All purpose Sales and Sales Rumors and Anecdotes [2018 Edition]

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Slow month for me. I should probably just wait for the end of Jan. before looking at these things. But I'm bored. :p

Supply issues for Switch seem resolved at Amazon, and so the Gray version promptly jumped into the Jan. 2018 top 20.
  • #13 - Neon Switch
  • #14 - Super NES Classic
  • #17 - Gray Switch
  • #36 - PS4-S
  • #51 - XBO-S Hot Wheels bundle.
  • #52 - PS4-S SW: BF2 bundle
  • #62 - PS4-P
  • #72 - XBO-X
  • #70 - XBO-S
So, Jan. NPD look like it might end up with Switch comfortably in the lead, PS4 then XBO. PS4-P looks to end the month with a lead over the XBO-X.

Both XBO-S SKUs are significantly cheaper than the 2 PS4 SKUs, but it's not going to be close for Jan. it seems.

Regards,
SB
 
How does Switch numbers look launch aligned or side-by-side when compared to Wii (sorry, WiiU)?

Well, I don't have a chart, but the Switch (10 million as of Dec. 12, 2017/) is close to passing Wii-U lifetime sales (13.97 million according to VGchartz). There's a decent chance that first year sales of the Switch (Mar. 3, 2017 launch) will surpass lifetime sales of Wii-U. VGchatz has the Switch at 12.3 million units as of Dec. 30th, 2017

It's also possible that the Switch may surpass PS4 first year sales. ~14 million units. Wikipedia has it at 14.4 million units on Nov. 22nd, 2014 and the console launched on Nov. 15th, 2013.

As for the Wii? Nope, not challenged as that sold 20 million in the first year.

Regards,
SB
 
Switch is off to a great start. It's already outsold WiiU's lifetime sales in Japan. And at least that shows Nintendo's home market is still hungry for Nintendo platforms. It should be within the 1st quarter that Switch overtakes WiiU lifetime sales worldwide if it hasn't already. If Nintendo is able to sustain sales then that's a miraculous turnaround from WiiU.
 
Switch is Nintendo's fastest selling console in the US as well, so it is doing very well not only in Japan, but in other territories as well. I believe France also reported Switch already outsold lifetime Wii U sales. There was also a report where Switch reportedly outsold the Xbox One in Spain. I personally think Switch is hitting a bit of a software drought right now. January has no big hitters, and February looks set to lean on the Bayonetta 2 port. The exisiting library is already very good, so Switch will continue to sell based on that, but Nintendo needs to return to monthly high profile releases if it is going to maintain the momentum it enjoyed in 2017.
 
Switch is Nintendo's fastest selling console in the US as well, so it is doing very well not only in Japan, but in other territories as well. I believe France also reported Switch already outsold lifetime Wii U sales. There was also a report where Switch reportedly outsold the Xbox One in Spain. I personally think Switch is hitting a bit of a software drought right now. January has no big hitters, and February looks set to lean on the Bayonetta 2 port. The exisiting library is already very good, so Switch will continue to sell based on that, but Nintendo needs to return to monthly high profile releases if it is going to maintain the momentum it enjoyed in 2017.
The longer the Nintendo drought is, the better the quality of their games ! :)
 
Monster Hunter World sold 1.35M in Japan first week, not including digital sales, and there are supply issues. It's exclusive to PS4 in Japan so obviously those are all PS4 sales. PS4 HW also got a big bump to 140K for the week. Will be interesting to see if the PS4's baseline gets increased because of MH:W.
https://www.resetera.com/threads/mo...s-at-launch-in-japan-ps4-sells-140-000.20052/
https://www.famitsu.com/news/201801/31150829.html

The game also shipped/sold 5M copies worldwide (includes digital sales).
https://www.vg247.com/2018/01/29/monster-hunter-world-ships-5-million-copies-worldwide/

1.35M is only the 5th best FW sales in Japan for a MH title, but it's by far the best selling console iteration. 1.35M is very impressive considering the PS4's install base is only at ~6.2M. And again, there are supply issues and that does not include digital.

It was smart of Capcom to bring it to console because it brought a lot of awareness out west. 5M shipped in just a few days is very impressive.
 
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~3.33 PS4 shipped WW:NPD ratio as of Dec 31 then (76.5:22.96). at least according to my NPD estimates which any NPD estimate now is "rough".

Little higher than PS3 last gen which ran about ~3.2.

Remember now it's apples to apples shipped vs shipped PS3 vs PS4 which in my past posts I've mostly discussed Sony's end user sales PR.

Actually if you think about it you'd think the ratio could go way up if "emerging" markets (China, India, the far east, maybe Mexico/Brazil) had anything to say about. So maybe I should be surprised it's not higher instead of wondering why it's trending high vs last gen.

It could be the Xbox ratio is up too IMO.
 
The cost of a current generation console is generally far too high for most emerging markets. And then there are some markets (Korea, for example) that just don't seem to like console gaming for whatever reasons.

So while China is a huge market, the vast majority of the population really can't afford to game on a new console buying new games. And the newly affluent Chinese are more interested in attaining social symbols that can represent and show off their new affluence. So something like an iPhone (status symbol) is attractive, but a console is not. IE - most of the affluent Chinese don't game. But that will change at some point in the future as their children get into gaming. That may take a while as you have to understand that for most of the newly affluent Chinese came about in the past 10-15 years. It'll take a bit for their children to start influencing purchase decisions.

Hence, you see a lot of PC gaming on used PCs with either discount software (Steam/Tencent sales are huge for this) or pirated software. Additionally a huge section of the Chinese population mainly game in PC bangs as it's the most affordable way for most of them to game.

Regards,
SB
 
So, another slow day for me. I figured I'd go and take a look at the mid-Feb. monthly rankings on Amazon.

Hardware.
  • 14 - Switch Neon
  • 20 - Switch Gray
  • 41 - PS4-S
  • 44 - SNEW Classic
  • 48 - XBO-S
  • 70 - XBO-X
  • 75 - PS4-P
  • 93 - PS4-P - SW: BF2 bundle
Nintendo running away with hardware sales for the month so far. Despite SOTC coming out this month, it's going to be relatively close between PS4 and XBO. A LOT closer than Jan. was from the look of things.

I wasn't expecting the XBO to be this close to the PS4 for Feb. Which makes me wonder what made PS4 sell so much better in Jan. (Monster Hunter?) or what is making the XBO more attractive in Feb. than it was in Jan.?

Software. The only non-Nintendo physically packaged game in the top 20 is SOTC and it's behind 2 Nintendo games. However! That doesn't say much as PS4 has 4 gift cards in the top 20 and XBO now has 2 gift cards in the top 20. As consumer buying habits shift to digital, this is to be expected. IE - Switch software probably isn't outselling PS4/XBO software to the extent that it might appear at first glance when taking digital sales into account. For comparison, the first Nintendo gift card comes in at #43.

Regards,
SB
 
So, another slow day for me. I figured I'd go and take a look at the mid-Feb. monthly rankings on Amazon.

Hardware.
  • 14 - Switch Neon
  • 20 - Switch Gray
  • 41 - PS4-S
  • 44 - SNEW Classic
  • 48 - XBO-S
  • 70 - XBO-X
  • 75 - PS4-P
  • 93 - PS4-P - SW: BF2 bundle
Nintendo running away with hardware sales for the month so far. Despite SOTC coming out this month, it's going to be relatively close between PS4 and XBO. A LOT closer than Jan. was from the look of things.

I wasn't expecting the XBO to be this close to the PS4 for Feb. Which makes me wonder what made PS4 sell so much better in Jan. (Monster Hunter?) or what is making the XBO more attractive in Feb. than it was in Jan.?

Software. The only non-Nintendo physically packaged game in the top 20 is SOTC and it's behind 2 Nintendo games. However! That doesn't say much as PS4 has 4 gift cards in the top 20 and XBO now has 2 gift cards in the top 20. As consumer buying habits shift to digital, this is to be expected. IE - Switch software probably isn't outselling PS4/XBO software to the extent that it might appear at first glance when taking digital sales into account. For comparison, the first Nintendo gift card comes in at #43.

Regards,
SB
Quite the contrary actually. PS4 slim (and even Pro to an extent) was sold out or not really available with the message "Usually ships within 2 to 4 weeks.", (still is for slim), most of the month on amazon.com
 
Software. The only non-Nintendo physically packaged game in the top 20 is SOTC and it's behind 2 Nintendo games. However! That doesn't say much as PS4 has 4 gift cards in the top 20 and XBO now has 2 gift cards in the top 20. As consumer buying habits shift to digital, this is to be expected. IE - Switch software probably isn't outselling PS4/XBO software to the extent that it might appear at first glance when taking digital sales into account. For comparison, the first Nintendo gift card comes in at #43.

The gift cards for PS4 and Xbox One are bought in vast numbers by people outside of NA to allow them to buy games cheaper from the North-American store. that significantly skews the sales numbers of those cards. You don´t need to use gift cards with the Switch to do the same as the payment options are more flexible on that system.
 
Quite the contrary actually. PS4 slim (and even Pro to an extent) was sold out or not really available with the message "Usually ships within 2 to 4 weeks.", (still is for slim), most of the month on amazon.com

If true that would explain it. However, currently the PS4-S and[edit: oops was looking at the wrong thing] PS4-P are in stock and sold by Amazon (they were both in stock when I checked the ranking as well). Even the Limited Edition SW: BF2 PS4-P bundle is well stocked at the moment. But the PS4-P doesn't sell nearly as well relative to install base as the XBO-T so it's not going to affect things as much.

If it has had shortages, that must mean that Nintendo are now producing more consoles than Sony as they aren't having shortages AND they are selling more consoles. Even in Jan. when PS4 had no shortages and Switch had occasional shortages it was outselling the PS4.

I wonder why Sony would cut supply of PS4 so drastically that it would be short on supply in some of the slowest months of the season, allowing Microsoft to catch them with the XBO in the US? Seems weird.

Regards,
SB
 
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I wonder why Sony would cut supply of PS4 so drastically that it would be short on supply in some of the slowest months of the season, allowing Microsoft to catch them with the XBO in the US? Seems weird.
There could be a variety of reasons for this, any reason I can think of isn't more compelling than any other ideas though.
Some possibilities include reprioritizing other growth areas ie China etc. Or amazon stopped stock piling consoles in the month of January because they know the sales are generally slower that month and they don't want to waste their warehouse space on large items that won't move.
 
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