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

[Shifty Geezer]

The key phrase there is digital spike, implying that it sold greater than forecasted (or normal) digital sales in the opening week.

Spikes are normal and can be forecast. A price drop on a console results in a sales spike as forecast. All we're really hearing is H5 set a new first-week digital sales record, fuelled in part by free marketing from game streaming -

Additionally, content from the broadcast generated 5.5 million total views throughout the week. This resulted in a spike in digital sales of Halo 5: Guardians, leading to it becoming the best-selling digital game ever in the Xbox Store for an opening week.

The proportion of total game sales, or even just how many sales that was, aren't known and so we can't derive any info about the transition to digital sales over physical retail. A 20% increase from 10,000 downloads to 12,000 would constitute a spike (followed by a drop back down to 10,000), could set a record, and yet still be an irrelevant slice of the market.

 

[Prophecy2k]

In which case they could have just as easily said a spike in "sales" or a spike in "retail sales" but it was very specific in that it was a spike in digital sales and not for retail physical sales.

Also other things that they were very specific about.



The highest week one attach rate for a first party title. Versus "best selling digital game ever". Not just for first party titles but ALL games on the platform.

So week one sales for Halo 5 (software and accessories) weren't better than the week one sales (software and accessories) for some 3rd party titles on the console. Considering some titles didn't even have an affiliated accessory (Destiny or GTAV, for example) that says quite a bit.

However, sales for the digital version were the highest for any title on the console bar none.

It is Microsoft's biggest first party franchise on the platform. But I think it's safe to say it's not the biggest franchise on the platform.

Regards,
SB

I think at this point MS's PR mouthpieces have shown themselves more adept than anyone at obfuscating all opportunity to derive quantitative statements of sales performance from their PR blurbs.

One should be wary of taking anything MS's PR people fart out at face value.

 

[Globalisateur]

Updated US Amazon current Best Sellers for 2015....

...

30 - Far Cry 4 PS4
59 - Assassin's creed Unity PS4

That's interesting and deserved for several reasons IMO. Is Far Cry the current best selling Ubisoft franchise?

 

[Prophecy2k]

30 - Far Cry 4 PS4
59 - Assassin's creed Unity PS4

That's interesting and deserved for several reasons IMO. Is Far Cry the current best selling Ubisoft franchise?

Outside of the technical issues encountered at launch (of which admittedly I didn't encounter any - not debating their existence of course), I thought Unity was a good game, and actually found it less formulaic as a Ubisoft "copy & paste Open World game Design" game than I did Far Cry 4. Overall I enjoyed Far Cry 4 more, but just because it was a self contained story that didn't have to inherit the hot mess of Assassin's creed's story baggage. Whereas, in terms of gameplay innovation, iterating on the existing template, I thought Unity was far superior to FC4. FC4 was almost literally just FC3 reskinned but with a new story and elephants (of which I didn't ride more than once in my entire playthrough).

 

[dobwal]

Well on Amazon the DD copy of Halo 5 sold better than the XB1 sku of AC Syndicate and placed 43rd for the month of Oct on Amazon Monthly Best Sellers list. It peaked at 7th and stay in the top 100 for close to two weeks according to camelcamelcamel.

Thats pretty high for a digital download code on Amazon and that doesn't account for the DD copies in the 1TB Halo bundles which placed even higher at 25th for the month of Oct, than the the standalone code.

In comparison FO4's PS4 and X1 DD skus peaked around the mid 20s and dropped out of the top 100 within 5-6 days. And this is from a game that shipped 12 million copies at launch with around 1.2 mil being DD (PC and consoles).

 

[DrJay24]

However, sales for the digital version were the highest for any title on the console bar none.

It is Microsoft's biggest first party franchise on the platform. But I think it's safe to say it's not the biggest franchise on the platform.

Regards,
SB

I don't see what is so amazing. Halo 5 was the best selling digital game? COD came out after H5 and and probably beat the record. Next year there will be another new best selling title, the install base gets larger with time. MS PR, they say so little with so many words you can read anything you want into it.

 

[dobwal]

I don't see what is so amazing. Halo 5 was the best selling digital game? COD came out after H5 and and probably beat the record. Next year there will be another new best selling title, the install base gets larger with time. MS PR, they say so little with so many words you can read anything you want into it.

Seems the only place you can DD BLOPS 3 for the XB1 is on the XB1, digital codes don't seem to be available through B&Ms or other online retailers.

All XB1 bundles containing COD seem to be disc based too.

Halo 5 as a digital title was available at retailers as a standard sku, Digital Deluxe Ed, Collector's Ed sku (DD based), bundled with consoles as well as far more promoted as a digital title on the xbox one itself. It had its own tab within the GUI on the Xbox One promoting digital sales.

BLOP 3 digital pre orders were actually pulled from the Xbox store for a period of time.

So exactly what makes you believe that BLOPs 3 will sell more through DD?

Do you expect MS not to espouse its digital sales because someone somewhere down the line with a bigger xb1 userbase will sell better?

Halo 5 was probably the most promoted digital console title ever and is probably why Halo 5 sold as it did digitally. There were more digital based skus than there were disc based skus.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think at this point MS's PR mouthpieces have shown themselves more adept than anyone at obfuscating all opportunity to derive quantitative statements of sales performance from their PR blurbs.

One should be wary of taking anything MS's PR people fart out at face value.

It is no better or worse than Sony PR. Or Nintendo PR. If you believe Sony PR then you must believe MS PR and vice versa. Although I have to give Nintendo kudos for publishing numbers even when they aren't doing well, unlike both Sony and MS who stop reporting numbers if they aren't doing well.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Yeah, Sony's PR is just doling out hard numbers (occasionally I guess) right now because they can afford too because they're doing well and winning. That's the only difference.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I don't see what is so amazing. Halo 5 was the best selling digital game? COD came out after H5 and and probably beat the record. Next year there will be another new best selling title, the install base gets larger with time. MS PR, they say so little with so many words you can read anything you want into it.

There has already been a best selling title for XBO. And it wasn't Halo 5. Otherwise their PR would have claimed that Halo 5 was the best selling game on the platform.

For the first week sales since the launch of XBO...

It was the best selling digital game on the platform. That we know.

It performed better than all other Microsoft first party games. That we know.

It wasn't the best selling game on the platform even before Fallout 4 launched. Meaning something from last Holiday season beat it with their first week sales.

As much as people don't want to believe that the digital to physical ratio is going up in favor of digital on both platforms, it is.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

It is no better or worse than Sony PR. Or Nintendo PR. If you believe Sony PR then you must believe MS PR and vice versa.

Not true. Microsoft PR is the only source of Xbox sales information whereas Sony and Nintendo's financial statements cover this is detail. Sales numbers. Revenue. Profit Margins.

 

[Clukos]

http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/25/9797964/ps4-sales-worldwide-30-million
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...ss-302-million-units-worldwide-300184370.html

30.2m Ps4s sold to consumers as of last Sunday.

 

[Rangers]

Not true. Microsoft PR is the only source of Xbox sales information whereas Sony and Nintendo's financial statements cover this is detail. Sales numbers. Revenue. Profit Margins.

Sony has done shady things like combine PSP and Vita shipments when Vita wasn't selling, and they combined PS3 and PS2 numbers just when it was convenient to obfuscate lackluster PS3 sales as well. Even now they give us a PS4 number only, not PS3.

Nintendo, as far as I know, does release a lot of numbers. Dont follow them closely enough to say if they've cut back or not.

Anyways, if it's not illegal MS can release however much sales info they want. They also for years were the most forthcoming with NPD numbers, tweeting X360 sales month after month (usually GAF worked out the other numbers based on what Microsoft gave out publically), yet I dont see you giving them credit for that. But, then again we're back to when 360 was doing well it was easy to give out numbers. Even today I think they are pretty key, it's clear NPD has banned anybody from giving out numbers, but MS still gives a percentage increase in sales that GAF calculates the number from. Nintendo sort of does this as well IIRC.

I guess MS does hide things better within their divisions, I dont know exactly how much Sony breaks out gaming anymore, I know they used to have a gaming division. Nintendo obviously cant help but be gaming only so by default we get more insight there. I dont entirely blame MS for being cagey, the gaming media seems to relish reporting bad Xbox news/sales..

I dont see why it really matters. Other than to nerds like me...

 

[Rangers]

Amazon continues to point at a PS4 win for November. Part of me is not so convinced, but another part of me admits Amazon has been pretty accurate. Anyways I guess there is still BF to cause chaos. But, November hardware rankings until now as we near the end of November (although as always, who knows when these actually updated)

#16 PS4 Battlefront bundle
#17 PS4 Battlefront Limited edition bundle
#19 PS4 Blops 3 bundle
#21 PS4 Uncharted collection bundle
#27 XBO Fallout 4 bundle
#28 XBO Gears of War bundle
#60 XBO holiday 3 games bundle
#69 XBO Madden bundle

 

[Shifty Geezer]

As much as people don't want to believe that the digital to physical ratio is going up in favor of digital on both platforms, it is.

I don't think there's a single member on this board who doesn't appreciate DD is a growth area. Course it is. The question is whether it represents a significant portion of H5 sales such that B&M counts are no longer reliable. There's no data supporting that notion for H5. The only reference point is written in vague language that doesn't allow specific analysis.

Or putting it another way, from whatever sources you choose, what percentage of physical sales did H5 make on the XBox store? Zed threw out the figure of 20% from nowhere which you contest. I see nothing in the MS H5 statement about downloads to tell us if H5 sold 5% or 50% of physical sales. We just got a relative comparison against an unknown.

 

[Prophecy2k]

I don't think there's a single member on this board who doesn't appreciate DD is a growth area. Course it is. The question is whether it represents a significant portion of H5 sales such that B&M counts are no longer reliable. There's no data supporting that notion for H5. The only reference point is written in vague language that doesn't allow specific analysis.

Or putting it another way, from whatever sources you choose, what percentage of physical sales did H5 make on the XBox store? Zed threw out the figure of 20% from nowhere which you contest. I see nothing in the MS H5 statement about downloads to tell us if H5 sold 5% or 50% of physical sales. We just got a relative comparison against an unknown.

Zed's 20% figure is a pretty typical digitalhysical sales ratio. A recent EA statement reinforced this, and you can look at EA/Ubisoft/Activision financials to coroborate this also.

There's no reason other than hope and dreams to believe that Halo 5's digital to physical sales ratio is any higher than this.

 

[Prophecy2k]

It is no better or worse than Sony PR. Or Nintendo PR. If you believe Sony PR then you must believe MS PR and vice versa. Although I have to give Nintendo kudos for publishing numbers even when they aren't doing well, unlike both Sony and MS who stop reporting numbers if they aren't doing well.

Regards,
SB

Remind me of the last time Sony or Nintendo PR made a statement about a title's launch sales success, and then inexplicably quoted a revenue figure that included HW... Oh yeah, they didn't.

This whole, "Sony Too™", deflection when something about MS is critised is getting old and annoying. Whether Sony and Ninty have farted out embarassing PR or not (and of course they have) is entirely irrelevant to the discussion about whether you can viably interpet Halo 5's digital to physical sales ratio from some wishy-washy statement about an unquantifiable sales spike on the Xbox store.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

Amazon continues to point at a PS4 win for November. Part of me is not so convinced...

#16 PS4 Battlefront bundle
#17 PS4 Battlefront Limited edition bundle
#19 PS4 Blops 3 bundle
#21 PS4 Uncharted collection bundle
#27 XBO Fallout 4 bundle
#28 XBO Gears of War bundle
#60 XBO holiday 3 games bundle
#69 XBO Madden bundle

Yes, that without doubt looks like a Sony win to me. And a significant one at that.

 

[loekf]

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...ss-302-million-units-worldwide-300184370.html

30.2 million PS4 sold as of November 22.

 

[ZhugeEX]

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...ss-302-million-units-worldwide-300184370.html

30.2 million PS4 sold as of November 22.

I'd like to supplement this press release with some additional information that may be interesting to some here.

The PS4 has sold through 11.7 million units to end users this year (Jan 5th to Nov 22nd 2015) compared to 10.2 million units during the same period last year (Dec 29th-Nov 22nd 2014).

The PS4 sold through 4.1 million units during the holiday season last year (Nov 23rd 2014 to Jan 4th 2015) which led to total 2014 calendar year sales of 14.3 million. Assuming the PS4 can match or exceed the holiday sell through we saw last year then we could potentially see more than 14.8 million units sold through this calendar year.

For reference the PS2 sold through 8.5m units in November/December 2002 and the PS3 sold through 2.2m between November 23rd 2008 and December 29th 2008.

https://zhugeex.com/2015/11/playstation-4-sales-are-up-15-yoy-reach-11-7m-in-2015-so-far/