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NPD Sales Results for May 2007

A

Andrew J.

Member
JudgeN said:
Someone explain to me why in the holy hell people thought the PSP was going to outsell the DS? People call the PSP a failure but yet forget that Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated the handheld market since the birth of handhelds.
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When will people get it through their skulls that things change? Nintendo dominated the home console market for a good long while too (in Japan and the US, anyway) but that never stopped Sega and Sony from taking away a lot of that marketshare in the space of a couple generations. Nintendo could have easily lost control of the handheld market to the PSP the same way it lost the home market to the original Playstation-that it didn't was actually considered a minor miracle at the time.
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
JudgeN said:
Someone explain to me why in the holy hell people thought the PSP was going to outsell the DS? People call the PSP a failure but yet forget that Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated the handheld market since the birth of handhelds. Personally I think its amazing that the PSP has done better then any other handheld ever created when it comes to competition with nintendo handheld.
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From one of the linked-to threads, I'll let drohne explain.
Retro 2004 drohne said:
i enjoy the argument that "nintendo knows the handheld market!!!" history won't get you a thing in the marketplace; judge nintendo and sony by their most recent products. psp is a brilliantly engineered, eminently marketable handheld at a cutthroat price. it gives gamers what they so plainly want rather than telling them what they should want. ds is an oddball contraption conceptualized by an old coot rather than the designers who won nintendo their fame. the hardware's a generation behind, and it's hardly any cheaper. it uses the same chip as the ****ing n-gage, which ea's john riticello rightly recognized as a dog the moment he touched it. nintendo obviously do not know the handheld market. not anymore.
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V

v4gr4nt

Member
For a reaction to the reaction, Bloomberg went to SCE's Ken Kutaragi. "People who want to play with Pikachu will need Nintendo's new-style DS machine," he said, "but those who want to play our racing game Gran Turismo 4 will need a PSP, right?"
-Chris Kohler
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people are still waiting :(

edit: beaten:lol
 
S

sonycowboy

Member
Souldriver said:
The only consistancy in all threads from more than a year ago is that our very own gaf-analyst SonyCowboy is always dead wrong. :lol

Sorry SC, not trying to offend you.
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Nah, I've been roasted over and over and over again. And I deserved it. Damn was I overconfident, offbase, and generally an ass. I remember some comment about a supermodel up against Kirstie Alley (the bigger, older version).

Of course, for the first 6 months or so it seemed on target until Easter hit in Japan and the combo of the DSLite and New Super Mario Bros just turned the damn thing on fire.

That goes triple for the Wii. I at least acknowledged that Sony needed to create a new market for the PSP, but I completely disregarded the Wii out of hand.

Now, we're looking at two platforms that are making the PS2 look like a piker, historically speaking.
 
M

Mariah Carey

Member
JudgeN said:
Someone explain to me why in the holy hell people thought the PSP was going to outsell the DS? People call the PSP a failure but yet forget that Nintendo has ALWAYS dominated the handheld market since the birth of handhelds. Personally I think its amazing that the PSP has done better then any other handheld ever created when it comes to competition with nintendo handheld.
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The reason for this is, prior to the DS there was this notion that Nintendo had lucked out on its Game Boy dominance--- that once the Game Gear was done that the Game Boy never received any competent competition and Nintendo just coasted into handheld success. And seeing how Nintendo kept the hardware relatively underpowered and most of its handheld games were pretty simple, they were seen as vulnerable, especially when the invincible PlayStation brand made a move into Game Boy territory. In short, people thought PSP would take over the market because there was a notion that people didn't actually like Nintendo's handhelds and merely bought them because there was no alternative (this is what that "gaming ghetto" term was referring to). And since the PSP offered a massive advance in handheld technology (along with the ominous 'PlayStation' brand name), that people would have no problem flocking from Nintendo's handhelds to Sony's.

I'm glad people know better now, and the DS has proven that, hey, Nintendo actually knows what they're doing business-wise. It looks like people are finally realizing that maybe Nintendo didn't become market leader by being idiots.
 
B

Brannon

Member
Things do change, but a $250 handheld at release, which is what the rest of the world sees and damn what else it can do, limited its potential. Sure it's coming up there now, but the DS has already cemented this handheld generation as its own.

Maybe when the next-generation PSP comes out, it won't be so gods-damned expensive this time. You can run on only so much excitement before your wallet beats you back into reality.

No one's going to eat more wheat for freakin' videogames.
 
S

Scalemail Ted

Member
DJ Brannon said:
Things do change, but a $250 handheld at release, which is what the rest of the world sees and damn what else it can do, limited its potential. Sure it's coming up there now, but the DS has already cemented this handheld generation as its own.

Maybe when the next-generation PSP comes out, it won't be so gods-damned expensive this time. You can run on only so much excitement before your wallet beats you back into reality.

No one's going to eat more wheat for freakin' videogames.
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Between that and the PS3's price tag, I'd wager sony has learned its lesson for future endeavors.
 
Flakster99

Flakster99

Member
sonycowboy said:
Nah, I've been roasted over and over and over again. And I deserved it. Damn was I overconfident, offbase, and generally an ass. I remember some comment about a supermodel up against Kirstie Alley (the bigger, older version).

Of course, for the first 6 months or so it seemed on target until Easter hit in Japan and the combo of the DSLite and New Super Mario Bros just turned the damn thing on fire.

That goes triple for the Wii. I at least acknowledged that Sony needed to create a new market for the PSP, but I completely disregarded the Wii out of hand.

Now, we're looking at two platforms that are making the PS2 look like a piker, historically speaking.
Click to expand...

Hey, at least you acknowledge the market has changed, that everyone can now share a good laugh at some of the crazy ass predictions of the past, because in the end, we're all gamers with a voice.

At the very least, I never saw you as a troll, lapping up attention like a whore and wiping the board into a frenzy with senseless, obtuse like threads. :)
 
A

AniHawk

Member
Oblivion said:
Seems drohne was a more active member of sales age during those times. :lol
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A lot of people who bemoan sales-age today kinda started once Nintendo stuff began taking off.

WHAT A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
 
D

Deku

Banned
sonycowboy said:
Of course, for the first 6 months or so it seemed on target until Easter hit in Japan and the combo of the DSLite and New Super Mario Bros just turned the damn thing on fire.
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I'm not sure if it was ever on target. DS always led in Japan and I remember the US PSP launch being marred by the fact that Sony expected to sell 1 million in its first week and never actually reached that goal.

Granted the mentality of day was that it was a temporary set-back or some even went so far as to suggest the current winner for most repeated slogan of 'marathon and not a sprint'. Yes optimism ran high and the immediate results were disregarded as a bad start. But calling the launch on-track may be a bit of an exaggeration. It was a good start that probably underperformed a lot of people's expectations (unrealistic as they may be) but beating the DS right away would have seemed reasonable (?) at the time.

One interesting thing of note with the thread Joshua linked was just how amazing it was at the time to find out the pricing for the machine. But clearly, even that aggressive pricing didn't help. Or price was never the main issue.
 
T

Tobor

Member
AniHawk said:
A lot of people who bemoan sales-age today kinda started once Nintendo stuff began taking off.

WHAT A STRANGE COINCIDENCE.
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And if somehow Sony turned it around, the same "sales-age is for losers" honks would be right back in the sales threads strutting.
 
T

titiklabingapat

Member
DJ Brannon said:
Things do change, but a $250 handheld at release, which is what the rest of the world sees and damn what else it can do, limited its potential. Sure it's coming up there now, but the DS has already cemented this handheld generation as its own.

Maybe when the next-generation PSP comes out, it won't be so gods-damned expensive this time. You can run on only so much excitement before your wallet beats you back into reality.

No one's going to eat more wheat for freakin' videogames.
Click to expand...

The DS, like the Wii, is more than it's cheap price.
 
S

Scalemail Ted

Member
titiklabingapat said:
The DS, like the Wii, is more than it's cheap price.
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I don't think that was his argument to be honest.

I think he was more or less pointing out a flaw in Sony's strategy as it relates directly to the consumer and not necessarily to Nintendo.
 
S

Saitou

Banned
Flakster99 said:
Hey, at least you acknowledge the market has changed, that everyone can now share a good laugh at some of the crazy ass predictions of the past, because in the end, we're all gamers with a voice.

At the very least, I never saw you as a troll, lapping up attention like a whore and wiping the board into a frenzy with senseless, obtuse like threads. :)
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That's what makes him a great poster, despite bias, unlike other like drohne, Drinky, Amir0x, Tabris, etc.
 
R

rkenshin

Member
Segata Sanshiro said:
Judging by software sales, they aren't buying it to be a game player, either. Oh wait, they are playing games...they just aren't buying them.
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I thought many people say that piracy is a low percentage of the userbase
 
S

Segata Sanshiro

Member
rkenshin said:
I thought many people say that piracy is a low percentage of the userbase
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I'd be happy for an alternative explanation as to why great games aren't selling on the thing, even though hardware sales are more than healthy.

BUY CRUSH, ****ERS.
 
G

Grampa Simpson

Banned
cvxfreak said:
Yeah, people associated with the Sony camp don't seem to post in MC charts these days. It's a shame too.
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I think this is the first weekend in a while where the MC thread hasn't turned stupid over the weekend due to a poster who is incapable of reconcile with the idea that Sony's gaming division is in a downward spiral, and is willing to argue with even the thinnest of arguments in order to try to prove that Sony will be back on solid ground at some point in the near future.

...

...

I hope I didn't just jinx it.
 
D.Lo

D.Lo

Member
The intenets, pre PSP/PS3

-Nintendo is only surviving because they have a monopoly on handhelds, any decent competitor in the handheld arena will wipe them out.

-The Gamecube sucks and is a waste of space. there's no point getting one when the PS2 has more games.

-Graphics don't matter. GTA has crap graphics, yet it outsells everything

-Price doesn't matter, only games. The Gamecube is much cheaper, yet the PS2 has walloped it.

-Console and handhelds are the same market, if Sony launches a handheld it will automatically be successful because the PS1 and PS2 were.

-DS is a gimmick, everybody wants to play the same way forever, you shoudln't introduce new control schemes and ideas, they will fade quickly.

-Sales are the only thing that matters. The best product always wins.

After PSP

-DS is a gimmick, it will sell well for a while, then will fade quickly

-PSP will pick up when game X is released.

-Of course the Ds won, nobody has ever beaten Nintendo in handhelds, they know what they're doing in that market. Sony did brilliantly to beat the Lynx.

-Ds is only winning because of price, because people only care about price.

-Consoles and handhelds are a different market, Just because Nintendo wins there doesn't mean they'll win in consoles.

-Wii is a gimmick, everybody wants to play the same way forever, you shoudln't introduce new control schemes and ideas, they will fade quickly

-Price doesn't matter in home consoles, only games. The Gamecube is much cheaper, yet the PS2 has walloped it.

After PS3

-Of course the Wii won, the only thing anyone cares about is price.

-Wii is a gimmick, it will sell well for a while, then will fade quickly.

-PS3 will pick up when game X is released.

-Graphics matter. Eventually better looking games will win.

-Price is all that matters, not games. people are only buying the Wii because it's cheap.

-The Gamecube was a great system with some great games. Why can't all console co-exist?

-Sales don't matter. The best product never wins.

In about one year

-Consoles and handhelds are the same market, the DS won so it was obvious the Wii would win.

-------------------------

(Of course, Nintendo fanboys also changed from 'graphics RE4 rulz' to 'graphics are good enough' and others).
 
D

Deku

Banned
D.Lo said:
...stuff..
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That's an oversimplification of what was actually said. If everyone (admittedly there were many) talked like the list of banned accounts you might have a point but there were a lot of voices there saying the exact opposite or being cautiously optimistic with a lot of caveats thrown in.

The only issue that held my interest in your list of stuff is the console market vs. portable market. Both are separate and connected. The demographics are somewhat different, and there are certain requirements/preferences in portable gaming that makes certain games more agreeable but would not do as well on a home machine. The two markets are connected insofar as brand equity, consumer mindshare, consumer and developer goodwill (a developer is dealing with the same corporate entity --SCEI or Nintendo-- not SCEI portables and Nintendo Portables) when they work on the portfolio of game hardware each company has so whatever happens on one platform will have some impact of another.
 
P

Phife Dawg

Member
titiklabingapat said:
Case in point, the Euro launch thread.
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That was some fun stuff right there. People from the Americas telling us Euros what we prefer in terms of gaming and how the market works over here and everything. Most of these probably never set foot on european soil.

Likewise the euro weekly sales thread also saw an influx of activity. Ever since the launch hype died down all the people formerly interested in these sales threads are nowhere to be found.

rkenshin said:
I thought many people say that piracy is a low percentage of the userbase
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But how would they know?
 
M

Mario

Sidhe / PikPok
rkenshin said:
I thought many people say that piracy is a low percentage of the userbase
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Given that the PSP is perhaps the easiest platform to pirate on ever (no hardware mod needed, no per title software patches needed, no need to burn media, relatively small ISOs) combined with the volume of traffic on PSP ISO torrents and the evidence of weak software sales despite solid hardware sales, I'd say piracy is affecting sales in a very tangible way.

Piracy in general does affect software sales negatively. How much nobody can really say for sure. But piracy is probably affecting PSP more than average.
 
S

Saitou

Banned
Mario said:
Given that the PSP is perhaps the easiest platform to pirate on ever (no hardware mod needed, no per title software patches needed, no need to burn media, relatively small ISOs) combined with the volume of traffic on PSP ISO torrents and the evidence of weak software sales despite solid hardware sales, I'd say piracy is affecting sales in a very tangible way.

Piracy in general does affect software sales negatively. How much nobody can really say for sure. But piracy is probably affecting PSP more than average.
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PS2 is also very easy to pirate. Not as easy as PSP or DC, but still painfully easy.
 
Flakster99

Flakster99

Member
Saitou said:
That's what makes him a great poster, despite bias, unlike other like drohne, Drinky, Amir0x, Tabris, etc.
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He still spews bat shit insane predictions, before and after becoming a mod, but he's tempered some, which is admirable. Here's a thread that made the gamer inside of me wanna vomit a few years back:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=41813

Jesus Christ. What the **** were the mods thinking, and this was par for the course during that time.
 
Diatribe1974

Diatribe1974

Member
Andrew J. said:
When will people get it through their skulls that things change? Nintendo dominated the home console market for a good long while too (in Japan and the US, anyway) but that never stopped Sega and Sony from taking away a lot of that marketshare in the space of a couple generations. Nintendo could have easily lost control of the handheld market to the PSP the same way it lost the home market to the original Playstation-that it didn't was actually considered a minor miracle at the time.
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Exactly. The only thing that needs to happen is for someone such as Sony, to establish a presence in the said market (handhelds with PSP) & then release the next gen version of it that competes with the next gen version of the DS. Have that new gen of hardware that is "Just as good, if not better" spec-wise AND compete with the price point that Nintendo is offering & you create the environment of change.

Nintendo lost the crown once, they can easilly lose it again. The home console (non-handheld) markets can possibly change from it's current pace (of Wii domination) *if & when* the price points of it's competitors drops down to it's prices. Then the overall attractiveness of the Wii begins to seriously deminish. Think about it: Why buy a Wii for 199$, when for 249$ for you can have a 360 or PS3 (if ever)? For *only* 50$ more, you get a system(s) that offers up a completely "better" gaming experience? But that's a big *if* as well. Also, *if* they can drop the price soon enough to do any good as well. 2 years from now? Sorry, game over. 6 months from now? Oh my...we have a situation now!
 
I

imastalker co.

Banned
DiatribeEQ said:
Think about it: Why buy a Wii for 199$, when for 249$ for you can have a 360 or PS3 (if ever)? For *only* 50$ more, you get a system(s) that offers up a completely "better" gaming experience?
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reminds me of all the people saying "why buy a DS for $150, when you can buy a PSP for $185."
 
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