All purpose Sales and Sales Rumours and Anecdotes [2024 edition]

[Karamazov]

to close the 2024 thread

Quest 3S Was The Top Selling Console On Amazon In 2024

Meta Quest 3S was the top selling games console on Amazon US in 2024, despite only releasing in October.

www.uploadvr.com

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Sony has now sold 75m PS5 consoles and has record monthly users

Sales of Sony's PS5 console have now reached 75m units, which is just shy of PS4 sales after an equivalent period.

www.eurogamer.net

By the end of the previous quarter, PS5 sales had passed 65m. Now, in the latest quarter (ending 31st December 2024), Sony has sold a further 9.5m consoles - the console's best ever quarter. Overall sales of games and consoles have increased by 16 percent year-on-year, with profits similarly increasing by 37 percent.

 

[Charlietus]

Will PS5 surpass the PS4 with GTA 6 coming out this year? 129 million MAU's are also really impressive.

 

[Dominik D]

Will PS5 surpass the PS4

In terms of total console sales or something else? Console sales - unlikely. Console sales this generation as simply lower.

 

[Charlietus]

In terms of total console sales or something else? Console sales - unlikely. Console sales this generation as simply lower.

They are just 1,5 million behind, with GTA 6 this year. Even at double the price, it's possible. Also, PS4 got killed brutally when PS5 came out thanks to the semiconductor shortage, and (I'm touching iron right now) it's not happening again.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They are just 1,5 million behind,

And the gap closed, so PS5 is currently selling faster than PS4 was relatively.

Plus there's less competition as XBS is selling worse than XBO. This suggests a market for former XB owners to buy PS5. And if PS5 has a longer tail of sales as being a more viable machine (SSD makes usability far better than PS4; delta with PS6 for cross-gen games likely lower), it's seems very possible to me.

 

[see colon]

Plus there's less competition as XBS is selling worse than XBO.

But soon to be more competition with the impending launch of Switch 2.

 

[iroboto]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1892977812371312827

Worth leaving here for reference

"You have to fight Fortnite before you fight anything else to get your game seen and purchased."

Stats revealed in this snippet...

30% of people who play video games will not buy a video game this year

18% purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Madden, EA FC, COD

12% buy a game once a month

4% buy a game more often than once a month

Most games only target those last two segments making up 16% of players

 

[see colon]

"You have to fight Fortnite before you fight anything else to get your game seen and purchased."

Doesn't Fortnite have a 1-2 million daily active player base, but Robox has something like 70 million plus? Candy Crush had over 250 million monthly players, not sure how that translates into daily, but simple math (divide by 30 days) would indicate 9+ million daily. I feel like singling out Fortnite misses the forest for the trees.

 

[iroboto]

Doesn't Fortnite have a 1-2 million daily active player base, but Robox has something like 70 million plus? Cany Crush had over 250 million monthly players, not sure how that translates into daily, but simple math (divide by 30 days) would indicate 9+ million daily. I feel like singling out Fortnite misses the forest for the trees.

Roblox and Minecraft don’t compete with AAA titles I think is what he’s trying to get at. But yea, those games are massive as well. I suppose as the Roblox and MC crowd gets older, they graduate to UEFN

 

[see colon]

Roblox and Minecraft don’t compete with AAA titles I think is what he’s trying to get at. But yea, those games are massive as well. I suppose as the Roblox and MC crowd gets older, they graduate to UEFN

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. They are all competing for the same dollars and time, and if we look at the industry as a whole, much of the growth in dollars and time have been in live service, mobile, and make and play games like Minecraft Fortnite and Roblox. Discounting the importance of these types of games, like I said before, is missing the forest for the trees.

 

[iroboto]

I'm sorry, but this just isn't true. They are all competing for the same dollars and time, and if we look at the industry as a whole, much of the growth in dollars and time have been in live service, mobile, and make and play games like Minecraft Fortnite and Roblox. Discounting the importance of these types of games, like I said before, is missing the forest for the trees.

I agree on that, but there may not be an overlap in audience is what i'm tryign to get at.

By the percentages adults are way more likely to play Fortnite over Roblox.

And you can't stop people from aging, so the idea is that once kids hit a certain age, they will seek out 'older' games that are UGC based, and that would land them around UEFN. Not necessarily FNBR. And if that age is say 13-15, after 15+ -> 40+ they are playing fortnite. And that happens to be the demographic where most AAA titles target for excluding Nintendo.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Stats revealed in this snippet...

30% of people who play video games will not buy a video game this year

18% purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Madden, EA FC, COD

12% buy a game once a month

4% buy a game more often than once a month

Most games only target those last two segments making up 16% of players

Those percentages only amount to 64%, so I', assuming that 36% buy games something between once a month to once per six months making it the biggest group of buyers. Why does most games target those 16%?
Personally I think buying a game once a month is a lot of games. I consider that quite hard core, at least if these are full price games. Gamepass and PS+ will affect this too.

 

[iroboto]

Those percentages only amount to 64%, so I', assuming that 36% buy games something between once a month to once per six months making it the biggest group of buyers. Why does most games target those 16%?
Personally I think buying a game once a month is a lot of games. I consider that quite hard core, at least if these are full price games. Gamepass and PS+ will affect this too.

Technically it’s 80% if you add up those numbers.

But the stat line likely isn’t of all gamers. There’s likely heavy overlap here and no way to separate out who is doing what. So that’s why it doesn’t add up to 100.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Technically it’s 80% if you add up those numbers.

How are you getting 80% I'm not a math wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but I only get 80% by counting the 4 and 12 percent group twice? 30+18+12+4 = 64 + 16 = 80

But the stat line likely isn’t of all gamers. There’s likely heavy overlap here and no way to separate out who is doing what. So that’s why it doesn’t add up to 100.

It states "of people who play video games" What do you mean by Overlap? It seems to be categorized quite clearly.

I think he just gave numbers he wanted to be emphasized. 30%+18% don't buy games at all or very few games = big number of gamers

16% total buy lots of games = small number of gamers

The area between those wasn't important for the argument he was making so he left it out.

 

[iroboto]

How are you getting 80% I'm not a math wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but I only get 80% by counting the 4 and 12 percent group twice? 30+18+12+4 = 64 + 16 = 80



It states "of people who play video games" What do you mean by Overlap? It seems to be categorized quite clearly.

I think he just gave numbers he wanted to be emphasized. 30%+18% don't buy games at all or very few games = big number of gamers

16% total buy lots of games = small number of gamers

The area between those wasn't important for the argument he was making so he left it out.

Oh whoops. Yea I wasn’t paying attention.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

The ironic thing is that the hardcore is even more important if they're buying a game per month. They might even be the majority of new game sales revenue even at 16% of players.

I know this doesn't take into consideration MTX which is huge.

I find it disturbing that the narrative about Fortnite = GaaS = Evil is driving the conversation more than the actual facts are though.

Btw, it's interesting that GP is the equivalent of 3 AAA purchases per year. So somewhere between the monthly hardcore and the casual.

 

[Completelu Average]

Worth leaving here for reference

"You have to fight Fortnite before you fight anything else to get your game seen and purchased."

Stats revealed in this snippet...

30% of people who play video games will not buy a video game this year

18% purchase a new game every six months or less frequently. Madden, EA FC, COD

12% buy a game once a month

4% buy a game more often than once a month

Most games only target those last two segments making up 16% of players

This is nothing new. Nothing groundbreaking. Been the norm as long as we've had internet games.


What's the best selling "hardcore gamer" game that you can think of? I'm thinking GTA V with around 210 Million copies sold. MAYBE you could say Minecraft with over 300 million copies sold.

Meanwhile, Tetris has sold well over 500 million copies and Candy Crush has been downloaded over 5 BILLION times.

But how often to the type of people who play Tetris or Candy Crush buy games?


Hardcore gamers often think "casual gamers" mean people who play the same games as them, just not as often. Casual Gamer is an entirely different gaming market. Casual gamers don't spend hundreds of dollars on game consoles or PC video cards. Why would they when they only get one, maybe 2 games a year. They play the fast, 10-15 minutes of wasting your time little arcade type game that they can get for free or just a dollar or two and play on their phone or whatever garbage PC they got from Dell with it's integrated Intel graphics. The problem is "The gaming industry" doesn't make this separation, so they all get lumped into "video gamers" and nobody really explains or even knows precisely what these terms "hardcore" and "casual" actually mean.

 

[Completelu Average]

Roblox and Minecraft don’t compete with AAA titles I think is what he’s trying to get at. But yea, those games are massive as well. I suppose as the Roblox and MC crowd gets older, they graduate to UEFN

I LOATH the term "AAA"

The meaning of "AAA" in gaming has changed so much over the years that it doesn't mean anything even remotely close to the original meaning of the term.

Once upon a time, an AAA game was like a 5 star hotel. It wasn't so much about the price, it was all about the QUALITY of the game. It didn't matter how long it took to make, how many developers worked on it, or how many hundreds of millions of dollars the publisher and developer threw away making it. An AAA game was the type of game that would compete for Game of the Year, because of the QUALITY of game it was.

These days "AAA" generally means nothing more than "We threw away hundreds of millions of dollars making this game". The game itself could be pure garbage, doesn't matter. Crap game that bombs in sales? It's AAA if it cost a ton to make. Every time that I read about some thoroughly mediocre game like Star Wars Outlaws or Avowed or Dragon Age: Veilguard being an AAA game it makes me want to punch my monitor.

Half Life 2 was AAA
Halo 2 was AAA
Red Dead Redemption 2 was AAA
The Witcher 3 was AAA
Baldur's Gate 3 was AAA

If the game isn't on that level of production and quality of those games it's NOT an AAA game as far as I'm concerned. It's just an expensive example of mediocrity.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Actually Avowed is almost AAA quality on a AA budget. It's quite good once you get into it.

I can't argue with the rest of your list.

I like to be explicit with these things. AAA budget is > $100 million I would say now. Thus BG3 is not AAA budget, which makes it all the more impressive.

25 years ago Shenmue had a $30 million budget. That implies that budgets of top games have grown 10% annually since then, as top games are about $300 million to make now according to leaked documents.