Why Madden sells the way it does

[johnlucas]

mrstickball said:
If you want the answer...In a more consice format:

Demographics.

Madden's core demographics focus on males, ages 16-30.

The Xbox 360/PS3 have a large portion of said users in their userbase, therefore they have the lion's share of sales during the first week, and overall LTD numbers.

The Wii, on the other hand, does not have that userbase as heavily as the PS3/X360 do. Because of this, Madden doesn't have the explosive selling power that the 16-30 demographic provides the X360 and PS3. However, it leads to larger legs, as the Wii continues to outsell the competition, and build up Madden's core demographic.

Having said that, we can see the Wii and PS3's building up of the 16-30 Madden demographic - both had pronounced increases in sales last year.

On the other hand, we have the X360 which had very similar sales. This could be that Microsoft is attempting to diversify it's user base. In NCAA09's case, we have seen better legs than NCAA 08 or 07, as it is outselling both, 5 weeks into sales which indicates that user demographics may have changed, which are leading to better legs, and better eventual sales for the X360's version.

On the handheld side, it's also about core demographics. The DS is a very versatile system in terms of it's demographics: it has a large following of users outside of the core 16-30 age demographics. Not only this, the PSP, and home consoles are competing with users that have a DS + another system (and again, are in that age group). This severely impacts the DS's sales of Madden. On the other hand, the PSP has the age group in spades, and is actually marketing the Madden PSP bundle. Also, a big question would be DS functionality...Does it even have Multiplayer? It's a large component of the Madden allure.

Very good points, mrstickball. I agree with that analysis.

Omac said:

Might have to do with people wanting to play over XBL

That's a big factor too. Makes a lot of sense.

John Lucas