Statistical anomolies, predictions and unlikely million-sellers (Wii)

[Conegamer]

09tarheel said:

This thread got me thinking about the sales trends for Wii games compared to the other 2 consoles. It does seem like the big Wii games (New Super Mario Bros./Mario Kart Wii) follow a different path than the big games on the HD consoles (Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, Halo, Metal Gear Solid 4, etc.). But I was wondering if those same trends apply to the games on the consoles in general, or if they are only how the more prolific games sell.

So I did a quick little study. I used a random number generator to to pick a month from 2009 (it gave me 2 so February), and then used the random number generator to pick 5 games from the list of games released in that month according to gamrReview.

 Sample of Released Games in Feb. 2009 Americas

Wii
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
10	High School musical Senior Year	15,745	244,858	6.43%
5	Deadly Creatures	3,874	76,012	5.10%
14	Yamaha Supercross	2,215	45,369	4.88%
7	Onechanbara: Bikini Zombie Slayers	11,810	89,219	13.24%
15	Puzzle Challenge: Crosswords and More!	253	12,335	2.05%
	Average			6.34%
Xbox 360
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
5	X-Blades	13,150	91,399	14.39%
6	High School musical Senior Year	8,899	64,373	13.82%
2	F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin	83,093	346,655	23.97%
4	Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection (	24,171	438,987	5.51%
13	Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard	17,112	106,901	16.01%
	Average			14.74%
PS3
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
6	Street Fighter IV	259,337	967,545	26.80%
10	Killzone 2	359,354	1,194,984	30.07%
4	X-Blades	3,027	46,023	6.58%
8	ShellShock 2: Blood Trails	3,981	41,694	9.55%
5	High School musical Senior Year	4,805	37,739	12.73%
	Average			17.15%

I did the same thing for Japan, except that the random gen # was 11, so November 2009 releases.

Japan	November (11 Rand Gen #)
Wii
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
1	Mario & Sonic at Vancouver Olympics	23,482	140,887	16.67%
9	Naruto Shippuden: Ryujinki	8,996	33,167	27.12%
7	Karaoke Joysound Wii DX	4,637	86,196	5.38%
10	Puyo Puyo 7	3,511	53,052	6.62%
5	Metal Fight Beyblade: Gachinko Stadium	8,941	28,287	31.61%
	Average			17.48%
360
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
6	Dragon Ball: Raging Blast	6,470	19,450	33.26%
1	Dirt 2	787	1,466	53.68%
2	Namco Museum: Virtual Arcade	3,526	12,608	27.97%
5	Tayutama: Kiss on my Deity	3,854	8,820	43.70%
10	Mushihimesama Futari Ver 1.5	13,939	31,628	44.07%
	Average			40.54%
PS3
Random Number	Game	First Week	Lifetime	First Week % Of Lifetime
6	Dragon Ball: Raging Blast	60,699	112,976	53.73%
3	inFamous: Akumei Takaki Otoko	15,992	46,222	34.60%
2	Colin McRae: DiRT 2	1,804	3,561	50.66%
4	NBA Live 10	4,413	7,366	59.91%
8	Ratchet & Clank Future 2	13,817	27,969	49.40%
	Average			49.66%

I tried to do the same for Europe, but too many games were missing data, so I left it at Americas and Japan for now.

Obviously this is a very very small sample size, but it does seem to indicate that Wii games in general have a higher first week to life time sales multiplier, not just for high profile releases.

Of course that could/probably be due in large part because of the genre's of games, casual titles have a higher first week to life time sales ratio in general, so if the Wii gets more of those games, it will make it's ratio higher. Still the High School Musical game that was released for all consoles in Americas, had the lowest First week/total sales ratio of the three consoles. So there probably are other factors involved with the Wii having a lower first week/total sales ratio overall.

It would be interesting to do a study looking specifically at certain genres (like how do FPSs in general compare to fps on the HD consoles) in first week/life time sales ratios.

I know this wasn't exactly what this topic was about, but since it was what convinced me to look at this I thought I would post in here instead of make a new thread.

:O

It's quite amazing the trend difference between the Wii and the HD consoles based on American sales, but for some reason the Japanese sales seem more typical. Maybe the Japanese is the more "hardcore" gaming community? At any rate, this is very useful information and backs up my point further

Where did you find it?