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

Forums - Sales Discussion - NPD will start tracking digital sales (July NPD delayed one week)

Shadow1980 said:

 a DFC Intelligence report from early last year indicated that for all retail-release titles sold in 2014 in the U.S., nearly 95% of copies sold were physical. While we can't make assumptions about the growth rate of digital on consoles, and we're lacking digital-to-physical ratio data from other regions, the fact that as recent as 2014 less than 6% of all sales were digital is not very encouraging news for digital's overall near-term prospects in the console market.

You sure about that? Considering the split in 2015 was more 70/30. 

Got a link to the report?



Around the Network
Shadow1980 said:
SWORDF1SH said:
Digital for console games will overtake the 50% mark in the next few years

There's no way to know for sure because we don't know what the overall growth rate for digital is. Some games that have a massive chunk of their sales coming from digital (e.g., Halo 5, which I estimate to be around 40% digital globally including bundled copies, which are pretty much all digital these days) are statistical outliers to the overall market. While I haven't seen anything for 2015 yet, a DFC Intelligence report from early last year indicated that for all retail-release titles sold in 2014 in the U.S., nearly 95% of copies sold were physical. While we can't make assumptions about the growth rate of digital on consoles, and we're lacking digital-to-physical ratio data from other regions, the fact that as recent as 2014 less than 6% of all sales were digital is not very encouraging news for digital's overall near-term prospects in the console market.

 

ZhugeEX said:
SWORDF1SH said:

While you're here ZhugeEX, can I pick your brains for one moment?

What's you opinion on when digital will pass 50% for AAA releases on console? Both for US and WW?

Considering the US was around ~25% a year or so back, and now at ~35% this year, I wouldn't expect it to take too long for that to happen.

It won't happen tonight though, I'd give it a few more years in the U.S. at least. Countries outside the US have always been behind the curve though when it comes to digital adoption so I imagine it'll take them longer. 

Greatly appreciate the reply ZhugeEX. This is my thinking also but nice to get the opinion of somebody that knows a lot about sales data.

So you opinion Shadow is that digital will have a more steady increase than what ZhugeEX is suggesting? 



how does that work? they need to estimate the numbers like VGchartz



Ruler said:
how does that work? they need to estimate the numbers like VGchartz

Kinda. NPD / EEDAR / DFC Intelligence / GfK / other research groups get direct digital data from EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Take-Two, Deep Silver and Warner Bros every month. They're all linked to each other (aka. they all use / share the same data).

Everything else they do about digital sales beyond that are just estimates based off of their existing hard data, algorithms, and conversations with publishers.

 

 

I still think this digital data is going to be bad for us.

NPD is going to release a combined digital-physical chart every month, so the Top 10 ranking is now useless because they don't have digital data from smaller publishers, some exceptions like Bethesda, and 1st-party data. We're losing that accuracy that we had before in the Top 10.

And, they're getting rid of platform rankings as well in their PR report.

And I still don't think anyone but the major publishers will actually have access to this data day-one. So that means no digital leaks because the leakers won't have access to it, more obfuscated PR data, a week long delay in data release...just seems like we're getting shafted at every level here.



I don't see this happening with any good result's at all, because even leaks can be a false rumor as well.
If Companies reveal their sales on a game, it's most likely month's after release.



 

PSN: Opticstrike90
Steam: opticstrike90

Around the Network
Ryng_Tolu said:
Alright, just relalized we won't have leaks... or well, we'll rarely have.

Still a great news but we'll see.

Dont worry. I'm sure vgchartz or Neogaf will have plenty of leakers to spare! :D



Made a bet with LipeJJ and HylianYoshi that the XB1 will reach 30 million before Wii U reaches 15 million. Loser has to get avatar picked by winner for 6 months (or if I lose, either 6 months avatar control for both Lipe and Hylian, or my patrick avatar comes back forever).

barneystinson69 said:
Ryng_Tolu said:
Alright, just relalized we won't have leaks... or well, we'll rarely have.

Still a great news but we'll see.

Dont worry. I'm sure vgchartz or Neogaf will have plenty of leakers to spare! :D

I'm repeating this point again because I think a lot of people are just ignoring me:

NPD communications chief David Riley commented, "This is a closed service, the detailed data is only available to participants so if you're a non-participating publisher you cannot see the data. The fact that we're allowed to go out with something for the media is a huge step in the right direction. I think as the service matures and as the publishers get used to it and we get more on board, we have more history, we do some benchmarking, we can provide that, but what we wanted to do for multiple reasons, including appeasing the publishers was to combine full-game physical with full-game digital, keep away from the DLC, keep PC games separate because that's a whole different ball of wax. It's not comprehensive, but it's the most comprehensive, we're the first in the market to track this and we're sort of very cautious."

None of the existing leakers are from the participating publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Take-Two, Deep Silver or Warner Bros) except for John Harker, who rarely (if ever) posts.

I don't think we won't get any digital leaks at all because of that.



SWORDF1SH said:
hanssolo said:

  correct. even the industy as a whole is at over 30% for worldwide DD at the start of 2016
and you said 50% within several (aka 2 according to you) years. i just disagree there for the US as a region

I didn't say several but ok. You do realise that your claim of 1 year is within a "few" years right? Just saying! 

Anyway you're taking the interpretation of my statement way too serious and one i stand by for WW digital and US digital sales.

yeah i have to say sorry to you, man
i could have sworn i read several and not a few. sometimes your mind makes up what you think you read and it's not the actual written.

seems like we argree mostly on the timeframe.
sorry again

Aquamarine said:
barneystinson69 said:

Dont worry. I'm sure vgchartz or Neogaf will have plenty of leakers to spare! :D

I'm repeating this point again because I think a lot of people are just ignoring me:

NPD communications chief David Riley commented, "This is a closed service, the detailed data is only available to participants so if you're a non-participating publisher you cannot see the data. The fact that we're allowed to go out with something for the media is a huge step in the right direction. I think as the service matures and as the publishers get used to it and we get more on board, we have more history, we do some benchmarking, we can provide that, but what we wanted to do for multiple reasons, including appeasing the publishers was to combine full-game physical with full-game digital, keep away from the DLC, keep PC games separate because that's a whole different ball of wax. It's not comprehensive, but it's the most comprehensive, we're the first in the market to track this and we're sort of very cautious."

None of the existing leakers are from the participating publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Take-Two, Deep Silver or Warner Bros) except for John Harker, who rarely (if ever) posts.

I don't think we won't get any digital leaks at all.

that's my question. the most detailed information will be for participants only, yes
but what about the general subcriber to the npd sales report. not the "media" stuff.
any idea what will change? they will for sure include digital. but how much detail will payed subcriber and non paticipants get? they also said they want to make sure non paticipants could make reasonable forecasts with this data.

i hope you'll give us some information in 2 weeks about that suff. im really curious.



hanssolo said:
Aquamarine said:

I'm repeating this point again because I think a lot of people are just ignoring me:

NPD communications chief David Riley commented, "This is a closed service, the detailed data is only available to participants so if you're a non-participating publisher you cannot see the data. The fact that we're allowed to go out with something for the media is a huge step in the right direction. I think as the service matures and as the publishers get used to it and we get more on board, we have more history, we do some benchmarking, we can provide that, but what we wanted to do for multiple reasons, including appeasing the publishers was to combine full-game physical with full-game digital, keep away from the DLC, keep PC games separate because that's a whole different ball of wax. It's not comprehensive, but it's the most comprehensive, we're the first in the market to track this and we're sort of very cautious."

None of the existing leakers are from the participating publishers (EA, Activision, Ubisoft, Capcom, Square Enix, Take-Two, Deep Silver or Warner Bros) except for John Harker, who rarely (if ever) posts.

I don't think we won't get any digital leaks at all.

that's my question. the most detailed information will be for participants only, yes
but what about the general subcriber to the npd sales report. not the "media" stuff.
any idea what will change? they will for sure include digital. but how much detail will payed subcriber and non paticipants get? they also said they want to make sure non paticipants could make reasonable forecasts with this data.

i hope you'll give us some information in 2 weeks about that suff. im really curious.

I'm predicting that "detailed" information that's NPD says is closed off to publishers = SKU-level sales.

So what NPD is saying is.....unless you're from a publisher who actually give out the digital sales for their titles, if you're a regular NPD subscriber, you can only get general digital information for the whole industry, but you can't get digital sales for titles.

I hope I'm wrong, but I've learned not to be optimistic over the years. We'll see when the data releases.



hanssolo said:
SWORDF1SH said:

I didn't say several but ok. You do realise that your claim of 1 year is within a "few" years right? Just saying! 

Anyway you're taking the interpretation of my statement way too serious and one i stand by for WW digital and US digital sales.

yeah i have to say sorry to you, man
i could have sworn i read several and not a few. sometimes your mind makes up what you think you read and it's not the actual written.

seems like we argree mostly on the timeframe.
sorry again

It's ok, I don't think it'll be as soon as you predict but by the start of 2018 I don't think it'll be far away from 50% (if not over).

Thanks for having balls to say sorry, that's pretty cool! :)