I think part of it also must be that they are hoping even if they sell out of these, people who weren't able to get one but wanted to will still be interested in getting one for just $50 more. That bundle sold out very quickly.
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NPD November 2011 Sales Results [Update 7: Skyrim, CoD Wii, PC Retail Sales Up 57%]
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I think part of it also must be that they are hoping even if they sell out of these, people who weren't able to get one but wanted to will still be interested in getting one for just $50 more. That bundle sold out very quickly.
bigtroyjon
Member
360 bundles all sold out too. Supply is an issue for every good Black Friday deal
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
Hopefully Rayman has long legs like Wario Land: The Shake Dimension.
That game seemed to bomb too, but ended up selling really well after 2 years.
That game seemed to bomb too, but ended up selling really well after 2 years.
mugurumakensei
Member
Wario Land had sold 150k from September to December 09. I imagine a decent portion of those sales came from November and December. If Rayman doesn't sell higher next month, I think there might not be much of a chance for it.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
Warioland sold almost half a million copies LTD if I recall. I know Anihawk knows the number. The game supposedly jumped after NSMBW.
mugurumakensei
Member
I can't see any new game bringing in the necessary audience to jump Rayman sales. NSMBW brought 2D platform fans. Those fans are already on the Wii (explains why the Wii version sold better). However, that's still not enough to pull Rayman over 50k for the month.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I think what Ubisoft needs to find out is why it works for Mario and not for Rayman.
Because its Mario.
Hate to say it but if Ubisoft wants a mascot game like Rayman to sell, they need to maket it kid-friendly and mass market it with TV cartoon, MCDonald Happy Meal Toys, ads on cartoon network etc... Look at what Activision did to Spyro, Sega did to Sonic, Konami did to YuGiOh.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
While that is a huge factor, its far from the main one.
It was BG&E'd. It released along side another major release by the same publisher that got the vast majority of the ad money in a period with gigantic releases back to back. It should have been given its own less crowded month if they really cared about it. I refuse to believe any marketing research Ubi did told them Rayman had enough mindshare to succeed among giants this month.
But still, the holiday is a great time for almost every game so i wouldnt be surprised if it turns around double what it did this month in December.
Metal Gear?!
Member
Wait assuming Steam (like Apple) takes 30% how much does Microsoft take? 40? 50?
thats just plain nuts if 360 comes even close to surpassing the wii!
sixteen-bit
Member
No surprise on the Rayman bomb. RIP BGE2.
To our knowledge, 30% if you publish a game yourself, 65% if they publish your game for you.
Since Super Meat Boy didn't have a separate publisher, presumably they took 65%.
Depends on the game and marketing. MS can take anywhere from 30 to 70 percent.
charlequin
Banned
When you use it as one tool amongst a range of analyses, it's useful. When you adopt it as a OTTOE, it's got the same problem all OTTOEs do: a singular theory does not have sufficient explanatory power for everything, so you wind up just hammering all kinds of divergent situations into the right shape to fit them into the theory.
Also, spare me the business school just-so stories, please.
But this is just again trying to loop everything into this single, rapacious, nuance-free lens. "Oh we're fulfilling emotional needs! Let's do a focus group to see if our car makes people feel 12% more compatriotship towards their fellow man!"
Emotional connections to things are not like practical uses. They don't follow the same principles, they don't lie down along logical principles. They are axiomatic where practical uses are derived. People who have an emotional connection to your product are yours to lose -- they have a vested interest in buying and delivering what they want in good quality is all that's required to tap that interest. People who have a practical connection to your product are definitionally unreliable -- they will cut you out in a second as soon as they see a better solution to their issue. Nintendo's expanded-market push was entirely about selling DSes and Wiis to people in that latter category.
Trying to push past the PR wording here, all that you've said is "Mario Kart is a game. People buy it because they like a certain type of games, Mario Kart is a good one of that type." Again, hardly a meaningful analysis.
NSMB, MK, even AC -- these are products designed for people who are already familiar with and historically invested in games (and/or children who are presently becoming so invested), using a visual and kinetic language developed across other games, with a purpose that is solely focused on the play experience. Nintendo are obviously well-suited to this; it's their entire reason for existence, their only core competency, and the singular thing that they've worked to be good at for decades. They will obviously retain a huge ability to do this basically as long as they exist.
The issue here is that Mario Kart also has nothing to do with Nintendo's expanded-market push. 100% of Nintendo's "find new markets" push was about selling hybrid software that combined gaming elements with more practical purposes -- and it's precisely these areas where Nintendo no longer has any advantage against their competition, and which you just keep refusing to engage with every time you respond.
Comics are actually a perfect example of what I'm talking about: comics fandom has stubbornly clung to life through decades of mismanagement, and even the (increasingly huge) crowd of people that have been driven away through that mismanagement and downright offensive behavior on the part of the industry can get sucked back in by the empty promises of a marketing event like DC's reboot -- just because people are so deeply attached to what the product is.
i think the multiplatform approach has hurt the sonic series overall. there's no going back, although nintendo is getting lots of exclusive sonic games from sega. i think making the entire series exclusive to one console and basically treating it like a first-party title would be beneficial to the series in general. at the very least, sega should stop with this three teams making three separate games at once crap and just focus on one product.
Aaron Strife
Banned
I think Sonic works on Nintendo platforms because Nintendo gamers see it as a viable alternative to Mario/Zelda - it is the most familiar third-party franchise, mainly because Sega has done a great job at keeping the series relevant on the Wii (plus its extensive history, being at the root of Sega vs. Nintendo in the 90s). Not releasing a Wii version of Generations is still a bizarre decision, but apparently it's the trade-off for having Colors be a Wii exclusive. (Similar to Sonic and the Secret Rings being born from an attempt at porting Sonic 06)
Sega would be crazy not to come out with a Wii U-exclusive Sonic, either at launch or close to it. In fact I'm positive they will. Bringing over the Sonic fans to a new console always seems to be a goal of theirs.
Also, I don't know if releasing the 3DS version of Sonic Generations as a Wii title would have done Sega any favors, if the 360/PS3 versions bombed like has been said. For one, it doesn't justify the development budget for the HD versions, as the 3DS and 360/PS3 versions are different enough that the 3DS version probably demanded its own separate budget. i.e. there wouldn't really be any "making up" for the losses on the HD version since they could have simply made it a Wii exclusive and made more money. It just boils down to the HD versions being a waste of money, financially (obv. the game is really good and I think their modus operandi is just to win gamers over to the series again - repairing the brand image as opposed to knocking out a few cheap million-sellers).
And the 3DS version fucking sucks so there's that too I guess.
Sega would be crazy not to come out with a Wii U-exclusive Sonic, either at launch or close to it. In fact I'm positive they will. Bringing over the Sonic fans to a new console always seems to be a goal of theirs.
Also, I don't know if releasing the 3DS version of Sonic Generations as a Wii title would have done Sega any favors, if the 360/PS3 versions bombed like has been said. For one, it doesn't justify the development budget for the HD versions, as the 3DS and 360/PS3 versions are different enough that the 3DS version probably demanded its own separate budget. i.e. there wouldn't really be any "making up" for the losses on the HD version since they could have simply made it a Wii exclusive and made more money. It just boils down to the HD versions being a waste of money, financially (obv. the game is really good and I think their modus operandi is just to win gamers over to the series again - repairing the brand image as opposed to knocking out a few cheap million-sellers).
And the 3DS version fucking sucks so there's that too I guess.
boiled goose
good with gravy
regarding Rayman:
I think that this is a case where a multiplatform release from the get go might have hurt the title. It was just thrown in with everything else instead of being a focused targeted release.
There really was no ideal platform for it though, given that the wii has been dead for so long. DKCR did well because it was seen as the BIG title for the Wii that season, same with NSMBW (and its mario). Rayman just seemed like a minor title in comparison to all the other overhyped games.
I think being targeted as a Vita or 3DS AAA title initially would have been ideal. Then maybe release on the other systems. To get sales you need attention, and being early in a systems life can get you that attention.
Exactly. Same applies here. You want loyalty and you want attention and you want to deliver a more focused product.
Sonic generations released on every console except the Wii, where it seemed that Sonic was doing OK and decent games were getting released.
I think that this is a case where a multiplatform release from the get go might have hurt the title. It was just thrown in with everything else instead of being a focused targeted release.
There really was no ideal platform for it though, given that the wii has been dead for so long. DKCR did well because it was seen as the BIG title for the Wii that season, same with NSMBW (and its mario). Rayman just seemed like a minor title in comparison to all the other overhyped games.
I think being targeted as a Vita or 3DS AAA title initially would have been ideal. Then maybe release on the other systems. To get sales you need attention, and being early in a systems life can get you that attention.
Exactly. Same applies here. You want loyalty and you want attention and you want to deliver a more focused product.
Sonic generations released on every console except the Wii, where it seemed that Sonic was doing OK and decent games were getting released.
Try to keep up son.
Eh, I don't really see how it hurt Sonic. Heroes was the first, and sold great and got plenty of advertising thanks to it. And making Sonic exclusive would not magically turn him into Nintendo 1st party material unless Nintendo were to step in themselves (which I don't see happening). And even if they somehow did, the "first-party title" wouldn't guarantee better sales. Just ask Nintendo's own Kirby and Metroid.
I do agree that they should stop splitting up so much. Would have been best to just make Sonic '06 and Generations on Wii than to make Secret Rings and Colors at all.
choosing a platform and not having to worry about optimizing for the others means you can just hone in on development for that platform. the quality of the game would be better even if the sales might not have been.
funny enough, that rumor of sonic dimensions says nintendo devs are helping sega with the game and level design.
kirby's always a slow burn. epic yarn's done pretty well over the year. other m did poorly, even by recent metroid standards. it never was a huge franchise though.
the worst thing about this is they made seven console sonics this gen, and almost every one of them controlled differently. instead of just improving what worked and getting rid of what didn't, they came up with new concepts game to game. i would have loved a refined secret rings, and instead we got black knight. generations is sort of a refinement of unleashed, and so is colors, but they both added in other elements. generations is also a weird refinement of sonic 4, kinda, but we probably won't get too many more 2d console sonics.
Flying_Phoenix
Banned
There are rare instances in which exclusives do help sales. Notable examples are Metal Gear Solid 4, and for the West at least No More Heroes and Tales of Symphonia. Exclusives obviously have the gimp of being only on one platform instead of two, three, four, five, or even six. However if played right they could make up for it by gathering aura and a reputation., Exclusives make a game "special" as it garners the hardware bases attention as a game that is only for the platform, plays on its strength, and you can't get the game anywhere else. They are one of the main reasons to justify buying a platform. Metal Gear Solid 4 sold more than Metal Gear Solid 4 despite being on a system that in comparison sold half or a third as much. No More Heroes identified and targeted very hungry consumers for mature Wii games and really utilized the controller. Tales of Symphonia also feed an under utilize market for its target system and garnered some hype from them.
Rayman should have been a $15 XBLA/PSN title. I was very surprised and instantly turned off to learn it was a $60 retail game.
I don't care how much depth it has, how many levels, etc...it's a 2D platform game featuring a character that hasn't had a big release in 8 years. People comparing it to Donkey Kong and Mario are so far off the mark.
I don't care how much depth it has, how many levels, etc...it's a 2D platform game featuring a character that hasn't had a big release in 8 years. People comparing it to Donkey Kong and Mario are so far off the mark.
This is significantly higher than the actual NPD figure. I'm not gonna leak any numbers, but it's below 500k.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Good job, Microsoft.
creamsugar
Member
true
Then Nintendo is including sales bundled with the 3DS, I guess.
Gamer @ Heart
Member
It also helps that Nintendo knows how many it sold through Walmart unlike npd.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
creamsugar
Member
I see, there is a 3d land with flame red SKU.
creamsugar
Member
Random three d:
blue hedgehog < 20k
doukutsu story < 10k
ninja < 3k
acahl < 2k
blue hedgehog < 20k
doukutsu story < 10k
ninja < 3k
acahl < 2k
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
tanked, super tanked, ULTRA TANKED, MEGA BOMB. Wow.
A Twisty Fluken
Member
The last one took me forever before I saw the truth hiding in plane sight
I wonder how Cave Story would have done if it hadn't been delayed. I know I wouldn't have held off if it hit in the dry spell
Psychotext
Member
What are those last two?
I don't know what the last three are, but holy shit Sonic bombed.
dead souls
Member
Here's a scary thought for fans of platformers like myself: What if the 50k is better than Rayman would have sold without the holiday season to boost it?
I'm not sure that it would have done better being released at any other time of the year.
crazy monkey
holds a masters in liberal arts
Wii versions did better than this right?
Jesus poor sonic. That makes Rayman look like a 500k seller in comparison lol
Allan Holdsworth
Member
creamsugar
Member
sure
I find it just as frustrating when downloadable $10 or $15 games don't sell well, I mean, you guys are giving $60 as an excuse basically, the core fact is that demand for a game like that is not high right now...if it were high enough, people would buy it at $60...in the 16-bit days, people bought platformers for $60 or more all the time, people in Japan routinely drop 5800 yen (almost $70) on games that have nothing but 2D art and voice acting...it's all about supply and demand.
I wish that there could be a "November XBLA/PSN sales results" thread with lots of attention, people barely respond to Rlan's Gamasutra leaderboard analysis threads. Kotaku/Joystiq/Destructoid/etc need to champion XBLA/PSN gaming, or it will die off in the future to be replaced by models gamers will not be very happy with.
I wish that there could be a "November XBLA/PSN sales results" thread with lots of attention, people barely respond to Rlan's Gamasutra leaderboard analysis threads. Kotaku/Joystiq/Destructoid/etc need to champion XBLA/PSN gaming, or it will die off in the future to be replaced by models gamers will not be very happy with.
Thought so. No way it only did that much on the PS3/360.
Rush2thestart
Member
How did Kirby Returns to Dreamland do?