NPD June 2009

[obonicus]

This is a pretty big leak, but it's not the whole picture of sales. Nothing below 20k showed up. Both Oblivion and Fallout are around 30k, so even if we had the 2:1 sales ratio for 360S3 (and I think it'd be lower for Fallout) it won't show up on this listing.

Otherwise, if you look at the list, popular games are still selling. Call of Duty is there! It's more that first-party games aren't striking a chord. On half the install-base, it's hard to sell more than 20k -- check the 360 list, the last game on the PS3 list (GH:SH) is the last game with over 40k on 360.

I still want to understand what happened to Red Faction Guerilla and FN4, though.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This is a pretty big leak, but it's not the whole picture of sales. Nothing below 20k showed up. Both Oblivion and Fallout are around 30k, so even if we had the 2:1 sales ratio for 360S3 (and I think it'd be lower for Fallout) it won't show up on this listing.

Otherwise, if you look at the list, popular games are still selling. Call of Duty is there! It's more that first-party games aren't striking a chord. On half the install-base, it's hard to sell more than 20k -- check the 360 list, the last game on the PS3 list (GH:SH) is the last game with over 40k on 360.

I still want to understand what happened to Red Faction Guerilla and FN4, though.

I'd go with that argument until you look at things like Wolverine, RE5, FIFA, and Blazblue. Where it appears that once you get into low enough volume titles appear to even out between the consoles when interest remains.

To me selling 20k a month is borderline still having legs. Less than that and it would seem the game is more limping along than anything. Although granted if a game could average 10k a month that's still 120k units a year. But I agree, being able to see titles under 20k would have been far more informative and allowed a better understanding of what might be going on.

Even still though I would have expected Fallout and Oblivion to sell similar numbers to X360 just from the fact there is virtually no RPG competition. It isn't like there's a Fable II there competeing for RPG sales.

FN4 I think is best explained by RobertR1 earlier. In that there's been a huge negative reaction to the stick only controls. And someone commented that FN3 was more popular on X360? So if existing FN fans were boycotting the game, and there were more existing fans on X360, that could explain the oddity of it selling very well compared to X360.

Red Faction though is a bit odd. COD and KZ2 shows that FPS is the only game type that has significant legs on the console, yet Red Faction didn't do well on PS3 at all.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

It's impossible to make sense of some of the various relative platform sales discrepancy's.

Keep in mind NPD only tracks 60% of the market so sometimes I wonder how accurate they are when strange oddities pop up.

For Red Faction, I think that's a hardcore type game, I think Xbox Live is a very hardcore community type of service, games spread quickly there if they have good word of mouth. I think PS3 is less "connected", hardcore, and FPS centric. So that's my thinking about Red Faction. It was the "it" game on Live for a time.

 

[obonicus]

I'd go with that argument until you look at things like Wolverine, RE5, FIFA, and Blazblue. Where it appears that once you get into low enough volume titles appear to even out between the consoles when interest remains.

It's hard to tell. BlazBlue is a fighting game, a new release. I think we should look at SF4 as a better example, since it also about even on both systems. For Fighting games, it helps that the PS3 is the system used for EVO. The other games I think are anomalies.

To me selling 20k a month is borderline still having legs. Less than that and it would seem the game is more limping along than anything. Although granted if a game could average 10k a month that's still 120k units a year. But I agree, being able to see titles under 20k would have been far more informative and allowed a better understanding of what might be going on.

Yeah, but you're failing to consider that the PS3 has half of the install-base. 120k on 360 is 60k on PS3, typically. What you're saying is that the PS3 should sell software better than the 360, and that's not really reasonable or realistic.

FN4 I think is best explained by RobertR1 earlier. In that there's been a huge negative reaction to the stick only controls. And someone commented that FN3 was more popular on X360? So if existing FN fans were boycotting the game, and there were more existing fans on X360, that could explain the oddity of it selling very well compared to X360.

Boycotts rarely make any sense, to be honest, especially since FN3 had button controls. Maybe a reaction to controls, ala SF4?

Red Faction though is a bit odd. COD and KZ2 shows that FPS is the only game type that has significant legs on the console, yet Red Faction didn't do well on PS3 at all.

A nitpick, but Red Faction is a third-person open-world game. Not really an FPS.

 

[obonicus]

For Red Faction, I think that's a hardcore type game, I think Xbox Live is a very hardcore community type of service, games spread quickly there if they have good word of mouth. I think PS3 is less "connected", hardcore, and FPS centric. So that's my thinking about Red Faction. It was the "it" game on Live for a time.

There may be truth there, to the Live! thing. Thinking about Army of Two here, which also was 3:1 360S3.

 

[SonComet]

I wish we had figures for how many people own only a 360, or only a PS3? I, and I'm assuming many others, own both.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Yeah, but you're failing to consider that the PS3 has half of the install-base. 120k on 360 is 60k on PS3, typically. What you're saying is that the PS3 should sell software better than the 360, and that's not really reasonable or realistic.

Actually I was taking install base into account.

But as I said, it appears that as you get closer to bottom of the barrel numbers, the amount of sellthrough appears to start evening out irrespective of install base when you have an install base in the multiple millions. As you get more of an install base that equaling number possibly rises.

An example of this phenomenon is with the PS2, where as the install base grew to phenomenal numbers, the number of sales of hits didn't rise in a similar proportion.

As the install base gets larger and larger the increase in sales is incrementally less and less.

Or to put it in reverse, the larger the install base, the more people you have that haven't yet bought X game. Thus there's a growing number of potential consumers that haven't yet picked up a game but think, "hmmm, I've always wanted to try this, maybe I'll pick it up this time."

And once you reach certain numbers the low level of this equalizes across install bases.

It's just a pet theory of mine. And I really wish we "could" see numbers below 20k to see how well reality bears out my theory.

So, yes to your other assumption. I do think that as the sales numbers get lower, titles will sell better relative to their install base if you have a smaller install base.

I wish that Wii had a similar audience with similar tastes in titles to the X360. As just a cursory glance at the software numbers for Wii, shows an amazingly similar trend to the X360 in terms of number of titles above 20k and number of titles at certain price brackets.

For example both have 7 titles above 70k.
Wii has slightly more in the 30k-70k range.
And there's only a 1 title difference in the 20k-30k range.

If software sold purely based on install base, the Wii should be wiping the floor with software in all those brackets.

Regards,
SB

 

[RobertR1]

Totals from the leaked numbers.

360: 2.51M
Wii:2.30M
NDS:1.89M
PS3:1.33M
PS2:0.46M
PSP:0.36M

The 360 is back above the Wii for selling most software and it's also selling more software than the PS family combined. At this point people are either buying PS2's to replace older units or for the occasional one off game as the software sales for the PS2 seem to be dying. The PSP is a disaster in terms of software sales. You can see from the list I posted earlier where the NDS had 42 titles over 20k you can see that a wide range of software seems to work on the NDS but not many are major standouts. The PS3 software sales are fine for it's install base at seeing that it's install base is still at the PS3 hardcore gamers, it should have more software sales.

 

[Teasy]

I wish that Wii had a similar audience with similar tastes in titles to the X360. As just a cursory glance at the software numbers for Wii, shows an amazingly similar trend to the X360 in terms of number of titles above 20k and number of titles at certain price brackets.

For example both have 7 titles above 70k.
Wii has slightly more in the 30k-70k range.
And there's only a 1 title difference in the 20k-30k range.

If software sold purely based on install base, the Wii should be wiping the floor with software in all those brackets.

Regards,
SB

Surely there's enough of that with 360 and PS3, its boring as it is without all three having practically the same userbase.

360's US userbase is 75% the size of Wii's so at best we should see Wii selling 30-35% more than 360.

 

[Zassk]

I wish we had figures for how many people own only a 360, or only a PS3? I, and I'm assuming many others, own both.

NPD released some information about this last year. 3% of console owners owned two consoles, and 1% owned three consoles.

 

[obonicus]

NPD released some information about this last year. 3% of console owners owned two consoles, and 1% owned three consoles.

No, actually. We discussed this a couple of months ago. What they said is that 3% of respondents (aimed at Americans in general) owned two consoles. 2% owned three consoles. At the time that did mean that about every single PS3 owner owned all three consoles, so I personally doubt that study.

 

[zed]

based on RobertR1 numbers, wii lags greatly behind the other 2 in games sold per console, you can see why activision want the ps3 price dropped as it seems (at least for this month) to have the ppl that buy the most games

ps3 -------- 0.1682 games per console
xbox360 -- 0.1618 games per console
wii --------- 0.1119 games per console

 

[Cheezdoodles]

What are you dividing?

Monthly console sales vs total hardware?

Spoiler

if thats monthly console vs monthly games your math is waaay off.

 

[TrungGap]

Yeah, but you're failing to consider that the PS3 has half of the install-base. 120k on 360 is 60k on PS3, typically. What you're saying is that the PS3 should sell software better than the 360, and that's not really reasonable or realistic.

I'm not sure if we can/should use this argument...there's a point in which this argument doesn't apply. For an example, you don't expect the PS2 to sell proportionally to the PS3 install base do you? I don't know when should we saying that ratio of the installed base doesn't match the ratio of software sales. Though I'm starting to think at this point, it's starting to deviate.

 

[dobwal]

based on RobertR1 numbers, wii lags greatly behind the other 2 in games sold per console, you can see why activision want the ps3 price dropped as it seems (at least for this month) to have the ppl that buy the most games

ps3 -------- 0.1682 games per console
xbox360 -- 0.1618 games per console
wii --------- 0.1119 games per console

Actually, one should expect a console's monthly games sales per console ratio to drop as the console's userbase expands and the hardcore owners have less influence on overall game sales.

Furthermore, Activision isn't worried about the current conditions of PS3 games sales but the chance that the continued conservative price strategy by Sony may lead to erosion of PS3's ability to sell titles in the future.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

At the time that did mean that about every single PS3 owner owned all three consoles.

How on earth do you make that conclusion?

 

[Acert93]

Actually, one should expect a console's monthly games sales per console ratio to drop as the console's userbase expands and the hardcore owners have less influence on overall game sales.

Exactly, which we have actually demonstrated in previous years that as the user base increase and diversifies a franchise often sees an increase in overall sales but the attach ratio of a franchise will decline. NCAA and Madden have been excellent examples of such where the staggard launch years provide excellent examples of sales vs. install base and relative decline on a platform for the ration as well as comparative sales by installed unit. I spent a bit of time detailing this and unfortunately we continue to see arguements concerning attach ratios "being similar" and ignoring that this isn't a good thing for the smaller platform(s) as it doesn't project as positively as the install base grows in general. Obviously critical mass, cost of development against estimated sales, available resources and so forth are other factors, but simply extracting ratios with the expectation that as the install base grows the ratio will hold stable, because more often than not they don't.

 

[Acert93]

What are you dividing?

Monthly console sales vs total hardware? [/spoiler]

That would be my guess: total June software sales divided by total US install base, but we would need his specific numbers to confirm.

 

[dobwal]

How on earth do you make that conclusion?

Because the article stated percentages revolving around the whole US and not just console gamers with statements like "72% of America plays games". Well if NPD felt its study encompassed all of America then 1% or 2% of respondents would be equivalent to 3-6 million Americans. Even if you removed people age 0-5 as being too young to game, you still have 270 million people, which meant 2% was roughly equal to the PS3 userbase at the time.

 

[zed]

That would be my guess: total June software sales divided by total US install base, but we would need his specific numbers to confirm.

yes my simple naive method, Ive used a more accurate method below.
Im was just reporting the fact in the month of june2009 maybe it was an anomaly but the ps3 had the highest attach rate, due to the numbers being cut off at 20,000 the actual attachrate figures will be a bit better.
whilst 0.1682 vs 0.1618 only looks like 4% difference it is in fact larger due to the 20,000 cutoff giving greater benefit to the larger installbase

a more accurate figure is after normalizing the installbase, do the math + its
ps3 -------- 0.1682 games per console
xbox360 -- 0.1282 games per console
which is a 31% difference

true this

Actually, one should expect a console's monthly games sales per console ratio to drop as the console's userbase expands and the hardcore owners have less influence on overall game sales.

prolly has an influence though another reason is perhaps ps3 owners are likely to be richer (more expensive console + we know in the US the average ps3 owner is older than the average xbox360 owner)
whatever the reason the fact stands in june2009 (which looked to be an unremarkable month software wise as there were no standout hits skewing the results) the attachrate with the ps3 was ~30% higher than the xbox360.
Itll be interesting if we get data like this in future to see if it holds true