Right, but don't movies count the whole month? We're taking 5 days as conclusive proof of a title's performance, or lack thereof. If this is valid, I would like some sort of information on how the sales period breaks down. It can even be anecdotal, if it's from someone with actual experience shipping games, like NavNucST3.
NPD October 2008
- Thread starter RobertR1
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Right, but don't movies count the whole month? We're taking 5 days as conclusive proof of a title's performance, or lack thereof. If this is valid, I would like some sort of information on how the sales period breaks down. It can even be anecdotal, if it's from someone with actual experience shipping games, like NavNucST3.
woundingchaney
Regular
People have said the same thing about countless other titles even as recently as titles such as Lair. I dont doubt that KZ2 is going to be a quality game, but to associate this quality with little more than a few articles, screen shots, and some very vague user reviews is far from a definite.
As far as sales potential I dont personally have any idea with this title (at least not at the level of millions sold or large hardware movement). KZ is simply not an established franchise and Sony doesnt have the greatest track record with first party titles this generation. Much of this is going to come down to shelf space competition and just how strong Sony is willing to promote the title.
Movies usually count by week and with the exception of oddballs like the Dark Knight you can see staggering drop-offs in ticket sales after the first week.
We usually don't see that kind of information for games, but you can see the sales drop remarkably month to month. Call of Duty 4 had amazing legs, but that is rare. I'd be curious to see real info from an insider, if they have it and are allowed to provide it. I really think first day sales and first week sales are a big indicator of smash hits. That said we're coming up to Christmas and some titles will probably get irregular November, December boosts to sales because the number of shoppers is increasing dramatically. The rest of the year your first week should probably be your best week in sales, and the first month the best month.
Oh, I don't question that month to month it's true. But we have numbers for month to month sales. We don't for week to week, or first-day, for the most part, and when we do it's typically from the publisher. My question is: is looking at the full month irrelevant, then? I'm not even claiming to know whether it is or not, but before I accept that 5 days is ample time I'd like to see some actual confirmation.
scooby_dooby
Legend
It's not irrelevant, but week 1 does give a pretty good indication of what the final sales are going to be, in a very general sense.
Some games have more legs than others, but generally the first week is enough info to know whether a game is going to sell huge, sell ok, or sell badly.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
Then clearly you and I have different definitions of 'flagship'.
You've essentially just said that the flagship fps on the PS3 keeps changing because it's always based on hope and they've kept failing to live up to expectations.
So you've gone from KZ to R2 to KZ2 all on hope, not production.
I'd say that's quite a stark contrast to say, flagship shooters on the 360 which might have gone from Halo to Gears but only did so (and that would still be debatable) after the game was released and only considered as such because of their success.
Essentially, what you're saying is that Sony keeps hoping for a flagship shooter but doesn't have one. And after having misplaced their hope on KZ, R1, and R2, their hope now lies with KZ2.
R2 has all the content expected from a great selling FPS. Why some games dont sell as much as expected I think is because of lackluster marketing campaigns and the fact that in the case of R2 the original wasnt a massive success to carry a proven and strong legacy over to the next.
Not me. That's why I was snarky, but I suppose I should have prefaced it with a sarcasm tag. There's a lot of hope that Sony will come out with their own giant title (since the third-party exclusive is gone) that will do what GTA3 did last gen. That hasn't worked so well so far -- has any single title really driven hardware sales up consistently (aka more than a month) this gen?
If flagship means drives sales like a Halo, then KZ2 has always been that title. R2 is a great FPS, but it was never hyped or sold as a system seller. If flagship just means best shooter out then R2 is that, it is certainly more fun to play than games like Halo 3 which is a well polished bore IMO.
This is a sales thread, not really a games one. I don't think we should be debating relative merits of games.
Wii Fit, Mario Kart, Wii Sports and insert other Nintendo property <here> for the most part. They are buying it for existing properties like Wii sports/Wii Fit and to somewhat a lesser extent Mario Kart. When they want another controller they get Wii Play.
Wii Fit tracks pretty closely to Wii sales, so you could say people are buying it for Wii Fit. People who buy Wii Fit probably aren't in your target demographic for other games really for the most part.
Do you call people who buy Wii Fit gamers? Or do you put them in the same category as people who buy the PS3 for Blu-Ray?
@ The topic of the importance of KZ2.
There have been 4 massive shooters released this generation on consoles before KZ2 even gets a peek in. Gears 1/2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Call of Duty 5 is expected to be large as well its not doing badly at all critically and the name carries the weight of the previous version.
So its unlikely that KZ2 is going to move a bunch of consoles and thereby create itself a massive userbase and on the PS3 alone it still has to compete with COD IV/V/RFOM 2 for the attention of gamers. As it didn't sell hugely well last generation and many of the people who did play it wouldn't have had such a good impression of it that it would become an instant first week buy, it essentially is a new I.P for all intents so it has to be brilliant to even sell well in the first place.
There have been 4 massive shooters released this generation on consoles before KZ2 even gets a peek in. Gears 1/2, Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, and Call of Duty 5 is expected to be large as well its not doing badly at all critically and the name carries the weight of the previous version.
So its unlikely that KZ2 is going to move a bunch of consoles and thereby create itself a massive userbase and on the PS3 alone it still has to compete with COD IV/V/RFOM 2 for the attention of gamers. As it didn't sell hugely well last generation and many of the people who did play it wouldn't have had such a good impression of it that it would become an instant first week buy, it essentially is a new I.P for all intents so it has to be brilliant to even sell well in the first place.
That's not strictly true. It has to impress, but impressing has less to do with marketing than with actual game quality. This is a slightly uphill battle, as I suspect MS has held better relations with the press than Sony, and the press are the main culprits when it comes to overhyping titles.
I think Sony hasn't been able to build up the proper hype with the press to get them to froth like idiots over their games. But I don't think it's impossible, it'd just cost money.
As for a userbase, I think that at this point Sony has realized that many many PS2 owners are now on the 360. Pushing classic franchises (GoW, R&C, wipEout) is to get those who haven't made the leap yet. SOCOM, KZ2, Resistance, MAG, even Uncharted is to poach 360 owners. Not right now, naturally, and if the notion of a price-cut post holidays doesn't then this whole prediction collapses. (Note I'm not saying a thing about their success, and naturally I'm not talking about Sony haters and dyed-in-the-wool Xbox lovers.)
Again it boils down to proper marketing, and though thumb-penis was just Europe, it's just entirely the wrong direction to take.
resistance 1 was a mil seller so I would expect at least that from the sequal considering that its coming out in the holiday season with really only codww as its competition. I think Resistance is a flag ship title in the same way that gears is for the 360. Sure halo 3 / kz2 may be bigger , but Resistance adn gears brings alot to the table in the lulls between the other releases
Neither KZ or Resistance are "flagship" titles for the PS3. They have neither the sales nor the historical relevance to be considered a "flagship" title.
The defacto "flagship" franchise for the PS3 is Gran Turismo and thats because it is the flagship franchice for the overall playstation platform.
Very true, though it's funny how the PSP hasn't seen much at all of GTP.
I would agree with that. Resistance is on the second-tier with Gears below KZ2, GT, Halo etc, but still a massively high-profile game.
I think KZ2 will sell great, but regardless of its quality, I think it will sell very well because of its graphics, and the fact that it will pretty much have things to itself in February. I dont think it will sell as many hardware units as some, but there is a hell of a lot of hype surrounding this game.
lazybum131
Newcomer
Nintendo's Sept 08 Financial Result Briefing. From there Nintendo provided the following:
I assume these would be shipped numbers, so actual sell-through million sellers would be lower.
So we know at least that total software in the US for 2008 has Wii outselling 360.
I assume these would be shipped numbers, so actual sell-through million sellers would be lower.
So we know at least that total software in the US for 2008 has Wii outselling 360.
Nintendo's Sept 08 Financial Result Briefing. From there Nintendo provided the following:
I assume these would be shipped numbers, so actual sell-through million sellers would be lower.
So we know at least that total software in the US for 2008 has Wii outselling 360.
It's always shocking to see the PS2 in these graphs.
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