| Aielyn said:
I had a fairly decent response written to this, but Opera decided to crash just as I was nearing the end of it. I'll give a shorthand version - it won't be as complete, but I'm not writing the whole response again. The 360 and PS3 comparison wasn't intended to say "this proves that the Wii U is selling fine", it was intended to prove that you can't use local launch dates and assume that behaviour works the same - the European launch of the PS3 didn't happen in a vacuum. Yes, DQX is an MMO. And recent MMOs have done quite well in Japan - Monster Hunter Tri and the Wii version of DQX have both well outperformed Final Fantasy XI (which was primarily on PC, remember). I'm not suggesting that DQX is going to be selling 4 million copies in Japan, but I certainly see it breaking the 1 million mark. Note that few games get announced for both older and newer system before the newer system launches, and usually those lack any significant benefit for the newer version - DQX for Wii U has significant benefit. Just Dance is selling poorly on Wii U because there's no real benefit to it over the Wii version, and no other game to support it in terms of Just Dance players' interest in the system. I had failed to compensate for that issue, and for the fact that Nintendo didn't come out with more information on upcoming games in a timely manner, and thus I overestimated early sales. Injustice isn't the system-seller, but it increases the perceived value of the system. Monster Hunter Tri is selling almost as well as Nintendo Land in Japan. You underestimate Rayman (especially given that it's the second exclusive 2D platformer for the system). Lego City will have a month and a half in both America and Europe, and I never suggested it would have a significant impact in Japan. And what you forget is that, when a system only has three system sellers, and gets two more, even if they're weak system sellers, they'll still produce a noticeable bump in sales. Note that I never said it would produce massive numbers - we're talking 100k here, 100k there, averaged over five notable releases plus information releases. Basically, I think Nintendo's updated numbers are quite a reasonable estimate - an additional 1 million in the next two months or so, in the form of about 600k due to steady sales and another 400k due to bumps. |
Monster Hunter Tri isn't really an mmo for the most part, and it didn't sell like it did due to it's mmo-ish features. Although for what it's worth, I don't believe DQX's system is massively different. Of course the difference is the Monster Hunter games gained their popularity on the back of multiplayer. I just don't see how it is logical that an 8 month old game releasing on a console with less than a tenth of the install base will sell more than the original. The closest comparison I can think of are sports games. Generally new consoles get a late release, they have mass appeal, and they generally are superior in some ways (though EA tends to make awful next gen versions for their series). In that case, sports games don't usually outsell the version on the established console. What kind of time frame do you expect a million sales? Because by the end April NSMBU will likely be under 600k. That's an exclusive, available at launch, and from a series that has done up to 6.5 million in Japan. While I don't think comgnet is necessarily a good barometer for sales, it doesn't seem that the Wii U version of DQX is causing a stir there. The barrier to enter the charts is only 35 and it is absent. DQX Wii ended with 318 (for the USB bundle, an additional 27 for the base game) and was at 132 31 days before release. It reached 38 points when there were still 81 days left to release. That's a very sizable gap when you expect the Wii U release to perform better.
It wasn't only Just Dance though. You also expected 50k for Fifa and Skylanders, and at least 10k for titles like Tank Tank Tank. This was after the first week in Europe, so I don't think anything changed in terms of game releases between then and the end of the year that would have affected sales. Even the best selling game, Nintendo Land, only managed 68,477. When you scale it back to compensate for VGC overtracking the Wii U it is only 56,218. Of course none of this has any bearing on future sales, but I think it shows your expectations for the Wii U are very unrealistic. Even after knowing those three games sold less than 1,600 week 1 you expected them to sell another 49k/99k in the next four weeks.
Which then brings us to your last point, regarding Nintendo's estimate. The Wii U will probably be at ~260k for the year at week 4. Over half of that came in the first week, and part of that week actually fell in last year's quarter. We know that the Wii U was overtracked by ~77k between Japan, the US, and Nintendo's definition of Europe. Most of that was in the US. That brings known sell through to 1.942 million. If we are generous and assume none of the other areas were overtracked by VGC that means total sell through is probably 2.168 million. That leaves 892k on the shelves at the start of this quarter, and they want to ship another 940k. After 4 weeks there are still ~632k in the supply chain with 9 weeks to go. Just to clear through that and have the other 940k they want to ship on shelves, they will need to start selling 70k a week each week for the rest of the quarter. Since Rayman is the only notable game between now and mid march that seems unlikely. There are only 5 weeks including the week Rayman releases. If sales don't improve between now and Rayman, they will need to sell 98.4k per week in those 5 weeks. Even if they manage that, they will have to convince retailers to take another 1 million in inventory by the end of March. A tough prospect when as you mentioned some retailers are already having to discount the Wii U, particularly in Europe.
Of course that is looking at a worldwide perspective. It is a little different if you break it down by region. Depending on what percentage of "Other" Europe is, they might not see any shipments to the region in the fourth quarter. There were 900k shipped compared to 425k sold. Unless sales outside of Europe are very high, it seems unlikely they will even sell through the Q3 shipment by the end of Q4. In Japan they are probably another 6 weeks (10 total) from selling through the initial shipment. In comparison, the 3DS took 8 weeks of its second quarter in Japan to sell its initial shipment, and had a higher rate of weekly sale. It shipped only 210k in Japan in its second quarter on sale, and 710k WW. So, optimistically we can expect a 200k shipment in Japan and we've deduced the European shipment will likely be negligable. That leaves us with the Americas. If we assume the US is about 90% of the Americas, then there are ~330k left on shelves. January sales look to be less than 70k in the US so less than 78k for the Americas. Unless sales improve by leaps and bounds, this won't be enough to ship an additional 740k to meet their forecast.
