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Official May 2008 NPD Thread - Wii, GTA IV, and more Wii
- Thread starter sonycowboy
- Start date
JoshuaJSlone
Member
It's unusual, but I for one am glad that if someone is going to throw their hat into the chart ring, they gtry to display something in a new way.heliosRAzi said:
JoshuaJSlone
Member
It's unusual, but I for one am glad that if someone is going to throw their hat into the chart ring, they gtry to display something in a new way.heliosRAzi said:
Because he wanted to make one whose point wasn't "Look along the X axis to find a time, then look up to find what sales were then", but "Look along the X axis to find a milestone, then look up to find when it was reached". It's just a reverse of the question which flips the axes.Leezard said:
Captain Smoker
Member
JoshuaJSlone
Member
I think that's supposed to be a joke. He supposedly consulted analysts, and those are the nonsensical results.Leezard said:
Ela Hadrun
Probably plays more games than you
JoshuaJSlone said:
My guess is that he asked the question, "How can I make a graph where the PS3 data points are higher on the page and the Wii is the lowest?"
But I could be wrong. I lol'd anyway. It's the first graph where, at first glance, PS3 is kicking ass!
Version 3.0
Member
SapientWolf said:
I like how you extend one game to cover the entire library on the Wii. I hate 3rd parties' treatment of the Wii, too, but moaning that it's all bad is pathetic. There's as much fun to be had on Wii as on any of them.
This is why people have friends like me. They ask "should I buy Minigame Madness?". And I say, "No, try Wario Ware instead". It's too bad for the 3rd parties that I mostly recommend Nintendo games, but that's their own fault.
And it's far superior to your answer: "if you buy that game, you should stick a cactus up your ass."
And, unfortunately, you're wrong about $50 mistakes. People make them every time a game arrives based on a movie they liked. And they never learn. This month, it was Iron Man.
Metaphoreus
This is semantics, and nothing more
Ela Hadrun said:
Actually, it's funny that you should say that, since I didn't have that in mind at all.
JoshuaJSlone said:
Precisely. When creating that chart, my question was not, "How many units had it sold in month X?", but rather "During which month did it reach this point?" It's not especially useful, and the information can be better presented just by creating a chart of cumulative sales* (with launches aligned), but I think it's interesting nonetheless.
Leezard said:
Right, you'll also notice that the Wii takes over a year to sell another million in that chart, and that the PS3 sells its 11 millionth console the month before it sold its fourth millionth.
The XBox 360 bit really isn't that different from the one analyst who created a chart that had both X360 and Wii install bases shrinking while PS3 kept growing. Except that units sold can't decrease. But really I've spent too much time explaining this joke now. Oh well, maybe next month.
*For example, the XBox 360 passed both 8 and 9 million units sold during its 26th month on the market; it went from a little under 7.9 million at the end of November 2007 to 9.1 million by the end of December. During the same period, the Wii went from 6 million to about 7.36 million. The chart makes it seem that maybe the XBox 360 was selling faster, when in reality the Wii sold more that month. I accepted that weakness in creating this chart, though.
dammitmattt
Banned
31 Flavas said:
We're talking about consoles in this discussion, not portables. Even with that, your facts are way off.
Wii Sports isn't sold separately.
Wii Fit has definitely not outsold those three games.
Mario Party 8 has definitely not outsold those three games.
Wii Play is a $10 game sold with a controller so it's completely different.
There are some massive sales successes on the Wii, but even the top-selling games like Zelda, Mario, and Smash are still behind the three games I mentioned.
goldenticket
Member
so in this thread its been said the wii version of guitar hero 3 sold 2.2 million any idea what gh3 sold on the other systems?
dammitmattt said:
I like how you pick and choose criteria to fit your agenda of the month.
You name drop CoD4 and GTAIV, which are multiplatform, and that's okay. But now because Wii Play is a 10 dollar game, it doesn't count?
Halo 3 launched last year and had the benefit of the holiday season to get it above 5 million. Smash and Mario Kart launched in the fucking first half of the year. Wii Fit launched last month and is going to have some supply constraint issues due to the hardware it comes with.
You seriously have to be delusional if you think by the end of the generation Smash / Kart / Fit won't surpass CoD4 / GTAIV / Halo 3.
Hero said:
To be fair, the person he's responding to chose the criteria. And people are free to discredit Wii Play if they like. I don't think it makes a huge dent in the state of the industry in either case, but whatever floats their boat. I think it would be hard for single-platform games like Mario Kart and Brawl to outsell a multiplatform monster like COD4. Wii Fit, on the other hand, should definitely outsell one or two of those (Halo 3, in particular).
Vinci said:
If that's the criteria from someone else that's one thing.
With Wii Play, people used to use the excuse that it was the only way to find a Wii remote controller. That might've been an excuse for the first few months but that can't be used anymore. The fact is there are a substantial amount of new Wii owners per month who are willing to pay 10 dollars for the Wii Play game and it's certainly a testament to the game in seeing how it's been in the Top 10 NPD almost every month.
But you just need to take a look at the DS list and see that games from a year or two ago (Mario Kart DS, NSMB, Brain Age) are still topping the charts years later and combine that with Smash and Mario Kart Wii have yet to experience a holiday season, it's a no-brainer. Take into consideration that chances are when CoD5 is released CoD4 will stop selling so well and the fact that the Wii is gathering more and more new users each month, it's not out of the question.
borghe said:
False.
http://kotaku.com/5010214/nintendo-wii-has-highest-software-sales-for-first-18-months.
50 million Nintendo games compared to 30 million x360 games in the first 18 months. Now, here's the 3rd party sales on the Wii:
Averaging the 3 periods together, we get Wii 3rd party sales of 53.666 percent. Note that this is a very conservative estimate, as the worst period for 3rd party sales was the first half of 2007, a slower period for software sales compared to the latter halves of 2006 and 2007, during which Wii 3rd party sales were stronger. 50 million * 53.666 percent = 26.8333 million. Given the fact that some of the xbox sales must surely be first party, and the fact that our 26.8 million number is conservative, there's little doubt that Wii 3rd party sales > Xbox 360 3rd party sales for their first 18 months.
Version 3.0
Member
I'd like to play Devil's Advocate and point out (again) that high unit sales of a handful of games is not necessarily such a great thing. I suppose it's good for bragging rights, but does it indicate a healthy platform? Not by itself, no more than high hardware unit sales does.
For example, if Guitar Hero and Call of Duty comprise 40% of the software sales in a given month, well, goody for Activision, but everyone else is living off of scraps. Same with Mario Kart and Wii Fit.
I'm not saying that's the case. I'm saying we don't really have enough info to make an (informed) argument about a lot of the things that get argued here anyway.
Or...to put it plainly...having the biggest dick doesn't mean you're having the most sex.
For example, if Guitar Hero and Call of Duty comprise 40% of the software sales in a given month, well, goody for Activision, but everyone else is living off of scraps. Same with Mario Kart and Wii Fit.
I'm not saying that's the case. I'm saying we don't really have enough info to make an (informed) argument about a lot of the things that get argued here anyway.
Or...to put it plainly...having the biggest dick doesn't mean you're having the most sex.
Hero said:
Yeah, but it makes them so happy to discredit it. Why take it away from folks?
And you're probably right. I'm not arguing against the Wii -- hell, that would never happen -- I'm simply stating that he was responding to the person and those were his responses. Is it likely that the games will outsell their HD big-seller counterparts? Obviously it's possible (even perhaps likely), but we won't know that for some time. We could predict it all we want, but it isn't as concrete as numbers directly stating 'x sold this many units in its lifetime,' whilst 'y sold this.'
Flakster99
Member
Leondexter said:
The was the exact argument Nintendo used during the N64 era, while PSX sales were spread out over a much larger number of releases.
dammitmattt
Banned
Hero said:
Yeah, the criteria he responded to was a statement regarding Wii vs HD systems, and he used massively incorrect data on top of that.
Also, Wii Play doesn't belong in the discussion with every other game, including games that come with peripherals like Mario Kart Wii, Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, etc. It is fundamentally different becasue unlike all of those other games, it is an accessory that comes with a game.
And I must be delusional for thinking that in the US (this is an NPD thread, remember?), COD4, Halo 3, and GTA4 will outsell Smash / Kart / Fit. They are all pretty far ahead right now, especially COD4, and they are all tentpole titles that will continue to see steady sales, just like the Nintendo trio. Remember Sonycowboy's link to the Forbes article about the top-selling games in the US? Don't forget that there were three GTAs, Halo 2, and even COD4 itself on there but no Mario or Mario Kart.
It makes no sense to get a Wii without Wii Play. What I don't understand are the roughly 50-70% of new Wii owners each month who DON'T get Wii Play.
Version 3.0
Member
Flakster99 said:
Wouldn't that have been the opposite argument? They had higher unit sales of their own games vs. any Playstation releases, but lower overall software sales. Nintendo would yell "we have the best-selling games!", but nobody was listening.
Flakster99
Member
Leondexter said:
Which is pretty much what I stated. Nintendo would often brag about their own sales, 'we dominate the sales charts, top 10 lists', whereas the PSX purchases and sales were spread out over a much larger number of releases.
I was agreeing with you.
Version 3.0
Member
Flakster99 said:
Ah, sorry. Yes, I remember them even bragging about being on top of the rental charts. :lol
Still, I wish I could "lose" and make the kind of money they did while doing so... ;-p
dammitmattt said:
If the criteria stated no peripherals then that's one thing, but the fact that there are over 5 million people who felt it was worth paying 10 extra dollars for those silly games means that it has some intrinsic value and showed that its a product. This is the video game industry and everybody is fighting for the dollars, I don't see how you can try to ignore the fact that people are willing to pay a certain price to get what they want, whether it be Guitar Hero, Rock Band, or Wii Fit.
Where in my post did I say worldwide?
You honestly think CoD4 is going to continue selling at a decent rate once CoD5 or GoW2 comes out? Even Halo 3 has puttered off bigtime since CoD4 came out. To think that they can match the sales that Smash / Kart / Fit for the rest of the generation is pretty absurd, considering there (most likely) won't be Smash 2 / Kart 2 / Fit 2. That alone will ensure consistently high sales for the remainder of the generation. The 360 audience is great at buying/adopting the current must-have game but with that having shifted a bit, I don't think you'll be seeing CoD4 or GTAIV in the top 10 a year from now.
Not to mention the fact that the Wii is drawing in a bigger userbase every month, I think it's pretty obvious that Smash / Kart / Fit are going to put up some insane numbers by the end of the generation.
That article only went back so far, the only Nintendo system it counted was what, N64 and Gamecube? The Wii is a completely different ball game. Not to mention most of those titles were multiplatform.
And mind you games like Pokemon, WoW, and Mario 64 are literally right underneath there, and considering the lack of multiplatform, I don't see how you can try to tout and spin this as 'success' for HD gaming.
Version 3.0
Member
Hero said:
You may be right, long-term, about the numbers these games will reach, but you're wrong about games not selling after their sequels arrive. Sometimes that's true, but not always.
Halo 1 was still selling about the same as Smash Bros Melee very late last gen: about 30k per month, even though Halo had a sequel and Melee hadn't. And if I recall correctly, they'd been selling fairly close before that as well. Also, sometimes sequels spur sales of the older games in the series.
dammitmattt
Banned
Hero said:
I never argued against its value as a product, just its place in the conversation with "real" games.
Yes, I do think it's going to keep selling well, especially since COD5 is being made by Treyarch. So will Halo 3 and GTA4. They are tentpole games in series that have always had steady post-release sales.
Smash / Kart / Fit will continue to have good sales, but they are in such huge holes (3 million to COD4) that they just won't catch up. Also, COD4 has proven to have better legs than Mario, so how can you say with such certainty that Smash / Kart / Fit will have such great legs?
My original point was that both core and casual gaming audiences are expanding and growing. Do you have any data to dispute this?
dammitmattt
Banned
Hero said:
If you fail to grasp the massive differences between all four of these games then I can't even continue this discussion. Please explain to me what Smash/Kart/Fit have in common that Super Mario Galaxy is lacking.
dead souls
Member
dammitmattt said:
I don't know if I'd include Smash with the first category, but Mario Kart and Wii Fit are way more casual and will most likely continue to attract a wider audience than Mario Galaxy. They will sell decently until the next nintendo console is released.
Oh, c'mon, they may not have everything in common, but they have some that Galaxy don't.. Smash and Kart have infinite replay value, because of their multiplayer. Wii Fit has Wii on its name.dammitmattt said:
But i can't say i disagree with you, i think WW Nintendo trio is going to own everything, but in NA is very tricky... If Wii manages to pull ahead of PS3+360 (as i think it will), then those titles have a shot of doing it...
dammitmattt said:
Wii Fit is going to sell to soccer moms, wives, and girlfriends for the remainder of the generation. There is no replacement product for this,
Mario Kart is a game that appeals to casuals thanks to the Wii Wheel and will also sell to people who played Mario Kart on a previous Nintendo system. Unless there's another game that will offer better than Mario Kart (doubtful) this will continue to sell for the remainder of the generation. See: Mario Kart DS in virtually every territory
Smash Bros: Melee was always consistently in the top ten per month for the entire life of the Gamecube. Brawl has matched the ENTIRE LTD sold of Melee in three months, to expect it to not sell another few million is crazy.
dammitmattt
Banned
Hero said:
So how does this make it related to the next two but unrelated to Mario?
Take out the blurb about the Wii Wheel and you could say the exact same for Mario (and NSMB for DS to match Mario Kart DS). How does this make it related to Wii Fit and Smash but not Mario?
So how does this make it like Wii Fit and Mario Kart but unlike Mario? I'm still confused over how I'm so stupid as to misunderstand how critically different Wii Fit / Mario Kart / Smash are to Mario Galaxy. And regarding this point alone, did Mario Galaxy not FAR outpace Mario Sunshine?
Let's say that you you mean it will sell 3 million (which is "a few million") over the next three years. That would be an average of 83k a month. And then it will only be even with COD4, which will also have three years of sales across two platforms to put even more distance out there.
LOOK. You directly responded to me correcting someone who was FACTUALLY wrong, and you keep twisting and twisting the argument further from the point.
dammitmattt
Banned
Deku said:
Quick recap -
1. In the middle of an argument where I'm trying to assert that both core and casual game audiences are expanding, I say that the best-selling games of this gen are HD titles (Halo 3, COD4, GTA4 in particular)
2. Poor fool tries to bring some knowledge to me by saying that games like Wii Fit and Mario Party 8 have massively outsold those three games
3. I tell him that he's an idiot
4. Hero gets offended that an HD game might be successful and goes off on 20 tangents unrelated to the original point
5. I'm stubborn enough to argue with him
You might also want to remember that no NES or SNES games were included.dammitmattt said:
Pokemon would be in the top but Gamesindustry (I think it was them) counted the SKU's differently for some reason.Hero said:
In the short term, yes, but Mario Sunshine had incredible long term legs. It launched at a mere 350k, failed to break a million after five months (this includes November and December) but still reached almost 3 million LTD.dammitmattt said:
Note: I'm not arguing your main position, just these small bullet points.
Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii are going to be sales behemoths. To doubt that is ridiculous. Whether they'll beat out COD4, which has become sort of the 'go-to' game for the hardcore gamers responding very aggressively to the Wii's usurping of the industry, is not certain. But I'd definitely say that Wii Fit and Mario Kart Wii will continue selling long after COD4 finally winds down. The way Guitar Hero sells on the Wii, you'd have to be crazy to think that any game with a peripheral for the Wii isn't going to chart enormous numbers by the end of Wii's lifetime. Nintendo will never bring out a sequel to any of these games, and any 3rd party versions won't reach the same level of penetration.