By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
potato_hamster on 21 October 2018
Edit Thread
Miyamotoo said:
potato_hamster said:

I'm not missing a simple point. I'm disputing an illogical one. multi-platform game sales on an individual platform are of often times not indicative at all of the proportion of game sales amongst each platform. For example there are plenty of mult-platform games that have higher, equal, or near equal sales on Xbox One vs PS4 sales despite the fact that PS4 has sold over twice as many units vs Xbox One.

Secondly, for most games, the vast majority (over 80%) of a games sales are within the first six months to a year of release, and doesn't increase in any type of linear fashion. Most games do not have the "legs" where sales in year 2, or year 3 or year 4 after release are anywhere near the sales even in the first month of release. Let me put you a great example to illustrate this point: Killzone: Shadow Fall. As of Jan 29th, 2015 (3 months after release) sales topped 2.1 million - making it the most, if not one of the most popular release titles for the PS4. It has recieved no sequels, or experienced anything else that would prevent Killzone fans from obtaining copies. Yet, nearly six years later, total sales are less than 4  million copies. By your logic, shouldn't it have sold at least 10 million copies by now since it sold 2 million copies with just 10 million users to sell to, and now there are another 70 or so million potential Killzone purchasers out there that can now buy the game?

Also, by your logic, shouldn't EA expect Madden sales to increase every single year into a consoles's life, since you know, higher platform sales? Yet, on PS4, Madden 16's sales are higher than Madden 17's sales, which are higher than Madden 18's sales. Madden 19 sales look be falling short of Madden 18's sales at this point as well.

And no all of those Nintendo games wont have "much stronger sales" when the Switch reaches, say, 40 million in total sales. Sure, Mario Odyssey probably will (especially if the bundle it), but Breath of the Wild? Probably not. Let's not forget Twillight Princess was a launch title for the Wii, and Breath of the Wild's sales have already exceeded it despite it having an install base of 100 million units to sell to. Twillight Princess hit 4.5 million in sales 18 months into the wii's life, and only sold another 2.5 million in the years following.

Actually when we talk about PS4 vs XB1, almost all multiplatform games sold at least twice better on PS4 compared to XB1, why?  Simple, much higher install base. Just look here numbers for first 3 best selling games on PS4 and XB1.

Offcourse that not every game will have much stronger sales with higher install base (but fact is that will have higher sales in any case), espacily when we talking about games that are not popular, Killzone: Shadow Fall is not popular game, but games like Last Of Us, Uncharted Trilogy and Uncharted 4 are totally different story, they keep selling solid how install base is growing simple because they are some of must have Sony exclusives.

Results for multiplatform games for different platforms, espacily for yearly releases can be different, but remember, we were talking Sony PS4 games vs Nintendo Switch games, and thats much easier to compare.

You dont know what are you talking about, you do realise that Odyssey, MK8D, Zelda BotW and Splatoon 2 last few quarters each of them sold from 700k to around 1m per quarter without any bundle? And those games yet need to have bundles and price cuts. Only last quarter where Switch gain install base of  1.9m, Odyssey sold 750k, MK8D did 1.1m, Zelda BotW 850k, Splatoon 2 did 750k. You again missing point, Zelda TP would sell less if Wii install base was smaller, or would sell more if install base was stronger, same like Zelda BotW will continue selling how Switch install base is growing (offcourse that Zelda BotW will not left on 9.3m, probably will hit 15m LT of Switch only).

 

Offcourse that every game on one platform will sell more if its higher install base compared to sales of same game on same platform (Zelda BotW will have better sales when Switch has install base of 40m instead of current numbers on install base of 20m). Just let numbers speak for itself, at end of this month we will have again update for sales for Switch sales and games like Zelda BotW, Mario Odyssey, MK8D and Splatoon2, and you will how much those games sold in just one quarter, not to mentione how much those games will sell at end of this year when Switch install base will be around 30m. So no, your point where you comparing sales of Sony and Nintendo games on two different platforms where one has 4x higher install base, dont make any sense, and you even used that like proof how how Sony games selling better than Nintendo games, while fact is that when you look attach rate Odyssey, MK8D, Zelda BotW and Splatoon 2 destroying every Sony PS4 game.

I mean... if you exclude all the multi-platform games that don't sell 2-1, I can see your point.

Not every? Most games don't have stronger sales with a higher install base. You can cherry pick different examples of popular franchises that keep selling, but these are the exception, not the rule.

I don't know what I'm talking about? Are those sales rates for those games as good as they were when the titles were first released? Ohh they weren't? Sales are actually decreasing over time despite increased platform sales? That's interesting. It seems curious to me that Mario Odyssey sold 9 million games to an install base of 18 million consoles, yet have only sold another 2 million games along with another 8 million consoles sold? Shouldn't Mario Odyssey have sold another 4-5 million in 2018, instead of the 2 or so they sold?

How much less would Twillight princess have sold if Wii only sold 50 million units instead of 105 million?

As for attach rate, it's a pretty meaningless statistic. "Our game we released only sold 150,000 copies on Switch, and 1 million copies on PS4. Sure we'll never recoup the money we spent porting our game over to Switch, and if we didn't release on PS4 we would have been bankrupt, but look at how much better the attach rate was on Switch!"

Attach rates don't make platforms more lucrative to invest in. Attach rates don't put money in developers pockets. Attach rates don't get sequels greenlit.  Attach rates don't mean anything for businesses. The only people that care about it are video game fans that like to argue about video games on the internet.

Last edited by potato_hamster - on 21 October 2018