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[QaaQer]

And what happens to those AAA developers if people are no longer interested in the types of games that they have as core competencies? Do they just die with their genre?

I was wondering, who is attracted to AAA development? Is it not mostly young males who like big budget kill games? Isn't that what they want to make? And isn't there a large turnover, meaning the average age of these people remains perpetually in the 'single young mostly white' demo? Idk what the curriculum of video game schools is like, do they spend much time teaching game design beyond the basics?

I have a friend who is an aircraft mechanic. He likes planes and wanted to work with them, so that's what he did. Just because he is a mechanic doesn't mean he can work on all things mechanical, like helicopters, submarines, or the machine that rotates doritos for even flavor distribution. I don't know if that is an appropriate analogy.

 

[¡HarlequinPanic!]

I was wondering, who is attracted to AAA development? Is it not mostly young males who like big budget kill games? Isn't that what they want to make?

People who want to get into the industry but are still tied to the notion of a stable paycheck, however unrealistic it is to believe.

Not everyone who wants to be in the space wants to publish their own indie game.

 

[AniHawk]

You think it's going to be down from January? Consoles always go up in February.

i think the lingering effects of december will wear off on a weekly basis in february. i'm sort of expecting the wii u to eventually be down yoy though at the end of 2015. that might not be seen fully until june, maybe.

 

[CosmicQueso]

So stoked for baseball season to start. Wish the 3DS had a baseball game.

 

[mckmas8808]

the audience vanished because no one was catering to them in the end. just dance still sold the best on the wii in 2014. the audience was out there, but no one was making games for them anymore.

Because the system wasn't capable.

 

[jcm]

So stoked for baseball season to start. Wish the 3DS had a baseball game.

Gracias Señor Queso.

 

[donny2112]

So stoked for baseball season to start. Wish the 3DS had a baseball game.

Remember setting up All-Star Baseball '99 to just let the computer play itself and watch. Best part of that was if the game wasn't going how I wanted, I could jump in, get it going how I wanted, and then let the computer carry it from there. No Baseball games on 3DS since launch (and that might've just been Japan-only), but if you're just looking for baseball skills play, Rusty's Real Deal Baseball is very good and has a lot of variety. It's one of the FTP games, too, so you can at least try it out, if you haven't, yet.

Gracias Señor Queso.

That works, too!

 

[Chobel]

That's quite low.

 

[donny2112]

That's quite low.

Setting up for a big MOM change, apparently.

 

[Chobel]

Setting up for a big MOM change, apparently.

n3DS are selling really big?

 

[donny2112]

Think Nintendo's chart said ~180K in the first week.

Edit:

So after the Nintendo briefing, we have some initial #s for next month?


I guess the thirst for now might be real for the New 3DS.

So since it seems like the New 3DS XL was sold out at a good # of stores, I'd assume we'd have close to that 175K sold already for the New 3DS XL in the US?

Also it looks like MH4U is doing 3 times better than MH3U according to Capcom. And MM3D has shipped a lot of units at least...

- Close to 350K?

 

[Chobel]

Jesus Christ! That's fucking a lot!

 

[Welfare]

So wait, wut.

Did you?

Hmm.

 

[astrogamer]

So stoked for baseball season to start. Wish the 3DS had a baseball game.

It does... though I doubt this particularly good

Japan also got one Pro Yakyuu Spirits game though I doubt that is too relevant

 

[donny2112]

It does... though I doubt this particularly good

Right! I remember that now. Batting as Spongebob seemed like an interesting thing to try out!

 

[Aquamarine]

Never mind.

 

[AniHawk]

Because the system wasn't capable.

the system was more than capable for peripheral-driven software. it's where skylanders, udraw, wii fit, and wii sports resort all found success. that's the sort of audience that might have been interested in similar endeavors from nintendo and third-parties, but those kinds of experiences were fewer and fewer starting in 2010, as strong as nintendo's traditional output was that year.

 

[John Harker]

Did we ever wind up getting any numbers for the handhelds? This is what I put together for the comparison to previous gen. Bad for the consoles, presumably much worse for the handhelds.

[b]Gen over Gen                    
Console [/b]
        2015    2008    % Change
360              230    
PS2              264    
WII              274    
PS3              269    
TOTAL    487   1,037     -53.04%

I'm not sure if you got everything else, but 3ds was like 74k.

Edited for clarity

 

[A Human Becoming]

I'm not sure, but 3ds was like 74k

Really? Hmm.

 

[Welfare]

Really? Hmm.

Gotta remember that there are other hardware in 2015. I guess they add up.

 

[Square2015]

Alright bringing this over from the December NPD thread:

I've decided to expand this chart into year three but for now please enjoy my END OF THE YEAR REPORT and WHERE WE WERE in each previous cycles =)

*click to get the full experience*

END OF THE YEAR REPORT and "WHERE WE WERE" in each previous cycle:

Wii - DECEMBER 2008:
The Wii is absolutely off the charts, over 2 million are sold in BOTH Nov and Dec together 4.2m units sell over the Holidays. Wii sold over 10m units this year alone! This is more than the NES ever achieved in a year. Cumulative sales have surpassed an incredible 17m in little over two years. Nintendo is back and even bigger than in their dominant 8-bit days. America (and the world) has officially gone Wii crazy. X360 sells 1.4m and PS3 730k for the month by comparison.
Wii Play was the top selling next-gen game for the month with nearly 1.5m sold, despite it being released nearly two years earlier! Total sales are over NINE million. Super Mario 64 and possibly even SMB3 couldn't reach numbers so high, much less so quickly!
The three record-shattering releases this year: Smash, Kart, and Fit each sell nearly 5 million units making this NoA's biggest sales year in history.

Check out Nintendo's December software numbers:
1. Wii Play 1,500,000 / 9.4m
3. Wii FIt 1,000,000 / 4.5m
4. Mario Kart 900,000 / 4.9m
5. Guitar Hero: world tour 900,000 / 1.5m
10. Animal Crossing: city folk 500,000 / 800k
11. Wii Music 500,000 / 900k

Clearly Wii SW dominates, only this year's Call of Duty (World at War) [X360] can break into the top 5 (at #2, PS3 at #9). Gears of War 2 (#6) sells 750k / 2.3m total, and Left 4 Dead (#7) 630k / 1m BTW. NCL's recent other hit Link's Crossbow sells ~400k for the month, unknown total.

Gamecube - DECEMBER 2003:
As you can see from the chart the GC made an impressive comeback thanks to the recent price drop to $99, a limited Zelda Collector's bundle (it's just a port of the first two NES Zeldas, right?), oh and maybe Link in Soul Calibur II That bundle had exhausted it's shipment this month with the GC selling between 1.1 and 1.2m, GC managed to continue to outsell the XBOX but with an ever narrowing gap, just by 100k. "Print more Zelda bundles, NoA!" ...GAF and Gahiggidy were heard saying. Meanwhile PS2 destroyed everyone and everything as expected with 1.9m sold this month. Gamecube, though, had a great year and made a decent comeback narrowing its third place position behind XBOX; can it continue this lead and topple Microsoft? GC LTD is now at 6.7m to XB's 7.5m (to PS2's 22m).
...with Final Fantasy about to, AT LAST, return to a Nintendo home console, along with the upcoming Pokemon Colosseum, and a Metal Gear Solid remake on, ALAS, on a Nintendo console too, GAF BELIEVED the inevitable was nigh.

Check out Nintendo's December software numbers:
3. Mario Kart: Double Dash!! 730,000 / 1.26m
17. Mario Party 5 330,000 / 550k
36. Smash Bros Melee 220,000 / 2.1m

That's it for Nintendo from the top 50. This was the year of the UNDERGROUND sequels, the Need For Speed series blew up and made No. 1 in December, NFS:Underground sold 1.4m between PS2 and XB (at #1 and #18) and Tony Hawk Underground sold 700,000 (at #4).
Back on the cube, Kirby's AirRide ended the year with 230,000; Rogue Squadron III 270,000; Mario Golf: toadstool 290,000; Viewtiful Joe 190,000; Soul Calibur II [Link!] 500k, and Celda: Wind Waker 1.4m.


NIntendo 64 - DECEMBER 1998:
Zelda 64 is out, finally! The anticipation was unreal. The N64 is now proven as the better system over the PSX, right...right? We have our Zelda. Well the stellar Christmas from last year repeated itself almost exactly, putting out similar numbers. 1.55m N64 sold this month, 2.3m over the Holidays. Last year 2.4m sold over the holidays. The recent "Atomic Purple" system, a November release, no doubt helped on top of dat November 24th Zelda Day. Who waited in line? Zelda: OoT sold over 600k that first week and went on to become the best selling game of the year actually tieing with GoldenEye (man that one was a beast also). Nothing on PSX comes close!
As great as all these numbers are though, the PSX sold more...a lot more, topping 2.6m in December alone! And likely the best December ever in gaming [as of '98]. Does this mean even Zelda64 can't topple the Playstation!? We had such high hopes GAF!
The N64 now sits in 10-11m American homes while the PSX in 14-15m. This 45-55 split between the two is now looking like a 40-60 split.
Well look at what we've got on our way THIS coming year: Mario Party, Mario Golf, a Nintendo fighting game, some Star Wars Episode 1 pod game, Donkey Kong 64, Perfect Dark, Conker Tales, Kirby, and more amazings from RARE, does the competition have RARE!? No, and they never will!! These games will push the N64 ahead of PSX, no doubt.

Check out Nintendo's December numbers:
1. Zelda: Ocarina of Time 1,500,000 / 2.2m
2. Rogue Squadron 770,000 Debut
4. GoldenEye 600,000 / 3.6m
8. Turok 2 490,000 Debut

This was the year of Crash Warped! (#3), Tomb Raider 3 (#6), and Metal Gear Solid (#7) each at nearly a million or more LTD. Other notables like Twisted Metal 3 (at #9) and Gran Turismo (#16) which ended the year with 1.4m LTD, sold well. Many of last years hits at discounted rates ($20) filled the chart. Back on N64, Super Mario 64 topped 4m, Mario Kart 64 3m, Banjo-Kazooie 1.3m, Yoshi's Story 900k, and F-Zero X just 180,000. WCW games and NoA's sports titles sold well.

Super NES - DECEMBER 1993
This is the Mortal Kombat and Genesis model 2 Christmas, yeah Sega won it and pretty big. SNES had been ahead, barely, up to this point but after the Fall the two were now more neck-and-neck than ever before.
NPD data seems to suggest 1.15m SNES to 1.6m GEN in December. News reports from the day mention a 63%-37% gap between the two in Nov and Dec, that's based off on the original raw data (65% of market, no Wal-mart) but actuals show the gap was not as wide but still a disappointment/shock for NoA and NCL. Time to stop pimping Mario and get us some killer apps, NoA! Literally ones that have killing .
About 1.6 - 1.7m SNES sold over Nov and Dec, in 1992 that number was 2.1m...down significantly.
However SNES was ahead most of the year but Sega 16-bit-smashed NoA from the Fall onward as K-Mart et al. began selling units followed by the Genesis 2 release in August. ONE MILLION Genesis 2 units were shipped in September alone, Sega announced. Oh and then this: Mortal Kombat [selling some 2.2m that month!] plus a plethora of other incoming hits: Sonic Spinball, Joe Montana '94, Aladdin, Jurassic Park [raptor mode], Madden '94, Eternal Champions, NHL 94. These titles topped the charts selling between 500k to 1 million each by Chriatmas. ToeJam & Earl 2 was less successful. Meanwhile NoA's offerings were not nearly as rad and abundant: NHL Stanley Cup, Super Empire Strikes Back, Secret of Mana [limited release], and the ubiquitous ads for Super Mario All-Stars FREE with an SNES purchase until January! You get FIVE Marios in One!! ...That's really all Nintendo had, exclusive-wise.
Nintendo estimated 1.5m "All-Star" promos sold by the end of the year, 3 million were initially projected.
All-in-all later NPD data for the year suggests that 3.55m SNES sold to 4.0m GEN. SNES stands at about 9.15m to GEN 9.1m, wow!!! Can you get any closer?

Thanks guys, I hope to do a January update with an extended graph soon!
Please let me know if there were too many figures given.

Not meaning to pimp but Surely there is some interest.

 

[Imru’ al-Qays]

the system was more than capable for peripheral-driven software. it's where skylanders, udraw, wii fit, and wii sports resort all found success. that's the sort of audience that might have been interested in similar endeavors from nintendo and third-parties, but those kinds of experiences were fewer and fewer starting in 2010, as strong as nintendo's traditional output was that year.

I still don't understand how the Wii's collapse could have been a result of a lack of supply for peripheral-driven software. If there was demand for it what possible reason could the major players have had to stop producing it?

 

[Mory Dunz]

Not meaning to pimp but Surely there is some interest.

I enjoyed the read. Didn't have anything to say though.

Yeah, surprised no one really commented on any of all of that. NPDers usually eat it up.

 

[AniHawk]

I still don't understand how the Wii's collapse could have been a result of a lack of supply for peripheral-driven software. If there was demand for it what possible reason could the major players have had to stop producing it?

i don't know why nintendo never followed through with the vitality sensor. thq went under partially thanks to marketing the successor to udraw to platforms that had no interest in udraw. skylanders remained successful for a few more years, although that is obviously waning now. same with disney infinity.

i just don't think anyone really gave it the best shot they could. nintendo had wii sports, wii fit, and wii sports resort, and honestly followed it with nothing but sequels and more minigame compilations that never tried anything new. as half-baked as the final product was, wii music was probably something that could have been bigger had the concept been better realized (probably requiring some sort of peripheral smack-dab in the middle of the peripheral boom of the late 00s).

i mean you could also ask why no one made more games like super mario galaxy when that game sold 12 million copies. other genres get cloned to death when there's one super successful game, but super mario galaxy and super mario galaxy 2 were basically it on the 3d platforming front aside from sonic.

 

[allan-bh]

NIntendo 64 - DECEMBER 1998:
Zelda 64 is out, finally! The anticipation was unreal. The N64 is now proven as the better system over the PSX, right...right? We have our Zelda. Well the stellar Christmas from last year repeated itself almost exactly, putting out similar numbers. 1.55m N64 sold this month, 2.3m over the Holidays. Last year 2.4m sold over the holidays. The recent "Atomic Purple" system, a November release, no doubt helped on top of dat November 24th Zelda Day. Who waited in line? Zelda: OoT sold over 600k that first week and went on to become the best selling game of the year actually tieing with GoldenEye (man that one was a beast also). Nothing on PSX comes close!
As great as all these numbers are though, the PSX sold more...a lot more, topping 2.6m in December alone! And likely the best December ever in gaming [as of '98]. Does this mean even Zelda64 can't topple the Playstation!? We had such high hopes GAF!
The N64 now sits in 10-11m American homes while the PSX in 14-15m. This 45-55 split

N64 had pretty decent holidays. Too bad for Nintendo that PS1 was unstopable.

2.6m was the best december for PS1 or had another selling even better?

 

[Anth0ny]

Not meaning to pimp but Surely there is some interest.

I really appreciate the write up. Super interesting stuff, especially from the older generations.

The N64 now sits in 10-11m American homes while the PSX in 14-15m.

It was so close, damn it. I'm guessing it was around 99 that N64 started to flat line and PS1 just continued to skyrocket? There was no way Nintendo was going to top 98 in software.

As you can see from the chart the GC made an impressive comeback thanks to the recent price drop to $99, a limited Zelda Collector's bundle (it's just a port of the first two NES Zeldas, right?)

The Zelda collector's edition disc actually had Zelda 1, 2, OOT and MM. And I think a bunch of demos for other GC games.

Funny to look back to GC's third holiday. They refused to let that thing die. $99! Compare that to Wii U's third holiday... lol.

 

[Phoenician_Viking]

Did we ever wind up getting any numbers for the handhelds? This is what I put together for the comparison to previous gen. Bad for the consoles, presumably much worse for the handhelds.

[b]Gen over Gen                    
Console [/b]
        2015    2008    % Change
360              230    
PS2              264    
WII              274    
PS3              269    
TOTAL    487   1,037     -53.04%

Jesus! The PS2 almost sold as much as the Wii. What a monster.

 

[allan-bh]

After very bad reviews, I wonder how much The Order will sell in NPD February. Probably will be saved for pre orders.

 

[StrongBlackVine]

After very bad reviews, I wonder how much The Order will sell in NPD February. Probably will be saved for pre orders.

Still the second best selling game on Amazon behind Majora's Mask(if you exclude the cheap Sega PC collection).

 

[KillerMan91]

After very bad reviews,I wonder how much The Order will sell in NPD February. Probably will be saved for pre orders.

I wonder how much reviews nowadays affect the sales of games if they have clever marketing and look ''cool''. Watch_Dogs for example still did very well (though it had pretty great reviews compared to Order lol).

 

[Sharpeye]

I wonder how much reviews nowadays affect the sales of games if they have clever marketing and look ''cool''. Watch_Dogs for example still did very well (though it had pretty great reviews compared to Order lol).

Colonial Marines sold well and that game was universally bad to users and critics alike.

 

[John Harker]

Still the second best selling game on Amazon behind Majora's Mask(if you exclude the cheap Sega PC collection).

Again, Amazon dailies mean so little it isn't worth the cookies you get from the searches.

That said, reviews won't really affect launch.
Itll sell what it'll sell this month based on marketing.

Next month and subsequent, pay attention to the tail and see how quickly it drops or doesn't drop.

AC Unity is a great case study for that.

 

[CosmicQueso]

So hey,

A lot of the garbage in the review thread today has been about how much "tougher" critics are being on games this gen versus last.

What complete bollocks.

Went back and looked at all the quality scores for the prior gen and the current gen.

Overall average review score this gen is 72. Time aligned last gen was 62.

Of course, the Wii pushed most of that. An average Wii U title has averaged a 68. The average Wii title over the same period of time averaged a 57.

But the average PS4 game has a higher review score (75) than the time aligned PS3 (73). And the average Xone game is rated 74 versus 73 on a time aligned basis for the Xbox 360.

When you look at quality distribution across the full sample, also no change with the exception of the reduced release count.

So much unsubstantiated garbage flies around all the time. Review sites are being no tougher now than they were last time.

There's like this celebration of the failure of The Order and praising of review sites for giving low scores.

 

[KiefbladeMaster]

Great news for Dying Light, I'm having a blast with it. I can't believe GTA is still charting that high.

 

[Dragonborn]

So hey,

A lot of the garbage in the review thread today has been about how much "tougher" critics are being on games this gen versus last.

What complete bollocks.

Went back and looked at all the quality scores for the prior gen and the current gen.

Overall average review score this gen is 72. Time aligned last gen was 62.

Of course, the Wii pushed most of that. An average Wii U title has averaged a 68. The average Wii title over the same period of time averaged a 57.

But the average PS4 game has a higher review score (75) than the time aligned PS3 (73). And the average Xone game is rated 74 versus 73 on a time aligned basis for the Xbox 360.

When you look at quality distribution across the full sample, also no change with the exception of the reduced release count.

So much unsubstantiated garbage flies around all the time. Review sites are being no tougher now than they were last time.

There's like this celebration of the failure of The Order and praising of review sites for giving low scores.

Aren't there less retail releases nowadays though? Couldn't that affect the averages.

 

[Mpl90]

First week sales will be pretty good, due to preorders and people who were already set in buying it. After the first week? Especially considering how it seems to be not that replayable? Eh, I fear it could go down quickly. Don't know if it'll collapse right the week after the launch (like Evolve...maaaaaaan, that game went down big time starting from the day after the release) or if it'll take longer.

 

[CosmicQueso]

Aren't there less retail releases nowadays though? Couldn't that affect the averages.

Yes, release counts are far lower now.

 

[theprodigy]

So hey,

A lot of the garbage in the review thread today has been about how much "tougher" critics are being on games this gen versus last.

What complete bollocks.

Went back and looked at all the quality scores for the prior gen and the current gen.

Overall average review score this gen is 72. Time aligned last gen was 62.

Of course, the Wii pushed most of that. An average Wii U title has averaged a 68. The average Wii title over the same period of time averaged a 57.

But the average PS4 game has a higher review score (75) than the time aligned PS3 (73). And the average Xone game is rated 74 versus 73 on a time aligned basis for the Xbox 360.

When you look at quality distribution across the full sample, also no change with the exception of the reduced release count.

So much unsubstantiated garbage flies around all the time. Review sites are being no tougher now than they were last time.

There's like this celebration of the failure of The Order and praising of review sites for giving low scores.

what does it look like if you only take the major publishers though (Sony/MS/Nintendo, Activision-Blizzard, EA, Ubisoft, etc.)

 

[Hades Hotgun]

So hey,

A lot of the garbage in the review thread today has been about how much "tougher" critics are being on games this gen versus last.

What complete bollocks.

Went back and looked at all the quality scores for the prior gen and the current gen.

Overall average review score this gen is 72. Time aligned last gen was 62.

Of course, the Wii pushed most of that. An average Wii U title has averaged a 68. The average Wii title over the same period of time averaged a 57.

But the average PS4 game has a higher review score (75) than the time aligned PS3 (73). And the average Xone game is rated 74 versus 73 on a time aligned basis for the Xbox 360.

When you look at quality distribution across the full sample, also no change with the exception of the reduced release count.

So much unsubstantiated garbage flies around all the time. Review sites are being no tougher now than they were last time.

It's like there's a vulgar mob, hungry for blood on the floor of the arena.

I wondered about the oft floated notion of harsher criticism this gen. Thanks for that info.

Given the PS2-like sales of the PS4, I wonder if the PS4 average holds up equally well to that system's catalog. I know people like to point out all the great PS2 games that released within a year or 2 of the launch but those may well have come with a glut of shovelware as well.

 

[BadWolf]

First week sales will be pretty good, due to preorders and people who were already set in buying it. After the first week? Especially considering how it seems to be not that replayable? Eh, I fear it could go down quickly. Don't know if it'll collapse right the week after the launch (like Evolve...maaaaaaan, that game went down big time starting from the day after the release) or if it'll take longer.

Wasn't there some report(s) saying that many people don't finish a game even once these days?

Is non-replayability really an issue?

EDIT: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-most-players-donat-finish-games

 

[Oregano]

i mean you could also ask why no one made more games like super mario galaxy when that game sold 12 million copies. other genres get cloned to death when there's one super successful game, but super mario galaxy and super mario galaxy 2 were basically it on the 3d platforming front aside from sonic.

It's come up in the Media Creates thread in relation to 3DS but third parties seem very reluctant to follow up Nintendo's success. A prime example is how we're only just getting SRPGs on 3DS three years after the success of FE: Awakening and of course they're possibly too late because the next Fire Emblem is coming out in a few months.

 

[CosmicQueso]

I wondered about the oft floated notion of harsher criticism this gen. Thanks for that info.

Given the PS2-like sales of the PS4, I wonder if the PS4 average holds up equally well to that system's catalog.

The dataset I pulled together doesn't go back that far.

But here are the distributions for this gen versus prior gen:

 

[slavesnyder]

Again, Amazon dailies mean so little it isn't worth the cookies you get from the searches.

That said, reviews won't really affect launch.
Itll sell what it'll sell this month based on marketing.

Next month and subsequent, pay attention to the tail and see how quickly it drops or doesn't drop.

AC Unity is a great case study for that.

good thinking. marketing and pre-orders will cover the mediocre reviews like freshly fallen snow a dead body.
and after that, word of mouth could kick in....
reviews are complaining that it is old-fashioned. so what. maybe that's exactly what many people want. just a game. a terrific looking game. a game you can actually finish, even if you have a life besides. and a game that can show the pwer of your new console and the beauty of your obscenely huge flat screen.
sometimes it's just about fun.

 

[KillerMan91]

Colonial Marines sold well and that game was universally bad to users and critics alike.

Yeah. I can still see Order selling pretty well. To me it just looks like a easily marketable game that could be hit in a same way like Transformers when it comes to movies. Of course I could be completely wrong. We shall see.

Wasn't there some report(s) saying that many people don't finish a game even once these days?

Is non-replayability really an issue?

EDIT: http://ca.ign.com/articles/2014/03/17/gdc-most-players-donat-finish-games

Yeah. People really overestimate how much time average gamer puts in these titles. Hell even as a Gaffer I have several shortish single player games from years back still in unfinished state...

 

[John Harker]

good thinking. marketing and pre-orders will cover the mediocre reviews like freshly fallen snow a dead body.
and after that, word of mouth could kick in....
reviews are complaining that it is old-fashioned. so what. maybe that's exactly what many people want. just a game. a terrific looking game. a game you can actually finish, even if you have a life besides. and a game that can show the pwer of your new console and the beauty of your obscenely huge flat screen.
sometimes it's just about fun.

Games are.

Sales aren't.

 

[slavesnyder]

Yeah. People really overestimate how much time average gamer puts in these titles. Hell even as a Gaffer I have several shortish single player games from years back still in unfinished state...

It's like these 100$-Steaks, you know?

 

[slavesnyder]

good thinking. marketing and pre-orders will cover the mediocre reviews like freshly fallen snow a dead body.
and after that, word of mouth could kick in....
reviews are complaining that it is old-fashioned. so what. maybe that's exactly what many people want. just a game. a terrific looking game. a game you can actually finish, even if you have a life besides. and a game that can show the pwer of your new console and the beauty of your obscenely huge flat screen.
sometimes it's just about fun.

Games are.

Sales aren't.

I try to make sense of this statement. I don't get it.

could you please explain?

 

[Welfare]

Games are.

Sales aren't.

It is when your #1

 

[donny2112]

I think he's saying that evaluation of Sales doesn't make allowance for how fun the game being evaluated is. Companies would rather have a terrible game sell boatloads than a highly evaluated game flop. Of course, reality does put some tie to quality of the game and quantity of sales in a broad sense, so it's never that clear cut. Still, evaluating whether a game met its sales target does not have a safety margin based on how fun the game is.

 

[slavesnyder]

I think he's saying that evaluation of Sales doesn't make allowance for how fun the game being evaluated is. Companies would rather have a terrible game sell boatloads than a highly evaluated game flop. Of course, reality does put some tie to quality of the game and quantity of sales in a broad sense, so it's never that clear cut. Still, evaluating whether a game met its sales target does not have a safety margin based on how fun the game is.

this is too complicated.
fun is a pretty good sales argument.