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NPD Sales Results for October 2007

DaMan121

Member
Or it could be that the majority of Wii owners are uninterested in quality non-party games (And please, don't pull the "Red Steel/RRR" argument, it's really weak) unless that game also contains either the word Mario or Zelda.

So when party / casual games bomb on the Wii, what does that mean?
 

xbhaskarx

Member
Sho_Nuff82 said:
I don't know if there will be an exact correlation, but COD4's launch week for 360 in the UK was bigger than Gears of War.

If COD was equally as successful here, it would be a little over a million copies sold in November.

Too optimistic, it would make sense for CoD4 to be more successful in the UK than US relative to Gears.
 
I'm surprised people are suggesting ME will do millions by year end, its a new ip and an action rpg at that + it has an unbelievable amount of competition.

I do think it will candidly beat MP3 though which as far as I'm concerned has bombed (3rd parties will be scared of attempting similar games if Nintendo are struggling).

I reckon 600k in total over the next 2 months for ME.
 
mr_bishiuk said:
I'm surprised people are suggesting ME will do millions by year end, its a new ip and an action rpg at that + it has an unbelievable amount of competition.

I do think it will candidly beat MP3 though which as far as I'm concerned has bombed (3rd parties will be scared of attempting similar games if Nintendo are struggling).

I reckon 600k in total over the next 2 months for ME.

I`m not sure, a LOT of people have said in the past that mass effect was the one game they would buy a 360 for, more so than gears. Maybe its just the ultra hardcore talking, but I think it might puch mass effect towards the 500K mark month 1 (Oh god, I`m going to regret saying that)
 

.dmc

Banned
mr_bishiuk said:
I do think it will candidly beat MP3 though which as far as I'm concerned has bombed (3rd parties will be scared of attempting similar games if Nintendo are struggling).

I think 3rd parties are lucid enough to see that Nintendo mishandled that game. It didn't need a Halo sized advertising campaign, but they could have done so much with it, spider-man 3 style posters of a corrupted Samus, finish-the-fight sort of shit, Alex Proyas directed tvs. Instead it was large posters of that shitty cover art and those awful 'wii would like you to play ads'. They only need to look as far as Red Steel to show that a really successfully advertised game can be a hit on Wii, and that's got to be embarrassing for them.
 
The Innocent X said:
I`m not sure, a LOT of people have said in the past that mass effect was the one game they would buy a 360 for, more so than gears. Maybe its just the ultra hardcore talking, but I think it might puch mass effect towards the 500K mark month 1 (Oh god, I`m going to regret saying that)

When I look at my friends list and see 20/28 people playing COD4 MP I worry if people are going to want a game that is 20+hrs of single player action, when are they going to fit it in? I think cash strapped 360 owners (by which time they are now) might ask it for a Christmas present and play it when its more quiet in the new year, but 500k of sales in a couple of weeks?
 
.dmc said:
I think 3rd parties are lucid enough to see that Nintendo mishandled that game. It didn't need a Halo sized advertising campaign, but they could have done so much with it, spider-man 3 style posters of a corrupted Samus, finish-the-fight sort of shit, Alex Proyas directed tvs. Instead it was large posters of that shitty cover art and those awful 'wii would like you to play ads'. They only need to look as far as Red Steel to show that a really successfully advertised game can be a hit on Wii, and that's got to be embarrassing for them.

I disagree, I think it was more a reflection of the Wii audience. Surely every "gamer" knew of and had heard of MP3? it got rave reviews and had plenty of advertising. Before it there had been a dearth of good games for a while on Wii so it had little competition.

Red steel sold well because of the novelty of being able to point a gun and wave a sword imo.
 

JJConrad

Sucks at viral marketing
909er said:
Wow. You do realize that that exact same argument could be made for SMG right? How MP3 could be a barometer or how it will perform. And that argument would be just as full of shit as this one.

ME won't bomb. It might not do the crazy sales some are expecting it to (I think I read 3 million in US by 2008), but it is one of the premier titles that MS has been hyping since the beginning of the 360, and you can bet that alot of 360 owners are interested. Just like SMG.
I don't think you followed this discussion. It started with someone saying 'I'm worried for Mass Effect.' Which was replied to with, 'lol, 360 games don't bomb.' Which was replied to with ,"PGR4." To which people began making excuses for why it didn't sell well.

My point wasn't that PGR4 was any type of barometer for ME (that's ridiculous), but that people aren't being consistant with their arguements.
 

Hunahan

Banned
.dmc said:
I think 3rd parties are lucid enough to see that Nintendo mishandled that game. It didn't need a Halo sized advertising campaign, but they could have done so much with it, spider-man 3 style posters of a corrupted Samus, finish-the-fight sort of shit, Alex Proyas directed tvs. Instead it was large posters of that shitty cover art and those awful 'wii would like you to play ads'. They only need to look as far as Red Steel to show that a really successfully advertised game can be a hit on Wii, and that's got to be embarrassing for them.

I still think the problem is that people are legitimately burned out on Metroid Prime. People know it's there, they just don't care.

The second game was already showing serious fatigue in sales, and to top it off was (by most accounts) underwhelming or poor in quality, which will have a diminishing effect on the next itteration.

I know it's hard for some people to accept, but by the time it came around for journey number three, most people just couldn't be bothered. They already "finished the fight" years ago as far as they were concerned, spiderman poster or no.

Let's be real. They pushed through three games in this franchise too quickly and with too little change, and the sales show the results.

Also, not that it needs to be said yet again, but seriously - Red Steel was a launch game. Launch games exist in a different world and time and space than any other games. People really need to stop pointing at that game to prove much of anything beyond the fact that even shitty games can sell in the launch window.
 

PkunkFury

Member
Hunahan said:
Also, not that it needs to be said yet again, but seriously - Red Steel was a launch game. Launch games exist in a different world and time and space than any other games. People really need to stop pointing at that game to prove much of anything beyond the fact that even shitty games can sell in the launch window.

I think Red Steel proves quite a bit. Not just because of the sales, but also because of the insane hype it was receiving before anyone actually played it. The interest really was there. People want to be able to control a sword with the Wii remote, they want to shoot a gun at the screen, and they want to do it in a big budget production. The problem is that Red Steel did not live up to the hype. People jumped on it when it launched, but as word spread and reviews hit, the game died hard. As a concept it had way more appeal than something like Metroid. If it had been a good game, I think the Wii field would look a bit different today. unfortunately, I think the opposite has happened, and Red Steel is keeping others from trying something similar :(

you're right about Metroid though. I'm still convinced half the people who bought Prime 1 didn't like it
 

Dragmire

Member
It's been discussed before, but I think Metroid Prime 3 had a lot going against it that had nothing to do with the advertising. It's kind of a weird series for the casual gamer, hard to define, and the story isn't very coherent for the average person throughout the trilogy. But the weak second entry (in sales or what have you) probably just killed the momentum of this series.

They just dropped the ball with the story. After the second game, how exactly could they sell this trilogy to people? What exactly is ending with the final game? There's a dark Samus now, somehow related to Metroid Prime, which was sort of defeated in the first game. And Metroid Fans already fought an evil Samus in Metroid Fusion (obviously this wasn't a huge deal, but to me sort of suggests how convoluted the story was). I'm not saying the story was bad, but it wasn't something you could sell to people as a trilogy. Metroid Prime 3 was a third game of a series, and it was probably hard enough bring back series fans let alone new people.
 

Dez

Member
Nintendo tried the big advertising campaign with Metroid Prime 1 and it didn't do much for sales. Honestly, the series is too hardcore. Look at Bioshock - it has the right audience on the 360, had a big advertising campaign, but probably won't outsell the original prime. Some games just can't make it big.
 
Why do people constantly dog on Metroid Prime's sales? The Prime games sold on par with the rest of the series, and Prime 1 is the best-selling game in the series. It may very well lose that crown to Prime 3 eventually. Sales are fine.

Prime 2 is the weak link there, sales-wise, but that's more the Gamecube and Nintendo's fault than the game's (best of the 3, in my book); Nintendo had driven away the mature and hardcore demographics as best they could by that point. When Prime 1 came out, they still mostly appeared to be trying to throw off the N64's kiddy image. Prime 2 was after kiddy-fied Zelda, the Mario Sunshine ad campaign, and Nintendo's very public anti-online stance. The Cube had been written off as the 3rd-place console (although it might've still been 2nd worldwide), and Prime 2 launched in the shadow of Halo 2's multi-trillion dollar ad campaign.

Metroid sells fine. It's never been, and never will be a mega-hit. It could've done better if Nintendo tried harder to help it, but it's doing as well as anyone should've expected.
 

909er

Member
JJConrad said:
I don't think you followed this discussion. It started with someone saying 'I'm worried for Mass Effect.' Which was replied to with, 'lol, 360 games don't bomb.' Which was replied to with ,"PGR4." To which people began making excuses for why it didn't sell well.

My point wasn't that PGR4 was any type of barometer for ME (that's ridiculous), but that people aren't being consistant with their arguements.

In that case, sorry. It's hard to keep with 40 pages of arguments and debates.
 

PkunkFury

Member
Dragmire said:
They just dropped the ball with the story. After the second game, how exactly could they sell this trilogy to people? What exactly is ending with the final game? There's a dark Samus now, somehow related to Metroid Prime, which was sort of defeated in the first game. And Metroid Fans already fought an evil Samus in Metroid Fusion (obviously this wasn't a huge deal, but to me sort of suggests how convoluted the story was). I'm not saying the story was bad, but it wasn't something you could sell to people as a trilogy. Metroid Prime 3 was a third game of a series, and it was probably hard enough bring back series fans let alone new people.

yup, my thoughts exactly. putting a number like '3' on a smaller series is enough of a death wish already. Add the fact that there was really no reasone to continue the Prime story in sequence (since it wasn't very compelling as a whole) and they could've just named the title "Metroid: Corruption". keep the plot the same, with Dark Samus and all, the Prime fans will know what's going on, but the people who missed number 2 won't be afraid of skipping to Corruption. The game was very forgiving to people new to the series, but they wouldn't realise it form the title.

I thought Nintendo of all people understood this, seeing as half of the reason "New" Super Mario Bros was such a succes is because it was very well named, and the Zeldas have smartly avoided numerals
 

.dmc

Banned
Dez said:
Nintendo tried the big advertising campaign with Metroid Prime 1 and it didn't do much for sales.

It sold 2 million copies, the most of any Metroid. They had an opportunity for a fresh start with MP3 and they wasted it on the fans of the first two games. Look at it this way, I've got three friends (I know, anecdotal, lol) whom have bought Wii's that were PS2 owners. They've bought games like CoD3 + MoH:Vanguard, and they don't give a fuck about Metroid because Nintendo have created fuck all awareness for it. It's people like that that make me think Nintendo really missed the ball on this one.
 

DaMan121

Member
grandjedi6 said:
Except they aren't

Mario Party? Fine. Raving Rabbits? Ok. Although I think the second wont match the originals sales. Monkey Ball? Flop. Boogie? Flop. EA Playground? Carnival Games? Shit, anymore out there?
 

Kildace

Member
DaMan121 said:
Mario Party? Fine. Raving Rabbits? Ok. Although I think the second wont match the originals sales. Monkey Ball? Flop. Boogie? Flop. EA Playground? Carnival Games? Shit, anymore out there?

Carnival Games is doing very well, actually.
 

Brakara

Member
C4Lukins said:
The early adoption rate for XBL in general was 60% with the 360 as I recall. That includes silver, but silver accounts should also show up on the singleplayer leaderboards.

Yeah, I know, which is why I took that number from a multiplayer leaderboard.

So I will be surprised if CoD4 does less than a million for November.
 
Brakara said:
Yeah, I know, which is why I took that number from a multiplayer leaderboard.

So I will be surprised if CoD4 does less than a million for November.


I do agree that COD4 may do 1m in the NPDs but the leaderboards are worldwide though and COD4 must have sold a couple of hundred thousand in the UK alone
 

Brakara

Member
mr_bishiuk said:
I do agree that COD4 may do 1m in the NPDs but the leaderboards are worldwide though and COD4 must have sold a couple of hundred thousand in the UK alone

Maybe I'm overestimating the US market? I'm guessing almost 2/3 of all sales to the US for FPS games. And if the game has already sold 1.5 million (worldwide), then that's a million for the US. Even if it's less, there's still two weeks (including Black Friday) to bring the numbers up.
 

botticus

Member
Kildace said:
Carnival Games is doing very well, actually.
If you say that 200-300k for Carnival Games is "very well" and 400-500k for Metroid Prime is "bomb," then of course party games are doing better than core games. Frankly I think most third parties would be thrilled if they could get 400-500k sales out of a game similar to Prime on Wii.
 

Jokeropia

Member
Of All Trades said:
Or it could be that the majority of Wii owners are uninterested in quality non-party games (And please, don't pull the "Red Steel/RRR" argument, it's really weak) unless that game also contains either the word Mario or Zelda.
Not really, considering that apart from the $10 Wii Play, non-party games are doing better than party games.
 
botticus said:
If you say that 200-300k for Carnival Games is "very well" and 400-500k for Metroid Prime is "bomb," then of course party games are doing better than core games.

If I were an investor, I'd rather bankroll the development of Carnival Games than MP3. Carnival Games should be orders of magnitude more profitable.

That makes me sad for gaming.
 

Ben Sones

Member
sp0rsk said:
I mean, relative to PS3 its "pretty good", I guess.

Selling three times as many consoles in October only makes the 360 "pretty good" relative to the PS3? So by that standard, Nintendo's performance must be downright mediocre compared to the 360, right? I mean, the Wii didn't even do double Microsoft's numbers.

;)
 
Ben Sones said:
Selling three times as many consoles in October only makes the 360 "pretty good" relative to the PS3? So by that standard, Nintendo's performance must be downright mediocre compared to the 360, right? I mean, the Wii didn't even do double Microsoft's numbers.

;)

The 360's biggest console release of the year (probably of the generation) released a month from this reporting. While the title itself is pushing monster sales, it's clearly not pushing comparable consoles this month. spurred by its flagship title, the 360 should be doing far better, especially if it hopes to keep number one in the States.

The Wii, meanwhile, pushed 519k on the strength of what GAF insists is a shitty library and Guitar Hero III, a title that the 360 sold more of. Pushing those number without a AAA title like Halo is amazing, period.
 
beermonkey@tehbias said:
If I were an investor, I'd rather bankroll the development of Carnival Games than MP3. Carnival Games should be orders of magnitude more profitable.

That makes me sad for gaming.
UGh, this again.

No one genre is going to take over gaming. Carnival Games becomes a success, then the market gets flodded with clones that bomb because there is aa superior competitor on the market somewhere, or apathy sets in.

All the success of Carnival games will do is add another type of game to the pool of creation for consoles. and one more game type is something that the industry sorely needs.
 
DeaconKnowledge said:
The 360's biggest console release of the year (probably of the generation) released a month from this reporting. While the title itself is pushing monster sales, it's clearly not pushing comparable consoles this month. spurred by its flagship title, the 360 should be doing far better, especially if it hopes to keep number one in the States.

The Wii, meanwhile, pushed 519k on the strength of what GAF insists is a shitty library and Guitar Hero III, a title that the 360 sold more of. Pushing those number without a AAA title like Halo is amazing, period.

The typical Wii buyer is picking up the system because it is still somehow the "IT" item one year later. There is no rationality or logic as to why so many families are spending $250+ for something that is a glorified board game to them. Unlike the other systems, Wii sales aren't tied to any particular release and it has essentially sold out since release, so it's not really fair to compare the Wii to the 360. For the most part, they are selling to vastly different audiences.

Of course I think it should be selling better , but compared to the original Xbox and the PS3, the Xbox 360 is performing in the solid "B" range if you were to use a grading scale.

Oh, and Guitar Hero 3 is the very definition of a AAA title. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise...
 

John Harker

Definitely doesn't make things up as he goes along.
I still find it interesting people are defending MP3 sales.

It's at what, 430k?
People still think this is a success, given the context and environment of what the game needed/was expected to accomplish? And anyone thinking its going to beat the 1.4MM units of Prime 1... really? What makes one think that's even possible at this point?
 
dammitmattt said:
The typical Wii buyer is picking up the system because it is still somehow the "IT" item one year later. There is no rationality or logic as to why so many families are spending $250+ for something that is a glorified board game to them. Unlike the other systems, Wii sales aren't tied to any particular release and it has essentially sold out since release, so it's not really fair to compare the Wii to the 360. For the most part, they are selling to vastly different audiences.

First of all, bullshit. The rationality is that people want the Wii because of the games it has. Guitar Hero 3, Zelda, Metroid Prime, Red Steel, Resident Evil, and others have proved that the Wii is not just a system for casuals. I really can't wait for the day when GAF cuts the bullshit and admits that while the Wii has the casual market sewn up, that's not the only market that has interest in it. It is a system that has appeal for everyone, and like the PS2 before it, the hardware sales are reflecting that. This "It's not fair, they're not comparable" stuff is just pushing goal posts for foolish pride.

dammitmattt said:
Of course I think it should be selling better , but compared to the original Xbox and the PS3, the Xbox 360 is performing in the solid "B" range if you were to use a grading scale.
Sporsk's first comment was that it wasn't doing so hot unless you compare it to less successful consoles. How is what you just said any different?

dammitmattt said:
Oh, and Guitar Hero 3 is the very definition of a AAA title. I'm not sure why you would think otherwise...

It most certainly is. The only reason I didn't point to it as a factor for the Wii was because it was a multiplatform title that the 360 has as well.
 
John Harker said:
I still find it interesting people are defending MP3 sales.

It's at what, 430k?
People still think this is a success, given the context and environment of what the game needed/was expected to accomplish? And anyone thinking its going to beat the 1.4MM units of Prime 1... really? What makes one think that's even possible at this point?

I wouldn't say 430k in and of itself is "good", but it's certainly in line with the series.

Like many other hardcore franchises, Metroid saw diminishing returns with every release. To be honest, outside of completely changing the gameplay formula to be more accessible, I don't see how Metroid Prime 3 was going to do better.
 

Vitani

Member
Hunahan said:
I still think the problem is that people are legitimately burned out on Metroid Prime. People know it's there, they just don't care.

I couldn't agree more.

PkunkFury said:
you're right about Metroid though. I'm still convinced half the people who bought Prime 1 didn't like it

I bought Prime 1 on a friend's recommendation, and I don't like it.
 

ksamedi

Member
Metroid is not a franchise that everyone likes, the first Metroid Prime sold purely on hype alone but like someone else said here, half the people that bought it didn't like it because they didn't understand it. Its a very slow game and even a lot of Metroid lovers didn't like it. That the sales went down is only natural.
 

GhaleonEB

Member
DeaconKnowledge said:
The 360's biggest console release of the year (probably of the generation) released a month from this reporting. While the title itself is pushing monster sales, it's clearly not pushing comparable consoles this month. spurred by its flagship title, the 360 should be doing far better, especially if it hopes to keep number one in the States.

The Wii, meanwhile, pushed 519k on the strength of what GAF insists is a shitty library and Guitar Hero III, a title that the 360 sold more of. Pushing those number without a AAA title like Halo is amazing, period.
The Wii is doing historic numbers, and it makes everything else pale in comparison. Looking back, the 360 just did the 4th best October ever for a console (at least, since 2000), behind two for the PS2 and the Wii this month. By any historic measure, doing those numbers in October is very good, especially at the price. (Both of the PS2's came when it was at $200.)

Let's not forget that just three months ago the 360 was doing 170k; in the past three it moved 1.2m. The price cut + Halo 3 have had a pretty substantial impact. But the 360 won't be ahead of the Wii again any time soon, which has more to do with the raging success of the Wii than anything else.
 

Jokeropia

Member
John Harker said:
And anyone thinking its going to beat the 1.4MM units of Prime 1... really? What makes one think that's even possible at this point?
With decent holiday sales and an eventual player's choice release (like the original got) there's no reason why it couldn't. It should have no problems besting MP2 in any case.
 
John Harker said:
I still find it interesting people are defending MP3 sales.

It's at what, 430k?
People still think this is a success, given the context and environment of what the game needed/was expected to accomplish? And anyone thinking its going to beat the 1.4MM units of Prime 1... really? What makes one think that's even possible at this point?

Prime 1 crawled to that 1.4 million, if I recall. It didn't do it in a month, nor in two. I don't think it hit a million in its first Christmas.

Prime 3 had a stronger debut than Prime 1 did--in September, vs. Prime 1's late November. That's a good showing. Now it's slowed, but it still has its first Christmas to sell through. It has a perfectly decent chance of outperforming Prime 1.
 
d[-_-]b said:
Yowch you must've failed elementary math quite a few times.
383.2/2 = 191.6 !~ 286.3 it would be more like 3/4s of the way there.

Total 360 sales were 490k when you include both SKUs (Guitar bundle and game only) so around 58%.
 
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