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PAL Charts - Week 26, 2018
- Thread starter Bruno MB
- Start date
These are not lifetime sales.
I've already said I'm fully expect Crash to sell at least 500-750.000 units worldwide lifetime on Switch, and that Activision definitely won't regret the port, but the point is that these sales don't justify enthusiasm or provide any sort of evidence about the viability of third party software on Switch. 20.000 units is a miserable amount in the AAA space.
Crash will have legs, it will sell that kind of amount before even the Xmas purcashes come in
This is absolute trash. They are gonna compare numbers with xbox one and pc. Unless are they gonna wind down support if xbox and pc versions sell less than switch version which sells less than the ps4 version? Is that what your saying? Right?
3rdParty success stories dont provide any sort of evidence about the viability of 3rdParty software on Switch ?
Do you realize what you just wrote.... lol.
Thats like taking away every big 3rdParty AAA release on PS4/XBO only to make a point about the system not being a good choice for 3rdParty content.
Of course games like Crash selling matters - even if it doesnt fit the narrative you try to promote whenever a 3rdParty has success on the system.
They're going to compare NUMBERS.
Seriously.
So if a game sells 5 copies on XBox and 36 on Switch it's a massive success on Switch?
Is it so hard to grasp that even 500.000 units sold lifetime for a 30£ game are argent de poche for these companies? At which point in these examinations of sales we stop looking at competition between companies we cheerleader for and start considering numbers?
I UNDERSTAND exactly what your saying but your point stands for xbox and pc aswell. They are gonna compare worldwide numbers between XBOX, PC & NSW and won't compare them go PS4 because that isn't in the running anymore.
12.000 units first week sales for a 30£ game don't constitute "3rd party success stories". What about this concept is so elusive?
What? Seriously, what? You're suggesting that this is the same as Call of Duty or Battlefield or Assassin's Creed selling upwards of 10 million units in a matter of months every single year? You're suggesting that Crash topping charts with a whopping 12k units is the same as GTAV selling 100 million units on the PS4/XBox ecosystem?
This is too much, I'm sorry.
It's really not only going to sell 500k copies on switch, I could see that kind of number for the xbone version but at least double that on switch
But they will also examine them in absolute terms.
"It sold better than it did on XBox" (which incidentally is something we're still speculating, at the moment the biggest number is on XBox) if the end result is that both versions sold poorly.
Again, we need to realize that we can't base our threshold on "it's a success story!" on topping charts or relative positions to other versions. The numbers must be sound in absolute terms too. We need to look at the numbers and draw conclusion based on those. A game landing fifth on the charts with 30.000 units sold while the XBox one version sold 45.000 would be a biggest success story than this.
Uh, tell that to the original trilogy because they were huge in Japan. Crash 3 was the first western game to ever sell over a million units there.
What's happened to it since then is all down to Vivendi and Activision's incompetence, I'm betting they didn't even bother copying all the changes Sony made to the original Japanese releases, so that probably killed the nostalgia angle before it even had a chance.
Switch is a good platform for mid tier releases. AAA is not possible because of the technical challenges and people value to play AAA games on big TVs with great graphics so its not really worth the effort. The AAA market had been absent on Switch except for maybe DOOM and Nintendo's own efforts.
Its the mid tier and lower tier market that is doing very good on Switch. Crash is the exception here where there is more nostalgic value to PS owners than Nintendo owners but in general these type of releases do better on Switch wordwide.
Based on him being veteran PAL sales thread poster and therefore knowing what historically constitutes as a decent launch result in UK. Especially for year old port.
Let's try to make some clarity here: 500.000 units sold for Crash are not 500.000 units sold for an AAA, developed-for-switch, timely released AAA game.
Crash's sales can be good news even if it doesn't do incredible numbers because we're talking about a game that didn't have huge dev costs to begin with, and whose dev costs are basically already paid now. Every copy sold is profit. They won't be numbers that make heads spin, but this will work out well for Activision and Nintendo in the end. There's no doubt about it.
However we cannot extrapolate this into "3rd party games are viable on Switch and Crash proves it". It wouldn't prove it even if Crash sold 10 times as much. Nobody is going to look at Crash's first week and see 12k units in the UK or 200.000k units worldwide and think "Boy, it's time to start developing our games on Switch too!".
They will think "Putting our already developed, not technologically demanding games on Switch can be a good way to round up our incomes. Boy oh boy I do feel sorry for those guys who spent so much money and energy on getting a decent version of Wolfenstein 2 on the platform, however".
And that's that.
We live in a world were SE would have considered 4 million units sold a failure for TR. Third parties aren't going to look at 12k units and wet themselves.
Just to clarify. Sub 20k is bad for Switch as well as being bad for xbox or only switch which matters?
Worth noting though just how much do you think porting wolfenstein 2 cost? Ports are generally fairly cheap to make, wouldn't be surprised if we are talking similar costs to porting crash even
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But I've been debating the parameters here. I'm questioning the entire way these threads look at things, because my impression is that here a "decent launch" is something that is based on placement and relative positions compared to other platforms (ie cheerleading) and not on actual revenue potential and sales numbers.
I'm sure that if we go back in time and we go see released like, say, Saint Rows 3 or GT Sport and we'll have people lambasting much bigger numbers as failures (with good reasons) and if questioned about the reasons they'll say things like "Crash was an old port, it's less expensive, the Switch userbase is smaller" which are all fantastic rationalizations but they don't make the money Crash is bringing in worth more.
No businessman is going to think "Well Crash sold well relative to the install base, so let's put some more games on the platform!". They will think "If this is what selling well relative to the install base look like, I definitely ain't going to waste time here".
There are certain mental processes often used in these thread that are absolutely fan-oriented. "This couldn't have literally sold better on the platform because of these objective reasons, so we can't really say it's a failure!" is a perfectly functional reasoning for a fan, but a business man reads it as "There are objective reasons that prevent my product from selling better on the platform, which is a huge problem if I want to make money".
At some point you need to try and tackle that perspective too. Because keeping a chronicle of how things sell and having fan-oriented reasonings comparing platforms and releases is a perfectly fine hobby, but using those reasonings to make business speculation is very risky. 12.000 units at 30£ aren't going to make any company froth at the mouth.
Again, let's clarify something: it's not even bad for Crash. Porting Crash on the Switch costed probably next to nothing. It's cash. Cash is always good, no matter how little.
It's bad if we want to paint this as a "success story" that shows that 3rd party games can be successfull on the Switch. The number don't justify it. And they're bad on XBox too (in this light), but XBox doesn't have the problem of getting 3rd party support to begin with, so the discussion is absolutely pleonastic.
Surely first one was Tetris (co-developed) or Donkey Kong Country.
Downporting Wolfenstein must have costed more than porting Crash. Crash isn't a demanding game and I'm confident there was little to no issue making it run on Switch.
The Wolfenstein port is a work of love, they took software that had no issue running well on Switch and made it work fine. It didn't cost as much as developing a new game would but I'm sure it wasn't cheap or easy.
The main work of porting the engine over had already been done for DOOM though so will have saved a lot in costs, I'd be very surprised if it cost more than a couple of million at most
I think you're right and Crash 3 was actually the first western PS1 title to sell over 1 million. It's such a small list of games that've accomplished that, I don't know how I forgot those two. The only recent additions I can think of are Minecraft and GTAV (across PS3 and PS4).
It's been one week of sales in one region on a game that has had incredible legs on the PS4. If it's too early to say decent launch based off of what we know (currently best opening week on Switch for the year) it's also too early for your comments that the performance is poor, mediocre or unimpressive. I don't see how you can point so aggressively in one direction and call the opposite obviously bias. Sit and wait for a few more weeks and a few more countries minimal if this is your position.
12k at 30£ are not life time sales. Its week 1 with 0 digital included in one of dozens of regions. Do you think Activision would port this with the expectation that it would need to have a monster opening on Xbox One and Switch to be worth it?
Once again, you need to understand that my argument isn't "Was porting Crash a good idea?" (it was, it's free money) but "Can we use Crash's sales to infer third parties should put their games on Switch?" and for that these sales are fundamentally not a good incentive.
GT SPORT had some of the best weeks since launch & reached ~4.8M unique players.
https://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?stat_preset=nb_players_per_week
https://www.kudosprime.com/gts/stats.php?stat_preset=nb_players_per_week
Waiting for the digital chart.
Also, only 24% have tried Sport mode? That's a shame.
I joined week 24 2018 :)
Also, only 24% have tried Sport mode? That's a shame.
That's a pretty great month. Over 400K new accounts added in June. That Le Mans update and the Days of Play sale doing their stuff.
More to come hopefully. I'd like to think Silverstone, Spa, Pikes Peak etc. on the cards. Along with the 'promised' 500 cars (still a couple hundred to go!).
The first western IP to do 1m+ in Japan was Hudson's Famicom conversion of Lode Runner at 1.1m total. The first western developed game to do it was indeed Rare's DKC at a whopping 3m.
GT7 is probably a 2020 time so plenty of time for more stuff in Sport me thinks.
Results for the month (May 27th - June 30th):
https://www.mcvuk.com/business/june-charts-fifa-18-at-no-1-footballs-coming-home
1. FIFA 18
2. GoW
3. Crash Bandicoot
4. Detroit
5. Far Cry 5
6. Fallout 4
7. MK8
8. Mario Tennis
9. Vampyr
10. GTA V
https://www.mcvuk.com/business/june-charts-fifa-18-at-no-1-footballs-coming-home
1. FIFA 18
2. GoW
3. Crash Bandicoot
4. Detroit
5. Far Cry 5
6. Fallout 4
7. MK8
8. Mario Tennis
9. Vampyr
10. GTA V
Looks like Switch is solidifying it's position. The #2 system in the UK after little more than a year on the market.
I think Crash results are expected since majority of the fans are on PS4 and the game is releasing a year later everywhere else. I think its a decent performance on Switch/Xone and PC.
So the number two game of the month sold 50K copies. Always thought June was bigger than May. Could just be a US thing.
This has nothing to do with June being bigger than May lol, it's simple as GOW released in April, so of course sales drop weeks after weeks.
So Does this mean German is Mostly Digital Country on the Xbox one?
Is this talking about the current week (as in the one we do not have data for yet)? Because I thought tracking hasn't even finished yet
If it's talking about the week in the sales of this thread... didn't we already get confirmation that crash XB1 sold more than the switch sku?
