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NPD Sales Results for January 2010

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
TTP said:
Is it really difficult to find Slims there in USA?

Here in Burlington NC Wiis are impossible, PS3 slims are relatively low but can be found with some hunting. 360's are plentiful, but with ME2 and Bioshock two hitting, thats great for them.
Obviously we're not the best population sample, but those are the trends here.
 

kitzkozan

Member
jon_irenicus said:
Mass Effect 2 did in-line with what was expected of a sequel to a big budget RPG. I'm not expecting it to chart highly the following month though. In comparison, Fallout 3 did 375,000 units (XBOX 360) in it's first 3 days.

Fallout 3 shipped 4.7 million copies however,so they probably anticipated that it would have a lot of legs.

I think Mass effect 2 will easily make it to 2 million copies sold,so let's see where it's at in 3 months.
 

FrankT

Member
Karma said:
Best January for the 360 ever. Hard to believe after 5 years.

No growth bro. Quite surprising indeed. It should hit 20 million in the next few months. With a proper price cut in the fall it should be a good year as the SW looks very good this year. If they were really smart they would hit it with a redesign as well coupled with Natal launch.

Blast Processing said:
If any of those games is in the top 10 next month I'll wear the same pair of boxers from NPD day to NPD day.

HR should make it somewhere likely so it might be a rough month.
 

Canova

Banned
Macintosh360 said:
Poor Bayonetta, go Mass Effect 2 and 360 overall sales (only 6 days for ME2) - also I wonder if that number for Darksiders is good?

It;s pretty good,

1. considering it won in a head-to-head match up with Bayonetta
2. New franchise from a new developer
3. Darksiders PS3 number should not be far behind
4. This is still U.S only number
 

Fredescu

Member
wizword said:
Shipments for sequels are front loaded in most cases.
Good point. I still think shipped numbers from publishers are more representative of reality than a single figure for a single platform in a single region.
 

DMeisterJ

Banned
Blast Processing said:
If any of those games is in the top 10 next month I'll wear the same pair of boxers from NPD day to NPD day.

Even if they don't chart, we'll hopefully get numbers (at least for HR) which should incite much discussion.
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
templeusox said:
Already wrong.

Would love to be wrong, but unless Sony has a SUPER HEAVY INTENSIVE TV ad campaign cooked up, Heavy Rain will not chart in the top 10. Not hating, I already have the game preordered, but reality tells me "nope"
 

Mrbob

Member
TTP said:
Is it really difficult to find Slims there in USA?

Yes. At least the 120s are hard to find still. Plenty of 250s to go around (which is $349.99). I'm of the opinion Sony is shorting the 120s on purpose, because they lose money on the 120 whereas it sounds like they are close to breaking even on the 250s.
 
When was the last time a retail online only game was successful? I was planning on buying MAG but I don't have time to dedicate to an online only game with all the good single player stuff coming this year and backlog to boot.
 
I will bite.

Bayonetta didn't deserve to sell well. Not only is it fighting your standard main-character-sexism bit, they went out of their way to make her, and really the whole damn game, as divisive as possible. But worst of all, I doubt 10% of the first hour is gameplay, and what is there is both disjointed and chaotic. This is not a game that can be sold on word of mouth by the general public, or even deserves to be.

Oh and I totally doubt EA is happy with those ME2 sales. Those are not good numbers for a game so propped up as such a big franchise. Missing the holidays seems to have been rather harsh, doubly so because their biggest competitors did utter bank in their absence. And they could have easily sold 200k on the PS3.
 

Man God

Non-Canon Member
truly101 said:
WOold love to be wrong, but unless Sony has a SUPER HEAVY INTENSIVE TV ad campaign cooked up, Heavy Rain will not chart in the top 10. Not hating, I already have the game preordered, but reality tells me "nope"

Late February? PS3? Not an established franchise, and not an FPS?

Probably not.

February is going to be more ME2, more MW2, and a lot of Nintendo stuff.
 
Maxwell House said:
Any truth to the notion that PS3 suffered shortages in January? Is that why the numbers look paltry compared to 360?

pal⋅try
–adjective, -tri⋅er, -tri⋅est.
1. ridiculously or insultingly small
 

LevityNYC

Banned
Son of Godzilla said:
I will bite.

Bayonetta didn't deserve to sell well. Not only is it fighting your standard main-character-sexism bit, they went out of their way to make her, and really the whole damn game, as divisive as possible. But worst of all, I doubt 10% of the first hour is gameplay, and what is there is both disjointed and chaotic. This is not a game that can be sold on word of mouth by the general public, or even deserves to be.

This.
 

squicken

Member
Mass Effect 2 numbers are disappointing. The first week is the key week for big titles. Saying "only six days" misses the point.

EA has to be frustrated. They advertised it extensively. It's a great game. And it didn't sell that great.
 
truly101 said:
Would love to be wrong, but unless Sony has a SUPER HEAVY INTENSIVE TV ad campaign cooked up, Heavy Rain will not chart in the top 10. Not hating, I already have the game preordered, but reality tells me "nope"
The game is already generating a lot of casual buzz. Was in GS today and the clerk told me they have seen pre-orders go up significantly in the last two weeks. It's also #1 on Amazon's top 100.
 

watership

Member
Maxwell House said:
Any truth to the notion that PS3 suffered shortages in January? Is that why the numbers look paltry compared to 360?

I knew a guy who saw a guy in a store somewhere who said he couldn't find a ps3 once.

So yes.
 
TTP said:
This Tretton blog post has been posted already, but I'd like to quote a more amusing portion of it:



<b>Is it really difficult to find Slims there in USA?</b>


In my experience, they are usually sold out, or 1 on the shelf. I'm just a consumer though, so I only know what I see at various stores.

Good job ME2, still need to beat part 1, and then I'll add a +1 to your total. I Would like to see numbers on MAG.

Nice work Darksiders, great game. I predict Heavy Rain will chart next month(if amazon is anything to go by) to the poster up there ^^^

Capture-1.png
 

jvm

Gamasutra.
Thunder Monkey said:
I'll say this once... no.
Wellllll. As a guy who had a 60GB PS3 die in January, I was in my local (fairly rural) Wal-mart on 30 January buying a Slim. The guy at the register was chatting with me (he used to have a 360, sold it, has a Wii but doesn't play it ... wish I were making that up, it's so cliche) and he said "these just came in". I asked what he meant, and he said they'd gone several weeks (who knows how long ... could be 2 - 3, I suppose) without any PS3s in the case.

So that'd suggest that at least in one semi-rural Wal-mart in the U.S. there was a shortage. Extrapolate to the whole country using whatever model you want, and there you go! Either a shortage or a non-shortage! :lol
 

ShogunX

Member
templeusox said:
Already wrong.


I honestly cant see in any way how Heavy Rain will outsell something like MAG never mind hit top 10 NPD. Despite the game being reviewed well I still think of it being more of a niche title.
 

Chozo

Member
lawblob said:
With the right marketing it could look very cool. Who knows, though.

Honestly, Heavy Rain strikes me as the sort of arthouse-style project that will get rave critical reviews and sell like shit. Admittedly, GS guys talking about how preorders are going up is certainly not a bad thing, but I remember hearing GS guys talking about how they were getting a lot of preorders for Madworld too.
 

farnham

Banned
Son of Godzilla said:
I will bite.

Bayonetta didn't deserve to sell well. Not only is it fighting your standard main-character-sexism bit, they went out of their way to make her, and really the whole damn game, as divisive as possible. But worst of all, I doubt 10% of the first hour is gameplay, and what is there is both disjointed and chaotic. This is not a game that can be sold on word of mouth by the general public, or even deserves to be.

Oh and I totally doubt EA is happy with those ME2 sales. Those are not good numbers for a game so propped up as such a big franchise. Missing the holidays seems to have been rather harsh, doubly so because their biggest competitors did utter bank in their absence. And they could have easily sold 200k on the PS3.
ME2 sales are good.. but Army of Two dropped off like a rock.. the first one sold 800k in its first month
 

truly101

I got grudge sucked!
Man God said:
Late February? PS3? Not an established franchise, and not an FPS?

Probably not.

February is going to be more ME2, more MW2, and a lot of Nintendo stuff.

I agree. There is only one February release that will definitely chart, thats Bioshock 2. Dante's Inferno .....might..... The odds are against Heavy Rain. I expect Heavy Rain to do well but its going to be a slooooow burn word of mouth type game.
 
jcm said:
They were totally gone at the beginning of January. Amazon and Best Buy had none.
Anecdotal evidence says the contrary!

Wii's were sold out, but PS3's and 360's were on the shelves in Kansas.

jvm said:
Wellllll. As a guy who had a 60GB PS3 die in January, I was in my local (fairly rural) Wal-mart on 30 January buying a Slim. The guy at the register was chatting with me (he used to have a 360, sold it, has a Wii but doesn't play it ... wish I were making that up, it's so cliche) and he said "these just came in". I asked what he meant, and he said they'd gone several weeks (who knows how long ... could be 2 - 3, I suppose) without any PS3s in the case.

So that'd suggest that at least in one semi-rural Wal-mart in the U.S. there was a shortage. Extrapolate to the whole country using whatever model you want, and there you go! Either a shortage or a non-shortage! :lol
My anecdotal evidence wiiiins the day!

NO SHORTAGE!

*puffs pipe*
 

soyboy

Junior Member
squicken said:
Mass Effect 2 numbers are disappointing. The first week is the key week for big titles. Saying "only six days" misses the point.

EA has to be frustrated. They advertised it extensively. It's a great game. And it didn't sell that great.

What bizarro world do you live in?

It did great for six days & will continue to sell well going into February. I think this might be one of the few HD titles to have massive legs do to word of mouth and enticing DLC.
 

Cruzader

Banned
Shogun PaiN said:
Hang on a minute are the people in this thread suggesting Mass Effect 2 selling 572.1K in 6 days is poor being serious or is my double meaning post detector broken?

What the hell is going on here :lol ?

and where the hell is MAG? Missing Action Game?
you expected MAG in the top 5? really now? Normally its Sony's lack of marketing holding back PS3 games but his game has the "online only" issue too. Not too many ppls are gonna pay $60 for MP only.

Im sure it'll do Socom:C numbers, so ~500K WW doesnt sound that bad.

And its laughable some of you are still with this Reggie/Geoff drama BS. Who really gives a fuck? What if one of them is wrong/right?? WIll you go out and party? I bet its more fanboy mentality. "Hell yea Reggie was right! Fuck yea Wii kicks 360 ass all day long! Fuck COD Nintendo 4evrz, cant wait for my WiiHD and show HDtwins who the real Next-gen consoles warriors are!"
 

user_nat

THE WORDS! They'll drift away without the _!
Son of Godzilla said:
Oh and I totally doubt EA is happy with those ME2 sales. Those are not good numbers for a game so propped up as such a big franchise. Missing the holidays seems to have been rather harsh, doubly so because their biggest competitors did utter bank in their absence. And they could have easily sold 200k on the PS3.

Very few games actually do more than 550k in their first 6 days, if they aren't happy with that, they probably haven't been happy with anything in a while.

edit: For comparison with MAG, the only 360 online only games I can think of are Shadowrun and Frontlines (both also on PC). Shadowrun didn't chart in the top 20 in either May or June 2007. Frontlines charted at 20 with ~100k in February 2008.
Also Warhawk did not chart in August or September 2007.
 
squicken said:
Mass Effect 2 numbers are disappointing. The first week is the key week for big titles. Saying "only six days" misses the point.

EA has to be frustrated. They advertised it extensively. It's a great game. And it didn't sell that great.
saying "only six days" is also hugely irrelevant. the VAST MAJORITY of games blow their load in the first 2-3 days and we've seen it time and time again in the NPD threads. when a game improves over the first week/month, it's a genuine surprise, and usually it's stuff like Wii Music.
 

Chrange

Banned
SuperSonic1305 said:
When was the last time a retail online only game was successful? I was planning on buying MAG but I don't have time to dedicate to an online only game with all the good single player stuff coming this year and backlog to boot.

World of Warcraft is doing okay.
 
user_nat said:
Very few games actually do more than 550k in their first 6 days, if they aren't happy with that, they probably haven't been happy with anything in a while.

I think the concern comes from not the figure of 500K but the fact that the largest ratio of sales of big games comes within the first week or so. So 500K directly translates to, in the eyes of some an estimate 1 million sales in the first 30 days.
 

wizword

Banned
Fallout 3 sold 375k its first 3 days but the sales dropped the next month regardless (it is obvious because first week sales always tend to be higher than any month sales). It sold probably 250k the next month). It is expected that mass effect 2 is going to sell 200-350k next month. The game sales were barely better than mass effect 1 (473k) so it is expected the xbox 360 version should sell near those numbers. The advertising basically was ineffective and a waste of money.

This just showed how silly it was to move games outside of q4. Q4 games sell better, and is a matter of fact. 3rd party developers that delayed their games outside of the holiday season was a huge mistake and it was detrimental on sales. I could think of multiple games that performed better as a result in 2009. Batman Arkham Asylum, and Borderlands.

Anyway, these numbers are horrible for the market. Army of two: 40th day, and darksiders were unprofitable. It seems like there is no use to make games during this time frame on HD market.

Why do people think heavy rain is going to be a sleeper hit? I think it is expected the game is going to be niche. The game could sell around 300-400k at best but, that game isn't going to be this juggernaut game. I doubt it will ever reach 1 million.
 
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