NPD September 2002

[bryanb]

What kind of crack are you smoking?

September NPD data, lifetime to date.

So, um, what was that again? I see a slight favoring of sports game attach rates on the xbox (mostly due to NFL Fever 2002 being a launch title), but all three consoles have essentially the same ratio of sports titles in the top 20.

I could care less about extreme sports titles like SSX Tricky. They don't factor. Talk about irrevalent data.

The only thing that matters here are the BIG sports titles that sell large numbers of games.

FOOTBALL. BASEBALL. BASKETBALL.

Statistics on niche bicycle riding titles doesn't mean jack sh*t.

Here are the facts bub:

The big sports titles sometimes sell 2X as much on XBox than the GC. And their attach ratio is higher than the PS2.

Now you are going to say sports titles are not a major factor in the XBox software market?

GIVE IT UP.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

It's typical of you to ignore data that doesn't prove your point.

As has been pointed out, Sports games are slightly more important to Xbox than PS2. I figured it was dead even, but I had forgotten about last year's football games.

It's funny, but the strong sports showing on Xbox actually proves that it's mainly casual gamers owning the Xbox.

 

[marconelly!]

It's funny, but the strong sports showing on Xbox actually proves that it's mainly casual gamers owning the Xbox.

It's arguable if it's "mainly" casual gamers owning it, but with all the advertising going around, casual gamers are buying into it (probably not nearly as much as MS hoped for, but oh well).

 

[aaaaa00]

I could care less about extreme sports titles like SSX Tricky. They don't factor. Talk about irrevalent data.

The only thing that matters here are the BIG sports titles that sell large numbers of games.

FOOTBALL. BASEBALL. BASKETBALL.

Statistics on niche bicycle riding titles doesn't mean jack sh*t.

That's funny, because I didn't list a single "niche bicycle riding title".

If you remove all the extreme sports games like THPS (which happens to be the 6th best selling GC title with an attach rate of 15% ), the stats become:

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

xbox: 4 core sports titles in top 20 (11.5% average attach)
GC: 4 core sports titles in the top 20 (7% average attach)
PS2: 5 core sports titles in the top 20 (8.9% average attach)

So, um, what was that again?

Once again, I see a slight favoring of sports titles on the xbox (a couple percentage points of attach), but the title ratios are almost even across the board.

 

[Geeforcer]

Well, since we are talking about sales....
http://www.computerandvideogames.com/news/news_story.php?id=82357

XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK

Trouble looms for GameCube as Microsoft's console pulls clear in the latest UK sales figures

12:41 After only two weeks ahead of Xbox following the launch of Mario Sunshine, GameCube sales have dropped in the UK, while Xbox enjoys a healthy surge. For the week ending October 19, GameCube clocked up a figure of 5,662 unit sales - a drop of seven percent on the previous week - whereas Xbox shifted 7,319 units over the same period - an increase of 20 percent.
The rise in Xbox sales can be accounted for by the recent cheap packages being offered by UK retailers like Argos and Dixons, but with its flagship triple-AAA Mario title only out for two weeks, the figure must be of great concern to Nintendo. With PS2 miles out in front, the race is on for the crucial second place spot in the next-gen console race and on current form Microsoft is favourite.

How Nintendo will respond to these figures remains to be seen, but the company may be compelled towards slashing the price of hardware in the run up to the crucial Christmas period in order to compete.

This brings the 2002 figures to date to 218,421 GameCube units compared with 215,818 for Xbox, with Microsoft's console well on track to having a larger installed user base than Nintendo by the end of the year. PS2 notched up sales of 23,451 last week, with GBA enjoying an increase of 14 percent at 9,730.

 

[Goldni]

This brings the 2002 figures to date to 218,421 GameCube units compared with 215,818 for Xbox, with Microsoft's console well on track to having a larger installed user base than Nintendo by the end of the year. PS2 notched up sales of 23,451 last week, with GBA enjoying an increase of 14 percent at 9,730.

Do what?>? I thought the European totals were more like close to 1 milion for Cube and very close to that for the XB. WTF is 218,000?

Anyways, C &VG are funny. The GCN is still in the lead for second place yet has a bad week or so and now it's doomed for 3rd place. lol. It's a looong ways to go folks. The only country one can surely right off is Japan for Xbox. As for all of the other regions..it's gonna be a close fight.

 

[zurich]

I think those numbers are just for the UK.. mainland Europe is quite a bit larger than that, which is where the 1 mil number comes from.

zurich

 

[Geeforcer]

Do what?>? I thought the European totals were more like close to 1 milion for Cube and very close to that for the XB. WTF is 218,000?

Anyways, C &VG are funny. The GCN is still in the lead for second place yet has a bad week or so and now it's doomed for 3rd place. lol. It's a looong ways to go folks. The only country one can surely right off is Japan for Xbox. As for all of the other regions..it's gonna be a close fight.

As zurich pointed out, they are only talking about UK (Hence the title, "XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK")

I think the point they were trying to make is exactly the same as one made in the beginning of this thread: that GC is lagging Xbox DESPITE Mario.

 

[wazoo]

As zurich pointed out, they are only talking about UK (Hence the title, "XBOX REGAINS NO.2 SPOT IN UK")

I think the point they were trying to make is exactly the same as one made in the beginning of this thread: that GC is lagging Xbox DESPITE Mario

UK is very much like the US with respect to the tastes. Nintendo was never big there for a lot of reasons (high prices and bad distribution in previous generation for example).

I laugh reading people constantly taking the US as an example of the whole Europe.

as for the GC/xbox debate, this is 2 different market. I do not think people are hesitating between both. Either you love sports games/PC-like games or you like Nintendo games. There is always an overlap but overall the custormers are not the same IMO.

 

[Teasy]

Wazoo, absolutely right, its funny when people show XBox vs GameCube U.K sales as if its some big deal ( Idon't mean you Geeforcer, I mean C&VG). I have news for everyone thinking that, XBox was always strong in the U.K. AFAIR at launch it sold about twice the number of units in the U.K as it sold in the entire of Europe. We have no problem with American's here, we have no problem with MS here and the bad sales XBox has in the U.K for a short time when GameCube was released soon changed again ewith the huge price drops of XBox (£300 down to £159 in a few months). So the U.K sales are no supprise, its the rest of Europe that we need to see sales from. If XBox is selling better then GameCube overall in Europe that would be a dig deal. If anyone has the numbers for the whole of Europe then please post them.

As for Mario, its good that it lifted GameCube sales for a couple of weeks before Christmas, that's a bonus, roll on Christmas.

Also just as a side note, I noticed something odd about that article. The article says that SMS put GameCube's sales ahead of XBox for 2 weeks and now the third week XBox is ahead. But as of 19th of October (which is the end of the week in which they're reporting XBox sold better then GameCube) SMS hadn't even been out for 3 weeks, only 2 weeks and 1 day. Just thought I'd mention that as its a little strange.

 

[iscariot]

nm.......

 

[Magnum PI]

We have no problem with American's here

heh, yea right...

???
what's your point precisely ?

 

[bryanb]

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

xbox: 4 core sports titles in top 20 (11.5% average attach)
GC: 4 core sports titles in the top 20 (7% average attach)
PS2: 5 core sports titles in the top 20 (8.9% average attach)

So, um, what was that again?

Once again, I see a slight favoring of sports titles on the xbox (a couple percentage points of attach), but the title ratios are almost even across the board.

There's not really much to be said for your post here. Again, your numbers are meaningless garbage. Total percentage of games in the 20 top that are core sports? Jesus christ! Of course the averages for those will be even across consoles.

But that doesn't mean jack sh*t.

Because its patently obvious that you are mentally incapable of acquiring real meaningful statistics, here are some real numbers:

163, PS2, MADDEN NFL 2002, August/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 9798, 1986469, $30.89
356, XBX, MADDEN NFL 2002, October/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 3914, 395428, $29.97
366, GCN, MADDEN NFL 2002, November/1/01, ELECTRONIC ARTS, 3760, 290409, $26.46

284, XBX, NFL 2K2, January/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 5320, 70643, $24.56
**** GCN DID NOT EVEN MAKE IT INTO THE TOP 500 GAMES FOR NFL 2K2 ****
243, PS2, NFL 2K2, November/1/01, SEGA OF AMERICA, 6471, 288038, $30.68

226, PS2, NBA 2K2, January/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 7246, 369955, $50.76
423, XBX, NBA 2K2, February/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 2928, 86708, $48.36
248, GCN, NBA 2K2, March/1/02, SEGA OF AMERICA, 6357, 45098, $30.04

271, GCN, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 5684, 48787, $44.26
272, XBX, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 5643, 116160, $49.58
66, PS2, ALL STAR BASEBALL2003, February/1/02, ACCLAIM ENTERTAINMENT, 21113, 223600, $48.93

I will walk you through this analysis:

(1) Look at the total number of sports title sold for XBox.
(2) Compare that to its installed base.
(3)Compare that to the attach ratio of these sports titles for PS2 and GCN.

SPORTS TITLES ARE A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE XBOX SOFTWARE LIBRARY AS COMPARED TO OTHER CONSOLES.

End of story.

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Yeah. When you do this analysis it works out a little bit more than the PS2. Thanks for proving the point that Xbox has slightly higher Sports sales, mainly because of its extremely casual audience.

 

[iscariot]

what's your point precisely

eh, nm. That discussion is for a whole different forum

 

[Teasy]

iscariot, if you have a persecution complex that's your problem. If you seriously think people here in the U.K base any part of their buying decisions on where a product is made then your very wrong. We're not stupid enough nor zenophobic enough to do that, how many "Buy English/ Welsh/Irish" campaigns have you seen in the past?, I can't remember one ever occuring.

I freely admit there are things about American culture that annoy me personally (one example is American's faliure to distingiush between the many different accents here in England, according to U.S TV were all cockney's), and also things that I like (I absolutely love the Simpson's best show on earth ever!). In the U.K we do not have any real problem with the U.S, hence the XBox's massively better sales here when compared to Japan and the rest of Europe. We do not even consider a product's origin before buying AFAICS, quality and price is all that matters here.

 

[Magnum PI]

what's your point precisely

eh, nm. That discussion is for a whole different forum

and what does it have to do with this thread ?

 

[aaaaa00]

**** GCN DID NOT EVEN MAKE IT INTO THE TOP 500 GAMES FOR NFL 2K2 ****

Not suprising since Sega NFL 2K2 was never released on the GC to begin with.

Lets take a closer look at your 'data'.

The attach percentages below are taken from the September NPD data. All numbers are based on lifetime to date sales.

Definition: attach percentage = copies sold / installed base * 100%.

The installed base of each console is taken from the same September NPD data source.

Madden NFL 2002

xbox: attach 14%
PS2: attach 18%
GC: attach 12%

Hmm. PS2 has the highest attach. Gee.

Sega NFL 2K2

xbox: attach 2%
PS2: attach 3%
GC: attach 0%. Well DUH, NFL2K2 did NOT SHIP on Gamecube.

Again PS2 has the highest attach. Hmm.

Sega NBA 2K2

xbox: attach 3%
PS2: attach 3%
GC: attach 2%

Xbox and PS2 roughly tied for attach. Ok.

All Star Baseball 2K3

xbox: 4%
GC: 2%
PS2: 2%

Oh look, slight bias towards xbox here. Gee.

So, of the examples you provided other than ASB2K3, the attach percentage of the games you specified for xbox is equal to or slightly less than PS2. In many cases, the difference is just a couple percent -- hardly huge.

Given these rather inconclusive numbers, deriving your conjecture that "SPORTS TITLES ARE A MAJOR FACTOR IN THE XBOX SOFTWARE LIBRARY AS COMPARED TO OTHER CONSOLES" is more than a little bit of a stretch, bryanb.

In the future, you should consider evaluating your data with a little more care before you try to use it to support such an obviously incorrect hypothesis.

I would also suggest that you keep the invective and rhetoric to a minimum, as it only serves to weaken your position, and generally makes you look immature and silly in the eyes of the forum when your rather obvious errors are revealed.

 

[bryanb]

I would also suggest that you keep the invective and rhetoric to a minimum, as it only serves to weaken your position, and generally makes you look immature and silly in the eyes of the forum when your rather obvious errors are revealed.

I do lapse into this confounded rude state when confronted by idiots.

My numbers indicate XBox outselling GC by 2 to 1 in many of the top sports games. XBox does NOT have a 2 to 1 console unit advantage over GC.

Furthermore, XBox's sports title unit shipments and attach ratio is freakin massise compared to the PS2 by my August NPD data. My data from this very site shows REAL UNIT SHIPMENTS by the top sports games.

Unless you can post some REAL FUDGING NUMBERS then I suggest you just shut the hell up. Let's see something more than imaginary attach ratios. I want UNIT SALES to counter the UNIT sales that I posted that clearly show your numbers to be BULLSH*T.

You clearly failed in even a rudimentary analysis of the numbers I posted above. Take one game for example, All Star Baseball 2003:

GC: 40K shipments
XBX: 110K shipments
PS2: 220K shipments

After seeing this, do you really need to be told why you are full of it?

 

[Johnny Awesome]

Well, it's interesting that you focus on All Star Baseball, because it's a bit of an anomaly. Madden 2003 is a better example as it's doing far better on PS2 (attach rate wise) than on Xbox.

You're still missing the point - Xbox and PS2 both have comparable sports title attach rates.