NPD April 2007

[tongue_of_colicab]

No. 10% or 30% of europe is nothing if you compare it to the total market. nobody will make a decision because on the UK, its just too small. You dont see anyone making choices based on germany or france either and they arnt that much smaller than the UK. You dont let 60milion people decide if you got over a billion in the rest of your market.

 

[Crossbar]

No. 10% or 30% of europe is nothing if you compare it to the total market. nobody will make a decision because on the UK, its just too small. You dont see anyone making choices based on germany or france either and they arnt that much smaller than the UK. You dont let 60milion people decide if you got over a billion in the rest of your market.

I must be missing something. In the previous generation there were quite a few successful games that never went outside the PAL territory, like WRC, Singstar, Buzz etc. Don't you think the UK was a significant market that was considered for the decision of making those games?

 

[Paul_G]

No. 10% or 30% of europe is nothing if you compare it to the total market. nobody will make a decision because on the UK, its just too small. You dont see anyone making choices based on germany or france either and they arnt that much smaller than the UK. You dont let 60milion people decide if you got over a billion in the rest of your market.

I'm not saying that, i'm saying that 10% is an ample tipping point at which a dev might decide which platform to support. If the UK sold as many 360s as the rest of Europe, that may dissuade a dev from creating a game for it, because there are that many less on the market. If the PS3 under performs in the UK, on a level comparative to the US or Japan, that may make a dev think twice about being exclusive to PS3. I'm only saying 10%, while small in itself, is still large enough to make a difference, and to just lump it together with the rest of Europe when it's clear from the current sales that the buying habits are different seems a little bit strange to me.

 

[Arwin]

I must be missing something. In the previous generation there were quite a few successful games that never went outside the PAL territory, like WRC, Singstar, Buzz etc. Don't you think the UK was a significant market that was considered for the decision of making those games?

Absolutely - Buzz is very much UK oriented and some of the versions of it wouldn't work that well in other regions. But other examples you give also demonstrate how important even smaller markets can be - Sony has sometimes put different local hits on the different versions of the Singstar song collections for instance, with the Dutch version of Singstar 80s for instance having Dutch hits on it that aren't on the UK version and vice versa (in fact, over here you could often buy either version - the UK only, or the one with Dutch hits).

It all depends on the budget of the game / how many copies you need to sell in order to make a profit. There's a smooth line. Some titles will only be aimed at the largest possible market and can afford large budgets, other titles will be more niche. As console gaming becomes more and more popular, you'll see more and more niche stuff appear along with it.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

I must be missing something. In the previous generation there were quite a few successful games that never went outside the PAL territory, like WRC, Singstar, Buzz etc. Don't you think the UK was a significant market that was considered for the decision of making those games?

Dont you think that that other 70% was more important? I'm not saying the Uk isnt important but I think some of you are seriously overestimating how big the UK is. Ofcourse, some games like Arwin said need to be modified. But thats also because the kind of game. For example you cant sell a Buzz with UK questions in other parts of europe because they are oriented to that country. Same with singstar, Uk hits arnt the same as Dutch hits. But thats all because the kind of game.

 

[Rolf N]

Not sure they made the right decision. NPD numbers + MC numbers are destroying the positive they had with the gamer days.

Getting the good news out first allows a different initial reaction to the bad news. It allowed those who wanted to to say "But but but they have all this great stuff coming, it's going to be great soon!". I think it was the right decision to let Gametrailers.com jump the gun. All info was initally embargoed until Saturday AFAIK, so this was IMO clearly a move of some kind, and the release of NPD data is the obvious target.

 

[Teasy]

Dont you think that that other 70% was more important?

I don't know, how do you use Europe as a whole to make a decision on gaming? When it comes to releasing games Europe is about as much of a single market as the world market.. Its extremely fragmented by completely different cultures, tastes and languages from country to country. Releasing a game to a collection of different countries, some with the same currency but little else in common, isn't quite the same as releasing a game to a single market.

 

[Rolf N]

I don't know, how do you use Europe as a whole to make a decision on gaming? When it comes to releasing games Europe is about as much of a single market as the world market.. Its extremely fragmented by completely different cultures, tastes and languages from country to country. Releasing a game to a collection of different countries, some with the same currency but little else in common, isn't quite the same as releasing a game to a single market.

An important property of the UK market is that it acts as a source of imports for all other European countries. There are a great number of people who loathe localized versions, especially well-educated people, and they all go on to skew software sales numbers away from their own country towards the UK.

Fortunately many modern game releases are multi-lingual and you can get a proper version by just fiddling in the system settings. In other cases, such as recently FF XII, there's only one language on the disc, and it's goddamnawful.
Imports are big business in continental Europe, especially Germany (due to stricter regulations wrt violence and Nazi symbolism), and most of it is sourced from the UK market.

 

[dobwal]

The terms market and sales are little bit ambiguous in that context, to be honest. Saels can mean sales numbers or sales revenue. Since consoles' retail price is usually higher in the UK, it can skew the numbers quite a bit. I am not saying that is the case here, but it could very well be.

This article also mentions that UK is targeted for 220,000 out of 1 million for the PAL launch (article was pub'ed prior to that launch).

 

[Cheezdoodles]

The terms market and sales are little bit ambiguous in that context, to be honest. Saels can mean sales numbers or sales revenue. Since consoles' retail price is usually higher in the UK, it can skew the numbers quite a bit. I am not saying that is the case here, but it could very well be.

Consoles retail price is pretty much the same over the entire continent.

£ 425 = 621.118 Euros.

20 usd is not going to change much.

(In norway it however retails for 6000kr. Which is 750 euro)

 

[Kryton]

Consoles retail price is pretty much the same over the entire continent.

£ 425 = 621.118 Euros.

20 usd is not going to change much.

(In norway it however retails for 6000kr. Which is 750 euro)

How much is tax in Norway though? Considering a pint of beer there is about 5 quid.

Oh and, the 425 includes VAT for any US/EU comparison.

 

[Cheezdoodles]

How much is tax in Norway though? Considering a pint of beer there is about 5 quid.

Oh and, the 425 includes VAT for any US/EU comparison.

We got 25% "Moms" tax on everything you buy. Which is only 7% or so more than in the UK compared to its VAT percentage if my memory is correct.


Regarding beer :

We have the most taxes of any country in the world on alcohol (any country i have seen anyway) 50% ++ of retail price is tax.

 

[ninzel]

Looking at the success of Wii Play tells me the kind of people buying the Wii are not the same type of people that will settle for nothing less than epic Gears of War type games. Could you see the typical 360 owner running out to buy Wii Play?
I don't think the lesser graphics will be a factor to hurt Wii. The graphics are already clearly better on PS3 and 360 ,yet people are still buying the Wii.
Maybe the people who feel the Wii will slow down,are those publishers heavily invested already in PS3/360 development and who don't want t shift over and compete with Nintendo by developing software for the Wii.

 

[Rangers]

I find that very hard to believe.

A country with 60million inhabitants, similar GDP per capita as the rest of europe, is supposedly 30% of the entire market in a region that has 600million inhabitants?

Even if we only use the richest countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland, Switzerland,Austria, Netherlands, Belgium + benelux etc, your left with with 350+ million people with mostly similar price levels and GDP per capita.

I'm sorry but without hard data i find it very hard to believe that UK with its 60 million people acounts for 30% of a total market of 400+ million.

A lot of people keep batting this "UK cannot be 35% of EU that's crazy!" idea around..

It has nothing to do with population and so on, a lot has to do with how popular videgaming is in said country.

When you look at those German console sales numbers, you simply cant dispute that not very many consoles are sold in Germany. Why? I dont know, ask them. To an extent it's clear gaming is not as mainstream in France or Spain as well. I never hear about Italy in game sales so it must be a smaller market yet (again regardless of population). Most of the icelandic countries seem dominated by PC gaming.

The DS however reportedly does pretty well in throughtout Europe.

It's a well known EU sales axiom that UK numbers are often roughly 1/3 of total EU numbers.

And what is a big lead ? If vgchartz is correct it took Sony 2 months to match 1/3 of the installed userbase of the xbox 360 in Europe.

I dont doubt it. Now for the hard part..the other 2/3.

Even if we only use the richest countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark,Finland, Switzerland,Austria, Netherlands, Belgium + benelux etc, your left with with 350+ million people with mostly similar price levels and GDP per capita.

I already posted Germany numbers in this thread..April..20k Wii, 16K PS3, 9500 360. The source is reputable, gfk. It also jives exacly with numbers Sony gave us some weeks ago (360 at 253k after 17 months).

Disregard the Wii numbers if you will, I suspect they are, or at least could be, wildly supply constrained. It still leaves the German public buying consoles at a much lower rate than American.

All the rest of those countries you listed probably have almost neglible console market individually. The big ones are UK, France, Spain, and Germany, with the latter three less gaming oriented than the first, but moreso than many other parts of Europe. Norway/Sweden/Finland combine for a pop of <20m, and probably have almost no console market. When you consider Germany with 83m bought combined 25,500 360+PS3 in April, and likely buy consoles at a rate double or more what the icelandic countries do per capita.

 

[PatrickL]

Looking at the success of Wii Play tells me the kind of people buying the Wii are not the same type of people that will settle for nothing less than epic Gears of War type games. Could you see the typical 360 owner running out to buy Wii Play?
I don't think the lesser graphics will be a factor to hurt Wii. The graphics are already clearly better on PS3 and 360 ,yet people are still buying the Wii.
Maybe the people who feel the Wii will slow down,are those publishers heavily invested already in PS3/360 development and who don't want t shift over and compete with Nintendo by developing software for the Wii.

People buy more a wiimote than wii play for the game I guess. That is in line with the party games sold for the Wii.

 

[ninzel]

People buy more a wiimote than wii play for the game I guess. That is in line with the party games sold for the Wii.

Exactly.
It's not games like Red Steel or Zelda they are buyng the extra Wiimote for. It's games like Wario,Rayman Raving Rabbits and Wii Sports. So whether they are buying it for the game or the peripheral
it's still a good indication of the type of software Wii owners are happy with.

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

No not really. People buy wii play because you get the remote and for a couple of bucks extra get a bunch of funny mini games. Its not like Wii owners are jumpin hoops to buy software like Play, its just the combination of the controller with some funny games for a couple of bucks extra that makes it sell.

 

[Rangers]

I realize a lot of people dont like vgchartz numbers so those peopl..close your eyes

Anyway with the thought/hope detailed earlier that ioi's numbers could begin to provide decent early NPD prediction abilities as detailed here.

Here are vgchartz hardware numbers to the halfway point of May (coincide exactly with NPD dates) these being the two weeks of May 6-13 and 13-20, which will be half the NPD may four week period:

week 1+2=2week total

DS 148+153=301
Wii 121+126=247
PS2 59+62=121
360 58+64=122
PSP 42+45=87
PS3 20+22=42

Monthly May NPD USA+Canada projection if paces continue the same:

DS=602k
Wii=494k
360=244k
PS2=242k
PSP=174k
PS3=84k

Now, bunch of caveats, vgchartz numbers are USA+Canada, and NPD's usually discussed are America only, so lop 5-10% of the numbers for that.

VGchartz can be expected to be off as much as 20% (while they can be much closer) or more.

VGchartz in my experience tends to guess or "estimate" high. You can probably knock off another 10% just for that factor.

But I'd like to see how close they get to NPD this month, and at any rate if any trends can be discerned, if these numbers are the least bit accurate, you would be looking at probably in my estimation a 210-220k month for 360. And it looks like PS3 could be in the 60's this month, while Wii might do 400-450k and DS 500k.

But I will leave this post for reference (also another at the 4 week mark, which will still be two weeks before we acually get NPD's) for all to see how close they are and if there is any value in this method going forward as a rough NPD prediction before NPD comes out, which would be really nice to have.

 

[Corwin_B]

Now, bunch of caveats, vgchartz numbers are USA+Canada, and NPD's usually discussed are America only, so lop 5-10% of the numbers for that.

Actually VGChartz numbers come directly from fantasy-land nowadays, after Ioi was legally threatened by NPD, and tend to indicate that the Tooth Fairies buy more Nintendo stuff, whereas the population of Easter Bunnies is more interested by Sony's offerings.

 

[zed]

I realize a lot of people dont like vgchartz numbers so those peopl..close your eyes

i wouldnt be surprised if those were pretty accurate
wii 420k, ps2/xb360 200k, ps3 64k

(edit 31 may)
both at bugger all according to the weekly charts
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