NPD Nov. You know you want it!

[Fu3lFr3nzy]

Ouch, Crysis sold pretty bad

Aside the "yada yada its only possible on PC's" interviews, in other ones they did say theyre quite busy finishing up the production of the PC version, etc and once theyre done, theyre gonna start considering other possibilities

Im still waiting for the video card from the future so I can play the game maxed out /sarcasm

 

[expletive]

I would like for GT5 to have damage models for their cars before anyone makes a true comparison. In any event, the difference from Forza to Gran Turismo largely falls on resources. GT cars are modeled in-house while Forza's are outscourced. No one that is a first party for Microsoft, outside of Rare, can be accused to being technical masters. American developers seem to be more about shaders and such while Japanese developers look to throw as much geometry as possible on the screen. Rare has an engine that is totally built on the 360, Banjo looks to be the first to use it. Only then would we see what the console can really do.

Well I suppose its somewhat subjective on how impressive GT5 is, but I dont think there is any argument that PD can do more with less than most. There was another thread on here where some of our developers actually mused about what an amazing Racing Sim PD could produce if they got their hands on 360 hardware...

As for the Rare engine and it being truly representative of what the 360 can really do, I'm not sure we can say that either. A more accurate statement might be "only then would we see what Rare can get out of the 360". Your statement assumes that Rare has the most skill of any other developer with 360 hardware, what could we possibly base that on at this point?

Anyway this is all OT and devolving the thread...


With these numbers I think its important to cast ourselves back to 12-18 months ago and the expectations we had for the market and the platforms. We've slowly settled into the current reality but I think its important to point out that the US market is trending to a point this generation that is inverse of what MANY predicted. The fact that we're actually having a fact and logic-based discussion on how VIABLE the PS3 is NA is astounding to me. GT5 and FFXIII are so critical for Sony at this point because its their last 'just wait until' milestone to look ahead to. Even with the strength of those franchises, can we really expect them to turn the tables?

A lot of people are claiming victory for Sony but I just dont see it. They've fallen yet another 300K behind the 360 this month and this is a price drop month, it could be worse for december. In the end I think the competition is good for the market but Sony seems to have really squandered their stranglehold on the console market. This for an optical standard that in all likelihood will never come close to yielding what DVD did.

 

[rbushner]

Just curious, how many million sellers in 360's first year ?

From the link

First Party:
1. Halo 3
2. Gears of War
3. Project Gotham Racing 3
4. Perfect Dark Zero
5. Forza 2
6. Crackdown
7. Mass Effect

Third Party:
8. Oblivion
9. Guitar Hero 2
10.Bioshock
11.Madden NFL 08
12.Saints Row
13.Splinter Cell: Double Agent
14.Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
15.Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2
16.Need for Speed: Most Wanted
17.Need for Speed: Carbon
18.Madden 07
19.Lost Planet
20.Dead Rising
21.Call of Duty 2
22.Rainbow Six: Vegas
23.Call of Duty 4
24.Guitar Hero 3
25.Assassins Creed
26.Dead or Alive 4
27.Fight Night Round 3
28.Call of Duty 3

I might have missed a couple.

 

[Limanima]

From the link



I might have missed a couple.

This just proves that XBox owners don't care about quality only quantity!!

kidding...

 

[patsu]

With these numbers I think its important to cast ourselves back to 12-18 months ago and the expectations we had for the market and the platforms. We've slowly settled into the current reality but I think its important to point out that the US market is trending to a point this generation that is inverse of what MANY predicted. The fact that we're actually having a fact and logic-based discussion on how VIABLE the PS3 is NA is astounding to me. GT5 and FFXIII are so critical for Sony at this point because its their last 'just wait until' milestone to look ahead to. Even with the strength of those franchises, can we really expect them to turn the tables?

The total package may (You also forgot about MGS and KZ2, gamewise). Individual games will bring their own crowd -- big or small, but the entire package will form PS3's appeal. As we see, CoD4 and AC sold similarly well to 360. It seems that as long as a high quality game and its theme matches hardcore gamers' interests, the game can sell. We saw a quite a bit of issues with ported PS3 games too this year. If it's just one game and similar title is available on 360, then the gamer will deliberate more before buying.

A lot of people are claiming victory for Sony but I just dont see it. They've fallen yet another 300K behind the 360 this month and this is a price drop month, it could be worse for december. In the end I think the competition is good for the market but Sony seems to have really squandered their stranglehold on the console market. This for an optical standard that in all likelihood will never come close to yielding what DVD did.

That's if you only look at NA though. For December, Sony may see proportionally similar growth but because the base number is lower, so the overall figure may indeed be lower. We shall see.

Blu-ray will be a separate war to fight. If it turns out that it really outsold HD DVD enough to seal the deal, then it may be a different picture later on. But game library and sales will take time to build up

Does it matter though? Higher 360 sales are proof of the benefits of getting in there first, as much as they're proof of anything. Ultimately this thread is about sales, and simply put, the PS3s aren't as good as the 360s. Games publishers being told 'well, you launched 12 months later, you're doing OK considering' isn't going to make them feel any better. As someone else said a couple of pages back what matters is the money, plain and simple, and 360 is just making more of it.

True to a certain extent. As long as PS3 side makes money or show potential that they cannot get with 360 only, they may still think it's viable to invest more. As the userbase continues to grow, that missed opportunities will become increasingly tempting since many said nextgen games are expensive to develope for.



As for rbushner's link, thanks ! So despite many complains about Wii lacking good games, it still have more million sellers than 360 in its first year. It also shows what 360 could do when there is no nextgen competition, and what kinds of games its audience likes best.

 

[patsu]

Cool, that fits my back-of-the-envelope model better.

I hope Sony does better planning moving forward. The kind of delays/unpredictable release date (like UT3, SingStar US moving schedules) may also make it hard to market these games.

UT3 is pretty interesting in its own right. Unfortunately after launch, their mod page (according to the user manual) is still not up. Sony, you're losing a lot of mileage for not doing things right. The good news is the game library is finally looking great. Still...

 

[Teasy]

Seriously, who the hell cares about that? The only important thing about Crysis is its graphics

But the console versions won't have those same graphics.

 

[Evildeus]

From the link



I might have missed a couple.

That's not first year it's nowadays numbers....

 

[patsu]

Ah I see... so does rbushner has the real first year numbers ?

 

[rbushner]

For clarification: while some of those launched in NOV06 it was before 22NOV which is the launch date of the 360.

Yeah I was trying to avoid that mess. I was trying to pick titles that sold a million in the first year, rather than titles that released in the first year that sold a million.

Ah I see... so does rbushner has the real first year numbers ?

Nope but as I recall all of the ones I bolded where known million sellers in the first year. I'm quite certain that I missed some titles (GeOW and Madden 07). Lost Planet and Dead Rising might have missed the mark by a month or two. I figured a ballpark estimate would be better than silence.

 

[Mintmaster]

If american devs really cared more about the shaders the cars would have looked better because shaders (car materials) and ofcourse lighting are alot more important for a realistic looking game than the amount of poly's you can trow in. PD nails the lighting and shaders, thats why GT4 and 5 look so good, not because they have uber high poly models.

Shaders have very little to do with why GT5 looks so good. Technically it's not that impressive. I see the same bloom for areas with sunlight reflecting off windows and wheels as I do for a white license plate. There are significant shadow artifacts that could be easily avoided given the constraints of the game. I could go on.

GT5 graphics are all about art coupled with the very static environment of a racing game.

PD has artists that know how to tweak the parameters to make the lighting look real. I'm sure they do comparisons with with real life photos and nitpick like crazy. The lighting in GT4 already looks fantastic and they have a very simple models there.

So even if I'm not impressed with the technical achievements GT5, I will disagree with those who say it's not impressive simply because nobody else has quite matched the lighting look. That, by definition, makes PD outstanding and exceptional. Some of the arcade racing games are close (Burnout, PGR4), but among driving sims on all platforms, graphically nobody is even close.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well Gears atleast definately sold over a million before 22nd. It was released Nov 7th in NA and 17th in Europe.

 

[Inquisitive_Idiot]

But the console versions won't have those same graphics.

That does not mean it will look bad, it could still be the best looking console game or very near that. I would be very surprised if they could not get the console version of Crysis to look very close to the mid-range end of the PC version, so much so that telling the difference between the two would be challenging.

 

[RobertR1]

Either way, it is vastly better than the current state of PS3 numbers and the Assassins Creed and COD4 numbers...have they sold 1000K on the PS3?

Those numbers are taking into account what should be the case given EOY sales. If you go by PS3 launch date. Only Resistance and Motorstorm (how much did being bundled help?) would make the cut.

 

[Mintmaster]

Does anyone have total software sales figures? Like we see on this page:
http://news.teamxbox.com/xbox/15116/October-NPD-Xbox-360-Led-Software-Sales/

 

[expletive]

The total package may (You also forgot about MGS and KZ2, gamewise). Individual games will bring their own crowd -- big or small, but the entire package will form PS3's appeal. As we see, CoD4 and AC sold similarly well to 360. It seems that as long as a high quality game and its theme matches hardcore gamers' interests, the game can sell. We saw a quite a bit of issues with ported PS3 games too this year. If it's just one game and similar title is available on 360, then the gamer will deliberate more before buying.

That's if you only look at NA though. For December, Sony may see proportionally similar growth but because the base number is lower, so the overall figure may indeed be lower. We shall see.

Blu-ray will be a separate war to fight. If it turns out that it really outsold HD DVD enough to seal the deal, then it may be a different picture later on. But game library and sales will take time to build up

First, this is strictly an NA discussion as per the thread title. I recognize theres other facets to the larger picture and while they are relevant, arent necessary to discuss NA and NPD. I understand your point, but its just too broad for us to debate in this thread.

I left MGS and KZ out on purpose because i dont see those games as the established differentiators that GT5 and FF are. MGS may very well end up multiplatform and many have argued about its current mainstream appeal. Killzone is essentially a new IP, with no notable heritage to draw on so it will have to stand on its own against similarly unproven IPs on 360.

I could be swayed on including MGS4 but KZ2 is a definite no-no at this point. We pretty much know that KZ is going to be a Q4 2008 release, we (purposefully) havent seen hide nor hair of what MS has planned for 2008 in months so we're left to compare KZ to imaginary games. For example, right now, i could surmise KZ2 vs Gears of War 2 for holiday 2008. From a pure franchise standpoint, Gears has a tremendous advantage.

KZ2 only has mindshare among the hardcore now because of the E3 controversies and because Sony is TELLING us its big. But in reality we dont ahve anything else on 360 to compare it to for November 2008. Similar to when we first saw the ratchet screens, we hadnt considered at the time that Asassins creed would be so impressive. (insert other games here but hopefully my point is at least clear, if not compelling)

So, my point was, that of the 'just wait until X happens' I think the truth is Sony is down to their last 2 cards. After those, it will take something new to turn the tide.

Sony is at a point now where they need more than a sales bump, they need to reverse a trend.

Even though we've had porting issues this yeara, Im hearing a lot of 'i bought the 360 version because all my friends are on 360 and its easier to play on XBL' or 'i bought the 360 version becuase of the achievements'. This momentum is precisely why MS launched first and it will be difficult to overcome it for consumers that take such things into consideration.

Another big milestone on the horizon is MS cashing on the the core SKU strategy. The core SKU was never really viable early in the lifecycle but if they have to, MS will call their mark on this strategy and have a 360 arcade next year with no games for 199. Sony is still at 399 and theyve had to stretch to get there. How low could they possibly go next year? 299?

 

[mrcorbo]

This just proves that XBox owners don't care about quality only quantity!!

kidding...

You know it could be said that the reason that big multiplatform releases are selling better than exclusives on PS3 is that without being able to look to 360 owners to show them what games are worth buying PS3 owners are completely lost. Not that *I* would say that. But I'm just sayin'...

 

[Mintmaster]

Sony is at a point now where they need more than a sales bump, they need to reverse a trend.

Even though we've had porting issues this yeara, Im hearing a lot of 'i bought the 360 version because all my friends are on 360 and its easier to play on XBL' or 'i bought the 360 version becuase of the achievements'. This momentum is precisely why MS launched first and it will be difficult to overcome it for consumers that take such things into consideration.

Agreed. There are three things that are keeping MS ahead of Sony: 360 launched first leading to the effect you mentioned, 360 is is cheaper, and MS spent money on hardware in all the right places (aside from the reliability goofup, of course, but who knows if cost reduction was culprit or not).

The last factor is huge. When looking at the long term, Sony's biggest problem is that it's so hard to make a title really look/feel superior on the PS3 compared to what can be done on 360. Sony's last two cards that could make a big impact - GT5 and FF - are entirely due to fan base and dev talent, so they aren't really trends of things to come.

Another big milestone on the horizon is MS cashing on the the core SKU strategy. The core SKU was never really viable early in the lifecycle but if they have to, MS will call their mark on this strategy and have a 360 arcade next year with no games for 199. Sony is still at 399 and theyve had to stretch to get there. How low could they possibly go next year? 299?

If MS leaves out the memory card, which is a great cash cow, they could probably go even lower than $199 by the end of next year.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Either way, it is vastly better than the current state of PS3 numbers and the Assassins Creed and COD4 numbers...have they sold 1000K on the PS3?

They wouldn't have as of the NPD date. Ubisoft had given out 2.5 million worldwide (although I'm sure some of that was post NPD) for AC, we know at least 1.12 million of that was for the 360 in the US.

I've no doubt it will reach a million or so for ps3 and probably 4 for 360.

CoD4 seems to be more geared towards the 360 crowd (relative attach rate is better), but its still going to eventually sell a million and a half+ on the ps3 (ww) and it will probably move 6 on the 360.

The PS3 is far from dead, but its going to be 3rd place in NA for the foreseeable future. Its more than 5 million behind and it's likely that number is going to be 6 million after December. NA 3rd party exclusives are going to get very expensive for Sony.

 

[patsu]

First, this is strictly an NA discussion as per the thread title. I recognize theres other facets to the larger picture and while they are relevant, arent necessary to discuss NA and NPD. I understand your point, but its just too broad for us to debate in this thread.

Then perhaps the premise is shaky ? Why would dev not develop for PS3 if only NA doesn't perform as well (Europe has English anyway) ? My point was looking at NA alone and jumping to the larger conclusion may be flawed.

I left MGS and KZ out on purpose because i dont see those games as the established differentiators that GT5 and FF are. MGS may very well end up multiplatform and many have argued about its current mainstream appeal. Killzone is essentially a new IP, with no notable heritage to draw on so it will have to stand on its own against similarly unproven IPs on 360.

They would still count as part of the PS3 package.

I could be swayed on including MGS4 but KZ2 is a definite no-no at this point. We pretty much know that KZ is going to be a Q4 2008 release, we (purposefully) havent seen hide nor hair of what MS has planned for 2008 in months so we're left to compare KZ to imaginary games. For example, right now, i could surmise KZ2 vs Gears of War 2 for holiday 2008. From a pure franchise standpoint, Gears has a tremendous advantage.

Guerilla Games has a good PSP game so far and the trailers/demos of KZ2 looks convincing. If Sony markets it right (like MS for Gears), it should be at least an attention grabber. As I mentioned, I am not looking at individual titles but the entire PS3 game library. In any case, these are just personal perceptions/opinion at this stage.

KZ2 only has mindshare among the hardcore now because of the E3 controversies and because Sony is TELLING us its big. But in reality we dont ahve anything else on 360 to compare it to for November 2008. Similar to when we first saw the ratchet screens, we hadnt considered at the time that Asassins creed would be so impressive. (insert other games here but hopefully my point is at least clear, if not compelling)

So, my point was, that of the 'just wait until X happens' I think the truth is Sony is down to their last 2 cards. After those, it will take something new to turn the tide.

Heh... I have always maintained that people don't have to worry about big companies. I don't see any truth here (yet ?) except your prediction.

Sony is at a point now where they need more than a sales bump, they need to reverse a trend.

Yes, they need to establish a positive trend for themselves and partners regardless of how well MS or Nintendo is doing. The world is big enough.

Even though we've had porting issues this yeara, Im hearing a lot of 'i bought the 360 version because all my friends are on 360 and its easier to play on XBL' or 'i bought the 360 version becuase of the achievements'. This momentum is precisely why MS launched first and it will be difficult to overcome it for consumers that take such things into consideration.

Yes, the network effect is something that is a barrier of entry and an asset. But Sony has its own too, though starting late. I have my own clique of PSN gamers to play with regularly and it seems more of my real life friends are joining me too. The onus is on Sony to find an identity for this crowd (similar to how Nintendo found one for Wii). As for feature set and ease of use, the ball is in Sony's court.

Another big milestone on the horizon is MS cashing on the the core SKU strategy. The core SKU was never really viable early in the lifecycle but if they have to, MS will call their mark on this strategy and have a 360 arcade next year with no games for 199. Sony is still at 399 and theyve had to stretch to get there. How low could they possibly go next year? 299?

We can talk about different strategies by MS and Sony but I'd prefer to base it on real events. Currently, my belief is that as long as Sony can continue to grow its user base, gamers, casual gamers and non-gamers, they will do just fine. Existing developers may have new avenues to make more money.

The Playstation Network is a larger picture than just NA gamers.


EDIT: As for people citing million sellers on 360 and PS3... only 2 million sellers for PS3 in 2007 is good to know since this is a fact. The 360 numbers is dodgy and it would be moot if people try to combine 2 years of 360 million sellers to compare with Wii and PS3. It looks like Wii is indeed a monster... handicapped hardware sales and stellar first year title performance even though hardcore gamers constantly bitch about lack of games. The point is to drive digital entertainment into everyone's life. Nintendo is certainly leading the way there.