All purpose Sales and Sales Rumors and Anecdotes [2017 Edition]

[Silent_Buddha]

First sub-40k unit week for the Switch in Japan. Hard to say whether this is due to demand finally slowing or just the normal slump in sales due to this being the first week after Golden Week (all console related sales dropped significantly for May 8-14).

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Interesting, from EA's 10k filing according to Neogaf. It's shockingly good result for Xbox

EA Access could play a part in the skew towards Xbox.

Also, it doesn't entirely make sense that they included Gamestop since I guess these are world numbers and GS is USA only. I guess the purpose of the note may have just been fiscal legalese to inform that Gamestop is now under 10% of sales since EA had noted before they were >10%.

I've been thinking a skew towards more digital sales on Xbox seems likely since Ubisoft numbers, though. Where we see the software sales closer than the hardware install base difference, and we see Europe physical charts outside the UK heavily dominated by Playstation.

There's also that Japan playstation hardware wont affect EA much, but this is still a relatively small amount.

And just that EA will likely be a western and USA focused publisher. More than say, Ubisoft. Especially with Madden, although they also have Fifa which will skew to Europe and is an even bigger franchise.

Overall I dont really know, the numbers seem odd and I'm a little skeptical to take them at face value, maybe we are missing something.

A Neogaf moderator also posted this:

An example of this is that For Honor's first month in the US had 52% digital sales, versus an industry average in the 30-35% currently. In that scenario, GameStop likely saw that sales for the game notably below expectations, while to Ubisoft, they were incredible, and much higher margin than expected to boot.

I dont have a source on 52% For Honor first month sales digital, but that's getting into crazy territory. Digital full game sales are really on fire. It looks like consoles are headed the way of PC quicker than I thought after all. I know that's generally true for me, digital purchases are so much more convenient, who wants to go to the store and buy a disk or wait a week for it from Amazon.

Also the mod pointed out say, Gamestop complained about Battlefront sales being weak, but the game went on to sell great evidently. The point being is that Gamestop doesn't matter so much anymore.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Gamestop operates mainly in the US, but they have at least couple thousand stores outside the USA.

 

[djskribbles]

Interesting, from EA's 10k filing according to Neogaf. It's shockingly good result for Xbox

EA Access could play a part in the skew towards Xbox.

Battlefield partnership probably helped a lot too. I wonder if those digital codes included in the BF bundles were factored in somehow.

Sony had Battlefront bundles, but those included a physical copy.

 

[Globalisateur]

Interesting, from EA's 10k filing according to Neogaf. It's shockingly good result for Xbox

EA Access could play a part in the skew towards Xbox.

...

What skew ? I don't get it from this document.

 

[BRiT]

What skew ? I don't get it from this document.

Direct MS Xbox sales counted for 17% of revenue when MS Hardware is under 33% of the market.
Direct Sony PS sales counted for 19% of revenue when Sony Hardware is over 66% of the market.

That's the skew.

 

[djskribbles]

Right, but remember this is revenue from digital only. I'm guessing the numbers are skewed because of the way Sony/MS handled HW bundles, plus MS had more EA partnerships and HW bundles. PS4/EA bundles (Battlefront, Fifa?) included physical copies, whereas XB1/EA bundles were digital (BF1, Madden, Fifa). Again, I'm sure some of the revenue from those bundles were included.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Direct MS Xbox sales counted for 17% of revenue when MS Hardware is under 33% of the market.
Direct Sony PS sales counted for 19% of revenue when Sony Hardware is over 66% of the market.

That's the skew.

There's a significant similar skew for Ubisoft's reportings, with MS having more than their hardware share sales of Ubi titles. Makes you think.

 

[iroboto]

There's a significant similar skew for Ubisoft's reportings, with MS having more than their hardware share sales of Ubi titles. Makes you think.

The recently released demographics of the XBOX users showcase a high home income with an older median age IIRC. Might just be that Xbox by proportion of their own population have a lot more users willing to spend money. Where on Sony's side, that population gets highly diluted with the number of children who are unable to generate income and require mom and pop to pay for their entertainment.

That's of course just 1 opinion of millions. I mean we could easily say that Sony users are more interested in exclusives, and since XBox has no exclusives are forced to buy 3rd party? haha we can literally write any dialog here that would suit your stance.

 

[zed]

Makes you think.

Yes it makes me think, why does Capcom have a 6:1 sales ratio for ps vs xbox, i.e. 3x larger than the 2:1 install base
ala you just can't look at a few pieces of the pie, you need the whole

 

[Shifty Geezer]

ala you just can't look at a few pieces of the pie, you need the whole

Pie never survives long enough to be looked at...

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yes it makes me think, why does Capcom have a 6:1 sales ratio for ps vs xbox, i.e. 3x larger than the 2:1 install base
ala you just can't look at a few pieces of the pie, you need the whole

I'm not saying you're wrong, but where did you get that information? I can't find it in any of Capcoms financial reports after a brief look. That's a large enough ratio that I'm interested in seeing the data behind it.

What I did find was pretty interesting. Capcom are moving to focusing more on digital downloads as the physical market for them continues to contract while the digital download market continues to grow.

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/data/oar/2016/growth/gr01.html

The merits of digital downloads include (1)avoiding inventory risk and reducing package production costs through full-game downloads, (2) additional earnings opportunities through full-game downloads of catalog titles whose package sales are difficult for retailers and (3) anchor users through ongoing add-on contents and stable acquisition of additional revenue over the long term.

These represent one measure to counter concerns over intense sales volatility due to dependence on hit titles in the Consumer business and skyrocketing development costs. In addition to the stable provision of core brands, the accumulation of steady digital download sales each fiscal year will further the transition to a recurring revenue business model. At present, we are focused on points (1) and (2), but going forward, we will strengthen point (3) to increase the digital download ratio, which is currently 26%, to 50% over the medium-term. This will bolster additional recurring revenue by anchoring users for more than one year after launch, and as these games will have a large number of active users, it will also lead to the acquisition of new users, effectively controlling sales volatility each fiscal year.

DD currently is 26% for them for FY 2016, expected to be 30% for FY 2017, and they want to increase it to at least 50% over the next few years (medium-term)

Also interesting is that they are one of the few non-Chinese publishers to have Asia dominating revenue generation. This is due to their massive investment in Mobile and PC software development for the Chinese market.

Regards,
SB

 

[BRiT]

Yes it makes me think, why does Capcom have a 6:1 sales ratio for ps vs xbox, i.e. 3x larger than the 2:1 install base
ala you just can't look at a few pieces of the pie, you need the whole

Because Sony money-hatted Capcom to only sell StreetFighterV on their console.

Its impossible to get revenue from Xbox when you dont sell games on Xbox.

 

[djskribbles]

And MS money-hatted Capcom for Dead Rising?

edit: Anyway, I think zed's point was to take software revenue with a pinch of salt if you're using them to determine attach-rates for these consoles. Too many variables with partnership deals, bundles etc. Plus I think the PS4 has a much more diverse audience, simply because it has a much larger install base, and it sells well worldwide.

I do think that XB1 might have an edge when it comes to attach-rate based on previous consoles, but I doubt it's significantly different. And ultimately, and most importantly (for publishers), PS4 is still generating more revenue.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think the biggest take away is that both PS4 and XBO are extremely profitable for publishers that are able to invest in making their titles multiplatform despite the large disparity in install base.

Regards,
SB

 

[Globalisateur]

Battlefield partnership probably helped a lot too. I wonder if those digital codes included in the BF bundles were factored in somehow.

Sony had Battlefront bundles, but those included a physical copy.

This. Also in Europe Fifa in the Fifa bundle have to be counted as digital sales.

There is no spoon skew.

 

[BRiT]

This. Also in Europe Fifa in the Fifa bundle have to be counted as digital sales.

There is no spoon skew.

So now you're saying that the xbox hardware is selling well in US and Europe just to discount the possibility that xbox consumers are more skewed towards digital?

 

[Globalisateur]

So now you're saying that the xbox hardware is selling well in US and Europe just to discount the possibility that xbox consumers are more skewed towards digital?

No. I am just saying that as we don't know the exact sales of those EA digital games included in the Xbox (BF1 and Fifa) compared to the whole EA games sold digitally on Microsoft store (and compared to the PS4 side of things which don't package EA digital games) we can't say for sure there is an actual skew.

Also for most part of the year in US and in most European countries the cheaper xbox1 was respectively the BF1 bundle and the Fifa bundle. Those buyers certainly didn't buy those games physically whereas the majority of PS4 gamers most certainly bought those games physically, according to the usual 30% 70% ratio.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

While some bundles will be bought for people that don't want the game (as I've mentioned previously in another thread) most of those people were likely going to buy those titles anyway. Fiancial reports aren't like NPD reports where bundles aren't counted.

IE - In general people that don't have access to the bundle are still going to buy the title. So for a company, bundled sales don't affect anything significantly. On the platform with the bundle you'll have a greater proportion of sales from bundles but if the bundles didn't exist those sales wouldn't drop all that significantly when looking at their entire sales profile, even if it might be somewhat noticeable on a per title basis.

In other words, despite some small X amount of bundles going to people who aren't interested in the game included in the bundle, in general those games would be bought anyway if they weren't in a bundle. Hence, unlike NPD, financial results give a truer reflection of general consumer interest in software.

Regards,
SB

 

[Globalisateur]

While some bundles will be bought for people that don't want the game (as I've mentioned previously in another thread) most of those people were likely going to buy those titles anyway. Fiancial reports aren't like NPD reports where bundles aren't counted.

IE - In general people that don't have access to the bundle are still going to buy the title. So for a company, bundled sales don't affect anything significantly. On the platform with the bundle you'll have a greater proportion of sales from bundles but if the bundles didn't exist those sales wouldn't drop all that significantly when looking at their entire sales profile, even if it might be somewhat noticeable on a per title basis.

In other words, despite some small X amount of bundles going to people who aren't interested in the game included in the bundle, in general those games would be bought anyway if they weren't in a bundle. Hence, unlike NPD, financial results give a truer reflection of general consumer interest in software.

Regards,
SB

Yes, but not necessarily digitally. Currently I have read people still buy roughly 70% physically, which would be the case for all EA games on PS4 as they aren't bundled digitally. So the skew towards Xbox gamers 'buying' (via bundle or via MS store) more EA games digitally would be normal in this particular case.