Sales Bore | Media Create And Other Sale Numbers |OT|

[Owl-faced Wizard]

Price cut means jack without games people want to buy a system for.

[Eel O'Brian]

They do have some good games out, though, and if people didn't have to spend a minimum of $300 to play just one of those games I think they might be more inclined to buy it

[Tasty]

What would happen if the Vita was sub-5k for a few weeks? What would be the reaction from Sony, gamers, and the press?

[Tasty]

Depends on why, I suppose.  But at this point, 10k is no different from 8k is no different from 5k.  None of them are acceptable numbers for a healthy system.

But what if... it was 0k? :O

[maxy]

Not even 360 managed to do that,so Vita should be pretty safe in that regard.

[Owl-faced Wizard]

I'm starting to think Vita is some kind of scam on the part of Sony.  Like they set it up to fail, cook the books, and flee to Brazil with what they skimmed off the top of the investor's money.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

vita dropped during golden week.

hunh.

So is that good or bad? Err, slightly bad or really bad?

This is a bad concern troll.

I think the Vita is beyond saving and dropping the price won't change the fact that there is a lack of heavy hitters that will cause people to buy Vitas en masse.  I guess I should wait to say that until E3 but let's be honest here.  I wouldn't doubt that Sony has already written off the Vita already and is thinking of an intelligent way to shed it without looking terrible by doing it.

[Tasty]

vita dropped during golden week.

hunh.

So is that good or bad? Err, slightly bad or really bad?

This is a bad concern troll.

I think the Vita is beyond saving and dropping the price won't change the fact that there is a lack of heavy hitters that will cause people to buy Vitas en masse.  I guess I should wait to say that until E3 but let's be honest here.  I wouldn't doubt that Sony has already written off the Vita already and is thinking of an intelligent way to shed it without looking terrible by doing it.

No hope there.

Maaaayybe they could spin it as being better for first party dev if they only have to focus on one platform.

[Tasty]

10k was just a psychological barrier. Next one is 5k I guess and then 10k per month (which will never happen). Vita won't get as low as 5k/ week as well.

Never say never!

[Trent Dole]

Didn't it already do 5k one week?

[EmCeeGrammar]

I personally assess that the Vita is already finished.  These sales are what being irrelevant looks like.  It bombed, it can barely move software, nothing on the horizon.  Its performing like the Wii in japan after it had exhausted itself 4 years on the market.  In that regard its not even interesting to me anymore, other than the petty denial from its defendeers.  I think we should avert our gloom to the 3ds in other territories as I still think there is a discussion to be had there about its prospects. 

[Owl-faced Wizard]

Yup, 3DS needs something major in the west.  Doing trivially better than the wii is a joke for a recent system.  I don't know what can turn it around.  Hardware revision plus some sort of unforseen software hit is all I can think of.

[EmCeeGrammar]

Like I understand why Gamefreak isnt ready for 3ds development and thats why BW2 are happening, but not having a pokemon game coming out soon means the 3ds is a mario machine atm.  Mario is popular, but he's not going to carry it by himself in America.

edit: I dunno how Animal Crossing does in other territories. I was under the impression Animal Crossing Wild World only sold ok in america.

[Tasty]

If the first game is anything to go by, Luigi's Mansion 2 *might* by some goodwill and time for 3DS in America at least.

But yeah, 5th Cell needs to make another Scribblenauts-like hit for it and Nintendo needs something on the level of Brain Age and Nintendogs for the DS. Those (and NSMB, of course) are what really made the DS in America.

[EmCeeGrammar]

The thing is I still consider Luigi a part of the Mario thang that the 3ds has enough of at this point.  For reference, there will be a point where the 3ds has paper mario, luigi's mansion, super mario 3d land, new super mario bros 2, mario kart ds, and mario vs sonic olympics, and mario tennis all available.  It just seems like such a crutch at this point when they should be aiming to bring in all types of audiences.  Not everyone loves Mario.

[EmCeeGrammar]

Something about the business model is going to have to fundamentally change to get software moving in higher volumes again (in reference to portables- maybe consoles too).  I hear about how such and such games sold a lot of their respectable units at a discount price.  To me, this is encouraging actually.  It would seem to imply that if you could, oh I dunno, have fiscally responsible development budgets a publisher would be able to sell their games at lower impulse prices and enjoy long legs on many titles over a longer period of time.  That sounds sustainable and healthy to me.  Whats not encouraging is the reality of how publishers act.  I guess it was a ballooning of expectations that took place during the ps2 era and now they're still trying to find a way to hit those highs by throwing more money at the problem.

I'm not sure how low they can go on 3ds software in particular, but its not 30-40 dollars for Shinobi or whathaveyou.

[Tasty]

Retail games on eShop is a good start I think. Might get people buying more, less barrier to entry.

Of course, that won't be reported by NPD so it might not help other dev's perceptions unless Nintendo is highly public about things.

[Tasty]

a lot of devs don't have access to NPD numbers, actually, haha

I've been the source for more than a few developers wanting to find out the NPD numbers on their own games

Well, moreso publishers then. They're the ones funding and dictating which games get made anyways.

[maxy]

Smart Phones are portable entertainment hardware too

[Tasty]

That's true, but they don't usually make those decisions based on NPD data.  Particularly Japanese publishers.  As for Western publishers, I wouldn't expect anything more on the 3DS than there was on the DS.

I understand, but that's still based on publishers (I was talking about western devs when I mentioned the NPD.) If a publisher doesn't want smaller devs like 5th Cell or Renegade Kid to make a game for 3DS they wanna make, it isn't going to happen unless those devs skip publishers altogether and go to the eShop (as RK seems to be increasingly gravitating towards.) Maybe that's what prompted the whole "retail on eShop" thing, who knows.

[Cerveza mas fina]

They should have had GT ready for Vita launch, a real GT. GT is still Sony's best selling franchise.

On another note Diablo 3 is now Blizzards most pre-ordered game

[maxy]

Nintendo better do something fast for 3DS in the West cuz it looks like even toasters will come with a tablet(portable screen).Dedicated handhels might end much sooner than people think.
If(when) tablets break into kids(parents) market,Nintendo can just pack and go home.

Gloomy,yeah but I don't think there is any long term solution except to join the pack.

 

[Cerveza mas fina]

My friend is a teacher and 5 year olds are bringing iPads to school already, rich folks but still things will only get cheaper.

[frod]

I don't really see tablets are any more of an issue than Playstations, Xbox, or Smartphones. iPhone is five years old this year and yet the 3DS is selling very well still.

[archnemesis]

The most impressive iPad games I've seen so far are really old ports of shoot 'em ups, like Espgaluda II, and a Gameloft port of the excellent strategy game The Settlers. Until the platform get more high quality exclusives I think the other consoles and handhelds will do fine.

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

I can't stand touch screen gaming and have had only a couple of decent experiences with it.  Better to get burned with a 99 cent game than a $40 3DS game though.

[EmCeeGrammar]

(Image removed from quote.)

On topic.

Sure.  I have an iPhone, though, and y'know, I'll take a lot of $40 3DS/DS/PSP games over 40 of some of the more popular iOS games.  I'm not saying there aren't any great, deep games on there, because there are, particularly in certain genres.  But without buttons, I'm sorry, some genres you're just doing the latest version of the Wiitard Waggle.

And that's not even touching on how the shift to IAP models are completely fucking up the designs on most iOS games these days.

Omg this.  So much this.  I'm almost scared to download stuff cus I don't know how much of the game design is compromised by this bullshit. 

[magus]

one free-to-play browser game i kinda liked at first has dungeons that last 2 hours

but for only 2 cent you can save your game! isn't that usefull and cheap?

[cool breeze]

yeah, the IAP stuff is awful.  The higher profile games like Infinity Blade have it too.  They just make the grind slower to force your hand.  Instead I just stop playing and move onto something else.

that said, $40 is too much for most 3DS and Vita games.  That's without including the $50 tier Uncharted and Resident Evil (tried to) make.

[Eel O'Brian]

When I had an iPad I bought a lot of .99 games and played them for, like, five minutes, never to touch them again. The iOS game library is much better now, for sure, but I'd imagine the vast majority are still those disposable types of games where you play for five minutes and forget you ever bought it.  I think there can be a "happy" medium in pricing with dedicated handheld games, and there needs to be a larger focus on the $10 and under games. Games which offer a bit more depth than the average tablet or phone game, but don't require as much of an initial investment while still offering proper controls suited to the game type. For instance, Uncharted: Golden Abyss could have been a 3-4 hour $8-15 "side story" type game instead of a full-blown console experience. You'd still get a nice chunk of pretty graphics and story, but for much better value. It's just not a $40-50 handheld game world anymore (with a few exceptions, of course).

[Tasty]

Vita's sales don't seem so bad to me. *shrugs* I was hoping for worse.

[Takao]

Those Vita sales are pretty terrible. I have no clue as to how Hirai thinks it's sane to put a 16 million unit estimate for PSP+Vita unless they plan on bundling them with PS3s or something.

[maxy]

UK:
April, 2012 - Software Market Share By Format (Units) - 2,015,355

1 1 [360] 36.7% (739,635)
2 2 [PS3] 22.9% (461,516)
3 4 [WII] 12.9% (259,981)
4 5 [NDS] 10.4% (209,597)
5 3 [PCD] 10.2% (205,566)
6 6 [3DS] 4.7% (94,722)
7 7 [PSV] 1.5% (30,230)
8 8 [PSP] 0.9% (18,138)
9 9 [PS2] 0.1% (2,015)

[Takao]

That software share actually is better than I'd have expected. It's practically nothing, but Sony can only go up from 1.5%, right?

[archie4208]

Yeah.  A balance would be nice.  Unfortunately, this IAP model works out really well for the game companies, so I actually expect things to move towards it rather than away from it.

As a concrete example:  Team Fortress 2's revenue increased twelvefold after going F2P.  (Of course you could argue that a 4 year old game won't be generating much revenue in the first place, but still an increase nonetheless).

F2P multiplayer games will be the norm, outside of monstrous titles such as Call of Duty, in a few years.

[maxy]

http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/business/million.html

Resident Evil Operation Raccoon City: 1,700,000 (NA+EU only)
Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) G: 1,600,000 (Japan only)
Street Fighter X Tekken: 1,400,000

Bad taste people^TM

  hehe

[Tasty]

Either ORC sold a shit-ton in Europe or Capcom really, really overshipped it.  NA only accounts for about 600k of sales.

Holy beezy.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

another month no 3ds in teh top 10 while Vita goes on its second month

[Huff]

bet all the numbers are horrible

[EmCeeGrammar]

I think someone at gaf calculated that Prototype 2 can't be above 232k.  That's real shitty. 

[EmCeeGrammar]

So, generational fatigue or long lasting comeuppance coming to fruition?

[Huff]

It's not like there were any big hitters last month, there should be an upswing may

[tiesto]

Wait, where is Xenoblade? I thought that game charged this month

[pilonv1]

Retailer exclusive

[Takao]

Retailer exclusive

I'm fairly certain NPD tracks Gamestop. The game likely just didn't sell amazingly well.

[Takao]

Prototype 2 sold like a third of what the first one did. It didn't really do well, and only placed first because it was a new game in a dead month.

[Owl-faced Wizard]

creamsugar said Vita hardware sold less than Kid Icarus.  I don't know if that's good or bad but it sounds bad.

[Great Rumbler]

It sold 220,000 according to VGChartz.

[MyNameIsMethodis]

Maybe it's time I leak who creamsugar is to protect Sony?

[MyNameIsMethodis]

It's not like GAF is well secured any one with a brian could run a few db checks and get everyones password ip and e-mail 

[MyNameIsMethodis]

because some of hte mods that had their psn hacked and was on the list were stupid enough to use the same password as their e-mail and I have it rerouting to another e-mail address so i can take their password and get into the admin panel 






















i wish i was that smart

[pilonv1]

smh methodis

[recursivelyenumerable]

I sold a billion copies of myself today

[Damian79]

Acclaimed Wii RPG Xenoblade Chronicles was a retailer exclusive, so is excluded from NPD's monthly report.

retailer exclusivity.

[Damian79]

WORLDWIDE LTD VITA SALES

1 800 000 units

Not good, right?

It isnt 3ds levels but it is still good.  The 3ds has sold like 4.5 million in the last year.

EDIT: Wait the 3ds number is just in the US?

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2012/05/video-game-sales-hit-five-month-sales-slide/1#.T6xgCOtYvHS

[Owl-faced Wizard]

so apparently the ds outsold vita. interesting.

EDIT:

PSP < PS2 < Vita < Wii < DS < 3DS < 150k < PS3 < 200k < 360

that's the current estimate

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

32% decrease?  Wow

[Tasty]

so apparently the ds outsold vita. interesting.

EDIT:

PSP < PS2 < Vita < Wii < DS < 3DS < 150k < PS3 < 200k < 360

that's the current estimate

Those are pitiful sales all around. 200k on the upper bound...

[Beezy]

Either ORC sold a shit-ton in Europe or Capcom really, really overshipped it.  NA only accounts for about 600k of sales.

Holy beezy.

You called?

[Tasty]

I was just deifying you, think nothing of it.

Beezy