So is Beyond officially the flop of the year now?

[Torillian]

Mr Khan said:

Torillian said:
Y'know I only ever see attach used for games when the console has a small install base, don't really ever see it once the console is at the middle or end of its life. I think that's because attach rate isn't really constant. The absolute total sales a franchise achieves are much more consistent than attach rate. I mean sure you can praise WiiU owners for on proportion buying more copies of SC than the HD console owners did, but doesn't the fact that the WiiU owners had less options come into play?

At some point I'll have to look at some established franchises to see how consistent and meaningful attach rate really is. Sure you can make the argument that attach rate is more important for new IPs, but that's impossible to compare and I'd counter with the idea that not having a giant library of titles to choose from has a similar affect to install base.

This is true, but when you're talking about a game that, for whatever reason, obviously had limited appeal, then it's more fair to bring userbase into play.

Indeed, i would argue that userbase is fair game unless the game is a "killer app", that is, a significant system seller, since those are the kinds of games that you see post more consistent results across generations, whereas other games are much more userbase-dependent.

But it isn't something where greater userbase means greater sales proportionally.  Take a random example of a series I like, Atelier Arland + Ayesha.  We'll stick to NA sales.  First game comes out in 2009 when there aren't many other JRPGs to buy on PS3 and sells 170,000.  Next you have Totori a year later with 80,000, and then the next two following years see 30k and 30k.  You'd say the series is declining and I'd agree the NA userbase is in decline, but I see many more games following this kind of trend over a linear increase in sales that matches up with the increase in install base.  

You can't just say W101 sold about as well as Beyond because it had a 20th of the userbase because increasing the userbase of W101 would not increase the sales it got by 20 times.  In fact I'd argue that the userbase affect is not even close to one to one which is what many in this thread are assuming for their comparisons.  

As the userbase increases we basically always see the attach rate of games and series going down.  Is that because those series are incline or because you're just increasing the number you divide by when you calculate attach rate as the user base increases?  I'd guess the later.