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

[BRiT]

I dont know where you're reading people still buy physical at 70% mix.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

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.

I'm confused, I wasn't talking about digital and reading my post again, I didn't even mention digital.

What does that even have to do with talking about revenue generation per platform? Whether it's digital or physical it's just revenue. I could see an argument WRT units sold versus revenue. But that's only relevant when we throw PC into the mix (lower ASP, The Surge for example is 50 USD MSRP on Steam versus 60 USD MSRP on console, so more units sold for an equal level of revenue). But for consoles, digital titles aren't generally priced differently from physical titles. So it doesn't matter what the physical to digital mix is WRT revenue. It's important WRT to profits as digital sales are significantly more profitable, but we weren't talking about that.

Regards,
SB

 

[djskribbles]

I'm confused, I wasn't talking about digital and reading my post again, I didn't even mention digital.

What does that even have to do with talking about revenue generation per platform? Whether it's digital or physical it's just revenue. I could see an argument WRT units sold versus revenue. But that's only relevant when we throw PC into the mix (lower ASP, The Surge for example is 50 USD MSRP on Steam versus 60 USD MSRP on console, so more units sold for an equal level of revenue). But for consoles, digital titles aren't generally priced differently from physical titles. So it doesn't matter what the physical to digital mix is WRT revenue. It's important WRT to profits as digital sales are significantly more profitable, but we weren't talking about that.

Regards,
SB

The whole discussion started from Rangers post in regards to EA's revenue generated from digital sales, which then escalated into all software revenue and attach rates. 17% of all of EA's digital sales were generated from XB1, and 19% from PS4. Here XB1 is performing better than what we're used to seeing.

My theory (and what I think Globalisateur is saying) is that MS/EA had more partnership deals and HW bundles. MS had Battlefield, Fifa and Madden on XB1, and Sony had Battlefront and Fifa (which was only in 2015/16 I believe). And more importantly, all XB1 bundles included digital versions of the games, whereas Sony's bundles included physical copies. There's no doubt in my mind that some of the revenue from these XB1 bundles were factored into their numbers. Not to mention the physical copies of the PS4 games potentially taking away from digital sales.

Like I said before, revenue generated by X company is not a good way to judge software attach rates like some people seem to be doing... there are too many variables to consider.

 

[dobwal]

Or it could be that EA is using things like digital bundling to drive the adoption of DD as a primary way to experience EA titles on the XB1. EA Access's discount for new titles isn't available to physical sales. Nor does subscribing to EA Access give you access to its content in a physical format. And when you take account that all EA's DLC is DD based, practically all of EA's content on the Xbox one is available digitally while only base games are offered physically.

EA may be experiencing better adoption of DD on the Xbox one because it has more tools on that platform and readily makes use of them to encourage that adoption.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Finally took a look at the latest EA filing.

Looks like they no longer break down PlayStation vs Xbox numbers like they used to. Instead they are lumped together into generations. So instead of getting PS numbers and XB numbers, we get a combined PS+XB number now. Sigh.

Still there's some interesting information to be had in there.

There's been a massive increase in Full game downloads for the FY ending Mar. 2017. 659 million USD up from 465 million USD the previous year, a 42% increase. Packaged goods had a small decline to 1,971 million USD from 1,987 million USD, a 1% decrease.

Full game DD now accounts for 25.1% of all full game revenue for EA up from 19.0% the previous year. This also marked the first year that Full game DD has generated more revenue than mobile games (626 million USD).

They still have the lowest DD of the 4 major western publishers (Activision is the highest), but they are catching up. This is most noticeable when looking at just Q4 numbers.

Full game DD came in at 259 million USD while Packaged goods came in at 593 million USD. DD made up 30.4% of all full game revenue for EA for Q4.

However, when looking at unit sales from their Q4 FY2017 Prepared Statements.

For fiscal 2017, for the current generation of consoles, full-game downloads accounted for 33% of unit sales to consumers, considerably ahead of the 29% we had
forecast and up 9 percentage points year on year.

I'm guessing the discrepancy between unit sales and full game revenue is due to discounts on digital titles (PSN or XBO DD sales or discounts).

Some more interesting nuggets WRT to the future.

• Bioware is working on a new IP "built around a live service", so maybe MMO-ish?
• Respawn is working on a new Star Wars title as is Visceral.

There might be more interesting nuggets in EA's Fiscal Year report when they release that.

Regards,
SB

 

[zed]

Still there's some interesting information to be had in there.

You again forgot to put the disclaimer all numbers you quote include PC software sales, i.e. those numbers are not only console software sales numbers

I'm guessing the 'true' percentage of console only fullgame download revenue is closer to 10% than it is 25%

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You again forgot to put the disclaimer all numbers you quote include PC software sales, i.e. those numbers are not only console software sales numbers

I'm guessing the 'true' percentage of console only fullgame download revenue is closer to 10% than it is 25%

Did you even read it? This is directly from their report. I'll even bold it for you.

For fiscal 2017, for the current generation of consoles, full-game downloads accounted for 33% of unit sales to consumers, considerably ahead of the 29% we had
forecast and up 9 percentage points year on year.

So you are somehow expecting 33% of Full game sales on console to represent something closer to 10% of Full Game sales revenue?

Using that numbers provided from their report you are then guessing that

• Full game console DD revenue ~10% of full game revenue.
• Full game PC DD revenue ~15% of full game revenue.
• Full game physical revenue ~75 of full game revenue.

Which wouldn't even make sense considering that full game DD console unit sales are 33% of all console full game sales.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Taking another look at their report to try to get more clarity.

PC + Browser (this includes subscription, DLC, etc.) only came to 773 million USD for the FY. This has been steadily declining for them (it was 814 million the previous year). If I were to speculate, it's just due to the fact that Origin isn't nearly as popular or ubiquitous as Steam which its competitors use (except Blizzard). Mobile came in at 627 million USD. This means that most or all of Subcriptions (330 million USD as 55 million is categorized as other) and some part of Extra Content which contains Browser revenue (1.2 billion USD) came out of PC revenue.

Basically the 42% year on year increase in Digital Full Game revenue most likely came purely from console full game sales. And even before that the majority of Full Game Downloads likely came from console.

A lot of people still refuse to install Origin on PC, which likely helps to explain why EA does the worst of all the top 4 publishers in leveraging digital sales as their PC sales are much smaller as a percentage of revenue than other publishers.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Hahaha. OK, whoever makes the slides for the UBIsoft financial reports has either a sense of humor or makes really good typos.

https://ubistatic19-a.akamaihd.net/comsite_common/en-US/images/03ubisoft h1 fy17 slides conf call final_tcm99-273985_tcm99-196733-32.pdf

Slide 6: Multi-Studios Organization

This slide compares frequency of open world game releases by various studios. For Warner Bros.

Shadow of Murder

I wasn't expecting to get a laugh out of a financial report, but that certainly gave me a good chuckle.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

3rd straight week of the Switch doing sub 30k (27,146 for the latest week) in Japan. So demand appears to have reach a plateau for the meantime. Basically it's been doing ~2x to 3x PS4 and 3DS numbers. If you add in PS4-P numbers, it brings it closer to Switch numbers, but never close enough to challenge the Switch's lead. Now it'll be interesting to see if demand in Japan remains 2-3x PS4 numbers for the rest of the year.

Demand in the US appears to be unchanged. Higher supply has done nothing to put a dent in demand for the console in the US. Using Amazon as a rather imprecise rough gauge of interest in the console, 3rd party pricing has remained in the 390-430 USD range. The point of lowest demand was during April when average 3rd party pricing was 360-390 USD.

My pet theory on this is that during April many people were hoping that greater supply starting in March would make it easier to get a unit at MSRP, so they weren't tempted to buy 3rd party marked up units. Once March hit and units remained extremely hard to get at MSRP more people gave up on waiting and started buying 3rd party scalping units. Basically demand may have remained the same, but people are willing to pay more money for a Switch due to expectations of the console remaining difficult to acquire for the foreseeable future combined with highly desirable titles being released.

I only have real life anecdotes from friends and family and streamer/YouTuber comments with which to form this theory so it may not be reflective of the actual drivers behind the uptick in 3rd party pricing post April.

Regards,
SB

 

[Goodtwin]

https://www.google.com/amp/kotaku.c...for-the-nintendo-switch-in-jap-1795808665/amp

Lower sales in Japan do not reflect lower demand, but a lack of supply.

Sent from my SM-G360V using Tapatalk

 

[DieH@rd]

Today's info provided by Sony:

• Horizon Zero Dawn - 3.4M* sales by April 30 [915K via PSN]
• PSVR over 1M, game ratio 5.2
• Pro represents 20% of PS4 sales
• Pro and PSVR still supply constrained, both selling better than Sony forcasted
• EU Playstation boss Jim Ryan on emulated PS1 and PS2 games, and I quote: "they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?"

* - fixed, source

 

[Deleted member 11852]

• Pro represents 20% of PS4 sales

I am very surprised that the Pro market is this large.

 

[DieH@rd]

The old Sony statistic stated that 40% of Pro users are those who upgraded from base PS4.

I am very surprised that the Pro market is this large.

I presume the "fair price" plays a big role in such sales. $100€ over base PS4 [with double sized HDD] was a very smart pricing move by Sony.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

The old Sony statistic stated that 40% of Pro users are those who upgraded from base PS4.

They reconcile. 1 in 5 PlayStation 4 console sales is now a Pro, and 2 out of 25 PlayStation 4 console purchases is a PS4 owner upgrading to a Pro. It'll be interesting to see if that flattens out.

 

[mrcorbo]

They reconcile. 1 in 5 PlayStation 4 console sales is now a Pro, and 2 out of 25 PlayStation 4 console purchases is a PS4 owner upgrading to a Pro. It'll be interesting to see if that flattens out.

PS4 Pro seems to be a much tougher sale as an upgrade. Makes me wonder if Scorpio sales ratios will be similar, or whether the greater power difference (possibly tempered by a greater price difference) moves the needle.

Also, I wonder if any number of consumers will use the refresh consoles as opportunities to cross over. PS4 owners buying Scorpio to get a higher end console *and* access to an additional library of games and XBOne owners buying PS4 Pros for same.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

PS4 Pro seems to be a much tougher sale as an upgrade. Makes me wonder if Scorpio sales ratios will be similar, or whether the greater power difference (possibly tempered by a greater price difference) moves the needle.

There is definitely a larger performance delta between Xbox One and Scorpio than PS4 and Pro, which arguably should make Scorpio a more compelling upgrade proposition for those who give value performance. But how large is that market within the Xbox community? Presumably if a person truly valued performance in the first place you probably went PS4 at the start of this gen. If performance wasn't an issue when you bought your Xbox One, why it is a factor now. Sure people change, but mass markets evolve gradually and adapt slowly. Time will tell...

 

[Globalisateur]

Today's info provided by Sony:

• Horizon Zero Dawn - 4.3M sales by April 30 [915K via PSN]
• PSVR over 1M, game ratio 5.2
• Pro represents 20% of PS4 sales
• Pro and PSVR still supply constrained, both selling better than Sony forcasted
• EU Playstation boss Jim Ryan on emulated PS1 and PS2 games, and I quote: "they looked ancient, like why would anybody play this?"

4.3 ? I thought it was 3.4. Do you have a source ?

 

[DieH@rd]

My bad, I misstyped.

 

[chris1515]

http://time.com/4804768/playstation-4-ps4-pro-psvr-sales/

And nearly 60 millions PS4/PS4 Pro sold through. The announcement will probably soon