NPD Nov. You know you want it!

[PARANOiA]

Let's talk about some NPD and sales stuff for a change...
Who else finds it interesting that most predictions put the X360 at 1.2-1.4 million units? It's only 300K more than last year's sales, even though the console is $50 cheaper and has a plethora of AAA games available. I thought they should be able to sell at least 1.5 million,

What can be the reason to keep the estimations so conservative? It may be simple math using the numbers released by MS, suggesting only a slight increase compared to last year's results... Or maybe the price cut wasn't enough and the market for a $300+ console is starting to get saturated. The 40GB PS3 might have cut into their sales as well, selling to a similar audience and moving 7-900K units. After all, the best selling games for Sony's console are COD4 and Assassin, so it might have caught the same group of people.

If this turns out to be the case, I think MS really needs to do a price cut ASAP...

Also, who thinks COD4's going to be the best selling game for december? It looks like it's sold out almost everywhere, or at least is in short supply, which suggests an amazing success...

I think the 360's numbers will definitely be less than last year. Last year, what were the big Christmas games? Gears for 360 and Zelda and Wii Sports for Wii - if you could find it. Gears was easily the most "stunning" game, especially given the fact that the PS3 was much more expensive. The 360 really rode it home to huge sales.

In 2007 there were awesome games on each machine over the last quarter of the year. With Mario and Uncharted (among others), there were strong reasons to pick up the other consoles. And hey, there can't have been too many gamers sitting on the fence for the 360 given the only price drop since launch was pretty insignificant. I think the market for 360 owners at the current price isn't going to be spiking too sharply any time soon - though 1.2-1.3m on NPD's isn't bad of course. Just that the market is drying up - I'd expect a price drop in Q1 or Q2.

COD4 will knock socks off, though I'm guessing Wii will surprise a lot of people too. SMG should be #1, but it'll probably be something like Sonic and Mario at the Olympics holding the top Wii slot. Sigh.

 

[AlphaWolf]

I think the 360's numbers will definitely be less than last year. Last year, what were the big Christmas games? Gears for 360 and Zelda and Wii Sports for Wii - if you could find it. Gears was easily the most "stunning" game, especially given the fact that the PS3 was much more expensive. The 360 really rode it home to huge sales.

Well Laa-Yosh was commenting that estimates weren't significantly higher, after a much better Nov than last year, you could expect that Dec would also be much better than last year. There are some mitigating factors such as the blockbuster titles for 2007 released a bit earlier but I don't really think there's any chance that the 360 won't outsell last years 1.1 million. I still expect it to be around 1.5m, but we'll find out tomorrow.

In 2007 there were awesome games on each machine over the last quarter of the year. With Mario and Uncharted (among others), there were strong reasons to pick up the other consoles. And hey, there can't have been too many gamers sitting on the fence for the 360 given the only price drop since launch was pretty insignificant. I think the market for 360 owners at the current price isn't going to be spiking too sharply any time soon - though 1.2-1.3m on NPD's isn't bad of course. Just that the market is drying up - I'd expect a price drop in Q1 or Q2.

COD4 will knock socks off, though I'm guessing Wii will surprise a lot of people too. SMG should be #1, but it'll probably be something like Sonic and Mario at the Olympics holding the top Wii slot. Sigh.

Wii sales will be close to whatever Nintendo was able to get to retail. While the 360s price drop may not have gotten a lot of people to jump in, the massive increase in AAA titles in 2007 will certainly have put the 360 on a lot of wish lists. The PS3 will also see a huge surge as it was $200 cheaper than it was a year earlier.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Er... last year's december number for the 360 has been 1.1 million, so doing worse than that would actually be a small disaster, really.

This year's best selling holiday games were Halo3 and COD4, with stuff like Assassin and Mass Effect and such for people who don't like FPS that much. All available on the 360.
People didn't really care for Uncharted, Ratchet, or any other games independent of their platform, as evidenced by their weak sales. People getting a PS3 bought it for the very same games and not for the exclusives as it seems.

Also, I can't see how SMG and Wii could steer away people from the other machines - it's a completely different crowd IMHO. Despite the fact that one of my friends is the greatest fan of both Halo3 and SMG that I know (I'll try to get a photo of his birthday cake... )

 

[Laa-Yosh]

While the 360s price drop may not have gotten a lot of people to jump in, the massive increase in AAA titles in 2007 will certainly have put the 360 on a lot of wish lists. The PS3 will also see a huge surge as it was $200 cheaper than it was a year earlier.

My reasons to get a 360 were pretty much the above...
It was cheap enough, compared to most friends buying it at its release paying almost twice as much (although some had to buy Cores with extra hard drives and stuff because Premiums were sold out).
It has a lot of games now that I care about (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Halo3, COD4) compared to last year (Gears and basically that's it).
It's also a little more reliable (I got a zephyr, would've liked a Falcon) and it has HDMI and a quieter DVD drive.

It seems reasonable to me to assume that there's a lot of people out there who were thinking about this the same way... and who'll probably buy a PS3 too, once it's cheap enough and has the games .

 

[PARANOiA]

Er... last year's december number for the 360 has been 1.1 million, so doing worse than that would actually be a small disaster, really.

Sorry - I thought last year was 1.5m for some reason. Doing "much worse" in my head meant 1.2m, or 20% or so worse with better software.

 

[Rangers]

Let's talk about some NPD and sales stuff for a change...
Who else finds it interesting that most predictions put the X360 at 1.2-1.4 million units? It's only 300K more than last year's sales, even though the console is $50 cheaper and has a plethora of AAA games available. I thought they should be able to sell at least 1.5 million,

What can be the reason to keep the estimations so conservative? It may be simple math using the numbers released by MS, suggesting only a slight increase compared to last year's results... Or maybe the price cut wasn't enough and the market for a $300+ console is starting to get saturated. The 40GB PS3 might have cut into their sales as well, selling to a similar audience and moving 7-900K units. After all, the best selling games for Sony's console are COD4 and Assassin, so it might have caught the same group of people.

If this turns out to be the case, I think MS really needs to do a price cut ASAP...

Also, who thinks COD4's going to be the best selling game for december? It looks like it's sold out almost everywhere, or at least is in short supply, which suggests an amazing success...

Ehh, maybe the fact PS3 sold 800k as well? And Wii a crapload besides? People dont have infinite wallets I suppose. A lot of PS3 sales probably come directly out of 360 sales since they're such similarly targeted machines.

There were some spot shortages of 360 in Dec as well. I doubt they had a huge effect on sales though.

360 doesn't seem to be able to break much beyond that 1-1.1m Dec mark Xbox and 360 have consistently done, it's true.

1.4m would be a solid success imo, and be the best Xbox month ever. 1.2m would be a success, but not an outstanding one.

 

[TheMightyPuck]

I think 1.2 is probably where it is at but that is sheer speculation. I think those are good numbers considering how much competition there was this christmas. 1.5 would mean crazy celebrations for MicroSoft. 1.0 is pretty much bad news.

 

[StefanS]

Guys, don't forget to create a new thread for the december numbers

 

[AlNom]

And make sure the first post includes those numbers

 

[iceberg187]

And make sure the first post includes those numbers

Matt-IGN talks NPD

Massive numbers all around. Massive. And Wii software sales are rockin', too. 360 isn't far behind, though.