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Media Create Sales: Week 36, 2019 (Sep 02 - Sep 08)
- Thread starter Chris1964
- Start date
Legs are cut off by used sales because a lot of PS4 games don't hold their value for long. It could be because of overshipment or a too high initial price (meaning consummers already plan to sell it beforehand) and low hardware sales (meaning no fresh blood into the ecosystem).
It is a vicious circle in a way, the more games are being underpreciated, the more difficult it is for other games to hold their price.
Seriously why should anyone bother responding to your arguments if you are going to just move the goalposts like this.
It was approaching that before that panel. I blame Arms, Metroid, and SMT V.
This is applicable for every system in the digital age. Digital share grows with age and so does used sales. Even if PS4 is more digital oriented than past systems that still isn't a unique situation nor will it ever be. The used sales argument is frankly bullshit and its going to be debunked when this years used numbers out. Used increases as more games enter circulation and hardware grows. Used sales are bigger on PS4 because it's older with a decent install base. That's basically it. Used sales never stayed flat on any system through it's life as hardware grew (well technically when the console drops into its significant decline phase used drops too but I think we're mostly talking about relevant life span)
Lmao. Not even gonna touch this
Okay? I don't think I accused you of anything like this
Well it's a Japanese sales thread and that explanation kind of matters you would think but what do I know?
The digital ratio was from the numbers I saw posted, basically stagnant for 2 years on the PS4. And the overall 2018 trend indicated that while digital sales we ~17% of sales, it was only 8.8% of revenue in the games industry. That number to me implies retail in the short to medium term outlook is going to be far and away thee most relevant part of a games sales. For example, why do you think NPD switch from reporting on units to reporting on revenue?
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People encouraging Nintendo to drop new IPs and exploring more development of its potential like game mechanics, story, adventure, modes, and characters in favor of the billionth Pokemon game disgusts me :p Are you really going to make a case that a Pokemon fighting game wasn't going to do well next to a brand new fighting IP with entirely unique fighting mechanics and no legacy? Next thing you'll tell me that you'll be shocked if a Mario action adventure hack and slash game would do just as good if not better than Astral Chain
If all Nintendo cared about were raw sales than we wouldn't have had 4 LABO sets or games like Astral Chain. And you know this for damn sure when Nintendo pick the next Wii U port to be Tokyo Mirage Sessions instead of literally any other first party Wii U game with 100 times the sale potential
I like Pokken more than ARMS, I'm being a little selfish :P
All the Labo games were probably produced by the time it was clear that Labo wasn't going to catch on.
Nintendo France even had that bizarre statement where they said they expected 80% of the Labo sales to be in the holiday season, which, uhh, did not occur of course...
I just dunno how you can look at the team who makes ARMS and the actual core of what they made and see huge potential for a sequel vs them just trying their hand at something else or making Mario Kart 9 lol.
Don't think it's more complex than that.
Don't think it's more complex than that.
Every Labo kit was probably developed at the same time. You can find every Toy-con in the reveal trailer, and the Labo team wouldn't have been able to get out Ring Fit Adventure so soon if they were working on Labo until April this year.
If they want to do it, they will do it. Don't you guys want to see devs do what they want?
Yabuki seems to like the series well enough, so more ARMS games are likely as long as he's at the helm.
Especially when making new IPs are hard to begin with. They will probably want to iterate on the new thing they just came up than come up with a second new thing, since that would be cheaper.
I'm cool if they make more ARMS. I wont buy it but it's w/e to me either way.
Just saying, if I wrote the cheques I wouldn't signoff on that.
People created a conspiracy theory about this...
Even the developers know that the final word comes from Nintendo:
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Maybe but you still have to pay all the other associated costs if you go on to release them whether they've been developed or not. And they even went to the trouble of patching in VR support to other games completely outside of the original games dev. Nintendo just look at other things than sales.
You cannot explain why Tokyo Mirage Sessions gets ported over instead of any other Wii U game if the only thing you care about is sales. It will be extraordinary lucky to break 1 million - plenty of other Wii U ports (Mario 3D World / Pikmin 3 / Twilight Princess / Wind Waker / Wooly World / Xenoblade X) would obviously massively outsell it and yet here we are
Mario, Splatoon and Zelda are uncomparable, those are just S tier Nintendo seller.
And i don't see what's wrong about selling less than 12Switch, this game is not a huge success in any means but is one of those casuals games which can sell an infinite amount of copies and is impossibile to predict how it is gonna do.
It sold 3 million but could as very well have sold 5 million, or 10 million. ( or less than 1 million...)
I think people here overthink too much about ARMS sales. The game did ok and if Nintendo want can easy try to do a sequel.
OP
OP
Who is encouraging that.
"Arms failed to meet its targets and Nintendo better use Mario Kart team to create something else at a different genre with bigger sales potential."
"Arms is a success, we need more Arms."
Edit
In case this illusion really exists: There's no decision to be made between more Mario Kart or new IP. When the timing comes for Mario Kart 9 the entire development team will move there and that timing won't change even if Arms had sold 5m.
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But you're ignoring the context here, I'm not saying it should have sold in the lines of their other games - just that it so far behind everything else released in the same timeframe. Arms was made by the topdogs, it was supported for well over a year with free updates, events, promotion weekends and given the chance to shine but it didnt happen and in the end was outsold by a game that's to date the worst game released by Nintendo and it got absolute zero support post launch with zero extra costs.
Arms is fun game, EPD tried some new very cool, but it in all likelyhood didnt pan out in to the success they hoped for. I dont think a sequel is coming to the Switch, but they may return to the IP in the future.
I do think Chris1964 and others are somehow wrong about Nintendo's expectations for ARMS (which doesn't imply Nintendo still prefers to move the team to another game/franchise).
Just think about a couple of things:
Just think about a couple of things:
- in March 2017, Nintendo expected to sell 10m Switch units during Apr 2017-Mar 2018. The Switch launched shipping around 2,7m units. Let's assume, hence, Nintendo was forecasting about 12m units from launch to March 2018 (keep in mind that Nintendo did revise upwards its expectations so it might well have expected less). Given hardware forecast, how much Nintendo was going to expect ARMS to sell? We know that Switch then sold more but business decisions are based on forecasts and Nintendo was expecting to sell around 12m as of March 2018. Was Nintendo going to expect ARMS to sell more than 2m? That is: was Nintendo going to expect ARMS (a new IP in the fighting genre, let's not forget it) to have a 1/6+ attach ratio? Hard to believe in my opinion. Also in light of the fact that...
- ...Nintendo was going to launch in the same fiscal year Mario Kart, Splatoon and Mario Odyssey which were going to be the big guns. Indeed, ARMS was sandwiched between Kart and Splatoon which, in my opinion, signaled the fact that Nintendo didn't think it was going to be a huge seller rather a more moderate seller. Was Nintendo going to expect more legs? Probably but decisions about content support likely came way before the game launched and though they might have been revised we don't have elements supporting this.
ARMS needs a sequel to fully flesh out it's concept.
Splatoon nailed it on the first try, which is why a sequel released so soon after the first game was so iterative ("IT'S A POOOOOOOOOORT" nonsense from 2017 was something else I tell ya, but I digress), but ARMS could use another go to live up to the full potential of it's conceit.
Splatoon nailed it on the first try, which is why a sequel released so soon after the first game was so iterative ("IT'S A POOOOOOOOOORT" nonsense from 2017 was something else I tell ya, but I digress), but ARMS could use another go to live up to the full potential of it's conceit.
That's only because it's Miyamoto's darling
(It's the same reason they keep making metroid games -- high execs with a fondness for the series)
Genre expectations has nothing to do with Nintendo's expectations though. there is a reason they don't play by the rules of any genre.
It was the first game that was revealed for Switch, they probably wanted another Splatoon.
Still, I think they made a mistake when they decided to stop adding characters to it.
Then they should't have released the game a month after Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and a month before Splatoon 2 on a newly launched platform.
I think Metroid has potential to break out in a similar way to other Switch games if it's an evolution of the series and not just "Metroid Prime, now in HD." I think part of the reason why Nintendo decided to reboot development was they saw the ridiculous numbers that Breath of the Wild was putting up. If Breath of the Wild can flip the table, re-invent the formula like Ocarina of Time did 20 years ago, and sell twice as much as any other Zelda game in history, then Nintendo probably believes the same can be done for Metroid.
Off-topic but related, but I'm playing through Gears 4/5 at the moment and it kind of makes me want a Federation Force game like that. Obviously with a more modest production budget and not a M/CERO Z rating though.
As for ARMS, I wouldn't call it a failure, since 2m is pretty good for a new fighting IP, but it obviously didn't perform as well as Nintendo hoped. I would agree that Pokken is a better investment for Nintendo if they want a non-Smash fighting IP in their regular software line-up. Min-Min can go the way of Captain Falcon.
Off-topic but related, but I'm playing through Gears 4/5 at the moment and it kind of makes me want a Federation Force game like that. Obviously with a more modest production budget and not a M/CERO Z rating though.
As for ARMS, I wouldn't call it a failure, since 2m is pretty good for a new fighting IP, but it obviously didn't perform as well as Nintendo hoped. I would agree that Pokken is a better investment for Nintendo if they want a non-Smash fighting IP in their regular software line-up. Min-Min can go the way of Captain Falcon.
Really excited for Week 38 and 39. Lots of things to talk about !
Regarding tomorrow, there are some interesting releases plus hardware to look at. If Switch manages to stay strong just before the Lite launch then things will get very interesting. Hopefully the PS4 will no go back to Summer levels.
Regarding tomorrow, there are some interesting releases plus hardware to look at. If Switch manages to stay strong just before the Lite launch then things will get very interesting. Hopefully the PS4 will no go back to Summer levels.
We don't know Nintendo's expectations.
All we know is that Arms did well for a new fighting game.
I don't. I understand you are not saying it should have sold +10 million or anything, what i'm saying is that selling less than any of those games doesn't really say much, as 3 of those are Killer ap and 12Switch is a high potential selling.
Even if it was the weaker game of the line up it sold decent numbers, expecially because when there are a Zelda, a Splatoon and 2 Mario games in a year it's not that easy to sell on a Nintendo system.
Yeah, the hold of new Switch is quite impressive. For comparison, here's PS4 right before and after Slim launch (which was accompanied by a similar 10k yen price drop I believe?):
Code:
|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year | YTD | Last YTD | LTD |
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| PS4 | 364 | 2.302 | 18.354 | 885.328 | 752.731 | 3.016.061 |
| PS4 | 96.567 | 364 | 10.558 | 981.895 | 763.289 | 3.112.628 |And here is 3DS right before and after the new 3DS launch:
Code:
|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year | YTD | Last YTD | LTD |
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| 3DS # | 23.404 | 32.782 | 117.739 | 1.625.142 | 3.254.620 | 16.319.153 |
| 3DS # | 263.010 | 23.404 | 242.780 | 1.888.152 | 3.497.400 | 16.582.163 |More specifically, here is the SKU split for 3DS in the week of n-3ds launch:
Code:
|System | This Week | Last Week | Last Year | YTD | Last YTD | LTD |
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|n-3DSLL| 164.756 | | | 164.756 | | 164.756 |
| n-3DS | 70.050 | | | 70.050 | | 70.050 |
| 3DSLL | 19.727 | 16.130 | 141.245 | 1.230.144 | 2.338.709 | 6.656.030 |
| 3DS | 7.340 | 6.360 | 72.325 | 397.338 | 1.104.943 | 9.633.372 |Now, the situations of PS4/3DS are not quite comparable to Switch, because Switch just had a new version of the OG model release with improvements, and it was clear that sales were syphoned from the old OG model for the new one. So, the discrepancy between OG and Lite should be smaller than these two instances I think.
That said, it seems to me quite likely that the Lite could do well over 200k if the supply is present.
By the by, does anyone think we'll get a PR statement from Famitsu the day or morning before the official release? Seems like a significant event that is PR-worthy.
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Famitsu pretty much always have a PR for major Hardware launches, so it'd be surprising if there wasn't one for the Lite, especially given sales expectations. What's more, Switch will hit 9m LTD during that same week (unless sales inexplicably increased during Week 37).
While I do not doubt that it will be successful in Japan (at least at first), I still feel that the lite is too much of a gimped Switch to repeat the success of previous hardware revisions worldwide; to be specific, I believe that 1 year from now, the lite will be 20% or less of the total new Switch sales.
In Japan, I'm betting on 40% or less. We'll see in a year.
In Japan, I'm betting on 40% or less. We'll see in a year.
OP
OP
Media Create Sales: Week 36, 2019 (Sep 02 - Sep 08)
01./00. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne Master Edition <Monster Hunter: World \ Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne> # <ACT> (Capcom) {2019.09.06} (¥6.990)
02./03. [NSW] Super Mario Maker 2 # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.06.28} (¥5.980)
03./00. [PS4] NBA 2K20 # <SPT> (Take-Two Interactive Japan) {2019.09.06} (¥7.000)
04./04. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate # <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200)
05./07. [NSW] Fishing Spirits: Nintendo Switch Version <SPT> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.07.25} (¥5.700)
06./05. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980)
07./06. [NSW] Fire Emblem: Three Houses # <SLG> (Nintendo) {2019.07.26} (¥6.980)
08./02. [NSW] Astral Chain # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.08.30} (¥7.980)
09./08. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600)
10./09. [NSW] Super Mario Party # <ETC> (Nintendo) {2018.10.05} (¥5.980)
Top 10
NSW - 8
PS4 - 2
01./00. [PS4] Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne Master Edition <Monster Hunter: World \ Monster Hunter: World - Iceborne> # <ACT> (Capcom) {2019.09.06} (¥6.990)
02./03. [NSW] Super Mario Maker 2 # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.06.28} (¥5.980)
03./00. [PS4] NBA 2K20 # <SPT> (Take-Two Interactive Japan) {2019.09.06} (¥7.000)
04./04. [NSW] Super Smash Bros. Ultimate # <FTG> (Nintendo) {2018.12.07} (¥7.200)
05./07. [NSW] Fishing Spirits: Nintendo Switch Version <SPT> (Bandai Namco Games) {2019.07.25} (¥5.700)
06./05. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe <RCE> (Nintendo) {2017.04.28} (¥5.980)
07./06. [NSW] Fire Emblem: Three Houses # <SLG> (Nintendo) {2019.07.26} (¥6.980)
08./02. [NSW] Astral Chain # <ACT> (Nintendo) {2019.08.30} (¥7.980)
09./08. [NSW] Minecraft # <ADV> (Microsoft Game Studios) {2018.06.21} (¥3.600)
10./09. [NSW] Super Mario Party # <ETC> (Nintendo) {2018.10.05} (¥5.980)
Top 10
NSW - 8
PS4 - 2
To get a better view on what to expect for Ys IX: Monstrum Nox on PS4, I've made a comparison between the four The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel games. The first two in this series were released on PS3 and PSV, while the third and fourth entry were PS4 exclusive. ToCS 3 was released three years after ToCS 2. Between 2014 and 2017, the general Japanese console market declined 25.1%. The lion's share of sales of Nihon Falcom's games are created close to launch. Usually, around 95% of the sales of a new game is made in the year of its launch, so I didn't take the time to compare LTD numbers for the ToCS games. As you can see below, sales of the ToCS 3 were roughly 43% lower than the sales of ToCS 2. However, for ToCS 4, the number of sales stabilised, compared to ToCS 3. It looks like the fanbase that was still active moved over in time for ToCS 3, but didn't grow in anticipation of ToCS 4.
For Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, it's a bit harder to compare, since there's much more time between releases. However, when comparising Ys VIII with Ys Seven (PSP, 2009) and Ys: Memories of Celceta (PSV, 2012), it is clear that the franchise grew a lot with the eighth entry. While launches are very similar, the life-to-date number of Ys VIII on just PSVita is 40.0% higher than the life-to-date sales of Ys: Memories of Celceta, and 34.1% higher than the life-to-date sales of Ys Seven. Ys VIII was ported to PS4 about one year after its original release. The PS4 version now account for 75.000 sales. It's not clear how many of those players are double-dippers. It does show, however, that the fans of the series have been transitioning to PS4.
Personally, I expect launch numbers for Ys IX: Monstrum Nox that are closer to the launch numbers of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV than to the launch numbers of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana on PSVita. Even if you take another cut of 30% or so to take the loss of a PSVita version into consideration, the player numbers of Ys VIII across PS4 and PSV combined is high enough to make it a safe bet.
For Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, it's a bit harder to compare, since there's much more time between releases. However, when comparising Ys VIII with Ys Seven (PSP, 2009) and Ys: Memories of Celceta (PSV, 2012), it is clear that the franchise grew a lot with the eighth entry. While launches are very similar, the life-to-date number of Ys VIII on just PSVita is 40.0% higher than the life-to-date sales of Ys: Memories of Celceta, and 34.1% higher than the life-to-date sales of Ys Seven. Ys VIII was ported to PS4 about one year after its original release. The PS4 version now account for 75.000 sales. It's not clear how many of those players are double-dippers. It does show, however, that the fans of the series have been transitioning to PS4.
Personally, I expect launch numbers for Ys IX: Monstrum Nox that are closer to the launch numbers of The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV than to the launch numbers of Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana on PSVita. Even if you take another cut of 30% or so to take the loss of a PSVita version into consideration, the player numbers of Ys VIII across PS4 and PSV combined is high enough to make it a safe bet.
Source: Media Create weekly and annual data.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series Launch Year comparison
Ys series on PlayStation platforms Life-To-Date comparison
Total Software Sales 2014: 43.053.288
Total Software Sales 2017: 32.246.044 (-25.1%)
*Comparisons do not take Best Price versions and similar re-releases into account.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel series Launch Year comparison
Code:
[PSV] The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2013.09.26} (¥7.140) - 81.622 / 112.115
[PS3] The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2013.09.26} (¥8.190) - 67.718 / 94.800
Total: 149.340 / 206.915
[PSV] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2014.09.25} (¥7.344) - 86.283 / 115.383
[PS3] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2014.09.25} (¥8.424) - 65.498 / 88.665
Total: 151.781 (+1.6%) / 204.048 (-1.4%)
[PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2017.09.28} (¥7.800) - 87.261 / 113.289
Total: 87.261 (-42.5%) / 113.289 (-44.5%)
[PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - The End of Saga # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2018.09.27} (¥7.800) - 85.161 / 115.966
Total: 85.161 (-2.4%) / 115.966 (+2.4%)Ys series on PlayStation platforms Life-To-Date comparison
Code:
[PSP] Ys Seven (Nihon Falcom) {2009.09.17} - 33.349 / 70.280
Total: 33.349 / 70.280
[PSV] Ys: Memories of Celceta # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2012.09.27} (¥7.140) - 42.146 / 67.323
Total: 42.146 (+26.4%) / 67.323 (-4.2%)
[PSV] Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana # <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2016.07.21} (¥6.800) - 43.753 / 94.234 (+40.0%)
[PS4] Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana <RPG> (Nihon Falcom) {2017.05.25} (¥6.800) - 27.741 / 75.042
Total: 43.753 (+3.8%) / 169.276 (+151.4%)Total Software Sales 2014: 43.053.288
Total Software Sales 2017: 32.246.044 (-25.1%)
*Comparisons do not take Best Price versions and similar re-releases into account.
I think the percent of people playing on Switch for the portable feature is way more than 1/5.
Nintendo handhelds always had way more success than Nintendo console and in any case for playing Nintendo titles i doubt people care that much if they are on handhelds or console.
I think that with a 100$ price difference lite could sell close to 50% of Switch sales, everywhere.
If YS IX can do 50k+ FW, that should be a decent result (or strong depending on how much higher it gets, of course) imo.
Arent' the ratio close to 1/3-1/3-1/3 (mobile-docked-hybrid) in terms of Switch usage?
And at the same time, even for portable play, the flagship model is arguably better than the lite for some users with the much improved battery life.
100$ is a significant difference indeed, but in my opinion not significant enough to compensate for all the missing features (and arguably the two main features of the switch: shareable controllers and docking ability).
We'll see how people react. Had the lite been sold 150$, I wouldn't have had any doubt. At 200$, I'm not so sure.
The switch lite will probably also allow to tap into an underrepresented market so far on switch, kids. It's easier for parents to buy a 200€ portable console than à 300€ "home console".
It will grow the userbase.
Of course. But my opinion is that 200$ will remain of psychological barrier for a significant number of parents, and I don't expect the proportion of sold Switch lite to be above 20% a year from now.
It doesn't matter if the Lite sells less than the normal Switch if it provides growth.
If the normal Switch would have 100 units but the normal Switch + Lite sell 80 + 60 that's a growth of 40 even if the normal Switch is still the preferred option.
If the normal Switch would have 100 units but the normal Switch + Lite sell 80 + 60 that's a growth of 40 even if the normal Switch is still the preferred option.
And investors/analysts strongly believed in that thing, I remember the reveal, it's a bit sad that it failed to be successful to be honest.
We're very lucky that Nintendo isn't risk averse.
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It's so parents can budget each of their kids Pokemon for the holidays just like they have for 20 years. Parents absolutely don't care about missing features in their console, they just want to get a thing for their kids. They also don't care about battery life- they prob won't even research this.
The core "gamer family" audience that wants everyone to play Mario kart together will stick with the flagship switch. Which is exactly what Nintendo wants. Ideally they want you to get one flagship and then each kid their own lite for Pokemon (and whatever else)