NPD September 2011

[patsu]

The 360 was rung through the register at its normal cost the reduction in price occurred on the PC. ASP is "brought up" when NPD is "gracious" enough to give enough data.

Hmm... that means the ASP may not be accurate at least for that period. Perhaps that's why they didn't want to give it out earlier.

Gears pre-order was 2+ million ? The real sales should be higher. Otherwise, it means beyond the pre-orders, not many people walked in and bought the game in the first week.

EDIT:
Ah, 1 million pre-orders worldwide:
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/act...314350/gears-of-war-3-preorders-top-1-million

 

[AlphaWolf]

The 360 was rung through the register at its normal cost the reduction in price occurred on the PC. ASP is "brought up" when NPD is "gracious" enough to give enough data.

Yes, exactly the same way they count the PS3's that are given away as part of their bundling deals. Most of the giveaways are cheaper bundles so they wouldn't be having that positive an impact on the ASP.

The PC bundle deal from MS gave away a 4GB unit which retails at $199. That should put in perspective the limited effect these bundles have had on overall sales, as with this bundle promotion in effect they still managed an ASP over $300.

 

[patsu]

Yes, exactly the same way they count the PS3's that are given away as part of their bundling deals. Most of the giveaways are cheaper bundles so they wouldn't be having that positive an impact on the ASP.

The PC bundle deal from MS gave away a 4GB unit which retails at $199. That should put in perspective the limited effect these bundles have had on overall sales, as with this bundle promotion in effect they still managed an ASP over $300.

You are referring to the HDTV + PS3/360 bundles ? Is that how it's handled ? If so, the ASP is also inaccurate. If it's the PS3/360 + bundled controller type of exercise, then it should be ok.

According to NavNucST3, NPD did not give out ASP during that time period (Free 360 with PC purchase to fight Apple). How do you know it's well over $300 ? I think that article above mentioned that ASP is higher after the free 360 period.

 

[RobertR1]

I believe the worldwide sell-in numbers for the first week were 3M while the first week sell-through numbers for the US are greater than 2M.

Yeah. During the NPD coverage period, Gears did 2 - 2.9m in the US. Beyond that, we don't know. I believe Epic has been "dynamic" ads where they publish the user count as "Join 3mil other players" or something similar. Overall, Gears 3 is a huge success.

 

[2real4tv]

It was only a $50 price drop, so the increase in sale will be proportional compared to the more usual $100 drop, and that's a non-linear ratio too. So all-in-all, without any new power feature like Kinect to pull in the pundits, I think PS3's doing pretty well on the same legs it launched with.

R3 hasn't sold well compared to R2. 180k units vs 385k first month units of R2. I think R2 did more harm than good to the franchise, and with the proliferation of shooters it just can't compete. I dare say Insomniac were wrong to follow everyone else.

R3 did not do better because it was a inferior game it seems people ignore this. Definitely a minus sale for me. R2 is not as terrrible as people suggest, removing 8p coop is a huge mistake imo, thats like removing horde from gears.

 

[Arwin]

R3 did not do better because it was a inferior game it seems people ignore this. Definitely a minus sale for me. R2 is not as terrrible as people suggest, removing 8p coop is a huge mistake imo, thats like removing horde from gears.

R3 is a superior game to 2, and here I don't go by subjective means as I haven't played it, but simply by the fact that for every negative impression there are 20 positive ones.

 

[rekator]

R3 is a superior game to 2, and here I don't go by subjective means as I haven't played it, but simply by the fact that for every negative impression there are 20 positive ones.

Sorry it's not the general perception, sure if you're look only to PS3 centrics forum/topics you only find positive for PS3 only games. R3 is "better" than R2 is not the point for sells, it's the perception of buyers if R3 is saw like a inferior shooter than others IP, why people selled it? 'Cause its a PS3 exclu? Seriously, only a minus buy game due only to exclu. The exclu game need to be perceive like a giantbomb to sell, and Resistance is not perceive like that.

And also Sony give to many exclu FPS this year… A very not intelligent management of IPs… Now people don't change FPS games ever month, they stayed on the big one.
So you need a very strong IP plan management to attract FPS gamers in numbers to make money.

 

[Arwin]

Well I'm not going to drag that discussion on, but this is coming from a wide range of sources, from all the big multi-platform podcasts that I listen to every week to colleagues. A lot more people than you think I guess just appreciate a good single player campaign in a shooter, and in that respect Resistance 3 really seems to have delivered. And personally, while I enjoyed the 8 player co-op in Resistance 2, the single player campaign quite literally made me sick, where I really loved Resistance 1.

Any more discussion will have to go into the Resistance thread, this is the last word on it from me here.

If Resistance 3 had been released as the sequal to Resistance 1, the series would have had a much better standing and much better sales. Now it has just become a niche product for those few Half-life 2 lovers who play shooters on PS3 (besides those few people who loved Resistance 1 and read reviews ).

 

[patsu]

R3 SP is a great game, better than R2 SP. MP-wise, R3 is more similar to RFOM, which is great although I do agree R2 8P co-op is very interesting. R2 60P combat is highly polished and support large clan. Unfortunately, the Resistance veterans prefer the gun feel of RFOM.

However, the R3 problem is: The one month PSN downtime caused Insomniac to slip. When it comes to the open beta schedule (Just one month before launch), they still have quite a few issues to resolve. All these crude issues (e.g., crashes and stutters and flying men, etc) were exposed to *everyone*. Insomniac fixed these issues during the beta but it was rather unnerving for the users. The question they would ask is: Why should I pay $60 for a buggy game ? It was unclear they could mob up everything on time. In fact, a few issues were fixed post launch.

First, they should not have opened the beta to everyone. Secondly, they should have delayed the game by a month to resolve all the MP issues.

The SP part of the game is more polished and fun though (except for one or two scripting bug). I enjoyed it more than Uncharted, Killzone, Bioshock, and previous Resistance games.

At this moment, the MP plays well now. Just one more minor balancing patch to go based on our feedback. But I think Sony and Insomniac have already scared people away. I play the game almost every night for 15 minutes though. ^_^

 

[2real4tv]

R3 is a superior game to 2, and here I don't go by subjective means as I haven't played it, but simply by the fact that for every negative impression there are 20 positive ones.

As a arbituary buyer I look at the back of the game and I see:

R2
Single player
8p coop
60p multiplayer
native 720p(just kidding)

vs

R3
2p coop
16p multiplayer

I don't think it takes a genius to figure this out. R3 was downsized and became no better than Battle of LA featurewise. Its mindboggling for me that they would not build on the featureset of R2 and make a better campaign.

edit: People seem to forget the buzz of R2 when it was first announced and the main talking point was 8p coop.

 

[patsu]

You have a point. OTOH, it doesn't mean all 16P games will sell less than a 60P game or 8P co-op game. R2 had quite a big backlash too.

 

[2real4tv]

You have a point. OTOH, it doesn't mean all 16P games will sell less than a 60P game or 8P co-op game. R2 had quite a big backlash too.

Thats why I expected improvements from what was already established. They had a good baseline why didn't they build from there. I like options not sure why other people don't. Why would they downsize the player count just to satisfy a subset of their fans. Epic gets its...

edit: I guess in a nutshell they are offering a quality package but its lacking value imo especially with so many high profile games offering more.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Thats why I expected improvements from what was already established. They had a good baseline why didn't they build from there. I like options not sure why other people don't. Why would they downsize the player count just to satisfy a subset of their fans. Epic gets its...

edit: I guess in a nutshell they are offering a quality package but its lacking value imo especially with so many high profile games offering more.

I don't think it's tied to the box featurelist myself. The difference on Metacritic between R2 and R3 and the original isn't much. The original was a good game IMO, whereas I found 2 sucky. And 2 deviated a lot from 1, so fans of 1 were a bit taken aback. R2 seems to me to be something of a love-it-or-hate-it affair. It's understandable that, wanting a larger piece of pie, Insomniac would change formula again. The existing fans had no idea what to expect from R3. Add to that a demo that wasn't visually as potent as other FPSes, and a lot of competition, and it's understandable. If it was just back-of-the-box features that describe game value, U2's 10 player online would count for nothing, and MAG would have sold a truckload. I dare say most shooter fans are pretty experienced and know it's not the number of players but the underlying game. 16 players in a small area is no different an experience to 256 in a huge area. The only difference is the names of the people you shoot and respawn to shoot again are a lot more vairied in a huge map. There's potential for an ebb-and-flow of a battle, but I've had little positive experience of that. So personally I don't see number of players as a huge turn-off. Halo 3 offered 16 player matches. GoW 2 and 3 have 5 a side multiplayer. Their sales aren't suffering! Insomniac saw their appeal with smaller games, tried to emulate, and couldn't pull off a working, saleable product. Even if their multiplayer is awesome, they just can't win over gamers. They've actually lost gamers because Resistance was an inconsistent experience that faced too much competition and gamers wouldn't take a risk on it.

And let's not forget that R3 introduced the PlayStation Pass. I'm sure a lot of people who would have bought R3 and tried it with the option to sell on decided not to because of this.

 

[2real4tv]

I don't think it's tied to the box featurelist myself. The difference on Metacritic between R2 and R3 and the original isn't much. The original was a good game IMO, whereas I found 2 sucky. And 2 deviated a lot from 1, so fans of 1 were a bit taken aback. R2 seems to me to be something of a love-it-or-hate-it affair. It's understandable that, wanting a larger piece of pie, Insomniac would change formula again. The existing fans had no idea what to expect from R3. Add to that a demo that wasn't visually as potent as other FPSes, and a lot of competition, and it's understandable. If it was just back-of-the-box features that describe game value, U2's 10 player online would count for nothing, and MAG would have sold a truckload. I dare say most shooter fans are pretty experienced and know it's not the number of players but the underlying game. 16 players in a small area is no different an experience to 256 in a huge area. The only difference is the names of the people you shoot and respawn to shoot again are a lot more vairied in a huge map. There's potential for an ebb-and-flow of a battle, but I've had little positive experience of that. So personally I don't see number of players as a huge turn-off. Halo 3 offered 16 player matches. GoW 2 and 3 have 5 a side multiplayer. Their sales aren't suffering! Insomniac saw their appeal with smaller games, tried to emulate, and couldn't pull off a working, saleable product. Even if their multiplayer is awesome, they just can't win over gamers. They've actually lost gamers because Resistance was an inconsistent experience that faced too much competition and gamers wouldn't take a risk on it.

And let's not forget that R3 introduced the PlayStation Pass. I'm sure a lot of people who would have bought R3 and tried it with the option to sell on decided not to because of this.

You seem to be missing my point. I never stated its was about how big your player count is. I'am evaluating Resistance exclusive of other titles, however it is funny because those very same titles you named have evolved while Resistance has devolved.

 

[jonabbey]

I bought R3, but I know my enthusiasm cooled considerably about the series since they killed off Nathan Hale. I really liked the story telling in R1, I liked the cinematics and the english setting, but R2 just didn't hang together as well for me.

Actually owning R3, I'm put off by the low resolution and my lack of knowledge of the protagonist. I've been playing more Ico HD than R3.. only played a few levels into R3 so far.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You seem to be missing my point. I never stated its was about how big your player count is. I'am evaluating Resistance exclusive of other titles, however it is funny because those very same titles you named have evolved while Resistance has devolved.

But I'm saying I don't think you can call it devolution. From 60 players down to 16 isn't a step-backwards if the 16 player experience is all-round better. The problem I have with Resistance is it has never evolved because every change has been out of character. It's had no clear identity, unlike other big shooters. R2 dropped the weapon wheel and shamelessly copied the two-weapon format of every other game. That in itself I'd call a devolution. Bringing back the weapon wheel would be bringing R3 back to more in line with the original.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Gamasutra's article is up!

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6513/npd_behind_the_numbers_september_.php

Dang, X360 average price is up and it's still outselling the other consoles.

Some other interesting stuff in there.

Madden did ~2.3 million USD in 33 days on multiple platforms.
Gears 3 did over 2 million USD in 10 days on one platform.

So in the old NPD style Gears 3 would have been in the top spot by a very large margin.

As well despite PS3 narrowing the gap with X360. Madden went from "evenly split" between X360 and PS3 in 2010 to "unit sales leaned towards the X360" for 2011.

Both X360 and PS3 grew their share of software revenue (for the 3 consoles in question) at the expense of the Wii.

X360 grew 4% to 43% of the total software revenue for 2011 so far.
PS3 gained 2% to 32% of the total software revenue for 2011 so far.
Wii fell 5% to 25% of the total software revenue for 2011 so far.

Yes, I know those numbers don't add up, blame Gamasutra's charts. Their 2010 chart only adds up to 99%.

Also interesting to note that new retail software package sales are in decline. While other methods of selling software (used, Direct Download, etc.) are continuing to grow and represent a significantly larger share of software revenue in the first 3 quarters of each year, with only the holiday quarter showing retail doing better than other methods.

It's no wonder software publishers and developers are looking into increased investment in Direct Download and ways to monetize the used games market.

From the interview section I found this interesting in regards to NPD tracking European sales.

[Ed. note: According to the latest press release, coverage of the UK, France, and Germany will begin in early 2012.]

Regards,
SB

 

[Richard]

No word yet on whether they'll publically differentiate between territories, I gather?

 

[patsu]

I bought R3, but I know my enthusiasm cooled considerably about the series since they killed off Nathan Hale. I really liked the story telling in R1, I liked the cinematics and the english setting, but R2 just didn't hang together as well for me.

Actually owning R3, I'm put off by the low resolution and my lack of knowledge of the protagonist. I've been playing more Ico HD than R3.. only played a few levels into R3 so far.

Ah, which chapter are you in now ? If you stopped before Chapter 7, you should resume the game again whenever you're free. ^_^

 

[Rangers]

[Ed. note: According to the latest press release, coverage of the UK, France, and Germany will begin in early 2012.]

That's odd. Wasn't this part of a team up with gfk or something separate?

Getting hardware numbers for those places would be cool, though I doubt we will, considering we never get them now.

Edit: Never mind, looks like it's be digital only coverage in Europe http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/11/npd-launching-euro-sales-tracking-service-focusing-on-digital-f/

https://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_110810.html

I actually am not sure if they mean to cover only digital in Europe, or only "focus" on digital, but still also cover retail? I assume the former.