astrogamer
Member
Venturebeat implied it by saying "it would top the list if you dont combine Pokémon Sun and Moon into one game. "
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Venturebeat implied it by saying "it would top the list if you dont combine Pokémon Sun and Moon into one game. "
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
It's amazing. One of the hottest toys this Christmas at an impulse buy price and they ship less than 200k of them.
They seem to have their concept and messaging on point for Switch, their mobile cross promotion is doing great and you genuinely think that the Wii/DS era Nintendo is back with a bang.
And then you read about how badly they've fucked up this easy home run and you start to worry again.
Still, I'm sure they'll ramp up production just in time to miss Christmas so that by June there's millions of them sat unsold in warehouses because, amazingly, no-one wants a stocking filler in April. This fucking company.
People talking about who made it to the list and how well a certain game sold, but aren't all the down statistics are the real headline here? this sharp decline is really really worrying, this should be the strongest month of the year with the biggest franchises, what is going on with the AAA and consoles market?
Gamer @ Heart
Member
The reason they are cautious about forecasting is precisely because they don't want to end up with a warehouse full of them. They are a lean company and ate so much shit accounting wise in 2013 when they were sitting on hundreds of thousands of Wii Us when demand dropped like a rock in January 2012.
Don't forget, NES classic production is shared with pretty much the entire world except Japan.
MatPiscatella
Member
Tells you right in the article:
The top 3 games this year sold a lot less than the top 3 last year. All other games were up 12%.
The top 3 being down has an impact on HW.
So, COD:IW, BF1 and Pokemon Sun did a lot less than BLOPS3, FO4 and SW:BF.
3DS just had its biggest physical SW month ever.
I mean, it's all right there.
Pathfinder
Member
More importantly... Grand Theft Auto V isn't in the Top 10 anymore.
BOMBA
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
So what do we think happened with a dishonored 2 that it was down 40%?
Sad to see WD2 performance since it seems to be a better game than the first one (I liked WD1 a lot).
Dishonored 2 on the other hand always seemed destined to flop since it looked so similar to Dishonored 1 and I actually think that was an unremarkable game that reached popularity because it launched in one of the most barren years.
Oh well.
Dishonored 2 on the other hand always seemed destined to flop since it looked so similar to Dishonored 1 and I actually think that was an unremarkable game that reached popularity because it launched in one of the most barren years.
Oh well.
RedAssedApe
Banned
Battlefront 2 ain't doing better numbers than the first unless they improve that game greatly.
DarkLordMalik
Member
Maybe people didn't want a sequel?
OrbitalBeard
Member
Who knows. Dishonored 2's performance is the gaming tragedy of the year for me. I wonder if this means the series is done.
Surface of Me
I'm not an NPC. And neither are we.
It was 2 or 3 in the October NPD and is several games above TF2 on the most played games list. Not much comeback needed.
Ouch, that's a steep drop.
For reference, the original did 460,200
http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/11/08/nba-2k13-leads-october-u-s-sales.aspx
So, Dishonored 2 first month - 276,120
Thanks for the clarification but the hardware is still significantly down, there were lots of great games to play this season, still seems worrying.
By comeback what i mean was , it should have charted too . because while opening at #3 it was down like 40%. so comeback in terms of showing good legs.
I think there's a category of games that were borderline mid-tier last generation, proceeded to make sequels that didn't feel sufficiently next-gen or different enough, and then tanked this generation because no one wants to pay $60 for that anymore.
You could just go play one of 300 game updates or betas that came out this week if you wanted something to do, and get Dishonored 2 for $20 or less later if you still cared by then. The need for new games is lower when so many existing ones are updating, so it only takes a few notable ones to start sucking up oxygen.
Principate
Saint Titanfall
They can't Nintendo NPD doesn't track eshop.
Harmondale
Member
Nah, in basic economics firms discount a product to increase total revenue in a short time perspective. They dont want to push copies,they want to push revenue (set the derrivate of the demand function to 0 and solve what the Price is to reach maximized revenue). Much easier for an established franchise to estimate its demand functuon thou. Maximizing profits on the other hand is a different story
OrbitalBeard
Member
To me, this paints a pretty bleak future for AAA single player, non-open world titles. Which I honestly saw coming....but I really did think games like Deus Ex and Dishonored 2 would perform better than they did.
Obliterator
Member
Indeed Rex. I don't think I saw anyone anywhere (myself included) predicting a top 5 finish in November NPD for TF2. Especially with it being discounted all month on a revenue based chart.
I don't own the game yet but I'm really happy to see the game leg like it has
freefornow
Gold Member
I fail at math every time, but how did you come up with 700k for PS4?Did I miss some other data in the thread?
Man I hope WD2 picks up with time.
It's a much better game than the first (which I really didn't enjoy) and Marcus is a really refreshing protagonist from all the other bland fools we get served.
Nice to see TF2 rebound with all the positive wom. It convinced me to pick the game up the other day and I'm loving it.
Hardware being down a is disappointing especially with recent refreshes to both PS4 and XB1. However, I think only a 19% drop in software is decent and not all that worrying.
A new Star Wars and FO4 were black holes for consumer expenditure in 2015 and nothing this end of year could come close to matching those releases.
Next year when RDR2, Star Wars BF 2 all drop, there will most likely be a rebound in yoy software again. It's just a lull holiday period for 2016.
It's a much better game than the first (which I really didn't enjoy) and Marcus is a really refreshing protagonist from all the other bland fools we get served.
Nice to see TF2 rebound with all the positive wom. It convinced me to pick the game up the other day and I'm loving it.
Hardware being down a is disappointing especially with recent refreshes to both PS4 and XB1. However, I think only a 19% drop in software is decent and not all that worrying.
A new Star Wars and FO4 were black holes for consumer expenditure in 2015 and nothing this end of year could come close to matching those releases.
Next year when RDR2, Star Wars BF 2 all drop, there will most likely be a rebound in yoy software again. It's just a lull holiday period for 2016.
DR2K
Banned
Pokémon was the one that came out on top, don't let an arbitrary rule distort reality. Considering sales for Call of Duty were down by 50 percent, Battlefield is much higher, they're probably a lot closer than ever.
Good question. For whatever reason there just seemed to be little to no excitement around the game. Maybe it was a marketing issue? People loved the first one so it's odd that the second one fell of so much. Unfortunately I'm sure publishers will assume it's due to having a female protagonist which I seriously doubt but that's how the cookie crumbles.
Actually yea I think the plentiful number of evergreen games and games as service titles may have had a negative effect on the remainder of the SW. I mean in the mind of the average consumer why spend money to buy a new game when the on you already bought is getting new content for free?
Hero of Legend
Member
Did we ever get updated numbers for Dragon Quest 7 3DS beyond the 35k we got for September? Been curious how it's held up since.
hanspampel
Banned
no. 30% of all hardware. not just xbox one and ps4. you need to add xb360, ps3 and wii u.
plus ther're also leftover bundles for ps4. last month just a little below 50% of all ps4 bundles were the ps4 uncharted slim sku
edit: i'm not 100% sure if the all hardware phrase also includes handhelds. in that case the ps4 slim uc4 bundle was a little ober 50% of all ps4 sold last month. and this month 3ds has an even bigger effect
Nightengale
Member
One of the things I observed from looking at the interest for Dishonored 2 is how all of the excitement was focused on gameplay.
Practically none for story, characters, world.
That was a huge red flag for me. It might as well be a new IP if you failed to generate any bring-forward resonance for the lore you've spent a long time building from the first game. Even Gears has a stronger story touch point with Fenix whereas Emily and Corvo were like "oh... cool. Meh."
John Wick
Member
Some people ask before actually engaging their brains and having a think.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
ShockingAlberto
Member
I imagine most people were burned on Watch_Dogs 1.
Despite what fans of the game want to think, I don't think most people that finished that game wanted another one. Whether it was good or not is pretty irrelevant when you have a bad taste in your mouth already.
Source? (EDIT: nevermind I've seen it)
Really disappointing if true.
Nintendo well know that US is the biggest market for something like the NES Classic Mini, why would anyone ship less units than in Japan?
InfiniteCombo
Banned
Yea, title is missing the word "November."
It's early morning so for a very quick second I also thought, "Wait, we have numbers for the year already? What happened to December?"
Triggerhappytel
Member
Poor marketing, perhaps? I saw a bunch of trailers on YouTube (in the UK), but I don't watch TV so I don't know how strongly it was marketed in other mediums.
Plus, releasing a single-player stealth action game in October/November doesn't seem like the best strategy. It increasingly feels like there's less and less room at this time of year.
I don't know; throw a really good campaign in there
lolIknowit'sDICE
How does Battlefield 1 compare to actual sales numbers for BF4 (with all versions accumulated), rather than the staggered launch it had though? I think when that was accounted for here in the UK BF1 was actually slightly down.
Yeah; I'm not sure why this has been done, or why the topic was bumped. Kind of misleading though.
EDIT - it appears Nirolak made this topic on 3rd October? Now that's really confusing me!
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Yea you're absolutely right. That is odd. I wonder if the first game just wrapped things up too well at the end perhaps. Personally, I remember thinking the setting and lore of the world was fantastic but for whatever reason that didn't really hook me for the sequel.
It might have something to do with the radical shift in aesthetic of setting. Or maybe there were just too many other games releasing at the same time that seemed more interesting/fresh for one reason or another. Whatever the causes happen to be it's certainly a sad result. I really hope it has some legs going into next year and that publishers don't learn the wrong lessons from its performance.
John Harker
Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
Was talking to some Sr friends at 2K not too long ago, and while there was a bit of a select resurgence a couple years back - there's seems to be a big overall question about the future of big single player games as a whole in the industry these days. The "resurgence" didn't seem to last into this generation as games move more toward services, and for all the reasons you mention
This is a depressing conclusion to come to. Single player story driven games can still be fairly successful under the right conditions but it certainly does seem a lot harder to sell them this gen for some reason that's for sure. As someone who loves these sorts of games I can't help feeling a bit scared about what this means for investment from publishers for these titles going forward... T_T
Can Crusher
Banned
A shame. Unfortunately it seems all people want is to go home and shoot each other in the face.
You know thinking about it a bit more I wonder if perhaps the reason big single player story driven experiences have become less popular is because AI hasn't really advanced much over the years. I feel like AI is a major part of what makes these sort of games enjoyable and when that becomes so rote and predictable it sort of impacts the immersion of players in these single player worlds.
Look at the success of telltale games. I think in large part that's due to players feeling like they actually impact the world and that it reacts to their choices. Obviously that's a lot easier to do with very scripted games and exceedingly difficult to pull off in emergent gameplay scenarios via reactive AI.
It just so happens that open world games are also great at giving the player a sense of agency/impact on the world due to the freedom they provide the player. I think this is an area that single player narrative driven games really need to step up in and the only way I can see accomplishing that is by improving how the world reacts to the inherently more limited impact you have in it. Just a theory.
Look at the success of telltale games. I think in large part that's due to players feeling like they actually impact the world and that it reacts to their choices. Obviously that's a lot easier to do with very scripted games and exceedingly difficult to pull off in emergent gameplay scenarios via reactive AI.
It just so happens that open world games are also great at giving the player a sense of agency/impact on the world due to the freedom they provide the player. I think this is an area that single player narrative driven games really need to step up in and the only way I can see accomplishing that is by improving how the world reacts to the inherently more limited impact you have in it. Just a theory.
Sad stuff.
All the service based games that will be in the market in a couple years will be a bloodbath. There's only so many people can commit to at once.
Interesting idea but I really doubt the casual consumer is asking for more advanced AI in their SP games.
People just want to be more connected and play games with their friends imo.
Co-op SP games like Destiny are where we are headed.
You can't tell if Pokemon did well when it had its strongest launch in the history of the franchise?
OléGunner;226694948 said:
It might just be that they see them as inherently less compelling to ppl and don't really know that lack of AI feedback is likely a large reason why. Like I said it's just a theory and I certainly could be wrong but at the very least it's food for thought.
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