NPD March 2018 (hardware in)

[Silent_Buddha]

Software for the month.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/24/...5-debuts-as-the-top-selling-game-of-the-year/

1. Far Cry 5
2. Sea Of Thieves
3. MLB 18: The Show
4. Kirby Star Allies*
5. Grand Theft Auto V
6. Call of Duty: WWII
7. Mario Kart 8*
8. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
9. NBA 2K18
10. Monster Hunter: World
11. Super Mario Odyssey*
12. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
13. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds**
14. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
15. A Way Out**
16. Assassin’s Creed: Origins
17. Dragon Ball: Fighterz
18. FIFA 18**
19. Splatoon 2*
20. UFC 3

Good showing by SOT which is basically a multiplayer only sand box. MLB 18 also a good showing for a baseball game.

Also interesting.

But year to date, hardware-spending is at a high, generating $925 million so far in 2018. This was driven mainly by Microsoft’s Xbox One, though Sony’s PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in March and 2018. The Nintendo Switch 32GB with red and blue Joycon controllers was the best-selling hardware in March and 2018.

So...

• Xbox One is generating the most revenue of all consoles in 2018
• PS4 sold the most consoles in 2018
• The Switch Red and Blue SKU is the highest selling console hardware SKU. Helps that unlike XBO and PS4 there are only 2 Nintendo console SKUs.

That must mean that the XBO-X is selling in significant enough numbers that even with the XBO-S being discounted, XBO overall is generating more revenue than PS4 while selling less units overall.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

But year to date, hardware-spending is at a high, generating $925 million so far in 2018. This was driven mainly by Microsoft’s Xbox One, though Sony’s PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in March and 2018.

Xbox One is generating the most revenue of all consoles in 2018

Are you sure these follow? I didn't necessarily read it that way. I initially read it more that any increase in hardware spending at the margins was being driven by Xbox (probably Xbox One X high price tag), not meaning Xbox had the largest revenue.

Compared to March 2017, consumers spent less on hardware last month — $331 million, down 32 percent from $485 million. But year to date, hardware-spending is at a high, generating $925 million so far in 2018. This was driven mainly by Microsoft’s Xbox One, though Sony’s PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in March and 2018. The Nintendo Switch 32GB with red and blue Joycon controllers was the best-selling hardware in March and 2018.

It's kind of confusing really, what does "at a high" mean? Year over year? All time?

At first I thought no way hardware was up YoY since Switch launched at 906k in March 17. But then I realized in 2018 first quarter Switch had 3 months to sell instead of just one, likely equaling or exceeding that number.

The unit counts so far in 2018 that I have:

PS4 971k
Switch 857k
Xbox One 844k

Meh, it's now more believable to me Xbox could lead in revenue, due to the unit counts not being too far off. Xbox needs about a 16% higher ASP to have more revenue than PS4. Which is kind of a lot given the base PS4 costs more generally than the base Xbox, and also that PS4 has the Pro at a higher price to mitigate some of the Xbox X advantage.

To play around with the plausibility of this, if I used an ASP (average selling price) of 299 for PS4 base, 399 for PS4 Pro, 499 for Xbox X, and 249 for Xbox S, and assumed a 80% base 20% premium split for both, I end up with ~$300 million in revenue for PS, vs $252 million for Xbox, for 2018 using the unit counts above. If I shift the mix for Xbox to 40% for Xbox One X, I still come up a little short, at around $294 million for Xbox. So it would have to be something along the lines of 45% Xbox One X share for Xbox to pull ahead. That also assumes IMO a conservative 20% PS4 Pro share, I'd expect it's significantly higher.

Overall there's too many variables though, since PS4 Pro can sometimes be had for 349, and the base SKU ASP assumptions could be inaccurate, I could imagine Xbox S ASP actually being above $250 with all the 299 bundles, etc. So overall I didn't learn much from that, LOL.

BTW Aquamarine seemed to throw some shade at magicpork the new NPD leakers numbers, but her post was inconclusive, https://www.resetera.com/posts/7124239/ she's now apparently banned for something else, and there's been no further discussion. Given that, not much can be done IMO except continue using the leakers numbers. Hopefully those with the real numbers on Era wouldn't allow wildly inaccurate numbers to continue being used without a heads up behind the scenes.

 

[djskribbles]

Considering what MLB The Show usually sells, and what SoT sold in the UK, I'm guessing there's a pretty big gap between 1st and the rest of the software. Not surprising considering Far Cry is MP.

Far Cry was probably well over 1M, and I'm guessing SoT and MLB were in the 500-700K range.

Software for the month.

https://venturebeat.com/2018/04/24/...5-debuts-as-the-top-selling-game-of-the-year/

1. Far Cry 5
2. Sea Of Thieves
3. MLB 18: The Show
4. Kirby Star Allies*
5. Grand Theft Auto V
6. Call of Duty: WWII
7. Mario Kart 8*
8. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
9. NBA 2K18
10. Monster Hunter: World
11. Super Mario Odyssey*
12. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild*
13. PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds**
14. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege
15. A Way Out**
16. Assassin’s Creed: Origins
17. Dragon Ball: Fighterz
18. FIFA 18**
19. Splatoon 2*
20. UFC 3

Good showing by SOT which is basically a multiplayer only sand box. MLB 18 also a good showing for a baseball game.

Also interesting.



So...

• Xbox One is generating the most revenue of all consoles in 2018
• PS4 sold the most consoles in 2018
• The Switch Red and Blue SKU is the highest selling console hardware SKU. Helps that unlike XBO and PS4 there are only 2 Nintendo console SKUs.

That must mean that the XBO-X is selling in significant enough numbers that even with the XBO-S being discounted, XBO overall is generating more revenue than PS4 while selling less units overall.

Regards,
SB

That's not what they meant, they meant XB1 was the main driver of HW revenue growth, not overall revenue. XB1S' ASP is probably lower. But from January to March, XB1 was ~+48%, +44% and +24% respectively YoY in unit sales. Pair that with XB1X's hefty 499 price tag and you can see why they're the main driver of revenue growth.

PS4 is still #1 in HW sales.

https://www.resetera.com/posts/7157124/

Xbox One leading driver of revenue growth. PS4 still best-selling.

There's no way we can figure out which company is generating more revenue (edit: Actually on second thought, I believe the above quote does mean that PS4 generated the most revenue), nor can we figure out which is selling more units, Pro or X. All online retailers that rank sales would suggest that Pro is edging out X, but who knows.

Also: https://www.resetera.com/posts/7163146/

Both iterative boxes are doing what I think they were intended to do. Both are playing a role in keeping hardware humming. Sorry I can't really get into the details.

 

[Rangers]

There's no way we can figure out which company is generating more revenue, nor can we figure out which is selling more units, Pro or X. All online retailers that rank sales would suggest that Pro is edging out X, but who knows.

Well there's just Amazon mainly right? Anyways I just checked and for 2018 YTD they have Ps4 Pro #57 and Xbox X #61, so, pretty close.

Anyways I dont put too much stock in Amazon any more although OTOH it's always fun to check them out and pretend they mean more than they do.

The main thing I noticed is if an SKU is not actually shipping from Amazon but from a 3rd party, it tends to cause that to fall in the rankings (I guess people dont want to buy from a third party as much?). This happens a LOT.

Right now Xbox Is shipping from a 3rd party, "Mallstop", albeit at a slight discount to $485. It seems to be the case anecdotally a lot when I look at Xbox X.

 

[djskribbles]

Well there's just Amazon mainly right? Anyways I just checked and for 2018 YTD they have Ps4 Pro #57 and Xbox X #61, so, pretty close.

Also Bestbuy and Gamestop. These are hourly charts, but I check them the odd time.

PS4P also has 3 SKUs (standard, BF2 and GoW LE) and XB1X has 1. The other two aren't massive sellers, but they do affect the rankings nonetheless. The GoW bundle would've performed better had they produced more.

Anyways I dont put too much stock in Amazon any more although OTOH it's always fun to check them out and pretend they mean more than they do.

I don't either, multiple SKUs make them unreliable. Just fun to check on them once in a while.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

That's not what they meant, they meant XB1 was the main driver of HW revenue growth, not overall revenue. XB1S' ASP is probably lower. But from January to March, XB1 was ~+48%, +44% and +24% respectively YoY in unit sales. Pair that with XB1X's hefty 499 price tag and you can see why they're the main driver of revenue growth.

From that particular part of the article they are talking about the 925 million USD thus far in 2018. They are not talking about the increase YoY.

But year to date, hardware-spending is at a high, generating $925 million so far in 2018. This was driven mainly by Microsoft’s Xbox One, though Sony’s PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in March and 2018

The main driver for the 925 million USD spent on hardware consoles this year was mainly driven by the XBO platform. I could see your interpretation if they mentioned the YoY increase as being mainly driven by XBO.

Either way, thus far, the first 3 months of 2018 have been fairly close between all three console platforms. April might show a large jump in PS4 hardware if we assume GOW as a 1p exclusive will move a lot of hardware units. Similarly we might see a drop in XBO hardware in April if SOT was a large factor in XBO doing relatively well that month.

Regards,
SB

 

[Rangers]

Also Bestbuy and Gamestop. These are hourly charts, but I check them the odd time.

The way you got that best buy list seemed weird and non official (search term "game"). I just googled and got this *shrug* https://www.bestbuy.com/site/shop/best-selling-video-game-consoles .

 

[djskribbles]

From that particular part of the article they are talking about the 925 million USD thus far in 2018. They are not talking about the increase YoY.

That quote is simply expanding on the same bullet point posted above in the article.

And here is how 2018 is comparing so far to 2017 in terms of year-to-date dollar sales:

• Total: $3.41 billion (up 15 percent from $2.98 billion in 2017 year to date)
• Hardware: $925 million (up 13 percent from $817 million)
• PC and console software: $1.53 billion (up 8 percent from $1.42 billion)
• Accessories: $956 million (up 29 percent from $740 million)

Compared to March 2017, consumers spent less on hardware last month — $331 million, down 32 percent from $485 million. But year to date, hardware-spending is at a high, generating $925 million so far in 2018. This was driven mainly by Microsoft’s Xbox One, though Sony’s PlayStation 4 remains the best-selling console in March and 2018.

HW sales are down YoY in March, but up overall in 2018 from the period of January to March. 925M is at a high for that period (+13% compared to 2017), and that growth is led by XBO, not overall sales... PS4 led in sales.

Someone at Era thought the same as you, in which Mat corrected him.

Either way, thus far, the first 3 months of 2018 have been fairly close between all three console platforms. April might show a large jump in PS4 hardware if we assume GOW as a 1p exclusive will move a lot of hardware units. Similarly we might see a drop in XBO hardware in April if SOT was a large factor in XBO doing relatively well that month.

Regards,
SB

XB1's YoY increase rate is declining in 2018 (+48 -> +44 -> +24). XB1X is the bigger driver of XB1's growth than SoT IMO, but I think the early console hype is wearing off. I'm guessing XB1 will be up again in April, but by ~10-15%.
PS4 should also see a small increase YoY from GoW.

As for GoW itself, I'm guessing it will sell >1M... something like ~1.3-1.5M.

The way you got that best buy list seemed weird and non official (search term "game"). I just googled and got this *shrug* https://www.bestbuy.com/site/shop/best-selling-video-game-consoles .

Honestly I just stole the link from Globby earlier in the 2018 sales thread.

But honestly, which is more believable? In my link, the ranking is 1. PS4 2. NSW 3. XBO, the same order as the previous 2 NPD months. Your link shows 1. XBO 2. PS4 and NSW isn't even there.

 

[Rangers]

XB1's YoY increase rate is declining in 2018 (+48 -> +44 -> +24).

When I checked the increase since X1X released I believe I did that last NPD, it was only a 14% increase in sales YoY since Xbox one X release so far. Due to I think it was December being down quite a bit even with Xbox X.

So the 24% this month should actually increase that a bit.

Interesting thinking on that trend, we'll see next month.

Fake edit: I just looked up April 17 numbers and Xbox was at 110k. Due to such a low comp, I cant imagine Xbox doesn't crush that (even if it only does 180k, thats a large YoY increase). But OTOH it wont mean a ton. Also, seems numbers fell off a cliff last April (presumably tax returns drying up) so they might again.

Xbox also did just ~110k in May 2017. It had some really lean months there, so year over year comparisons will be a low bar.

PS4 was 206 and 187 those same months, so all were low. However PS4 went back over 380k in June while Xbox remained low (153k)

I think we all forgot how bad Xbox was doing at points. However the obvious excuse can be everybody was waiting on the X, since spec reveals were snowballing those months. Although according to resetera conventional wisdom, X1X was never going to be more than a unimportant niche seller anyway, so it couldn't have affected anybody purchasing decision

 

[DrJay24]

That must mean that the XBO-X is selling in significant enough numbers that even with the XBO-S being discounted, XBO overall is generating more revenue than PS4 while selling less units overall.

Based on my numbers XBX would have to be selling twice the percentage of the Pro (20% vs 40%) to pull the revenue up that high based on a <10% sales advantage for the PS4. If the difference is larger the XBX would have to be approaching 50% of all XB1 sales.

 

[rokkerkory]

Read that Sea of Thieves charted #2 overall. Quite impressed.

 

[Rangers]

Kinda depends on the number sold. Could be fairly low.

Still regardless ordinal number 2 isn't bad because presumably the game is pretty gamepass heavy.

gow easily #1 next month right? Is there even any other major multiplat release? And Far Cry 5 will be in it's 3rd month, and triple A sales are heavily frontloaded, the difference between month 2 and 3 is large.

Edit :Yup, looks like almost nothing released in April.

 

[djskribbles]

Fake edit: I just looked up April 17 numbers and Xbox was at 110k. Due to such a low comp, I cant imagine Xbox doesn't crush that (even if it only does 180k, thats a large YoY increase). But OTOH it wont mean a ton. Also, seems numbers fell off a cliff last April (presumably tax returns drying up) so they might again.

Xbox also did just ~110k in May 2017. It had some really lean months there, so year over year comparisons will be a low bar.

PS4 was 206 and 187 those same months, so all were low. However PS4 went back over 380k in June while Xbox remained low (153k)

I think we all forgot how bad Xbox was doing at points. However the obvious excuse can be everybody was waiting on the X, since spec reveals were snowballing those months. Although according to resetera conventional wisdom, X1X was never going to be more than a unimportant niche seller anyway, so it couldn't have affected anybody purchasing decision

March is usually bigger due to tax season, and April is usually quite a bit lower. But yeah 110k is pretty low, XB1 should be able to beat that easily. Wonder what happened.

Something else I forgot to take into consideration is that XB1's sales kind of fell off since MS announced the XB1X, so YoY gains will start to increase again.