Topic: NPD November 2007 Data.

[Pugnate]

http://www.thesimexchange.com/blogpost.php?post_id=455

What is amazing is how well COD4 sold. For a game with an extremely short singleplayer campaign, it sold over 1,500,000 units on the 360 and 444,000 on the PS3.

Crysis did above TSE expectations, selling nearly a 90,000 on the PC for the 13 days it was out during that survey. I am sure it would have sold more, had it been optimized better. Still, Crytek and EA would be disappointed with those figures. Doom 3 apparently sold 400,000 in its first two weeks and nearly 800,000 units in its first two months, so yes Crysis needs to get moving. Doom 3 ended up with 3.5 million while Half-Life 1 with 8 million.

What was abysmal was Unreal Tournament 3, selling about 36,000 in its 11 days of release. It fell well below expectations. I think what hurt it was that most gamers found it to be the same game under a new engine. The PS3 version should fare better.

Also sales for COD4 PC aren't on that list, which is very strange. I can't find a link to it either, so if anyone can help I'd appreciate it as I'd like to see how well COD4 did on the PC.

I've read that November PC game sales were topped by COD4, though it had no figures to back it up.

http://www.gamedaily.com/games/call-of-duty-4-modern-warfare/xbox-360/game-features/chart-toppers-modern-gamers-hear-the-call-of-duty/6297/71277/?biz=

According to the NPD, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has been the top selling PC game for three of the past four weeks. In the one week since release that it didn't actually grab the top spot, it was number two.

According to this…

http://www.thesimexchange.com/stock.php?id=283

….COD 4 sold around a million units on the PC alone, which is insane because it would mean that the PC version of the game sold twice as many as the PS3 version!

If anyone can find a complete NPD data list for PC games, I would appreciate it.

[Cobra951]

Did you notice this tidbit?

PlayStation 3    466,000    424,400    +9.80%
PlayStation 2    496,000    --    --

Sony execs must be suicidal by now.

[Pugnate]

haha no I didn't...

I've checked the sales on another site for the PC and they estimate near 900,000 as well.... so... well... it just boggles my mind that this game would sell twice as many on the PC as it did on the PS3... the PS3 looks really screwed it seems.

[scottws]

I don't think it's screwed.  They just need a commercial for a PS3 game that has the impact that the FFVII commercial did.

Edit:  FFIV?

[Ghandi]

Or they can just add a controller that is motion-sensitive and drop the price to $250. I bet that would work.

[Pugnate]

While that could provide the fix, so many of these exclusive developers are turning away. Everyone is almost certain the new Metal Gear will come to the 360 very soon after the PS3. Development costs are extremely high these days for AAA titles, so they need to get their games to as many systems as possible.

Final Fantasy is something that will probably remain as a PS exclusive though, because the 360 still can't crack Japan.

Also I can see why they simply can't drop the price. They took a massive gamble with the mandatory Blu-Ray. While those diodes have gotten cheaper, Sony is still making a massive loss on the PS3s.

[Cobra951]

What keeps coming up is the big difference in getting code to work right between the 360 and the PS3.  I think that strange architecture is hurting Sony a lot more than it's getting noticed for.  The 360 is very close to a triple-core game PC, and there's few headaches in coming up to speed on it for veteran programmers, or porting PC games, of course.  The time it takes games to get to market in a playable state is key.

[Pugnate]

You are absolutely right...

I was listening to Carmack, and he said, yes theoretically the PS3 is more powerful than the 360. However, according to him as well as other developers... the problem was that it was just difficult to code for. He said the software packages provided by Microsoft were beautiful, while he found some of the PS3 stuff perplexing.

From what I understand, the PS3 isn't that worse than the PS2 to code for. The thing is that the PS1s and PS2s were largely without competition. Suddenly Microsoft is showing how to treat developers and stuff.

[Pugnate]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6184023.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;1

Analysts respond to November sales
Last month was a record-breaking one for US retail gaming revenue, but what lessons are being pulled from the numbers?
By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpot
Posted Dec 14, 2007 10:53 am PT

Last month was widely expected to show significant growth in the US gaming industry, but when the retail-tracking NPD Group yesterday released sales data for the month, the figures far outstripped already-rosy analyst projections. According to the NPD, the month saw US retailers sell more than $2.63 billion in gaming hardware, software, and accessories, a 52 percent spike over the previous November. Even without December, typically the biggest month of the year for game sales by far, 2007's US industry sales are already up 5 percent over the total 2006 haul.

In an investors note heralding the news with exclamation points, Wedbush Morgan Securities' Michael Pachter acknowledged that the industry was outstripping not only its previous performance, but also his own projections.

"Year-to-date, industry sales are up 27 percent (including PC), tracking well ahead of our 19 percent [growth] estimate," Pachter said. "In order for our forecast to be right, December software sales would have to be down year-over-year (this is highly unlikely), so there should be significant upside to our growth estimates. Should December sales be up a modest 10 percent, overall industry growth will approach 23 percent for the full year."

Activision scored big, thanks to strong sales of Call of Duty 4 (more than 2 million units sold on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3), the continued success of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock (1.9 million sold across platforms in its second month), and the publisher's recently announced merger with Vivendi Games.

"Activision ascended to become by far the largest publisher of console and handheld video games with over 67 percent greater sales than its top competitor," Wilson said, factoring Vivendi game sales in with the Activision total. "It is set up to have by far the best holiday season sales."

The simExchange prediction market analyst Jesse Divnich released his own assessment of the figures, saying that a slowing US economy and reduced holiday shopping activity were to blame for the conservative November sales forecasts. Among the titles that surpassed the prediction market's expectations, Divnich was most impressed with Rock Band.

"Rock Band, up against an improperly executed marketing campaign, supply constraints, and hardware bugs, still managed to beat market expectations by ringing in 311,909 units sold in November, well above the market's expectation of 152,000 units," Divnich said. "We consider this a significant achievement for Harmonix, which despite large barriers managed to break into the music peripheral genre under a new intellectual property, which clearly could have been marketed better to consumers."

As for titles that didn't sport great performances, Divnich noted Manhunt 2 for the Wii, saying its sales of under 19,000 copies "should not be considered a victory for those groups who protested its release, but rather a victory for industry and gamers who did not fall for the market hype of what can only be described as a poorly executed title."

He also pointed to Crysis, which actually beat the simExchange's expectations with sales of nearly 87,000. However, Divnich said it had a long way to go before it could be called a success, and its performance "suggests that the best PC titles are those that can be readily available to a wider market by having lower hardware requirements."

[MysterD]

He also pointed to Crysis, which actually beat the simExchange's expectations with sales of nearly 87,000. However, Divnich said it had a long way to go before it could be called a success, and its performance "suggests that the best PC titles are those that can be readily available to a wider market by having lower hardware requirements."

I remember that week Crysis was like $29.99 @ Circuit City.

I definitely would've bought it for that price, if my vid-card actually met the minimum requirements...
So, his point is valid, in this case and instance...

EDIT:

Crysis did above TSE expectations, selling nearly a 90,000 on the PC for the 13 days it was out during that survey. I am sure it would have sold more, had it been optimized better. Still, Crytek and EA would be disappointed with those figures. Doom 3 apparently sold 400,000 in its first two weeks and nearly 800,000 units in its first two months, so yes Crysis needs to get moving. Doom 3 ended up with 3.5 million while Half-Life 1 with 8 million.

Most people by that time I think had a GeForce 3 Ti or its ATI equivalent by then (a pixel-Shader card), as there were already many Shader-card required PC games were being pumped out before Doom 3's release, during Doom 3's release, and even more so not-too-long AFTER Doom 3's release.

So, even if people barely met the minimums for Doom 3, they'd probably still go get it b/c people love Id -- and likely b/c it'd still run well, look most Id games do. Y'know, I can't really recall a game where Id's technical performance, even on Id games w/ PC's that barely meet the minimum requirements, were poor. Oh, there's also the other factor -- many people decided to upgrade just to see Doom 3 in all of its graphical beauty.

I don't think everybody is going to upgrade their PC just to play Crysis. Crytek really ain't been around long enough to reach Id's status and really doesn't produce engines just as technically-sound as Id does, performance-wise and framerate-wise.

There really ain't enough PC games -- especially PC exclusive games -- requiring at least a GF 6800 or its ATI equivalent just yet. Stranglehold PC (requires a GF7800), Shadowrun PC (requires a GF 7800), Guitar Hero 3 PC (requires a GF 7600) -- oddly enough, are all games that are ALSO on next-gen consoles -- are some of the only few right now calling for a vid-card around or above what Crysis requires.