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NPD March 2022 Results - More info tomorrow

johnjohn

Member
I do think MS are benefitting a ton from PS5 (and now potentially Switch) shortages for sure, but they also deserve some credit for some of the things they've been doing well just on their own, too. Mainly, in this period of the year where people are probably short on cash after the holiday season, and before tax returns come through, MS having stuff like the All-Access program and, yes, GamePass (including the various deals) are probably giving them a boost in addition to lack of supply from competitors.

That will most likely change relatively quickly and suddenly going into the second half of the year, but for now and April, possibly even May, I can see Xbox being the higher seller in pure hardware between it and PS5 in US & UK markets. That will probably start changing beginning around June, though, since Sony probably wants enough stock to go around once they relaunch PS+ and also to ride off momentum gained from their June E3-style showcase.

Also I just took a look and yeah, PS5 resell prices have actually gone down a bit. Like a month ago I would see Disc models going new for $900+, a bit before that some going for as much as $1200. There must've been some big drops for PS5 in April after all.



Are you saying PS's numbers will be down 33% globally for the quarter, or am I misreading that? I know their hardware sales have been quite low in US & parts of Europe due to lack of chips, but haven't they been trying to get a good spread of supply to other foreign markets at the same time?

Or is that 33% down based on their reduced shipment forecast? I could believe that; PS division as a whole I don't think would be anywhere near that far down. At worst, they should just remain flat quarter-over-quarter.



Isn't there another vampire co-op game coming for PS5 (and maybe PS4) this year? It was shown in their September showcase last year.

Anyway about Arkane & Redfall...I'm optimistic on Redfall, but some of the latest rumors are it's less like Borderlands and more like Back4Blood, which came and went pretty quickly. I also doubt a game like Redfall (or Deathloop, for that matter) is going to bring in a big influx of new GP subscribers on its own. We saw something of what peak of new subs 1P games could bring in with FH5 and Halo Infinite late last year, and total growth in sub base that year from the one before was 7 million.

So realistically, how many new subs do you think RedFall will bring in? Does anyone have any guesses for how many the combination of RedFall, Starfield and Forza Motorsport 8/reboot could bring in (since those are the only 1P MS games that will most likely release this year)? Do you think it will be more or equal to the 7 million we saw the previous year that also had Forza Horizon 5 (keep in mind the FH series is more popular than the mainline one) and Halo Infinite (which is basically MS's marquee IP....if only in name and maybe not for much longer by the time some of these other big IP have new releases)?
Starfield is probably going to be the biggest new Xbox IP since Halo, I could definitely see Starfield alone easily surpassing that 7 million number. But a steady flow of quality games like Redfall, Forza, Starfield, and Deathloop is what will attract new subscribers and keep current subscribers. Xbox should finally be hitting their stride now with first party games, so we really shouldn't be seeing any large gaps going forward.

In regards to console sales in the US, I wouldn't really expect the PS5 to start taking over the sales charts long term. The Xbox One still managed to be very close to the PS4 in the US, so I think the PS5 is going to have a tough time outselling the Series X and S this gen.
 
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leo-j

Member
PS5 had already fallen behind PS4 by 2.9million, it will probably be 3 million or more behind when Sony reveal Q4 numbers on the 10th of May. They forecast PS5 to ship 2m and PS4 shipped 2.2m in the corresponding quarter. For this upcoming corresponding year PS4 shipped 17.70m and there is no way PS5 can reach that number with these crippling supply problems, i'd be happy with 15m or 16m at this point.

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Except they are targeting to catch ps4 numbers by the end of the year. They expect supply chains to improve enough to get them back on track the second half of the year. We shall see if that has changed in their upcoming forecast.
 

Deerock71

Member
Except they are targeting to catch ps4 numbers by the end of the year. They expect supply chains to improve enough to get them back on track the second half of the year. We shall see if that has changed in their upcoming forecast.
I honestly think it's pie-in-the-sky expectations if one can't soberly state that some of the wind has indeed left Sony's sails because of these chip shortages and pretty crippling inflation going on right now. Sony can't cut costs or prices, so they're kind of in a box canyon.
 
Being #1 in dollar sales is totally meaningless. I'm pretty sure Nintendo profits more on each Switch sold than MS does on an Xbox. Also the Nintendo consumer has more money left over to spend on games, which have a much better profit margin than hardware.
 

Hezekiah

Banned
no? and what is that thing over my desk??????? i have to check better
There's no way that somebody who's constantly crying about buying full-price games has a good gaming PC.

And if you do, you're just a port beggar who hasn't accepted that any PC ports will be as and when Sony sees fit because Playstation will remain their main focus.
 

Dr Bass

Member
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Luckily your opinion isn't important to anyone but you.
Luckily there are also many people who hold the same opinion. And we've been over this publisher of the year baloney too. It's nonsense, and the argument of "appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy so get over it.

The games actually don't measure up. I know because I play them all. You can easily find the reasons why, just look through my post history if you even care.

Do you ever notice I don't post GotY awards, or other reviews that show BotW as the best rated game ever made when people bash Sony games, or Nintendo games? For example. God of War 2018 was basically the "GotY" across most publications.

I don't think it's all that great of a game, for many reasons. And I can enumerate them. But reviews and awards are nonsense. They are in the case of GoW, and they are in this case. The games MS released last year are all tired retreads, or average sequels. All of them. And there were only 5 of them in total.

Anyway, moving on. You can keep clinging to things like growth numbers (even though Xbox is still last) and profit that MS as a whole makes (even though that has zero to do with gaming), when gamers are begging for good new games on the Xbox platform. Xbox doesn't need the thirteenth Forza game since 2005. They don't need so many Halos that MS threw their hands up and said "who knows, it's just Infinite now." They need something fresh, and original.

The bottom line is this. You continue to point to Metacritic, earnings, and anything along these lines for one reason. You can't point to games. Period.

It's funny. You look at the Sony fanboys on this site, like SlimySnake and the now defunct Bryank. They are/were hardcore fans, but they spend most of their time criticizing Sony to do better, because they expect more. Even though Sony is clearly the dominant console maker between these two. Meanwhile you Xbox fanboys will fight, spit, kick, and claw at the truth to spin anything and everything that ever happens as MS doing no wrong. And the weird thing is I don't think you know you are doing it. Again like I mentioned. Stockholm syndrome.

Remember this. Demand better. People who buy Xbox deserve it.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Luckily there are also many people who hold the same opinion. And we've been over this publisher of the year baloney too. It's nonsense, and the argument of "appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy so get over it.

The games actually don't measure up. I know because I play them all. You can easily find the reasons why, just look through my post history if you even care.

Do you ever notice I don't post GotY awards, or other reviews that show BotW as the best rated game ever made when people bash Sony games, or Nintendo games? For example. God of War 2018 was basically the "GotY" across most publications.

I don't think it's all that great of a game, for many reasons. And I can enumerate them. But reviews and awards are nonsense. They are in the case of GoW, and they are in this case. The games MS released last year are all tired retreads, or average sequels. All of them. And there were only 5 of them in total.

Anyway, moving on. You can keep clinging to things like growth numbers (even though Xbox is still last) and profit that MS as a whole makes (even though that has zero to do with gaming), when gamers are begging for good new games on the Xbox platform. Xbox doesn't need the thirteenth Forza game since 2005. They don't need so many Halos that MS threw their hands up and said "who knows, it's just Infinite now." They need something fresh, and original.

The bottom line is this. You continue to point to Metacritic, earnings, and anything along these lines for one reason. You can't point to games. Period.

It's funny. You look at the Sony fanboys on this site, like SlimySnake and the now defunct Bryank. They are/were hardcore fans, but they spend most of their time criticizing Sony to do better, because they expect more. Even though Sony is clearly the dominant console maker between these two. Meanwhile you Xbox fanboys will fight, spit, kick, and claw at the truth to spin anything and everything that ever happens as MS doing no wrong. And the weird thing is I don't think you know you are doing it. Again like I mentioned. Stockholm syndrome.

Remember this. Demand better. People who buy Xbox deserve it.
LOL.

So you are claiming to GAF your opinion about MS's games stinks because "you played them all" and your opinion overrules all the game sites who compiled into 100s of reviews to form an MC score.

That post of yours yesterday a few pages back with your proof the games stink was a zinger.

Your Forza one was the best. The game is an afterthought because "it's not my thing". That's got to be the most concrete reason on Earth why you think FH5 doesnt deserve good scores, where tons of game critics overrated the game.


Forza is not my thing. It's cool for people that it is I'm sure. Xbox has something here for sure.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
You summed it up pretty well. It wasn't a good time for Xbox fans in 2015/16. The games were just not there and third party games were noticeably inferior on Xbox compared to PS4. And then in January 2017 the gut punch of Scalebound being cancelled was announced. That summer, however, Game Pass was unveiled and the following year the acquisitions of Ninja Theory, Playground, and the rest were announced. And then Xbox One X was released in November 2017 which, although not making a massive difference in sales, highlighted a massive change in design philosophy from the original Xbox One. I'd say 2017 was the year things began to turn around for Xbox.

Today, of course, is a monumentally different story from what I'd say was the darkest years for Xbox outside of RROD.
RROD didn't even really kill Xbox 360 momentum, though. It cost Microsoft a lot of money but most people didn't abandon 360 over it. There were idiots on this very forum claiming that MS counted every refurb they shipped out as a sale to try to downplay that 360 was still holding its own against PS3 despite RROD. Sony was bleeding themselves out with the massive PS3 hardware financial losses they incurred for most of that generation. When the Xbox One/PS4 generation started it really was Microsoft's game to lose. They completely shit the bed with Xbox One strategy betting on TV over games. If they hadn't shut down their studios and forced Kinect they probably could have continued to go toe to toe with Sony.

You're right that the release of One X is where Microsoft started to turn it around. That's when I started buying more games on Xbox because most third party games were better on One X than PS4 Pro. I have both One X and PS4 Pro and bought games for both but Microsoft did outright lose a lot of customers to Sony because of how much OG One sucked. With PS5 and Series being BC many people won't go back to Xbox because they have an established PlayStation library they don't want to give up. But I think Microsoft is going to do much better this gen with the path they're on.
 

johnjohn

Member
Luckily there are also many people who hold the same opinion. And we've been over this publisher of the year baloney too. It's nonsense, and the argument of "appeal to authority" is a logical fallacy so get over it.

The games actually don't measure up. I know because I play them all. You can easily find the reasons why, just look through my post history if you even care.

Do you ever notice I don't post GotY awards, or other reviews that show BotW as the best rated game ever made when people bash Sony games, or Nintendo games? For example. God of War 2018 was basically the "GotY" across most publications.

I don't think it's all that great of a game, for many reasons. And I can enumerate them. But reviews and awards are nonsense. They are in the case of GoW, and they are in this case. The games MS released last year are all tired retreads, or average sequels. All of them. And there were only 5 of them in total.

Anyway, moving on. You can keep clinging to things like growth numbers (even though Xbox is still last) and profit that MS as a whole makes (even though that has zero to do with gaming), when gamers are begging for good new games on the Xbox platform. Xbox doesn't need the thirteenth Forza game since 2005. They don't need so many Halos that MS threw their hands up and said "who knows, it's just Infinite now." They need something fresh, and original.

The bottom line is this. You continue to point to Metacritic, earnings, and anything along these lines for one reason. You can't point to games. Period.

It's funny. You look at the Sony fanboys on this site, like SlimySnake and the now defunct Bryank. They are/were hardcore fans, but they spend most of their time criticizing Sony to do better, because they expect more. Even though Sony is clearly the dominant console maker between these two. Meanwhile you Xbox fanboys will fight, spit, kick, and claw at the truth to spin anything and everything that ever happens as MS doing no wrong. And the weird thing is I don't think you know you are doing it. Again like I mentioned. Stockholm syndrome.

Remember this. Demand better. People who buy Xbox deserve it.
MS being publisher of the year last year says otherwise. They currently put out better games than any other publisher.
 

Topher

Gold Member
RROD didn't even really kill Xbox 360 momentum, though. It cost Microsoft a lot of money but most people didn't abandon 360 over it. There were idiots on this very forum claiming that MS counted every refurb they shipped out as a sale to try to downplay that 360 was still holding its own against PS3 despite RROD. Sony was bleeding themselves out with the massive PS3 hardware financial losses they incurred for most of that generation. When the Xbox One/PS4 generation started it really was Microsoft's game to lose. They completely shit the bed with Xbox One strategy betting on TV over games. If they hadn't shut down their studios and forced Kinect they probably could have continued to go toe to toe with Sony.

You're right that the release of One X is where Microsoft started to turn it around. That's when I started buying more games on Xbox because most third party games were better on One X than PS4 Pro. I have both One X and PS4 Pro and bought games for both but Microsoft did outright lose a lot of customers to Sony because of how much OG One sucked. With PS5 and Series being BC many people won't go back to Xbox because they have an established PlayStation library they don't want to give up. But I think Microsoft is going to do much better this gen with the path they're on.

Good points. The difference with Xbox 360 was the fact that it had a hell of a lot of games that allowed it to push through RROD. So I get your point that RROD wasn't as bad as my post made it seem. The 360/PS4 gen was like the mirror image of the PS4/Xbox One. PS3 and Xbox One....overcomplicated, too expensive, not well thought out, and both squandered the success of their predecessors. Xbox 360, PS4.....simple, powerful, lots of games.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
Good points. The difference with Xbox 360 was the fact that it had a hell of a lot of games that allowed it to push through RROD. So I get your point that RROD wasn't as bad as my post made it seem. The 360/PS4 gen was like the mirror image of the PS4/Xbox One. PS3 and Xbox One....overcomplicated, too expensive, not well thought out, and both squandered the success of their predecessors. Xbox 360, PS4.....simple, powerful, lots of games.
Microsoft tried to make Xbox One a set top box with gaming as just one of the things it could do. They were totally stupid with how they approached it. The architecture was pretty simple for it, too. Had they invested in a more powerful graphics architecture instead of arm flapping and talking to your console it could have been so more. Don Mattrick is a moron.
 
Starfield is probably going to be the biggest new Xbox IP since Halo, I could definitely see Starfield alone easily surpassing that 7 million number. But a steady flow of quality games like Redfall, Forza, Starfield, and Deathloop is what will attract new subscribers and keep current subscribers. Xbox should finally be hitting their stride now with first party games, so we really shouldn't be seeing any large gaps going forward.

Potentially, but those games are going to need their own marketing pushes as well. One of MS's weaknesses is that when it comes to traditional marketing, they just plain suck ass at it. Especially nowadays; back in the OG Xbox and through a lot of the 360 days they were quite decent but now especially with them shifting to GamePass, they advertise GamePass more than they advertise the individual games in the service.

Either that, or they rely on WOM almost too much. And when I say traditional marketing, I mean advertising that goes beyond avenues hardcore and core gamers would notice or pay attention to. Without ramping up traditional advertising for those games as well I can't see them pushing annual GP growth beyond the 7 million they did last year.

In regards to console sales in the US, I wouldn't really expect the PS5 to start taking over the sales charts long term. The Xbox One still managed to be very close to the PS4 in the US, so I think the PS5 is going to have a tough time outselling the Series X and S this gen.

TBF, part of that was down to market distribution priority. The US was the only market XBO really had a presence in, so MS concentrated the vast majority of their stock in that market. PS4 had many other markets to take care of, so stock had to be diverted, and there were only ever but so many systems they could've made annually.

If anything the pretty strong sales for XBO in the US showed how big the gaming market still was in that market; it's likely if Sony prioritized more hardware for the US market they would've gotten a lot of those sales instead, or maybe they would've just gotten more overall sales while having only a lessened impacted on total XBO sales in the region.
 

leo-j

Member
I honestly think it's pie-in-the-sky expectations if one can't soberly state that some of the wind has indeed left Sony's sails because of these chip shortages and pretty crippling inflation going on right now. Sony can't cut costs or prices, so they're kind of in a box canyon.
Which pushes them to look elsewhere to gain market share. The game subscription market, and possibly the PC market. They have launched Horizon and God Of War and have sold an extra couple millions doing so. They may also have to create a series S like for PS otherwise they will continue to lose market share if they can’t keep up with demand in 2022. Series S will be the go to console since it’s the only nexgen console available to purchase.
 

MScarpa

Member
If anything the pretty strong sales for XBO in the US showed how big the gaming market still was in that market; it's likely if Sony prioritized more hardware for the US market they would've gotten a lot of those sales instead, or maybe they would've just gotten more overall sales while having only a lessened impacted on total XBO sales in the region.
I'm curious but I always thought USA was and has been the biggest gaming market for quite awhile. Did it change recently?
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
I'm curious but I always thought USA was and has been the biggest gaming market for quite awhile. Did it change recently?

I think EU combined may be as big, if not bigger, than US.

I may be wrong there though.
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
North America in general is the biggest region for console gaming by far. Nothing else comes close

It's why all the major Japanese publishers are so focused on appealing to western audiences now
They shouldn't have dropped Japan, though. Not that they have completely, but seriously. The Switch proves that you can have both.
 
They shouldn't have dropped Japan, though. Not that they have completely, but seriously. The Switch proves that you can have both.

The ps5 also proves that, it’s hardware is selling just as well there, pretty sure its approaching 2 million consoles already. It’s the software thats suffering but thats due to scalping

If sony didn’t care about japan they wouldn’t still be buying timed exclusivity for japanese games
 
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I'm curious but I always thought USA was and has been the biggest gaming market for quite awhile. Did it change recently?

I think EU combined may be as big, if not bigger, than US.

I may be wrong there though.

Going by some data I pulled for another topic further back, at least for console gaming yes, US is the biggest market. For gaming altogether, though, it's China. Europe isn't that far behind the US, I think it was maybe an $8 - $10 billion difference for gaming as a whole IIRC.

North America in general is the biggest region for console gaming by far. Nothing else comes close

It's why all the major Japanese publishers are so focused on appealing to western audiences now

Let's just hope they don't forget the reason their games do well in the West is because they usually aren't aping Western design tropes. I swear if Japanese devs start making their female characters as plain as most Western developers do, we're gonna have problems.

If Capcom tones down the sexiness for SF6 female cast, I'll be kinda pissed. Put the guys in speedos if they must, just let me appreciate the ladies. Fair is fair.
 
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Going by some data I pulled for another topic further back, at least for console gaming yes, US is the biggest market. For gaming altogether, though, it's China. Europe isn't that far behind the US, I think it was maybe an $8 - $10 billion difference for gaming as a whole IIRC.



Let's just hope they don't forget the reason their games do well in the West is because they usually aren't aping Western design tropes. I swear if Japanese devs start making their female characters as plain as most Western developers do, we're gonna have problems.

If Capcom tones down the sexiness for SF6 female cast, I'll be kinda pissed. Put the guys in speedos if they must, just let me appreciate the ladies. Fair is fair.

Don’t worry you’ll till get your loli waifu’ s

loli liner GIF
 
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Playstation software chart is the most interesting here. Elden Ring outselling the best selling Gran Turismo game ever, and ER is in its second month. What an absolute beast of a game.
 
Playstation software chart is the most interesting here. Elden Ring outselling the best selling Gran Turismo game ever, and ER is in its second month. What an absolute beast of a game.

Its not that interesting that a really popular multiplatform game is outselling a racing sim on two platforms, as popular as Gran Turismo is, it’s still a very straight to the point racing game that won’t appeal to a lot of non-car people.

I think its more interesting that Gran Turismo 7 despite all that is #2 on NPD for March
 
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Its not that interesting that a really popular multiplatform game is outselling a racing sim on two platforms, as popular as Gran Turismo is, it’s still a very straight to the point racing game that won’t appeal to a lot of non-car people.

I think its more interesting that Gran Turismo 7 despite all that is #2 on NPD for March
I'm talking about the Playstation only chart.

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Elden Ring outselling Gran Turismo and also Horizon is super impressive imo.
 
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