Dude, chill out and read my post again. I never said the PS4 would lose May and June. Quite the opposite in fact. I think the PS4 will easily take both months. My post was referring to the holiday season. Hopefully Sony will have better deals this holiday season.
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NPD Sales Results for April 2015 [Up1: Xbox One #1]
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
wapplew
Member
Not going to lie, that's very compelling list.
MS only won by 13k this month. So they barely won and they did because of a big promotion run at Gamestop. I wouldn't really say Sony is in any danger.
PS4 could be selling much better though and it HAS been 6 months since Xbox One dropped to $350. I do think that Sony needs to take that next step to dramatically increase the install base.
NoMoreTrolls
Banned
Indeed. Makes me glad I own it. I also hope that the Win10 streaming comes soon so I can play all of my systems from my media room.
I'm relieved to hear that Bloodborne sold well this month despite not appearing on the chart.
SenjutsuSage
Halo TV Series Promoter - Live from: Reach
Uhh, yea, but two of those months just happened to be in the very heart of the crucial holiday shopping season. That's far from as insignificant as you're trying to make it seem even if the PS4 is still clearly in the lead.
smh.
Chobel
Member
Uhh, yea, but two of those months just happened to be in the very heart of the crucial holiday shopping season. That's far from as insignificant as you're trying to make it seem even if the PS4 is still clearly in the lead.
smh.
Yep, winning the Holiday in US is all what matters.
Pathfinder
Member
He didn't say the holidays were all that mattered, just that winning during the holidays is far from insignificant.
If only this trend could keep up (and get bigger because the difference is abbysmal), Sony would drop the price faster, but when Arkham Knight releases it's going to get ugly. Now I'm thinking they'll hold to that price another holiday and drop the price when Morpheus releases.
They could bury the xbox in NA with a $300 model but I'm assuming it won't happen soon at this rate.
They could bury the xbox in NA with a $300 model but I'm assuming it won't happen soon at this rate.
I'm scratching my head at the thinking in this thread that Sony needs to do something and what MS should/is going to start doing, all based on a month of NPD where the consoles are 13K apart in sales. It's like you guys love jumping to conclusions.
Nothing has changed at MS and Sony regarding what they already had planned. You think they're looking at these numbers and coming up with new strategies or something? That's nice.
Nothing has changed at MS and Sony regarding what they already had planned. You think they're looking at these numbers and coming up with new strategies or something? That's nice.
ZSaberLink
Media Create Maven
People missed Harker's post eh? Quoting it again so that people actually pay attention to it.
therealbigrich
Member
You know the Ps4 had deals these last couple of months including the 175 Gamestop trade in that let me get my ps4 . I don't think Sony is in danger either but its good that X1 is doing a little better at least to some
Agreed. Who cares about Europe, right? It's just a country after all.
Removing a gaming console (with a 9 attach rate no less) from your data points using anecdotal stories doesn't discount that even if you remove that gaming console you're faced with the prospect of a large contraction and consolidation of the market that's occurred over the past couple of generations (instead of just this one) in that respect. The ps1, ps2 ds, and wii all sold to that market that goes beyond your core gamer. And guess what? There are plenty of numbers to indicate that the expanded market is still gaming. It's just not in the console market. Which certainly bodes well for it, coupled with the massive downturn in retail software support in that market as well. Good signs everywhere I suppose, when you're purposefully turning the cheek, plugging your ears and screaming "Lalalallaala best sales ever!!". The worst part of it all is that many of you who have invested so much in keeping this dream alive will age and eventually lose luster for the hobby, and you won't be replaced this time with the folks who are growing up not knowing the traditional market and traditional gaming prices to boot. Luckily, games as a service is where we are headed, and that includes the traditional space or whatever the traditional space turns into over the next decade.
Signet Son
Banned
Xbox has a good chance to win May because of TW3 promo, but June goes to PS4 with the Batman bundle. I'm glad Xbox did well in NA. It's crazy how much they offer at that low of a price and still can only barely squeeze by PS though. I hope this gen has taught MS a valuable lesson. Anyway, I'm glad for Xbox...I love seeing them both sell well. Both brands are here to stay and thats a good thing.
Obliterator
Member
Personally I'm thinking May could be a close one between Xbone and PS4. Could be another month like April where the gap between the two is somewhat marginal
PS4 was helped by a similar GameStop big promotion run a couple of months ago (big value for PS3/360 trade-in). Don't knock concerted efforts to raise sales, when those concerted efforts just happen to raise sales.
pixelation
Member
Agreed On Demand...
anexanhume
Member
The margin of PS4 wins were big whereas the XB1 win was small. This suggests that homeostasis still rests with the PS4.
tattooed_dwarf
Member
You got that from that post you quoted ? Nice spin.
NoMoChokeSJ
Banned
I'm sure that the PS4 will probably win in May. My point is that the demand for the XB1 must be going up some, since people are actually buying them. There were a lot of people against purchasing the console regardless of price a year ago.
Apparently you missed that Sony is DOOMED now
But again. Even if MS came out of top in the US. Why should they bother. In Europe they are around a 3:1 ratio, so by the end of the genertion they will still lead by 20 to 30 million units.
I think all their studios are working on games. No one is on vacation.
Da fuck? lol
Well, PS4 did 340k in March with trade-in deals.
The hottest of hot takes
NoMoreTrolls
Banned
What do you mean? I'm sure that Sony saw that they lost this month and called up all of their studios to sound the alarm to begin game production again yesterday. They were just guzzling beers on the beach until the bat symbol popped up after NPD released their results.
Thunder Monkey
Banned
I wasn't.
I was saying acting like the Wii was some strange anomaly, that was only bought by "nongamers" is a losing stance. Every generation that has a console with a userbase of over 100 million units is hitting that "nongamer" demo.
The unusual part is the fact that they weren't retained into the next generation by anyone. That's the anomaly.
This is in essence because their needs are being met outside the traditional market.
And this contraction is going to be seen industry wide. Most notably by Nintendo, but I expect MS to be impacted in the traditional home console market, and Sony already has with Vita. Nintendo sold 256 million units of dedicated gaming hardware last generation. Sony sold roughly 170 million units, and MS sold 85-90 million units.
Sony will be the market leader with anywhere from 110-130 million units, Nintendo 70-80 million units, and MS between 35-50 million units.
All three manufacturers are going to see unit share drops from the prior generation.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Given you quoted my response to a statement about the reasons for a lack of traditionally published retail presence to say I was wrong, no, why on earth would we?
Being able to buy a PSN card in a shop is nowhere near the same as box product presence.
Your post just reads like a generic defence against a "PS4 has no games" argument I wasn't making.
It's sort of amusing to me to see people now talking like AAAs self-implosion is a real possibility, but who are these new companies stepping up?
In before someone quoting you and saying "But most wii owners only bought one game then left it in a cupboard!"
A Human Becoming
More than a Member
If anyone has Vita numbers for this and last month, if you don't feel comfortable posting them here please PM me! I'm still interested.
Thanks for the graph, Zhuge (as usual
Year 1 = 2013 for PS4
Year 1 = 2006 for Wii
Year 1 = 2005 for 360
Year 1 = 2000 for PS2
I'm open to requests now.
). Any idea of the ratio of US:WW numbers for the PS2?Thanks for the graph, Zhuge (as usual
Hmmm, not really, as we have sell through for USA but not sell through for worldwide.
By the end of the generation, the USA accounted for ~30% of shipments. PS3 & PS1 are somewhat similar actually. So I'd say that's a good baseline to use at the end of a generation, that around ~30% of the sales will be in the USA. Unlike with Xbox which saw around ~60% of its sales in the USA, 360 which saw about ~49% of its sales in the USA and Xbox One which (using estimates) has seen much more than half of its sales in the USA.
At the moment the sales in USA for PS4 accounts for ~36% of all units sold through worldwide.
So you can see the difference straight away between the two brands.
To date, Sony has sold more than 111 million home consoles in the USA and over 370 million worldwide, whilst Microsoft have sold just over 63 million in the USA and over 123 million worldwide.
Numbers are rounded.
Eolz
Member
Year 1 = 2013 for PS4
Year 1 = 2006 for Wii
Year 1 = 2005 for 360
Year 1 = 2000 for PS2
I'm open to requests now.
Nice!
Can't see the PS4 getting to PS2 levels in year 3. It could in year 4 though (same as year 4 ps2, not y3).
Yep, the XBox brand has and always will be very US orientated. It's no surprise that most sales come from the US. BTW, my estimates put the XB1 sales in the US somewhere around 67%, but of course I could be way off. Anyway, can you please explain how the PS4 is currently still ahead of the PS2 when the PS2's sales were significantly ahead of the PS4's in their respective second years? I reckon Europe has got something to do with it.
To clarify, when I said "more than half"... I um... meant more than half haha, so not that it's near 50% but that it's over it by a lot.
Sorry, worldwide or USA?
Thanks,
Oh and I forgot to clarify that the reason I posted that graph was to compare Gen 8 current leader (PS4) to the best selling consoles in the USA over the past decade (PS2, 360, Wii).
In regards to your post, the PS2 really sold well in 2002 (year 3) thanks to the $100 price drop and then returned to normal sales levels in year 4 and 5 before once again being boosted by another price drop and slimline version. Not to mention that it had great legs thanks to price, continued software support and lack of an appealing successor.
Banjo-Kazooie
Member
Good list, but boy is the whole premise of it embarrassing and cringe worthy lol.
I remember when the person made it, "Xbox show me why I chose you!!!!!"
Ugh
My bad. I meant worldwide. Anyway, can we agree that the XB1 sales in the US is at least 60%?
SenjutsuSage
Halo TV Series Promoter - Live from: Reach
Thank you. It's refreshing to see posts that aren't made with the explicit intention to misrepresent what I actually said.
EmptySpace
Banned
it's not that significant if the competition also sold a lot.
what's significant is selling the console for way less and only outselling the competition during 2 months every year, in its biggest territory (sorry, china).
there are already constraints people put in place to make their arguments work. it is an npd thread therefore us-only. every month we always talk about the holiday season because ohhh don't forget about the impending holiday season. then only looking at sales volume instead of looking at the bigger picture.
xbox has a value perception problem. consumers didn't bite at the 500 dollars, didn't bite at par value, still aren't biting at 350. that just means price is not the problem.
Chobel
Member
So Sony should drop the price just to win Holiday in US? Because that was argument being presented there.
LOL, the irony. JetBlackPanda was saying Sony shouldn't drop the price just because MS won 3 months, suddenly now, he's saying MS win is insignificant.
Papacheeks
Banned
Then I would ask why do I see games like Stick it to The man, Wolf among Us, among other's get physical retail release?
And People are buying digital a lot more now. I'm stating fact, Invisible Inc will probably get a limited physical release.
And these small developers will make games like PayDay:The heist, and Killing floor 2 size, that get retail releases.
Shadow warrior is by no means a small studio game, but Definitely was made by 80 under people and was released as a budget price of 39.99 at retail.
Like I Said in an earlier post the landscape is changing. Games are still coming out just not all of them at Retail. And not all of them are 59.99.
If you ask me your lazy overview of the Industry comes off as Generic, since I stated the changes in previous posts of the landscape that is morphing into a different market.
Look at how many people play Never Winter Nights on Xbox one: 1.5 million since it's release.
Smite will be big as well. Different market games. There will always be up and coming studios who start from small games and make something that breaks through into the AAA space.
It's happening now. Payday:the heist started as a Left 4 dead mod, but morphed into a 19.99 game that got popular.
Low and behold they made a sequel that went to retail.
Point proven.
If you and fellow poster's believe that games in current market are not relevant because of a non retail release, you are being short sighted as revenue and margin isn't only measured at the checkout in a store.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
That is still a part of the reduced number of titles available at physical release.
I don't even know what you're arguing for or against; there has been a reduction this generation of physical retail releases.
If you're making points about how or why that might or might not be a bad thing, go ahead, but don't try and portray that reduction as not being there.
It matters to retailers whose revenue and margin is entirely determined by whether those products exist or not. Vastly more than it matters to people list warring.
EDIT:
And for the record, Payday absolutely did not start out as a "mod" for Left 4 Dead.
CosmicQueso
Member
OK. But this is an NPD thread... looking at the retail packaged goods market. Not digital.
There are far fewer games being released into the retail packaged goods market than there used to be. I made a chart of disc based releases using gamerankings.com data:
(There's also a 96% correlation between Physical Release Count and Physical Software Sales. These two things can reasonably be assumed to be related.)
If other types of games start coming to retail and find success, then that's great. Hasn't happened with enough scale yet, but maybe.
Ahhh, okay. You're saying that retail getting into selling digital goods will offset some of the physical declines and generally make for a more efficient market.
Sure. GameStop is doing very well selling Season Passes in particular, and they're definitely looking to expand. And if PSN/XBL/STEAM accounts can be tied to a powerup rewards card or something, meaning that if someone buys a code at GameStop and then the game begins immediately downloading to someone's console at home, then yes that would be a great benefit.
I'm with you, it's not a doom and gloom for sure. Markets change. We do need more games, and we do need to see software sales get from flat to growth this year. Packaged SW was up in April, with the games coming out the rest of the year, we might end the year in single digit revenue growth for Physical software sales. Digital at retail is growing, it's just not reported anywhere.
The big contraction has already happened. We've lost publishers, game count and a good chunk of consumers. The handheld business is gone for everyone apart from Nintendo. The major pain is over, at least for now.
Papacheeks
Banned
Yea, I got confused with the cross over DLC stuff they did. I got it confused with something else, thanks for the correction.
To your first point the reduced number for retail games like I stated is because it's not all about retail any more. It's cheaper to have a digital release with maybe a limited physical retail.
You have any evidence to back up your claim? I remember seeing someone dropping some graphs or something couple pages back but didn't know if there was a source for it.
Here's something:http://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/digital-games-set-outsell-retail/
Which is just showing how the market is more and more adopting digital. If you say less games are at physical retail I would have to agree on that front.
But to say retail is mostly what matter's your slightly mislead. When places like Gamestop Besbuy, were physical only, and games that were getting popular like Trials, Super meat boy, and the like, they had no way at the time to get people in their store to buy it.
Now you can buy the actual game codes for games on Amazon for PS4, PS3, you can buy codes for xbox games at bestbuy.
Of course margin might take a hit, but still those people are in your store, and stores get kick back from selling digital through their Kiask. I know because I had over 10 years of experience when I worked retail.
Places like Bestbuy got huge incentive kick backs for selling digital cards, codes and preOrders.
Soon there will be Kiask's where you can login to your PSN, STEAM, XBL account at the register purchase the game and have it added to your account ready to download.
Some Test BestBuy and gamestop stores are doing this now.
It's not about just Physical anymore, and they actually get better kick back from selling digital through their register's than physical.
Used games are where Gamestop make a crap load of revenue and profit from. But they have been mitigating that with their digital store, which they get actually better kick backs than selling the game in store some times.
You make not having Physical release sound like it's damaging the industry when in fact it's helping it.
How much money do you think companies want to save? The even downsized video game booklets we get. Cases are cheaper, but still cost's money.
If you want to keep your budget overhead as small as possible for a game that's been in development for a while going digital isn't a bad idea, especially if it's promoted correctly.
Edit: Answer Cosmic
if I sound confusing, sorry as I'm not the best at explaining things. My main point was maybe I might have read you and MrNyarlathotep wrong but, was that your conversation and tone sounded like you thought that not having retail games was a bade thing.
And I just added my 2 cent's that the market is changing and even Retail stores are changing in how they get revenue and margin. Gamestop makes a decent amount to selling digital on their website and in a store. Same goes for Best Buy.
And like I told MrNyarlathotep some smaller digital games are getting physical released more now because those type of games are slowly becoming more mainstream.
Games like Journey, Stick it to The man, Wolf among us, walking dead, EU release of Wolfenstein: The old blood, Payday 2, Shadow warrior.
It's still early in this generation and I would say t the digital adoption, but looking at how Sony and amazon now do flash sales for digital games on consoles, it's not far fetched to think revenue/margin landscape for stores is changing to accommodate changes in the market.
That's likely but very hard to say exactly tbh. With 360 and original Xbox we have the WW numbers. With Xbox One we don't, and I don't really what to compare shipped with sold through as that skews things. Hence why I'm saying "much more than half" to indicate that once again the ratio is skewed where USA is by far the biggest market for Xbox and is more than all other markets combined.
In regards to PS2. Here is a graph of PS2 Vs PS4 shipments. Please note that the following post looks at worldwide shipments unless otherwise explicitly stated.
Now lets take a look at why the PS4 is ahead.
PlayStation 2 launched in Japan first on March 4th 2000, on its first day alone more than 600,000 were sold at retail and 380,000 through online pre orders. The PlayStation 2 had issues with chip production in 2000 and demand for PS2 was high but Sony were unable to fully cater, even on day 1 they could only actually ship 720,000 of those 980,000 orders.
In Japan sales were high over 2000 and everything that was being shipped was being sold. And here is the key, the first 7 months of shipments just went to one country, Japan. Those first 7 months on the graph account for 3.5 million units that were shipped in Japan only.
The production issues hit the western launch as well with Sony able to only ship 500,000 units to the USA in October, half what they actually wanted to ship to meet demand. Overall Sony were just able to ship 6.40m units in 2000 which was a lot less then where they wanted to be. In fact If I remember correctly they planned to ship at least 1m more worldwide but were unable to. As of the end of 2000, which is month 10 on the graph, the PlayStation 2 had shipped 3.94m units in Japan/Asia and 2.46m units in North America and European countries.
In 2001 (Month 11 through Month 22), Sony were able to solve production issues and get back to selling as they planned with a total of 18.6 million units shipped worldwide taking the cumulative total to 25 million as of the end of 2001 (month 22).
Now lets look at PS4. Unlike the PlayStation 2, Sony's fourth console launched in North America and Europe first, in fact the PlayStation 4 launched in a total of 53 countries and regions during its first two months and expanded to 123 countries by month 15.
So this is a major factor why the PlayStation 4 outsold the PlayStation 2 for the first 7 months easily, because the PS2 was only available in Japan where as the PS4 was in more than 53 countries during the first 2 months and by the 7th month had launched in 72 countries and regions. So whilst Japan is big for gaming, a console launching in 72 regions in 7 months (inc NA+EU) is going to see more sales than a console that launched in 1 country for 7 months.
The PlayStation 4 saw over 1 million shipments in North America and over 700,000 in Europe during the first 24 hours on sale in those territories. Easily surpassing the PS2 launch and solidifying the PS4's early lead in the generation 8 set of consoles. After just two months the PS4 had sold in 4.5 million units in these 53 countries compared to the PS2 which had just sold under 2 million in Japan at the same time aligned.
The PlayStation 4 sales were high because, as mentioned above, the console launched in more territories, it was at a compelling price point and because it was coming off a very long generation where gamers were ready for a next generation console, even the Xbox One had a massive launch because of this final reason.
In 2014 (month 3 through 14), the PlayStation 4 saw continued demand and sold in an additional 15.4 million units. This is slightly less compared to PlayStation 2's 18.6 million units in 2001 (month 11 through 22). The reason for this is because it was still early days for the PS4, Japan did not contribute as much (only 1.1m in 2014 vs 4.3m in 2001) and because the PS4 had competition from the Xbox One where as the PlayStation 2 only had competition in the latter half of 2001.
The PlayStation 4 as of month 14 had sold 19.9m units worldwide where as the PlayStation 2 had only sold ~12m worldwide. Again the 7 months of just Japan only sales really comes in to play here.
The PlayStation 4 is currently at 22.3m units worldwide after 17 months where as the PlayStation 2 was at ~16.5m at this current time when you align launches.
This is a stupid thing to do but If for example you just look at worldwide sales outside of Asia (so 17 months of PS2 and PS4 sales outside of Asia), The PlayStation 4 would be less than 21m and the PlayStation 2 would be over 19m. So very close, and this again shows the impact of those 7 months of Japan exclusive sales and why PS4 is, when aligned, comfortably ahead of the PS2.
However the PS2 goes on to sell gang-busters in 2002 and 2003 and was the fastest console of its time to reach 50 million. Right now I expect the PS4 to fail to break that record and reach 50m just after the PS2. Main reason being competition from Xbox and lack of sales in Japan to boost overall numbers, sure the numbers will come from emerging territories but 20m+ sales in Japan alone for PS2 really helped PS2 get to where it is today.
Sorry for any mistakes in this post.
That's likely but very hard to say exactly tbh. With 360 and original Xbox we have the WW numbers. With Xbox One we don't, and I don't really what to compare shipped with sold through as that skews things. Hence why I'm saying "much more than half" to indicate that once again the ratio is skewed where USA is by far the biggest market for Xbox and is more than all other markets combined.
In regards to PS2. Here is a graph of PS2 Vs PS4 shipments.
Now lets take a look at why the PS4 is ahead.
PlayStation 2 launched in Japan first on March 4th 2000, on its first day alone more than 600,000 were sold at retail and 380,000 through online pre orders. The PlayStation 2 had issues with chip production in 2000 and demand for PS2 was high but Sony were unable to fully cater, even on day 1 they could only actually ship 720,000 of those 980,000 orders.
In Japan sales were high over 2000 and everything that was being shipped was being sold. And here is the key, the first 7 months of shipments just went to one country, Japan. Those first 7 months on the graph account for 3.5 million units that were shipped in Japan only.
The production issues hit the western launch as well with Sony able to only ship 500,000 units to the USA in October, half what they actually wanted to ship to meet demand. Overall Sony were just able to ship 6.40m units in 2000 which was a lot less then where they wanted to be. In fact If I remember correctly they planned to ship at least 1m more worldwide but were unable to. As of the end of 2000, which is month 10 on the graph, the PlayStation 2 had shipped 3.94m units in Japan/Asia and 2.46m units in North America and European countries.
In 2001 (Month 11 through Month 22), Sony were able to solve production issues and get back to selling as they planned with a total of 18.6 million units shipped worldwide taking the cumulative total to 25 million as of the end of 2001 (month 22).
Now lets look at PS4. Unlike the PlayStation 2, Sony's fourth console launched in North America and Europe first, in fact the PlayStation 4 launched in a total of 53 countries and regions during its first two months and expanded to 123 countries by month 15.
So this is a major factor why the PlayStation 4 outsold the PlayStation 2 for the first 7 months easily, because the PS2 was only available in Japan where as the PS4 was in more than 53 countries during the first 2 months and by the 7th month had launched in 72 countries and regions. So whilst Japan is big for gaming, a console launching in 72 regions in 7 months (inc NA+EU) is going to see more sales than a console that launched in 1 country for 7 months.
The PlayStation 4 saw over 1 million shipments in North America and over 700,000 in Europe during the first 24 hours on sale in those territories. Easily surpassing the PS2 launch and solidifying the PS4's early lead in the generation 8 set of consoles. After just two months the PS4 had sold in 4.5 million units in these 53 countries compared to the PS2 which had just sold under 2 million in Japan at the same time aligned.
The PlayStation 4 sales were high because, as mentioned above, the console launched in more territories, it was at a compelling price point and because it was coming off a very long generation where gamers were ready for a next generation console, even the Xbox One had a massive launch because of this final reason.
In 2014 (month 3 through 14), the PlayStation 4 saw continued demand and sold in an additional 15.4 million units. This is slightly less compared to PlayStation 2's 18.6 million units in 2001 (month 11 through 22). The reason for this is because it was still early days for the PS4, Japan did not contribute as much (only 1.1m in 2014 vs 4.3m in 2001) and because the PS4 had competition from the Xbox One where as the PlayStation 2 only had competition in the latter half of 2001.
The PlayStation 4 as of month 14 had sold 19.9m units worldwide where as the PlayStation 2 had only sold ~12m worldwide. Again the 7 months of just Japan only sales really comes in to play here.
The PlayStation 4 is currently at 22.3m units worldwide after 17 months where as the PlayStation 2 was at ~16.5m at this current time when you align launches.
This is a stupid thing to do but If for example you just look at worldwide sales outside of Asia (so 17 months of PS2 and PS4 sales outside of Asia), The PlayStation 4 would be less than 21m and the PlayStation 2 would be over 19m. So very close, and this again shows the impact of those 7 months of Japan exclusive sales and why PS4 is, when aligned, comfortably ahead of the PS2.
However the PS2 goes on to sell gang-busters in 2002 and 2003 and was the fastest console of its time to reach 50 million. Right now I expect the PS4 to fail to break that record and reach 50m just after the PS2. Main reason being competition from Xbox and lack of sales in Japan to boost overall numbers, sure the numbers will come from emerging territories but 20m+ sales in Japan alone for PS2 really helped PS2 get to where it is today.
Sorry for any mistakes in this post.
That was a fun read. Thanks
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
I think you're attributing more to the statements than is there - I think physical retail is inevitably going to die, but its what NPD threads measure, and for - at least - the foreseeable future of the rest of this console generation, NPD threads will remain an indicator of industry health.
I'm certainly more bearish on the console industry than CosmicQueso is, but I am definitively not of the belief that AAA console retail is "all that matters".
Having said that however, diminished retail presence doesn't particularly help consoles as mass market devices.
At least some of this is due to the point at which supply was able to meet demand; there were PS2 shortages in most territories for much of its launch year (even with the staggered launch which was almost certainly a result of trying to alleviate that). You see the same jumps with the 360 and the Wii last gen, as supplies were ramped up.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
People have been missing a lot lately it seems, I've even dropped some spoilers that never got eyes ::shrug::
I'm just blowing by in the wind