April 2014 NPD Thread!

[DonFerrari]

RolStoppable said:

Kresnik said:

I'm struggling with that analogy, Rol.

To apply the nearest thing I can think of: TV ratings in the USA.  Nielsen says that most TV shows aren't being watched nearly as much as they were in the late 90's and earlier, due to the advent of more choice (cable); more options for broadcasting (+1 channels; Tivo; internet shows) etc.

Is that it for dedicated TV then?  Does every sitcom that doesn't reach Friends numbers get cancelled?  Every Sci-Fi show that doesn't hit the ratings of Star Trek TNG is swiftly cut? 

Of course not.  Markets adapt.  And yes, it's definitely a case of "lowering your expectations" but such is life.  Mediums of whatever it may be (TV/videogames/books/news delivery etc.) do not stay constant, they change with time.  

I suppose you could call everything bad compared to what it used to be if you wanted.  Which is fine.  But I don't think that just because something has peaked, everything later is automatically terrible.

(Whether these 3DS numbers are actually terrible probably needs a few more years inside this generation to truly assess the damage).

You offer a better analogy, but then jump to something that I never said nor implied. My stance isn't anything like "this is the end of video games".

Even in an environment with tougher market conditions than before, current 3DS sales are something to be concerned about. The DS peaked at above 400k units for non-holiday months, so calling 100k units bad does not mean that everything below the DS peak is terrible. 300k, or even just 200k, would not be considered terrible. But 100k... come on, that's not within the range where you can say that's neither good or bad.

I don't think it will become clear how bad these 3DS sales truly are before the next generation is underway. Right now the conventional wisdom is that dedicated handhelds have nowhere to go but down in the future. But if the next Nintendo handheld shows an upwards trend, the 3DS will be exposed for the failure that it is.

A 75% drop Gen to Gen sure is a matter for concern, and general gaming haven't dropped so far to consider this normal for a single platform.