NPD November 2020
- Thread starter Shortbread
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- npd november 2020
Stolen from Era, per Lelouch0612
State of the market
November 2020 consumer spending across video game hardware, content and accessories reached a November record $7.0 billion, 35% higher when compared to a year ago.
YTD spending totaled $44.5 billion, 22% higher than the same time period in 2019.
Content
Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War was November's best-selling game, and instantly becomes the best-selling game of 2020 year-to-date. It also ranks first on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms for the month of November and YTD.
This is the 13th consecutive year a Call of Duty game has ranked as the best-selling game of its release month.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla debuted as the 2nd best-selling game of November and is the 7th best-selling game year to date. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla achieved the highest launch month sales for an Assassin's Creed franchise title since Assassin's Creed III in 2012.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales was the 3rd best-selling game of November, while ranking 2nd on PlayStation platforms. Launch month sales were the second highest amongst superhero games on PlayStation platforms in U.S. history, trailing only Marvel's Spider-Man.
Just Dance 2021 debuted at number 13 on the November best-sellers chart. Launch month sales of Just Dance 2021 were the second highest in franchise history. Only Just Dance 3, launched in October 2011, experienced a larger launch.
Software charts
Hardware
Consumers spent a November record $1.4 billion on new video game hardware, an increase of 58% versus YA. Growth was driven by the launches of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. Year-to-date hardware spending reached $4.0 billion, 34% higher than a year ago.
PlayStation 5 was November's best-selling hardware platform in consumer spending, while Nintendo Switch led the market in units sold.
PlayStation 5 achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a video game hardware platform in U.S. history. The records were previously held by the PlayStation 4, which debuted in November 2013.
Nintendo Switch has been the best-selling hardware platform in units sold for a record 24 consecutive months.
Accessories
Spending on accessories reached $314 million in November 2020, 8% higher when compared to a year ago. Year-to-date spending has increased 22% to a record $2.1 billion.
Sony's DualSense Wireless Controller White achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a gamepad in U.S. history.
Thanks to Mat Piscatella for the break down !
State of the market
November 2020 consumer spending across video game hardware, content and accessories reached a November record $7.0 billion, 35% higher when compared to a year ago.
YTD spending totaled $44.5 billion, 22% higher than the same time period in 2019.
Content
Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War was November's best-selling game, and instantly becomes the best-selling game of 2020 year-to-date. It also ranks first on both PlayStation and Xbox platforms for the month of November and YTD.
This is the 13th consecutive year a Call of Duty game has ranked as the best-selling game of its release month.
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla debuted as the 2nd best-selling game of November and is the 7th best-selling game year to date. Assassin's Creed: Valhalla achieved the highest launch month sales for an Assassin's Creed franchise title since Assassin's Creed III in 2012.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales was the 3rd best-selling game of November, while ranking 2nd on PlayStation platforms. Launch month sales were the second highest amongst superhero games on PlayStation platforms in U.S. history, trailing only Marvel's Spider-Man.
Just Dance 2021 debuted at number 13 on the November best-sellers chart. Launch month sales of Just Dance 2021 were the second highest in franchise history. Only Just Dance 3, launched in October 2011, experienced a larger launch.
Software charts
Hardware
Consumers spent a November record $1.4 billion on new video game hardware, an increase of 58% versus YA. Growth was driven by the launches of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series. Year-to-date hardware spending reached $4.0 billion, 34% higher than a year ago.
PlayStation 5 was November's best-selling hardware platform in consumer spending, while Nintendo Switch led the market in units sold.
PlayStation 5 achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a video game hardware platform in U.S. history. The records were previously held by the PlayStation 4, which debuted in November 2013.
Nintendo Switch has been the best-selling hardware platform in units sold for a record 24 consecutive months.
Accessories
Spending on accessories reached $314 million in November 2020, 8% higher when compared to a year ago. Year-to-date spending has increased 22% to a record $2.1 billion.
Sony's DualSense Wireless Controller White achieved the highest launch month unit and dollar sales for a gamepad in U.S. history.
Thanks to Mat Piscatella for the break down !
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Huge kudos to Sony for a well executed launch.
That just goes to show just how far ahead of everyone else COD is WRT consumer appeal. 1st and 2nd for November. 1st and 7th for 2020 YTD.
Kudos to Spiderman for hitting 3rd as a platform exclusive. But it just goes to show just how massive the gulf between 1st and 3rd is for NPD whenever a new COD game comes out as COD wasn't just best across all platforms but was also the best selling on each individual platform that it launched on.
Wish we still got software unit sales numbers.
NSW is likely to pass total lifetime sales for 3DS this Holiday season. It also has a chance to pass PSP, GBA, X360 and PS3 this Holiday season. If it doesn't it'll pass them soon after. If it happens it will have only taken it less than 4 years to do it. Amazing. It is averaging almost 20 million units a year. If sales for it don't slow down it's likely to pass the PS4 in less than 2 years. It'd need another ~4-5 years to reach PS2, however, if sales stayed flat over that time period.
Regards,
SB
That just goes to show just how far ahead of everyone else COD is WRT consumer appeal. 1st and 2nd for November. 1st and 7th for 2020 YTD.
Kudos to Spiderman for hitting 3rd as a platform exclusive. But it just goes to show just how massive the gulf between 1st and 3rd is for NPD whenever a new COD game comes out as COD wasn't just best across all platforms but was also the best selling on each individual platform that it launched on.
Wish we still got software unit sales numbers.
NSW is likely to pass total lifetime sales for 3DS this Holiday season. It also has a chance to pass PSP, GBA, X360 and PS3 this Holiday season. If it doesn't it'll pass them soon after. If it happens it will have only taken it less than 4 years to do it. Amazing. It is averaging almost 20 million units a year. If sales for it don't slow down it's likely to pass the PS4 in less than 2 years. It'd need another ~4-5 years to reach PS2, however, if sales stayed flat over that time period.
Regards,
SB
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The biggest surprise is not seeing GTA V on any of the charts... 
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I wouldn't call it a failure. But MS selling according to expectations.
- They felt it would sell better than XBO at launch. And it has, and they planned supply accordingly.
- They felt it likely wouldn't outsell PS5 at launch. This is reasonable considering the gap between PS and Xbox last generation. Even a significant movement from PS to Xbox likely wouldn't erase the gap complete and there really wasn't anything to prompt mass movement of players.
- They could have held exclusives for the XBS-X/S launch, but instead their main focus is on increasing subscribership to Game Pass. Thus they released their exclusives over the course of this year.
- On top of that, they only had one AAA exclusive set for this year ... Halo: Infinite and we saw what happened with that.
The Lockhart silicon is significantly cheaper as is the machine so it's less of a loss if they have those sitting around. Take a gamble on that one and make more than they think might sell and see if they end up selling.
Thus far, I feel both Sony and MS have executed relatively well this Holiday season.
Sony has done a better job, but it wasn't flawless. The NVME expansion is currently non-functional. There has been OS "quirks" and unstable hardware in some some games with some users. Their external drive expansion is limited to a single drive, etc. But they have compelling exclusives and the performance of games on their system has been very good. All in all a great launch for them, IMO.
MS has likely accomplished most of what they waned to do. Game Pass subscribership continues to climb. XBS-X sold out. XBS-S has drawn new gamers into the Xbox ecosystem as well as into Game Pass. But it has certainly been much rockier than Sony. There's a distinct lack of exclusives, but part of that is due to pushing Game Pass. Their NVME expansion works, unlike Sony and they allow more than 1 external drive to be used. However, when it comes to game performance, the system is obviously not working as expected. At this time we don't know if it's because of GDK or lack of features in the GDK (which will be added in the future). We do know from developer comments that it is currently much harder to code to MS's GDK than it is to Sony's SDK, so that's a big part as well. And finally with everything in flux we don't know if there's anything up with the hardware or not. All in all it certainly could be better, but it's far from a failure.
Now, if XBS-X sales fall off a cliff after the launch month, then the platform as a whole has likely failed in some respects, but so far the launch while flawed isn't the disaster than the XBO launch was.
Regards,
SB
I think the biggest problem for Microsoft is marketing..., and somewhat always has been. I can't go a single hour without seeing some type of PS5 local or international news story, or 5-6 stories plastered on Yahoo, NY Times, Bloomberg, WAPO, and a few other media outlets dealing with PS5. And you have this star-power trend of film personalities, NBA players, NFL players, Music personalities, YouTube personalities, and so and so talking and tweeting about PS5. That's not to say XBSX isn't receiving a certain amount of attention, but not at the levels PS5 is receiving. Microsoft really needs to improve their news and web media mindshare cycle, because right now Sony is killing it. Hell, SNL made a damn parody about its popularity.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Agree completely. Sony's PR department is doing a fantastic job, and it helps that the PS5 is a very capable machine and has launched with some very compelling exclusives.
I'm not sure at this point what, if anything MS can do WRT publicity. Even if the console was winning all performance head-to-heads against PS5 (which it isn't), it wouldn't matter. Your average consumer doesn't give a rats arse about that stuff. There isn't much that MS can point to right now as to why someone should get a XBS-X over a PS5 other than things that are fantastic to have, but not terribly sexy when it comes to advertising.
Their really big AAA exclusives other than Halo: Infinite are likely still 2+ years away at the earliest, although we could see a Forza title next year. Whatever the Coalition is working on (like Gears 6) is likely 2-3 years away. If Rare is working on something other than SoT, it's likely 2+ years away. Any big AAA titles from their newly acquired studios is likely also 2+ years away.
It's possible that Psychonauts 2 might come out next year, but I'm not sure whether that holds large AAA appeal. Flight Simulator is coming next year to XBS, I think. But I'm not sure how much mass appeal that has despite being an absolutely phenomenal technical achievement.
They've potentially got some Bethesda titles coming, but anything releasing next year will be multi-platform due to contractual obligations.
There's likely to be a fair few smaller exclusive titles from the studios that they've acquired which will drive interest in Game Pass, but I'm not sure any of them is enough to sell people on XBS-X/S.
So, it's a bit of a holding pattern for them.
Regards,
SB
Well they are supply limited, but still that sounds defensive by MS. Will be interesting to see how it looks end of next year.
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Silent_Buddha
Legend
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
I wonder how Sony and Microsoft balance these decisions. The fewer markets you release in the more stock and more penetration/traction you gain at the expense of potentially losing that elsewhere.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
In Microsoft's case, I feel it's to broaden the appeal of the brand across more countries.
This is especially true if you consider the XBS-S. Enthusiasts in 1st world countries might turn their noses up at them, but in poorer countries, it'll be closer to being affordable to a larger community of gamers compared to the astronomical price of a PS5 or XBS-X in those countries. If MS can make Game Pass available in those countries, then it becomes quite a bit more attractive.
In other words, their goal at launch doesn't appear to be to try to boost countries they are already established in, but to expand in countries where they have little to no presence.
If you consider that they currently don't have what they need to go head to head with Sony and the PS5, this makes sense. Make sure you have at least adequate supply in established countries and then make a play for countries where the PS5/XBS-X are far too expensive for the vast majority of the population.
Regards,
SB
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MS need to get exclusives out in the market, have them review well and piggyback off that.
Effectively treat this year as laying out the groundwork for a marketing blitz next holiday season.
Remember the ps3 gifs of it not clearing the 100k a month sold hurdles and high jumps? Get those ready for Series X/S March onwards.
Effectively treat this year as laying out the groundwork for a marketing blitz next holiday season.
Remember the ps3 gifs of it not clearing the 100k a month sold hurdles and high jumps? Get those ready for Series X/S March onwards.
Johnny Awesome
Veteran
Yeah. It's great that MS went from 6 studios to 23 in only 3 years, but they're going to be feeling the pain for another year or two until they can finally get Halo, Fable, Forza, FlightSim, Psychonauts, Hellblade, Everwild, Gears, and Avowed out the door.
