NPD September 2002

[bryanb]

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.

No you are missing the point. My numbers show that they do not.

And Madden 2003 is the analomy. Its sales were actually depressed on the XBox due to NFL Fever which sold 500K.

Simply look at sales numbers for NBA 2k2 to see the exact same scenario as All Star Baseball.

 

[aaaaa00]

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.

I will grant that the xbox in general sells more sports games than the GC does -- but that's merely an artifact of the target market. Who wouldn't expect a lack of interest for sports games in Nintendo's target demographic?

On the other hand, the xbox's overall attach rate of sports games in general tends to track pretty closely with the PS2 -- the xbox might be higher here, the PS2 higher there.

Remember, you're the one that said:

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

If you had said "compared with Gamecube", you'd be pretty much correct.

But PS2 is also an "other console", and xbox and PS2 have roughly comparable attach rates for sports games.

As for seeing the actual sales figures, the number that you posted are correct and very similar to the ones I have.

Just divide by the known installed base, which you'd also have if you really do have the official NPD data, and you get the attach rate percentages -- I already explained this.

And Madden 2003 is the analomy. Its sales were actually depressed on the XBox due to NFL Fever which sold 500K.

Ok. Lets take the sales of every football game on the PS2 and the xbox, add them up, then divide by the total installed base.

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

PS2: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 4735000

Divided by known installed base = 0.42.

xbox: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 1039000

Divided by known installed base = 0.36.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Madden '98 didn't sell a single unit on the SNES so clearly everyone who buys an XBox only buys sports games......

Part of the "evidence" for this discussion was a game never released on the GC, one which pretty much everyone(if not everyone) on this forum knew wasn't released for it- didn't sell well is telling enough on this subject. I wouldn't waste any more breath on a poster who appears would be far more comfortable over at GA or some other such site.

 

[bryanb]

(September NPD data, lifetime to date)

PS2: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 4735000

Divided by known installed base = 0.42.

xbox: total sales of all football games combined: ~ 1039000

Divided by known installed base = 0.36.

You are just getting lost in all of your numbers. Its only practical to compare REAL UNIT sales on a game by game basis.

Here are PS2 sales for top football games:

NCAA 2003 294467
Madden 1986469
Blitz 99678
NFL 2k3 288038

XBox is consistently selling at about 1/3 the rate of PS2 for those games.

Do you realize that XBox doesn't have 1/3 the number of consoles on the market as PS2?

Again:

POST SOME REAL UNIT SALE NUMBERS

There is no point in continuing this discussion if you aren't will to come up with some real statistics comparing actual unit sales of games.

 

[iscariot]

*

 

[Vince]

The most interesting thing from my perspective this holiday season is if Sony is going to hold the majority of sales or if they will drop to plurality(I think it will be close either way, although the two bundle packages they are facing this year has me leaning towards falling to plurality by end of December).

lol.. Nostradomous speaks again

So, Ben, you really think that packing two Sega games in the XBox box (sounds kind of redundent.. heh) or a game with the 'Cube is going to suddenly make sales of each respective counsole jump by > 400%? Your almost as bad as Johnnie and his 4M PS2's and 2M XBX and Cubes. Name me one other game with the hype right now of GTA: VC - which directly transfers into the already popular 'image' of PlayStation. The branding and hype is going to do it - thankfully their great games too.

Um, your good at many things, but I fear prediction is not one of them.

 

[Teasy]

Vince, anyone really excited about Vice City already owns GTA3 and so very likely already owns a PS2.

Not that I neccesarilly agree or disagree with Ben, I'm not getting into that argument.

 

[aaaaa00]

NCAA 2003 294467
Madden 1986469
Blitz 99678
NFL 2k3 288038

(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million
Installed base: xbox = 2.86 million

PS2: NCAA 2003 294467, attach percentage 2.61%
Xbox: NCAA 2003 85800, attach percentage 2.99%

I see a 0.3% difference when corrected for installed base in xbox's favor.

(You meant madden 2002.)
PS2: Madden 1986469, attach percentage 17.6%
Xbox: Madden 395400, attach percentage 13.8%

4% in favor of PS2.

PS2: Blitz 99678, attach percentage 0.88%
xbox: Blitz 39200, attach percentage 1.36%

Half a percent in favor of xbox.

(You meant NFL2k2.)
PS2: NFL 2k2 288038, attach percentage 2.5%
xbox: NFL 2k2 70600, attach percentage 2.4%

A tenth of a percent in favor of PS2.

Or how about Madden 2003?

PS2: Madden 2003 1301400, attach percentage 11.55%
xbox: Madden 2003 213500, attach percentage 7.47%

4 percent in favor of PS2.

Like I said before, relative to the installed base, xbox and PS2 swing back and forth regarding the popularity of the various sports titles. Any consistent pattern, if one exists, is lost in the noise.

Thus, I don't think you can claim to say that xbox more heavily relies on sports titles than the PS2 does without stronger data than that which you have presented here.

Give me stronger data, and I'll grant you your point.

 

[BenSkywalker]

Vince-

So, Ben, you really think that packing two Sega games in the XBox box (sounds kind of redundent.. heh) or a game with the 'Cube is going to suddenly make sales of each respective counsole jump by > 400%?

Plurality is the largest share of a market with at least three players without having more then 50%. If the PS2 had 49.9999% of the market, which wouldn't be that big of a shift, it would drop from majority to plurality which is what I said I can see happening by the end of this year. 400% sales spike from a pack in, what does that have to do with anything I said? I wouldn't be shocked to see all the consoles have spikes in the 400% range simply due to the fact that it is the holiday season- not because of any pack in deal however.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I wanted to post a comparison since the NPD numbers match up fairly closely with some of Sony's in terms of unit movement for September(although Sony's are from May)-

Worldwide PlayStation 2 Shipments by Region, as of May 5, 2002

North America (Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.)


11.3 million units


Japan/Asia (Sony Computer Entertainment Japan)


9.9 million units


Europe/PAL (Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Limited)


8.8 million units

(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million

Based on the claims of some people on these boards, Sony still hasn't sold all the units it shipped from the beginning of May. The PS2 would have to have a slew of warehouses filled to the brim with PS2s back in May for NPD to be vaguely close to accurate.

Edit-

Forgot the link-

http://www.us.playstation.com/news/PressReleases/415014851.asp

 

[KOF]

"(September NPD: lifetime to date)

Installed base: PS2 = 11.27 million"

Is this "sold to" number only for US or worldwide?

Edit : Never mind. Forgot to see US "shipped to" number. Sorry.

 

[aaaaa00]

Based on the claims of some people on these boards, Sony still hasn't sold all the units it shipped from the beginning of May.

Two things.

1. NPD doesn't track all retail sales in the US, just a reasonably representative subset.

2. NPD is only US, not North America.

I think these two factors would help explain at least some of the difference between Sony's claimed numbers and NPD's sales data.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I think these two factors would help explain at least some of the difference between Sony's claimed numbers and NPD's sales data.

They don't even come close to covering the gap(well, unless you realize that NPD doesn't cover close to what they say they do). There are some posters here that are rather adamant about the accuracy of NPD in terms of using them for absolute numbers. Sony is in the ~17Million sold range give or take in the US right now.

 

[aaaaa00]

I think these two factors would help explain at least some of the difference between Sony's claimed numbers and NPD's sales data.

They don't even come close to covering the gap(well, unless you realize that NPD doesn't cover close to what they say they do). There are some posters here that are rather adamant about the accuracy of NPD in terms of using them for absolute numbers. Sony is in the ~17Million sold range give or take in the US right now.

My understanding is that NPD's coverage is about 60%, representative. So the ratios still should be reasonably valid, despite the absolute numbers being off.

In any case, there's bound to be a lot of noise in the data, so like I said before, it's difficult to make any sort of absolute statements from NPD's numbers.

 

[BenSkywalker]

My understanding is that NPD's coverage is about 60%, representative.

They claim they cover 80% I think the 60% figure is very close to reality(+ or - a few %), but there are some people on this board who insist the 80% is accurate(not saying it's you).

 

[Teasy]

Just out of curriosity where do you get that 60% number from?

 

[aaaaa00]

60% was something that popped into my head when Ben mentioned NPD's coverage.

This might in fact have been the weekly coverage NPD had when they decided to cancel those due to lack of data. I don't quite remember, but I'll check the next time I get the chance.