By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Sales Discussion - Media Create/Famitsu Sales (9/15 - 9/21) Bayonetta 2 39k

Aielyn said:
BeElite said:
39k, that cant be good.

 

At the very least, there is reason to be too hopeful.

Fixed.



Around the Network
Kresnik said:
Aielyn said:

So I really don't think 39k is all that bad considering it's a Nintendo console, and considering sales patterns of other comparable titles (I included Wonderful 101 because it's another Platinum title - if Bayonetta 2 follows that pattern, it'll be at about 338k by this time next year). In the end, it comes down to legs, not week 1, on Nintendo systems.


But, aside from Wonderful 101, did you actually compare sales patterns of any comparable titles?  The only link seems to be "available on WiiU".  There doesn't seem to be any link between genre; target audience; amount of marketing etc.

Aielyn said:

Dragon Quest X sold 35k in week 1 in Japan (now at 200k).

Aside from this looking like it's another victim of VGC's pretty steady overtracking (I'll get onto that later in the post), check the release schedule of the game:

TitlePublisherRegionDateDistribution
Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Online Square Enix Japan 30th March 2013 Retail
Dragon Quest X: Nemureru Yuusha to Michibiki no Meiyuu Online Square Enix Japan 05th December 2013 Retail

Two versions of the game - Original release + expansion - tracked in one SKU.  Sales of DQX individually are probably going to be more like 60% or so of those 200k.

Aielyn said:

Wii Party U sold 76k in week 1 in Japan. It has sold nearly 800k to date.

Are you expecting Bayonetta 2 to be a mandatory bundle throughout a significant period of the WiiU's life like Wii Party U was?

Aielyn said:

The Wonderful 101 sold a little under 6k in week 1 in Japan. It has sold 52k to date.

This one I'm really struggling with.  Japanltdrank have it at 27k.  It's pretty impressive that VGC have it at almost double that.

On the subject of overtracking - lifetime sales of a game in Japan comes down to how long ioi decides to continue tracking them.  Some games get weeks and weeks and weeks of ~ 500-1k sales charting at 50-75 in VGC's Japan sales, when we haven't seen them in either Media Create or Dengeki's top 50's for months.

Or, they could track the 1st week sales:

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70525/metal-gear-solid-hd-edition/Japan/

And then just randomly throw in some numbers for the remaining sales without any real semblance of tracking to it (more sales in 2013 for the game - 15k - than the 6 months following release including a holiday period - 9k?)

Point being, legs are all over the place.

And I don't even want to get started on VGChartz pre-orders, in particular with Japanese titles which are horrifically all over the place.

So I wasn't imagining it when I thought that W101 numbers in Japan are weird. Good to know. That game still constantly selling around 500 units per week in Japan seemed very wrong to me.



Hmm... could've been better. I guess thats the hopes of Bayonetta 3 down the drain...



Bayonetta 2 did better than I expected, to be honest.

This is a Nintendo game, by the way. If you're going to watch it, watch its legs - even when it drops out of the charts.



 
I WON A BET AGAINST AZUREN! WOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

:3

Kresnik said:
Aielyn said:

So I really don't think 39k is all that bad considering it's a Nintendo console, and considering sales patterns of other comparable titles (I included Wonderful 101 because it's another Platinum title - if Bayonetta 2 follows that pattern, it'll be at about 338k by this time next year). In the end, it comes down to legs, not week 1, on Nintendo systems.


But, aside from Wonderful 101, did you actually compare sales patterns of any comparable titles?  The only link seems to be "available on WiiU".  There doesn't seem to be any link between genre; target audience; amount of marketing etc.

Aielyn said:

Dragon Quest X sold 35k in week 1 in Japan (now at 200k).

Aside from this looking like it's another victim of VGC's pretty steady overtracking (I'll get onto that later in the post), check the release schedule of the game:

TitlePublisherRegionDateDistribution
Dragon Quest X: Mezameshi Itsutsu no Shuzoku Online Square Enix Japan 30th March 2013 Retail
Dragon Quest X: Nemureru Yuusha to Michibiki no Meiyuu Online Square Enix Japan 05th December 2013 Retail

Two versions of the game - Original release + expansion - tracked in one SKU.  Sales of DQX individually are probably going to be more like 60% or so of those 200k.  In fact, Japanltdrank have it at 80k (84k including the "all in one" pack).

Aielyn said:

Wii Party U sold 76k in week 1 in Japan. It has sold nearly 800k to date.

Are you expecting Bayonetta 2 to be a mandatory bundle throughout a significant period of the WiiU's life like Wii Party U was?

Aielyn said:

The Wonderful 101 sold a little under 6k in week 1 in Japan. It has sold 52k to date.

This one I'm really struggling with.  Japanltdrank have it at 27k.  It's pretty impressive that VGC have it at almost double that.

On the subject of overtracking - lifetime sales of a game in Japan comes down to how long ioi decides to continue tracking them.  Some games get weeks and weeks and weeks of ~ 500-1k sales charting at 50-75 in VGC's Japan sales, when we haven't seen them in either Media Create or Dengeki's top 50's for months.

Or, they could track the 1st week sales:

http://www.vgchartz.com/game/70525/metal-gear-solid-hd-edition/Japan/

And then just randomly throw in some numbers for the remaining sales without any real semblance of tracking to it (more sales in 2013 for the game - 15k - than the 6 months following release including a holiday period - 9k?)

Point being, legs are all over the place.

And I don't even want to get started on VGChartz pre-orders, in particular with Japanese titles which are horrifically all over the place.

At the bottom of the page on that japanltdranking site... "The figures in this website are based only on the reports available through their Famitsu magazines and websites since 1996. For that reason, sales information for some games is not available or is incomplete."

In other words, they can only track the data for which numbers are given. And that means that once it drops out of the top 30, it stops tracking. Considering that Wonderful 101 has been tracked as roughly 500 per week more recently, and Famitsu cuts out, currently, at about 1500. Let's use 1500 as a "base point" for a minute. Of course, doing this only gives a total of around 11-12k, so clearly they're getting more than that... except, there's no proper indication of where they're getting their numbers from. And with no details available to compare against (that is, I can't look at their weekly numbers, and compare against available data), I have no idea how accurate the numbers they provide actually are. For all I know, they could be only up to the last update... and if Famitsu only provides updates beyond the top 30 once a year, then you'd expect their numbers to match up with Famitsu's yearly update. Care to guess where VGChartz had W101 at the end of 2013?

By the way, regarding Dragon Quest X... curious how the base package only tracks at 84k, yet the "expansion pack only", where the "only" implies it doesn't come with the base pack, tracks at 130k.

I chose the list I chose because those titles either were relevant comparisons because of developer (W101) or because they had comparable or stronger first weeks (the rest of the list), and weren't Mario, Nintendo Land, or other major first-party titles (with the exception of Wii Party U, which I provided to demonstrate just one thing - it's not just the major franchises, since Wii Party can't really be called a major franchise on its own, when neither Wii Fit U nor Wii Sports Club showed any similar behaviour - but I agree that bundling is an issue).

Meanwhile, the point to be drawn isn't one of direct comparison of actual numbers, but to emphasise that there are more factors than just week 1 sales at play, especially on Nintendo systems where legs tend to be longer (you can argue the exact extent as much as you want, but I've never heard anyone assert otherwise).



Around the Network

Beyond Bombanetta 2 (which is sad) I shall say HW Vita is concerning again. I tought a new baseline of 20k was possible with all the third party support it has in Japan, but oh well.

Why do I like the lowest selling consoles? T_T



3DS FC :  4339 - 3326 - 7693. Add me :) Nickname Tin

Aielyn said:

At the bottom of the page on that japanltdranking site... "The figures in this website are based only on the reports available through their Famitsu magazines and websites since 1996. For that reason, sales information for some games is not available or is incomplete."

In other words, they can only track the data for which numbers are given. And that means that once it drops out of the top 30, it stops tracking. Considering that Wonderful 101 has been tracked as roughly 500 per week more recently, and Famitsu cuts out, currently, at about 1500. Let's use 1500 as a "base point" for a minute. Of course, doing this only gives a total of around 11-12k, so clearly they're getting more than that... except, there's no proper indication of where they're getting their numbers from. And with no details available to compare against (that is, I can't look at their weekly numbers, and compare against available data), I have no idea how accurate the numbers they provide actually are. For all I know, they could be only up to the last update... and if Famitsu only provides updates beyond the top 30 once a year, then you'd expect their numbers to match up with Famitsu's yearly update. Care to guess where VGChartz had W101 at the end of 2013?

But then you're saying you're placing your faith in the tracking of VGChartz for anything further:

http://www.vgchartz.com/methodology.php

Our methodology supposedly polls end users and retail channels combined with information from manufacturers.  Given that every week, Japan sales seem to be a split between Media Create & Famitsu, do you believe this is actually true?  And if so, where do you believe the accuracy in VGChartz numbers beyond the top 50 in Japan comes from?

I agree there's a discrepancy between when a game drops out of Media Create/Dengeki top 50 (which tracks slightly longer) and when it finally stops selling, but that's my point - VGC constantly overestimates this for some games, and then completely abandons it for other games.

Additionally, the bolded is wrong.  Wonderful 101 spent two weeks in the Famitsu top 30, dropping out at 10,126 sales:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=79932829&postcount=1

24./10. [WIU] The Wonderful 101 (Nintendo) {2013.08.24} (¥6.830) - 3.463 / 10.126 <20-40%> (-48%)

This correlates with the database at Geimin for 2013 sales:

http://geimin.net/da/db/2013_ne_fa/index.php

270 WiiU The Wonderful 101 (The Wonderful One-O-One) Nintendo 2013/08/24 10 126 lines 10 126 lines 6663 lines

According to Dengeki, the game had fallen out of the top 50 by its third week, thus selling < 1500 copies that week (and presumably all subsequent weeks):

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=81401889&postcount=502

Media Create had it at 14k by the end of 2013 (and they track a top 50, rather than a top 30):

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=876551

400. [WIU] The Wonderful 101 (Nintendo) {2013.08.24} (¥6.930) - 14.134 - 14.134

Where have the extra 17k sales come from?  I couldn't actually tell you - I assume some kind of Famitsu top 1000 which I'm having difficulty finding (so anyway, maybe not!)

Regardless, however the tracking works out, we can assume these copies were basically given away for peanuts:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=125857433&postcount=83

In the nearest bomba bin, games that haven't sold their first week shipment:

[WIU] The Wonderful 101 {2013-08-24} => 15,673

If you add up the Media Create sold through + the copies sitting in a bomba bin, you get:  29,807.  

Famitsu's number for copies sold?  27,028.  So it seems like the game was just discounted to clear overshipped stock.

Are you telling me that we're seriously to believe that despite the fact that the game was humongously overshipped at launch, retailers proceeded to order a further ~ 23k+ copies to sell at incredibly discounted prices?  Seems absolutely bizarre given that the game clearly isn't selling in any noteable quantities and how strong the used game market is in Japan.

(Please also note that on the bomba bin list there are multiple Nintendo-published WiiU titles such as Game & Wario; Ninja Gaiden 3; Wind Waker HD etc.  Nintendo aren't immune from overshipping games which have no legs.)

Which brings me back to my point about Bayonetta 2:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=131451053&postcount=1

03./00. [WIU] Bayonetta 2 (Nintendo) {2014.09.20} (¥8.316) - 33.114 / NEW <40-60%> 

Even if it ends up at decent numbers, are those decent numbers going to be a success or are they going to be clearing inventory and no further shipments?  Bayonetta's situation is less precarious than W101's (20-40% sellthrough) but judging by normal sales curves, we'll likely only see minor further shipments possibly for the game.  Nothing substantial, and likely not a whole lot at full price.

And is that really what Nintendo want?  

Aielyn said:

Meanwhile, the point to be drawn isn't one of direct comparison of actual numbers, but to emphasise that there are more factors than just week 1 sales at play, especially on Nintendo systems where legs tend to be longer (you can argue the exact extent as much as you want, but I've never heard anyone assert otherwise).

I think this is the whole problem I have with your argument.  Nintendo-developed games have legs, particularly from key, historic franchises.  A second party title published by Nintendo has no real guarantee of legging it.  See examples such as: Captain Rainbow; The Last Story; Fatal Frame IV etc.  Or any of the WiiU games which ended up in bomba bins from the list above.

And in addition to that, it swings back to how long VGC want to continue tracking its sales or not.

Legs depends on so many more factors, not least - target audience; genre and console.  And I don't think Bayonetta 2 has any of those 3 things in its favour.

 

I do understand the arguments you're putting forward.  But I just feel like it's wishful thinking to spin what could potentially be a poor performance into something good.  

Nintendo thrive on selling things like Mario Kart alongside every console they sell for years afterwards.  They don't thrive overshipping Wonderful 101 and having retailers discount all their copies after 2 months and make no further shipments.  And I haven't seen anything about what Bayonetta is which suggests it's going to be the former, rather than the latter.

Aielyn said:

By the way, regarding Dragon Quest X... curious how the base package only tracks at 84k, yet the "expansion pack only", where the "only" implies it doesn't come with the base pack, tracks at 130k.

Click the little "+" sign at the left of the game.  DQX expansion has digital sales added (pretty substantial ones).  DQX vanilla does not because it's from before Famitsu started tracking digital sales.



i did expect ps4 above 10k...



EricFabian said:
ryuzaki57 said:
81% of Bayo1 day one buyers didn't come for Bayo2. Enough said.

never coming to PS4

Why are you even bothering?



                
       ---Member of the official Squeezol Fanclub---

Aielyn said:

At the bottom of the page on that japanltdranking site... "The figures in this website are based only on the reports available through their Famitsu magazines and websites since 1996. For that reason, sales information for some games is not available or is incomplete."

In other words, they can only track the data for which numbers are given. And that means that once it drops out of the top 30, it stops tracking. Considering that Wonderful 101 has been tracked as roughly 500 per week more recently, and Famitsu cuts out, currently, at about 1500. Let's use 1500 as a "base point" for a minute. Of course, doing this only gives a total of around 11-12k, so clearly they're getting more than that... except, there's no proper indication of where they're getting their numbers from. And with no details available to compare against (that is, I can't look at their weekly numbers, and compare against available data), I have no idea how accurate the numbers they provide actually are. For all I know, they could be only up to the last update... and if Famitsu only provides updates beyond the top 30 once a year, then you'd expect their numbers to match up with Famitsu's yearly update. Care to guess where VGChartz had W101 at the end of 2013?

By the way, regarding Dragon Quest X... curious how the base package only tracks at 84k, yet the "expansion pack only", where the "only" implies it doesn't come with the base pack, tracks at 130k.

I chose the list I chose because those titles either were relevant comparisons because of developer (W101) or because they had comparable or stronger first weeks (the rest of the list), and weren't Mario, Nintendo Land, or other major first-party titles (with the exception of Wii Party U, which I provided to demonstrate just one thing - it's not just the major franchises, since Wii Party can't really be called a major franchise on its own, when neither Wii Fit U nor Wii Sports Club showed any similar behaviour - but I agree that bundling is an issue).

and I stopped reading there. We have publicly available data weekly for top 50s, and trackers unveil a top 1000 at the end of each year. At the end of 2013, W101 hadn't even got to 20k yet. Using VGC as your metric is giving you a false impression about a lot of these games (and their complete disassociation with Bayonetta 2).



"We'll toss the dice however they fall,
And snuggle the girls be they short or tall,
Then follow young Mat whenever he calls,
To dance with Jak o' the Shadows."

Check out MyAnimeList and my Game Collection. Owner of the 5 millionth post.