| Aura7541 said: It's not advisable to predict GTS's performance off of GT6 considering the latter's circumstances. It was pretty damn obvious that GT6 would not sell as well as the previous entries when it was released right when the PS4 launched. Yet, in spite of that, it still managed to sell a respectable amount of units. To me, it is going to come down to multiple factors, namely the quality of GTS and Sony's marketing behind it. The initial trailer was terribad, though it was later revealed that it was utilizing an ancient build. That still does not excuse the trailer because it really gave a lot of people a negative impression. Since then, it has made gradual improvements. Comparing GT to Uncharted is a flawed assessment unless Sony bundles the PS4 with GTS. Uncharted 4 as a standalone game did sell really well, but we need to acknowledge that the bundle also drove that number to 8.7 million sales. It's not really fair to compare GTS to UC4 if the former is never bundled. And as CGI pointed out, GT3 was bundled with the PS2. Also, you need to look past just the amount of units sold in a year. While the PS4 sold slightly more in 2016 than in 2015, there's a catch. The PS4 was down YOY in the US as of November 2016 by a significant margin and yet, it managed to outperform its 2015 WW performance. In addition, you need to consider how SIEA pushed the PS4 during the 2015 and 2016 holiday seasons. In 2015, there were the Uncharted Collection 500GB bundle, Black Ops 3 1TB LE bundle, Black Ops 3 500GB standard bundle, and 3 different Star Wars Battlefront bundles. In 2016, there were just the UC4 500GB bundle, the FFXV 1TB LE bundle, the PS4 Pro, and the Infinite Warfare 500GB bundle. Holiday sales in the US are dependent on three factors: price, AAA 3rd party software, and bundle variety. The PS4 did amazing during the 2015 holiday season because it checked off all three of the aspects I mentioned. In 2016, the PS4 only checked off one which was price. AAA 3rd party software took a major hit. COD IW sold substantially worse than Black Ops 3. Watch Dogs 2 didn't move the needle at all. There weren't Fallout 4 and Star Wars Battlefront last year. Other than the UC4 bundle, all the other SKUs were costly. The Pro's price stayed at $399. The FFXV LE bundle cost a whopping $449. The Infinite Warfare bundle came out after Christmas whereas Sony released the Black Ops 3 bundle in December 14, 2015 when consumers are still in a buying mood. Barring any delays, the AAA 3rd party offerings for the holiday season are shaping up to be better. This will also affect the attractiveness and variety of the bundles. |
It was perhaps a pretty fair assumption to not expect GT6 to sell as much as GT5, but I don't think anyone expected it to sell about 1/3 of GT6's number and closer to those of GT PSP, that's a rather spectular drop, regardless of circumstances, and it tells us something about where the franchise currently stands. The part about it launching right around when the PS4 came around shouldn't have had a big impact at all, Final Fantasy XII released just around the time the PS3 came and it was without a doubt the most divisive mainline game to date, it still managed to sell around 3/4 of FFX and became the 4th highest selling FF game so far.
As far as using a poor build with aging assets and other technical factors; this is exactly what my first post pointed out as being among the main reasons why the series has plummeted in popularity, both critics and fans have continued to rate each installment lower than the last.
The best and simplest explanation for the PS4's rather underwhelming performance in 2016 goes beyond big bundles for the holiday 2015 though; it's seems very likely that the demand simply isn't anywhere near as high as some would claim. With a Wii U that's barely moving and an Xbox selling about half throughout the year (at best), conditions should be perfect, especially factoring in price cut, big releases, PS4 Slim, PS4 Pro and a fairly heavy marketing push (I've yet to see a single movie this year without at least one PS4 commercial before the trailers and stores are going nuts with posters and campaigns), it should be moving more units all in all, but it's not. The elusive 20 million selling year still seems like a distant dream, besides having been "assured" two years in a row now by quite a few members on vgchartz.
As for holiday sales in the US; what's going to make 2017 better in this regard? The same annual franchises are releasing, what we're seeing is certain franchises showing consumer fatigue, that's hardly something that will be reversed this year and third parties will rely on pretty much the same cash cows as last year and the year before. There are some exciting new IP's, like Horizon, but one can't bank any significant increase yoy on new IP's either, not even combined with old ones. Pricing might help, but this myth about "199$ is the sweet spot for mass market consumers" needs to die already. As I've mentioned; if the PS4 hasn't shown signs of vastly improved sales at this point, it likely never will, regardless of software and pricing, we're more than likely past the halfway point in this generation already. Perceived value is king, this is what has caused the smartphone to usurp the entertainment throne; it has unbeatable perceived value, pure and simple, paired with immense convenience.
