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

[djskribbles]

What has sold more, PUBG or Xbox One?

Probably XB1 by a bit, but PUBG will fly passed XB1 sales soon. Last reported player count was 30M in late December.

This is true. Xbox sells about one worldwide for every one in the USA. Sony sells about 2 worldwide for every one in the USA. Always been the case. So when Sony is winning in the USA even, as they are this generation, one can see how strong they are.

However, ask yourself why if Xbox is doing so bad every major third party game is still announced for it? When that stops, it's a different discussion. However that's not even a consideration currently. There are people who imply Xbox is just selling terribly, horribly, zero. However if that was true, every major third party game I can think of except SFV (which is also on Windows anyway) wouldn't be on Xbox also. And of course a few more niche Japanese centric games like Nier Automata, Persona.

Also it's a distinction that the markets Xbox does best on (USA/UK) are going to be the most lucrative and profitable per customer with higher digital uptake. The farther you get into smaller European countries that are overwhelmingly dominated by Playstation like Spain and Portugal, sales per capita decrease and per consumer revenue likely also decreases, these are less connected and less wealthy. Japan is sort of it's own ecosystem and we dont have a lot of insight into other world markets like South America, the Far East, The Middle East, Russia etc.

Xbox still does well in the US/UK, who spend a lot of money on games. High profile AAA games generate the most revenue and always sell well on Xbox, so they will continue to support the platform. That's why on sales reports from some of the bigger game publishers like EA or Ubisoft, software sales are a bit skewed towards XB1.

However, even though PS sells to smaller countries that spend less money on games, they still manage to stay competitive with XB in terms of overall software attach rate because it has a larger, more diverse library.

Publishers/game makers will always support XB1 with the high-profile AAA games, but the smaller AAA games they might decide to skip. For example Nioh, NieR, Persona 5 and SFV etc. These may be considered niche titles, but they all went on to be multi-million sellers (edit: Except for maybe Nioh, which reportedly sold over 1M in the first 2 weeks. Couldn't find any updates though).

 

[Rangers]

Could you show those NPD data ?

I just follow the GAF/Era NPD discussions. Sometimes there are more precise leaks (although some of those turn out less accurate than we thought later!) sometimes it's just estimates based on the Era prediction thread winners. And I just keep a notepad that I write down the final "best estimates" based on that, which requires trolling through the bottom of a lot of pages of NPD threads. No forum even wants to surface these estimates as NPD wouldn't be happy.

Anyways for Xbox in 2017 (it was a terrible non holiday year for Xbox sales btw, although November was pretty in line or strong) I have
Jan ~158k
Feb 215k
March 244k
April 110k
May 109k
June 153k
July ~123k
August 116k
September ~175k
October ~130k
November ~1380k

That's circa 2.9m so far.

Dec?? Should be 1-1.5+ million.

BTW looking at it those non November numbers are pretty abysmal. Xbox must hope people were waiting for the X. Still, after a point TBH continuing hardware sales in some ways dont seem to even affect software sales ratio PS/Xbox all that much, if that makes any sense. There's a (significantly) smaller active core at any time than there is actual install base of the core consoles. And most of that core already has an Xbox or PS. The consoles are reliable, so people dont need to buy replacements to juice up those hardware sales, too. A significant (if minority) portion of hardware sales might be collectors buying special editions and the like, not new entrants. I know a guy who has like 4-5 themed Xbox Ones...

 

[DieH@rd]

^ Do you have PS4 in 2017 list?

 

[BRiT]

What has sold more, PUBG or Xbox One?

Hrm, $30 or $200-$500 might just have an impact.

 

[djskribbles]

Hrm, $30 or $200-$500 might just have an impact.

That's not really a fair comparison, XB1 is the platform while PUBG is just a game. Gaming platforms appeal to a much broader market because they play several games of various genres for several years, while games generally only appeal to a certain demographic and typically only sell for a few years. There are only a small handful of gaming platforms to choose from, vs several thousands of games, and obviously you need a gaming platform to play these games. That's why consoles, despite being far more expensive than the games themselves, generally sell more units.

And FWIW, PUBG was only on the market for <1 year, while XB1 was on the market for >4 years.

It's a kind of an unusual comparison. It's not so much a knock at XB1 sales, but to show how impressive PUBG is selling on just two platforms (even more impressive that the majority are on PC).

The creator of PUBG recently said that they want to release the game on all platforms. Once this happens, the game might become one of the best selling games of all time.

 

[Recop]

However, ask yourself why if Xbox is doing so bad every major third party game is still announced for it? When that stops, it's a different discussion. However that's not even a consideration currently. There are people who imply Xbox is just selling terribly, horribly, zero. However if that was true, every major third party game I can think of except SFV (which is also on Windows anyway) wouldn't be on Xbox also. And of course a few more niche Japanese centric games like Nier Automata, Persona.

Why would they skip about 30 millions of consumers ? It makes no sense...

Also it's a distinction that the markets Xbox does best on (USA/UK) are going to be the most lucrative and profitable per customer with higher digital uptake.

There are others countries like France and Germany. Actually, there are many important countries close to the UK market at least.

I just follow the GAF/Era NPD discussions. Sometimes there are more precise leaks (although some of those turn out less accurate than we thought later!) sometimes it's just estimates based on the Era prediction thread winners. And I just keep a notepad that I write down the final "best estimates" based on that, which requires trolling through the bottom of a lot of pages of NPD threads. No forum even wants to surface these estimates as NPD wouldn't be happy.

There are no reasons to believe that what you find on forums should be more accurate than EA estimates. I mean, they are in the industry, it's a serious thing for them, not a game or a hobby... and they likely use the data of the most reliable institutes.

 

[Rangers]

^ Do you have PS4 in 2017 list?

Of course
Jan ~211k
Feb 398k
March 397k
April 206k
May 187k
June 381k
July 217k
August 190k
September ~305k
October ~205k
November ~1690k

Total ~4.4 million so far. Another 1-1.5+ pending in Dec.

 

[Rangers]

There are no reasons to believe that what you find on forums should be more accurate than EA estimates. I mean, they are in the industry, it's a serious thing for them, not a game or a hobby... and they likely use the data of the most reliable institutes.

I'm not gonna call EA estimates out of hand inaccurate, because IIRC they've roughly checked out in the past. However, unless they source them, you are just believing on blind faith. Whereas Reset Era numbers are for sure based on NPD. Sure, many corporations can be wildly wrong. I remember some corporation (IDC?) famously forecast PS3 to outsell X360 like 3-1 at the beginning of last generation.

What that guy posted from EA that actually contradicted (105 million PS4/Xbox at the end of 2017, meaning only 4 million Xbox could be sold worldwide in 2017 for it to be correct, which we know is wrong, since Xbox will sell 4 million in 2017 in USA alone) was actually a future prediction by EA, so I guess you could just say they were incorrect ( lowballed, especially PS4) in their prediction, not that their past statements were wrong.

Using my widely beloved ratios (TM) PS4 should be like ~75 million at the and of 2017 and Xbox maybe like ~38 million (sold). That would be ~113 million versus EA's prediction of 105 million ps4/xbox at this time. But again, PS4 in particular sold better in 2017 than expected.

PS4 should also be overtaking PS3 before too long I guess. Which finished at 80-85 million. Then again, we are entering year 5 of this generation. PS3 lasted about 7 years before it's successor launched.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

There are no reasons to believe that what you find on forums should be more accurate than EA estimates. I mean, they are in the industry, it's a serious thing for them, not a game or a hobby... and they likely use the data of the most reliable institutes.

Estimates are exactly that. Estimates. They are by definition not accurate. How inaccurate they are could vary anywhere form 5% to 20% or even more if their data is bad or trends don't match past trends.

Regards,
SB

 

[Recop]

Estimates are exactly that. Estimates. They are by definition not accurate. How inaccurate they are could vary anywhere form 5% to 20% or even more if their data is bad or trends don't match past trends.

Sure, but it should be better than that : "I just follow the GAF/Era NPD discussions. Sometimes there are more precise leaks (although some of those turn out less accurate than we thought later!) sometimes it's just estimates based on the Era prediction thread winners. And I just keep a notepad that I write down the final "best estimates" based on that, which requires trolling through the bottom of a lot of pages of NPD threads. No forum even wants to surface these estimates as NPD wouldn't be happy."

Rangers doesn't have the real data :

1) He doesn't have access to any reliable institute.

2) He believes in a ratio that could be wrong.

Whereas Reset Era numbers are for sure based on NPD.

How can you know that those numbres are reliable ?

What that guy posted from EA that actually contradicted (105 million PS4/Xbox at the end of 2017, meaning only 4 million Xbox could be sold worldwide in 2017 for it to be correct

Or something close... your ratio comes from anywhere, i'm sorry. Also this sentence applies to you about the Resetera data : "you are just believing on blind faith."

 

[djskribbles]

EA has done forecasts and estimates. I believe the number Rangers is referring to was a forecast done by EA earlier 2017, which of course will not be accurate.

ZhugeEx has said that EA's actual estimates are probably very close, give or take.

EA's estimates were one of the numbers I've used to calculate USA/RoTW sales splits for XB1 -- that along with Sony's actual sales data and NPD sales data (since EA's estimates were combined PS4/XB1).

There have been other estimates done by other companies, and all available data points to USA making up ~58% of all XB1 sales, which is the number I use to calculate WW XB1 sales based on NPD sales data. Obviously that isn't 100% accurate by any means, but it's probably the closest we can get.

Also, NPD's numbers are not 100% accurate either, they are also in fact estimates based on sales data collected across the country by most retailers.

 

[Recop]

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...during-the-2017-holiday-season-300579105.html : "PS4 has now cumulatively sold through more than 73.6 million units*2 globally as of December 31, 2017."

So, Xbox one sales are around 32 millions.

 

[djskribbles]

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...during-the-2017-holiday-season-300579105.html : "PS4 has now cumulatively sold through more than 73.6 million units*2 globally as of December 31, 2017."

• PS4 has sold through to consumers more than 5.9 million units*1 during the 2017 holiday season.
• PS4 has now cumulatively sold through more than 73.6 million units*2 globally as of December 31, 2017.
• More than 55.9 million*3 PS4 games were sold during the 2017 holiday season in retail stores worldwide and through digital downloads on PlayStation®Store. This totals up to 645.0 million copies*4 cumulatively sold as of December 31, 2017.

"Thanks to the continued support from our fans across the globe, we are honored to announce remarkable sales during the holiday season," said John Kodera, President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. "PlayStation Network continues to demonstrate spectacular growth, with the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers surpassing 31.5 million*5, and PS Store recording its largest-ever monthly sales of content in December 2017. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to our community and our partners for helping us achieve such phenomenal milestones. We promise our unwavering commitment to bring more amazing experiences to our fans, including exclusive games and innovative network services, as PS4 continues to flourish as the best place to play."

PS4's software attach ratio is 8.76.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/950526210697777152

PS4 was slightly down YOY during the holiday season, but up 15.4% YOY overall, probably because Sony didn't do much in December as far as promos.

2018 could potentially be an even bigger year for Sony with the software lineup the PS4 has, and a potential price drop.

PS4 will probably reach 100M by around mid-2019. My guess is the PS4 will finish around 120-125M lifetime.

So, Xbox one sales are around 32 millions.

34-35M sold-through to date would be my guess.

 

[bunge]

PS4's software attach ratio is 8.76.

Does that include the November/December sales of the system? If so, wouldn’t that “artificially” deflate the number for any system?

 

[Rangers]

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...during-the-2017-holiday-season-300579105.html : "PS4 has now cumulatively sold through more than 73.6 million units*2 globally as of December 31, 2017."

So, Xbox one sales are around 32 millions.

Are you this dense?

It was a console sales FORECAST by EA. A FORECAST made in early 2017. Do you know what a forecast means? Get a dictionary. EA doesn't have a crystal ball.

Geez.

For the Playstation number, little low vs expectations (mine anyway). Just a few posts ago I put them at 75m after Dec. Given the 1:3 (.2) ratio is always exactly correct, it means they sold around 1 million in Dec NPD.

That's sarcasm btw, a little. Given there's so much slop in the ratio for any given shorter time period, who knows, but it doesn't suggest a stupendous PS4 Dec NPD.

Could possibly be Switch 1, Xbox 2, PS4 3, for December NPD, as Benji on Era hinted. That would be my guess right now. But the order of the 2nd two could also easily be reversed. Switch should be a clear #1 by most tea leaves.

 

[bunge]

Are you this dense?

Maybe he just couldn’t be arsed to find a reference.

Oh and PS4 beat XBO, cant be arsed to find a reference.

 

[djskribbles]

Does that include the November/December sales of the system? If so, wouldn’t that “artificially” deflate the number for any system?

Yeah it includes sales up to December 31st.

As for artificially deflating numbers, maybe a bit but probably not much. A lot of people receive consoles as gifts with no games, but at the same time, these are busy shopping months where a lot of money is spent on games to sort of compensate. The holidays might negatively affect consoles earlier on more so when the install base is smaller and there's less selection.

I think 8.76 is pretty good for ~4 years in a gen. I think it typically goes up as we get later into the console cycle.

 

[Globalisateur]

PS4's software attach ratio is 8.76.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/950526210697777152

PS4 was slightly down YOY during the holiday season, but up 15.4% YOY overall, probably because Sony didn't do much in December as far as promos.

2018 could potentially be an even bigger year for Sony with the software lineup the PS4 has, and a potential price drop.

PS4 will probably reach 100M by around mid-2019. My guess is the PS4 will finish around 120-125M lifetime.


34-35M sold-through to date would be my guess.

Yep. They had a ridiculous deal at $249 (same price of last year) with their BF2 bundle (that no one wanted) during like one week in december. The rest of the month PS4 was at $299.

So I was right with my theory that they did their odd pre-BF $200 deal to ruin XBX launch (preventing them to win november NPD).

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The number of PlayStation Plus subscribers surpassing 31.5 million

I'm surprised that less than half are wanting online functionality. That's a real take-home point for devs targeting online only games - you're limiting your potential userbase by half. Of course, ongoing monetisation is the golden goose for online games.

 

[Globalisateur]

I'm surprised that less than half are wanting online functionality. That's a real take-home point for devs targeting online only games - you're limiting your potential userbase by half. Of course, ongoing monetisation is the golden goose for online games.

I am surprised you are surprised. Seems quite a decent ratio IMO.

Are you surprised I am surprised that you are surprised ?