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NPD Sales Results for December 2008

V

Vinci

Danish
Gaborn said:
C'mon now, AniHawk's argument is basically "if you take away all of the 360's shooters it's game sales would go down." Well duh. The fact is, like it or hate it, disagree with what the Wii's audience is buying or not, they ARE buying it, and are buying games (in the holiday period at least) faster than for any of the other systems.
Click to expand...

I believe you're missing the point.
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
Gaborn said:
C'mon now, AniHawk's argument is basically "if you take away all of the 360's shooters it's game sales would go down." Well duh. The fact is, like it or hate it, disagree with what the Wii's audience is buying or not, they ARE buying it, and are buying games (in the holiday period at least) faster than for any of the other systems.
Click to expand...
You even knew it was Anihawk that you were responding to!



NoooooOOOOoooooOOOOooooOOOoooOOOooooo...oooOOOOoo...
 
V

Vinci

Danish
Gaborn said:
Ok, you're right, my sarcasm detector was broken, and it's late... I really should be getting to sleep.
Click to expand...

Besides, dude, the best retort to that sort of argument would be: "Well if we remove from the 360 and PS3 all shooter games, then ..." *crickets chirping*
 
G

Gaborn

Member
Vinci said:
Besides, dude, the best retort to that sort of argument would be: "Well if we remove from the 360 and PS3 all shooter games, then ..." *crickets chirping*
Click to expand...

:lol :lol :lol this is true!
 
L

Liabe Brave

Member
Gaborn said:
C'mon now, AniHawk's argument is basically "if you take away all of the 360's shooters it's game sales would go down." Well duh.
Click to expand...
That wasn't his point. Let me break it down for you:

1. Accidentally falling into lava.
2. Arguing with AstroLad.
3. Arguing with AniHawk.
.
.
.
n. Not a bad mistake at all.
 
G

Gaborn

Member
HK-47 said:
Sure, you were just tired...:lol
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Hey, it happens. You're tired, you're horny, you're not thinking clearly, you're horny, you need to get some sleep, you're horny, you know you can sleep in tomorrow, you're horny, you want to continue a conversation, you're horny...
 
A

AniHawk

Member
I'm just gonna reply to this part:

Gaborn said:
At some point they might as well, doesn't look like the PS3 audience is particularly interested in many games judging by sales and what we know of the attach rate.
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Right or wrong, publishers/developers seem to view the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and to a lesser extent, PC, as the same userbase, though they particularly target games at the American Xbox 360 audience (which will beat out the N64 in the States before all is said and done). I doubt Activision's really torn up that they only sold over a million copies of World at War on the PS3 versus the 2.75m it did over on the 360. The only ones that are in any danger are those making exclusive PS3 games, and either those publishers are not doing this anymore (Final Fantasy versus XIII is probably the only non-Sony exclusive left outside of much smaller games), or the games are being published by Sony.

It's not so easy to suddenly try to tap into the Wii market. This can be talked about in length, but in short, I think there's a lack of drive for (mainly western) developers to create content for the system, and then there's the fact that they're sort of late to the party anyway. If they got started now, the generation would probably be over by the time they got something out.
 
G

Gaborn

Member
AniHawk said:
I'm just gonna reply to this part:



Right or wrong, publishers/developers seem to view the Playstation 3, Xbox 360, and to a lesser extent, PC, as the same userbase, though they particularly target games at the American Xbox 360 audience (which will beat out the N64 in the States before all is said and done). I doubt Activision's really torn up that they only sold over a million copies of World at War on the PS3 versus the 2.75m it did over on the 360. The only ones that are in any danger are those making exclusive PS3 games, and either those publishers are not doing this anymore (Final Fantasy versus XIII is probably the only non-Sony exclusive left outside of much smaller games), or the games are being published by Sony.

It's not so easy to suddenly try to tap into the Wii market. This can be talked about in length, but in short, I think there's a lack of drive for (mainly western) developers to create content for the system, and then there's the fact that they're sort of late to the party anyway. If they got started now, the generation would probably be over by the time they got something out.
Click to expand...

I'd say it's not so easy to tap into any system's market. I agree that western developers (for whatever reason) seem invested in PS360PC rather than the Wii (or perhaps in their minds, at the expense of the Wii), all I'm saying is that from a value proposition standpoint making one game for one platform is going to start looking more and more attractive since it's got a dearth of quality 3rd party efforts in certain key traditional genres. Of course, in the short term as an alternative I'm wondering if we'll see even a slide away from including the PS3 in multiplat titles and devs going PC360 instead just from the standpoint it's expensive to develop a game or even port it to the PS3 in the first place.

Still though, my guess is next generation is when Nintendo will see 3rd parties on board from the beginning.
 
V

Vinci

Danish
Gaborn said:
Still though, my guess is next generation is when Nintendo will see 3rd parties on board from the beginning.
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If they don't, every single CEO should get ousted. That would be inexcusable.
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Gaborn said:
I'd say it's not so easy to tap into any system's market. I agree that western developers (for whatever reason) seem invested in PS360PC rather than the Wii (or perhaps in their minds, at the expense of the Wii), all I'm saying is that from a value proposition standpoint making one game for one platform is going to start looking more and more attractive since it's got a dearth of quality 3rd party efforts in certain key traditional genres. Of course, in the short term as an alternative I'm wondering if we'll see even a slide away from including the PS3 in multiplat titles and devs going PC360 instead just from the standpoint it's expensive to develop a game or even port it to the PS3 in the first place.
Click to expand...

Maybe there will be a couple developers that do this. Didn't Gabe Newell (or someone from Valve) mention something of the like sometime last year? I don't think it'll be quite like the shift away from the Gamecube that happened in 2003 and 2004, mostly because big multiplatform games still do well on the PS3 and BluRays have more space than the GODs did.

Still though, my guess is next generation is when Nintendo will see 3rd parties on board from the beginning.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't expect third parties to ever make games for the Nintendo system, exclusively or otherwise. Though, when I say this, I really mean western developers, who are becoming more important these days (and let's face it, there isn't a whole lot more other than RPGs going on for the Wii as far as 'hardcore' third party exclusives go). Look at the handheld situation. All the big name western developers were on the PSP until people stopped buying games for it. They haven't done anything notable since then (except Rare/Microsoft/THQ), despite the DS nearing 100 million units sold. It also depends on whether or not Sony/MS adopt motion controls in a major way. If they don't, developers might find it more comfortable with them.
 
Eteric Rice

Eteric Rice

Member
AniHawk said:
I honestly don't expect third parties to ever make games for the Nintendo system, exclusively or otherwise. Though, when I say this, I really mean western developers, who are becoming more important these days. Look at the handheld situation. All the big name western developers were on the PSP until people stopped buying games for it. They haven't done anything notable since then (except Rare/Microsoft/THQ), despite the DS nearing 100 million units sold. It also depends on whether or not Sony/MS adopt motion controls in a major way. If they don't, developers might find it more comfortable with them.
Click to expand...

Agreed, I don't really know what their problem is, honestly. There's a GTA game coming, but otherwise they just ignore it.

Japan jumped on the DS a year or so after release, hopefully the same happens for the Wii. I expect Square-Enix to do a lot of Wii games (going by Wada admitting they made a mistake), but Capcom and Konami are a mystery. Very strange companies as they're way more cautious than the others.
 
G

Gaborn

Member
AniHawk said:
Maybe there will be a couple developers that do this. Didn't Gabe Newell (or someone from Valve) mention something of the like sometime last year? I don't think it'll be quite like the shift away from the Gamecube that happened in 2003 and 2004, mostly because big multiplatform games still do well on the PS3 and BluRays have more space than the GODs did.
Click to expand...

True, it's just mainly a thought. I don't expect this generation to last quite as long as people are thinking it might which is mainly why I don't think developers are shifting to the Wii yet, and why they're not going to abandon the PS3 entirely.

I honestly don't expect third parties to ever make games for the Nintendo system, exclusively or otherwise. Though, when I say this, I really mean western developers, who are becoming more important these days. Look at the handheld situation. All the big name western developers were on the PSP until people stopped buying games for it. They haven't done anything notable since then (except Rare/Microsoft/THQ), despite the DS nearing 100 million units sold. It also depends on whether or not Sony/MS adopt motion controls in a major way. If they don't, developers might find it more comfortable with them.
Click to expand...

I think in part it depends on how dominant Nintendo ends up being, but the way things are going, I frankly don't expect gaming companies to have much choice. Nintendo is letting them put a huge amount of shit on their system, next generation I suspect Nintendo will demand "real" games from companies that are less willing to do that this generation (for example, no more "test" games from Capcom like all of the REs)
 
F

Fredescu

Member
AniHawk said:
I honestly don't expect third parties to ever make games for the Nintendo system, exclusively or otherwise. Though, when I say this, I really mean western developers, who are becoming more important these days. Look at the handheld situation. All the big name western developers were on the PSP until people stopped buying games for it. They haven't done anything notable since then (except Rare/Microsoft/THQ), despite the DS nearing 100 million units sold. It also depends on whether or not Sony/MS adopt motion controls in a major way. If they don't, developers might find it more comfortable with them.
Click to expand...
I think you're probably right with regards to established developers. It's going to take some new blood to make the next third party blockbusters on the Wii. Look at the best third party game on the Wii, Boom Blox. It took a guy who made his name from something other than video games to get it right. Everyone else is far too entrenched in the cycle of making games more and more complex, when the market wants the games to be more and more simple.
 
P

Private Hoffman

Banned
The only real huge disappointment from Sony's side is the performance of R2, honestly.

LittleBigPlanet has done better than any of Microsoft's "similarly themed" offerings over the past couple of years (and much better than Viva Pinata/Banjo did at a much lower price), so it's encouraging to see it do quite well for itself even if it's not an instant million seller or anything (which the product was never going to be, given that it's a new IP on a platform where the genre isn't exactly a perfect match).

MotorStorm 2 was doomed from the start. PGR4 did really bad last year. The writing was on the wall that MS2 wouldn't be a huge seller either. These games only do well during launch periods.

But Resistance 2 just seemed to get ignored with all the shooters released this fall. Gears 2. L4D. CoD: WaW. On paper, the game should have done much better. Campaign mode, 60 player online, 8 player co-op. It also reviewed fairly well. Despite that, it got overlooked. There seemed to be some hardcore backlash against the title which may be responsible for its rather low sales. It should have done much better than it actually ended up doing.
 
B

Blame!

Member
Private Hoffman said:
The only real huge disappointment from Sony's side is the performance of R2, honestly.
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no surprise. R2 is about as generic and unappealing as you can get. drab, undistinguished (from dozens of other shooters out there), not quite WWII, not quite Halo.....its just a mess with no hooks. nobody out there cares about all these back of the box numbers like 64 player deathmatch if they pick up the game and the cover and screenshots just scream generic.

yeah LBP didnt do stellar but it probably didn't lose much money either. then again sony probably counts all the LBPs sold via bundles too.
 
K

Kuroyume

Banned
Activision should create a third COD team and have COD for Spring and Fall every year.

Blame! said:
no surprise. R2 is about as generic and unappealing as you can get. drab, undistinguished (from dozens of other shooters out there), not quite WWII, not quite Halo.....its just a mess with no hooks. nobody out there cares about all these back of the box numbers like 64 player deathmatch if they pick up the game and the cover and screenshots just scream generic.

yeah LBP didnt do stellar but it probably didn't lose much money either. then again sony probably counts all the LBPs sold via bundles too.
Click to expand...

They should move the timeline of the game into a modern setting or the future. The WWII and alien stuff look really ugly next to each other.
 
L

Liabe Brave

Member
Some folks might've missed this at the bottom of the last page, and I thought it was interesting, so:

Adjusted for population (I know, I know), this is what Japan in November would've looked like, versus what the U.S. really did look like:

1 KIRBY SUPER STAR ULTRA DELUXE (DS) 1.07 million
2 ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLK (Wii) 981K
3 PROF. LAYTON & THE LAST TIME TRAVEL (DS) 856K
4 CHRONO TRIGGER (DS) 849K
5 MSG: GUNDAM VS. GUNDAM (PSP) 705K
6 PES 2009 (PS3) 416K
7 RHYTHM TENGOKU GOLD (DS) 303K
8 WAGAMAMA FASHION: GIRLS MODE (DS) 298K
9 THE LAST REMNANT (360) 282K
10 WAY OF THE SAMURAI 3 (PS3) 271K

1 GEARS OF WAR 2 (360) 1.56 million
2 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR (360) 1.41 million
3 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE (WII) 796K
4 WII FIT (WII) 697K
5 MARIO KART (WII) 637K
6 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR (PS3) 597K
7 GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR (WII) 475K
8 LEFT 4 DEAD (360) 410K
9 RESISTANCE 2 (PS3) 385K
10 WII MUSIC (WII) 297K
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Private Hoffman said:
LittleBigPlanet has done better than any of Microsoft's "similarly themed" offerings over the past couple of years (and much better than Viva Pinata/Banjo did at a much lower price), so it's encouraging to see it do quite well for itself even if it's not an instant million seller or anything (which the product was never going to be, given that it's a new IP on a platform where the genre isn't exactly a perfect match).
Click to expand...

I don't think LBP is a bomb or anything, but I think the difference between the Rare games and LBP is that LBP had a huge marketing campaign. I don't recall ever seeing a single commercial for Viva or Banjo, but LBP had its own commercial, and then it appeared in a "list of PS3 games" commercial where the sackboy appeared at the end.

My assumption is that MS expects the Rare games to do well over a period of time, that they launched cheap and will remain priced that way probably until next January. By comparison, I think Sony was trying to make LBP into a system seller of sorts, but they'll probably have to wait until God of War 3 for that now.

4 CHRONO TRIGGER (DS) 849K
Click to expand...
EDIT: that must be a different game.
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
Private Hoffman said:
The only real huge disappointment from Sony's side is the performance of R2, honestly.

LittleBigPlanet has done better than any of Microsoft's "similarly themed" offerings over the past couple of years (and much better than Viva Pinata/Banjo did at a much lower price), so it's encouraging to see it do quite well for itself even if it's not an instant million seller or anything (which the product was never going to be, given that it's a new IP on a platform where the genre isn't exactly a perfect match).

MotorStorm 2 was doomed from the start. PGR4 did really bad last year. The writing was on the wall that MS2 wouldn't be a huge seller either. These games only do well during launch periods.

But Resistance 2 just seemed to get ignored with all the shooters released this fall. Gears 2. L4D. CoD: WaW. On paper, the game should have done much better. Campaign mode, 60 player online, 8 player co-op. It also reviewed fairly well. Despite that, it got overlooked. There seemed to be some hardcore backlash against the title which may be responsible for its rather low sales. It should have done much better than it actually ended up doing.
Click to expand...

It's the launch title curse. Red Steel 2 will probably suffer from the same sickness.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
Liabe Brave said:
1 KIRBY SUPER STAR ULTRA DELUXE (DS) 1.07 million
2 ANIMAL CROSSING: CITY FOLK (Wii) 981K
3 PROF. LAYTON & THE LAST TIME TRAVEL (DS) 856K
4 CHRONO TRIGGER (DS) 849K
5 MSG: GUNDAM VS. GUNDAM (PSP) 705K
6 PES 2009 (PS3) 416K
7 RHYTHM TENGOKU GOLD (DS) 303K
8 WAGAMAMA FASHION: GIRLS MODE (DS) 298K
9 THE LAST REMNANT (360) 282K
10 WAY OF THE SAMURAI 3 (PS3) 271K

1 GEARS OF WAR 2 (360) 1.56 million
2 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR (360) 1.41 million
3 WII PLAY W/ REMOTE (WII) 796K
4 WII FIT (WII) 697K
5 MARIO KART (WII) 637K
6 CALL OF DUTY: WORLD AT WAR (PS3) 597K
7 GUITAR HERO WORLD TOUR (WII) 475K
8 LEFT 4 DEAD (360) 410K
9 RESISTANCE 2 (PS3) 385K
10 WII MUSIC (WII) 297K
Click to expand...
_____
has superior taste confirmed.
 
F

Fredescu

Member
Eteric Rice said:
Its late so I probably missed the whole point of your post, but CT is up to 850k? Or did I miss something?
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Yes, you did. "Adjusted for population (I know, I know)"

The point was that it would be interesting to see what impression we would get of Japanese sales if we got as little data as NPD give us.
 
M

markatisu

Member
Mardak said:
Has anyone tried out Nerf N-Strike?
Click to expand...

Its a very solid light gun game, multiple levels and paths with differing objectives. Quite a bit of content to get through for what is basically a $29 game with a $20-30 accessory (if you get the bundle)

The real appeal is the gun which is quit hefty and similar in feel to the Perfect Shot by Nyko
 
K

Kapsama

Member
Blame! said:
no surprise. R2 is about as generic and unappealing as you can get. drab, undistinguished (from dozens of other shooters out there), not quite WWII, not quite Halo.....its just a mess with no hooks. nobody out there cares about all these back of the box numbers like 64 player deathmatch if they pick up the game and the cover and screenshots just scream generic.
Click to expand...

Calling Resistance generic and bland should be considered trolling.
 
B

Balb

Member
Kapsama said:
Calling Resistance generic and bland should be considered trolling.
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He explained himself, it's not like he was randomly throwing out insults. If you can't refute his point, don't complain.
 
J

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
The next few years will be really interesting watching where the industry shifts. In many ways it looks like it is setting up to very similar to 32/64 bit era. Western developers were not very prominent, but the ones who backed the Playstation became prominent and those didn't are now dead, almost dead, and/or clinging to one last remaining marketable IP.



Fredescu said:
It sold twice as fast as it's predecessor. Not very ouch.
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Even still, it's second month was about 70k less than it predecessor. I don't think that was really expected.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
This is the type of comparison I usually do in the Japanese sales threads, and I don't have a machine-done version for US sales so these will be less specific, buuut comparing hardware userbases...

After 26 sales months, PS3 is at 6.8 million. This puts it where X360 was early October 2007 (23-24 months) and where Wii was mid-December 2007 (13-14 months).

After 38 sales months, X360 is at 13.9 million. This puts it where Wii was early November 2008 (24-25 months).
 
R

Rlan

Member
HK-47 said:
We know you meant Australia
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Top10AllFullPricedGam.gif


Hahahaha no.
 
J

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
markatisu said:
Its a very solid light gun game, multiple levels and paths with differing objectives. Quite a bit of content to get through for what is basically a $29 game with a $20-30 accessory (if you get the bundle)

The real appeal is the gun which is quit hefty and similar in feel to the Perfect Shot by Nyko
Click to expand...
You can buy the gun seperate now for about $15 new. I have no interest in the game, but I'm really really tempted to buy just the gun... although I'd probably use it more often to shoot people on the screen while watching regular TV (its strangely satisfying).
 
F

Fredescu

Member
JJConrad said:
Even still, it's second month was about 70k less than it predecessor. I don't think that was really expected.
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Someone tried to point that out at Epic but he was drowned out by the sound of popping corks and revving Ferrari's.
 
J

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
Fredescu said:
Someone tried to point that out at Epic but he was drowned out by the sound of popping corks and revving Ferrari's.
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Yeah, but they do that every day. This time they only used unleaded+ in their Ferraris and I heard that someone merely drank the champagne instead of bathing in it. Hard times.
 
B

boontje

Member
Fredescu said:
It sold twice as fast as it's predecessor. Not very ouch.
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The first one sold 1.8 million in its first 2 months, Gears of War 2 got to 2.3 million. So it is not even close to selling twice as fast and it actually sold less than the original in December, which indicates it is much more frontloaded and might end up selling less in the long run.
 
M

methane47

Member
AniHawk said:
I don't think LBP is a bomb or anything, but I think the difference between the Rare games and LBP is that LBP had a huge marketing campaign. I don't recall ever seeing a single commercial for Viva or Banjo, but LBP had its own commercial, and then it appeared in a "list of PS3 games" commercial where the sackboy appeared at the end.

My assumption is that MS expects the Rare games to do well over a period of time, that they launched cheap and will remain priced that way probably until next January. By comparison, I think Sony was trying to make LBP into a system seller of sorts, but they'll probably have to wait until God of War 3 for that now.


EDIT: that must be a different game.
Click to expand...

you're kidding.
 
S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
methane47 said:
you're kidding.
Click to expand...

Err, no?

It had several commercials on major networks running for a decent amount of time, tons of pre-release coverage, excellent post-release coverage, profiles of the developer, prominent placements in multiple Sony conferences, a well-publicized semi-public beta and tons of magazine advertising. That's just what I can see as a Canadian who doesn't intake much in the way of American media stuff.

Just because you watch the Daily Show and you didn't see ads for a game doesn't mean it's not being advertised.
 
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