July 2017 NPD Thread! Switch #1

[VideoGameAccountant]

Shadow1980 said:

VideoGameAccountant said:

Do you the source of the numbers. I ask because it seems odd that Q2 sales for 2017 would be so much higher than 2016. Sony noted that Q1 (Apr 1 - Jun 30) PS4 sales were down slightly. Looking at hardware spending, the % increase was marginal those months (least May) and the NPD analyst quoted Switch was the reason for the increase. Shouldn't there be a flattening, not this massive jump in June?

Numbers were catalogued from prior threads. I'm pretty sure all the numbers came from Aquamarine and librarian13579.

Sony's numbers were global shipments, not U.S. sales. It's been pretty well established for a long time now that shipments ≠ sales.

According to NPD, the PS4 sold 381k in the U.S. in June, up a good bit from last year. Overall, Q2 sales in the U.S. were up by 158k units, or 25.6%.

In Japan, sales were very slightly down YoY. Media Create had the PS4 at 294,000 for weeks 14-26 last year, but only 292,368 for the same period this year, a dip of only 1632 units, or only 0.56%.

As for Europe and smaller markets outside the NA/Japan/Europe triad, I don't know, but if actual unit sales (as opposed to shipments, which did decline by 5.7%) were down YoY for the April-June period, the loss had to come from outside the U.S. and Japan.

Here is where I'm concerned about the data. If Sony is saying there is a decline, we should be able to find that decline in the individual regional markets. Japan had a decline but America increased based on what said. We don't know Europe. And America is one of the largest regions. So if we have Japan declining slightly and America having its strongest year (if I understand correctly), then wouldn't we see worldwide shipments go up? Shipments should be close to sales because Sony doesn't ship millions of these units at one time. It would be throughout the entire quarter. So while some difference could be due to big sales made at the end of the quarter (which may explain June), it should be close to what Sony is saying, especially if April and May were also up. 

Also, console spending only went up $111 million. Nintendo Switch sold 1.95 million in America which would equate to $585 million in new sales. The NPD analyst have been crediting the increase in sales to Switch every month (and PS4 1TB in June). Some of this could be from a decline in Wii U sales, but there would still have to be a decline in the other systems to reflect it. 

It just seems odd that there would be a huge increase in PS4 sales when shipments are down and the increase of the quarter was due to another system. I will ask: was there a price cut for the system since the last quarter? Might explain part of it

Sources:

https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/18/april-2017-npd/

https://venturebeat.com/2017/06/19/may-2017-npd-injustice-2-comes-out-on-top-as-nintendo-games-keep-selling/

https://venturebeat.com/2017/07/20/june-2017-npd-tekken-and-injustice-roundhouse-kick-the-sales-chart/

https://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2017/170726e.pdf