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NPD October 2012 Sales Results [Up3: NBA, MoH, NSMB2 + History, Pokemon, RE6]

So let me put this out there:

What number range does Vita need in November to take it off of death watch? Or are we at the point of no return where it's inevitable?

If it can get over 200k in November, I think that would be a good result for it. It would obviously still not be a great number for a first November, but it would at least put a hold on death watch for awhile.
 
So let me put this out there:

What number range does Vita need in November to take it off of death watch? Or are we at the point of no return where it's inevitable?

It would have to do numbers that it's not going to achieve. Like 300k+ for November. It would be the bare minimum for people say it has a slim chance of revival.
 
I think awareness is just too low at this point. It doesn't seem likely that people saw it months ago and thought "too expensive to buy casually, but yeah, I'm asking for that for Christmas."

Sony could make some headway with lots of advertising and a price drop to $200 right NOW. I won't say that would save the system by any means, but they need the push into the public eye that would give them.
 

Currygan

at last, for christ's sake
So let me put this out there:

What number range does Vita need in November to take it off of death watch? Or are we at the point of no return where it's inevitable?

November isn't quite enough to postpone the inevitable, it would have to do 300k a month for the next four months AT LEAST to have a slim chance of survival
 

Vamphuntr

Member
It appears to be to keep funding sequels to games that do poorly like Lost Planet and Dragon's Dogma.

The Square-Enix way. Now we only need RE6-2! Time to use that chart again.

Are you interested in buying this game? No -> Let's make sequels
 
Incredibly pleased that Pokemon won't be in the #1 spot in October or any subsequent month. These lazy releases need to stop.
Split SKUs for Pokemon netted them 3rd and 5th place on an otherwise combined SKU list. I'm sure GameFreak and Nintendo are feeling those pangs of regret right now.
 
Knew XCOM would bomb :(
I am really surprised at Dishonored's sales. That 450k isn't even counting PC digital.

XCOM didn't bomb. 2K were happy with the numbers. It's not like it's an expensive game to make.

The PC version has been in top 10 on Steam since release, so I'd say that it's doing great there. It's probably selling a lot more in Europe though. There were around 80k people playing around the European launch.
 
Microsoft is just extremely stupid, i want to kick their whole marketing department in the face:

This is the second time they release a great racing game very close to a BIG Halo game (in which the spend lots in marketing) and they dont spend much in marketing for the racing game.
They did it with Project Gotham Racing 4 and Halo 3, now they do it again with Forza Horizon and Halo 4 (and they release it a week before NFS too). I cant imagine how bad must feel Playground Game guys who also worked in Birzarre Creations during PGR4 days.

How stupid is that? Forza Horizon is an excellent racing game (as it was PGR4). I have seen the leaderboards and they show around 430.000 so the sales must be really close to that, which is disappointing for worldwide sales.

Atleast i have the hope for a second title since the franchise have long legs and probably will end around 1 - 1.5 millions and also because Forza Horizon uses lots of assets and licensences of Forza Motorsport so the cost are probably low.

MS needs to start treating Forza better, with more marketing and planification, like Sony does with Gran Turismo.
 

Rlan

Member
It's not like 2K put billboards of Xcom EU everywhere. It's not some giant game that cost 10s of millions of dollars to create. Heck, it's the first Xcom game in over 10 years!

For comparison, Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (Xbox 360) did 147.6k in roughly the same time, 4 days extra roughly.
 

jcm

Member
ltd-gba-nds-3ds-launch-aligned.png


Launch aligned, the 3DS is pretty much in line with the sales performance of the GBA and the DS.

While it's true the 3DS hasn't taken off so much in the west yet that's due to a number of factors. Price, as you said yourself, is a huge point. the GBA launched at $99. The DS Lite took off at $129. The entry point for the 3DS and 3DS XL at $169/$199 is simply too high. Another factor is the state of the DS. It may not be seeing major software releases anymore, but the system is still moving a lot of units and is a tremendous value with an amazing software library. As the DS fades out/stops being produced and the 3DS library continues to grow consumers will eventually make the upgrade. Another point is the simple fact that the US is historically slower to adopt new hardware.

When all is said and done, will the 3DS meet the 150 million+ units sold by the DS? No, but then again, basically no system will. the DS was a phenomenon and will likely be the best selling game platform ever before it goes out of production. That doesn't mean the 3DS can't be a success selling "only" 80 million units, which I can easily see it doing.

You could replace 3ds with ps3 and ds with ps2 and have an equally accurate post.
 
You could replace 3ds with ps3 and ds with ps2 and have an equally accurate post.

Are you talking about the general comparison between generations of platforms, or literally the graph shape? I don't remember how PS3 did in its first year. Did it also have one holiday season to PS2's two at this point?
 
Very surprised Forza did not chart. I know many on my friends list picked it up based on the good feedback. Hope it has legs of some sort.. it deserves it!

No, it doesn`t deserve it. Not because it´s a bad game, but because of the business plan behind the game. The nickel and diming is just too much for that game and i love that the consumers said "No, we don`t pay full price for that game, with all the content coming for extra money".
 
No, it doesn`t deserve it. Not because it´s a bad game, but because of the business plan behind the game. The nickel and diming is just too much for that game and i love that the consumers said "No, we don`t pay full price for that game, with all the content coming for extra money".

Thats not what its happening, it just simply most people doesnt know a thing about Forza Horizon and they are getting bombarded by Halo 4 and Need for Speed marketing machine.

People would boycott every game out there for the reasons you mention, theres many games with LOTS of DLC (music games anyone?)
 

AniHawk

Member
i don't see people lining up around the block to play cod blops on vita. the current numbers suggest almost zero interest for the machine, and it's getting worse in japan every week.

the 3ds seems to have finally hit some sort of stride, in comparison. so much so, that it will probably continue when the ds fades away.

i wonder if there have been one million vitas sold in europe to customers yet, because there haven't been in japan and the united states.
 
Glad to see Dishonored getting such good numbers, especially since it doesn't count digital sales. Mostly glad because everyone was expecting it to bomb amongst all the heavy hitters. Shows that even this late in the generation there's still room for new IPs. Hopefully we get a sequel.

Little saddened at XCOM's numbers, but didn't really expect a huge turnout on console for them. I contributed at least, and hopefully it continues to do well on the digital side because I definitely want a sequel for it.
 

Noshino

Member
Microsoft is just extremely stupid, i want to kick their whole marketing department in the face:

This is the second time they release a great racing game very close to a BIG Halo game (in which the spend lots in marketing) and they dont spend much in marketing for the racing game.
They did it with Project Gotham Racing 4 and Halo 3, now they do it again with Forza Horizon and Halo 4 (and they release it a week before NFS too). I cant imagine how bad must feel Playground Game guys who also worked in Birzarre Creations during PGR4 days.

How stupid is that? Forza Horizon is an excellent racing game (as it was PGR4). I have seen the leaderboards and they show around 430.000 so the sales must be really close to that, which is disappointing for worldwide sales.

Atleast i have the hope for a second title since the franchise have long legs and probably will end around 1 - 1.5 millions and also because Forza Horizon uses lots of assets and licensences of Forza Motorsport so the cost are probably low.

MS needs to start treating Forza better, with more marketing and planification, like Sony does with Gran Turismo.

What?

Microsoft has gone out their way to push Forza, not only given them a big budget and time, but also with bundles and priority even over other much better games (PGR).

The problem is that after 5 games it still isnt anyway near the size of Gran Turismo, and that doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. GT5(+Prologue) has sold over 14 mil, higher than the whole Forza series combined.

How much do they need to spend on the series for their fans to be happy with Microsoft's treatment of the series?
 

Petrae

Member
Little saddened at XCOM's numbers, but didn't really expect a huge turnout on console for them.

Exactly. As others have said, XCOM did well in terms of digital sales as PC is really the big market for the game. I don't think I'd be too concerned that it didn't sell many physical copies and/or didn't hit it big with the console sector. It was pretty easy to predict that XCOM wouldn't chart.
 

jcm

Member
Are you talking about the general comparison between generations of platforms, or literally the graph shape? I don't remember how PS3 did in its first year. Did it also have one holiday season to PS2's two at this point?

Both. The ps3 tracked about the same as the ps2 for the first 20 or so months, before falling behind like the 3ds is about to. But the whole comparison works surprisingly well.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
The interest in Vita is just fading away. By the time they drop the price, it will be totally ineffective. Dunno why Sony isn't urgently remedying this situation.

Good for Dishonored though, was worried it won't chart. 460k is nice.
 
I'm pretty sure the Vita will be the last Sony handheld we'll see. Those sales are just historically bad. The fact that the Dreamcast is outpacing the Vita in Japan just adds insult to injury. At this point, I think a price drop would only achieve a transient boost. With atrocious sales in Japan and the US, Sony needs to rely on the EU and I really doubt that Vita is doing well in that region.

#GAMECHANGER
 
It's obvious that Capcom is going to have to take the Resident Evil franchise in another direction. The Last of Us is what they should be looking at.
 

devilhawk

Member
I haven't been keeping up with the handheld market lately. Those Vita numbers (or guesses) are scary. Seems it has been a while since a platform has died early.
 

zashga

Member
It would be interesting to know how many copies XCOM sold on Steam. I don't usually buy there at full price, but this time I made an exception...
 

kunonabi

Member
I'm pretty sure the Vita will be the last Sony handheld we'll see. Those sales are just historically bad. The fact that the Dreamcast is outpacing the Vita in Japan just adds insult to injury. At this point, I think a price drop would only achieve a transient boost. With atrocious sales in Japan and the US, Sony needs to rely on the EU and I really doubt that Vita is doing well in that region.

#GAMECHANGER

Shouldn't the DC be outpacing the Vita in the states too? I thought the DC actually sold well in the US in the beginning.
 
With atrocious sales in Japan and the US, Sony needs to rely on the EU and I really doubt that Vita is doing well in that region.

It isn't. Based on the sales graph in Nintendo's last earnings presentation, its weekly sales there are similar to the NPD numbers for most of this year to date (very low five figures).

wNltn.jpg
 
Okay, I've waited patiently for almost 2 years, and now I can't take it. When is NPD going to get some damn competition so we'll get full disclosure on sales data! Why can't we get sales data like Japan!? Oh right, because they have Media Create and Famitsu.
 
What?

Microsoft has gone out their way to push Forza, not only given them a big budget and time, but also with bundles and priority even over other much better games (PGR).

The problem is that after 5 games it still isnt anyway near the size of Gran Turismo, and that doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. GT5(+Prologue) has sold over 14 mil, higher than the whole Forza series combined.

How much do they need to spend on the series for their fans to be happy with Microsoft's treatment of the series?

First : Gran Turismo is a monster in sales, they have a big name, its Sony´s Halo but even bigger, so its kind of unrealistic to expect Forza to compete with that in sales (while in critics and users acclaim they are doing even better than GT).

Forza have solid sales yet MS havent give them the proper time to polishing the game even more and have all the features they want (while Sony gave PD more money and time they could ever need).

-Forza 4 marketing wasnt as big as Forza 3 and that showed in sales even when the game was much better. And they made promotion stands using the stupid speed wheel instead proper racing setups with Force Feedback wheels like in Forza 3. And lets not talk how little media they invested in.

-Forza Horizon basically didnt have much any marketing, i never so a racing stand like in Forza 3-4, to be honest i never saw a anything about Forza Horizon in malls, not even a poster. Now the pre-order bonuses are downloadable cars instead of shirts or hats like in other Forzas.

Give Turn10 more money and time, give them good marketing and they will sell better because their titles are excellent and Playground Games is showing the promise. Also they should release the games in another time frame, not along with Gears of War, Halo and Fable, thats just stupid, MS have 4 big franchises and they should give them time and space to every one of them.

Overall i have seen ZERO effort from MS to promote Forza Horizon, they did a cheap bet with a great title.
 
What? I feel like I've seen more ads for Forza Horizon than Forza 1-4 combined. The problem here definitely wasn't a lack of promotion.


Both. The ps3 tracked about the same as the ps2 for the first 20 or so months, before falling behind like the 3ds is about to. But the whole comparison works surprisingly well.
Wasn't PS2 Japan exclusive those first 7 months? How about launch aligned by region, how do they stack up?
 
Nintendo just needs to fucking can the DS. That extra 100k added to the 3DS number would make the situation look a lot better. But no if you are expecting 500k months out of handhelds outside of the holidays it just isn't going to happen anymore. Japanese 3rd parties have a reason to stick with the 3DS in Japan, but Vita has absolutely nothing positive to show anywhere.

On the subject of what Vita would need to sell to convince me that something is changing?

I would say at least 250k in November and over 500k in December. I know I've been over this before, but if you look at the lineup 3rd parties have obviously run off from the system. Just look at what is scheduled from each next year

Sega
PSO2

Capcom
Nothing

Square
FFXHD (maybe, ZoE HD got cancelled who knows what will happen here)

Namco
Tales of Hearts R (which 99% won't be localized)
God Eater 2

EA
Nothing

Activision
Nothing

THQ
Nothing

Take 2
Nothing

And Sony's lineup for the system?
Soul Sacrifice, Killzone, and Tearaway for exclusives and Sly Cooper and Ratchet for PS3/Vita games.

I honestly don't see how anyone could look at this and say anyone else who looks at an upcoming lineup at gamestop or something would actually consider buying one, even when Sony does manage to pull out a price drop. It's a complete failure on every level at Sony, and yes I'm including the hardware designers because they designed a piece of tech that is impossible to price drop right now.
 
Man Amazing the degree of "don't give a fuck" that's hit the console market these days. I mean even Forza didn't hit big numbers? what the hell. Xcom is nitch, Dishonored is new... but FORZA?
 
Nintendo just needs to fucking can the DS. That extra 100k added to the 3DS number would make the situation look a lot better. But no if you are expecting 500k months out of handhelds outside of the holidays it just isn't going to happen anymore. Japanese 3rd parties have a reason to stick with the 3DS in Japan, but Vita has absolutely nothing positive to show anywhere.

It does create market confusion. When I looked at Wal-Mart's black friday ad and saw DSiXL's would be sold for $99, it took me a good 10 seconds to think in my mind what system that was. We have DSi, DSiXL, 3DS, 3DSXL....that causes market confusion, and they look very similar on the shelf. The casual moms who buy the systems for their kids probably have no idea how to distinguish the 4.

We can only hope the same doesn't happen with Wii, Wii-U.

Not to mention The Wii U-draw, which is a game pad for the Wii that can be played on the Wii-U, but is not Wii-U game pad.

Ugh, even I'm almost confused by it, and I'm actually a gamer that keeps up with gaming news
 
It does create market confusion. When I looked at Wal-Mart's black friday ad and saw DSiXL's would be sold for $99, it took me a good 10 seconds to think in my mind what system that was. We have DSi, DSiXL, 3DS, 3DSXL....that causes market confusion, and they look very similar on the shelf. The casual moms who buy the systems for their kids probably have no idea how to distinguish the 4.

We can only hope the same doesn't happen with Wii, Wii-U.

Not to mention The Wii U-draw, which is a game pad for the Wii that can be played on the Wii-U, but is not Wii-U game pad

Nintendo seemed to be trying to play into Apple's game of having very similar looking products even with a new generation, but game consoles work a lot different than that. I think the 3DS Lite will have a pretty drastic different look when it does come. I don't know, Nintendo seems almost confused themselves on how to handle all this because it isn't a problem at all in Japan. This seems to be a huge issue in general with Nintendo. The markets in Japan and the west have almost completely diverged, and so NoA who follows NCL doesn't seem to have a good idea anymore about what to do in many situations.
 

saichi

Member
You really think they're giving up? I mean I'd moreso believe that they think it can somehow turnaround. I mean they thought it'd do well enough to bother releasing the thing.

As I'm reading news on my Touchpad, I think Sony should do a fire sale for VITA to get rid of all stocks like HP did for Touchpad.
 

Noshino

Member
First : Gran Turismo is a monster in sales, they have a big name, its Sony´s Halo but even bigger, so its kind of unrealistic to expect Forza to compete with that in sales (while in critics and users acclaim they are doing even better than GT).

Forza have solid sales yet MS havent give them the proper time to polishing the game even more and have all the features they want (while Sony gave PD more money and time they could ever need).

-Forza 4 marketing wasnt as big as Forza 3 and that showed in sales even when the game was much better. And they made promotion stands using the stupid speed wheel instead proper racing setups with Force Feedback wheels like in Forza 3. And lets not talk how little media they invested in.

-Forza Horizon basically didnt have much any marketing, i never so a racing stand like in Forza 3-4, to be honest i never saw a anything about Forza Horizon in malls, not even a poster. Now the pre-order bonuses are downloadable cars instead of shirts or hats like in other Forzas.

Give Turn10 more money and time, give them good marketing and they will sell better because their titles are excellent and Playground Games is showing the promise. Also they should release the games in another time frame, not along with Gears of War, Halo and Fable, thats just stupid, MS have 4 big franchises and they should give them time and space to every one of them.

Overall i have seen ZERO effort from MS to promote Forza Horizon, they did a cheap bet with a great title.

uh, there was a Bizarre Creations interview on Edge (unfortunately the article seems to have been taken down) in which they talk about how Turn 10 would get all kinds of privileges when it came to budget, time, "spotlight", etc.

Also, FM4 had quite a lot of ads/media spotlight. Add to that the fact that TG was involved and that they partnered with ALMS. On top of that they have Ferrari's license...and who knows if MS had to pay for the Porsche license as well or not.

Sorry, but its insane to claim that Microsoft isn't putting any effort on the series, maybe its time to blame someone else for it not being as successful as GT.
 

Duxxy3

Member
So let me put this out there:

What number range does Vita need in November to take it off of death watch? Or are we at the point of no return where it's inevitable?

Nothing short of a massive price drop will save the vita here. It is a god awful value at its current price.

Sony has accepted this already. They just need to limp through the next year and come up with another strategy.
 

Eusis

Member
Numbers are not great? They are less than last year with 3 Mario games, and 3DSXL. Not great is an understatement. I would develop games for neither 3DS nor the Vita.
I think that really depends on the kind of game I wanted to develop, and the markets I wanted (though it'd be damn hard to get an American game to take off in Japan), but the 3DS definitely comes off as a plausible exclusive option whereas the Vita... uhh, I'm probably going to want to play it safe and make that a multi platform title unless Sony plans to bankroll it. Still the numbers ARE solid, and last I checked were actually almost equal with Japan in regards to units pushed. The big reasons that's not as good is the fact we have over double the population, and 3DS games don't have the same insanely high prices here so it's not as if the effective markets are equal in regards to profitability, but it's still not "it's doomed!" bad by a long shot.

Anyways, I'm guessing the only chance the Vita has is to quickly dive below $200 like the 3DS did, and get a good marketing push with it. Seems like if you want a gaming-only handheld device you have to get it cheaper than, say, the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire.
 
Nothing short of a massive price drop will save the vita here. It is a god awful value at its current price.

Sony has accepted this already. They just need to limp through the next year and come up with another strategy.

Retailers are already starting to drop Vita space even more than before. Wii U is going to take more shelf space, and Durango is going to need a big amount of shelf space next year. I wouldn't be surprise if retailers dropped it completely if they try to limp through next year. Retailers aren't going to keep this thing around. It's selling worse than some of the horrible PSP months.

you have to get it cheaper than, say, the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire.

Which is why the 3DS XL at 199 is a horrible value and should have been 169. I understand Nintendo was losing money, but the original 3DS should have dropped to 129 and the XL should have been 169. Until they get the 3DS to a lower pricepoint it will continue to limp in the west. Either that or 3DS software needs to have a universal 10 dollar price drop.
 
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