All purpose Sales and Sales Rumors and Anecdotes [2016 Edition]

[Silent_Buddha]

Ubisoft results are out for the 1st Q, so are MS and Nintendo's, of course MS info are totally worthless now. Anyway, the fun part of Ubisoft's results for me (apparently they alsdo did gangbusters digital growth, yadda yadda)

https://www.ubisoft.com/en-US/company/investor_center/earnings_sales.aspx

I wonder why North America and XBO had big jumps YoY? No idea and I think their 1st Q was relatively bereft of releases so, just anomalies of small sample size. The only thing I can think offhand to be driving their sales this Q would be The Division, but who knows.

Taking a look at it. XBO and PS4 gained mostly from X360 and PS3. PS4 +4% and XBO +12% while PS3 and X360 -8% each. Users finally upgrading to the current generation might be part of it. Although I'm not sure why any PS3 user would upgrade to an XBO, so that doesn't fully explain things. The other likely reason is that there's probably less PS3/X360 game releases available to users than a year ago.

When you mentioned Digital being up I was thinking a modest increase, but it was up rather massively. Digital revenue for Q1 ending June 30, 2016 was 75.3% of total sales versus 56.0% for the same quarter the previous year.

Breaking things down with the limited data available in their press release.

47.9 million Euros from Digital items, DLC/Season Pass, Subscriptions, and advertising. (Advertising?)
56.9 million Euros from Digital game sales.
34.3 million Euros from Packaged game sales.

36.2 million Euros from PC. That'll be mostly from the first 2 categories and likely a similar ratio. So roughly 19.6 million euros for PC digital game sales. That would then be a very rough estimate of ~37.3 million Euros from digital game sales on console. Or greater than 50% of UBIsoft's full game sales were from digital.

The ratio of packaged to digital isn't likely going to change for Q2 either as there are no notable packaged releases for Q2 from UBIsoft. The only one is for PC, and we all know how well packaged game sales do on PC.

They are also claiming

Ubisoft was the leading publisher in North America and the EMEA regions for the first six calendar months of 2016 in the retail console market

That is according to data from NPD and GFK. That would seem to imply that physical packaged game sales are rather bad across the board for the first half of 2016 (not first financial half). I'm curious to see other financial releases now. This may indicate that digital sales on consoles may be approaching or surpassing the 50% mark as apparently according to NPD and GFK no other publisher sold as many packaged games as UBIsoft in NA and EMEA for the first half of 2016. In other words, we can make some very rough educated guesses at the revenue split between digital and physical for other publishers based on the physical games sales numbers for UBIsoft for the first half of 2016 combined with reported game sales revenue from the other major publishers.

Of course, NPD and GFK could be completely wrong. I guess it depends on whether you trust their numbers or not when it comes to retail packaged game sales.

The Holiday quarter is going to be very interesting. Consoles may be transitioning to digital sales faster than I expected. But for now, I'm going to consider this as just an early year anomaly. Lack of new releases are likely driving more sales to back catalog digital releases.

Regards,
SB

 

[dobwal]

The reason for the increase on the Xbox side is probably due to the fact that YOY the revenue split went from NA accounting for 41% of revenue to 55% the next.

All the growth in revenue seems to have come out of NA where the Xbox is more competitive.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

The reason for the increase on the Xbox side is probably due to the fact that YOY the revenue split went from NA accounting for 41% of revenue to 55% the next.

All the growth in revenue seems to have come out of NA where the Xbox is more competitive.

That's going to be part of it. And probably why an equal reduction in PS3 and X360 didn't translate into an equal increase in PS4 and XBO respectively. Instead the majority of sales shifted to XBO.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

So it looks like if Amazon is to remain undefeated, Xbox is going to win July on clearance deals. Xbox bundle hardware takes the #9 and 17 spots for the month (assuming these are final rankings) while the top PS4 SKU is #22

the 2TB S is so far the top selling hardware in August too at #6, although there is a long way to go there obviously.

 

[DrJay24]

Sony is on cruise control until Sept 7th. I'm guessing a $299 PS4 and $399 NEO announcement.

 

[upnorthsox]

Sony is on cruise control until Sept 7th. I'm guessing a $299 PS4 and $399 NEO announcement.

Agreed, except I believe almost all available Neo's will be offered in bundles of some type with only enough base Neo's to keep it "honest". That said, I think a Neo bundle of FFXV (or TLG, or COD) with a 1TB drive for $499 will do quite well. With pre-orders of PSVR sold out, limited bundles of those at retail on the 13th should sell out quickly too. Actually, I can't see them not selling out every Neo they have this holiday season along with a fair bit of OG PS4's in the hype/rush. This could be a very big holiday for Sony.

 

[Rangers]

Sony is on cruise control until Sept 7th. I'm guessing a $299 PS4 and $399 NEO announcement.

They're probably gonna lose a couple NPD months finally, starting today. Assuming Amazon isn't wrong. Well, August is hardly settled yet, XBO S 2TB was leading Amazon, but slowly slipping, but presumably the lower priced S options may re-boost it on the 23rd.

Not that a couple slow summer months of losing or winning USA by 10-20% make much difference in the big picture.

299 PS4 wont shock me so much now that they seem to have over shipped PS4 last quarter. That puts MS in a tough spot with XBO because counteracting with a drop to $249 is getting to crazy low territory.

 

[DrJay24]

I'm not sure NPD results are the metrics Sony or MS are using for success.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Sony and MS don't even use the performance of their competitors to determine whether their product is successful. That all comes down to hitting internal sales goals and/or operating profit (operating profit isn't always necessary for a company to consider their product a success).

What NPD and other sales trackers do is allow companies, like Sony and Microsoft, to do strategic planning with more information about a market segment.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

I bet Sony and MS are very very aware what the other guy is doing regardless of internal projections or whatever. Human nature.

Sony and MS (okay, Xbox and Playstation divisions) are locked in a duel company battle, I once heard an exec for Pepsi talk about how cutthroat it was against Coke, that they constantly thought about Coke etc, because it's kind of a zero sum game. When you basically have one direct competitor it's really different and more intense than when you have many.

Anyways the 2TB S has slowly slipped on Amazon but as of August 14 still has a slight edge for now on PS4, #23 vs #26 in the hourlies. Still, things still look good for Xbox to take Amazon August since lower cost S SKU's bring the Calvary on the 23rd.

 

[Entropy]

They're probably gonna lose a couple NPD months finally, starting today. Assuming Amazon isn't wrong. Well, August is hardly settled yet, XBO S 2TB was leading Amazon, but slowly slipping, but presumably the lower priced S options may re-boost it on the 23rd.

Not that a couple slow summer months of losing or winning USA by 10-20% make much difference in the big picture.

299 PS4 wont shock me so much now that they seem to have over shipped PS4 last quarter. That puts MS in a tough spot with XBO because counteracting with a drop to $249 is getting to crazy low territory.

In my country, the XBox1 has sold for less than that bundled with FIFA at major outlets. It still doesn't move. Discussing the relative positions of XB1 vs. PS4 is difficult online, because perception will vary dramatically depending on your geographic location.

 

[Globalisateur]

I bet Sony and MS are very very aware what the other guy is doing regardless of internal projections or whatever. Human nature.

Sony and MS (okay, Xbox and Playstation divisions) are locked in a duel company battle, I once heard an exec for Pepsi talk about how cutthroat it was against Coke, that they constantly thought about Coke etc, because it's kind of a zero sum game. When you basically have one direct competitor it's really different and more intense than when you have many.

Anyways the 2TB S has slowly slipped on Amazon but as of August 14 still has a slight edge for now on PS4, #23 vs #26 in the hourlies. Still, things still look good for Xbox to take Amazon August since lower cost S SKU's bring the Calvary on the 23rd.

Significant XB1 edge in the monthly. 9th VS 21st

https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2016-08/videogames/ref=zg_bsar_videogames_pg_3?ie=UTF8&pg=1

Also No man's sky seems to have sold very well. Already sold better on Amazon (18th) than Ratchet and Clank (21st) or Doom (24th). That's for the whole year. It's the fourth best selling game of the year on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/bestsellers/2016/videogames/ref=zg_bsar_cal_mo#1

 

[Rangers]

Yeah, No Mans Sky sold huge on steam too apparently.

 

[DieH@rd]

NMS is biggest new IP launch for PS4 in UK.

Steam sales are close to 500k.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Steam sales are impressive considering the low initial rating.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Dang It's actually almost 700k on Steam now. It's at 58% positive ratings now compared to 47% when on the day it launched.

To put into perspective how impressive that is. It's a 60 USD title for a small independent developer.

At ~700k sales, that's ~42 million USD in sales. ~29.4 million USD in profit (PROFIT) for the developer (no publisher) and ~12.6 million USD for Steam. If those were physical sales like the majority of PS4 sales will be, it'd just be a fraction of that going to the developer. PS4 version will likely bring them another 5-10 million USD in profit (depending on sales) maybe more maybe less.

That's just amazing for an indie developer.

Regards,
SB

 

[DJ12]

I was going to pick it up myself, but then I played Rebel Galaxy while I was waiting for Uncharted 4 to download and got hooked into that.

If people are still impressed with No Mans Sky in a few months, I might pick it up then.

 

[Rangers]

Germany sales seen by NeoGaf

Lifetime sales:
[PS4] 3,250,000 (3.2m according to the article, but a bit difference from the graph)
[WIU] 750,000
[XB1] 710,000

Year to date in 2016:
[PS4] 460,000
[XB1] 105,000
[WIU] 60,000 [ESTIMATE]

http://www.boerse-online.de/nachric...soft-mit-der-PS4-in-Deutschland-ab-1001354158

Wii U still ahead of XBO in Germany...PS4 winning almost 5:1 overall

 

[Phil]

Wow, that's slaughter....

 

[Rangers]

Amazon August Xbox/PS hardware

#23 2TB Xbox S
#25 500 GB PS4 Uncharted 4
#42 500 GB Xbox S
#57 500 GB PS4
#82 1TB Xbox S

I guess technically Xbox should win the month, although it was much farther ahead last month and barely won.

Edit: Apparently NPD hardware release is today as well. Nice surprise I guess. Of course there's no release so we're completely dependant on whenever Aqua decides to post them I guess.