NPD December 2008

mrcorbo said:
I just did some research into exactly how exclusives have sold historically in terms of attach rate during launch month on the 360 and PS3. To clarify: I compared the launch month sales of exclusives that charted in NPD (and that I therefore had easy access to sales numbers for) to the LTD hardware sales of the console as of that month for as many exclusives as I could find.

I'm not going to attempt to say anything definitive from this very incomplete data, but I found that broadly, PS3 exclusives have performed roughly equivalently to the 360's exclusives. However, the 360 has had 3 titles that stand above all the others. Halo 3, Gears 1 and Gears 2 which hit attach rates of around 48%!!!!!!, 33% and 13% respectively. Sony's only standout title is MGS 4 at 16%. Now clearly we run into the problem of being limited by the available data (no PSN downloads, no titles that maybe just missed charting in a big release month), but I don't think having this data would change the picture dramatically.

It's not that PS3 exclusives have been unappealing. They just haven't had anything comparable to a Halo 3 or a Gears 1. I think it is the subconscious desire to see a title succeed on this level that causes some to hype these Sony exclusives ("just wait till....") to the point where they can't help but be disappointments. Take away Halo 3 and Gears 1 from the 360, though, and the sales performance of the exclusives for the 2 systems is a lot more comparable and maybe even in the PS3s favor once you factor in the 360's own disappointments (Too Human, most if not all of the Rare stuff, I'm looking at you).
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Is this with or without factoring bundles ? Gears and halo 3 were never bundled with the system. its my understanding that in the states at least Resistance , uncharted , motorstorm and MGS4 were all bundled. Does that affect your numbers in anyway ?

I think a better way to figure this out would be exclusive million sellers or higher that were not bundled with any packages.

Assuming Eurogamer wasn't so selective in its excerpts that it demolished all context, that's where I think he kind of got lazy. I mean, alright, we get it, every console is its own monopoly, bully for you. The rest sounds like he spun himself out of control. A PS3 is more of an investment than a 360, granted, but I didn't realize it was an investment in the very future of gaming (according to Sony). Is a $200 console (read: gaming, not media, platform) meant to last as long as a $400 one? When Xbox Next and PS4 show up at about the same time and about the same price with about the same capabilities, will the guy who invested $200 on a 360 be as reluctant to upgrade as the guy who ponied up $400 for a PS3? Or is buying a weird Wii or disposable 360 supposed to be like an unwise alternative that's not good for gaming's future?
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I think anyway you spin it the value isn't there for the ps3 being so hard to program for or being future proof.

The 360 launched in 2005 at 300/400 while the ps3 launched at 500/600. That means if you bought the 360 at launch your getting an extra year out of the system already and have already saved $100-$300 in costs. If the xbox 360 is replaced because it was easy to program for and games have pushed the maximum graphics out of it already in say 2011. That is 5 full years of gaming and 6 holiday seasons. Then in 2011 you can invest in a brand new system that will surely blow the socks off the now 4 year old 5 holiday season old ps3. If ms goes with the same pricing that would be a $300-400 investment again. Following the same time frame your now paying $600-$800 for a 10 year long period of gaming or 12 holiday seasons worth of gaming. You get a nice big upgrade half way through. If you bought that ps3 in 2005 and tried keeping it for that 10 years your looking at $500-$600 and are hoping for big graphical advances from the hard to program for system.

I'm not sure who would want that. The ps3 is what now 8 years old ? Does anyone who can afford a new system really want to continue playing the ps2 an buying new games for it when there are systems like the 360 and ps3 out there ?

Personaly i think its best to make a time frame and upgrade within that time frame all the time. The 360 may be repalced with an xbox next in another year or two. However its not like the 360 will just disapear and if the software is still selling well it will countine to get more software either through ps3 ports or original games for it . 5 years /6 holidays as a flagship console I believe is more than enough and i'm sure most gamers out there would agree. With current ilbrarys and price points the 360 offers the best value for gamers who primarly want to play games and unless sony starts to move down the pricnig rung it doesn't matter if there is untapped power in the console , it will rarely get used. If it requires a 40m investment ala killzone 2 then it will also rarely get used as so few developers will be willing to invest that much money sololy in a third place console.
 
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Pete said:
:LOL:

There's nothing wrong with speaking truth from power once in a while, and I'm not sure there's much in this truth to take offense with. Obviously Sony gambled on more hardware up front in return for longer platform life, assuming their market dominance would cushion if not completely absorb the initial price shock (i.e., devs would be compelled to work on PS3 b/c it promised a larger audience and so potential returns). I'm not sure how this affects consumers (which I presume is where the shock is coming from), and I'm not sure why this would surprise developers (or at least engine programmers).

Which is basically what he said at the end of that VE3D quote:



Saving throw!

But the reality is, will gamers expect a $200 console to last as long as a $400 one? I guess if consoles have truly expanded to media platforms, as Sony expected, then it's a different question (not to mention different price comparison). This long-tail dev cycle sounds great strictly from a gaming POV, but it's hard to argue PS3 doesn't have its eye on more than just gaming.

Plus, you know, gamers are one market I wouldn't exactly bet on making decisions with an eye toward long-term rewards. So, in that respect, the price hurt Sony as much as their name helped them.

Really, the most eye-opening part of that Eurogamer quote from an OPM article was this:



Assuming Eurogamer wasn't so selective in its excerpts that it demolished all context, that's where I think he kind of got lazy. I mean, alright, we get it, every console is its own monopoly, bully for you. The rest sounds like he spun himself out of control. A PS3 is more of an investment than a 360, granted, but I didn't realize it was an investment in the very future of gaming (according to Sony). Is a $200 console (read: gaming, not media, platform) meant to last as long as a $400 one? When Xbox Next and PS4 show up at about the same time and about the same price with about the same capabilities, will the guy who invested $200 on a 360 be as reluctant to upgrade as the guy who ponied up $400 for a PS3? Or is buying a weird Wii or disposable 360 supposed to be like an unwise alternative that's not good for gaming's future?

Wait. So, Sony wants in on Wii's world, after all? :smile: I think we've come full circle, Kaz. Well spun.
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I'm not sure why the PS3 is more of an investment than the 360. Investment in what? Right now the 360 arguably has a stronger library and chances are that will continue. An investment in a game console is nothing more than an investment in the library. I guess Sony is expecting great legs and they will suddenly start to dominate as they did in the past.

I also don't understand why the PS3 would have more longevity. Even if it has more untapped power for the future that doesn't mean it will necessarily have the better games.

Sony is doing a poor job of expanding the industry if that is their goal. Nintendo has sole ownership of that goal.
 
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21937

For months, Sony has promoted Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet as its first substantial test of the Game 3.0 model first put forward by Phil Harrison at Game Developer's Conference in February 2007.

While the game did debut at number eight on the all-platform top 10 chart following its release in October 2008, it then faded below the top 20 on the crowded November chart. Going into December, the game had launch-to-date sales of only 356,000 units.

ic5pj7.jpg
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Good to see LBP rebounding , sucks for resistance 2

Metal Gear Solid 4 Passes 1 Million

According to figures from the NPD Group, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots has now sold over 1.076 million units since its launch in mid-June of 2008.


rawzd3.jpg
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That took a long time for MGS4 to hit 1m in the states. It really makes me wonder why it hasn't been ported to the 360.

Edit * just a heads up this doesn't include bundles for MGS4 though at most i'd say thats another 500k units .


e9yl9y.jpg


ouch for these guys also. But thats what you get when you release sub par games in the holiday season , i bet these would have sold well in the january through march time frame.
 
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There's nothing wrong with speaking truth from power once in a while, and I'm not sure there's much in this truth to take offense with. Obviously Sony gambled on more hardware up front in return for longer platform life, assuming their market dominance would cushion if not completely absorb the initial price shock (i.e., devs would be compelled to work on PS3 b/c it promised a larger audience and so potential returns). I'm not sure how this affects consumers (which I presume is where the shock is coming from), and I'm not sure why this would surprise developers (or at least engine programmers).
Click to expand...

I was all set to defend Kaz on this because most of what I said was fine, and what he should be saying in Sony's position..

But that particular qoute, I think the problem is it assumes complex programming=power, and I dont think thats true at all. I think a GT200 and Core Quad for example would be very easy to program for, at the same time offering immense power.
 
eastmen said:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=21937



Good to see LBP rebounding , sucks for resistance 2


That took a long time for MGS4 to hit 1m in the states. It really makes me wonder why it hasn't been ported to the 360.
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Geez, thats almost shocking! I recall MGS4 doing ~800k it's first month. Talk about frontloaded..

But edit, I did forget about the bundles..although the bundles were out at launch too right? So it was still front loaded apparently, just sold more than the raw numbers indicate.
 
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Rangers said:
Geez, thats almost shocking! I recall MGS4 doing ~800k it's first month. Talk about frontloaded..

But edit, I did forget about the bundles..although the bundles were out at launch too right? So it was still front loaded apparently, just sold more than the raw numbers indicate.
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yes, it was estimated the bundles sold ~230k which accounted for the extra PS3 sales that month compared to the average before and after.
 
cool thanks , never seen those

However I was replying to someone using the npd for their data and so far no one has said gears, gears 2 or halo were bundled with teh actual systems here unlike uncharted , resistance and motorstorm
 
@ eastmen

No I didn't include forced bundles. It never became an issue anyway since none of the bundled titles I can recall for 360 or PS3 were bundled during their launch month except for MGS4. And the MGS4 bundle was just an option. There were other bundles available to those who had no interest in the game, so I think it would be fair to include those sales. I'm not actually sure if the NPD sales numbers that month included the bundled sales or not, actually.

Retailer bundles are also not a reason to disqualify a title from consideration as long as there is a cheaper option available that doesn't include the game.

Given what I said about incomplete data I am reluctant to get into to much detail to prevent the inevitable arguments. The information i used is publicly available and if someone doesn't want to take my word for it they can feel free to check for themselves, but the next 3 highest attaching titles after the ones I mentioned for 360 and PS3 had attach rates of 8%-7%-6% and 7%-6%-5% respectively.

I do believe that the 360 sells software at a measurably higher rate than the other consoles, but by any metric that I have measured by the difference isn't as large as it might appear at a glance. Still, the 360 has had 3 breakout hits and I'm still awed by that Halo3 number. Is there the potential for KZ2, GoW3 or GT5 to do 3-5 million (depending on install base at launch) in the NPDs during their launch month, because that's what it would take to equal what Halo3 achieved on 360 in Sep '07.
 
assen said:
1184458.jpg
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I bought that one

If only Sony made a similar move to make an appealing package for Christmas. That package along with the price cut really raised interest.

The PS3 didnt do much. It looked almost the same as it always looked in the shelves. Similar packaging, similar pricing.

They did though make good bundles as well in EU these holidays. I saw bundles with Resistance+Uncharted, Heavenly Sword+Uncharted, Rachet and Clank+ Motorstorm and many others. There were also Motorstorm 2 bundles and I am not sure about Resistance 2 bundles.

Problem was these bundles did not come in the right package and the right pricing so they were either unnoticed, or passed.
 
Wow, I wish they had good bundles in Canada. The only bundle I've seen is the 160gig Uncharted bundle, which sucks (price-wise) and the Halo3 bundle. I'm sure there was probably a MGS4 bundle around. Oh, and some crappy Xbox bundles with Kung Fu Panda or some crap.
 
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