July 2016 NPD Thread! Hardware and software up!

[zorg1000]

Aquamarine said:

ZhugeEX said:

Cheers, Aqua.

 

No major releases this July either, as compared to 2015. So good to see the 8th gen consoles hold in regards to software sales. No doubt digital will have grown YoY. 

Still, with declines in handheld and 7th gen spend it means the retail packaged software market is considerablly smaller than it was during the same period last gen. Not a great number as you point out. 

 

 

Pokemon effect was strong this month. What will be interesting to watch is how Sun & Moon performs this Holiday. 

Good opening for MHG. Wonder if Nintendo will commment on digital sales for the title next week. 

 

 

Numbers for HW are disappointing this month, other than 3DS. One S should boost sales in August. Not sure on the PS VR impact, but a price cut and a Neo release could certainly re-invigorate PS4 sales this holiday. 

AAA Software output this holiday looks to be fairly healthy. That'll certainly drive higher software and hardware sales during the final quarter of the year. 

 

Aqua, Do you have any general thoughts on the future of 8th gen consoles? Especially with Neo and Scorpio being confirmed to release soon. No doubt there is a higher percentage of core gamers owning consoles this gen. So Neo and Scorpio adoption rates will be interesting to watch. As will adoption among more casual users as the price to entry for the base models are lowered and more attractive/higher ouput of software titles are released. 

With a combined USA installbase of 26.55 million, Sony and Microsoft are at a critical juncture. They are at a point where they have to further demonstrate value proposition for the USA consumer. Resting on their laurels has become increasingly harder to drive sell-through.

I'm not convinced that Neo and Scorpio have enough core pull that Sony and Microsoft can continue to speed up growth rates. Rather, their presence along with lower-cost base models will be just good enough to sustain the status quo in the year of release (~5 million consoles in the USA each per year, check the chart in the OP).

Companies like Microsoft and Sony are most concerned about future growth more than anything, so there will likely be some internal panic over their failure to turn into runaway successes. Maybe they'll speed up release of the PS5 to 2019...but it could go either way depending on sales trends.

I've personally never thought that incremental hardware upgrades are the optimal strategy for companies. They can be a decent stopgap in a pinch, but they never represent the future and it was disappointing to see both Sony and Microsoft prioritize them. Prior examples in the USA: Sega utterly failed with the 32X / Sega CD upgrades, Game Boy Color sales weren't anything special, etc.

So I'm projecting that Neo and Scorpio keep the two alive through 2017 and into 2018 with tapering growth rates over-time. 2019 and beyond the two consoles will need to be replaced.

Virtual Reality is a complete unknown. According to Steamspy, Job Simulator (an HTC Vive Pack-in) has 91,967 owners. HTC Vive seems to be the most popular VR platform right now, so only 100K worldwide owners is quite disappointing even considering the HTC Vive's steep price.

That doesn't bode well for a breakout success for PlayStation VR....although there have been other instances where a platform flourishes despite the failure of its competitor, so I'm willing to give PSVR the benefit of the doubt until I can look at some sales figures.

I would love to be proven wrong, though. It's always nice to see the markets flourish.

 

Rob5VGC said:
Congrats to the 3DS. It held up the Japanese hardware streak when the PS4, its fellow countryman, couldn't do it this month. The level of camaraderie between them is inspiring.

Sony dissolved the Tokyo-based Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.

Their new subsidiary, Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC.....is a company with headquarters in San Mateo, California.

PlayStation has become an American company, just like 7-Eleven USA (whose parent company is also Japanese).

I agree with pretty much everything you said, except for Gameboy Color didnt sell special. Nintendo shipped like 40+ million Gameboys from October 1998-March 2001 (2.5 years) and im assuming the vast majority of those were the Color variant.