All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2019 Edition]

Not to OT but. Second game should be special with all the hiring, they even got guy who wrote that awesome Tomorrows Children lighting tech.

 

"New, big-name games that go into Game Pass see their active playerbase grow by a factor of two, Percy says, and older games see an average six times increase (but sometimes as high as 32 times)"

What does this claim really of active playbase growth really means? Does this represent also an increase in subscriptions, or users just login and play more often?

"A bigger playerbase means a bigger audience for potential monetisation"

Ouch... Hate that! This one I do not like!

"On average we see a 25 per cent increase in franchise pre-orders and a 10 per cent increase in franchise sales coming from games that go into Game Pass. And that’s coming from Game Pass members discovering they really love franchises and following along with them"

Well, promotion can do that, and Game Pass can act as promotion, So I do not doubt the increase, and these are indeed good numbers.
But what is the purpose of releasing this data? This is not directed to the service users, is it?
Is Microsoft trying to decrease royalties payments from future games, on the promisse of increased future sales?

 

It is to counter some of the negative fluff that is out there for Game Pass. Nothing more, nothing less. That might not seem like much, but investors might get scared if there is too much unfounded negative stuff floating around and MS aren't saying anything to counter it.

I'm sure all the developers can get much more in depth numbers than what MS has released to the public. And for developers not on Game Pass, MS will have tailored pitches to try to get them on board that will be far more detailed and in depth than what was in the piece.

Just like developers on Steam have extremely detailed numbers that Steam doesn't release to the public and that developers aren't allowed to release to the public.

In short, it wasn't meant for developers but for non-developers.

Regards,
SB

 

This thread is a bit dead.

Adding february NPD

#1 SWITCH
#2 PS4
#3 XB1

PS4: ~283K (-22% YoY / +28% MoM)
XB1: ~225K (-29% YoY / +45% MoM)
Switch: ~363K (+30% YoY / +123% MoM)
3DS: ~55k

Top 20 best selling titles (February 2019) - Includes Physical and Digital sales

1. Anthem^ (< 1.3 M)
2. Jump Force
3. Kingdom Hearts III
4. Far Cry New Dawn
5. Red Dead Redemption II
6. Resident Evil 2 2019
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate*
8. Metro: Exodus^
9. NBA 2K19
10. Call of Duty: Black Ops IIII^
11. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe*
12. Mario Kart 8*
13. Grand Theft Auto V
14. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey
15. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
16. Minecraft#
17. Super Mario Party*
18. Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege
19. Madden NFL 19^
20. Marvel's Spider-Man

* Digital sales not included
^ PC digital sales not included

Edit: Now that we are talking a lot about "moar powaaahhh", it's kind of ironic that we've had several months were the "power ranking" is inverse to the sales ranking.

 

I think we can see that, power this late into the game is not going to change direction of well established foundations.

Power at the start of the generation when the foundations aren’t fully settled yet will matter more.

At this point in time you’re going to get what everyone else has. And this late into the generation the only people still buying aren’t willing to pony over for super expensive hardware. That’s mainly for hardcore audiences.

edit: mobile phone autocorrections were terribly off

 

But this next generation will be different since 2/3 of the leaders will both be backward compatible. So no clean slate. Could just be an extension of the current generation.

Tommy McClain

 

I would suspect that this is probably a bigger truth.

 

I voiced the same concern in January, speculating that Microsoft were forcing Sony's hand with backwards compatibility and if Sony responded it would make Microsoft's job that much harder next gen. When a new generation meant everybody's game library started over, console makers were on even footing. And this is speaking as somebody who doesn't care about achievements/trophies, some people are as wedded to that stuff as the games themselves.

 

PS4 BC and boost mode are very important at launch, and it was obviously happening regardless of what MS does.

I really wish for ps3 BC, even if it's only fan service. But sadly I also don't see any lost sales for them if they don't have it.

The sales trend of xbox didn't grow after they added partial downloaded patched BC of 360 titles. No matter how impressive the amount of technological effort was required to make this work.

So the dedicated effort required from Sony to do a hack job of partial BC for ps3 titles doesn't seem like a reasonable investment, there's no way we'd be getting a simple insert disc, play that ps3 game perfectly without looking up a list of supported titles and reports of buggy titles.

Sony said their market research was showing it wasn't a big enough demand, and remasters are well received. It was a PR excuse because it was impossible to emulate the cell, but I also believe this because I received this survey back in 2010 and they were very precise in asking about our opinion about BC and remasters. It's obvious nobody plays old version of games when there's a remastered one available, and their choice of platform wouldn't change based on BC of really old consoles. And the real nostalgic like me just keep a fat ps3 stacked on top of the ps4pro, to play ps1/2/3/4/pro games.

Still a tiny glimmer of hope ps3 BC is possible but it's crazy far fetched.

 

The sales trend of some BC X360 games have skyrocketed when introduced to the BC Catalog, even hitting the monthly top 10 NPD titles charts.

 

But sales of XB1 hardware hasn't picked up as a result. It's a good way to milk your old software library if its economical to do BC, but only a few titles are going to resell and it isn't going to lose/win you hardware. At least, prior to this gen. Now an ecosystem is expected to continue and it's more readily achieved thanks to the x64 architecture.

 

But it would be quite a mic drop moment if at the ps5 reveal, they can claim any old play station game from any gen can be played off their disc, no repurchase or download necessary. It would completely reverse the legacy BC support situation of both companies.

 

That would go down extremely well, but no-one would expect it. PS3 seems out of reach. If PS5 can play PS2 games improved, the same way I can play PS2 games on PC in improved res and framerate, I'd be a happier bunny. That might, possibly, at a stretch, also win back a few XB migrants.

 

I wouldn't say its totally out of reach.

Given the time Sony has been working on PS5 development (4-5yrs), I would think Sony's Engineers could come up with a similar solution as the open source PS3 emulator project, but of course better.

Open-source PlayStation 3 Emulator
Some great information within the blogs.

 

I don't think it's all PR. I've seen plenty of devs state, and articles analysing achievement/trophy progression and dates, showing that most gamers never finish most games. If most people are not even finishing games, how many are genuinely replaying games at all, let alone games from previous generations? Some sure, but a lot?

I think the value of backwards compatibility is as much (if not more) a psychological phenomenon because people do invest a lot in their libraries, particularly those folks who buy games on or soon after launch at full price where that collective outlay on dozens/hundreds of games becomes a big monetary value in their head. Which is normal because people get attached to property. You can sell discs at a fraction of what you paid but digital purchases are less easy.

 

What about those not even starting games? For me, BC gives me the opportunity to work on my backlog. Its easier for me to Start (and maybe even Finish) all those games I already have purchased.

I used to buy games when they hit decent discounts, thus building up my backlog to even more insane levels. Recently, my behavior changed due to Game-Pass. I'll still buy a game or two here and there but they have to be Co-Op gameplay (Borderlands 3 coming up) or from a studio I want to support (ClayBook, Astroneer, Days Gone).

 

Any takers, will there be grant theft auto V remaster for next gen? That would be insane, especially if it would sell.

 

I didn't say out of reach, but seems unlikely. RSPC3 has some great results from homebrew without any insight, but only 40% of titles run without issue. Titles like Uncharted don't run at all. Sony aren't going to release BC that can't be relied upon - put the disc in and sit at a intro screen or get some garbled graphics.

 

Given how well the title sold. Yea it’s hard to believe that they wouldn’t. As long as they keep the online alive and well and cross platform/gen; yes it could have legs in 2022

 

I wouldn't expect them too. But if a open-source project is getting something like 40% without knowing all the particulars of PS3, then a bunch of well-qualified engineers from Sony should be able to produce better results knowing their hardware. Hopefully there are more BC suprises dealing with PS5.