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

[Deleted member 13524]

Personally I think it's context. X1 did shockingly well consider.

-All the huge launch negativity/DRM
-Tons of rumors of catastrophic yields
-$100 higher price point (this one is huge)
-Apparently weaker hardware
-Moar Kinect hate/backlash

I mean we heard rumors of 4:1 in USA and 8:1 in EU, PS4>X1 supply a few months ago. Reality is nothing close to that.

TBH, I think the sales numbers for a console launch during the holidays says little more than how many units they've been able to produce before launch.

As Shifty said, >2 million xbones/ps4s would have been sold (out) regardless of what would be inside the box, just as we saw with the Wii U last year.
There's probably over 2 million people that would buy both consoles no matter what.

 

[BRiT]

Probably still mostly representative of the ratios unless you see some dramatic reason for people to buy online on one platform over the other.
All my purchases this gen have been online, but I suspect that it's still the exception rather than the rule.

Yeah, I wasn't questioning the ratio, just noting that the total software sales for most of those seem extremely low. I can't see KZ:SF selling less than 80% of the console hardware numbers. Does it seem right that KZ sold under 25% of the hardware numbers? I don't think so.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I can't see KZ:SF selling less than 80% of the console hardware numbers. Does it seem right that KZ sold under 25% of the hardware numbers? I don't think so.

Wow... I'm sorry but that is just insane. 25% doesn't sound in any way unreasonable, not much anyway. 80% sounds insane.

 

[BRiT]

Wow... I'm sorry but that is just insane. 25% doesn't sound in any way unreasonable, not much anyway. 80% sounds insane.

Is KZ not a system seller? I thought it was a must have game, much like Halo or Gears series. Selling under 270K sounds like failure numbers. And the numbers for Forza or DR3 is even more failure.

I would expect at least 80% of new system buyers to pickup the must have games. This number is completely different than sell through numbers for established console bases. After all, what games will they be playing instead of the must haves?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Well it sold more than Forza or Ryse and that's with BF4 and COD Ghosts offering FPS gameplay too. Killzones haven't ever been stellar sellers. The number is not bad imo.

 

[BRiT]

Well it sold more than Forza or Ryse and that's with BF4 and COD Ghosts offering FPS gameplay too. Killzones haven't ever been stellar sellers. The number is not bad imo.

Oh and the numbers for those are fractional portions of the current gen software sales numbers. Though I haven't done the math to see if Bf4+Cod approaches 100% of the hardware numbers or if they are just fractions of next gen hardware numbers.

Silly tablet makes multitasking not as easy as PC.

 

[expletive]

Anyone accounting for the Buy 2 get 1 sales leading up to the ps4 launch? These were very pervasive and amazon drove a lot of other major retailers to match.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Is KZ not a system seller? I thought it was a must have game, much like Halo or Gears series. Selling under 270K sounds like failure numbers. And the numbers for Forza or DR3 is even more failure.

I would expect at least 80% of new system buyers to pickup the must have games. This number is completely different than sell through numbers for established console bases. After all, what games will they be playing instead of the must haves?

It's very rare for any game to sell 80% of new hardware shy of a pack in. KZ not a huge IP either. Gears did fabulously well on XB360 because it was the first of the really next-gen looking titles and didn't have much competition, but with BF4 and CODG, KZ is 'just another shooter' and so will be competing with other products. Those who own a console for COD and FIFA aren't going to be enthused about picking up some sci fi shooter, especially where it's iteration 3/4 or whatever of a franchise they've probably ignored up to now.

 

[Phil]

Well, it would still be interesting to see what the lucky first adopters are playing. Being a PS4 owner, there really isn't very much to choose from and given that Bluray isn't exactly new, it's highly unlikely that anyone who does own one actually use it for something other than games.

As far as I see it, the games that are most likely bought are (in no particular order):

- KillZone: SF
- Battlefield 4
- CoD Ghosts
- Assassins Creed 4
- NFS
- Knack

I'm purposely not mentioning Resogun here since it can only be bought through PSN. If we assume there are 2 million PS4s outthere being used for games - it does raise the question what they are playing. I'm not sure how KZ stacks up against the other two FPSs but I too think that 25% seems quite a low number for KZ - unless BF4 and/or CoD have substantially more owners (which IMO wouldn't be that surprising, them being very successfull franchises on the PS360).

If all of these games have a sales <= 25%, then either there's a very diverse market, some more into racing games (NFS) and the other into the shooters, thus accounting for an even split. Given that shooters is rather more popular it seems, I would assume the percentages would be higher for any of the 3 shooters.

Then the other factor is - how many bought the game through PSN? I'm willing to bet there are quite a few that want the digital copy since it's more convinient to play without swapping discs...

 

[DuckThor Evil]

I think/seem to remeber the first Halo had something like 50% attach rate during the first 1-2 months and I argue that was much more "that game to get" than Shadow Fall is now. Attach rates like that just don't happen often.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Is KZ not a system seller? I thought it was a must have game, much like Halo or Gears series.

Not really. Most reviewers placed it behind BF4 and CoD: Ghosts as first person shooters.

Then again, most reviewers want CoD and BF clones with the shortest/shallowest possible single player experience and every man power available from the studio dedicated to improving the way we get constantly fragged by 13-year-olds which use their annoyingly high-pitched voices to tell bad jokes about our mothers.


So KZ could actually be a great game. Its main problem is that it launched at the same time as a new CoD and a new Battlefield.

 

[dobwal]

Is KZ not a system seller? I thought it was a must have game, much like Halo or Gears series. Selling under 270K sounds like failure numbers. And the numbers for Forza or DR3 is even more failure.

I would expect at least 80% of new system buyers to pickup the must have games. This number is completely different than sell through numbers for established console bases. After all, what games will they be playing instead of the must haves?

I don't think the PS userbase has ever shown the same affinity for KZ as the XB userbase has for Halo or Gears.

On that note here is an old PR release from MS on Halo:CE.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2002/apr02/04-08halomillionpr.aspx

REDMOND, Wash., April 8, 2002 — Hailed widely as "video game of the year" and recipient of multiple industry awards for excellence, "Halo (TM) : Combat Evolved" has earned the distinguished honor of being the fastest million-unit seller ever for any next-generation console. According to NPDFunworldSM, the definitive source for toy and video games industry sales data, "Halo: Combat Evolved" recently crossed the magical 1 million mark in sales in the United States and Canada. Statistically, this means that more than six copies of "Halo: Combat Evolved" have been sold every minute of every day since its launch on Nov. 15, 2001.

The fact that GTA 3 was launched during 2001, the PS2 had almost 30 million units at the time of this release and the fact it took almost 5 months for Halo to hit 1 million in sales and yet was a record for 6th gen consoles, considered my mind boogled by how much things have changed since 2002. In retrospect Gears hit 1 million in two weeks on a year old 360.

 

[-tkf-]

Is KZ not a system seller? I thought it was a must have game, much like Halo or Gears series. Selling under 270K sounds like failure numbers. And the numbers for Forza or DR3 is even more failure.

I would expect at least 80% of new system buyers to pickup the must have games. This number is completely different than sell through numbers for established console bases. After all, what games will they be playing instead of the must haves?

It competes with BF4 and COD which both had huge marketing in the same genre, and then there is AC4.

Killzone might be the best new gen example in pure graphics power, but not in hearts and minds.

 

[BoardBonobo]

Also KZ is a bundled game. So quite a few people would already have it, that's going to skew the numbers. Without knowing how many KZ bundles were sold we have no real way of knowing how many copies are out there.

 

[DrJay24]

Wow, lots of straw men and revisionist history

Let me add my observations.

Multi-platform game franchises sell, all the forum bickering over best exclusives is just noise. I'd like to add the best launch game IMO is AC4, which is a complete surprise to me considering my past experiences ith AC games.

KZ, FM, DR are all B-tier franchises, they don't sell consoles. Sorry folks, never have and apparently won't start now.

Children's games that are not Lego or Skylanders are not going to sell to early adoptors who are mostly males, most without kids. Sorry Knack and Zoo Tycoon. I would not have bought Knack if it were not for my son falling in love with it at Gamestop. He has finished three times, while I have got to chapter 3.

Sony and MS could sell any console at just about any price for the first million or two. The demand for a next gen system is huge. Meaningful sales number are not going to come out until all stores have them in stock and supply outstrips demand. Then you will finally measure the demand.

Sony was smart shipping enough consoles to the US and UK to take the crown while shipping to the other countries to raise good will and start word of mouth.

MS was smart focusing on NA and UK to feed the two markets were they will sell out. They also skipped many smaller countries where the media and voice stuff would have been broken and possibly made negative word of mouth. Now they have time to finish some of the localization and TV integration.

Sony was smart delaying Driveclub. The launch window was already crowded and multi-platform games dominated. Now they can finish the game and release it when it is quite. MS should have done the same with FM. They should have given T10 time to make more content and balanced the economy better.

Sony should have shipped GT6 in Sept, not related to these NPDs, but it will come up next month. High profile last gen games are kind of doomed under the rush to next gen. Time for GT7 prologue.

 

[Rangers]

TBH, I think the sales numbers for a console launch during the holidays says little more than how many units they've been able to produce before launch.

As Shifty said, >2 million xbones/ps4s would have been sold (out) regardless of what would be inside the box, just as we saw with the Wii U last year.
There's probably over 2 million people that would buy both consoles no matter what.

Wii U did not really sell out. Maybe a very very soft initial sell out at best, that quickly lifted within a week or two, as I recall.

Wii U sold 425k In Nov 2012 and wasnt really supply constrained. PS4 sold 1.138 m and is heavily supply constrained, XBO sold 909k and ditto, though not quite as much.

That's a major contrast.

I dont really get people downplaying these sales, they may be right in a strict sense, but these are still tremendous sales, that show the core gaming market is alive and well. I dont think with all the talk of tablet mobile cannibalization, you could say with certainty "the first million PS4's will sell no matter what". The Wii U didn't...

Probably the XBO is even more impressive, because it's $500. It may be moving slower, but 909k and still apparently selling everything they can ship is fantastic. The fact we have two consoles in the same time doing this, also incredibly impressive for demand. The 360 and PS3 both launched alone.

 

[mrcorbo]

I dont really get people downplaying these sales, they may be right in a strict sense, but these are still tremendous sales, that show the core gaming market is alive and well. I dont think with all the talk of tablet mobile cannibalization, you could say with certainty "the first million PS4's will sell no matter what". The Wii U didn't...

The WiiU is a bad product. I know it, you know it, kids know it, DOGS know it. It's sales are reflective of that, not the market.

Probably the XBO is even more impressive, because it's $500. It may be moving slower, but 909k and still apparently selling everything they can ship is fantastic. The fact we have two consoles in the same time doing this, also incredibly impressive for demand. The 360 and PS3 both launched alone.

I don't think the price is relevant right now. And selling less software per console sold is not more impressive. The attach rate is the most interesting number for me so far given the fact that the 360 consistently sold more software than the PS3. To me this shows that either PS4 owners buy more games, multi-console owners are buying the PS4 version or both.

 

[DrJay24]

MS's main issue is the conversion from 360 players to the PS4. They are going to lose XBLG income while Sony picks up PS+. Sony already announced that PS+ subscriptions during launch week made up more than the previous years together.

Selling consoles is great, but ultimately both need to sell games, subscriptions and peripherals to make money.

 

[dobwal]

I don't think the price is relevant right now. And selling less software per console sold is not more impressive. The attach rate is the most interesting number for me so far given the fact that the 360 consistently sold more software than the PS3. To me this shows that either PS4 owners buy more games, multi-console owners are buying the PS4 version or both.

Or XB1 owners are more into DD (MS embraced full DD early and initially had a larger DD library). Or that additional $100 is acting as barrier to the number of initial games purchases.

 

[zed]

It's very rare for any game to sell 80% of new hardware shy of a pack in. KZ not a huge IP either. Gears did fabulously well on XB360

very rare! Perhaps non existant, has it ever happened?
You mention Gears of war (not release game but a year afterward) but its initial ~3month attach rate is about 30%, Which is a long way shy of 80%

PS4 owners buy more games, multi-console owners are buying the PS4 version or both.

I think its mainly if you have all the consoles what version of bf4/COD/AC etc do you buy. Well the ps4 version in all cases is significantly better, its not much of a no brainer that people are gonna pick it up.
Perhaps people who cant buy the ps4 will buy some ps4 software instead, OK sounds crazy aye? But a couple of weeks ago in german or UK I forget which, PS4 software was high in the sales charts, and the thing wasnt available to buy yet!