Does anyone else find most NPD discussions to be annoying these days?

[Tigerriot]

I do, and I'll tell you why.


On various podcasts and even some message boards, the usual NPD discussions occur each month when the numbers are released. It's become as regular as the sun rising that Nintendo is going to have much bigger console sales numbers than the competition. This is true for both the Wii and the DS.


Yet, these discussions of said numbers almost never include some freaking context to the discussion regarding pricing differences. You usually just hear things like "Yeah, another crazy month for the Wii, outselling both the 360 and PS3 combined". Yet I cannot ever recall someone making a point of saying "Of course the Wii and DS are priced significantly lower than their competition".

In the DS's case, it's currently priced $40 less than the PSP. In the case of the Wii, it's currently priced $30 under the cheapest 360, and $150 under the cheapest PS3.


Please don't respond that "people know these pricing differences anyway, so that is why they don't tell you each time they discuss it", because these discussions I'm talking about often wax poetically about how "impressive" these Nintendo sales are.

[Mupepe]

i find armchair analysts annoying in general.  i like to see the numbers and then i'm done.  and i even kinda hate myself for not being able to shake that curiosity.

[Tigerriot]

If you always hated them, then you'd probably hate them these days.

If you found that you suddenly started hating them in the last year or so... well...

Wha?

I think I made it pretty clear that I've recently found them more annoying.  Don't know where your confusion comes from.

[abrader]

I just play games.

[Crushed]

waaaaaaaaaa sony isn't #1

[Draft]

I like reading the analysis from guys that actually bother to formulate an opinion, even if it's a totally ridiculous fanboy driven opinion.

The only thing I don't like is when like 10 dudes in a row say "gogogo Uncharted!"

[Himu]

THEY'VE ALWAYS BEEN ANNOYING.

fuck!

 

[Grecco]

I like reading the analysis from guys that actually bother to formulate an opinion, even if it's a totally ridiculous fanboy driven opinion.

The only thing I don't like is when like 10 dudes in a row say "gogogo Uncharted RAWR!"

you misseed the rawr

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

1)  They've always sucked

2)  The price differences have always been there, no matter the generation

3)  Why the fuck are you just noticing this?

[Beezy]

1)  They've always sucked

2)  The price differences have always been there, no matter the generation

3)  Why the fuck are you just noticing this?

Exactly. Wii isn't winning just because of the pricing difference.

[Van Cruncheon]

i find the npd itself annoying, since it insists on chronicling the slow, hypothermic death of console gaming

[Tigerriot]

1)  They've always sucked

2)  The price differences have always been there, no matter the generation

3)  Why the fuck are you just noticing this?

Exactly. Wii isn't winning just because of the pricing difference.

But I do think it at least plays a part in the sales numbers, and I think that should be mentioned any time a discussion takes place on the subject.  It's fucking annoying listening to podcasts though, where the hosts are all shocked at how much more the Wii sells than the 360 or PS3.  It's just dumb to not at least acknowledge that the price has some impact on these things. 



Edit:  Another example to give.  If I started talking to a bunch of car guys about how crazy it was that the Honda Accord sold a lot more units than the BMW 5 series last month, they'd immediately say "Yeah, no shit, the price is obviously a factor in that".  Yet in videogame discussions it seems that no one gets this logical point when discussing such things.

[Crushed]

i wonder if snack chip fanboys discuss npd sales, or fabric detergent warriors debate them on their messageboards.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/flour-fan-2937s.php

wahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh wii doesn't count because it's beating my precious sony-chan~ <3

[Tigerriot]

Crushed.  Did you not get enough attention with your first dumbfuck post?

Dude, find a real hobby or something to do with yourself, instead of trying to create a story for yourself within this thread.  

[Crushed]

teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears and raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage

[Tigerriot]

teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeears and raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage

Well, I'm glad you feel better that I acknowledged your existance.  You can move along now.

[Crushed]

i will go find a real hobby now like posting several paragraph diatribes on eb about "MAN THOSE SALES SUCK I DON'T CARE IT'S ALL BIASED TOWARDS NINTENDO but you know if the wii didn't count it'd be a lot better"

[duckman2000]

Crushed making fun of others for displaying nerd rage? That's something. 

[Crushed]

Crushed making fun of others for displaying nerd rage? That's something. 

you know even though i'm on your ignore list you really love to read my posts and try to get me to acknowledge you

[Great Rumbler]

1)  They've always sucked

2)  The price differences have always been there, no matter the generation

3)  Why the fuck are you just noticing this?

Exactly. Wii isn't winning just because of the pricing difference.

But I do think it at least plays a part in the sales numbers, and I think that should be mentioned any time a discussion takes place on the subject.  It's fucking annoying listening to podcasts though, where the hosts are all shocked at how much more the Wii sells than the 360 or PS3.  It's just dumb to not at least acknowledge that the price has some impact on these things. 

Yeah, price really helped the Gamecube and Dreamcast against the PS2 and Xbox! Oh wait, it didn't!

[Brehvolution]

1)  They've always sucked

2)  The price differences have always been there, no matter the generation

3)  Why the fuck are you just noticing this?

Exactly. Wii isn't winning just because of the pricing difference.

But I do think it at least plays a part in the sales numbers, and I think that should be mentioned any time a discussion takes place on the subject.  It's fucking annoying listening to podcasts though, where the hosts are all shocked at how much more the Wii sells than the 360 or PS3.  It's just dumb to not at least acknowledge that the price has some impact on these things. 


That was a long time ago and $300 was worth much more back then. These day, a wii can be an impulse buy because it is so cheap. Price does make a difference.

Yeah, price really helped the Gamecube and Dreamcast against the PS2 and Xbox! Oh wait, it didn't!

That was a long time ago and $300 was worth much more back then. These day, a wii can be an impulse buy because it is so cheap. Price does make a difference.

[Powerslave]

lol getting acknowledged by Crushed

[Grecco]

If your an Sfag of course youl hate the npds these days.

[Fragamemnon]

Kind of off-topic, but I wanted to refernence in a post on Soren Johnson's blog about game sales:

http://www.designer-notes.com/?p=95

Here’s the interesting thing about this interview - reading the Editor’s Note was the first time I found out that Civ4 sold 3 million copies. Which is great, of course. Our target was 2.5 million as each version of the franchise sold about half a million more than the previous version. Nonetheless, it is an odd feeling not to know - or have any official recourse to find out - how many copies of the game I worked on so long actually sold. Certainly, in other industries, the idea that a director or musician not have access to this information would be very strange.

I think it is sort of ridiculous that he didn't have access to the number of units that his own game ( Civ4 ) sold. That's crazy.

Publically traded companies should disclose units sold in their quarterly statements.

As for NPD, that's pretty much all console fanboy jerking and I find it exceptionally vile and a huge drag on signal-to-noise ratio in most general gaming discussions.

[WrikaWrek]

Sfag and dumb.

That's a double kill son.

[Phoenix Dark]

lol getting acknowledged by Crushed

 

anyway Sony fans especially are in denial, so it's no wonder that they'd rely on weak arguments like the pricing issue. Sony and MS are on a path of failure and they don't know how to get off it. People expect the PS4 and next Xbox to be leaps and bounds more powerful than the current models, and for that to happen we'll see even higher costs (and losses). The accepted market value of videogame systems still seems to be around $300 at best. Nintendo is well below that and reaps the benefits, plus they benefit from the faux hype they create through the Wil "shortages" as well as the media love. They've won this generation by a long shot, it's over. What will be interesting is seeing what happens next generation. Is Sony willing to take another $3 billion loss, or will they be forced to just to keep up with the unlimited financial power of Microsoft?

[cool breeze]

I only dislike NPDs because Wii fans use the sales to justify the idea that the Wii/Nintendo is moving in the right direction.  Then I see these same people hating on Transformers when you can use the same logic to classify that as a good movie.  This stuff blows my mind.

[drohne]

since wii's success has dissociated development support from hardware sales, i don't know why i should care. sales threads are what nintendo fans do instead of playing the games that nintendo platforms haven't got

[Phoenix Dark]

 

[WrikaWrek]

since wii's success has dissociated development support from hardware sales, i don't know why i should care. sales threads are what nintendo fans do instead of playing the games that nintendo platforms haven't got

Too true.

[Human Snorenado]

Lock this thread and leper this filth and anyone else that starts threads like this shit over here.  This ain't gaf, fucker.

[duckman2000]

tigerrior, zero hero, altogetherandrews and to a lesser extent abrader are worthless sony fegs

this thread proves this, yet again

What in the hell did I say? 

[Smooth Groove]

Lock this thread and leper this filth and anyone else that starts threads like this shit over here.  This ain't gaf, fucker.

Nailed it

[Mupepe]

tigerrior, zero hero, altogetherandrews and to a lesser extent abrader are worthless sony fegs

this thread proves this, yet again

What in the hell did I say? 

you're good people I think

[Rman]

You guys are merciless.

[tiesto]

tigerrior, zero hero, altogetherandrews and to a lesser extent abrader are worthless sony fegs

this thread proves this, yet again

abrader is actually one to buy a large variety of games and play them, which puts him leagues above most other fanboys...

[WrikaWrek]

[Oblivion]

Unless you're involving yourself in some shitty fanboy dickwaving, there shouldn't be anything inherently wrong with being interested in sales stuff. Some of us just like to see the information, find out how the games we like are doing, and just to see which way the industry is turning in certain areas, regardless of whoever the fuck is 'winning'. The bitter tears, slit wrists, and suicides just happen to be a bonus.

I mean, people cheer for sports teams, even though I'd argue that they have even less of a reason to do so. I also don't get how so many people here would have a problem with numbers, when many spend their times with games that look like excel spreadsheets.

[Eel O'Brian]

most gaming podcasts are just GAF out loud, anyway

everyone's just a snarky shithead and trying to pass that off as humor

[duckman2000]

I'll admit, I can't quite handle sales discussions. It was alright up until Uncharted failed to, er, chart. And Ass Crud went on to break sales records, on the PS3 as well as 360. But that's got little to do with sales as such, and everything to do with that PS3 owners are a bunch of idiotic douche bags from hell, and that gamers in general are ripe prey for marketing savvy. Hardware sales, meh. It's become boring, that's what's happened.

[Human Snorenado]

I'll admit, I can't quite handle sales discussions. It was alright up until Uncharted failed to, er, chart. And Ass Crud went on to break sales records. But that's got little to do with sales as such, and everything to do with that PS3 owners are a bunch of idiotic douche bags from hell. Hardware sales, meh. It's become boring, that's what's happened.

Translation:  I have backed the wrong horse and don't want to bother trying to defend a next gen movie player's sales, passing them off as a video game system's when we all know the truth.  Also, my console of choice is so devoid of gaming choice that I will romanticize a craptacular game like Uncharted and be whiny when it sells poorly.

[Human Snorenado]

oh man, I thought Uncharted was really good. 

I'd probably think piss tasted great if I hadn't had anything to drink for a year too.

[duckman2000]

If a game's quality had a real impact on sales, Assassin's Creed would have sold no copies. Now that's a shitty game. A quality game like Uncharted failing to sell shitloads doesn't annoy me half as much as the fact that the aggressively mediocre Assassin's Creed broke a bunch of sales records.

[Eel O'Brian]

abrader is my consumer hero

[Grecco]

Unless you're involving yourself in some shitty fanboy dickwaving, there shouldn't be anything inherently wrong with being interested in sales stuff. Some of us just like to see the information, find out how the games we like are doing, and just to see which way the industry is turning in certain areas, regardless of whoever the fuck is 'winning'. The bitter tears, slit wrists, and suicides just happen to be a bonus.

I mean, people cheer for sports teams, even though I'd argue that they have even less of a reason to do so. I also don't get how so many people here would have a problem with numbers, when many spend their times with games that look like excel spreadsheets.

Rooting for sports teams and rooting for console makers are fundamentally different things.  i do like see dev. sales though, either to be pleased when a game I like does well, or be horrified when people don't buy a good game.

Rooting for console makers is akin to rooting for major political parties imo

[Van Cruncheon]

assassin's creed goty 2007

[Smooth Groove]

borys calling ab a sonyfag?  Wtf abrader is a fucking LEGEND at buying games for everything.  Even games most people would be afraid to rent.  

Abrader locked away his 360 and buys inferior versions of multiplatform games for his PS3.  You can't get more Sfaggish than that. 

Assassin's Creed was pretty awesome, and I was an initial hater.

AC has some flaws but it's far from a shitty game.  Is it mere coincidence that Sfags don't think highly of every major multiplatform game but hype the crap out of every exclusive game? 

[Smooth Groove]

FA, I make -35,000 a year.  I doubt many here makes less money than me. 

[Smooth Groove]

That was with the allowance my family gave me.  I'm too busy to work (supposedly  ).   

[hyp]

NPD discussions usually don't last very long on this board, so i don't mind them.  but when i used to frequent gaf...   i couldn't stand reading the NPD thread.

[cool breeze]

AC has some flaws but it's far from a shitty game.  Is it mere coincidence that Sfags don't think highly of every major multiplatform game but hype the crap out of every exclusive game? 

AC was a broken game.  It is an example in how to have awesome core mechanics but forcing the player to do boring things with those great mechanics.  It also needed a cutscene skip button.  I would have even excepted a penalty from running away when someone was talking to you.  It should have taken the Dark/Light side stuff from KOTOR and changed it to Badass/Pussy.  Either be a pussy bitch and do as you are told or have fun being a badass killing lepers and riding your horse into a city right up into the targets face and stomping him to death.  AC2 also needs to include horse parkour.  How awesome would it be to climb buildings while on your horse? very awesome.

[WrikaWrek]

If a game's quality had a real impact on sales, Assassin's Creed would have sold no copies. Now that's a shitty game. A quality game like Uncharted failing to sell shitloads doesn't annoy me half as much as the fact that the aggressively mediocre Assassin's Creed broke a bunch of sales records.

Assassins Creed is twice the game Uncharted will ever be and ever hoped to be.

Play the game with no hud and let yourself immerse in a true masterpiece. And for all the MGS fegs like me that love story and "messages", AC had a balla ass story.

[tiesto]

AC has some flaws but it's far from a shitty game.  Is it mere coincidence that Sfags don't think highly of every major multiplatform game but hype the crap out of every exclusive game? 

AC was a broken game.  It is an example in how to have awesome core mechanics but forcing the player to do boring things with those great mechanics.  It also needed a cutscene skip button.  I would have even excepted a penalty from running away when someone was talking to you.  It should have taken the Dark/Light side stuff from KOTOR and changed it to Badass/Pussy.  Either be a pussy bitch and do as you are told or have fun being a badass killing lepers and riding your horse into a city right up into the targets face and stomping him to death.  AC2 also needs to include horse parkour.  How awesome would it be to climb buildings while on your horse? very awesome.

This post here pretty much sums up the Gaming side of Evilbore and how it's opposed to NeoGAF... on here, a sales/NPD thread turns into a discussion about gameplay, while a benevolent gameplay thread will quickly escalate to console wars/sales faggotry on GAF.

[Bildi]

I'm sure Uncharted was a good game (I haven't played it), but I can't imagine it would best the GOTY2007.

Assassin's Creed

[pilonv1]

As someone who works with this sort of data the best thing about NPD discussions are how poor their conclusions are, especially since they're based on such a small set of data.

And AC was a good idea but really poorly executed.

[Mupepe]

Assassin's Creed

Breaking beggars faces since 2007, baby!

AC

I'm sure Uncharted was a good game (I haven't played it), but I can't imagine it would best the GOTY2007.

Assassin's Creed

Bildi knows what's up.

Uncharted was damn close for GOTY 2007 though.  I love it.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

 

Butthurt Sony fans crying over how shitty the NPD threads are.  I don't think they've dropped off in quality at all.  They weren't so shitty when the PS3 had a chance, were they?

The NPD threads are awesome.  They typically contain lots of denial, nerd circle jerks and self back patting, nerd rage, .gifs (some good, some bad), and we're usually treated to a couple mental breakdowns every month.  That shit is why I go to the internet these days.  They are pure entertainment.

[Joe Molotov]

If you find NPD discussions to be so annoying, then why do you participate? I just go in, get the numbers, leave. I don't need all the other BS, so I don't read it.

[siamesedreamer]

NPD discussions have sucked for a long time.

[Smooth Groove]

Just ban DFYB and the discussions will get better.  Why would we want one of GAF's worst posters?