All purpose sales and sales rumors/anecdotes thread next gen+

[Phil]

Insomniac going exclusive with MS was the absolutely right thing for that game.

IMO, the jury is still out on that - and perhaps, we'll never know. Personally, I'm sceptical. Insomniac has always been a well received and wellknown developer on the PlayStation brand. Any new game they bring out would automatically receive some attention and awareness. As an example; I wouldn't be surprised if a large majority of people who owned and liked any of the Ratchet & Clank games also bought a copy of Resistance (quite a niche shooter) for that reason. I'm sure there are many PS users who have known and enjoyed previous Insomniac games that would be quite interested in the Sunset Overdrive game, if it were to come out for their platform.

However, they are bringing it to a different platform, with a different userbase - in that sense, they are starting from scratch. It's only logical that they would need quite a bit of PR for that reason, which is where the exclusive contract with MS will come in handy. But was it the right choice? Will they end up with more sales? I'm not convinced, especially considering that the PS4 offers the larger userbase too (something to be fair, Insomniac couldn't predict when they made their deal).

To the same degree, there are probably quite a bit more Bungie/Halo fans to be found among the Xbox One userbase than PS4 - which is probably why by ratio, there's a higher sale/userbase ratio for Destiny on Xbox than for PS4.

 

[Shortbread]

Japan Sales (10/13/14 - 10/19/14)

Source GAF:

Media Create #

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|System | This Week  | Last Week  | Last Year  |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS # |    113.238 |    261.873 |    154.578 |  1.975.526 |  3.598.230 |  16.637.446 |
| PSV # |      9.391 |      9.298 |     25.763 |    947.888 |    799.565 |   3.303.245 |
|  PS4  |      8.046 |     11.697 |            |    753.172 |            |     753.172 |
|  WIU  |      5.293 |      6.309 |      2.999 |    434.214 |    467.624 |   1.959.644 |
|  PS3  |      4.779 |      4.954 |     11.643 |    394.036 |    674.411 |  10.103.710 |
|  XB1  |        728 |        809 |            |     33.715 |            |      33.715 |
| PSP # |        100 |         67 |      3.651 |     97.490 |    384.664 |  20.165.899 |
|  360  |         88 |         97 |        539 |      8.701 |     21.014 |   1.648.017 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  ALL  |    141.663 |    295.104 |    199.979 |  4.644.742 |  6.008.839 |  54.604.848 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| PSVTV |        630 |        737 |            |     65.184 |            |     141.428 |
|  PSV  |      8.761 |      8.561 |     25.763 |    882.704 |    799.565 |   3.161.817 |
|n-3DSLL|     60.348 |    164.756 |            |    225.104 |            |     225.104 |
| n-3DS |     29.341 |     70.050 |            |     99.391 |            |      99.391 |
| 3DSLL |     16.771 |     19.727 |     94.988 |  1.246.915 |  2.433.697 |   6.672.801 |
|  3DS  |      6.778 |      7.340 |     59.590 |    404.116 |  1.164.533 |   9.640.150 |
|  PSP  |        100 |         67 |      3.651 |     97.490 |    384.664 |  19.989.912 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Famitsu #

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|System | This Week  | Last Week  | Last Year  |     YTD    |  Last YTD  |     LTD     |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 3DS # |    117.810 |    263.010 |    164.115 |  2.005.962 |  3.661.515 |  16.699.973 |
| PSV # |      9.844 |      9.410 |     25.211 |    945.667 |    784.114 |   3.220.806 |
|  PS4  |      6.810 |      9.883 |            |    734.031 |            |     734.031 |
|  PS3  |      4.209 |      4.446 |     12.531 |    393.555 |    654.295 |   9.962.055 |
|  WIU  |      4.017 |      5.107 |      3.083 |    417.936 |    443.304 |   1.936.363 |
|  XB1  |        698 |        918 |            |     33.471 |            |      33.471 |
| PSP # |         88 |         95 |      3.222 |     83.140 |    381.108 |  19.691.633 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  ALL  |    143.476 |    292.869 |    209.527 |  4.613.762 |  6.010.906 |  52.278.332 |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[DrJay24]

I'm not sure how ones determines if a game is mainstream or not. Sunset Overdrive seems fairly safe as far as genres and art goes. It will sell or not solely on how people like it and if they know it exists.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I'm not sure how ones determines if a game is mainstream or not. Sunset Overdrive seems fairly safe as far as genres and art goes. It will sell or not solely on how people like it and if they know it exists.

I can the game having a fairly broad appeal, good third person shooters are few and far between and Insomniac make good ones. The only reason it doesn't appeal to me is because the game is designed to keep you on the move and I like to explore at my own pace. I intensely dislike the overground sections of Metro Redux for this reason, you have to rush, rush, rush.

 

[Lager]

I'm 99.9% sure Sunset Overdrive is going to bomb. And just like FH2 it won't be in the NPD's top 10 for October.

 

[dobwal]

]I'm not sure how ones determines if a game is mainstream or not.[/B] Sunset Overdrive seems fairly safe as far as genres and art goes. It will sell or not solely on how people like it and if they know it exists.

You can't until it sells well. Look at the titles that have mainstream or wide appeal across multiple gaming devices (smartphones, tabs, PC and consoles) and you will see that those games don't fall into some neat category together other than they are good sellers or profit generators.

Minecraft, Angry Birds, Candy Crush, GTA, COD, LOL, Pokemon and Mario Kart are all notable titles with wide appeal and are relatively unique in comparison to other popular titles.

 

[temesgen]

Sunset Overdrive looks like a good game that won't sell all that well, in many ways it is representative of the type of game that has been exclusive to the Playstation brand over the years, good game but not checking all the boxes necessary to be a commercial success. Kudos to MS for taking the chance, games like this round out your library even if commercially they don't register many sales. My guess is life time sales will be around 1 to 1.5 million. That's based on the assumption that XB1 does generate a decent install base over time.

 

[Billy Idol]

SO is the reason I bought a X1...looking forward to it and to finally switch on the X1 again...

 

[DieH@rd]

What's the latest sale number for WiiU [WW]? Is it still ahead of Xbone?

 

[Goodtwin]

What's the latest sale number for WiiU [WW]? Is it still ahead of Xbone?

Yea, by over a million units world wide. X1 will likely surpass Wii U early next year. I think the holiday will be too strong for Nintendo this year for Microsoft to close the gap. Mario Kart 8 and Smash Bros will move some units this Christmas. Nintendo tends to be strong for the holidays, selling competitively with their competitors, but then sales proceed to fall off the cliff in January, and stay rather week until the next Christmas.

 

[iroboto]

Sunset Overdrive looks like a good game that won't sell all that well, in many ways it is representative of the type of game that has been exclusive to the Playstation brand over the years, good game but not checking all the boxes necessary to be a commercial success. Kudos to MS for taking the chance, games like this round out your library even if commercially they don't register many sales. My guess is life time sales will be around 1 to 1.5 million. That's based on the assumption that XB1 does generate a decent install base over time.

Hopefully you're wrong about it! It would be great to see it succeed.

The SO bundle is apparently now sold out on US Amazon?

http://www.amazon.com/Xbox-One-Spec...KL2E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413999671&sr=8-1

 

[MrFox]

There's been a good marketing push from MS for Sunset Overdrive, and it's a safe genre. It's hard to determine what the threshold is for success with exclusives, since they get some financial safety from the platform holder. If it sells 1 million that would be over 10% of the install base, that would be good? 2 million would be really impressive.

Considering how much Insomniac wanted to own the IP, it would be a shame if it failed to draw enough attention at the first game, then it would never become a viable multi-plat franchise for them.

 

[dobwal]

There's been a good marketing push from MS for Sunset Overdrive, and it's a safe genre. It's hard to determine what the threshold is for success with exclusives, since they get some financial safety from the platform holder. If it sells 1 million that would be over 10% of the install base, that would be good? 2 million would be really impressive.

Considering how much Insomniac wanted to own the IP, it would be a shame if it failed to draw enough attention at the first game, then it would never become a viable multi-plat franchise for them.

Owning the IP doesn't mean multiplat eventually. I can imagine that MS has an agreement with Insomniac similar to Epic's Gears agreement.

 

[djskribbles]

I think SO will have a decent opening month. In NPD, it may not show because of the bundle, but I still think it will crack the top 10. Reviews will determine its legs though.

I see it selling ~250-300k in the US in its first month (including bundles). White consoles have been shown to be popular, so that white bundle will probably help it sell.

It is dangerously close to CoD's release date though, so who knows.

 

[Rangers]

SO is up to #33. Still with 6 days to go. At least it's looking like it may do decent mid-tier sales. We'll see where it tops out.

The SO bundle never got very high on Amazon so quantities must be very limited to be sold out there. Not sure if the situation is different on the street than Amazon.

At least on Amazon, most X1's still sell without any pack in game. Fix this Microsoft! A free pack in should be standard.

Also, Shadows of Mordor has been pretty strong at Amazon, still. Probable 2nd tier hit, there.

 

[DrJay24]

By mid tier do you mean not on the NPD top ten like FM2?

 

[Rangers]

It should make top ten easily. Compared to what Horizon 2 did on Amazon there's no compare...

 

[Prophecy2k]

There's been a good marketing push from MS for Sunset Overdrive, and it's a safe genre. It's hard to determine what the threshold is for success with exclusives, since they get some financial safety from the platform holder. If it sells 1 million that would be over 10% of the install base, that would be good? 2 million would be really impressive.

Considering how much Insomniac wanted to own the IP, it would be a shame if it failed to draw enough attention at the first game, then it would never become a viable multi-plat franchise for them.

You're anticipating the XB1 to have sold 10 million units by the time SO launches?

I'm sure you meant 20% tie-in ratio, which would be great for both MS and Insomniac, and especially so for the latter who will be looking to bring the unwashed Xbox-owning masses to the joys and sheer creativity of Insomniac's games.

I reckon with MS pushing it hard (and they will, since they've got hardly anything else for this fall/holiday), SO can do 2.5 million LTD. And that will be a success, given the tie-in ratio and the exposure it will give Insomniac as a 2nd party Xbox developer.

I don't even think MS are expecting it to do much better than that tbh.

 

[Prophecy2k]

IMO, the jury is still out on that - and perhaps, we'll never know. Personally, I'm sceptical. Insomniac has always been a well received and wellknown developer on the PlayStation brand. Any new game they bring out would automatically receive some attention and awareness. As an example; I wouldn't be surprised if a large majority of people who owned and liked any of the Ratchet & Clank games also bought a copy of Resistance (quite a niche shooter) for that reason. I'm sure there are many PS users who have known and enjoyed previous Insomniac games that would be quite interested in the Sunset Overdrive game, if it were to come out for their platform.

However, they are bringing it to a different platform, with a different userbase - in that sense, they are starting from scratch. It's only logical that they would need quite a bit of PR for that reason, which is where the exclusive contract with MS will come in handy. But was it the right choice? Will they end up with more sales? I'm not convinced, especially considering that the PS4 offers the larger userbase too (something to be fair, Insomniac couldn't predict when they made their deal).

To the same degree, there are probably quite a bit more Bungie/Halo fans to be found among the Xbox One userbase than PS4 - which is probably why by ratio, there's a higher sale/userbase ratio for Destiny on Xbox than for PS4.

I would argue that Insomniac's reputation has become increasingly tarnished over the last generation to now.

Resistance 2 was highly criticised, and outside of their Ratchet and Clank games and R3, they have put out a few real turkeys: Fuse, R&C:All4One etc.

I would argue that with Sony have so many critical and gamer-darling developers, that continuously put out solid game after solid game, like SSM, ND, Sucker Punch etc. Insomniac were quickly becoming forgotten about. Them continuing to make games exclusively for Sony was proving difficult, as SCEWWS (publishing) would always have to divide their annual marketing budgets across so many great developers and games.

MS naturally has less first parties, and ships less games in a calendar year than Sony. So an exclusive 2nd party dev deal with MS makes sense for Insomniac, who were looking to gain more exposure for their studio as well as to launch their own fully owned IP.

I can't blame them for their deicision, as I can easily see how it benefits them as a studio in the long run. They are a great developer with lots of potential, and I think they deserve to be backed in a way that Sony simply physically wasn't able to do, due to the economics of them as a first party publisher, who pushes so much of their own first party content.

 

[DieH@rd]

If they sell 1.5mil this year, they could count themselves lucky.