NPD March 2009

[obonicus]

This Yahtzee fellow must be very intelligent and clever.

The very first words in that same video are: 'Why won't noone believe me when I say the Wii is a lump of owl pellets? I'm starting to feel like Charlton Heston at the end of Soylent Green yelling "The Wii is made of poo! Stop making games for it!"' So, uh, yeah.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm constantly amazed at X360's attach rate. I was almost positive attach rates for X360 would decay and Wii's would rise. All of which would lead to Wii generally having a commanding hold of most spots in the top 20 as with their rather large user base, it would be easier for a game to sell in mediocre numbers and still chart just due to the large install base.

However, even with a much smaller install base, X360 holds most of the top 20. It makes me wonder if the number 20th X360 title is selling just as well as the Wii/Ps3 number 10th title.

All of this tends to (in my mind) lend more credence to something Joker mentioned in another thread. That more dev dollars are being allocated to X360. And then you can port things over to other consoles if you have time/resources. Because as it stands right now, you have a better chance of having a large ROI on X360 than either of the other consoles.

I can also believe that more dev dollars are allocated to Wii in trying to figure out..."How in the world do we exploit the huge install base of this console?"

Which leaves PS3. And KZ2 not exactly leaving a very appealing light with regards to PS3 exlusivity and ROI.

And if you don't think the company accountants are keeping track of ROI and where to invest for future titles...

I dunno, I'm stumped. Prior to this generation I thought PS3 could pretty much sweep things. Until I heard how much it was going to be in order to include BluRay. Even then I figured it'd still do better than X360.

After launch of all 3 consoles. I was almost positive that Wii would own the gaming market. And while they do with consoles, they most certainly don't with regards to games sold.

Baffling. I've given up trying to predict how things will turn out.

If someone had told me 2 years ago that they expected Halo 3 would still be charting well over a year after launch, I would have laughed at them.

If someone had told me that KZ2 would sell less than a million in North America in its first month of sales, I would have looked at them in disbelief, then laughed at them.

And I don't think advertising would do much to explain this. Gears 1 had an even worse advertising campaign. It didn't even show any in game shots. Just a rendered cinematic with some cool and evocative music. Granted it had virtually no competition but the install base was also absolutely tiny compared to current install base.

Also, had it launched for the first time this last Christmas season with the original gameplay but with Gears 2 graphics, I think it would have had the potential to do even better.

I do think someone earlier was correct in one thing. Multiplayer is the key to keeping a FPS/3rd person shooter relevant these days. Co-op I think being at least as important if not more so than just standard multiplayer.

Regards,
SB

 

[joker454]

If Kameo was at number one, then it makes a bit of a mockery of the test itself anyway. Its obviously come down to art style/colour palette used rather than technical achievement.

How big was this foccs group anyway? I love when people come up anecodotal stuff like this to prove a hypothesis. It only lend support to one, often a tiny bit at that.

I didn't say Kameo ranked #1, I said it ranked well. It was not a scientific test by any means, but it's something I wanted to try for a while. I already had the games picked out, and was just waiting for the opportunity. When I saw a group of people being led around the company I jumped at the chance and shuffled them into the game room. I wanted unknowns with no biases, just honest opinions, and I got that. It may very well have come down to art style/color but what's wrong with that? Ultimately the tech is just a means to an end, it's worthless without good art direction.

 

[Vic]

I didn't say Kameo ranked #1, I said it ranked well. It was not a scientific test by any means, but it's something I wanted to try for a while. I already had the games picked out, and was just waiting for the opportunity. When I saw a group of people being led around the company I jumped at the chance and shuffled them into the game room. I wanted unknowns with no biases, just honest opinions, and I got that. It may very well have come down to art style/color but what's wrong with that? Ultimately the tech is just a means to an end, it's worthless without good art direction.

Yeah but my overall point is, without starting a massive debate, you dont rate Killzone's graphics that highly (which I think you've admitted previously). I personally know lots of people who thinks its the best looking overall game ever. I dont think the graphics hurt its sales, I just think PS3 owners are more discerning when it comes to buying games, and just buy less than 360 owners on the whole.

I think there was a point early on in in the 360's life when it seemed like 360 owners were buying virtually everything.

 

[obonicus]

I dont think the graphics hurt its sales, I just think PS3 owners are more discerning when it comes to buying games, and just buy less than 360 owners on the whole.

The first bolded part is a difficult point to make. It's about as inflammatory as 'obviously KZ2 didn't sell as well as Gears, it's not as good a game'. The second... well, it's not a good thing. And it's not helped by PS3 owners buying multplatform games at a similar rate to 360 owners but not really being drawn to Sony exclusives.

 

[Vic]

The first bolded part is a difficult point to make. It's about as inflammatory as 'obviously KZ2 didn't sell as well as Gears, it's not as good a game'. The second... well, it's not a good thing. And it's not helped by PS3 owners buying multplatform games at a similar rate to 360 owners but not really being drawn to Sony exclusives.

No I dont mean to be inflammatory. What I mean by 'discerning' is that they seem to buy slightly less on the whole than 360 owners, with Wii owners apprarently buying slightly less than them.

I think KZ2 is an excellent game. It may not be the second coming as some are saying on this thread, but I'm not being funny, but what did COD4 and GOW1 do that was revolutionary? In those two games it was more a case of refining existing ideas and they took off when released.

 

[joker454]

Yeah but my overall point is, without starting a massive debate, you dont rate Killzone's graphics that highly (which I think you've admitted previously).

Just to clarify...I think it looks good and I think the game is good, I just don't think it's the best game out on both gameplay and visuals, so the sales numbers aren't a huge shock to me. Incidentally the sales numbers aren't bad for what the game is, the only reason they are perceived as bad is because they have 50+ million to recoup, and because the hype was way out of proportion. If KZ2 was a more typical 20 million dollar game with typical hype then it would be a success.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

If someone had told me 2 years ago that they expected Halo 3 would still be charting well over a year after launch, I would have laughed at them.

Well, both Halo games have continued to sell pretty well all through the Xbox1's life cycle, so it shouldn't really be a surprise.

 

[AzBat]

No. Both Wii and PS3 have their controllers in the top 10 accessories. 360 should have sold proportionally equal number of controllers regardless of how their other accessories charted. They are independent.

I think that's flawed thinking. All 3 systems are not on equal terms. Wii is sold as party system. And it's selling way more systems than both 360 & PS3. So, it's going to have proportionally more controller sales. The PS3 controller is built such a way where you have to buy new ones when batteries are dead. There's no way to compare all 3 consoles equally. They're not apples to apples.

Sony has no subscription fees and a smaller base, naturally the pre-paid card sales are lower. In fact, I don't think the point cards are as widely available in the retail compared to XBL cards. If the average age of PS3 owners is older (17-24 based on that Nielson report ?), they may have access to a debit/credit card more readily too.

I can agree with that.

As for DS3 vs SIXAXIS... you have a point but a missing 360 controller in the chart is rather glaring. I don't know how many SIXAXIS is still being actively used. Mine has already broke down last year. There is another possible explanation. The list may be incorrect or just peculiar for this month. The numbers may look different in other months. In which case, I'd be interested to see MadWorld numbers.

I looked at previous NPD lists. Looks we've only had the data for 2 months. Not enough to make any comparisons either way.

Feb 2009
Top 10 Accessories

1. WII NUNCHUK CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
2. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER W/ JACKET NINTENDO OF AMERICA
3. PS3 DUALSHOCK 3 WIRELESS CONTROLLER SONY
4. 360 LIVE 1600 POINT GAME CARD MICROSOFT
5. 360 LIVE 1 MONTH GOLD CARD MICROSOFT
6. 360 LIVE 12 MONTH GOLD CARD MICROSOFT
7. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
8. WII CHARGE STATION NYKO
9. WII WHEEL GRIP NINTENDO OF AMERICA
10. 360 HEADSET MICROSOFT

Dec 2008
Top 10 Accessories

1. WII NUNCHUK CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
2. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER W/ JACKET NINTENDO OF AMERICA
3. WII REMOTE CONTROLLER NINTENDO OF AMERICA
4. PS3 DUALSHOCK 3 WIRELESS CONTROLLER SONY
5. WII CHARGE STATION NYKO
6. WII WHEEL GRIP NINTENDO OF AMERICA
7. WII PERFECT SHOT GUN GRIP NYKO
8. 360 LIVE 12 MONTH GOLD CARD MICROSOFT
9. 360 WIRELESS CONTROLLER MICROSOFT
10. 360 WIRELESS CONTROLLER BLACK MICROSOFT

It's also interesting that the 360 headset sold more than the 360 controller (I was told every 360 comes with a headset).

The Arcade does not come with a headset. That explains the headset sales.

Tommy McClain

 

[aselto]

Considering how well Halo Wars sold, the fact that it tops "most anticipated" type lists that I've seen, a probably $40 price point, how much can ODST sell? You would have to think something like 2 million first NPD? That's my first gut feel anyway.

Before we make any preditions, I think we have to learn what ODST is going to offer etc. We barely know anything about the game at all (at least about the single player component) - particularly the actual scope of the game and how it'll actually look and play. Also, how close to Modern Warfare 2 is it going to launch?

 

[obonicus]

Before we make any preditions, I think we have to learn what ODST is going to offer etc. We barely know anything about the game at all (at least about the single player component) - particularly the actual scope of the game and how it'll actually look and play. Also, how close to Modern Warfare 2 is it going to launch?

ODST is a September game, like Halo 3, isn't it? I didn't expect much from Halo Wars and so was pretty surprised by its performance. I imagine that early adopters will pick up ODST about as quickly as they did Halo 3, so I wouldn't be surprised by another 3 million early on. If the game has quality issues, though, then that's about all it's going to do.

 

[aselto]

I don't think ODST's released date has been announced. I think it'll be very hard for Microsoft to recreate this excimetent over ODST that was there for Halo 3 as Halo 3 was the first next-gen Halo and was supposed to close the trilogy... Thus anticipation was huge at the time. Though perhaps they'll come up with an excellent marketing campaign leading up to the game's launch.

 

[Mboojigga]

I don't think ODST's released date has been announced. I think it'll be very hard for Microsoft to recreate this excimetent over ODST that was there for Halo 3 as Halo 3 was the first next-gen Halo and was supposed to close the trilogy... Thus anticipation was huge at the time. Though perhaps they'll come up with an excellent marketing campaign leading up to the game's launch.

After seeing the last 2 marketing campaigns with Halo 2 and 3, I don't see any concern with MS getting owners excited for ODST. Most likely the game will be out this Fall which will be announced sometime this Summer like the last two.

 

[BadTB25]

Hopefully ODST will come out with a Beta or demo as well.

 

[obonicus]

Hopefully ODST will come out with a Beta or demo as well.

I have my doubts. How many Halo fans aren't interested in ODST? They just have to start the hype cycle early, build the fans into a froth as they did with Halo 3. This time they're not even fighting Halo 2, which even diehard fans were disappointed by.

 

[NRP]

You know you're gonna get it anyway, BadTB25. After all, we have play through it in co-op. (see, that's the Xbox Live peer pressure thing kicking in ).

 

[BadTB25]

You know you're gonna get it anyway, BadTB25. After all, we have play through it in co-op. (see, that's the Xbox Live peer pressure thing kicking in ).

Too true, even if its just for the new maps:smile:

I have faith that it will turn out good though.
In Bungie I trust!!

 

[NRP]

I have my doubts. How many Halo fans aren't interested in ODST? They just have to start the hype cycle early, build the fans into a froth as they did with Halo 3. This time they're not even fighting Halo 2, which even diehard fans were disappointed by.

I was dissappointed with H2, so I was skeptical about H3. Then I played the beta and I knew they pretty much nailed it. I think the beta really helped H3's sales.

 

[StefanS]

The Killzone costs, profit revenue discussion has been moved to a this new thread here

 

[dobwal]

KZ2 problem with sales has nothing to do with the merits of the game itself. Literally outside of MGS4, GT5P and GTA4, no game has shown phenomenal sales on the PS3 in the US.

All you have to do is look at NPD through the years of the current gen and see PS3 sales aren't all that impressive. Outside of GTA, the PS3 has never had a 7 figure NPD sales month for any full fledge title. Outside of maybe COD4, the PS3 has never posted a 600K month of sales of a full fledge title during Nov and Dec. Looking at NPD over the last two plus years shows that the Sony's problem with US game sales is systemic and the problem lies with the types of gamers the PS3 generally attracts.