NPD May 2010

[JB9861]

ModNation Racers (Sony), Split/Second (Disney), and Blur (Activision) failed to light up U.S. sales charts. ModNation Racers, a PlayStation 3 exclusive, was the only new racing title to crack the top 15, while debuts from Blur and Split/Second - both multiplatform titles - were out of the top 30.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1103488p1.html

That'll teach them to not make fun of Mario Kart, which no doubt outsold both titles this month

Sad stuff. I would've expected MK Wii, but even modnation which had significantly less exposure. Poor debut.

 

[obonicus]

NPD's much less interesting now that we get half the numbers.

 

[corduroygt]

I wonder if the new 360 took some sales away.

This is for May, so new 360 wasn't out yet.

 

[eastmen]

This is for May, so new 360 wasn't out yet.

yikes , why so late ?

 

[tha_con]

NPD's much less interesting now that we get half the numbers.

Not really. NPD is never really interesting outside of Hardware sales. The software sales are largely front loaded, but this still only counts roughly 60% of the North American Market, and is in no way a gauge of what software will do over the course of many months or years. All NPD threads result in premature "bomba" claims and people who want to make sensational posts.

Sales are only a half of the picture. Budget is the other half, and without any access to budget information, you really can't gauge the "success" of one game over another. Red Dead may have sold 1.5 Million in the US, but if the budget is too large then it cuts into their profits, where as a smaller game like, say, LittleBigPlanet, has a much smaller budget, and will probably have a considerably higher profit margin without the need to sell over a million units in the first month.

Pretty much everything as expected, although I'm a tiny bit (not much) surprised that Alan Wake actually made the top 10. Too bad no numbers for it.

PS3 still having shortages? Or did Sony completely miss the boat by not having enough machines for May and now there's just not as much interest in the machine.

GoW 3 sales also seem to have pretty much petered out already. I wonder if it at least made the top 20?

Regards,
SB

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't GoW3 release in March? It charted in March and April, so I'd hardly expect it to be on NPD top 10 in May.

A lot of strange PS3 related comments in your post that just don't make....sense.

 

[Scott_Arm]

1.5 million copies for a western? I guess the genre isn't as dead as the entertainment industry thought.

 

[JB9861]

yikes , why so late ?

Announced back in early June they were making a change to IT and claimed it would help them better serve their clientele and what not.

 

[Rangers]

ModNation Racers (Sony), Split/Second (Disney), and Blur (Activision) failed to light up U.S. sales charts. ModNation Racers, a PlayStation 3 exclusive, was the only new racing title to crack the top 15, while debuts from Blur and Split/Second - both multiplatform titles - were out of the top 30.

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/articles/110/1103488p1.html

That'll teach them to not make fun of Mario Kart, which no doubt outsold both titles this month


If Japan is an indication, probably low four figures.

Shame on Split/Second, it looked really good and actually seemed to do something new, despite it's flaws. I'd have thought it could have sold well. Guess racers aren't doing a lot.

Also you need to combine SKU's on Blur and SS to make a fair comparison to modnation.

Also, low four figures? You know Japan is much much much smaller market than US right? I assume they sold at least over 10k!

 

[Barbarian]

Shame on Split/Second, it looked really good and actually seemed to do something new, despite it's flaws. I'd have thought it could have sold well. Guess racers aren't doing a lot.

Maybe everyone is saving up for GT5?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

What a ridiculous statement to make.

No it's not. Only 30% of titles even break even.

You don't know how much money was budgeted for each title, so how on earth can you declare them bombs, especially in the first month? If each of those games goes on to sell 500K+ and make a profit, then it's not a bomb. The games aren't done their first month.

A huge prooportion of sales happen in the first month which sets up (or doesn't) word of mouth promotion for the rest of the title's lifetime. A weak start means poor sales for the duration.

It's likely that most of those games will make their money back and then some through the course of the year.

7 out of 10 don't. the top titles were a succcess; the 30 percenters. Everything else is red ink.

 

[Rangers]

Should be a week from now.
I wonder if we'll find out how many units the PSP Go! sold.

A Gaffer said next NPD should be July 15. Sounds about right to me.

It possibly should have been on the 8th by regular schedule, but I'm not sure how 5 week months effect things (June is 5 week NPD).

 

[NavNucST3]

What a ridiculous statement to make. You don't know how much money was budgeted for each title, so how on earth can you declare them bombs, especially in the first month? If each of those games goes on to sell 500K+ and make a profit, then it's not a bomb. The games aren't done their first month.

It's likely that most of those games will make their money back and then some through the course of the year.

...bomba....right.

smh.

For publicly traded companies that have to report quarterly? How many quarters go buy until your hypothetical 500k...and 500k...lol...you realize we sold way more than 500k and STILL didn't break even?

 

[Rangers]

Wow, Pachter makes some unusually bold claims...ok maybe not unusually bold for him

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/39854/Pachter-Industry-in-permanent-decline

"We expect investors to remain spooked by the May results, as they are beginning to reinforce the notion that the video game industry is in a state of persistent secular decline.”

In particular, Pachter singled out Nintendo for the fact that software sales continue to dwindle despite its growing install base.

“Wii software sales were down 29 per cent year-over-year and DS software sales were down 13 per cent, while PS3 software sales were up 58 per cent and Xbox 360 software sales were up 29 per cent,” he added.

“We think this is remarkable, given growth in the Wii hardware installed base of 44 per cent and growth in the DS installed base of 33 per cent over the last 12 months. In our view, this indicates that Nintendo’s customers either are not finding enough software to satisfy their needs, or need less software than the typical Sony or Microsoft customer.”

We expect the publishers to monetise the value created by online play, led by Activision. We continue to expect Activision to find a way to monetize the 1.75bn hours of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 online play on the Xbox 360 in the first five months following the game’s release.

“The central thesis behind investment malaise is that the packaged goods business is in a state of decline, and that packaged products will continue to compete with alternative interactive entertainment experiences such as Facebook games and iPhone games.”

 

[obonicus]

I wish we knew something about what sort of revenue is really behind the iStore and F2P games. Do we have number of apps sold or just downloaded? And how much of say, Zynga's revenue is from microtransactions and how much is from scammy advertising?

 

[zed]

Wii marketshare actually went up! Also first time since november 2008 where all 3 consoles had year on year growth

The rest of the year should be interesting, big sales next month for xbox360 (with pricecut + new model), followed by the release of move + kinect later on in the year

Yes there were still ps3 shortages in may, Im not sure how many months exactly at least 2 weeks (unable to buy the 120gb model from amazon)
11th may

sony are still having major supply issues. ps3-120gb is still sold out

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1429017&postcount=94

BTW Ive started tracking amazon US once a week, friday 9am. Ill stick up a graph later when I have more data, which should give a rough guide of how hardware is selling in the US

 

[Rangers]

BTW Ive started tracking amazon US once a week, friday 9am. Ill stick up a graph later when I have more data, which should give a rough guide of how hardware is selling in the US

Err, from what I've seen Amazon sales are PS3 biased. Usually the PS3 slim is in the top 15 (even when sold out) while the 360 Elite hovered around #50, and the Arcade was maybe barely in the top 100.

Given NPD sales, that's not realistic.

The 360 slim has rated high, but given how low the 360 has rated for the past year and more, I dont think Amazon is reliable. Though it's always fun to look at.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Sony's supply chain must be garbage. If they really are in a shortage again, the PS3 has basically been in shortage for 90% of its lifetime.

 

[BadTB25]

I haven't seen any shortages for a while of the PS3 locally.

 

[RobertR1]

Same here. Maybe all the potential PS3 owners only buy from one or two e-shops that don't get enough stock?

Anyway, for the legs debate earlier, Blur sold 31,000 units total. I don't think they're gonna be able to run this one into the black.

 

[zed]

Err, from what I've seen Amazon sales are PS3 biased. Usually the PS3 slim is in the top 15 (even when sold out)

you do realize (obviously not) that its tracking orders thus sold out products or products not yet available are still counted if someone orders it
eg ATM the top 3 are those
Final Fantasy XIV Collector's Edition, Metroid: Other M, Crackdown 2
you cant physically get those ATM but ppl are ordering them, thus its quite a good indicattion of what will likely sell well) btw ATM after that most titles are available now eg "Super Mario Galaxy 2" nr 4 on list, this is not only software but also hardware eg kinect + move are there on the list (but u cant get one now)

Sony's supply chain must be garbage. If they really are in a shortage again, the PS3 has basically been in shortage for 90% of its lifetime.

ATM theyre in stock (my post was from 1.5 months ago when they were soldout) though I agree sony has been terrible about keeping up with demand, perhaps theyve been shipping ps3 over to europe instead of the US where they gain more money?