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Forums - Sales Discussion - The official January NPD Thread

DOATS1 on 15 February 2008
Jin_Kazama said:
ioi said:
Well the only figures from NPD that cause me any concern this month are DS hardware, PS3 hardware and Galaxy. Everything else, as far as I am concerned, agrees well enough to be within margins of data sampling differences. Tackling each one in turn:

DS hardware - from our sample data, DS was consistently selling better than all other hardware across the board. We had some shortages reported, but nowhere near the level that NPD are reporting here and nowhere near the level that Wii seemed to be seeing. So the obvious conclusions are that our stores were not that representitive in that they must have been better stocked than nationally on average, although I feel that NPD may be quite low themselves on DS data. I also think that sometimes they will scale data to account for errors in previous months, maybe we are seeing an element of this. We will speak to Nintendo to get a better feel from them as to how many units they actually managed to ship last month. Interestingly, if you compare NPD LTD figures for DS (and add a generous 10% for Canada) to Nintendo shipments you'll find that even if Nintendo didn't manage to ship any new units in Jan there should still have been enough units floating around from December to sell much more than 250k in Jan.

PS3 figures also defy logic to an extent. Sure people will be buying more PS3s since there is a shortage of 360 premiums but still that is a big jump from the kind of sales we saw in November / Dec (relative - it is obviousy less but not as much less as you'd expect given the modest holiday sales). Again, our data consistently had PS3 at the bottom of the pack, despite 360 shortages and I find it hard to see how we could be 80-90k too low unless some chains were seeing an enormous PS3 boost - all our data had it selling on par or slightly less than this time last year.

Galaxy sales are also a little suprising, from selling similar amounts to COD4 in November / December it sells half in Jan? Traditionally, we'd expect Mario to have larger legs, which of course it will later in the year as COD falls away, but again all of our data had Galaxy comfortably outselling everything else throughout Jan. So again, I'm in no rush to go changing anything and am waiting to see what manufacturers say on the issue.

A general comment about NPDs hardware data this month, all figures fall between 270k and 230k. Given the fact that ~80-90k of this is from Walmart / TRU alone, I'd almost call it a 6-way tie - especially under a situation with huge shortages which affect different stores in different ways. Walmart could quite conceivably have sold 150k DS alone last month, for example, had they been sent units preferrentially. I'm not saying they did, but it is worth bearing this kind of thing in mind. Certainly those making a big issue of PS3 > 360 when the difference is 30k in a month that has proven to be hard to peg down due to stock issues are definitely not showing much of an understanding for this kind of thing...

I'm a twat


not even your devil powers can save you now, jin.




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brute on 15 February 2008
dolemit3 said:
More software numbers:
[360 Kingdom Under Fire: CoD] = 52K
[NDS Advance Wars: DoR] = 81K
[PS3 Burnout Paradise] = 83K
[PS3 Uncharted] = 54K
[WII No More Heroes] = 65K

it seems o more heroes was undertracked which is a good thing



tag:"reviews only matter for the real hardcore gamer"

MikeB on 15 February 2008

Let's all stay polite, yes it seems VGChartz miscalculated and misjudged their data. Sure the NPD is the most reliable and accurate source with regard to North American sales by far (at least as an independent source), the big companies like Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony pay to get their hands on their data and haven't disputed the data.

IMO just adjust the figures accordingly and take a good look at how much the data was off and apply this to follow up estimations for the weeks ahead of us.

The website overtracked the 360 and undertracked the PS3 severely for past months before, so maybe applying lessons learned could perhaps have resulted in more accurate PS3vs360 figures?



Naughty Dog: "At Naughty Dog, we're pretty sure we should be able to see leaps between games on the PS3 that are even bigger than they were on the PS2."

PS3 vs 360 sales

KruzeS on 15 February 2008
ioi said:
PS3 figures also defy logic to an extent. Sure people will be buying more PS3s since there is a shortage of 360 premiums but still that is a big jump from the kind of sales we saw in November / Dec (relative - it is obviousy less but not as much less as you'd expect given the modest holiday sales). Again, our data consistently had PS3 at the bottom of the pack, despite 360 shortages and I find it hard to see how we could be 80-90k too low unless some chains were seeing an enormous PS3 boost - all our data had it selling on par or slightly less than this time last year.

Couldn't this possibly be due to the Warner Bluray announcement?

Assuming you mostly track small specialist games stores, the swing in Bluray support might not have much of an effect on your sample, whereas on bigger retail stores that might have had a bigger impact (case in point: Best Buy).



Reality has a Nintendo bias.
brute on 15 February 2008

^it could be cause of blu-ray,but you dont know from who ioi gets his data



tag:"reviews only matter for the real hardcore gamer"

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dolemit3 on 15 February 2008
Stever89 said:
 

Are those LTD sales? Or just Jans sales? :


 

 


These are Jan. NPD numbers.

Currently playing on PS3: God of War III

Currently playing on Xbox360: Final Fantasy XIII

Currently playing on NDS: Chrono Trigger

kamil on 15 February 2008

@Steve:
Advance Wars is actually 63k and No More Heroes 68k on vgchartz (you didn't count week ending on Feb 2). Uncharted was 78k (not sure where you get 81k). Rest is good.

King. under Fire is overtracked around 40%, Advance Wars undertracked around 30%, Burnout Paradise undertracked over 30%, Uncharted overtracked 30%, No more Heroes overtracked around 10% (assuming NPD is 100% right and after adding 10% for Canada)



heruamon on 15 February 2008

Man, is it getting hot in here...lol.



"...You can't kill ideas with a sword, and you can't sink belief structures with a broadside. You defeat them by making them change..."

- From By Schism Rent Asunder

dolemit3 on 15 February 2008

Jin_Kazama
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(02/15/08, 19:05)

I'm wondering what's with all the hate. The numbers are free (unlike NPD which cost 10-20k). Don't like them -- don't read them. It's that simple.



Currently playing on PS3: God of War III

Currently playing on Xbox360: Final Fantasy XIII

Currently playing on NDS: Chrono Trigger

Zucas on 15 February 2008

Personally, think the only thing NPD is far off on is COD4 360, SMG, and DS hardware. I think everything else is respectable. The difference in those things come from what NPD mainly tracks and then over or underestimates for the rest of the areas due to what sales better in certain stores.

Once again, PS3 hardware is not something to brag about, nor is 360 and Wii hardware something to worry about. I don't know why people are freaking out either way, but people need to calm down. People don't win generations on one month, nor or huge changes confirmed in one month. PS3 has proved nothing in January, nor has 360 and Wii lost anything in January. Chill out people.