, NFL Hitz, NBA Courtside, FIFA Soccer 2002. The average attach rate for a sports game in the top 20 was 8%.

I counted Nascar Thunder 2002 as a racing game, not a sports title. Likewise for Waverace. I counted the Wrestling games as sports games (but since each platform has one in the top 20, it doesn't change the ratios significantly).

So, um, what was that again? I see a slight favoring of sports game attach rates on the xbox (mostly due to NFL Fever 2002 being a launch title), but all three consoles have essentially the same ratio of sports titles in the top 20.

bryanb

22-Oct-2002, 15:22

What kind of crack are you smoking?

September NPD data, lifetime to date.

So, um, what was that again? I see a slight favoring of sports game attach rates on the xbox (mostly due to NFL Fever 2002 being a launch title), but all three consoles have essentially the same ratio of sports titles in the top 20.

I could care less about extreme sports titles like SSX Tricky. They don't factor. Talk about irrevalent data.

The only thing that matters here are the BIG sports titles that sell large numbers of games.

FOOTBALL. BASEBALL. BASKETBALL.

Statistics on niche bicycle riding titles doesn't mean jack sh*t.

Here are the facts bub:

The big sports titles sometimes sell 2X as much on XBox than the GC. And their attach ratio is higher than the PS2.

Now you are going to say sports titles are not a major factor in the XBox software market?

GIVE IT UP.

Johnny Awesome

22-Oct-2002, 15:31

It's typical of you to ignore data that doesn't prove your point. :roll:

As has been pointed out, Sports games are slightly more important to Xbox than PS2. I figured it was dead even, but I had forgotten about last year's football games.

It's funny, but the strong sports showing on Xbox actually proves that it's mainly casual gamers owning the Xbox. :)

marconelly!

22-Oct-2002, 16:06

It's funny, but the strong sports showing on Xbox actually proves that it's mainly casual gamers owning the Xbox.

It's arguable if it's "mainly" casual gamers owning it, but with all the advertising going around, casual gamers are buying into it (probably not nearly as much as MS hoped for, but oh well).

aaaaa00

22-Oct-2002, 23:35

I could care less about extreme sports titles like SSX Tricky. They don't factor. Talk about irrevalent data.

The only thing that matters here are the BIG sports titles that sell large numbers of games.

FOOTBALL. BASEBALL. BASKETBALL.

Statistics on niche bicycle riding titles doesn't mean jack sh*t.

That's funny, because I didn't list a single "niche bicycle riding title". :D

If you remove all the extreme sports games like THPS (which happens to be the 6th best selling GC title with an attach rate of 15% :o), the stats become:

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

xbox: 4 core sports titles in top 20 (11.5% average attach)
GC: 4 core sports titles in the top 20 (7% average attach)
PS2: 5 core sports titles in the top 20 (8.9% average attach)

So, um, what was that again? :D

Once again, I see a slight favoring of sports titles on the xbox (a couple percentage points of attach), but the title ratios are almost even across the board.

Geeforcer

23-Oct-2002, 01:43

Well, since we are talking about sales....
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php?id=82357

XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK

Trouble looms for GameCube as Microsoft's console pulls clear in the latest UK sales figures

12:41 After only two weeks ahead of Xbox following the launch of Mario Sunshine, GameCube sales have dropped in the UK, while Xbox enjoys a healthy surge. For the week ending October 19, GameCube clocked up a figure of 5,662 unit sales - a drop of seven percent on the previous week - whereas Xbox shifted 7,319 units over the same period - an increase of 20 percent.
The rise in Xbox sales can be accounted for by the recent cheap packages being offered by UK retailers like Argos and Dixons, but with its flagship triple-AAA Mario title only out for two weeks, the figure must be of great concern to Nintendo. With PS2 miles out in front, the race is on for the crucial second place spot in the next-gen console race and on current form Microsoft is favourite.

How Nintendo will respond to these figures remains to be seen, but the company may be compelled towards slashing the price of hardware in the run up to the crucial Christmas period in order to compete.

This brings the 2002 figures to date to 218,421 GameCube units compared with 215,818 for Xbox, with Microsoft's console well on track to having a larger installed user base than Nintendo by the end of the year. PS2 notched up sales of 23,451 last week, with GBA enjoying an increase of 14 percent at 9,730.

Goldni

23-Oct-2002, 05:37

This brings the 2002 figures to date to 218,421 GameCube units compared with 215,818 for Xbox, with Microsoft's console well on track to having a larger installed user base than Nintendo by the end of the year. PS2 notched up sales of 23,451 last week, with GBA enjoying an increase of 14 percent at 9,730.

Do what?>? I thought the European totals were more like close to 1 milion for Cube and very close to that for the XB. WTF is 218,000?

Anyways, C &VG are funny. The GCN is still in the lead for second place yet has a bad week or so and now it's doomed for 3rd place. :roll: lol. It's a looong ways to go folks. The only country one can surely right off is Japan for Xbox. As for all of the other regions..it's gonna be a close fight.

zurich

23-Oct-2002, 05:46

I think those numbers are just for the UK.. mainland Europe is quite a bit larger than that, which is where the 1 mil number comes from.

zurich

Geeforcer

23-Oct-2002, 06:08

Do what?>? I thought the European totals were more like close to 1 milion for Cube and very close to that for the XB. WTF is 218,000?

Anyways, C &VG are funny. The GCN is still in the lead for second place yet has a bad week or so and now it's doomed for 3rd place. :roll: lol. It's a looong ways to go folks. The only country one can surely right off is Japan for Xbox. As for all of the other regions..it's gonna be a close fight.

As zurich pointed out, they are only talking about UK (Hence the title, "XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK")

I think the point they were trying to make is exactly the same as one made in the beginning of this thread: that GC is lagging Xbox DESPITE Mario.

wazoo

23-Oct-2002, 08:50

As zurich pointed out, they are only talking about UK (Hence the title, "XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK")

I think the point they were trying to make is exactly the same as one made in the beginning of this thread: that GC is lagging Xbox DESPITE Mario

UK is very much like the US with respect to the tastes. Nintendo was never big there for a lot of reasons (high prices and bad distribution in previous generation for example).

I laugh reading people constantly taking the US as an example of the whole Europe.

as for the GC/xbox debate, this is 2 different market. I do not think people are hesitating between both. Either you love sports games/PC-like games or you like Nintendo games. There is always an overlap but overall the custormers are not the same IMO.

Teasy

23-Oct-2002, 13:37

Wazoo, absolutely right, its funny when people show XBox vs GameCube U.K sales as if its some big deal ( Idon't mean you Geeforcer, I mean C&VG). I have news for everyone thinking that, XBox was always strong in the U.K. AFAIR at launch it sold about twice the number of units in the U.K as it sold in the entire of Europe. We have no problem with American's here, we have no problem with MS here and the bad sales XBox has in the U.K for a short time when GameCube was released soon changed again ewith the huge price drops of XBox (£300 down to £159 in a few months). So the U.K sales are no supprise, its the rest of Europe that we need to see sales from. If XBox is selling better then GameCube overall in Europe that would be a dig deal. If anyone has the numbers for the whole of Europe then please post them.

As for Mario, its good that it lifted GameCube sales for a couple of weeks before Christmas, that's a bonus, roll on Christmas.

Also just as a side note, I noticed something odd about that article. The article says that SMS put GameCube's sales ahead of XBox for 2 weeks and now the third week XBox is ahead. But as of 19th of October (which is the end of the week in which they're reporting XBox sold better then GameCube) SMS hadn't even been out for 3 weeks, only 2 weeks and 1 day. Just thought I'd mention that as its a little strange.

iscariot

23-Oct-2002, 19:20

nm.......

Magnum PI

23-Oct-2002, 20:21

We have no problem with American's here

heh, yea right...

???
what's your point precisely ?

bryanb

23-Oct-2002, 20:49

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

xbox: 4 core sports titles in top 20 (11.5% average attach)
GC: 4 core sports titles in the top 20 (7% average attach)
PS2: 5 core sports titles in the top 20 (8.9% average attach)

So, um, what was that again? :D

Once again, I see a slight favoring of sports titles on the xbox (a couple percentage points of attach), but the title ratios are almost even across the board.

There's not really much to be said for your post here. Again, your numbers are meaningless garbage. Total percentage of games in the 20 top that are core sports? Jesus christ! Of course the averages for those will be even across consoles.

But that doesn't mean jack sh*t.

Because its patently obvious that you are mentally incapable of acquiring real meaningful statistics, here are some real numbers:

163, PS2, MADDEN NFL 2002, August/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 9798, 1986469, $30.89
356, XBX, MADDEN NFL 2002, October/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 3914, 395428, $29.97
366, GCN, MADDEN NFL 2002, November/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 3760, 290409, $26.46

284, XBX, NFL 2K2, January/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 5320, 70643, $24.56
**** GCN DID NOT EVEN MAKE IT INTO THE TOP 500 GAMES FOR NFL 2K2 ****
243, PS2, NFL 2K2, November/1/01, SEGA OF AMERICA, 6471, 288038, $30.68

226, PS2, NBA 2K2, January/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 7246, 369955, $50.76
423, XBX, NBA 2K2, February/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 2928, 86708, $48.36
248, GCN, NBA 2K2, March/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 6357, 45098, $30.04

271, GCN, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 5684, 48787, $44.26
272, XBX, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 5643, 116160, $49.58
66, PS2, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 21113, 223600, $48.93

I will walk you through this analysis:

(1) Look at the total number of sports title sold for XBox.
(2) Compare that to its installed base.
(3)Compare that to the attach ratio of these sports titles for PS2 and GCN.

SPORTS TITLES ARE A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE XBOX SOFTWARE LIBRARY AS COMPARED TO OTHER CONSOLES.

End of story.

Johnny Awesome

23-Oct-2002, 21:20

Yeah. When you do this analysis it works out a little bit more than the PS2. Thanks for proving the point that Xbox has slightly higher Sports sales, mainly because of its extremely casual audience. :)

iscariot

23-Oct-2002, 21:48

what's your point precisely

eh, nm. That discussion is for a whole different forum :-?

Teasy

23-Oct-2002, 22:33

iscariot, if you have a persecution complex that's your problem. If you seriously think people here in the U.K base any part of their buying decisions on where a product is made then your very wrong. We're not stupid enough nor zenophobic enough to do that, how many "Buy English/ Welsh/Irish" campaigns have you seen in the past?, I can't remember one ever occuring.

I freely admit there are things about American culture that annoy me personally (one example is American's faliure to distingiush between the many different accents here in England, according to U.S TV were all cockney's), and also things that I like (I absolutely love the Simpson's best show on earth ever!). In the U.K we do not have any real problem with the U.S, hence the XBox's massively better sales here when compared to Japan and the rest of Europe. We do not even consider a product's origin before buying AFAICS, quality and price is all that matters here.

Magnum PI

23-Oct-2002, 23:05

what's your point precisely

eh, nm. That discussion is for a whole different forum :-?

and what does it have to do with this thread ?

aaaaa00

23-Oct-2002, 23:43

**** GCN DID NOT EVEN MAKE IT INTO THE TOP 500 GAMES FOR NFL 2K2 ****

Not suprising since Sega NFL 2K2 was never released on the GC to begin with. :D

Lets take a closer look at your 'data'.

The attach percentages below are taken from the September NPD data. All numbers are based on lifetime to date sales.

Definition: attach percentage = copies sold / installed base * 100%.

The installed base of each console is taken from the same September NPD data source.

Madden NFL 2002

xbox: attach 14%
PS2: attach 18%
GC: attach 12%

Hmm. PS2 has the highest attach. Gee.

Sega NFL 2K2

xbox: attach 2%
PS2: attach 3%
GC: attach 0%. Well DUH, NFL2K2 did NOT SHIP on Gamecube. :D

Again PS2 has the highest attach. Hmm.

Sega NBA 2K2

xbox: attach 3%
PS2: attach 3%
GC: attach 2%

Xbox and PS2 roughly tied for attach. Ok.

All Star Baseball 2K3

xbox: 4%
GC: 2%
PS2: 2%

Oh look, slight bias towards xbox here. Gee.

So, of the examples you provided other than ASB2K3, the attach percentage of the games you specified for xbox is equal to or slightly less than PS2. In many cases, the difference is just a couple percent -- hardly huge.

Given these rather inconclusive numbers, deriving your conjecture that "SPORTS TITLES ARE A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE XBOX SOFTWARE LIBRARY AS COMPARED TO OTHER CONSOLES" is more than a little bit of a stretch, bryanb.

In the future, you should consider evaluating your data with a little more care before you try to use it to support such an obviously incorrect hypothesis.

I would also suggest that you keep the invective and rhetoric to a minimum, as it only serves to weaken your position, and generally makes you look immature and silly in the eyes of the forum when your rather obvious errors are revealed.

bryanb

24-Oct-2002, 05:26

I would also suggest that you keep the invective and rhetoric to a minimum, as it only serves to weaken your position, and generally makes you look immature and silly in the eyes of the forum when your rather obvious errors are revealed.

I do lapse into this confounded rude state when confronted by idiots.

My numbers indicate XBox outselling GC by 2 to 1 in many of the top sports games. XBox does NOT have a 2 to 1 console unit advantage over GC.

Furthermore, XBox's sports title unit shipments and attach ratio is freakin massise compared to the PS2 by my August NPD data. My data from this very site shows REAL UNIT SHIPMENTS by the top sports games.

Unless you can post some REAL FUDGING NUMBERS then I suggest you just shut the hell up. Let's see something more than imaginary attach ratios. I want UNIT SALES to counter the UNIT sales that I posted that clearly show your numbers to be BULLSH*T.

You clearly failed in even a rudimentary analysis of the numbers I posted above. Take one game for example, All Star Baseball 2003:

GC: 40K shipments
XBX: 110K shipments
PS2: 220K shipments

After seeing this, do you really need to be told why you are full of it?

Johnny Awesome

24-Oct-2002, 05:38

bryanb

24-Oct-2002, 05:42

Well, it's interesting that you focus on All Star Baseball, because it's a bit of an anomaly. Madden 2003 is a better example as it's doing far better on PS2 (attach rate wise) than on Xbox.

You're still missing the point - Xbox and PS2 both have comparable sports title attach rates. :)

No you are missing the point. My numbers show that they do not.

And Madden 2003 is the analomy. Its sales were actually depressed on the XBox due to NFL Fever which sold 500K.

Simply look at sales numbers for NBA 2k2 to see the exact same scenario as All Star Baseball.

aaaaa00

24-Oct-2002, 10:18

My numbers indicate XBox outselling GC by 2 to 1 in many of the top sports games. XBox does NOT have a 2 to 1 console unit advantage over GC.

I will grant that the xbox in general sells more sports games than the GC does -- but that's merely an artifact of the target market. Who wouldn't expect a lack of interest for sports games in Nintendo's target demographic?

On the other hand, the xbox's overall attach rate of sports games in general tends to track pretty closely with the PS2 -- the xbox might be higher here, the PS2 higher there.

Remember, you're the one that said:

SPORTS TITLES ARE A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE XBOX SOFTWARE LIBRARY AS COMPARED TO OTHER CONSOLES.

If you had said "compared with Gamecube", you'd be pretty much correct.

But PS2 is also an "other console", and xbox and PS2 have roughly comparable attach rates for sports games.

As for seeing the actual sales figures, the number that you posted are correct and very similar to the ones I have.

Just divide by the known installed base, which you'd also have if you really do have the official NPD data, and you get the attach rate percentages -- I already explained this.

And Madden 2003 is the analomy. Its sales were actually depressed on the XBox due to NFL Fever which sold 500K.

Ok. Lets take the sales of every football game on the PS2 and the xbox, add them up, then divide by the total installed base.

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

PS2: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 4735000

Divided by known installed base = 0.42.

xbox: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 1039000

Divided by known installed base = 0.36.

BenSkywalker

24-Oct-2002, 12:48

Madden '98 didn't sell a single unit on the SNES so clearly everyone who buys an XBox only buys sports games...... :roll:

Part of the "evidence" for this discussion was a game never released on the GC, one which pretty much everyone(if not everyone) on this forum knew wasn't released for it- didn't sell well is telling enough on this subject. I wouldn't waste any more breath on a poster who appears would be far more comfortable over at GA or some other such site.

bryanb

24-Oct-2002, 18:21

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

PS2: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 4735000

Divided by known installed base = 0.42.

xbox: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 1039000

Divided by known installed base = 0.36.

You are just getting lost in all of your numbers. Its only practical to compare REAL UNIT sales on a game by game basis.

Here are PS2 sales for top football games:

NCAA 2003 294467
Madden 1986469
Blitz 99678
NFL 2k3 288038

XBox is consistently selling at about 1/3 the rate of PS2 for those games.

Do you realize that XBox doesn't have 1/3 the number of consoles on the market as PS2?

Again:

POST SOME REAL UNIT SALE NUMBERS

There is no point in continuing this discussion if you aren't will to come up with some real statistics comparing actual unit sales of games.

iscariot

24-Oct-2002, 22:44

Vince

24-Oct-2002, 23:09

The most interesting thing from my perspective this holiday season is if Sony is going to hold the majority of sales or if they will drop to plurality(I think it will be close either way, although the two bundle packages they are facing this year has me leaning towards falling to plurality by end of December).

lol.. Nostradomous speaks again ;)

So, Ben, you really think that packing two Sega games in the XBox box (sounds kind of redundent.. heh) or a game with the 'Cube is going to suddenly make sales of each respective counsole jump by > 400%? Your almost as bad as Johnnie and his 4M PS2's and 2M XBX and Cubes. Name me one other game with the hype right now of GTA: VC - which directly transfers into the already popular 'image' of PlayStation. The branding and hype is going to do it - thankfully their great games too.

Um, your good at many things, but I fear prediction is not one of them.

Teasy

25-Oct-2002, 00:05

Vince, anyone really excited about Vice City already owns GTA3 and so very likely already owns a PS2.

Not that I neccesarilly agree or disagree with Ben, I'm not getting into that argument.

aaaaa00

25-Oct-2002, 00:13

NCAA 2003 294467
Madden 1986469
Blitz 99678
NFL 2k3 288038

(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million
Installed base: xbox = 2.86 million

PS2: NCAA 2003 294467, attach percentage 2.61%
Xbox: NCAA 2003 85800, attach percentage 2.99%

I see a 0.3% difference when corrected for installed base in xbox's favor.

(You meant madden 2002.)
PS2: Madden 1986469, attach percentage 17.6%
Xbox: Madden 395400, attach percentage 13.8%

4% in favor of PS2.

PS2: Blitz 99678, attach percentage 0.88%
xbox: Blitz 39200, attach percentage 1.36%

Half a percent in favor of xbox.

(You meant NFL2k2.)
PS2: NFL 2k2 288038, attach percentage 2.5%
xbox: NFL 2k2 70600, attach percentage 2.4%

A tenth of a percent in favor of PS2.

Or how about Madden 2003?

PS2: Madden 2003 1301400, attach percentage 11.55%
xbox: Madden 2003 213500, attach percentage 7.47%

4 percent in favor of PS2.

Like I said before, relative to the installed base, xbox and PS2 swing back and forth regarding the popularity of the various sports titles. Any consistent pattern, if one exists, is lost in the noise.

Thus, I don't think you can claim to say that xbox more heavily relies on sports titles than the PS2 does without stronger data than that which you have presented here.

Give me stronger data, and I'll grant you your point.

BenSkywalker

25-Oct-2002, 02:43

Vince-

So, Ben, you really think that packing two Sega games in the XBox box (sounds kind of redundent.. heh) or a game with the 'Cube is going to suddenly make sales of each respective counsole jump by > 400%?

Plurality is the largest share of a market with at least three players without having more then 50%. If the PS2 had 49.9999% of the market, which wouldn't be that big of a shift, it would drop from majority to plurality which is what I said I can see happening by the end of this year. 400% sales spike from a pack in, what does that have to do with anything I said? I wouldn't be shocked to see all the consoles have spikes in the 400% range simply due to the fact that it is the holiday season- not because of any pack in deal however.

BenSkywalker

26-Oct-2002, 05:15

I wanted to post a comparison since the NPD numbers match up fairly closely with some of Sony's in terms of unit movement for September(although Sony's are from May)-

Worldwide PlayStation 2 Shipments by Region, as of May 5, 2002

North America (Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.)

11.3 million units

Japan/Asia (Sony Computer Entertainment Japan)

9.9 million units

Europe/PAL (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited)

8.8 million units

(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million

Based on the claims of some people on these boards, Sony still hasn't sold all the units it shipped from the beginning of May. The PS2 would have to have a slew of warehouses filled to the brim with PS2s back in May for NPD to be vaguely close to accurate.

Edit-

Forgot the link-

http://www.us.playstation.com/news/PressReleases/415014851.asp

KOF

26-Oct-2002, 05:43

"(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million"

Is this "sold to" number only for US or worldwide?

Edit : Never mind. Forgot to see US "shipped to" number. Sorry.

aaaaa00

26-Oct-2002, 10:13

Based on the claims of some people on these boards, Sony still hasn't sold all the units it shipped from the beginning of May.

Two things.

1. NPD doesn't track all retail sales in the US, just a reasonably representative subset.

2. NPD is only US, not North America.

I think these two factors would help explain at least some of the difference between Sony's claimed numbers and NPD's sales data.

BenSkywalker

26-Oct-2002, 13:51

aaaaa00

27-Oct-2002, 01:08

I think these two factors would help explain at least some of the difference between Sony's claimed numbers and NPD's sales data.

They don't even come close to covering the gap(well, unless you realize that NPD doesn't cover close to what they say they do). There are some posters here that are rather adamant about the accuracy of NPD in terms of using them for absolute numbers. Sony is in the ~17Million sold range give or take in the US right now.

My understanding is that NPD's coverage is about 60%, representative. So the ratios still should be reasonably valid, despite the absolute numbers being off.

In any case, there's bound to be a lot of noise in the data, so like I said before, it's difficult to make any sort of absolute statements from NPD's numbers.