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NPD Sales Results For August 2016

Q

quest

Not Banned from OT
Purest 78 said:
$400 is the sweet spot for consoles. If Scorpio is $500 or more I don't see it doing well outside enthusiast.
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Personally I am hoping for 499.99 because I want a Zen CPU and more ram. Those 2 things are well worth the extra upfront cost.
 
V

ViewtifulJC

Banned
Gotta be concerned about Dishonored 2 now. Its had a similar gap in its release schedule since the last one, another big stealth-action immersive sim with an unique art style with origins to Harvey Smith. Coming out the same month as Infinite Warfare, Watch Dogs 2, and Final Fantasy XV.

RIP?
 
E

Elandyll

Banned
Obliterator said:
Its really sad to see what's happening with Deus Ex as Human Revolution by and large was loved.

What's weird is I adored that game, really want to play Mankind Divided, and yet haven't bought the game yet. I wonder if there is a decent amount of people out there like me? Its strange as I know it will be a quality experience and yet feel like I don't have to be there Day 1 for it. I'm sure thats not what SE want to hear as they want up front $60 purchases but I wonder if over time it will leg out decently.
Click to expand...
I loved HR, still very much want to buy MD, but August was a bad month for me (summer sees a drop in our income due to my wife being a HS teacher), and I had prepaid for the LE of NMS.

Now, do I regret having gotten NMS over MD?
A few weeks ago I would have said No. Now I'm not so sure, but what is done is done, I had my fun with NMS for north of 40hrs (gotten a bit stale but still playing on and off), and MD will have to wait a bit for a special occasion or the Holidays.

From my point of view, MD suffered from bad marketing and a bad period to launch in.
 
G

GifGafIsTheBestGaf

Member
Kill3r7 said:
I would not be surprised if it was top 5 in September, maybe top 3 if it can beat FIFA.



It could have been the best game this gen and its ceiling would have been relative low. HR only sold around 240k which is not all that great.
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funkystudent said:
Not alot of excitement around it for whatever reason.

Its been 5 years since Human Revolution.
The marketing wasnt nearly as good this time.
The game itself was OK but not great. Bland and unexciting. Not great word of mouth.



I hope they get to make a sequel but I dunno if they will.
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Knuckle Sandwich said:
No it's really good.

Also congrats to MS. I like the S quite a bit.
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dr_rus said:
Lack of promotion and the long delay which killed the interest. The game being a safe straight sequel to a rather average DX game didn't help either. Plus the game is among the worst in the DX series - if I'd have to choose which one is better MD or IW I would have to think really hard.

All IMO obviously.
Click to expand...

damn such a shame, i liked the previous one a lot. still picking it up when i get my hands on a PS4 this november
 
K

Kill3r7

Member
ViewtifulJC said:
Gotta be concerned about Dishonored 2 now. Its had a similar gap in its release schedule since the last one, another big stealth-action immersive sim with an unique art style with origins to Harvey Smith. Coming out the same month as Infinite Warfare, Watch Dogs 2, and Final Fantasy XV.

RIP?
Click to expand...

I think Dishonored 2 will do okay. Bethesda/Zenimax has a solid fan base and knows how to market their games.
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
hamchan said:
I'm pretty depressed about Mankind Divided too. I think that game is pretty damn great and I loved all the time I had with it.

It does feel like some of it is a failure of marketing. There must surely have been a way to sell this awesome game to an audience, but I didn't see much of it or feel much hype at all pre-release.
Click to expand...

I think it's

A) Human Revolution came after "that type of game" (as wide a net as that is) basically died after a bunch of hyped games in that genre (Deus Ex: IW, Thief Deadly Shadows, and Vampire the Masquerade) all came out in late 2003/2004 and were notable flops. Proving that that kind of title could still exist in the PS3/360 landscape was an exciting thing and a big boost. Mankind Divided comes at a time when that style of game is no longer that much of a novelty.

B) It was a subversion of expectations story, and was my go-to example for that situation until... Doom 2016, which arguably had worse marketing but sold decently after word of mouth started spreading that "No, they actually did it right!" Human Revolution had the same thing happen with its leak and right after it came out. I remember everyone being super wary of Eidos with no connection to the old teams making "Deus Ex 3," so it actually being a great game was a surprise that got more people talking. Mankind Divided was always expected to be at least very good.

C) Because the game had to work harder to sell itself since it's very much a next-gen sequel to Human Revolution, you'd expect more marketing about the biggest improvements: level design, the dense environments, or increased choices and playstyle options... which there was a little of, but that's boring and doesn't scream "next gen" so instead we got a lot of talk about how it's all about cyborg racism, which immediately comes off as trite, especially when Human Revolution's marketing focused on the much more interesting and broader idea of invoking transhumanism and society in general. It also doesn't help that one of the environments they kept showing off (Golem City) intentionally invokes the Human Revolution black and gold grittiness aesthetic for story reasons (it's meant to be this tragic "this is what happened to the dream from then" thing), but makes MD look like it has less of a unique identity and more of Human Revolution with more shaders, even through Prague itself mostly eschews black and gold except in specific parts in favor of stony, gloomy shades of gray and blue in an attempt at showing that the world is moving toward the original game.
 
P

Purest 78

Member
quest said:
Personally I am hoping for 499.99 because I want a Zen CPU and more ram. Those 2 things are well worth the extra upfront cost.
Click to expand...

Yes but I'd assume you're a enthusiast like most on this site. It's been proven $500 doesn't do well with the mass Market. X1 would be the lasted example It sold much better after the price drop.
 
P

phanphare

Banned
MrPhiliasfrog said:
Honestly, it saddens me to see a game like no man's sky succeed while deus ex performed so badly.
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giphy.gif
 
B

blakep267

Member
Purest 78 said:
Yes but I'd assume you're a enthusiast like most on this site. It's been proven $500 doesn't do well with the mass Market. X1 would be the lasted example It sold much better after the price drop.
Click to expand...
I think it's more that it wouldn't do well when the co petition is cheaper. The Xbox one wasn't selling terribly at that price, just not as nearly as good as the ps4
 
S

Scientist Supreme!

Banned
ViewtifulJC said:
Gotta be concerned about Dishonored 2 now. Its had a similar gap in its release schedule since the last one, another big stealth-action immersive sim with an unique art style with origins to Harvey Smith. Coming out the same month as Infinite Warfare, Watch Dogs 2, and Final Fantasy XV.

RIP?
Click to expand...

Yeah, it will probably do around the same. Like Deus Ex , it just looks uninteresting to anyone not into world already.
 
Q

quest

Not Banned from OT
Purest 78 said:
Yes but I'd assume you're a enthusiast like most on this site. It's been proven $500 doesn't do well with the mass Market. X1 would be the lasted example It sold much better after the price drop.
Click to expand...

The casuals are not going to buy a Scorpio anyway they already are in the Sony Eco system. Scorpio IMO is the culmination of the new regimes efforts to repair the Xbox brands image. The Scorpio is a olive branch to the core gaming community they pissed off in 2013. So might as well go big with it. Also no matter what that is going to be one big ass APU I would not be surprised to see them having a hard time with yields and limited supply for the first 6 months.
 
P

Purest 78

Member
quest said:
The casuals are not going to buy a Scorpio anyway they already are in the Sony Eco system. Scorpio IMO is the culmination of the new regimes efforts to repair the Xbox brands image. The Scorpio is a olive branch to the core gaming community they pissed off in 2013. So might as well go big with it. Also no matter what that is going to be one big ass APU I would not be surprised to see them having a hard time with yields and limited supply for the first 6 months.
Click to expand...

I agree with most of what you said I'm just speaking from a sales stand point. Once a console hits that $500 price it won't sell well. Also I don't think if someone isn't a enthusiast they're automatically a casual.
 
dr_rus

dr_rus

Member
Electret said:
That's an indictment! IW is a bummer of a Deus Ex game and a step back from the original in nearly every way.
Click to expand...

Yep. But as a _Deus Ex game_ it's still better than even HR, and I'm not really sure if it's worse than MD as just a game. MD left a very sour aftertaste for me after I beat it.
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
EmCeeGramr said:
I think it's

A) Human Revolution came after "that type of game" (as wide a net as that is) basically died after a bunch of hyped games in that genre (Deus Ex: IW, Thief Deadly Shadows, and Vampire the Masquerade) all came out in late 2003/2004 and were notable flops. Proving that that kind of title could still exist in the PS3/360 landscape was an exciting thing and a big boost. Mankind Divided comes at a time when that style of game is no longer that much of a novelty.
Click to expand...

I think that's ignoring Bioshock which is directly in the lineage of the genre and was obviously a big hit. Though it was arguably a disappointment for fans of the genre as a followup to System Shock 2.
 
J

Jumeira

Member
Really happy to see Xbox S doing well. New standard for console revision, well deserved

Those Xbox pads are doing wonders too, not sure of they're counting the style factory sales?
 
C

CrichtonKicks

Member
EmCeeGramr said:
I just don't even register BioShock as one of those.
Click to expand...

But it really is. More on the SS2->BS track obviously but if you register SS2 as an Immersive Sim then BS1 and BS2 need to be there too.

I don't know if it works timeline wise but it wouldn't surprise me if BS1's success was a significant factor in Eidos restarting the DX franchise and Bethesda funding Dishonored.
 
Z

z1ggy

Member
Obliterator said:
Its really sad to see what's happening with Deus Ex as Human Revolution by and large was loved.

What's weird is I adored that game, really want to play Mankind Divided, and yet haven't bought the game yet. I wonder if there is a decent amount of people out there like me? Its strange as I know it will be a quality experience and yet feel like I don't have to be there Day 1 for it. I'm sure thats not what SE want to hear as they want up front $60 purchases but I wonder if over time it will leg out decently.
Click to expand...

Yes, im like you and i can tell you why i didnt buy the game yet.

The game looks like it came out two years after the first one, but after five.
 
Silent Chief

Silent Chief

Member
KingBroly said:
If you're buying a PS4 or an XBO this holiday, you're going to get GTA5. Sales keep showing that. Month after month, this keeps happening and nothing on the horizon is going to change to that, at least for long. Tell me this; How many games do you think it's going to take to push GTA5 out of the top 10 in NPD sales temporarily and permanently? Because until that point, it's not worth doing. But by that point, GTA6 will be out.
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I get what you're saying, but I have on PS3 and I'm not rebuying it.
If I was to buy a PS4 for a child, I wouldn't buy GTA either.
 
J

Jumeira

Member
EmCeeGramr said:
I think it's

A) Human Revolution came after "that type of game" (as wide a net as that is) basically died after a bunch of hyped games in that genre (Deus Ex: IW, Thief Deadly Shadows, and Vampire the Masquerade) all came out in late 2003/2004 and were notable flops. Proving that that kind of title could still exist in the PS3/360 landscape was an exciting thing and a big boost. Mankind Divided comes at a time when that style of game is no longer that much of a novelty.
I
B) It was a subversion of expectations story, and was my go-to example for that situation until... Doom 2016, which arguably had worse marketing but sold decently after word of mouth started spreading that "No, they actually did it right!" Human Revolution had the same thing happen with its leak and right after it came out. I remember everyone being super wary of Eidos with no connection to the old teams making "Deus Ex 3," so it actually being a great game was a surprise that got more people talking. Mankind Divided was always expected to be at least very good.

C) Because the game had to work harder to sell itself since it's very much a next-gen sequel to Human Revolution, you'd expect more marketing about the biggest improvements: level design, the dense environments, or increased choices and playstyle options... which there was a little of, but that's boring and doesn't scream "next gen" so instead we got a lot of talk about how it's all about cyborg racism, which immediately comes off as trite, especially when Human Revolution's marketing focused on the much more interesting and broader idea of invoking transhumanism and society in general. It also doesn't help that one of the environments they kept showing off (Golem City) intentionally invokes the Human Revolution black and gold grittiness aesthetic for story reasons (it's meant to be this tragic "this is what happened to the dream from then" thing), but makes MD look like it has less of a unique identity and more of Human Revolution with more shaders, even through Prague itself mostly eschews black and gold except in specific parts in favor of stony, gloomy shades of gray and blue in an attempt at showing that the world is moving toward the original game.
Click to expand...


Damn, you summed it up with C for me. It looks like an expansion pack with an incredibly boring story. I loved HR but I'm burned out on the location/environments which the new game seems to be reusing. At least that how it looks from someone with an interest but only casually looked it up.
 
F

Fushichou187

Member
120v said:
rainbow six is turning out to be quite the comeback kid story eh. thought that was put away and done
Click to expand...

That and Killer Instinct have surprised me the most this gen as to how they've consistently grown their audience since their (imo) fairly tepid releases. Hats off to them.

Welfare said:
No Man's Sky September sales will be interesting to see. Wonder how far it'll drop.
Click to expand...

Since we're talking sales, and not digital ones even, it wouldn't surprise me if it dropped off the top 20. If during a particular month more new content gets released for it though, I expect it to be right back up there.
 
E

EmCeeGramr

Member
CrichtonKicks said:
But it really is. More on the SS2->BS track obviously but if you register SS2 as an Immersive Sim then BS1 and BS2 need to be there too.

I don't know if it works timeline wise but it wouldn't surprise me if BS1's success was a significant factor in Eidos restarting the DX franchise and Bethesda funding Dishonored.
Click to expand...

I mean if you want to honestly try to define "immersive sim," then it gets weird in how there's a spectrum of dense three-dimensional level design, story choices, RPG elements, and multiple playstyles notably including stealth, environment manipulation (hacking/lockpick, etc), and talking; yet games that are universally considered to be immersive sims can focus on entirely different aspects of these while discarding other aspects.

BioShock's priorities always made it feel more of a mainstream shooter that took cues from that genre, not a fully fledged member, though I'll be the first to admit that the distinction is entirely arbitrary.
 
R

Regiruler

Member
fhqwhgads said:
Nintendo needs to stop sending their games out to die with no marketing. They've done this shit far too many times and by this point it feels like anything that isn't Mario/Zelda/Pokemon/Animal Crossing just gets flat out ignored.
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There's been miitomo items and online marketing.

The IP name is too big for it to be lower than 7,500. It was probably carried past 20k at least.
Ridley327 said:
I dunno, Style Savvy doesn't strike me as the kind of game that's really going to sell outside of those that already want it. I will say that I have no idea why it didn't release back when Europe got it, since it was going to sell whatever it was going to sell, no matter when.
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Not sure if it's valuable at all but Style Savvy has a very large miiverse presence. At the current moment that's only useful for catering to a very specific audience though.
If we went by miiverse participation FF did very poorly, but the game being online-focused discourages posting so ymmv.
 
O

Obliterator

Member
Fushichou187 said:
That and Killer Instinct have surprised me the most this gen as to how they've consistently grown their audience since their (imo) fairly tepid releases. Hats off to them.
Click to expand...

I have to bring it up almost every time Siege sales get discussed on this board but Siege started big and has legged great. It did almost a million in its 1st NPD (over 800k if I'm remembering correctly).

However it didn't start off well in the UK charts and I think that's where this weird narrative has formed around it that it wasn't a big seller from the start since those were released prior to its 1st NPD.
 
S

sflufan

Banned
LordRaptor said:
Digital data provided by NPD is supposedly ONLY sales made directly via store.steampowered.com, not via any other retailer (Humble, GMG, etc)
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Actually, Valve/Steam provides no data to NPD directly. It is entirely up to the publisher or the developer to provide that info to the NPD which means they can provide their data from Steam, Humble, GMG, and any other digital storefront if they wish.
 
LordRaptor

LordRaptor

Member
sflufan said:
Actually, Valve/Steam provides no data to NPD directly. It is entirely up to the publisher or the developer to provide that info to the NPD which means they can provide their data from Steam, Humble, GMG, and any other digital storefront if they wish.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I know that - apparently NPDs methodology is only tracking sales made directly via store.steampowered, and presumably only those sales made in NA
 
Silent Chief

Silent Chief

Member
GifGafIsTheBestGaf said:
Why did Deus bombed? Was it a bad game?
Click to expand...


You have to look at things in perspective.

Deus Ex was released way back in 2000 and did fine, but not particularly well on PS2.
The 2003 sequel was PC only.
The 2011 prequel got good reviews and sold well for a summer release, but there was a lot of negative buzz by players who didn't like being forced to fight bosses.
Then they released a mobile game.
And now we have this which is a sequel to the 2011 game. Seems a bit late.
It's another summer release, maybe not by design, the reviews are down from last time, they had an horrible pre-order promo, little focus at E3 and it's apparently stuffed with microtransactions.

I'll probably pick it up on the discount bin in a year or two.
 
V

Vanillalite

Ask me about the GAF Notebook
Not surprised on hardware.

Bone S selling well, but overall hardware sales down as Nintendo is influx. Plus people waiting for Sony announcement.
 
A

Alo0oy

Banned
Square Enix's western branch is struggling big time. While their Japanese branch has Final Fantasy XIV on consoles and a lot of profitable games on mobile. And who knows how XV will do as well?

Who would have thought.
 
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