By this point (10 mos) in Gamecube's life cycle, how many games had broken a million units? How many 3rd party games had broken a million units? More than 500K? More than 250K? How's that compare to Wii? What was Gamecube's attach rate after 10 mos? How many total software units had been sold? I don't see how you can be "getting" the big picture if you don't seem to know what the big picture actually is.
NPD July 2007
- Thread starter iceberg187
- Start date
By this point (10 mos) in Gamecube's life cycle, how many games had broken a million units? How many 3rd party games had broken a million units? More than 500K? More than 250K? How's that compare to Wii? What was Gamecube's attach rate after 10 mos? How many total software units had been sold? I don't see how you can be "getting" the big picture if you don't seem to know what the big picture actually is.
Both of those still represent less than 100k sales a month though, don't they?
I certainly am not going to argue that there isn't a core of traditional Nintendo fans buying the Wii (given the stories that some stores *still* get weekly lineups, it's pretty much a given).
I'm simply saying that I would expect *more* sales of those games relative to the buyers if there wasn't a casual market buying the Wii.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Any comparison to the GC is irrelevant if we're talking about future publishing resources, and lead development platforms going forward.
How it compares to Xbox360 and PS3 is all that really matters.
scooby_dooby
Legend
Ya that sounds good on paper, until you realise the top Wii game sold 90k and was a pack in(Wii Sports), the next highest was 60k(Wii Play).
The Wii's highest selling 3rd party title was Madden at 50k, and the RE4 at 20k.
Meanwhile, 360 moved 890,000 units of Madden...
I guess to be completely fair, this week is a large anomaly with the release of Madden, but I think we'll probably see similar results with the release of ANY huge 3rd party x-platform title, the sales will be heavily skewed to 360/PS3.
Why are you using fake VGChartz numbers instead of NPD based numbers? Its known the Ioii just fudges numbers and has massive corrections after NPD numbers are shown?
Second off you are quoting supposed weekly numbers keep in mind.
Also the Wii Madden numbers seem a little strange when you consider Wii has sold the best for Tiger 2007 and Harry Potter. Not saying its going to be stellar Madden sales and believe it will sell the best on the XBox 360 but those do seem a little low they are suggesting. On a percentage of console basis Madden 2008 on the Wii sold only about 3x times better than it did in Japan on the PS3 for Madden 2007 for first week sales
Either way lets wait till August NPD numbers.
dlm yes they are both below 100k I agree selling fantastic but they aren't selling bad either. Consider they fall more in the "hardcore" side of games its pretty surprising their legs (I say and its mainly due to lack of good other software to buy which in general is what pushes games of the charts). Most hardcore games just do really well at the start then fall down while "casual" games just do really nice and steady sales while constantly staying on the charts (I should say at least for Japan in US casual games haven't caught on quite like Japan). If they were supposedly "hardcore" gamers buying the Wii for those games they likely would have picked it up at launch no matter what. So I would agree yes its more of a casual market driving Wii sales
Neither of those are strange, actually to be expected.
Tiger Woods: The Wiimote is absolutely GOLD for a golf game. Ditto baseball. While the nuance of my points is sometimes missed, one of them is this: The Wiimote is a definitive win in some games--both old ones as well as new ones. You probably couldn't invent a game to work better with the Wiimote than a golf or baseball game.
Harry Potter... I hope I don't need to explain why Harry Potter would sell well on a Nintendo platform! This style / demographic of game meets the traditional Nintendo fan and traditional "core audiance/image" well.
Actually I would think Harry Potter would sell well due to the whole wiimote-cum-wand effect.
What, 4 months of like no posting wasn't enough
I was just getting use to it
BTW I AM JUST JOKING IN CASE YOU DID NOT REALIZE THIS!!!! Your post bring some valuable insight...
scooby_dooby
Legend
Going back to attach rate, I am surprised I overlooked this as it is interesting to see the potential demographic shift. Traditionally the PlayStation has been the platform to play sports games on over the last 10 years. While just a small sample (with other variables impacting it), NCAA Football sales are interesting.
In July 2006, EA sold 330K units of NCAA Football 07 on the Xbox 360. At the time MS had about 6M-7M Xbox 360's in the market.
In July 2007, EA sold 156K units of NCAA Football 08 on the PlayStation 3. At the time Sony had about 6M-7M PlayStation 3's in the market.
Obviously there are some differences in NA sales rations versus WW total sales (i.e. MS had sold more of its 7M units in the US than Sony has; NCAA football is almost exclusively a North American affair). There is the strong synergy between Sony/Sports gaming, as well as the '08 version being better than the '07 version. Also worth noting is that in 12 months while the 360 had a 70% increase in sold units, NCAA Football only saw a 20% increase in sales when comparing July-t0-July sales. Likewise the market has shifted in terms of competition and total available software. So there are many factors worth considering.
Looking at it from EA's perspective you see the PS3 version of NCAA Football selling not only less than half of the volume of the 360 version, but also selling less than half the volume at similar stages of their respective platforms with similar total installed console units. That is something that will factor into lead platform choices as well as development resources. Also worth noting is how the pie is changing:
Platform | 2006 | 2007 | Change
PS2 | 490K | 236K | -254K
PS3 | - | 156K | + 156K
360 | 330K | 397K | + 67K
We see that there were, in very rough terms, 31K consumers who bought NCAA Football 07 in July of 2006 who didn't buy the '08 version in July of this year. That is a fairly small number (and could be made up in later sales?). > 5% is a fairly small number, so I think we can put aside the "missing" 31K units.
By doing this, we see something very, very interesting: Essentially, the units the PS2 lost in initials sales was consumed by the PS3's and Xbox 360's increased sales. i.e. The PS2 lost 254K sales and the 360/PS3 gained 223K sales.
You can look at this two ways. The first is that the PS3 gained sales over 2x as fast as the 360. On the other side of the coin it could be argued that PS2 owners were actually converted to 360 owners and not PS3 owners. Assuming, crudely, that there continues to be a 2.5-to-1 conversion ratio of PS2 owners to PS3:360 owners, that would mean the PS3 has an additional about 170K PS3 units to absorbe and the 360 about 70K. This would bring their initial sales totals for the PS3 and 360 to about 330K and 470K units, respectively.
Who knows if that will hold true. You could extrapolate all sorts of ideas from that (e.g. per console sales versus total sales), but it isn't really worth getting into because it is all guess work. What is meaningful though is
1/ The 360 version in 2006 outsold the PS3 version in 2007 when both had about the same size install bases.
2/ The 360 seems to have absorbed/converted a number of PS2 NCAA consumers.
Of course we are talking initial sales (which are about half of total unit sales for this franchise) and and there are many factors that only time will determine. I would venture a guess that this sort of sales pattern won't see EA downplaying the 360 version by one upping it or making the PS3 the lead SKU.
In July 2006, EA sold 330K units of NCAA Football 07 on the Xbox 360. At the time MS had about 6M-7M Xbox 360's in the market.
In July 2007, EA sold 156K units of NCAA Football 08 on the PlayStation 3. At the time Sony had about 6M-7M PlayStation 3's in the market.
Obviously there are some differences in NA sales rations versus WW total sales (i.e. MS had sold more of its 7M units in the US than Sony has; NCAA football is almost exclusively a North American affair). There is the strong synergy between Sony/Sports gaming, as well as the '08 version being better than the '07 version. Also worth noting is that in 12 months while the 360 had a 70% increase in sold units, NCAA Football only saw a 20% increase in sales when comparing July-t0-July sales. Likewise the market has shifted in terms of competition and total available software. So there are many factors worth considering.
Looking at it from EA's perspective you see the PS3 version of NCAA Football selling not only less than half of the volume of the 360 version, but also selling less than half the volume at similar stages of their respective platforms with similar total installed console units. That is something that will factor into lead platform choices as well as development resources. Also worth noting is how the pie is changing:
Platform | 2006 | 2007 | Change
PS2 | 490K | 236K | -254K
PS3 | - | 156K | + 156K
360 | 330K | 397K | + 67K
We see that there were, in very rough terms, 31K consumers who bought NCAA Football 07 in July of 2006 who didn't buy the '08 version in July of this year. That is a fairly small number (and could be made up in later sales?). > 5% is a fairly small number, so I think we can put aside the "missing" 31K units.
By doing this, we see something very, very interesting: Essentially, the units the PS2 lost in initials sales was consumed by the PS3's and Xbox 360's increased sales. i.e. The PS2 lost 254K sales and the 360/PS3 gained 223K sales.
You can look at this two ways. The first is that the PS3 gained sales over 2x as fast as the 360. On the other side of the coin it could be argued that PS2 owners were actually converted to 360 owners and not PS3 owners. Assuming, crudely, that there continues to be a 2.5-to-1 conversion ratio of PS2 owners to PS3:360 owners, that would mean the PS3 has an additional about 170K PS3 units to absorbe and the 360 about 70K. This would bring their initial sales totals for the PS3 and 360 to about 330K and 470K units, respectively.
Who knows if that will hold true. You could extrapolate all sorts of ideas from that (e.g. per console sales versus total sales), but it isn't really worth getting into because it is all guess work. What is meaningful though is
1/ The 360 version in 2006 outsold the PS3 version in 2007 when both had about the same size install bases.
2/ The 360 seems to have absorbed/converted a number of PS2 NCAA consumers.
Of course we are talking initial sales (which are about half of total unit sales for this franchise) and and there are many factors that only time will determine. I would venture a guess that this sort of sales pattern won't see EA downplaying the 360 version by one upping it or making the PS3 the lead SKU.
djskribbles
Legend
something else to consider is that the first year, the 360 had no direct competition, the PS3 has the 360 to compete with, and since the 360 version was the superior version, multi console owners are more likely to pickup the 360 version.
No, it's quite relevant. Comparing the sales of a PSP port on Wii to a 360 exclusive doesn't tell you much about whether you can sell an exclusive title on Wii. Even in franchise games, with Wii, we're still looking at PS2 ports, which are signifcantly lower quality than the exclusives, even moreso than they were on Gamecube. If the franchise games on Wii are selling better than they were on Gamecube, it may convince some publishers to go ahead with exclusives, or to put more development resources to the Wii versions of franchise titles the way EA did with Madden.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Simply because the PS was out first.
Sports games are mostly competitive games, and if you don't have a system yourself, you have to learn on your friend's system. While they mop the field with you because they get to play everyday, when you get the money to buy a system you buy the same one. So you can get better and even out the odds.
The 360 launched first and the Madden tie in this year was huge in establishing it as the platform to play Madden.
I still think this entire concept of console fanboy doesn't greatly extend beyond the internet. Others just want the console that has the games they want to play. And if you've owned a PS and love playing Madden, but are getting your butt kicked for the past couple of years by your buddy who owns a 360 and challenges you on the 360 and has no interest to play on your PS2, when you get the chance you're going to buy a 360. Not a PS3.
You're already familiar with the 360 controls now because you've been using them to play at your buddy's house.
Its one of the benefits of launching a year early, it was huge for MS, and I think it will prove to be well worth it as trends like the one Acert is discussing emerge. This is in spite of the hardware difficulties. Launching earlier was huge. If it did nothing else but establish the 360 as the sports gaming console this generation, it was worth it.
The Sega Saturn beat the PS1 to market and the Sega Dreamcast beat the PS2 to market. Notably, the Dreamcast had the excellent 2K games as well.
The PS1, I believe, is what established itself as the "Sporting" console due to software. Notably, the PS1 had Gameday which was not only a good game, but polygon based whereas the SS version of Madden was sprites and the first PS1 version was even canceled due to the impact. Sony also had Gamebreakers and a good NBA game for the time. And as the PS1 marketshare grew (dwarfing the SS and fending off the fast rising... and then sputtering... N64) it began to collect an impressive library of sports games.
And with the PS2, the hype around how great the PS2 version of Madden was (which wasn't on the Dreamcast) was significant. I had a lot of friends who didn't even really like football who bought Madden because of how great it looked. While within 12 months the PS2 had a lot of great software, at launch Madden was a major force.
Which, of course, with Madden squarely in your corner as a system seller it draws in all the other sports.
In the US, American football rules supreme. This goes for mindshare of the sport -- the NFL, let alone American football in general, dominates the commercial sporting scene -- as well as sporting game sales in NA.
The fact Sony had 2 commercially well received launch football titles in Gameday and Madden 2000 I think, more than anything, set the tone.
This year, yes. 2005 and 2006? Not so much. While Madden sales were good on the 360 in 2006 and 2005, they were also relatively strong on the Xbox1. And there is a gap between "Good Xbox Madden sales" and "insane PS2 Madden sales".
I frequent a couple Madden forums
oops and the tone in 2005 was definately, "I am waiting to see the PS3 version" due to the stripped out features and some performance issues. In 2006 some people migrated, but in general the game was still inferior to the PS2 version, as well give the PS3 a year to settle in and drop in price. But now? The 360 had a price drop right before the Madden release, is cheaper, and the 360 version runs better.So it isn't as much a matter of MS being out first, but the quality of the product and pricing considerations winning over fans.
As for learning the controls... my take is that Madden is pretty familiar on all platforms. Even more, the PS2/Xbox versions until this year owned the 360 and PS3 versions. And because the 360 version in 2005 and 2006 was substandard I don't believe, based on the sales evidence, there was a mass exodus of PS2 Madden gamers to the 360. So in general I don't see a lot of PS2 gamers getting 360's because their friend got a 360.
I dunno, I know a couple at work
But beyond that, when you see people like Bill Simmons (ESPN writer who covers the NFL extensively from a "fan" perspective and is very, very popular) suggesting to million of readers to get the PS3 version when asked what version to get...And everyone is familiar with the PS3 controls because they have been almost the same for 10 years for Madden on the Playstation.
Its one of the benefits of launching a year early, it was huge for MS, and I think it will prove to be well worth it as trends like the one Acert is discussing emerge. This is in spite of the hardware difficulties. Launching earlier was huge.
Of course releasing early has some impact. But there were a lot of factors, and continue to be so. Who would have expected Sony to come to market with a $600 console?
If they had gone a route with a $300 or $350 console I think MS's many misteps would have been more exposed for the huge bluppers they are. So you are right, the early release has been essential to MS's early success and as time progresses we will see more trends like this due partially to the early release... but also price disparity and development complexity and... a lot of other stuff!
And I would add MS has done a job to make themselves the "broadest and deepest" platform for a lot of genres this gen to this point in time. Racing games is only slightly surprising, but right now if you are an RPG fan the 360 has had the best offering to date by a mile. Now THAT is shocking.
Now that you could partially, probably largely, attribute to the early launch. And that will likely play as a factor over the next year as prices settle. I know it is a huge factor in my all-so-close console purchase.
As much as Sony would love for there to be 7 million ps3s sold, there isn't. It's more like 4-4.5 million.
I dunno, I know a couple at work
As an avid Simmons reader, one reason why he suggests the PS3. He got a free advance copy. Turn the tables, and had he gotten a 360 version, it would be a different story.
With seeing how the AVS forums have turned into about 'incentives' and what not, I won't even go there.
And for what it's worth, you might as well not waste your time with Madden and go straight to 2k8 which is far superior!
The Q&A I specifically I have in mind went something like, "Bill, put it all on the line: What version of Madden is the best? PS3 or Xbox 360?" and Bill went with the PS3 version, only noting that the PlayStation has been good. It doesn't appear that he knows anything about the differences of the two versions (surprising, but then again not) and only reinforcing to me, in that question, the strength of the PlayStation/Madden bond in many gamers' eyes. A lot of PS2 "Madden Gamers" (i.e. the ones who are really active and filter information to the community) held out for a couple years to see how the PS3 version would turn out.
IMO it looks like Legends took 1 step forward and 2 steps back. I still don't like their sprint implimentation... but the animations look as good as ever. As I may not get a console until later in the year, early 2008 I may pass on both until August 2008. Waaay too many good games out this year.
I think it was for one of the articles he wrote for PS3 magazine, and he specifically stated him and his Madden buddy for the last 15 years got copies at least 1 week in advance to write a column for the mag. There was no mention of even seeing or playing the 360 version.
And your earlier inklings that that PS2 gamers will stick to their guns, regardless is accurate. At least until next year or so as we see another progression of the series. If the same thing happens this year, in that the 360 is far superior, we may see that PS2 Madden stigma change.
The fact of the matter is that 2K8 FORCES you to try and play real football, instead of just rolling McNabb out of the pocket launching a 70 yard bomb down the field. The mix of the legend players with regular players is superb, and you can virtually have a different game each time as you can randomly generate teams each game, which is ingenious! The kicking game is fantastic, and after having played both on 360, I can't even fathom that anyone would buy Madden. Pro license or not. It's about the game play and 2k8 matches that much closer to real NFL action!
Back on topic, Madden on 360 is going to have HUGE sales.
Dunno if this is the right place but at IFA in connection with the BluRay press conference Sony announced they had sold 1.3 Million PS3´s in Europe.
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=65741
http://www.dvdtimes.co.uk/content.php?contentid=65741